March, various, fierce, and wild, with wind-crackt cheeks, By wilder Welshmen led, and crowned with leeks. THERE are frequently mornings in March, says Time's Telescope, when a lover of nature may enjoy, in a stroll, sensations not to be exceeded, or, perhaps, equalled by any thing which the full glory of summer can awaken-mornings which tempt us to cast the memory of winter, or the fear of its recurrence, out of our thoughts. The air is mild and balmy, with, now and then, a cool gush by no means unpleasant, but, on the contrary, contributing towards that cheering and peculiar feeling which we experience only in spring. The sky is clear, the sun flings abroad not only a gladdening splendour, but an almost summer glow. The world seems suddenly aroused to hope and enjoyment. The fields are assuming a vernal greenness the buds are swelling in the hedges-the banks are displaying, amidst the brown remains of last year's vegetation, the luxuriant weeds of this. There are arums, ground-ivy, chervil, the glaucus leaves, and burnished flowers of the pilewort, "The first gilt thing Which wears the trembling pearls of spring;" and many other fresh and early bursts of greenery. All unexpectedly too, in some embowered lane, you are arrested by the delicious odour of violets, those sweetest of Flora's children, which have furnished so many pretty allusions to the poets, and which are not yet exhausted; they are CHURCHILL. like true friends we do not know half their sweetness till they have felt the sunshine of our kindness; and again, they are like the pleasures of our childhood, the earliest and the most beautiful Now, however, they are to be seen in all their glory-blue and white modestly peering through their thickly clustering leaves. The lark is carolling in the blue fields of air; the blackbird and thrush are again shouting and replying to each other from the tops of the highest trees. As you pass cottages, they have caught the happy infection. There are windows thrown open, and doors standing a-jar. The inhabitants are in their gardens, some clearing away rubbish, some turning up the light and fresh-smelling soil amongst the tufts of snowdrops and rows of glowing yellow crocusses, which every where abound; and the children, ten to one, are busy peeping into the first bird's-nest of the season-the hedge-sparrow's, with its four blue eggs, snugly, but unwisely, built in the pile of old pea-rods. In the fields, the labourers are plashing and trimming the hedges, and in all directions are teams at plough. You smell the wholesome, and we may truly say, aromatic soil, as it is turned up to the sun, brown and rich, the whole country over. It is delightful as you pass along deep, hollow lanes, or are hidden in copses, to hear the tinkling gears of the horses, and the clear voices of the lads calling to them. It is not less pleasant The hare leaps up from his brushwood bed, And limps, and turns its timid bead; Come, hasten ye hither-our garden bowers to catch the busy caw of the rookery, and A valuable contributor, the Delta of Blackwood's Magazine, has written expressly for Time's Telescope an appropriate March Invocation, which is admirably descriptive of the various appear. ances of Nature in this month : 'Come hither, come hither, and view the face The voice of the streamlet is fresh and loud; Haste out of doors-from the pastoral mount By the kissing winds are wooing and wooed; While the wall flower threatens, with bursting bud Come here, come hither, and mark how swell On its yet but leaf-let greening boughs See, the gooseberry bushes their riches show, And the currant bunch hangs its leaves below, With my grateful coolness on harvest days." Out upon in-door cares-rejoice In the thrill of nature's bewitching voice! In the springing flower and the spouting tree, From the sward beneath and the boughs above, love; Then baste thee hither, and join thy voice joice!" SPIRIT OF THE Püblic Journals, FUNERAL CEREMONIES OF THE TURKS AND CHINESE. IT has been my fortune to witness the funeral ceremonies of two of the most singular people on the earth-two nations the most dissimilar to ourselveskingdoms, either of which, in point of manners, customs, and religion, may be considered our Antipodes-I mean the Chinese and Turks. The burials of these two nations not only differ widely from our own, but in many respects from each other, and both have many curious peculiarities highly descriptive of the manners and customs of the people to whom they refer. During a residence at Canton, I was witness to many funerals; but my attention was more particularly drawn to one, that of an excellent and upright man of considerable wealth and importance, with whom I had many dealings. He had died before my third arrival at Canton, but it is the custom to delay the funeral for a long time, and his body was still unburied. I understood there had been a sort of lying in state, something similar, I presume, to what is still practised in Scotland, where the corpse is dressed out in white, and the female friends of the deceased are admitted to view it. I have been informed, that it is the Chinese custom, upon such occasions, to prostrate themselves before the corpse, which is placed in the coffin, surrounded with flowers and perfumes, but I was never present at any such ceremony. The foreman, or chief servant of my deceased friend, informed me, upon my arrival, that I might be admitted to view the coffin, which was closed, but still uninterred, and as I was desirous of doing so, he appointed to meet me at a certain hour, and we proceeded to the house of the deceased. The room into which I was introduced, was one of considerable dimensions, entirely hung round with white, which is the Chinese colour for mourning. In the centre of the apart ment was a kind of long table, covered with white, upon which was placed the coffin, also covered with a kind of pall, all white. My companion, after pros trating himself upon the floor, approach ed the coffin, and withdrew the pall from a part of it, in order that I might observe its neatness and workmanship, and the paintings and gilding with which it was Covered. He informed me, that his late, master had caused it to be made during his life-time, which is, indeed, the prac tice of even the poorest Chinese. All contrive to spare a sufficient sum to secure a reputable shelter for their lifeless bodies. In the room were several pedestals, all covered with white, and upon them incense and lights were kept burning. The coffin was placed against the wall, and just above it, a scroll was fastened to the white hangings, upon which were emblazoned the name and degree of the deceased. The whole appearance was extremely striking, and affected me very powerfully. After I had been at Canton about a month, the funeral took place. It is the custom of the Chinese to keep dead bodies above ground for a very long time; the rich people delay the funeral even for a year or longer, and are thereby esteemed to afford proof of their respect and reverence for the deceased. My friend was kept nearly two months. Upon the day fixed for the funeral, a great number of relatives and acquaintances of the deceased assembled at his re sidence, and were all marshalled in procession as at our English burials. A number of hired musicians, performing slow and melancholy tunes upon a va riety of instruments, preceded the corpse, as did also some persons bearing painted scrolls and silken banners, on which were inscriptions indicative of the rank and character of the deceased. Incense bearers followed these, and then, under a white canopy, the coffin covered with a white pall was borne by men. Upon each side of it were persons employed in burning pieces of paper and pasteboard with inscriptions upon them; some circular, and some cut into curious fantastic figures, all which, it is believed, are wafted upwards with the soul, and accompany it in its next state of existence either as coin, bread, or whatever else the inscription denotes. After the corpse, came the relatives of the deceased, all in white clothes, soiled, dirty, and unornamented, and therefore descriptive of excessive grief. Some of them howled and exclaimed most vehemently, and every one had a friend on each side to assist him on, and also a servant, bearing over him a huge umbrella with a deep white fringe, which nearly screened the mourner from the public gaze. Some women also followed as mourners, borne in small coaches similar to our sedans, and they were very loud in the expression of their lamenta tions. After them came a crowd of friends, all walking slowly, and thus the procession closed. The burying-places of the Chinese are erected in the shape of grottos, with out their towns. They are divided into a variety of small cells, in each of which a coffin is laid, and, as soon as the cells are all filled, the sepulchre is closed. No religious service takes place-the coffin is placed in its receptacle with great solemnity, and then the procession returns. Funerals in Turkey, which I have observed at Smyrna, are extremely different. Instead of delay, as with the Chinese, the corpse is hurried to the grave within a few hours after dissolution. Instead of the slow step of grief, they go forward hastily, and if the bearers of the body tire, no good Mussulman will refuse to give assistance in a work so holy. There exists a traditional declaration of Mahomet, that whoever bears a dead body forty paces towards the grave, will thereby expiate a great sin, and this opportunity of easy absolution is by some anxiously looked out for. The male relations follow, but there is no weeping-no grief -nature is so far subdued amongst them that not a tear is shed. Alms and prayers are the modes in which a Mahometan displays grief to repine for the dead, is considered impious, for the same reason as they inter so speedily, namely, that if the deceased was a good Mussulman he is entitled to happiness, which ought not to be grieved at, nor ought he, by any delay of interment, to be prevented at once attaining the full enjoyment of it; if, on the contrary, he was not a good Mussulman, he does not deserve to be grieved for, and ought at once to be sent from the world. The body is, in the first instance, carried to a mosque, where religious service is performed, and from thence to the grave, over which a prayer is delivered by a priest. The planting of cyprus trees round the grave is practised, because it is imagined that the state of the dead is denoted by the growth and condition of these trees. They are placed in two lines, one on each side the grave-if only those on the right hand prosper, it denotes happiness, if only those on the left, misery. If all of them succeed, it betokens that the deceased was at once admitted to all the. bliss of the houris; if all fail, he is tormented by black angels, until, at some, future time, he shall be released from torment at the intercession of the prophet. National Magazine. THE SAINT GRAYLE. GRAAL, or Grayle, is an old word for a dish or large plate, and the one which is distinguished as the Saint Graal, or Grayle, the holy Grayle, is held to be the very dish out of which our Saviour ate upon the occasion of his partaking the last passover with his disciples. This holy vessel was originally supposed to have been in the possession of Joseph, of Arimathea, the reputed founder of Glastonbury, who brought it to England. It was kept at Glastonbury for many years, but at last was somehow or other lost from thence, and it then became the great object of search amongst knights errant, and is mentioned in many of the old romances. After being missed for several centuries, it was said to be discovered at Genoa, about the year 1100; or, at any event, a dish was produced there as the Saint Grayle, or as it was then termed, "il sacro cattino." Of course it was considered an invaluable relic, and was an object of great reverence and veneration, more especially as some spots were pointed out in it, which were said to be stains produced by drops of blood of our Saviour's, which were caught in it by Joseph of Arimathea, whilst Jesus Christ was upon the cross. It is of an hexagonal form, and made of a coarse green glass. The legend which was told of it at Genoa was, that it was taken at the capture of Cæsarea, in the holy wars, and was presented to the Genoese by Baldwin, king of Jerusalem; an account which certainly does not harmonize well with our pretended title to it through Joseph of Arimathea. It remained at Genoa until the year 1806, when Bonaparte, in his rage to transport every thing curious or celebrated in art to Paris, carried off the Saint Grayle, and it was deposited in the Cabinet of Antiquities, in the Imperial Library. We understand it still remains there; whether it has ever been claimed by the Genoese or not, we have not been able to ascertain.-Ibid. A LANDSCAPE. View nature stretching forth the varied scene, God! Where foot of mau profane has seldom trod. Here let my incense rise! here let my spirit, soar, And bow before thy shrine, and wonder and adore. Ibid. Ir is lamentable to hear that the project entitled Norwich A Port, is again brought into Parliament, because the commissioners of Yarmouth Harbour have declined to co-operate with the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. On the other hand it may be well to hesitate prior to the conversion of Norwich into a port, meaning of Lowestoft into a seaport, and of the rivers Waveney, Yare, and Bure into a channel for ships, in addition to one for wherries. The great Mr. Telford says, in his Report, that "to this scheme there is no physical obstacle;" yet as Lowestoft Harbour will have less high water than low water, so must the former be incapable of scouring the latter. Besides the above principle treats of water acting on itself alone, but not upon water and shingle; which, being about three times heavier than water, multiplies the resistance. It may be retorted that Yarmouth Harbour has also less high water than low water; yet there rests to be explained that it is washed by three rivers, whereas the port of Lowestoft will not possess a single river. As to lake Lothing, its level will cease to be raised nigher than that of the sea at high water; for the lake will become replenished from the sea instead of being refilled by the Waveney, which now flows into the lake's cul de sac. Moreover, as the communication between the haven intended at Lowestoft and the Waveney, embracing that between this river and lake Lothing, is within the tideway of Yarmouth Har bour, so may its commissioners, unless prohibited by a special enactment, have a right to levy their port-dues on the trade of Norwich A Port. There can be stated of Lowestoft Harbour, if made, that it will require two piers of an equal length, and not one long south pier only; for this harbour will possess a lowland in lieu of a headland; or, in other words, a foreland of shingle, and therefore one which is movable. The cliffs at Lowestoft, receding from the sea, have an inland position. Mr. Baylis writes in the body of a letter, that he will contract to do the work at Mr. Cubit's estimate; but, in a postscript to the same letter, Mr. Baylis remembers that he has not included a charge for steam dredge-machines; accordingly Mr. Cubit and his "whipper in" disagree, however sordial they have wished to appear. Nor does the one, any more than the other, put lock-gates at each termination of the cut designed between the rivers Yare and Waveney; for this reason their old channels must either choke, if shallower than the new channel, or it will do so if shallower than them. A cut from Rotterdam to Helvoetsluys was contemplated on the preceding false principle, which Mr. Baylis may not know; yet he cannot but be aware that the Gloucester and Berkeley ship-canal, executed by himself, has lock-gates at both ends, which haste or carelessness has led him to overlook. The great Van 164 |