"price of which she had herself fixed at nine discovered a magnificent collation served on three tables. Besides many figures of birds, beasts, and fishes, made of sugar, there were fifty statues of the same materials, each of two palms high, representing gods, goddesses, and emperors. When the collation ended, three hundred baskets, full of confectionary, particularly fruits, exqusitely imitated in sugar, were distributed to the ladies. Notwithstanding this magnificence, the houses, of the opulent, the castles of the nobility, and the palaces of kings, were very partially and imperfectly furnished. Henry, in hind the neck to the height of ne silver, 1601, writing to Sufly from Fontainebleag, at inches. Tissues, cloth of gold or a time when he expected the embassadors of Venice, says, "Send for d'Herbannes, my "upholsterer, and order him to be here, to morrow betimes, with five suits of tapestry, and three four beds: if more are wanted, they will be found here. Direct like a canopy for covering the holy sacrament, wise to be brought, plate for the kitchen, "on great ceremonies." It was accepted with five or six basons, and as many with testimonies of gratitude. She had worn, ewers, and ten or twelve silver candleit at the coronation of Mary of Medicis. sucks. It is evident, that only the neces The luxury, displayed at the tables of the sary furniture for the royal household was to great, during the period which we are review-be found in the palace, and that no provision ing, excites astonishment. The preparations was made for accommodating strangers. Sifor the entertainment given by the constable milar.o orders had been issued two years before, Montmorency, on the baptism of his son in when the Duke of Saroy visited the French 1597, at which the king and his mistress court. If we would see how miserable and Gabrielle were present, occupied all the cooks comfortless were the apartments, even in the in Paris, during eight days. Fish was brought, celebrated castle of Anet, near Dreux, built at an immense expense, from the sea. Two by Diana de Poitiers, duchess of Valentinois, sturgeons only, cost fifty crowns. The desert we have only to peruse the description of the was not less superb; and the fruit served up night which Sully passed there, in 1594. exceeded forty pounds sterling in price. A As Though the duchess of Aumale, in the ab it was in the month of March, every pear sence of the duke, to whom Anet then be was purchased at half-a-crown. The marquis longed, endeavoured to entertain him in the d'O, superintendant of the finances, was one best manner possible, yet such was the defiof the greatest epicures of the time. L'Etoile ciency in every article of necessary accom says, that "he surpassed all the sovereign medation, that he could not have suffered princes of Europe, in prodigality and ex- inore in the meanest cottage. cess; as the tarts, served at his suppers, Litters continued still to be the most comcost above twelve crowns a-piece." He does modious and ordinary conveyance for women not, however, convey to us a very advanta of condition, as well as for the aged and in geous idea of the French style of cookery, firm. We find Gabrielle d'Etrées constantly when he adds, that these tarts were sea- preferring that mode of travelling. The soned with musk and amber." In 1596, prince of Condé, when he carried off his wife before the termination of the war with Spain, in 1609, and withdrew into the Netherlands, so universal was the progress of luxury among mounted on horseback, and placed the prin the middle order of opulent citizens in Paris, cess behind him. Mary of Medicis was ac that entertainments were given during the customed to be carried in a sedan chair, as carnival, where dishes were brought on table, we learn from Bassompierre, particularly which had cost two and twenty crowns each. during her pregnancy. The art of suspending Three courses were commonly served; and coaches in such a manner as to render their such a superfluity of dried sweetmeats and motion easy, was unknown: in the relation rasks were provided, that the ladies gave them left us by the Abbé de Pont Levoy, of his away to the pages and lacquies. One of the father the chancellor Chiverny's death, which most superb festivals commemorated was the was produced by a rupture, he expressly at banquet presented by the Papal vice-legate, attributes it to the violent jolts of the coach. Avignon, to Mary of Medicis, in 1600, soon after her arrival in France. After the conclusion of the ball, the tapestry at one end of the apartment fell, on a signal given, and The coach presented by the king to Mary of Medicis, on her first arrival in 1600, “ was covered with brown velvet, and silver insel on the outside; within it was lined prince arrival of the disastrous news of the surprize of Amiens by Portocarrero. In 1602, we find Mary of Medicis per Il faut que tout vous fasse homage, "Grand roi, miracle de notre age." Eight maids of honour performed the second act, or dance. In the third, appeared the queen herself and her band, divided into four troops, covered with jewels of inestimable value. The young duke of Vendome, natural son to the king by Gabrielle, preceded Mary, character of Cupid. This "ballet," with a carnation velvet, embroidered with gold and silver. The curtains were of caruation damask; and it was drawn by four grey horses. Notwithstanding the exter-forming the first part in a magnificent divernal splendor of their appearance, they wanted sion, presented by her to the king, and dievery essential convenience, Glasses were vided into three acts. She associated to hernot in use before the succeeding reign. In self fifteen of the most beautiful or accom1594, when Catherine, princess of Navarre, plished princesses and ladies of the court, for made her first entry into Paris, she had eight the purpose. The entertainment opened with carriages in her train. De Thou descends from the gravity of his danced, and played on instruments of music, Apollo and the nine Muses, who sung, style and manner, to commemorate the pas-every cadence ending with these words, adtrues of the French court; in his description dressed to Henry: of the carousal performed in 1606, before the king and queen at Paris. Four troops of gentlemen, personifying the four elements, proceeded by torch-light to the Louvre. The rst, designed to represent the water," was composed of syrens and deities of the sea, led by Bellegarde, and followed by twelve cavaliers, splendidly dressed, In the second, were seen Vulcan and the Cyclops, employed in forging armour. They were conducted by the of Leon, and represented "fire. The count of Sommerive, in the character and with the attributes of air," was accompanied by Juno with eagles and other birds. Lastly, came the duke of Nevers, as the earth," attended by elephants, on, whose backs were constructed towers, in which musicians were stationed; and twelve Moors closed the march. In this order they entered the great court of the Louvre, where all the windows were crowded with spectators. Having di vided into squadrons, and discharged their lances in the ground, they began a mock combat with arrows and darts, which were dextrously received on their bucklers. The spectacle finally concluded by an engagement between the cavalry, which seems to have been designed as an imitation of the Pyrrhic dance, so famous in antiquity. Poetry, as well as music, lent its aid on the occasion; and Malherbe did not disdain to compose stanzas to the ladies, for the demi-gods conducted by Neptune." These pageants and allegorical representations, which are now properly abandoned to the theatre, were then acted by princes, noblemen, and ladies of the highest condition, No ideas of the decorum or gravity annexed to character, office, or situation, imposed any obstacle. Sully informs us, that in 1597, at a moment when he was occupied in finding pecuniary resources wherewith to continue the war, and to sustain the shock of the Spanish arms in Picardy, he made one of fourteen in a "ballet" which Biron undertook and executed in honour of a married lady to whom he was attached. He had scarcely finished the "ballet" and retired to rest at a very late hour, when he was awoke, and summoned to attend a council, on the the first at the Louvre, the second at the duke of Guise's hotel, and lastly, in the great hall of the archiepiscopal palace. The papal nuntio, together with all the foreign ministers, were present at its performance. Satire sometimes mingled in these gallant amusements, and did not spare even the king. it seems, made three stations, or exhibitions } METHOD ADOPTED BY MR. ROEBUCK, TO We believe it was at Sumatra, that a Dutch Resident, describing to the King of the country the effect of the seasons in Europe, mentioned the conversion of water into a solid body, and its power of supporting, not merely a single of a city. The King, exasperated at the falsity, man, or a few men, but the whole population as he believed it to be, that was attempted to be palmed upon him, expelled the whole of that lying generation; such incredible reports of things that were not, deserved it.* Art, however, has placed the means of convincing the most incredulous, under the Line itself, that water may be reduced to a solid form, and that a lump of water is no falsity. The process for this purpose is well known among us, but we believe that the following is the first history of its being adopted in India; we, therefore, think it worth recording, We may now congratulate our belles and beaux Compare Panorama, Vol. III. p. 1282, Freezing thought to be impossible, “as related by THE Gatherer. from Europe, on the gratification of eating ices under the torrid zone. Perhaps some future Number of the Panorama may have to record a skaiting match performed at Madras, or at Calcutta; for the amusement of his Highness the Nabob, &c. after his return from a tyger hunt! This might have been thought incredible formerly; but now Description of the Apparatus. Mr. R. has two tubs of a common shape, the diameter at the surface 32 inches, and 26 inches at the bottom, their depth is 25 inches; and two vessels of thin copper tinned, which are placed in these tubs.-Their diameters at top are 25 inches, bottom 24; their depth is 23 inches. He has also two vessels of the same substance, which he places in these two copper tinned vessels, having placed wool or bair between the bottoms of each, as also on the sides, to prevent as much as possible the communication of heat from the external vessels: their dimensions are at top 234, at bot tom 22, and depth 22 inches; for the sake of perspicuity in this description, one wooden tub is named A and the other B, one of the tinnet vessels AO, and the other tinned vessel BO; the vessels which are to contain the mixture is in this description called tinned vessel A and tinned vessel B. The materials used are saltpetre and sal ammoniac; of each, as ascertained by Mr. Walker; and the proportious are equal quantities in the proportion of 5 lb. of each substance to 16 lb. of water. He has taken Mr. Walker's proportions for granted as the best. . In the hottest season of the year, when the thermometer at night is 90, and a land wind blows, water which has been exposed in the common earthern porous pots used at Madras and throughout the Carnatic, will be about 10 degrees below the heat of the atmosphere, i.e:80 degrees. By keeping the sal ammoniae pounded in metal vessels and in water contained in earthen porous vessels, these substances will be cooled to the same degree: the vessels B and tinned vessels BO and B are to finish the process; he therefore wishes to have them as cool as possible in the first instance, and he puts water which is 10 degrees colder than the atmosphere into the wooden vessel B at the commencement of the operation; the same may also be done with the wooden vessel A. In the very hot weather he always prefers four operations, beginning the first with his evaporated substances as follows, put into the tinued vessel A; five of the tinned vessels, each containing 16 lb. of good water, put into the tinned vessel B; seven tin vessels, each containing 16 lb. of good water, the purer and freer from earth or salt the better, put into each of these tinned vessels A. and B; 50 lb of old stuff, that is, sal ammoniac and salt He has a circular frame, which is put into the tinned vessels A and B, and which has seven holes, so that it will contain seven tinned vessels, each of which will hold more than 36 lb. of water; their length is 22 inches, their diameter is 6 inches; there is no occasion to have the bottom frame on which they receive the circular motion perforated.-petre once used and evaporated, and about 90 He has also a tinned vessel C, whose dinensions are 15 inches diameter, depth 234, and a tinned vessel D, whose dimensions are at top diameter 12 inches, bottom 10, depth 201 inches, and in this he has a frame of tib, so that he can give the tubes he puts in it a circular motion. Across the tinned vessel C he has a slight wooden frame, as it is necessary in the last operation hereafter described to tie it down to the wooden vessel B. Hair or wool is put at the bottom of C, to prevent its communicating external heat. The tops of all are covered with country cumblies eight folds thick. The copper tinned vessel AO is placed in the wooden tub, which has a hole in it to let out a screw tube soldered to AO inches diameter; when this is put in, he caulks round the brass tube to prevent leakage; his tinned vessel A has also a tube, which goes through the tube of AO, 14 inches diameter, on which he has a screw with a leather washer to make it water-tight; none of the substances in one vessel can therefore communicate with the other, and the tinned ressel AO is always kept dry on the inside. or 95 lb. of water, as much water as will admit the circular motion to take place with-out any chance of injuring the purity of the water in the fire vessels in A and the seven vessels in B: in the first operation, instead of old stuff, he uses the same quantity of saltpetre, in about two hours the water in the small vessels and the cooling mixture are at an equilibrium of heat: he then takes out the water from the wooden vessel B, and substitutes the cool mixture which has been in the tinned vessel B. He takes out as spee dily as possible the five vessels of water from the tinned vessel A, and puts them into the tinned vessel B, and to this 80 lb. of water he adds 25 lb. of pounded sal ammoniac and 25 lb. pounded saltpetre; the change takes about five minutes, and this operation requires one hour and three quarters. When he has taken the water vessels out of the tinned vessel A, he puts the saltpetre and sal ammoniac, being 10 lb. of cach, for the last operation, into the tinned vessel A, to be made cool, and he also puts the substances he means to freeze into the same vessel for the same purpose at the end of an hour and three quarters he draws off the water from the wooden vessel B, and replaces it by the salts and water in the tinned vessel B. He then takes out five of the water-vessels out of the tinned vessel B, and pours the contents into the tinned vessel B; he also adds, the same quantities of saltpetre and sal ammoniac as before, being 25 lb. of each; he takes the two vessels containing 10 lb. of salts from the tinned vessel A, and places them in the tinned vessel B; he also takes out all the vessels containing the substances to be frozen, and places them in the tinned vessel B. The tinned vessel B, then contains two vessels of water, two of salts, and all the intended ices. This operation takes also one hour and three quarters; and at the end of that time, there are large quantities of ice above half an inch thick in the two water vessels, and he believes the ices are nearly frozen. At this period, he takes out the apparatus which gives the circular motion, and places the vessel.C and D in the vessel B, he always puts the vessel D into the last mixture in B, to make it as cool as ice, before he puts the last mixture in it; he then puts into the vessel D all his vessels containing ices, and puts among them 10 lb, of saltpetre and 10 lb. of sal ammoniac, and pours out the water from the two vessels, and the ice which they contain, into D:-D then contains 32 lb. of water and ice, and 20 lb. of saltpetre and sal ammoniac in equal quantities, and all the tin tubes. M. R. then turns them gently round. This operation will be completed in one hour and three quarters, and the ice ready for use. None of the changes, if properly done, takes more than five minutes. Remarks. [Compare Panorama, Vol. III. p. 775.] The public were amused some time ago, by a defence of Polygainy from the pen of an Asiatic of no mean abilities and ingenuity: whether it dazzled the understandings of any of our readers we know not; but the acknowledgements of other Orientals should seem to admit the advantages of that practice to be more than dubious. That the Theatre furnished a lesson against it, was the opinion of a learned Hindoo, who explained to this effect, a drama, to which he invited the la dies and gentlemen of Madras. writer offered an explanation of the same drama on principles totally different. It is therefore but justice to the first, to insert his rejoinder; we wish, also, to direct attention to the sentiments of Hindoos, as expressed by themselves, on the character of Europeans, together with their opinions, and estimate, of European learning. The following paper appears to us to be extremely curious, in this point of view. It may probably also be taken as a pretty fair sample of the opinions Another of Hindoo literati on the doctrines of Christianity, as well as on the dictates of criticism. It may, morcover, be assimilated, to what might have fallen from Plutarch or Epictetus, in vindication of that religion, which each inherited from his forefathers. If there be any so ill-informed, as to suppose, that the ancient heathen were dumb in defence of their religion, or stupid in explaining its dogmas, let them learn the contrary from this epistle (modern though it be) of Ragaviah Chary. It is to be observed that the salts once used may be evaporated to dryness, but they no longer possess the same power of producing cold; as they lose one-fourth of their effect. Sixteen parts of water by weight, and five of sal ammoniac, and five of saltpetre, will reduce the temperature 40 degrees; but when these I conceive it necessary to give my ideas substances are reproduced in a joint body af-with respect to the rules for Theatrical repreter solution, they only reduce the tempera- sentation before I proceed with the object of ture 30 degrees. In the course of the evapo- this paper. ration and exsiccation, there are some very Dramatic writings were originally intended curious phenomena, which will not escape to represent human virtues and vices in their the attentive chymist, and which he will find it very difficult to account for; the subject is proper colours, to attract the notice of the gay worthy of, and requires much investigation: he and light, afford rational recreation to the will also perceive a very considerable diminu-devout and serious, and inculcate morality to tion in the quantities of the salts which he has reproduced by evaporation, which he will very easily account for. it was divided into two kinds, tragedy and all. To render this object more efficacious comedy, the former exhibits the character and transactions of men in trying and critical situations of life, where the virtue of the hero is set up as a model for imitation as much adversaries is to be despised and abhorred, here. as the unsuccessful malignant attempt of his terror and pity, sympathy and indignation are the instruments. However direct Tragedies are avoided among my countrymen, the Hindoos. to her rival, and the other lamenting her destiny at his absence, besides the mixed conversation which the Ladies, forming a circle, held between each other, bursting forth, expressions of jealousy, and making an eternal vow of everlasting enmity. Surely no man could think of reducing these perceptible human beings to spirits and passions, or coufuse them into such immaterial objects of Allegory.I say, every one in his senses must naturally conclude them to be what they are represented from the incidents and actions of the scene, and proceed in the same manner to form a comparison of the happiness arising from the attachment of a single wife, with the distress and torments of a great manythe Comedy of Cristna's sports must mean to throw ridicule on Polygainy, thereby to discourage his followers from availing themselves of the advantage of a law, not positive, but founded more on practice-it is a religious law, as well as natural and reasonable one, not only among the Europeans, but likewise among the Hindoos, that the happy state of matrimony is restricted to a mutual engagement of each other, and not to an unequal number. Comedy proposes for its object, the satirical exhibition of the improprieties and follies of mankind; to render vice ridiculous, at the exaltation of domestic virtues.In either of these representations, it is necessary that the events related did happen or might wear the probability of it in the ordinary course of nature, and the persons represented have existed, or at farthest might have existed, as the description of their character, humour, and frailties, bear comparison to those of real life. -To answer this end, authors of dramatic composition have laid down the known rules of the three unities, time, place, and action, and other orders congenial to the subject. They were framed to prevent the absurdities which creeped in in ancient days not only of the Greeks and Romans, but even in Great Britain (till the introduction of learning and letters became more general), under the mask of moral plays, the allegorical representation of human passions, Angels and Ghosts, Death and Faith, Sin and Infidelity in one, as the incarnation, resurrection, and other This position was particularly exemplified" miraculous events of Christ and the Saints in by one of the principal incarnations of Vistna, the other Thus in those rude ages of dark-who, independent of the general motive to ness or dawn of civilization in the western extirpate the evil and protect the good, markhemisphere, the Song of Solomon, the events ed the domestic virtues of an affectionate of Job, the Psalms of David, the Book of wife, and an honest husband, as the principal Daniel, the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and object of one of his descents on earth.— other parts of Scripture, might have under- Rama, the incarnate god and hero, has set gone a dramatic life, and it is to be observed, an uniform example of conjugal fidelity, that the day appointed for such representation this virtue has shone forth with all the lustre was Sunday, forenoon was the time, some reli- imaginable in the poetical effusion of gious spot (Churches) was the theatre, as the Valinika the author of Rumayen.—Ruma is managers were the priests. C a Cshatriya and a Prince, to whom the law Veneration for Divinity, respect for Reli-tacitly allows plurality of wives, and custom gion, and decorum towards the Church and sanctions it; the several incidents of his life its members, and common decency towards and the unfortunate separation of his spouse mankind, have induced succeeding generations Sita Davi, were inducements to accumulate of enlightened ages to put a stop to this mode female treasure, which he disdained to notice of performance, which at best aims to throw by the strictest adherence to the sacred prinridicule on Religion, to mock our creator, ciples of matrimonial virtue. To this exand tranform both the Church and the Doctors ample, his brother incarnate god in another of Divinity to a Theatre and Players. age of less probity, has in the person of Christna and his 9 mistresses and 16,000 Gopiaces or Shepherdesses, exposed the credulity and folly of the other qualities different from the example set by his predècessor Rama. A reasonable conclusion results from the considerations I have stated in the foregoing lines, which coincide perfectly with the religious sentiments and good sense of all nations. I spoke of Cristna and his Ladies more in terais of one speejes [of drama], and drew a moral inference as correct as it was impartial and appropriate. If men are endowed with common thought and sense, what will they take the subject to be, when Cristna enters the scene dressed in all the garb of a Prince, and atfended with his mistresses, one of whom accusing him of infidelity, another of partiality; Coné reprezching him for his marked attention Thus much I think is sufficient to convince the public of my integrity on the interpretation I undertook to give of the subject of Cristna Velasem; and to say more, altho much can be said, is unnecessary; since every reader, now a days, has sufficient knowledge of the Hindoo system of History apt Tradition to be his own commentator.—To suppose Cristua Velasem is in inward means ing precisely the same as the Song of Solo |