But I have walked into the world since then, I know now, there are those who sink and lie summer!" I've learnt that sunshine bringeth more than flow ers, And fruits, and forest leaves to cheer the earth; For I have seen sad spirits, like dark bowers, Light up beneath it with a grateful mirth. The aged limbs that quiver in their task Of dragging life on, when the north wind goads Taste once again contentment, as they bask FORBEARANCE: AN ILLUSTRATION. THERE are pleasant spots where no sunbeams glow, There are flowers that bloom where no south winds come, And the air is stirred with the drowsy hum And we wonder much that things should be so, Through life, as if seeking a light that is gone; In the straight beams that warm their church-Yet no friendly hand may stay the tear, yard road. And childhood-poor, pinched childhood-half forgets The starving pittance of our cottage homes, The moping idiot seemeth less distraught Which only in silent sadness reveals These love not darkness, they seek for light; And laugh and clutch the blades, as though he Who care not for wealth, but make their choice thought The yellow sun-rays challenged him to play. Ah! dearly now I hail the nightingale, To dwell alone, that so they may hear And greet the bee—the merry-going hummer-Than friendship far more true, more kind. And when the lilies peep so sweet and pale. I kiss their cheeks, and say Thank God for This is Nature's grand primeval law, summer!" Feet that limp, blue and bleeding, as they go And sleep his hour or two in some green lane. Oh! ice-toothed king, I loved you once-but now To think how naked flesh must feel your fang. My eyes watch now to see the elms unfold, I hunt the palm-trees for their first rich gold, Painted and spangled, as her herald mummer; "Now for warm holidays," my heart will cry, The poor will suffer less!-Thank God for summer!" That from many sources the soul shall draw As from every changing element, The leafy tree and the springing flower, Knickerbocker. ANCIENT AND MODERN TRIBUNE, or Horace Greeley and Tiberius Gracchus.-The very idea of Land Limitation-as it is stated by the reporters to have been uttered by Mr. Greeley on Saturday night is the identical idea proposed by Tiberius Gracchus, Tribune of the People-one of those Roman heroes of whom the world has talked much and known very little. An American reformer ought not to be a plagiarist. We have a right to demand from him something of originality. The American nation is fresh. Its political institutions are original. Its genius is inventive. Why, then, should an American reformer borrow his philanthropy from Tiberius Gracchus of Rome ?-Cincinnati Atlas. POETRY.-Lines on a Statue of his Dead Child, 10.-Morning Meditations, 18-A Lament, 45.-Thank God for Summer, 46-Forbearance, 47. SHORT ARTICLES.-To destroy Insects on Rose Trees, 18.-Private Pudding, 46.—Ancient and Modern Tribune, 47. PROSPECTUS.-This work is conducted in the spirit of Littell's Museum of Foreign Literature, (which was favor ably received by the public for twenty years,) but as it is twice as large, and appears so often, we not only give spirit and freshness to it by many things which were excluded by a month's delay, but while thus extending our scope and gathering a greater and more attractive variety, are able so to increase the solid and substantial part of our literary, historical, and political harvest, as fully to satisfy the wants of the American reader. The elaborate and stately Essays of the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and other Reviews; and Blackwood's noble criticisms on Poetry, his keen political Commentaries, highly wrought Tales, and vivid descriptions of rural and mountain Scenery; and the contributions to Literature, History, and Common Life, by the sagacious Spectator, the sparkling Examiner, the judicious Athenæum, the busy and industrious Literary Gazette, the sensible and comprehensive Britannia, the sober and respectable Christian Observer; these are intermixed with the Military and Naval reminiscences of the United Service, and with the best articles of the Dublin University, New Monthly, Fraser's, Tail's, Ainsworth's, Hood's, and Sporting Magazines, and of Chambers' admirable Journal. We do not consider it beneath our dignity to borrow wit and wisdom from Punch; and, when we think it good enough, make use of the thunder of The Times. We shall increase our variety by importations from the continent of Europe, and from the new growth of the British colonies. The steamship has brought Europe, Asia and Africa, into our neighborhood; and will greatly multiply our connections, as Merchants, Travellers, and Politicians, with all parts of the world; so that much more than ever it now becomes every intelligent American to be informed of the condition and changes of foreign countries. And this not only because of their nearer connection with ourselves, but because the nations seem to be hastening, through a rapid process of change, to some new state of things, which the merely political prophet cannot compute or foresee. Geographical Discoveries, the progress of Colonization, (which is extending over the whole world,) and Voyages and Travels, will be favorite matter for our selections; and, in general, we shall systematically and very fully acquaint our readers with the great department of Foreign affairs, without entirely neglecting our own. While we aspire to make the Living Age desirable to all who wish to keep themselves informed of the rapid progress of the movement-to Statesmen, Divines, Lawyers, and Physicians-to men of business and men of leisure-it is still a stronger object to make it attractive and useful to their Wives and Children. We believe that we can thus do some good in our day and generation; and hope to make the work indispensable in every well-informed family. We say indispensable, because in this day of cheap literature it is not possible to guard against the influx of what is bad in taste and vicious in morals, in any other way than by furnishing a sufficient supply of a healthy character. The mental and moral appetite must be gratified. We hope that, by "winnowing the wheat from the chaff," by providing abundantly for the imagination, and by a large collection of Biography, Voyages and Travels, History, and more solid matter, we may produce a work which shall be popular, while at the same time it will aspire to raise the standard of public taste. tion of this work- and for doing this a liberal commission will be allowed to gentlemen who will interest themselves in the business. And we will gladly correspond on this subject with any agent who will send us undoubted refer TERMS. The LIVING AGE is published every Satur- Agencies. We are desirous of making arrangements, day, by E. LITTELL & Co., corner of Tremont and Brom-in all parts of North America, for increasing the circulafield sts., Boston; Price 12 cents a number, or six dollars a year in advance. Remittances for any period will be thankfully received and promptly attended to. To insure regularity in mailing the work, orders should be addressed to the office of publication, as above. Clubs, paying a year in advance, will be supplied as follows: ences. Postage.-When sent with the cover on, the Living Age consists of three sheets, and is rated as a pamphlet, at 4 cents. But when sent without the cover, it comes within the definition of a newspaper given in the law, and cannot legally be charged with more than newspaper postage, (14 cts.). We add the definition alluded to :— A newspaper is "any printed publication, issued in numbers, consisting of not more than two sheets, and published at short, stated intervals of not more than one month, conveying intelligence of passing events." Monthly parts. For such as prefer it in that form, the Living Age is put up in monthly parts, containing four or five weekly numbers. In this shape it shows to great advantage in comparison with other works, containing in each part double the matter of any of the quarterlies. But we recommend the weekly numbers, as fresher and fuller of life. Postage on the monthly parts is about 14 cents. The volumes are published quarterly, each volume containing as much matter as a quarterly review gives in eighteen months. WASHINGTON, 27 DEC., 1845. Or all the Periodical Journals devoted to literature and science which abound in Europe and in this country, this has appeared to me to be the most useful. It contains indeed the exposition only of the current literature of the English language, but this by its immense extent and comprehension includes a portraiture of the human mind in the utmost expansion of the present age. J. Q. ADAMS. LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 269.-14 JULY, 1849. From the Quarterly Review. 1. Account of the Skerryvore Lighthouse, with Notes on the Illumination of Lighthouses. By ALAN STEVENSON, Engineer to the Northern Lighthouse Board. Edinburgh and London. 4to. 1848. 2. An Account of the Bell Rock Lighthouse. By ROBERT STEVENSON, Civil Engineer. Edinburgh. 4to. 1824. 3. Narrative of the Building and Description of the Construction of the Eddystone Lighthouse with stone. By JOHN SMEATON. Civil Engineer, F. R. S. Second Edition. Folio. 1813. THERE is pleasure in the pursuit, and pride in the discovery, in any fragment of the literature of Greece or Rome. There is joy in the Vatican over the discovery of a Palimpsest. Such feelings are legitimate, and we should be sorry to disclaim them for ourselves, ashamed to depreciate them as entertained by more devoted slaves of the lamp. We confess, however, that our own sympathies with such are tempered by the conviction that, so far at least as works of fancy and imagination, of poetry and eloquence, are concerned, the best pro- | ductions of the best authors are already in our possession. In these departments we might hail additions with a sober joy, but we have no intense craving for any large accession to the creditable stock which has survived the sentence of Omar, and escaped the baths and wash-houses of Alexandria. It may be-for is it not written in Niebuhr —that Virgil made a mistake when he attempted hexameters, that his true vocation was lyrics, and that he should have studied to emulate Pindar rather than Homer; we are, however, content with such mistakes as the Æneid and the Georgics. If, indeed, we were privileged to select for resuscitation from the list of works no longer extant, but of which the authors and subjects are known, any one production, we suspect that our choice would rest upon the narrative of the construction of the Parthenon by its architect Ictinus. Much of interest would assuredly attach to the record of a process every step of which was evidently founded on deep thought, and directed by high intention, till that result was attained which neither decay nor mutilation has deprived of its matchless grace, and which common consent has pronounced to be the nearest approach to perfection accomplished by human artificer. Apart from the charm which attaches to classical associations and to remote antiquity, something of kindred interest belongs to the narratives now before us. It is indeed among the noblest functions of genius to devise forms of beauty and sublimity for the structures destined for the performance of man's homage to his Maker. Within those limits which, fortunately for the purification of that VOL. XXII. 4 CCLXIX. LIVING AGE. homage, were exceeded by Leo, it has been a wise devotion of wealth which has enabled that genius to embody its bright visions in enduring and costly materials. Next, however, to the great testimonials which men like letinus and Buonarotti have reared to the consciousness of our spiritual nature and immortal destinies, we can imagine no triumph of constructive skill more signal, no labors more catholic in their purpose, and more deserving in their success of human gratitude and applause, than those recorded in the trilogy of works enumerated in our titlethe labors of Smeaton and the two Stevensons, father and son, men of whom Father Ocean, could he exchange for articulate language the sterner accents of his equinoctial mood, might say : ανήριθμον γελασμα of his summer calm, or the Great I must call them, for they conquered me. There is a passage in Byron, often selected for quotation, in which, towards the close of his greatest poem, he brings the power and immensity of the sea into contrast with the weakness and littleness of man. The charm of verse has, in our opinion, seldom been more abused than in this splenetic pæan to the brute strength of winds and waves, leaving, as it does, unnoticed, the great fact of their habitual submission to the moral and intellectual powers of man. To make the pervading sentiment of these famous stanzas as sound as their cadence is sonorous, shipwreck should be the rule, and safe passage the exception. Among the greatest assertors of that qualified supremacy which Providence has delegated to the human race over the destructive agencies of the billow and the storm, the architects of such buildings as the Eddystone and the Bell-Rock lighthouses are preeminent; and the story of their construction is well worthy the minute detail and costly illustration with which it has been recorded. We cannot be surprised at the cordial satisfaction with which the narrators have evidently discharged a task of justice, not to themselves alone, but to many brave and skilful coadjutors and subordinates. It must be remembered that in all these cases the presiding genius had to struggle not only with difficulties which would have foiled the skill, but with toils and dangers which would have cowed the spirit and exhausted the endurance of ordinary mortals. Bloody battles have been won, and campaigns conducted to a successful issue, with less of personal exposure to physical danger on the part of the commander-inchief, than for considerable portions of successive years was hourly encountered by each of these civilians. They could not and did not sit apart from the field of action, and send their staff with orders into the fire. They were the first to weather the sea which rises there is described as one in which no ship could live. This terrible relic of a volcanic æra had long attracted the attention of the Northern Commissioners, under whose direction the Bell Rock and other Lighthouses had been constructed, and so long ago as 1814 an act was obtained for a light on Skerryvore, in which year Mr. Robert Stevenson landed on the rock, in company with several members of the commission, and Sir W. Scott, who has noted the visit in his diary. The difficulty of the undertaking appears however to have deterred the commissioners from any active proceeding till the autumn of 1834, when Mr. Alan Stevenson received directions to commence a preliminary survey, which he was only able to complete in 1835. That difficulty was not confined to the position and character of the reef itself. The distance from land, strictly speaking, was some three miles less than in the case of the Bell Rock, but the barren and over-peopled island of Tyree afforded neither the resources of the eastern mainland, nor a harbor like Arbroath. It was necessary to construct, at the nearest favorable station in Tyree, a pier and harbor, and the buildings for workmen and stores of all descriptions-all materials for which, except the one article of stone, and after a little, stone too, were to be transferred from distant quarters. The gneiss quarries of the island did, in the first instance, supply a stock of stone fit both for rubble and masonry; and the liberality of the proprietor, the late Duke of Argyll, who took from the first the interest which became him in the proceedings, gave every facility to the architect. This supply, however, soon failed. spring on the lonely rock, and the last to leave it, | in fine weather beset the intervening passage beThey had to test the solidity of their own contriv- tween its eastern extremity and Tyree, from which ances in their own persons, to take up their island it is distant some 11 miles. In rough quarters in the temporary barrack, and to infuse by example their own high courage into the breasts of humble workmen unaccustomed to the special terrors of the scene. It will be found that if these edifices were not, like the pyramids of the Pharaohs or the canals of Mehemet Ali, completed at a cost of human life, that immunity was obtained, under Providence, by the constant presence, the cool and judicious directions, and the prompt resources of the architect. Like Desde mona, we listen to the tale, and admire the narrator for the perils he has passed, as well as for the benefits he has conferred. What these benefits are, those best can tell who have neared their country's coast in a season of starless nights and wintry gales-who have had experience of the navigator's struggle between hope deferred and the fear of unknown danger and sudden wreck. These know the joy and confidence infused into every bosom by the first gleam of that light which, either by its steady lustre, its color, or its periodical occultation, identifies the promontory or the reef. In that moment, when the yards are braced, and the good ship put upon her course, which she can thenceforward pursue with confidence towards the Sound, the Forth, the Mersey, or the Clyde, the merits of the Smeatons and the Stevensons will best be felt, their eulogy, may best be spoken. Our especial business being with the last in date of the three constructions above enumerated, we have cited the two former chiefly for the sake of occasional reference and comparison. In position, the tract of foul ground infamous under the name of the Skerryvore Reef offers in many particulars a pretty exact counterpart to the famous Inchcape or Bell Rock. Placed in the same parrallel of latitude, it presented the same obstacles in kind and degree to the navigation of the west coast of Scotland, as the Bell and Carr Rocks opposed to that of the east. While the access to the Forth and the security of the northern coasting-ilar obligations to Smeaton. trade were mainly effected by the one, the great issue to the Atlantic from the Irish Channel and the Clyde was endangered by the other. It would require deep study of a wilderness of blue books to pronounce what annual amount of tonnage was affected in either case, so as to strike the exact balance of anxiety and inconvenience. The statis-ry chapter. tics of actual loss, previous to the erection of the works in question, would perhaps be even more difficult to collect with precision. The list of ascertained wrecks is a long one in either case, but the fishers of Tyree took little note of the comminuted fragments which reached their coast, and many a good ship has left no traces for recognition after a few minutes' collision with the gneiss of Skerryvore. Situated considerably further from the mainland than the Bell Rock, it is less entirely submerged, some of its summits rising above the level of high water, but the extent of foul ground is much greater, and hidden dangers even The younger Stevenson's narrative bears, as might be expected, continually recurring testimony to the advantage he enjoyed in the instruction afforded by the example of his father's operations, who in many respects was under simIn neither case, however, was the imitation servile, nor did either fail to adopt such changes in design and contrivance as were indicated by the variations, slight in the main, between the local peculiarities of the respective sites. These changes are ably detailed and justified by Mr. A. Stevenson in a prelimina The earliest, and about the most anxious, of the many questions which present themselves to the engineer intrusted with such a work are those of height and mass. In Smeaton's time, when the best light in use was that of common candles, elevation beyond a certain height could do no good. The application of the mirror or the lens to oil enables us now to illuminate the visible horizon of any tower which, in Mr. A. Stevenson's words, "human art can hope to construct." The question of mass is affected by other considerations, and principally by the greater or less facility of communication with the shore-which reduced to the lowest limit compatible with safety. Proportions were therefore adopted for the tower at Skerryvore which, involving a less projection of the base as compared with the summit, afforded a nearer approximation to the form of greatest solidity, the conic frustum. It does not, however, follow that the curve resulting from the proportion taken at Skerryvore could have been must govern the question of space for stowage of supplies. The extent of the Skerryvore reef, some three miles to seaward of the spot available for the base of the edifice, indicated the expediency of a greater elevation than had been attained in the case of the Bell Rock, which is little more than 100 yards in its extent. It was determined that the light should be elevated about 150 feet above high water, so as to command a visible hor-advantageously substituted at the Bell Rock for izon of 18 miles' radius; and it appeared that for interior accommodation a void space of about 13,000 cubic feet would be required. the curve there adopted. The latter is covered to the height of fifteen feet at spring tides. For two winters the lower part of the tower was exposed not merely to wind and spray, but to the any superincumbent weight. During this period the architect had to rely on the compactness, not on the weight, of his structure, and it became necessary to give the portion thus periodically submerged the sloping form least likely to disturb the passage of the waves. These elements settled, the question of general proportions came next. This was partly depend-direct action of the sea, without the advantage of ent on the preference to be given to one or the other of the two principles, by applying which the solidity of a compacted and unelastic mass can be obtained-the principle of vertical pressure, in which the power of gravity supplies the strength required-or that of artificial tenacity, involving the more elaborate and costly contriv- On the interesting question of the best shape ances of dovetailing, joggling, &c. It appears for such buildings, Mr. A. Stevenson thus sums clear that, in the construction of buildings in up a singularly clear explanation of his views :— which resistance to a recurrent action of disturbIn a word, the sum of our knowledge appears ing forces is a main object, the principle of verti- to be contained in this proposition-that, as the stacal pressure is to be preferred. The power of ability of a sea-tower depends, cæteris paribus, on given weight to resist a given force is calculable and constant-the strength which results from the artificial connection of component parts is less enduring, and cannot even at first be so accurately estimated. These considerations had influenced the commissioners in their rejection of a plan for an iron pillar, and they governed Mr. A. Steven--p. 56. son in the design which he was called upon to execute for an edifice of masonry, and justified him for some departure from that of either Smeaton or his father. There can be little doubt (he says) that the more nearly we approach the perpendicular, the more fully do the stones at the base receive the pressure of the superincumbent mass as a means of retaining them in their places, and the more perfectly does this pressure act as a bond of union among the parts of the tower. This consideration naturally weighed with me in making a more near approach to the conic frustum, which, next to the perpendicular wall, must, other circumstances being equal, press the mass below with a greater weight, and in a more advantageous manner, than a curved outline, in which the stones at the base are necessarily further removed from the line of vertical pressure of the mass at top. This vertical pressure operates in preventing any stone being withdrawn from the wall in a manner which, to my mind, is much more satisfactory than an excessive refinement in dovetailing and joggling, which I consider as chiefly useful in the early stages of the progress of a work when it is exposed to storms, and before the superstructure is raised to such an height as to prevent seas from breaking right over it.—p. 64. Of the three works the principle of vertical pressure has been most consulted in the case of Skerryvore, and least in that of the Bell Rock. In the Eddystone, indeed, as well as in the Bell Rock, Mr. A. Stevenson is of opinion that the thickness of the walls towards the top has been the lowness of its centre of gravity, the general notion of its form is that of a cone, but that, as the forces to which its several horizontal sections are opposed decrease towards its top in a rapid ratio, the solid should be generated by the revolution of some curve-line convex to the axis of the tower, and gradually approaching to parallelism with it. This is nothing more nor less than the conclusion which Smeaton reduced to practice in the case of the Eddystone, and, for aught we are aware, for the first time.* The process of reasoning, however, by which Alan Stevenson arrived at his results is far different from that by which Smeaton describes himself to have been influenced. He thinks that Smeaton's famous analogy of the oak, which has been often quoted and extolled for its felicity, is unsound, and was only employed by him for the purpose of satisfying readers incapable of understanding the profounder process by which he had really arrived at the truth : There is no analogy (says the modern architect) between the case of the tree and that of the lighthouse-the tree being assaulted at the top, the lighthouse at the base; and although Smeaton goes on to suppose the branches to be cut off, and water to wash round the base of the oak, it is to be feared that the analogy is not thereby strengthened; as the materials composing the tree and the tower are so different, that it is impossible to imagine that the same opposing forces can be resisted by similar properties in both. * It is very singular that throughout his reasonings on this subject he does not appear to have regarded those properties of the tree which he has most fitly characterized as its elasticity and the coherence of its parts.-Ibid. *The only great work we know of, antecedent to Smeaton's Eddystone, and resembling it in situation and exposure, is the Tour de Cordouan, in which the conical principle is not adopted. Mr. Rudyard's tower on the Eddystone was a rectilinear frustum of a cone-a form suitable to his principal material, which was wood. |