CAROLO LINNE
BOTANICORUM PRINCIPI

AMICI ET DISCIPULI

MDCCLXXXXVIII.

SALARIES OF ACTORS ON THE CONTINENT:
also GIPSIES, alias FRENCH SPIES.
(To the Editor of the Literary Panorama.)

Sir,-In addition to the sketch of the in To the remarks of this writer on the nature come of the principal actors given in Panorama, vol. III. p. 999., and as a curious conand character of monumental erections, we trast, it might be entertaining, if any of your could wish to add a few words, on the impro- readers, who have visited foreign capitals, priety, as it appears to us, of mingling Pagan could furnish us with the terms of the prin with Christian ideas in a Christian place of cipal singers and dancers at those theatres. worship. We doubt not but that the figure As they are mostly supported by their respec of Religion in the monument of archbishop tive Governments, the actors and singers do not depend much on the liberality of the Menander, will be allowed to be truly a public in regard to benefits. In fact, in some Christian emblem; but it might be asked, cases, a benefit-night carries no attraction whether some other symbol, than Minerva, with it. When Mrs. Billington was at Naintended to mark the acquaintance of this ples, I happened to be present at her benefit; eminent man with the liberal arts, might not very little company were in the boxes, and have been adopted? It should seem, eithermitted to the national custom of carrying a the pit was very thin: and had she not subthat these arts were so intimately and insepa-plate round to the boxes, her benefit would rably connected with Minerva, a heathen Goddess, and Minerva with them as their patroness, that no other device could be substituted or that Religion (the Christian Religion) was inimical to these studies; or at least, so totally separated from them, that they by can no means be associated. Hence there are two compositions in the same monument, one religious, the other scientific which destroys the unity of the whole, and therefore transgresses the rules of art. We desire it may be clearly understood, that Christianity is no eneiny to scientific learning, to real Philosophy, and its pursuits, nor to those researches into the events of past ages, their manners, and condition, which is called, not by way of reproach, but for distinction sake, Drofane history. The Christian father was as foolish who refused to read Cicero, as the Mahometan was bigotted who burnt the Alexandrian library.

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Why should not these studies have been considered as following in the train of Religion, under her protection, and influence? We cannot but think, that artists are blameable, in continuing to shackle themselt es by adopt ing such burdensome fetters, as might well enough become those who we call the antients: but which the present age might easily remove, by better information, and superior judgment. Would there be any impropriety in submitting compositions intended for Religious Edifices, to other examinants than mere artists, before they are executed?— Even a cobler could correct Apelles.

have been poor indeed. As she did adopt the custom, I understand that she received about £400. The price of entrance to the pit was two carlini or tenpence. At Vienna I paid two florins, or four shillings, for admit tance into the pit of the Italian Opera. Some years ago, the regular salaries of the persons belonging to the famous theatre of Schikaneder in that city, were estimated at £400 per week.

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But the principal object of this letter is to draw your attention to the Proteus form assumed by the French, whenever Espionage is the order of the day. As Mr. Sheridan says, that for aught he knows, French spies may be disguised like fidfers," and as you profess to be a strong Antigallican;" what think you of a French Engineer turned Gip sey pour servir son Roi An example of this kind (as related by professor Grellmann) appears in the adventures of Pierre Durois; which is a circumstance in the records of Louis XIV. perhaps as much unknown as it is remarkable.

It relates, that at Patack, in Upper Hungary, a great fire happened, through the care. lessness of the gipseys on which occasion seven supposed gipseys were taken into cus tody, one of whom was the engineer above with them during nine years he had sketches mentioned. This person had travelled about of all the principal fortifications, taken in the most concise manner, with remarks where each place was least defensible. What de basement of character! Verbum sat.

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Yours, &c. NO. GIPSEY. We believe that we may venture to assure our correspondent, that there is no form what ever, which French espionage has not taken,

We must not attribute solely to the deleterious air of large cities that great mortality which frequently prevails. It is the life we that are inflamed to the utmost; it is the feel lead, our food, our habits; it is the passions ings being too much excited; it is the rapidity with which we run after the objects of our desires; it is the frequent grief attendant on ill-concerted plans, projects rendered abortive, enterprizes counteracted; it is the remorse ble, disappointments in love, and in friendattached to repeated losses at the gaming taship; it is the corroding pangs left behind by degrading pleasures, perfidious counsels, un manly compliance, unjust exultation; it is the sight of the depth of human misery, of

answer its purposes. It has engaged all ranks and all talents: from those who ride in their coaches, at an ample allowance, to those whose pay was only a shilling per week, Beggars even, were engaged by it, and we suppose are so sull: for we have known beggars so privileged, to be protected and rewarded by the police, when others were punished as we have also known a whole company struck into silence, when a certain chariot drew up to the door, and its proprietor entered the apartment. During the rebellion in 1745, one principal source of intelligence to the British Government as to the disposition of certain families, was the galanie-show-insolent vice, humiliated virtue, successful men, who by introducing proper subjects into their magic lanthorns, and hearing the remarks of the spectators, could give very shrewd guesses, at the principles which actuated the remarkers. A less defensible class of spies, perhaps, than any, was that which professed extraordinary zeal in religious matters: To assume the cloak of piety with intention to betray confidence is surely most horrible!

ON THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
OF A GREAT CITY.

[From the French.]

We shall begin with the disadvantages, and, without any restriction to a methodical divi. sion, shall state that these are of all kinds, viz. disadvantages which attack the health; disadvantages which affect the heart; and disadvantages that shock our reason.

What Bruyère says of man in general, applies more particularly to the inhabitants of large cities. Three events happen to man; to be born-to live and to die. He is unconscious of his birth; he is compelled to die'; and he forgets what kind of life he ought to

lead.

We forget the true purport of life, when we suffer ourselves to be overwhelmed by business, to be hurried away by pleasures, to be distracted by human events, and to be depressed by grief. We forget the great end of life when we follow after chimeras, when we are too much elated with the passion of glory, of wealth, or of sensual pleasure; when we cannot retire within ourselves without fear, and without chnui; when we turn night iuto day,' and day into night, and ran the round of uniform occupations, deadly repasts, and fatiguing indolence. In short, we forget the end of our existence when we plunge into a vortex, where the hours pass like mi, qutes. the days like hours, and the years like days. This, in a few words, is the picture of life in large cities.

afflict the heart, shock our reason, and attack intrigue, and a thousand other objects which

our health.

But these disadvantages, however striking they may appear, are counterbalanced by inmense advantages of great value.

Great cities are the produce of great civiwhich they are the capitals; the focus of all lization; they are miniatures of the nations of kinds of talents, vices, virtues, prejudices, and intellect.

It is

If we meet with men capable of setting fire to the capitol, we also find those who will plunge into a gulph to extinguish it. Ifinnocence sometinies falls into shares laid by libertinism and cupidity, it finds at the same time illustrious protectors. How many good ac tions are performed in obscurity! How many works of charity are veiled in modesty. very well known, that the curate of St. Sulpice in Paris received and distributed annually in his parish a million of livres in alms. Women of very exalted rank carried money, soup, and linen into garrets, where whole families, perishing with hunger lay concealed. In great cities, chiefly, generous actions may be as usefully excited, as commercial enterprizes and literary pursuits. There we must search for capital, to encourage talents, arts and industry. Wherever the greatest number of spectators are assembled, there the sight becomes more animated, more magnificent, and more interesting. There intellect acquires more intensity, talents develope themselves more rapidly, taste is perfected, all the arts support each other by mutual combination, and one city has given birth to Lebrun, Man sard, Quinault, Fénéion, Bossuet, Racine,. and La Fontaine.

When did the arts and sciences revive in Italy? When the power and reputation of the Medici rendered Florence the capital of their dominions. Why have Germany, Spain, and Italy, been outstripped by Engbad and France, in the brilliant career of science? Because those countries have so long been split into fractions of sovereignty,

and because they have no capitals, like Paris I would always exist, as we could not expect and London, where an immense population that our calendar should ever become universal. produces great wealth, and whither strangers Its epoch relates solely to our history. As are attracted by pleasure, by the beauties of each nation reckons the latitude and longitude art, and by the empire of taste. from its own observatories, can we expect that all will agree to commence their year with ours? A period of two centuries, with all the influence of religion, was required for the general adoption of the Gregorian calendar: without doubt, it has considerable faults; the length of the monthis is unequal, and the commencement of the year does not correspond with that of any of the seasons. But it answers the principal end of a calendar, by being divided into days, and by preserving the beginning of the mean year uearly at the same distance from the equinox. Its mode of intercalation is convenient and simple."

"We know very little of one another," it is said, " in great cities." It is true. We have not time to search deeply; and we have not time likewise for detraction and calumny. We hate as lightly as we love; we meet without intimacy, we live together without affection, and we part without regret. Such a state of society, however, is amiable and pleasant. There is no formality, but much information, wit and amenity. Every one lives as he pleases, without exciting either the importunity of the curious, or the observation of the idle. And this liberty has its value.

well convinced of the utility of an unique plan of measures, and of the perfection of the metrical system, will take the most efficacious means of accelerating their general introduc tion, and of overcoming the opposition of old habits, which every day is effacing.

There is always something to observe in a Such are the principal arguments adduced; great city. At one time a new clock, re- but the decree is not to extend to the restoramarkable for its taste and richness of decoration of ancient measures. The government, tion, excites my curiosity: at another a porcelain vase the vivacity of its colours and the chastity of the design fix my attention. Here a public monument is raising, there a quack doctor is declaiming; on one side I hear a violent dispute, on the other a friendly invitation. If, tired with pacing the streets, or the gardens of the Tuileries, I enter the public library, or the museum, what fresh delights! In what other capital shall I find. PARTICULARS OF THE WHALE FISHERY, ·IN the theatre Français and Fleury; the imperial musical academy and Duport; the botanical garden and Cuvier: the college of France and Delille; the national institute and Lagrange; with numberless other public establishments, and professors in all branches, whose genius, talents, and labours, exhibit and promote the powers of man, while they also manifest the advantages which attend a great capital.

GREGORIAN CALENDAR.

To the Editor of the Literary Panorama. Sir,-As many of your numbers contain instances of the French reverting to their ancient customs, allow me to mention one that has hitherto escaped your observation. I mean the re-establishment of the Gregorian Calendar.

Yours, &c.

LECTOR.

THE NORTHERN SEAS.

We lately gave an account of the Wintering of certain English Sailors in Greenland, [compare Panorama, Vol. III. p. 131] whe being left there sustained the rigours of that inhospitable climate. It might very natu rally be asked, what kind of occupation could be carried on amidst fields of ice, sufficient to tempt the sons of men from their homes, to run all the hazards attendant on this nor thern voyage.

The following article, which is printed from a MS. of some intelligent person on board a Greenland ship, was found among the papers of an amateur lately deceased. It gives a very clear account of the conduct of such a voyage.

The articles in request are, first, the whale blubber, which is a coat of fat, two or three feet in thickness, sometimes more, which The Gregorian calendar was to be re-established from the 1st of Jan. 1806. The grand surrounds the fish, and is supposed to serve reason is, that it has the inestimable advanas a protection against the cold of the climate tage of being common to most of the Euro-he inhabits. This is boiled down into oil, pean nations. The principal fault," says and supplies the lamps in our streets. The the Senator Laplace," of the present calendar is, its mode of intercalation, and the second article is, the whalebone, which for embarrassment it causes in our external rela- merly was in prodigious request for the stiffentions, by thus insulating us, in this instance, ing of ladies' stays. At present, very happily even in the midst of Europe. This evil for the fair sex, the unnatural confinement

harpooneer strikes him again either with blades are cut and separated, and put by, unanother harpoon, if he fears that the first har-tila proper time, to clean and scrape them, poon might not hold well, or with a lance, which is a good deal of work and trouble. until he kills him; when the fish turns round, and floats upon his back. Sometimes a fish gives the people a great deal of trouble, and requires 24-hours, and often more, before he can be killed; and sometimes he is entirely lost, if the harpoon does not hold well, or if the line should break.

When that side of the fish is finished they turn him upon his belly with the cabestan by the kant-piece, and cut the blubber from his back, and crown bone of his head, where it is but thin; and at last they cut likewise the blubber from the other side, with the whale-bone, as before; so that they must turn the fish three times, to get all the blub. ber from around the fish, and the whalebone.

When this is done, they cut out the two large jaw bones of the under lips, which weigh commonly 6000 lbs., and are hoisted upon deck, where they are cleansed and fastened in the shrouds, with tubs under them to receive the oil running out of them, which is a private emolument for the captain, as also is the tail and the two fins.

The fish being dead, the lines are pulled in, all the boats being now together; a hole is cut in each fin and two holes in the tail; they tie the fins together in the middle over the! fish's belly; they fasten a strong rope to the fins and tail; and 3 or 4 boats row him towards the ship, where he is fastened along the larboard side of the ship, floating upon his back almost level with the sea. The people have now their victuals, or refreshment; and get ready their large knives and tools, for cutting up the fish. The spekseneer To cut up a large fish, generally takes 6 or and harpooneers put on their spurs, and stand 8 hours, and is thought no slow work. When upon the fish, and so they begin to cut through they have cut all the blubber round the whale, the skin and blubber in large square pieces or and cut out the gums and blades with the divisions, so as to cut off all that lies hori-jaw bones; then they loosen the ropes and zontally with the water.

The blades of their knives are about two feet long, and 3 inches broad, with strong round wooden handles to them of about four feet long. Every piece of blubber they cut from the fish is hoisted on board with the cabestan, when 15 or 20 sailors go round; and every piece coming upon deck generally weighs 2, or 3000 lbs.; if it is a good large fish every large piece of blubber is cut upon deck by the boat steerers, line managers, and fore-mast men, with such knives as the former, into smaller pieces of 2 or 3 cwt. each, and is thrown down the flench hole into the hold of the ship to remain there 3 or 4 days, for the blood to drain away. The whale's under lip, or cheek, weighs frequently 5000 lbs. the tongue as much again. The tail and each fin 2, or 3,000 lbs. ; the tail is the first part which is cut off, and hoisted upon deck; the cutting off the tail and blubber, causes a prodigious effusion of blood, so that the sea is tinged red, all about the fish, and a thick hot steam arises from it, with an offensive smell.

When all the blubber is cut from the belly of the fish, they turn the fish upon one side, which is done with the cabestan, by the means of a piece of blabber left in the middle upon the fish for that purpose and called the kant-piece, or turning-piece; when the fish is turned, they cut all the upper side in large divisions, or pieces (called "hocky's) as before, and cut also the whale-bone, with the gums, out of the head, which is done all at once, so that all the blades remain together in the gums in one piece belonging to one side of the mouth, and is hoisted upon deck. This weighs at least 2000 lbs.; upon deck the

tackles, fore and aft, and let the carcase sink to the bottom; sometimes it remains floating, and some hundreds of Greenland birds called mallemuks feast upon it, fighting continually, and making a great noise. The decks after this are washed and cleaned; the people get their victuals, and go to bed to rest from their labour.

Three or four days after, they get up all the pieces of blubber out of the hold, and with smaller chopping knives, all hands chop them into small pieces, on large boards laid upon casks, and the pieces are put through the bung holes into empty casks.

This business is very dirty and greasey, and poisons the whole ship with a stench more offensive than train oil itself. On this occasion the people look as if they had been dipped in a buit of train oil; the grease flying all about their ears.

A whale of 9 or 10 feet bone, which means that the longest blades in his mouth are of that length, fills generally 30 butts with blubber; but one of the largest kind will fill 70 butts and more, but it depends upon the thickness of the blubber or fat.

A large fish is valued at almt £1000 to £1200 or more. After having killed s many whales as they can, they run into some bay or harbour, if wind and weather permit, to take in water and make a clean ship; and then make sail for home. A full ship of 300 ton is worth, after all expences are deducted at least £5000 to £7000, or more, but if a ship return home clean or empty, the owners lose perhaps £1000.

Every one in the ship enjoys a premium for every whale which is killed; the captais