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with a 'red field veined white' were especial favourites and exceedingly rare.* The red jasper (in hue not unlike the rosso-antico marble) was rather a frequent ring-stone, of which every collector's ring-box possesses some intaglios. The great variety of tints and shades displayed by most of the finer sorts of antiquity (compared to which all their modern representatives are ineffably inferior), procured for nobler specimens names of their own. Thus

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the emerald green jasper (a beauti ful stone out of which amulets used to be made), was called when traversed by a single white line, grammatias, the word gramma being used both for lines and letters -and when scored by several lines, polygrammos. Pliny, under the name Lapis Lysimachus, describes a jasper like Rhodian marble with golden veins; which peculiarity enabled Corsi to identify with this species a beautiful and almost unique specimen of black jasper, variegated with yellow, now in the gallery of the Vatican. Another well-known jasper is the bloodstone (green, spotted with red), which from its fancied power of decomposing the sun's rays under water, the ancients called heliotrope.† Theophrastus mentions a clear green jasper, called Tanus, of one block of which a whole pillar in the temple of Hercules, at Tyre, was wrought; and large fragments of which, he adds, are still found in the environs of that city. This Tanus, Corsi has identified with a jasper of the hue of green coffee-berries, called by Italian lapidaries Verde chiaro. The Egyptian Ciottolo d'Egitto, discovered by a traveller rather more than a century ago on the banks of the Nile, on the dark polished surface of which might be traced grottoes, tombs, woods, rivers,

*

and even animal forms,' when looked at with an attentive and maybe somewhat inventive eye, is another sort, the old name of which does not transpire. Jaspers are generally harder and of a more compact nature than agates; that called Oriental, which is of a bluishgreen colour with red veins, is the hardest of any it is found in the East and West Indies, in Bohemia, in Germany, and sometimes in England. In former days the jaspers most in vogue came from Scythia, Cyprus, and Egypt, and were esteemed in the order here set down. Epiphanius coincides with Pliny in commending those of Cyprus, which the Roman naturalist, however, rates as only secondbest. In the foundation of the wall of the city of the New Jerusalem, St. John, who mentions a great variety, and luxuriates in the exhibition of all manner of precious stones, places it in company with the sapphire, emerald, beryl, topaz, jacynth, amethyst, and pearls, placing it first on the list.

MEDICAL VIRTUES OF JASPER.

Mention has already been made of the medical virtues supposed to reside in all or at least in some of the precious stones by a number of authors who held† λιθοι τιμιοι in equal honour for wear or for physic. It is certain that all of them were tried over and over again, and that while many doctors sought to establish a reputation, others lost it by recommending powdered gems to their patients. Rondolet, amongst other distinguished simpletons, looked upon every pretty ring-stone he saw as the specific for some complaint, and thus telesine and quartz became in his hands as common 'draughts,' as now-a-days soda and magnesia; § others more selective,

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Of this species there is a vase in the Gallery of Candelabra in the Vatican Museum.

This stone, which was reckoned among the finer sorts of jasper, has been largely used in incavo and relievo engravings by ancient and modern anularii, the blood-spots being turned to account by the former in treating the subject of Marsyas flayed alive, by the latter in the Flagellation and Martyrdom of Saints.

We do not find that they gave granite, gravel, or pumice, but such stones as made a show.

? Against this doctrine some had long stoutly contended, like Erastus, whose good sense is quite angry at being forced to listen to such nonsense, (Credit qui vult gemmas mirabilia efficere, mihi qui et ratione et experientia didici aliter rem habere, nullus facile persuadebit falsum esse verum.)

1856.]

Fossil Wood-The Jade.

but equally simple, confined the supposed healing virtues to a few stones only, which in certain diseases were very efficacious. Thus Encelius says that garnets hung about the neck or taken inwardly resist sorrow and refresh the heart; Albertus, that in the belly of the swallow there is a stone found called chelidonias, which if it be lapped in a fair clothe and tied to the right arm, will cure lunatics and madmen, and make men amiable and merry; and Lævinus Lemnius, that carbuncle and coral drive away childish fears, blue devils, overcome sorrow, and when hung about the neck, repress troublesome dreams; for which Ruaeus finds the diamond equally good. Nicholas Caleas, a Jesuit of Ferrara, reports of loadstone, that 'taken in parcels inwardly, it will, like 'viper's wine,' restore one to his youth; though others report that it makes men melancholy;' Mercurialis, of the sapphire, that it frees the mind from prejudice, and mends manners.

Animum ab errore liberat, mores in melius mutat.) Perhaps the best that can be said of precious stones taken internally is that while our undefæcated pharmacopoeias were yet very fœtid and foul; and physicians thought, like Mrs. Malaprop, that it tended much to their patients' ultimate good if they commenced the cure with a proper amount of wholesome aversion, that gems had no bad taste, and at least were all clean inutilities.*

No practitioners in stone, however, ever spoke more confidently of those he employed than Cardan. He seems to have confined himself and patients principally to the administration of jaspers, and of this class

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of remedies he declares that, whether taken in potions, or worn simply round the neck, they will, amidst other mirabilia, increase wisdom and expel vain fears. 'I have cured,' he says, many madmen

with them, who, when they laid aside the use of these stones, became as mad as ever they were at first.' If Cardan is worthy of credit, jaspers might evidently be used with advantage in our public and private lunatic asylums, in place of strait-waistcoats and revolving chairs.

FOSSIL WOOD.

We must mention en passant a division of jasperized bodies known commonly under the name of petrified woods, which, unlike the jaspers, whose prevailing hue is green, exhibit almost every tint except this. [Sections of them were employed by the ancients for the purposes of engraving.]t

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THE JADE.

Another stone which seems more nearly allied with the jaspers, where Boetius de Boot first placed it, than with the agates, or feldspaths, where it has also provisionally obtained a place, is that called by the ancients, from superstitious notions of its virtues, the nephritie' and the 'divine' stone. This is the jade,‡ a remarkably hard, opaque lapis, of a waxy appearance, and a greenisholivaceous or greyish hue, requiring the assistance of diamond dust to polish it, and retaining, after the process, by the utmost manipulation, only a very imperfect greasy lustre. Its extreme hardness has been taken advantage of by the Indians,

Paracelsus, though a terrible quack, used his patients better than some regular doctors, as he informs us in the following highly argumentative strain against 'the fallacies of the Faculty' of his day. "The silliest hair on the back of my head knows more,' says he, 'than all you doctors put together; the buckles on my shoes diffuse more light than Galen and Avicenna by all their ponderous writings; my beard has more experience than all your venerable Halls and Colleges. One drop of mine will do what cannot be effected by whole drachm and ounce doses of your loathsome, fulsome, filthy potions, heteroclital pills, horse physic, and other vile medicines under which the stomach of a Polyphemus would have quailed (ad quorum aspectum Cyclops Polyphemus exhorracisset).

+ These petrifactions, which admit of a high polish, sometimes display, when cut into thin lamina (especially where, as in the palms, the cellular tissue is large and lax) a perfect similitude to the original plant, the liquid quartz finding its way so gently into the interior, as not to damage the texture, till, molecule by molecule, it has absorbed and entirely supplanted the vegetable.

This name is derived, says Millin, from the Spanish, where it is called piedra higada, meaning the nephritic stone.

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communicate to properly shaped pieces of the stone a trenchant edge, and then use them for many of the purposes to which steel instruments are put. Hatchet-heads of jade are sometimes found in the tombs of the ancient Gauls. In spite of the very refractory nature of this mineral, the modern Hindoos work it up into various bijoux, and form rings of it. There is in the Labarte collection of medieval antiquities, a thumb-ring in jade; and what is more remarkable, the same collection contains a cinque cento vase, enriched with bas-reliefs and detached chimerical figures (kylins) executed with great spirit,' of which it is to be regretted that M. Labarte has not stated the dimensions in the text. This stone was used but sparingly for ancient intaglios, on account of its great hardness. When cut into very thin laminæ, it exhibits some degree of diaphanëity.

THE LAPIS LAZULI.

The last jasper we shall mention here is the lapis lazuli. There can be no doubt that the Greek and Latin synonymes for this stone were oapupos (sapphire), and Cyaneus. Under the Latin name, Pliny mentions a species of blue jasper,* sprinkled over its surface with shining particles of a golden colour,' which describes this stone accurately. Theophrastus' account of the sapphire is equally satisfactory. Its beautiful colours, combined with a degree of hardness sufficient to make it scintillate under a bar of steel, caused lapis lazuli to be a favourite stone with the Egyptians and Persians for engraving, and at Rome for embellishing the floors of the opulent.

In the Thermæ of Titus, a saloon has been discovered entirely paved with this heavenly blue;' and other splendid specimens are from time to time

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excavated from Rome's marble
wilderness,' the Campagna, with
some of which she has tastefully
decked many of her churches, more
especially the Chiesi Gesù and St.
Luigi, the altars of which display a
large surface of this sapphirine
splendour.
splendour. Theophrastus divides
different specimens of this jasper
into male and female stones, desig-
nating by the former the brighter
variety which contains a large por-
tion of that lovely 'ultramarine' de-
rived solely from this source; and
female, the paler kinds, more
sprinkled with iron pyrites, and
much less valuable. The name,
Lapis Lazuli, or Lazulithe, is de-
rived, says Millin, from the Per-
sian Lazuardi. According to Pliny,
the best lapis' came from Scythia.
Ahmed Teifascites, an Arabian
writer, says it is procured largely
from Chorassin ; and Haüy, that the
best specimens are imported from
China. Roos, professor of mine-
ralogy at Petersburg, assured Corsi
that no kind of lapis, neither that
pure blue stone called Oriental,'
nor yet the commoner kind flecked
with white, and miscalled Musco-
vian, is ever found within the Rus-
sian empire.' The artist's ultra-
marine is procured, as we have said,
from this mineral; and when made
from Oriental specimens, the paint
remains unchanged, while the Ger-
man lapis' turns green in process
of time. Both are copper ores, con-
taining about one-eighth of their
weight of that metal, and sometimes
a small portion of silver as well.
Three substances enter into their

composition-viz., a hard, fine,
crystalline matter, saturated with
particles of copper, and by them
stained blue; 2nd, a white crystal-
line matter; plus 3rd, some specks
of yellow tales, so small, that the
whole appear in the form of a fine
powder.
C. D. B.

* Millin, however, and others, consider it not a Jasper, but an argillaceous

stone.

† ἡ Ιασπις καὶ ἡ Σάφειρος, αὕτη δ ̓ ἐστὶν ὥσπερ χρυσόπαζος.

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RICHARD CROMWELL, AND THE DAWN OF THE
RESTORATION.*

IT implies a slur on the his

torical element of English literature that that final act in the drama of the Cromwellian Government which serves beyond all others to illustrate the union of revolution with prescription in the political history of this country, and consequently to shadow forth the free yet conservative principles by which it has been always characterized, should have been more or less neglected by our own historians, to be portrayed, nearly two hundred years after the period to which it refers, by a French writer. This great subject has been dealt with by M. Guizot in a manner worthy of the historian and philosopher who had already successfully described an earlier portion of the story of the Revolution. It has been singularly exempted from the treatment of our more philosophical historians. Sir James Mackintosh

describes no earlier revolution than that of William III.; and Mr. Carlyle does not condescend to chronicle the annals of the house of Cromwell beyond the period of the death of Oliver. The eminent his torians who had thus left an opening for a future work based upon a period to which their own labours closely approximated, had no doubt their own reasons in leaving so ample a field unoccupied but they have surrendered to a foreigner a rich harvest in the history of their own country.

The elements of the present history by M. Guizot have for the most part been lying before us during a period of a hundred and fifty years. One of the most common methods adopted for the transmission of events two hundred years ago, was that of diaries, which were frequently kept by literary and political persons. These journals were naturally suggested by the importance and the violence of the times, when stirring events prompted those who were more or less involved in public affairs to record them as they happened. They

have also a peculiar value in point of authenticity. They record facts generally within the sphere of each individual writer, and which little beyond his general fidelity can be necessary to establish; while they are often reciprocally corroborative of each other, under circumstances excluding the possibility of collusion between different writers. From these journals, or diaries, M. Guizot draws largely, as well as from different collections of State Papers, such as those of Clarendon and Thurloe, and from other writings of some historical pretension.

This drama comprehends the period intervening between the death of Oliver Cromwell, in September, 1658, and the Restoration of Charles II., in May, 1660. That brief but important juncture deserves to be considered in a double light-first, in respect to the foreign, and secondly, to the domestic or civil, relations of the country. The Anglo-French alliance, which formed as much the leading feature of that age as of the present time, was the basis of the whole foreign policy of the Commonwealth. This alliance, which was originated by the first Protector, formed the only tradition of his policy that survived his administration, and was clung to with a tenacity singularly at variance with the rapid subversion of the form of government which he bequeathed to his descendant. The period, therefore, over which M. Guizot's work extends, does not constitute an era in the foreign relations of this country, as it constitutes an era in its domestic government.

We will however deal briefly with the first question, partly because it occupies an extensive foreground in M. Guizot's work, and partly be cause it deserves to be considered afresh, as one of the most masterly and original of the conceptions of Oliver Cromwell. We are aware that it is popular in these days to exalt every act of that great man's policy; and M. Guizot, too indepen

History of the Protectorate of Richard Cromwell, and the Dawn of the Restoration. By M. Guizot. Two Vols. Bentley. London, 1856.

dent a thinker to follow the throng, has pronounced an unqualified eulogium upon Cromwell's alliance with France, in the career of usurpation pursued by that state upon Western Europe. M. Guizot, it may be fairly suspected, argues the question from a French point of view; for in truth France had nearly everything to gain, and England to lose, from the continuance of that alliance beyond the first few years of its

existence.

Now we should be ready to stake the present question on those very principles upon which the AngloFrench alliance has been maintained and defended at this day. This alliance was dictated by the consideration of maintaining the rights of Europe against an empire perhaps more powerful than either, whose policy invaded and infringed those rights. It rests, therefore, on the basis of morality; and has for its object the maintenance of the balance of power. The principles, on the other hand, on which the Anglo-French alliance of two centuries ago was based (so far at least as territorial relations were involved) were almost exactly inverse. The object of that alliance was simply a crusade against Spain. Spain was not then a powerful state, as Russia is now. During the century intervening between the accession of Philip II. and the formation of the Cromwellian alliance with France, she had declined incalculably in all the elements of political greatness. There was no longer any apprehension that Spain would disturb the peace of Europe. A war therefore, which, a century before, might have been dictated by a policy of defence, could now be dictated by a policy of spoliation only. Hence these hostilities contravened the laws of political morality in their first principles.

But apart from this primary ques. tion of morality, there was a secondary question of inexpediency, scarcely less conclusive against them so far as England was concerned. They brought, indeed, considerable commercial wealth to this country. But on the other hand, they paved the way for that territorial ascendency which France so long maintained in the West of Europe, by means of the subjugation of Spain, in which

these hostilities naturally resulted. It is on this point that Lord Bolingbroke takes his stand against the foreign policy of Oliver Cromwell. But it is necessary to dissociate the real views of the great Protector from those of his less thoughtful panegyrists; for there is good reason to think that Cromwell, at the period of his decease, was becoming aware that he was playing little more than the game of France; and that the disseverance of the AngloFrench alliance would have very shortly taken place if his life had been prolonged.

We think that this view of the question derives additional support from the hitherto unpublished correspondence between Cardinal Mazarin and M. de Bordeaux, which M. Guizot has produced in defence of Cromwell's policy. It would be hard to suppose that a Minister endowed with the selfish duplicity of Mazarin would have lent the support indicated in the following letters to the falling house of Cromwell, had he not regarded them as tools for the accomplishment of his own designs against Spain:

MAZARIN TO DE BORDEAUX.

Fontainbleau, Sept. 16.

I thank you for the care you have taken to communicate to me with all diligence the information you have received of the extremity of the Protector's illness it causes me all imaginable grief and disquietude: though I will still hope that he will happily get over it: nevertheless, in case it should please his Divine Majesty to dispose otherwise, I beg you to assure my Lord Faulconbridge and all his family that they may very securely rely on the king's protection of their interests; and that, for my own part, I will render them all the services they can possibly receive from me.

This letter is dated September 16th. Six weeks afterwards, the French Government being wholly unable to comply with the application of Richard Cromwell for a loan, we find that Cardinal Mazarin offered his own jewels to support the Protectorate.

MAZARIN TO DE BORDEAUX.

Auxerre, Oct. 31, 1658.

Sir, Mr. Ambassador Lockhart has paid his compliments to the King, the Queen, and Monsieur; he has also seen

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