This service has been well performed, in the present case, by Mr. Girdlestone, who has, in a series of letters, thrown into a very convenient form the most important results of the Commissioners' investigation, and has urged them upon the attention of the public with an affectionate earnestness well becoming his sacred office. Mr. Girdlestone treats his subject under the following general heads:-1. Sewerage and drainage. 2. Supply of water. 3. Receptacles of refuse filth. 4. Ventilation. And, after exhibiting the result of the evidence laid before the Commissioners on each of these branches of the inquiry, he sums up by a detail of striking facts illustrative of the influence exercised by the deplorable state of the towns and populous districts, in regard to these necessary arrangements, upon public morals, and by a brief suggestion of some of the more practicable remedies. The general results of the reports regarding the actual condition of the inhabitants of the districts referred to, are thus stated: "It is proved that the rate of sickness and mortality of the working classes, in our populous towns, is much greater than that of the same classes in the country districts, and much greater than that of those classes in the same towns where dwellings are better drained and better ventilated. It is proved that the greater liability of the working classes to the most afflictive and painful disorders does not arise from deficiency of food and clothing, but from their living usually, with no alternative, in narrow streets, confined courts, damp dwellings, and close chambers; undrained, unventilated, uncleansed. It is proved that they suffer the most severely in those cases where they spend the day in crowded workshops, or where they live in cellars, or sleep in rooms on the ground floor, or in chambers that have no chimney flue, or other vent to the vitiated air. It is proved that in such situations the average duration of human life is at least twenty years less than it otherwise might be; and that during this curtailed period of existence, the working power of those who live is seriously diminished, and much more their capacity for enjoyment, by a constant depression of health and spirits, and by the active attacks of fever, cholera, scrofula, and consumption. It is proved that this excess of mortality falls most heavily, first on the infantine portion of the community, and next on the heads of families between twenty and thirty years of age. It is proved that, in the metropolis alone, from twenty thousand to thirty thousand lives are thus wasted in each single year, with all the attendant misery of sickness, and sorrow, and want; owing to causes which may be easily obviated or removed. It is proved, that the burden which is thrown, by this excess of sickness and mortality, on the poor's rates, to say nothing of infirmaries and dispensaries, of friendly societies, and of private almsgiving, is such as to exceed the cost of effecting those improvements, which would suffice to make the average health of the working classes nearly equal to that of the rest of the community. It is proved that in the mere article of wasted manures, the refuse of a town, if duly collected and carried off, might, in most cases, be so applied as to repay the whole cost of sewerage, increasing the produce of the surrounding country, instead of saturating with pernicious moisture the ground on which the dwellings of the poorer classes stand, and defiling the air they breathe with pestilential vapours. And, finally, it is proved that, besides the waste of money, health, and life, incurred by the system now usually pursued in erecting the lower classes of dwellings in great towns where comfort, cleanliness, and decency are either not thought of at all, or are sacrificed to a shortsighted greediness of gain, there is also an incalculable amount of demoralization attributable to the same causes; and that, to say the least, an effectual bar is thereby put to the intellectual, moral, and religious improvement of this large portion of the community." The only consolation which the contemplation of so much misery admits of, is the assurance that it is not beyond the reach of remedy; nay, that it requires only a vigorous effort to make the remedy comparatively easy. "It is most abundantly proved," says Mr. Girdlestone, "that the evils which have been now laid bare are within the reach of remedy. To a great extent they may be removed in the case of dwellings already built, and they may be entirely obviated in those which shall be constructed henceforth. And these objects may be compassed by an expenditure, which is not only small as compared with the good to be accomplished, but which also may be made to repay itself. This, I say, is a most cheering circumstance; for, if we look at the enormous wealth concentrated in comparatively few hands, and securing to its possessors the command of this world's goods; and if we next consider how poor, in comparison, the great multitude of mankind remain, and how often the poor are sickly, and how early they are cut off by death, our hearts might well sink within us, if we could see no way of relief; short of equalizing the poor with the wealthy in the sumptuousness of their fare, and clothing, and abodes. But now we know, that neither these, nor yet immunity from labour, are the points which mainly make the difference. The rich man's abundance may expose him to as many diseases, arising from excess or indolence, as those which beset the poor man, owing to hard fare or scanty clothing. Let the labourer but have a decent home, built on a dry soil, well drained, and with all its putrefying refuse properly removed; let his dwelling have at least two bed-rooms above the ground floor, and let it have a good supply of pure water and fresh air; and there is evidence to show, that he is as likely to enjoy health and length of life, supposing that similar attention is paid to the place in which he does his work, as the most wealthy of his employers. And if he may be thus physically on a par with them--as who would not wish him to be?-there remains nothing to hinder him from being so also, as every Christian ought to be one with another, both morally and religiously." RURAL SKETCHES; WITH HINTS FOR PEDESTRIANS. THERE are some objects which the tourist will not fail to visit, presenting the same features, at all the three periods of which we have spoken. As he wanders along the road which winds gracefully, with its beautiful green edging and its rich hedge-rows, his eye will be attracted by the heavendirected spire of a village church, which had been previously hidden from him by the abundance of wood surrounding the village, and as a sudden turn in the road presents the whole of the venerable and interesting building to his view, he will feel the sentiments expressed by Wordsworth:- "may ne'er That true succession fail of English hearts, And human charity, and social love." Having glanced over the exterior of the building, and examined the church-yard, noticing, it may be, the cross near its south entrance, and the venerable yew; the ancient grave-stones, with their short and simple "Hic Jacet" in old English letter, presenting a striking contrast to the verbose and fulsome epitaphs of modern times; and the nameless graves beneath which "The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep," he will be prepared to enter the building to notice more carefully what it contains. The first object which claims his attention as he enters is the font; and this is frequently of a much older date than the church itself--many Norman fonts are yet preserved where the churches have been once or again rebuilt. The windows probably contain stained glass in greater or less profusion, and the bright sunshine throws a warm many-hued stain on the pavement. In some churches he will find the stoup for holy water yet remaining at the entrance; on the south side of the chancel, the sedilia, formerly used by the priest, deacon, and sub-deacon, during part of the Divine service; eastward of this, the piscina; and opposite to the sedilia, in the north wall, the arch for the holy sepulchre. genius Cromwell might have, I know not. Certain, however, it is, that no man since Henry VIII. has contributed more to adorn this country with picturesque ruins. The difference between these two masters lay chiefly in the style of ruins in which they composed. Henry adorned his landscapes with the ruins of abbeys; Cromwell, with those of castles." The dungeons he will probably find half filled with rubbish and loose stones, rolled into them by idle boys. Many materials for profitable thought will be supplied him, in endeavouring to trace the probable age of different parts of the castle-this window has been inserted long after the original walls were built, and that tower also is an addition of later date. But there are other ruins which will draw the pedestrian from the road. In the midst of some lovely vale, fertile as lovely, and peaceful as fertile; down which winds a crystal stream, the haunt of the trout; whose meadows seem enriched with an almost unaccountable and superabundant fruitfulness-lo! in the midst of this paradise, this Eden of luxuriant growth, rises the fair tower of a despoiled and desecrated abbey. The ancient charity-box is yet remaining in Hastily crossing the ancient stone bridge thrown some churches; and, of rarer occurrence, as most across the stream, for which we are in all proof them are obliterated by repeated coats of white-bability indebted to the monks, he will be soon wash, are the fresco paintings, with which the walls were anciently covered. Some churches have chantry chapels attached to them, and in very many are fine monumental effigies, once rich with "the boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,' but, now, alas! mutilated and defaced. The bells are frequently of an early period, and containing inscriptions of a religious nature. These remarks of course apply chiefly to those churches which were built before the Reformation. Some, of great antiquity, will be easily recognised as Anglo-Norman by the massy piers, the semicircular arches, the round-headed doorways, with their rich mouldings, of which the chevron is the most common, and the broad buttress, scarcely projecting from the wall. To the Norman style succeeded the Early-English, and subsequently the Decorated, and the Florid or Perpendicular, all of which are of a lighter and more elegant character, distinguished by pointed arches. These three latter styles were successively used from the reign of Stephen to the commencement of that of Henry VIII. Occasionally, too, the pedestrian's attention will be drawn to the ruined castle, whose towers and battlements frown over the neighbouring valley; and on approaching it, he will find no traces of the draw-bridge, the moat nearly filled by a luxuriant crop of nettles and thistles, and the walls much rent, affording in their fissures sufficient nourishment for trees which have been propagated from seeds conveyed thither by the birds, while other parts appear to be sustained by the matted ivy, so interwoven as to support fragments which might otherwise endanger his safety. On entering the gloomy gateway, where the portcullis once hung, and the warden kept strict watch, he is forcibly struck by the change wrought in our social condition since the time when baron waged war against baron, or at a later period, when the unnatural strife of the Roses was carried on, or, still more recently, when the fair plains of England were converted into battle-fields in the great Rebellion. "What share of picturesque treading the rich greensward which conducts him to the west front of the abbey. This, the principal entrance, was usually adorned with sculpture, often with the Virgin and Child, "the glorious company of the Apostles," windows with graceful mouldings, and a very highly ornamented doorway; and, high over all, the gable is enriched by an elaborately sculptured cross. Entering the nave, whose "long drawn aisles" give such imposing effect to the clustered piers, how great is the regret that such noble workmanship, the produce of an age which has been reviled as dark and ignorant by one inferior to it in real and solid architectural magnificence-should have been desecrated and despoiled, and allowed to decay. The grass now occupies the place of the variegated pavement; the ivy hangs in the window once filled with storied pictures and sacred emblems; the rain and the hail, and the rough winter's wind, beat in where the fretted roof was so skilfully hung; rude feet trample on the tombs of the abbot and the baron-their armorial bearings defaced, their simple inscriptions obliterated. The abbot's house, where royal and noble guests were entertained on their journeyings, in some cases is converted into a residence for the hind or the steward; the refectory and the dormitory are the resort of bats and owls and unclean birds; the mortuary chapels are thickly overgrown with the nettle and the thistle; the chapter-house, where the cowled monks assembled for grave capitular deliberation, and for the government of their abbey, is perhaps now used as a mere shed for the cattle who graze on the abbey-lands; and the cloisters, where formerly they walked, are strewed with rubbish and loose stones-a miserable spectacle, when contrasted with the judgment we may form of what they have been, by the cunning workmanship displayed in the groined roof, the airy and graceful column, and the elegant window, so rich in beautiful tracery, which yet remain to mock their present desolation and decay. S. J. Rev. W. Gilpin. BY THE LATE ROBERT SOUTHEY, LL.D. POET LAUREATE. He drank of the water so cool and clear, For thirsty and hot was he; And he sat down upon the bank, Under the willow-tree. There came a man from the neighbouring town, At the well to fill his pail ; On the well-side he rested it, And bade the stranger hail. "Now art thou a bachelor, stranger?" quoth he, The happiest draught thou hast drunk this day "Or has thy good woman, if one thou hast, For an if she have, I'll venture my life She has drunk of the well of St. Keyne." "I have left a good woman who never was here," The stranger he made reply; "But that my draught should be better for that, "St. Keyne," quoth the Cornishman, "many a time And before the angel summon'd her, She laid on the water a spell. "If the husband of this gifted well Shall drink before his wife, A happy man henceforth is he, For he shall be master for life. "But if the wife should drink it first, God help the husband then!" The stranger stoop'd to the well of St. Keyne, And drank of the water again. "You drank of the well, I warrant, betimes!" He to the Cornishman said: nub But the Cornishman smiled as the stranger spake, And sheepishly shook his head: "I hasten'd as soon as the wedding was done, 64 And I left my wife in the porch; But, i' faith, she had been wiser than me, For she took a bottle to church." THE LAST SUPPER OF LEONARDO DA VINCI. | And how shall I paint you, ye glorious Apostles? Alas, (Concluded from page 12.) THIS web of malice was, as yet, concealed from the eyes of Leonardo, but the anxious throbbing of his heart told him there was evil influence at work. It was also inexplicable to him, that the Duke had not insisted upon his painting another portrait, so as thus to bring matters to extremities at once. "But," thought he, "that may still be in reserve." Whether this really were so, and whether Leonardo ever did finish a portrait of the Duke, it is now impossible to obtain any certainty. In the collection of heads by Leonardo da Vinci, published by Count Caylus, there is none that could be taken for the Duke; and the picture preserved in the Dresden Gallery, by this master, of an old man, wearing a fur habit and a hat decorated with a medal, in one hand holding a glove, and a sword in the other, can scarcely be Ludovico Moro, though not improbably another member of the princely house of Sforza. me.' Be this as it may, it is enough that the picture of which we have spoken was, and remained, annihilated. And Leonardo, escaped from the suffocating heat of the ducal palace, with the cool refreshing evening air felt his courage revive, while he resolved by the most perse-loved, and who had been reclining upon his breast, vering diligence to prove his gratitude, and atone for his former wilfulness. "Yes," he exclaimed, his eyes sparkling with a holy enthusiasm, "I will paint the twelve and their Lord, as he sat with them at meat on the night in which he was betrayed! My God! on this very night." It was, indeed, on Maunday-Thursday that these events had occurred to Leonardo, and he now wandered in solitary musings through the lovely gardens which encir folded hands testified his reverent belief in the words of never! My mind is obscured with a dreary mist, though my heart burns with devotion and desire. I am oppressed by the sense of my weakness: do thou, Source of all power, vouchsafe to me thy aid!" With a beating and anxious heart he opened the door of the refectory; but terror and amazement forced him back over the threshold. An irresistible impulse again impelled him forwards, for a scene, glorious as that of the opened heavens, was before him. Sitting at the long table in the hall, with their Lord in the midst, he beheld the twelve Apostles. The head of the blessed Jesus was surrounded by the last purple glow of the western sky, which, gleaming through the central window towards which his back was turned, thus formed a natural halo. His eyes were fixed upon the table with an expression of deep sadness, for he had just uttered the words, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray countenance, down which the parted hair descended in No anger, no reproach was visible in that heavenly golden locks upon his shoulders, and his left hand spake silently,—“ Yes, my beloved! such is the will of my heavenly Father, and I murmur not." But John, the maidenly beautiful John, the disciple whom Jesus overcome with sorrow at this sad prophecy, was sunk back with closed eyes, as though groaning out in the deepest anguish,-"No, it is impossible!" though the his divine Master, and meek resignation to his will. At his side bent Peter towards him with a look of noble, almost contemptuous confidence, as though he said,"Be comforted, thou trembler! What can traitors avail against him, be they who they may." Behind him started up the grave Alphæus, with terrified looks, from among the crowd of the disciples. To the left of Jesus sat Simon the Canaanite, the sinless shepherd, who had forsaken his lambs to follow the great Shepherd of souls. Like Him, he wore his hair parted, and flowing smoothly over his shoulders, and his face and outstretched hands, turned towards the Lord, expressed his unwillingness to his brother John the relative and confidant of his believe the hard sentence. The noble, fiery James, like blessed Master, had risen from his seat, and turned to the inquiring Andrew, and to the pious, silver-haired And, verily, he trembled afresh. The more he enBartholomew, with both hands pointing to the other deavoured to arrange the plan of the picture, the more end of the table, as if he said, "Do you hear, my did his courage sink. Everywhere he found insur-But there, at that other end of the table, sat Judas brethren, this hard unintelligible saying of the Lord?" mountable difficulties. His mind at length became so completely confused, that he could no longer form any settled idea of his subject; everything swam in gloomy chaotic mist before his soul, and the sun was just setting as he returned, in an agony of despair, through the gates of the city. Unmindful of his steps, he found himself before the Dominican Convent. He heard the organ pealing through the lofty majestic church, and the voices of the monks mingling with its harmony. The solemn strains fell upon his troubled spirit like hymns of eternal rest from a better world, and subdued his mind to a temper of humble resignation. cled Milan. Spring had already spread her charm over the landscape; the tender buds had expanded into bright green leaves, the violets shed their perfume upon the fresh verdant turf, and the declining sun gilded the summits of the fragrant groves, as they waved to and fro in the gentle breath of evening. "And I am to paint the celebration of thy remembrance, O Lord, on the evening of thy last supper!" exclaimed the rapt enthusiast. "How will that be possible to my weak pencil? How dare I-the trembler, the desponder-attempt so sublime a work?" They are there now, thought he; no one will observe me, if I examine the spot where my work is to be carried on. He entered the cloisters, and with hushed and timid footsteps passed through the solitary arched corridor which led to the refectory. Day had already faded into twilight; only in the western horizon lingered the last rosy tints of evening. The tones of the organ reverberated faintly through the walls, accompanying that noble hymn, subsequently immortalized by Palestrino's genius, "Fratres ego enim accepi." "Those are the blessed words of Institution !" murmured the painter, in pious ecstasy. "Oh, thou that takest away the sins of the world! how can my weak hand paint thee in the moment of thy greatest glory upon earth-in that last night of surpassing agony! holding the purse in his right hand with which he had Iscariot, leaning backwards to the pensive John, and just overturned the goblet. The question, "Lord, is it I," was not yet to be read in the countenance of any of them, for they were still in the first burst of amazement, into which those sad prophetic words had thrown them, still unable to believe fully their dreadful import; damning secret, and who, in the dread of detection, had all except Judas, in whose every feature lurked the with the bent finger raised, as if asking, how such just overturned the cup. Thomas stood behind Simon, while the quiet, child-like Lebbeus, brother of James malice could be conceived, and showing its impossibility; Alphæus, with the folded hands upon his breast, looked the philanthropic Philip, had risen from his seat at the as though he said, "Master, in me is no guile!" Philip, other end of the table, and, leaning forward before the musing Mother, with both hands supported upon the table, gazed upon the scene in dumb and wondering expectation. After this manner Leonardo da Vinci saw the Lord and the twelve Apostles. His senses forsook him; he sank upon the pavement; and, when the monks returned from the chapel, they found him senseless upon the threshold of the refectory. "Oh, why did they waken me with their essences?" he exclaimed upon the following day, as he paced restlessly to and fro in his chamber: "it was well with |