Give Luke and Sam my garden tools, Now gather round me all of ye, Shall have the breath to speak : The darkness settles on my sight, I cannot see ye clear, But I can feel your loving hands; God bless ye, children dear! Ye'll lay me in the churchyard nigh, And better off than here; JULIA HAUGHTON, STANDING ON TIPTOE. ONE of the greatest faults and weaknesses of all classes who are a few steps above the lowest members of society, is a constant determination to stand on tiptoe. The wallowing character of the lower orders is bad enough-that wretched standard of living which produces Bethnal Green scandals and discussions about labourers' cottages; but the paltry | ambition which is always striving to appear something which it is not, is infinitely worse. All the stretching of the neck, and the standing on tiptoe, by which each man is struggling to look as if he topped his equals and was level with his superiors, never probably gave birth to one of those examples of genuine rising in the world which are now held up as models for the young to copy. All that such a diseased wish to seem higher without the trouble of mounting has ever produced for society, has been a plentiful crop of meanness and falsehood. It has led to endless debt and embarrassment, and endless mortification and shame. In some of its aspects it may be simply ridiculous, but in most of them it is sad and degrading. It breeds a race of impostors who, in their turn, breed another race of impostors. It encourages the manufacture of make-believe articles which are the household gods of such impostors. It is the patron of lath, plaster, electroplate, and veneer; of everything which hides its hollowness under a brilliant exterior. It demands false pearls-false diamonds-false pictures-false bronzes-and, of course, they are supplied. It employs workmen only to demoralise them. It pays for showy "accomplishments" in preference to solid attainments, and causes the pupil to despise his master-the master to despise his pupil. As this determination to stand on tiptoe is shown in nearly every requirement of life, it naturally has its influence on the adornment of the person. The stander-on-tiptoe, when he starts to choose his tailor, has two courses before him. Either he can go to the head-quarters of that fashion which he is so desirous of imitating, and deck himself out on the long-credit system, or he can seek one of those numerous establishments where slop copies of the highest style are supplied at the lowest ready money cost. The latter course, if adopted, will at least prove that the stander-on-tiptoe means to pay his way, and if he were honestly searching for true cheapness, his conduct would be blameless. It is not easy to exaggerate the importance of really cheap dress, in its influence on the social and political welfare of the human race. When clothing was fantastic and dear, the distinctions between class and class were too broadly marked, servility was fostered, and liberty was checked. The abolition of hair-powder and silk stockings was worth a dozen reform bills, and the advent of the cheap tailor was the dawning of something like democratic equality. The sixteen-shilling trouser was the true leveller of society, the destroyer of the pretensions of mere wealth, the nourisher of true claims to distinction. It finished the work which had been successfully begun years before; it deprived the moneyed lounger of one coarse mark of his grandeur; it drew Whitechapel and Piccadilly more closely together than they had ever been drawn before; it realised some of the points of the much dreaded charter, and it effectually dispelled the last lingering belief in the existence of persons of quality. Wholesome emancipation, however, from the tyranny of broad-cloth and old prices is one thing, but a slavish worship of that cheapness which is the result of false appearances, is another. Cheap clothing ceases to be desirable when it ceases to be honest, and those who are led away by the temptation of moderate prices to patronise the many "shams" invented by tailors and hosiers, are not advancing, but going backwards. If the signs of the shop-windows are to be taken as signs of the times, we grieve to say that there is too much evidence of a bare-faced degeneracy in clothing. The paper-collar is not only rampant, but a variety of contrivances-all bearing a close affinity to that abomination of our younger days, the scouted and satirised "dickey"- -are now exhibited with the most shameless effrontery and shirt-frontery. That retiring modesty which a bygone generation of shop-keepers displayed in these matters, has not descended to their successors. No attempt is made to conceal the nature of these shams-they are not shown, like contraband cigars or fireworks, in a dark closet or back-parlour, but are ostentatiously thrust under our noses in the most populous thoroughfares. They are not even apologised for as makeshifts. The searching eye of the satirist or the caricaturist appears not to be dreaded, and the idea is suggested that these guardians of society have been bribed to remain silent. Anyway, contrivances are now quietly accepted which thirty or forty years ago would have been scouted with disdain-their object being the adornment of that modern production, the cheap "swell." There was a time, almost within the memory of young men, when a costume that would pass muster on the suuny side of Regent Street could not be had for anything less than a five-pound note. At that period the cheap swell was compelled to patronise the second-hand clothing shop, and to adoru himself in those cast-off raiments of gentility which are now exported to the colonies. He went to Monmouth Street for his boots, and to Holywell Street for his garments; but his linen, what little he had, was really linen-not some coarse textile fabric with a paper-back, or paper without an atom of textile surface. In those days he could hardly avoid having one confidante who knew the weak point in his armourwho regarded him with the same feeling with which valets are supposed to regard their hero-masters. This was his laundress. Now, however, he has no such confidante, and is the sole depository of his own secret. He buys his paper-collar and his paper adjuncts for a trifle, wears them for three days or a week, according to his taste and means, and then destroys them without any prying witnesses. The much abused "dickey" of the past was only an imposition in size-its material was as honest as the shirt it represented. The tolerated "dickey" of the present is an imposition both in size and material. It professes to be linen, but is only a sheet of note-paper; it professes to be a full-sized shirt, and is not as large as a trowel. The old "dickey" could boast of a certain amplitude which entitled it to respect; the new "dickey,” placed on a table, would hardly cover a cheese-plate. With out a half-clerical waistcoat, buttoning nearly to the throat, the pretensions of the latter would be exposed in an instant. The demand for garments which are not what they seem has hitherto been confined to underclothing, but now it has gained courage, and has reached the surface. A waistcoat has been invented to meet this demand, which is all front and no back, and which costs little more than one half of the real substantial article. Its popularity has doubtless been very large during the summer, and this will encourage the inventors to show their ingenuity still further. It is not for us to suggest how the coat and trousers may be operated upon so as to produce the greatest amount of effect with the greatest amount of deception. Both have had their material adulterated as much as possible with "shoddy" and cotton, and it now only remains for skilful operators to tamper with their forms. The cheap "swell" can now be fitted out gorgeously— including jewellery-for two pounds, sterling; in another twelvemonth he may be equally well arrayed for half the money. We are no foes to that cheapness which is the result of improved manufacture-a really healthy feature of the bour but to that cheapness which only represents the worth of a make-believe production. The stander-on-tiptoe in dress and living has a baneful influence on nearly everything around him. His house or "villa"-as he calls it generally reflects his character, and puts on a deceptive front, and its neighbourhood soon becomes corrupted by the aspect of such houses. A faded collection of dwellings that have "seen better days" is usually selected as a picture of wretchedness, but this wretchedness is far exceeded by a locality standing on tiptoe. A pretentious suburb that has not the courage to appear in its true colours-and London is surrounded by many such suburbs-is surely a more pitiable spectacle to look upon. There is no need to weaken this fact with a host of flippant "illustrations." It excites the contempt of all lookers-on, not for what it really is, but for what it affects to be. Those who live in it, and have helped to make it what it is, must despise their own work, as they must despise themselves, when they reflect on the nature of their masks, and their wretched ambition. The stander-on-tiptoethe wearer of false fronts can hardly preserve his self-respect, even when he succeeds, as he often does, in avoiding detection. T. HERBERT JONES. TIN MINING IN CORNWALL, AND ITS TRADITIONS. ERUDITE men have of late been eagerly discussing | shell mounds. In these he finds evidences of a the question of the antiquity of the human race, and arguing from the discovery of cut flints in gravel beds and limestone caverns, in which also the bones of extinct mammalia have been preserved, that man must have been co-existent with those animals. While the geologist has been examining the drift deposits and the limestone caves, the archaeologist has discovered the "crannoges," or lake-dwellings, d cautiously searched the "kitchen-middens," or remote antiquity, and he thinks they are the relics of the races of men, who lived in those pre-historic times, to which the flint arrow-heads and the stone hammers especially belong-the men, indeed, who divided the laud with the last of the mammoths, and hunted the extinct elk of the Irish bogs. This discussion has so much of novelty, the question is surrounded with discoveries of such high interest, and is withal of so exciting a character, that it has been all-absorbing to those who have been involved in it. So completely has this been the case that much collateral evidence, which appears to throw some light on the chronology of the human race, has been neglected. Our studies of the progress of human industry show us, that the rate at which man advances to the discovery of those arts which tend to ameliorate his condition is very slow. The senses→→→ the gates through which man receives knowledgeopen sluggishly. The breaking in of light on the dark mind of untrained man is a very tedious process. The quickening of the mind-the germination of the first seeds of thought under the excitation of the admitted light-is a vastly prolonged series of alternations between the sleeping and awakening of slothful ignorance. We are told of a Stone Age, during which man made his implements and his weapons from flints and the fragments of the harder rocks. Then a Bronze Age is supposed to follow, when a mixed metal takes the place of stone. After this the Iron Age assumes its superiority, and to this metal, for nearly all purposes, bronze gives way. Those three ages are supposed to mark in a very decided manner the advance of that knowledge which is gained by experience. The examination of the evidences of man's antiquity, as shown by the length of time demanded for him to advance from that rude skill which could chip a flint, or even carve a deer's horn, to the preparation of a metallic alloy, has been neglected. It must be admitted, that the study of the development of constructive power of that human faculty which may be called creative skill is complicated by our own want of knowledge of the circumstances by which any selected race of men may have been surrounded. If the Stone Age marks the condition of any people at one period of their existence, and the Bronze Age indicates the improved state of the race, how long a period of time must have been expended in advancing from the use of a stone celt to the employment of a bronze sword? This question has arisen in my mind in all its force, and it has disclosed all its perplexity, whilst I have been studying the early history of one of the metals which enters into the composition of the most ancient of the alloys. I have no thought of attempting to answer the question proposed, or of venturing upon any hypothesis which may have the appearance of an endeavour to do so. But I purpose showing that the age of stone and the age of bronze, with the same people, must have been separated by a vast period of time, and that the division into those epochs as at present determined-is unsatisfactory. This leads me to consider, in the first place, the story of the earliest metallurgies, and, in the second place, to adduce the evidences which appear to give an exceedingly high antiquity to mining operations in Britain. The poets Hesiod and Homer speak of a period when men used bronze for making their implements and instruments, and they lead us to believe that iron was nearly unknown. The statement of the poets must not be accepted, to the rejection of such evidence as renders it probable that the men, whose deeds they sung, knew more of metallurgy than is implied in this assertion. That the metal, iron, was well known and valued, is proved by Hesiod's own statement, that a mass of it was given as a prize in one of the games. We also possess the evidence, that the Assyrians were acquainted with its properties. In the Museum of Practical Geology is a bronze casting upon an iron core, evidently for the purpose of giving strength to a light and elegant stand, which was brought from one of the Assyrian palaces by Mr. Layard. That copper was a metal of considerable value, and therefore scarce, even so late as the time of Artaxerxes, is proved by the fact, that amongst the presents given to the builders of the Temple at Jerusalem, by the hands of Ezra, with the commands of that monarch, were "two vessels of fine copper, precious as gold." (Ezra viii. 27.) It cannot be denied, that bronze was extensively used in the ancient Oriental monarchies. Numerous articles some for use and some for ornament— have been recovered from their tombs, their temples, and their palaces. Therefore we must infer that, according to the knowledge possessed by the peoples who employed this metallic alloy, there were advantages in it which were not possessed by other then known metals. Still, that a compound metal-a mixture of copper and tin-should have been used by the early inhabitants of Asia and Europe, in preference to a simple metal, is remarkable. In the history of discoveries, as usually written, it is the practice to refer them--especially in the early days of mankind-to accident. Consequently we are told of men lighting fires upon copper-rocks, and thus causing that metal to run a fluid stream upon the ground. The peninsula of Sinai was the "copper land" of the Egyptians. Humboldt says* the copper mines of Wadi Magara, in Arabia Petrea, were worked as early as the time of the 4th dynasty, under Cheops-Chufu, B.C. 3400. Now the entire range of the Sinaian mountains-the whole of the formations of Arabia Petrea in which copper has been found-are of the most ferruginous character, and the discovery of iron was far more probable than the discovery of copper. I am not, however, a believer in accidental discoveries in science or in the arts; but, even admitting that the smelting of copper ores thus dawned upon the mind of some primitive man, it cannot be allowed that he arrived at a knowledge of the process by which bronze is formed except through mental labour, involving much, and careful, observation. That metallurgy had arrived at a certain stage of perfection in the earliest historic times, is proved by the descriptions given by Job and Jeremiah of the separation of silver from lead, "Cosmos," vol. ii. p. 122. and by the incidental notes scattered through the works of the sacred and profane historians. That the earliest metallurgists, in all countries, were regarded as the greatest amongst men is asserted in the prominence given to Tubal-Cain, "an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron," by the Hebrews,-to Hephaistos, by the Greeks,-to Melkarth, by the Phoenicians,-to Vulcan, by the Romans, and to Vælund, by the Teutons, who, curiously enough, becomes the Wayland Smith of our own mythology. Whether we examine the bronzes found in Assyria or Egypt, or those discovered in the tumuli of Denmark and Britain, they have the same composition-89 parts of copper with 11 of tin. All metallurgists agree in declaring this to be the best proportions in which these metals can be combined to ensure strength, toughness, hardness. Admitting that the copper used in the ancient bronzes was found in Arabia, in Cyprus, or in any of the places in Asia or Eastern Europe which are said to have produced the ores of that metal, from whence came the tin which was combined with it? There are but three places in the world from which tin could have been obtained by the ancients. These were the Eastern Archipelago, including the Malayan peninsula, Spain, and the British isles. It will be evident upon reflection, that several conditions, each one of them requiring for their completion the exercise of the powers of educated minds, must have coalesced, to have insured the production of bronze. Maritime adventure, mineralogical exploration, metallurgical experience, and some kind of experimental chemistry, must have combined to produce that result-a bronze, which men have been using for certainly 4000 years, (and we know not how much longer,) without any improvement. Mr. Cooley thinks tin might have been obtained from India; but he admits that "it was unques. tionably brought from the West at a later period." Mr. John Kenrick,+ Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Dr. George Smith,§ and other writers, who have carefully examined the subject, arrive at the conclusion that the Isles of Britain supplied the ancient world with tin. The mines of Spain have never been sufficiently productive, and the navigation of the Indian seas must have been attended with too many difficulties in this the infancy of navigation. Accepting this-referring my readers to the authors quoted-and also adopting the view that the Phonicians were the merchant-traders of the ancient world, we have only to deal with the question of the date at which tin was mined for, or washed from the deposits in the valleys of Cornwall and Western Devon. We have no trustworthy history of the Britons before Julius Cæsar. The conqueror was the first "History of Maritime and Inland Discovery." +"Phoenicia." "An Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients." "The Cassiterides: an Inquiry into the Commercial Operations of the Phoenicians in Western Europe," &c. historian who wrote, from his own knowledge, of the inhabitants of Britain. Herodotus, Diodorus, and Strabo, tell of the commerce of the Phoenicians with our ancestors, and give short but imperfect accounts of certain islands known as the Cassiterides, from which tin was obtained. It is evident from the vague language of these authors, that their knowledge was exceedingly inaccurate. In all probability it was derived from the tales of the Phoenician sailors, who were instructed to obscure the truth, that their masters, the merchants of Tyre, might maintain the monopoly of tin and amber. Herodotus simply doubts the reports of the existence of the Cassiterides. Diodorus is more explicit. He tells of a people who inhabited the promotory of Britain, known as Belerium (the Land's End) who were civilised by their intercourse with foreign merchants. This people skilfully worked the ground which produced the tin, and they melted it into cakes which they sold to those merchants. Either the adventurous traders were exceedingly cautious, or the Britons were timid and suspicious. Diodorus says, "The tin was carried to certain islands which are off the coast, and called Ictin, to prevent the strangers from knowing anything of the country which produced the metal they bought. There is a marked peculiarity about those trading-ports. They are islands at full tide only. At the ebb the intervening space is dry, and the tin in large quantities is carried over in carts." Strabo describes the tin islands from the accounts given by authors who lived before his time. He usually follows Possidonius, and he describes the inhabitants of the Cassiterides, as men clad in dark garments resembling the Faries in a tragedy. He also narrates the story of the Phoenician shipmaster, who ran his vessel on the rocks, to prevent the men of some other country who were watching him, from discovering the secret of his trade. Arienus relies mainly on the voyage of Himilco, and speaks of our islands as the Estrymnides, scattered, with wide intervals, and rich in metal of tin and lead. Such is the condition of the question: though, it is but right to add, that a Quarterly Reviewer writes"The cherished tradition that the Phoenicians traded direct to Cornwall in ships, is one which, in our judgment, will not endure searching criticism." And the president of one of our Archæological Societies said, "the popular tradition of Phoenician intercourse with Britain must be abandoned." Tradition, however, often affords to the student the evidence which he requires to settle some obscure or obsolete point in history. The authors on whom all modern writers have relied, have given such information as they found within their reach. We know that the information was meagre-that the truth was probably purposely disguised, and we feel that all the narratives are unsatisfactory. Having been for many years a diligent collector of legends and superstitions, and a student of those sermons in stones" which are found in the Celtic remains of Cornwall, I have been led to the conclu 66 sion that there yet exists, what I may venture to call, popular evidences of the truth of the commerce of the Phoenicians with the ancient inhabitants of Cornwall. It is my purpose briefly to state those evidences, believing that they will cast some light on the obscurity of history, and feeling certain, that by calling attention to them, an important field of inquiry must be opened out. Mr. Kenrick, in discussing the question of the origin of the remarkable Phoenician people, alludes to the "gigantic race of Rephaim, of whom Og, the king of Basan, was a descendant." "The land of the Rephaim," "the valley of the Rephaim," (Joshua) and “the children of Anak" (Numbers Deuteronomy, &c.), are placed in the south of Palestine-that is, in Phoenicia. Our author afterwards writes, "As the Phoenicians made no settlements in Britain, and merely anchored their vessels first at the Scilly Islands, and afterwards at Mount's Bay, returning at the close of summer to the South of Spain, it is not wonderful that no inscriptions or monuments of any kind attest their presence or their influence in our island." Surely the truly Oriental giants of Cornwall-over whom Gogmagog reigned, before he was destroyed by Corineus on Plymouth Hoe-and those stalwart chieftains of Barack-Anak, who are said to have possessed all Damnonium-the country to the west of Exetermay be referred to the Rephaim, or to the children of Anak of sacred story. The oldest tradition of tin is found in a giant story. Between Penzance and St. Ives this giant dwelt and he rendered himself obnoxious by endosing all the waste lands around his castle. Another giant, a sort of never-do-good, resolved to dispute the right of "Wastrel," (common) with him, and a fight which ensued terminated in the death of the first giant; the second one taking possession of his castle. He, generally called Tom, becomes in his turn equally rapacious and exclusive. Eventually, however, one Jack the Tinker breaks down Tom's gates, and by force of mind subdues to his power the embodiment of brute matter-Tom. They become friends, and play coits together. (Giants were especially fond of this game, and the "Giant's Coits" are scattered over Western Cornwall.) One day, when playing coits in the castle yard, Tom's coit cut up the grass from the slope of the castle wall. This disclosed to Jack's experienced eye, great stores of tin-stone, which had been thus hoarded by Tom's predecessor. Jack taught Tom to dress the tin (he had himself learnt the process from a giant on Dartmoor), prepare it for market, and then helped him to carry large quantities of it to a brewer in Market-Jew, who sold this metal to the Saracens. This story, in its entirety, bears a close resemblance to that of Tom Hickathrift. Mr. Thomas Wright supposes that tale to refer to insurrections in the Isle of Ely, headed by Hereward the Saxon. It is not a little curious to find that Hereward when defeated in the Eastern Counties, fled into Cornwall, and married the king's daughter.* Hence, perhaps, the similitude of the stories. Doubtless these traditions have a common, and a much earlier origin. Jack the Tinker, being clearly a translation of that Vælund the smith, of Scandinavia, who appears in our popular mythology as Wayland Smith, and who corresponds to Tubal-Cain, Melkarth, and the like. "Melkarth was the especial and tutelary god of Tyre." (Kenrick). His legends instruct us, that he was the type upon which the mythic Hercules was subsequently formed, and both of these gods, were celebrated for their twelve labours; one of these being the carrying off the golden apples from the gardens of the Hesperides. There may be no real connection between a myth which was remembered but a few years since, and told by the nurses to the children, in the centre of the tin mining district of Gwennap; it is, however, curious to find in one of the most sterile spots devoted to mining, a popular superstition, of enchanted gardens in which grew golden apples. The name of the Tyrian hero was spelt in different ways. Pliny calls him Midacritus, and says he "was the first who brought tin from the island called the Cassiteris."+ The Cornish have ever held some one man in especial honour as the discoverer of tin. In the middle and eastern tin regions of Cornwall, Picrus or Pyecrous is still the patron of Tinners, and Picrus-day is always devoted to feasting and revels. In the western division, it is true, we lose sight of Picrus, and Saint Perran, and his friend Saint Chiwidden, have all the honour. The latter is said to have discovered the tin, but Saint Perran to have taught the Cornish men how to use it, and he therefore is regarded as their patron saint, and Perran feast is a festival to commemorate this benefactor. Legends invariably take colour from the customs of the age and country through which they pass in the process of transmission. In 1835, by the action of winds, long continued in one direction, the sands were shifted from one of the hills of blown-sand in Perranzabulæ, and a small church restored to day. There are good reasons for believing this building to have been a chapel or oratory built by this St. Perran or Piran, who has given his name to the parish in which it stands. Those hills of blown sand extend from St. Ives bay to Padstow on the north coast of Cornwall, in irregular patches. From Crantock to the Gannel there is a triangular mass of these sands. Tradition says these cover a city, called Langona or Langarow, that it was densely peopled and had seven churches. As a punishment for sins committed, the city, and all that it contained, were buried in a single night. The bleached relics of humanity, which are found in abundance in several places, both here and at Perranzabulæ, are adduced in evidence of the truth of this. Beneath these sands are sometimes found heaps of mussel shells and ashes-true kitchen * See the Rev. Charles Kingsley's story of Hereward, in Good Words for 1865. "Natural History," lib. vii. 56. |