Science, Art And The Drama.

Science , Art and the Drama .

INSECTS VALUABLE IN MEDICINE AND THE ARTS . A century ago the large number of universal and infallible panaceas for any conceivable malady under the sun would have made an ample historythe wood louse as a solvent and aperient , powder of silk worm for vertigo and convulsions , millipedes against the jaundice , earwigs to strengthen the nerves , powdered scorpion for the stone and gravel , fly-water for disorders in the eyes , the tick for erysipelas . We should have prescribed five gnats

as an excellent purge , wasps as diuretics , lady-birds for the colic and measles , the cockchafer for the bite of a mad dog and the plague ; and ants and their acid would have been loudly praised as incomparable against leprosy and deafness , as strengthening the memory , and giving vigour and animation to the whole bodily frame . In short , we could have easily added to the miserably meagre list of modern medicines a catalogue of approved

insect remedies for every disease and evil that " flesh is heir to ! ' But these days are long gone by . You would , doubtless , laugh at some ot the old prescriptions , notwithstanding the great authorities which could be cited in their favour . We must be content , therefore , with expatiating on the virtues of the very few insects to which the sons of Hippocrates and Galen now deign to have recourse . At the same time we cannot help observing that

their proscription of the remainder may have been too- indiscriminate . Mankind are apt to run from one extreme to the other . From having ascribed too much efficacy to insect remedies we may now ascribe too little . Many insects emit very powerful odours , and some produce extraordinary effects upon the human frame , and it is an idea not altogether to be rejected that they may concentrate into a smaller compass the properties

and virtues of the plants upon which they feed , and thus afford medicines more powerful in operation than the plants themselves . It would be , at least , worth while to institute a set of experiments with this view . Medicine at the present day is indebted to an ant for a kind of lint collected by that insect from the Bombon , or silk-cotton , tree , which as a styptic is preferable to the puff-ball , and at Cayenne is successfully used to stop the

blood in the most violent haemorrhages , and gum ammoniac , according to Mr . Jackson , oozes out of a plant like fennel from incisions made in the bark by a beetle with a large horn . But with these exceptions ( in which the remedy is rather collected than produced by insects ) , and that of spiders ' webs , which are said to have been recently administered with success in ague , the only insects which supply us with medicine are some species of

Cmithtiris and Mylabris . These beetles , however , amply make up in efficacy for their numerical insignificance , and almost any article could be better spared from the Materica Medica than one of the former , usually known under the name of Cantharides , which is not only of incalculable importance as a vesicatory , but is now administered internally in many cases with very good effect . In Europe the insect chiefly used with this

view is the Cantharis vesicatoria , but in America the C . cinerea and ¦ vittata ( which are extremely common and noxious insects , while the C . vesicatoria is sold there at iC dollars the pound ) have been substituted with great success , and are said to vesicate more speedily and with less pain , at the same time that they cause no strangury ; and in China they have long employed the Mylabris cuhorci , which seems

to have been considered the most powerful vesicatory amongst the ancients . The active blistering principle in all these insects , has been detected by M . Robiquet , and named by him Cauthanuiine , which has been ascertained to be found amongst coleopterous insects of the family of Cantlinridic only , though not in all the species of this family , nor even in all the species of the same genus . But it is as supplying products

valuable in the arts and manufactures that we are chiefly indebted to insects . In adverting to them in this view we shall not dwell upon the articles derived from a few species in particular districts , and confined to those alone , such as the soap which in some parts of Africa is manufactured from a beetle ; the oil which , Molina tells us , is obtained in Chili from large globular cellules found upon the wild rosemary , and supposed to be

produced by a kind of gall-fly ; and the manure for which , Scopoli informs us , the hosts of -Ephemera : that annually emerge in thc month of June from the Laz , a river in Carniola , are employed by the husbandmen , who think they have had a bad harvest unless every one has collected at least 20 loads . We may mention , however , the purpose to which in the West Indies and South America the fire-llies are put by the natives , who employ them as

lanterns in their journeys and lamps in their houses ; to their use as ornaments to which some insects are ingeniously applied by the ladies , who , in China , embroider their dresses with the elytra and crust of a brilliant species of beetle , in Chili and the Brazils form splendid necklaces of the brilliant diamond beetles ; and , in India , even have recourse to fire-flies , which they enclose in gauze , and use as ornaments for their hair when they

take their evening walks . Capt . Green was accustomed to put a fire-lly under the glass of his watch when he h ad occasion to rise very early for a march , which enabled him , without difficulty , to distinguish the hour . These and many other facts of a like kind , would be interesting to dwell upon . But we will confine our details to the more important and general products which they supply to the arts , beginning with one indispensable to our resent

I correspondence , and adverting in succtssion to the insects affording " yes , lac , -. vox , honey , and silk . No present that insects have made to the aits is equal in utility and universal interest , comes more home to our best affections , or is the instrument of produ : ing more valuable fruits of human wisdom and genius , than the product of the animal to which we allude

. You will readily conjecture we mean the fly that gives birth to the gall-nut , from which ink is made . How infinitely are we indebted to this little creature , which at once enables us to converse with our absent friends , be their distance from us ever so great , and enable the poet , the philosopher , the politician , the moralist , and thc divine , to embody their thoughts for the instruction , direction , and profit of mankind .

GENERAL REMARKS ON ART DURING THE REIGN OF JAMES I .

The architect of the square of the public schools , at Oxford , proved that ne knew the discriminations of the orders , but not the application of them . U is at least possible that he was apprised of a prior instance , adopted by ¦? h M ? atu < : ( ' 36 o ) , in the Campanile of Santa Chiara , at Naples , witn the intention of exhibiting the five orders in as many divisions of the tower , three only of which were completed . The portico of the Chateau ort . net , near Paris , designed by Philibert de Lorme , may have more

Science, Art And The Drama.

probably supplied the idea . At Beauprd-castle ( Glamorganshire ) is a chapel with a front and porch of the Doric order , dated 1600 . It consists of three orders , Doric , Ionic , and Corinthian . The capitals and cornices are accurately designed and finished . The fashion of building enormous houses was still more prevalent during the reigns of James I . and his successor before the Civil Wars , even than it had been during that of Queen

Elizabeth . Audley Inn , in 1616 , by Lord Treasurer Suffolk , Hatfield , by Lord Salisbury , in 1611 , and Charlton House , in Wiltshire , by Sir Henry Knevet , and those in which the best architecture of that era may be seen . Others of the nobility ., deserting their baronial residences , indulged themselves in a rivalship in point of extent and grandeur of their country houses , which was , of couse , followed by opulent merchants , the founders of new

families . Sir Baptist Hicks , the Mercer to the Court , built Campden House , Kensington , and another zt Campden , in Gloucestershire , scarcely inferior to Hatfield , which was burned down during the Civil Wars . It consisted of four fronts , the principal towards the garden , upon the grand terrace ; at each angle was a lateral projection of some feet , with spacious bay windows , in the centre a portico with a series of columns of the five

orders ( as in the schools at Oxford ) and an open corridor . The parapet was finished with pediments of a capricious taste , and the chimneys were twisted pillars with Corinthian capitals . A very capacious dome issued from the roof , which was regularly illuminated for the direction of travellers during the night . This immense building was ] enriched with friezes and entablatures , most profusely sculptured ; it is reported to have been erected

at the expense of ^ aooso , and to have occupied with its offices a site of eight acres . The late Earl of Gainsborough had the plan and elevation . Th : re is scarcely a county in England which cannot boast similar edifices ; a very few of them are still inhabitated , others to be distinguished only by their " ruins , and remembered only by the oldest villagers , who can confirm tradition .

VERONA . There is probably no more interesting city in all Italy than Verona where Shakespeare ' s " Two Gentlemen" took their walks abroad , and " Romeo and Juliet " lived , loved , and died . Whether the tomb they show you is Juliet ' s or not , the town is that of the Capulets and the Montagues , and the air pulsates with romantic possibilities . Though its real history is full of dramatic and pathetic incidents , and dates from the classic days of

ancient Greece and Rome , and the Adige that flows through its historic waj ' s has been reddened with the fury of battle in the Napoleonic epoch of tyranny and murder , it is " Romeo and Juliet" and the Capulets and Montagues of the Shakespeare romance that stir your imagination at . Verona . The city is situated on a rapid river ; it is within ths mighty shadow of the Alps ; it has a Roman amphitheatre more complete and

beautiful than the Coliseum at Rome ; it is a city of palaces and balconies ( of the latter , " Murray " says , there are more than in any other city in Italy ) , of frescoed houses , and narrow picturesque streets . Standing in the Piazzo del Signori , you feel that not only is the stor / ot Romeo and Juliet possible , but true . At night , mesting there two or three groups ol noisy young citizens coming home from some local festival , yon may feel assured

that , as in the play , they " will bite their thumbs" at each other . English travellers are shown Juliet ' s apocryphal tomb . You approach it through an old-fashioned garden , which borders a rustic bowling alley . English travellers bound to Milan on the one hand , or to Venice on the other , rarely make Verona more than a resting place for the night ; but it is well worth the sojourn of a week .

GENERAL NOTES . A series of " Coronation Concerts , " it is stated , will be given at the Royal Albert Hall next year . The Kendals' season at the St . James ' s Theatre , opens on the 16 th inst ., with " The Elder Miss Blossom . "

Miss Ethel Matthews has been engaged to play the part of Mrs . Frank Perry in " Are you a Mason , " which will be produced by Messrs . Edwardes , . Frohmann , and Musgrove , at thf ! Shaftesbury Theitre on the i 2 t-i n ;' .

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