The Press. — London, England, 1853-07-16 00:00:00

JULY 16, 1853• THE CRYSTAL PALACE AT SYDENHA3I. (I'rorn a ('orrespondr•nf.l July VI I t seems but yesterday that we looked upon the glittering arch of glass that seemed to rise light and airy as an exhalation above the elm-trees of Hyde Park ; and now, as though it were some gigantic bubble, we tied it wetted miles away to a fair sloping hillside in Surrey. The top most branches of the tall elms it lately imprisoned, see it glistening in all the glory of the morning sun, almost as perfect as when it hived in its pellucid walls a hundred thousand people. The central transept alone requires arch• ing to complete this stupendous removal. From the railway, as the traveller flies past in the express train, all seems fair and finished with the exception of the central gap, which would have been completed ere this but for the unfortunate fall of the scaffolding. In the interior, how• ever, things wear another aspect. Planks and hanging scaflelds seem suspended from every inch of the building, and the view down the vast nave, surmounted by its light arch, is quite extraordinary, the suspended scaffolding round the vast concave looking like the twigs in a jackdaw's nest, while at the extremity the great head of the Genius of Bavaria looks calmly on upon the dusty ways of men. The improvement in the interior of the building by the substitution of the arch (194 feet. from its crown to the ground) for the flat roof in the nave is great and striking. It makes the grand avenue look double the size of the old one, although it is, in fact, 240 ket shorter. Another improvement is the advancing a kw feet into the nave of every third column, which breaks lip the monotonous perspective of the rank of pillars. The full effect of this irregularity will only become apparent when the pillars and ribs of the arches are clothed with creeping plants : the contrasts of light. and shade on the emerald-tinted walls produced by this artifice will have a most charming effect. The courts for the exhibition of sculpture are very fast progressing. The refreshment,room, to be decorated after an apartment at Pompeii, is already beginning to glow under the pencils of careful artists, who work from transcripts freshly taken from the buried city. The Egyptian court is nearly finished and furnished, with its congregation of gods tremendous in their silence. As I walked through yesterday, the most gigantic of these deities, armed with the scourge and the key of life, was having his upper half fitted on to his etenial•looking legs, with a calmness and serenity the more striking on account of the gabble of the Italian artificers who surrounded him. Methought, also, that all the assembled gods, especially those protecting the Temple of Abousimbel, wore upon their countenances an air of ineffable compassion, as they watched the workmen engraving the hieroglyphics on the walla. The Greek court, also, is complete, and full of rare copies of ancient art—some in marble. The gallery just above this court is likewise full of statuary, among which the spectator should notice the figure of Lorenzo de Medicis by Michael Angelo; and many more tine works of Italian contemporaries. The Nineveh court is not vet completed : Mr. Fergusson has here to revive all the glories of colour of the Assyrian chamber. The winged bulls and lions are thrown about the apartment designed for them, in disjointed portions, and here also are to be seen casts of the Assyrian statuary in the possession of the Freud' : these works of art are probably of a later age than those t'ound by Mr. Lewd, and they undoubtedly are of a more refined and artistic character. Not the least interesting portion of the space devoted to sculpture is that ap pro. priated to busts of eminent men, both native and foreign. The directors contemplate, we suppose, a kind of Wal halla, such as that in Bavaria. Huge blocks of boxes, in which arc latent statues, testify to the industry with which Europe has been ransacked, and assure its that we have here the finest. sculpture gallery in the world. With the exception of this small collier of the building, it is entirely empty, the galleries in some places being not yet complete. A fresh feature in the Sydenham building is the open balconies in the recessed ends of the three transepts. A new sensation is a rare thing fur an obtaccustomed sightseer; nevertheless I experienced a perfectly new sen sation as i leant over the balustrades of the Crystal Palace yesterday, and saw the rough sketch of the most magnifi cent garden which possibly the world has ever seen, lying spread out a hundred feet beneath my feet—saw the paint ial richness of terraced walks, gigantic fountains, and gardened hills fade gently off into broad and verdant 101ngland, com passing full thirty miles on every hand. There must he a natural meanness in a man's own sonl not to feel every inch imperial whilst he gazes from a building to which Layard's Nineveh Restored is a toyshop, upon a landscape such us uo palace ever yet possessed. THE PRESS. The laying out of the grounds is in itself a gigiudie work: and the masonry of the terraces, flights of steps, and fountain basins, a very great undertaking. The spec tator can in imagination till up and colour the neigh out line Sir Joseph Paxton has already drawn. Supposing hint to be standing at the open balcony of the centre transept (not yet built), he will see immediately beneath him a terrace, full half a mile in length, supported upon arches, from each recess in which water flows from a dolphin's head. Some two hundred yards down the hill runs a pa rallel terrace ; and between the two an Italian garden, rich in fountains and quaint devices, variegates the ground. A very broad walk leads right through, and at nght angles to these terraces is the central fountain, the middle part of which will throw its flood VA feet in the air. Past this jet &eau the terraced walk falls gently down the hill, and on each side the flood from the fountains is discharged in leaping cascades, until it reaches, far off, the lake, with its central island, inhabited by extinct animals and reptiles of gigantic size. Still hurrying on, the water at last reaches the highest jet &eau, which casts its flood full two hundred feet in the air. Such will be the waterworks of the garden, as far surpassing those of Versailles as they did anything before in existence. What the landscape-gardening will be like can only be rudely guessed at. The very beautiful undulations of the falling ground are, however, capable of anything. Of this map, as yet only in outline, one corner is, however, coloured and finished, and the walks and flowers of this remote portion contrast singularly enough with the parts yet in embryo. If we turn now for a moment towarda the palace itself, we see at once how much the old design is improved opn. The side has now become the front of the building, and the rapid falling of the ground has necessitated the addl• tier of a ground story. Thus it hag gained in eleva tion—the very feature it missed before. The addition of the two transepts at the ends gives force and terminations to the building ; anti the recessed arches allow twenty-four feet of shade, anti therefore of repose, to the vast well of glass—a most happy improvement, which would have been carried out with great advantage at the ends of the nave ; • at the southern termination especially, as, in its present cow dition, it looks too this defect is the more to be deplored, us this portion of the building is the only one to be seen as we ascend th e inn. The vast circular roof to the nave is cer tainly a most noble addition; but, to carry out the idea and make it complete, instead of square towers *a the interseetion% of haves anti transepts, glass domes should have been substituted. Imagine, good reader, a vast dome springing from the centre of such a building and revealing itself every sunset as an aspiring globe of guild placed high upon the horizon, to delight the eye of the far-off Londoner! STRATEGICAL PORTION OF THE DITSHIAN ARMIES.— Baron de Meyendortf has transmitted to the Austrian Cabinet a note, in which he points out the position of the Russian army at the present time. If war were to break out, the importance of this position would appear in a still stronger relief. By the position of the Russian lines between the Vistula and the Nanny, as well as by the line of fortifications, whose extreme points are defended by the fortresses of IVarsaw and Nowogi-cosgiewseka, Russia commands strategically all the country lying between the meridian, and cuts, so to say, Austria and Prussia from each other. It is interesting, moreover, to observe the triple concen tration of troops at St. Petersburg (corps of the guards and grenadiers), at Kowno, and lin the Pritt the armaments and movements of the military cob'. nies of Russia, and its two fleets in the Baltic and the Black Sea. The Baltic fleet consists of three divisions—that of the white flag is moored in the Baltic ; that of the mil in the offing of Cronstatlt; while the blue flag division occupies the docks of Cronstadt itself.—Hamburyer Nachriehten. THE PRUSMAN .MARINE.--WO copy the following from the Berlin Zeit (Timex):—" According to the news received from our naval evolution squadron, it had arrived at Barbadoea on the 19th of \lay, after a protracted voyage, occasioned by contrary winds. It will thence proceed to Venezuela, where its arrival will be greeted with delight by the many Germans established in that city, who have been subjected to some acts of injustice by the llepubli can (;overnment. As l;ennan colonisation is now actively pursued on the coast of Central America, Commodore Schroder will visit those ports, after having been at Carthagena. Prussia thus not only guards the interests of her own subjects, but also those of many flame citizens, ;tc., residing in those parts.' Tables of the cab fiir payable miller the• new net will be 1111 l •diately hooted by the C o n 11 1 l of Polies. These are to be posted at the various standings in the nu•trolsdis, and it will henceforth Is• in the power of every one to ascertain. without the least difficulty, the vsact hue to be paid for any givvu dibtaucv 255 FROM THE LONDON GAZETTE. Tuesday, Jot, 11. BANKRUPTS.—If EN BATES and eIIARLEII lIITCRISAN. of Ailtile•street. City, and of Itrilitol and Itirmitighluo. otraw-plait dealcra—l'As A\ S r RKET. of Poole, eoul-userelosut—rasui.au 11u.t.. 01 12, Otvltant•oitroot. Portioniposquaro.builder—Wit.t.ma ti, Vt rioutliatuiden, builder—l REOERICK FRANI*II4 FOIL of 7:1, Cortilall, WINTER. of It. khurat, Neut. lualder--losurst or 28. seurbru%street, Teuter•ground. toilor--Tuoas% licar and EDWARD lib:MP, of SI IMI binl-upiai•A‘ on and rillertou I ill-Rey, Warvick,lliro, • er*---I)Avio FsituAu BORER. of Itaibtliffo, Yorkmbire, As), peoteher---.10ta:1.11 A onorr, of ItctltliNh, Nlaueliester, grocer— ts 141•LLE. of Liyinool. ptoto.notsofk. Friday, July Ito. joomrst I)l 4 •KrAtox, ga•E•lane, lieettito.l victualler-- NITA AiQtl% In 1.4111her.1.111.., Mitchel , .104 No K Pin gltaut, builder—Hit:HAlM I .ATKIII.IIIT. BlIrW11•11p0U•7rOtIt. gttieel ,lEsstr. °Lon/Lis whose name has for many years been before the public in connection with the celebrated Mr. Cobbett in •arious Chatwery suits, has been killed by a melancholy accident. He left Croydon late on Thursday night in a chaise for his residence four miles otl. Not arriving at home, search was made next morning, the horse and chaise llama in a lane near troy don, and not far off the body of the unfortunate gentleman, the skull being dreadfully fractured, other severe injuries received , HMI the clothes saturated with rain. A PARTY OF NEARLY THIRTY MEN are to be tried at the forthcoming assizes in Fermanagh for being of an armed party that assembled at. night on Garden bill, and entered into a subscription for the purpose of having Mr. Hill, land agent, shot. Tits: MEmsEtts or THE N iv CLUB entertained the First Lord of the Admiralty, the !tight Hoti. Sir James Graham, at dinner, on Thursday evening, at the Thatched house Tavern, St..lanuses-street. Vice Admiral Sir Thomas Cochnine, K.C.8., presided. M R. 11 irti's proposal to explore Australia has been favourably reported upon to the council of the Royal Oeographieal Society. It is believed that the great unknown interior of this eontinent can be most safely reached by making a starting point from the mouth of the groat navigable river the Victoria on the north roast, where Captain Stokes, of H. M. S. Beagle, so far explored it. as to arrive within about hllO miles of the centre of the continent. The different explore s' • of King, Wickham, Stokes, Owen, and others, have shown that several of the rieent on the north coast Ore 1111.% some 'listen's , up, and that rich and fertile 'dim ials extend along the banks of the Victoria, Albert, Liverpool, Aligator, and Adelaide rivers ; and Igichardt's first expedition greatly added to the number of streatua around the southern basin of the t tall of Carpentaria. As yet, however, no ex plorer has successfully passed over the coast range to the south, where Mr. Haug hopes to tlnd large grassy fields extending far towards the interior. The proposed expedition may thus not only solve the mystery of the interior of Australia, but, traversing the only hitherto great unknown portion of this con tinent, will furnish the means of making a rough map of the whole, determining to the colonists of the east, south, and western prminces whether or not the interior is to remain to them and to the rest of the world an impassable territory and a " waled hook." A grand national meeting of toxophilites, at which the members of 'shout fitly archery societies competed, took place Ht. Leamington lust week. The champion's, medal was again NW anted l 4 Mr. IL A. Ford, of the Hovel Toile philites. It is expected that the next meeting will be held su Manchester. An nisheard.of murder has been committer at Konigse lam.: on the person of .lislge Meyholer de Ileydekrug. who was shut by II 1110/0011 while fulfilling his judicial finictions. The assassin is supposed to lie insane, as no motive is known tOr his eommitting such an Net. iiiernizzi has declared his intention to appeal RQIIIIII4 the jitdgment just pro iiiiiii teed Main him by the Turin tri. bona The expense% of the trial, which the elltlllllllllled 1 1 551ii'sordered to pay at 11111 l gst them, do not amount to less than 4151,11011 f. The hop plantations in the neighbourhood of Maid. stone shim some increase of fly ; but, although the line ill %sane places looks very sickly, it hale branehed out considerably during the papa week, and gees fair promise for the crop. The vermin are also partial in several other plums. The ralsdriveris Inv assuming in many instances a pas. site resistance to the new Het, out of rrvologe to the injury whirls they think it. to hive inflicted on them. (In Tiles. clay night otecc the risiogoof the house, when then, was a great demand for cabs it; Palstes-yard, the entire stand drove I,ll'. littering jeers against t h e hon. gentlemen w h o wished to altgligr their. " I'l . l* waists rip ride fur sixpence, •es ye *."' says one. " Let 'ens walk," said another : and 14.• the membeis were compelled to find their way Nino. 65 they best cool& On Wednesday night, while the rain was Galling with incessant isplence, and people from the theatres and other places of public amusement wow anxiously seeking refoge its a lusektiey.calt, the driv e n, a 1111 l sell themselves in 'wading their empty vehicle% up and down the St rittiii mid 'ether I lit Orl nigh fill*Pl4, deaf alike to threats and entwati es , li, the vicinity of Bangor, howl whieh about five years ego, befi , re the t %ester a n d Ilohheasl Hallway wasopened, was sold et the rate of lOW. anal 1401. per acre, is now tote o f 1,11110/. mi d VOW. lwr ssure. bits of ground have purchased at Ms. and Ms. the square yard, being at the been mold itt thy city of Bangor at nearly 4W. the *guard pug,