The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-04 00:00:00

selves deep in the planking. Some shells went through
the second target whole, and explod.ng by the percussion,
scattered their fragments far and wide, and deeply indent-
ing the surface of the third ta. get. There was not on the
surface of the three targets, each about twenty feet long by
six feet high, a space of six inches square that was free
either from splintered holes, or pieces of the shell sticking
into it. The casualties that would have occurred to a body
of troops indulging in the fancied security afforded by a
slight indentation of the ground, or any similar cover,
would have been terrific. Enough having been seen by
those who took the trouble to inform themselves on the
subject of the efficacy of the Armstrong shell, the party
returned to Newcastle.

The Crystal Palace and its Flower Beds,
AS DESCRIBED BY THE REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER IN A
LETTER COMMUNICATED TO THE "NEW YORK INDE-
PENDENT."

I have just returned from spending a day at Sydenham
Crystal Palace. The day was glorious, Everybody had
said, "You must go to Sydenham !" I had read descrip-
tions of it. Ye', the meaning of it never dawned upon me
till to-day—this most wonderful of all modern English
achievements. Even alter having been at Chatsworth, one
of the Duke of Devonshire's seats, reputed, hitherto, to be
the finest in the world for landscape-gardening, Sydenham
is still more wonderful. This vast Crystal Palace, vast
but not massive, springs into such huge proportions, with
such a fine and almost ethereal structure, that you can
scarcely believe it to be more than a picture; or, if a veri-
table building. one which the winds will blow away. it is
the very antithesis of castles and cathedrals. These impress
you with their solidity. They are mountains of stone, and
seem to be durable, as the mountains from which the stone
was hewn. Against their huge walls has dashed battle and
siege, almost in vain. Time itself, that never raises its siege,
seems in vain, with wind, and art, and frost, to have
assailed many mighty mediawal structures. And when
you look upon them you feel the solidity, the mighty
massiveness. But this film upon the sky—the gossamer
spun last night by fairies, this glimmering, luminous, tran-
sparent spectre of a palace I Can it be real, durable,
tangible ?
The grounds on which this ethereal pile is erected are
worthy of the vast jewel which they hold upon their bosom.
There is every variation of hue and slops. The grass is
shaven close and is as green and velvety as only English
grass can be. Cut into its green are innumerable beds of
gorgeous flowers of every hue, You are dazed and dazzled
at the wealth of flowers, the clumps of rhododendrons, the
belts, beds and ribbons of colour, the circles of roses. I have
travelled in the prairies of the Great West, and seen the
sheets and billows of flowers that stretch with endless pro-
fusion there. There is no such wild and extravagant abun-
dance here. It was as if the flower angel had sounded the
trumpet, and a prairie of flowers had rushed to camp to be
brigaded' and marshalled ; and now, in ranks and squadrons,
in files or companies, they carry their floral lances to this
innocuous warof beauty! Lakes, fountains and pools abound.
The most gorgeous dream of the Arabian Nights would turn
pale and fade out in the presence of the substantial glory of
horticultural skill. If I had had time, I should have been
amazed at the literature of colour spread out here.

-
These flowers I had seen, all of them, growing loose and
disconnectedly. Here they were gathered into artistic
groups by similarities or contrasts. I had seen them a
scattering alphabet of beauty, every letter by itself. Here
they were composed into words and sentences. My eye
drank and was drunk with colour. I turned from the
grounds to the building, and from it again to the grounds.
0 happy people, who can come hither so easily I For the
immortal glory of this enterprise is this : that this palace
and grounds, that have no parallel or equal in the world,
are presented by the wealth of London to the common
people I Ido not believe that so extraordinary a combi-
nation of rational pleasure for every sense and sentiment of
a man was ever before combined. Not for tbe Government,
not for kings or nobles, not for a rich and refined class, but
for the great common people, has this miracle of beauty
and use been wrought I

capitally served,
Within is every variety of ford for bodily hunger,
simple for those who need or can afford
little, and sumptuous for those who choose it. Every pro-
vision is made for the incidental wants of throngs of men,
women, and children. But now comes the marvel. You
lire in Egypt and walk in the temples. You stand in
Greek Halls. You see the altars and statues, the Parthe-
non, the friezes, the gods. You enter a Roman dwelling.
All is re-produced as in the days of Augustus. You stand
in the gorgeous Alhambra, in the Pompeiian house, in the
Byz.ntine court, in the Norman, the early English, the
full Gothic buildings or courts. The illusion is complete.
Time is dead. The old has come back, and is ne;v. Nay,
distance is ended. You seem to be in different ages and
widely different countries, all at the same time. You lose
your identity, whether you are ancient or modern—whether
you are at Athens, or Rome, or Byzantium, you cannot
tell. Or is it a gorgeous dream? Is this some sorcerer's
kaleidoscope, whose every turn rattles the elements of
various ages and countries into strange conjunctions?
The illusion is increased by the unity of all climates in
the vegetable kingdom. Under this glass hemisphere the
temperate and torrid zones dwell together in peace. There
is room for everything. As you stand at one end, you look
down through a crystal aisle more than 1630 feet, and over
this long, luminous path there is no roof until you rise a 174
feet in tbe centre, and 110 on either side of it. Along this
vast track are gathered the rarest vegetable productions of
the globe, growing
in soil, air, or water. Vines cover tbe
iron columns, and spread out their filmy branches along the
connecting rods. Huge pendant baskets, filled with trailing
plants, swing in the air at heights that hide their support,
and cause them to be supported. Marble-lined reservoirs
of water, artificially heated, are covered with aquatic lilies,
From step to step, all the way down, you come upon the
most magnificently grown shrubs and plants and trees.
They line the whole long interior, so that you imagine your..
self looking down an avenue of some extraordinary forest,
filled with undergrowth, shrubs, vines, and rnorises, Out
of these green mosses, at every step, peep the most exquisite
creations of art. There are casts of almost every re-
nowned or beautiful statue in Europe, arranged in long

sequence.
All the sculpture that you have ever seen in engravings,
read of in books, heard of in conversation, meets you in this
palace of miracles. The treasures are endless, You cannot
in a day even glance at them. You leave more things un-
seen than you look upon. Every step opens recesses full
of wonders. Picture galleries flow along the sides as if
they would never end. The portrait gallery presents you
with almost every historic face. Do you need to read of
these things? Turn aside into the library, with thousands
of volumes. Sit down in the reading room, which, though
several thousand people are threading the building, is as
quiet as if it were a lonesome bower in the woods I Or,
are you tired in eye or foot? Sit down and listen to a very
noble band that yonder is rendering classic music skilfully.

This marvellous variety gives you rest by change. If
sculpture fails, there is architecture, and of that variety
running through all the schools of time. Are you weary
of this ? Try colour on the canvas. Do you weary of
this ? Will you take a walk around marble-bound lakes, or
among palms and gigantic ferns, or among clove and
cinnamon, pepper and ginger, tea and coffee plants? Or
would you rid yourself of company ? Go out into the
grounds.

By some one of the walks you can in a moment be bidden
in the secluded leafy covers, or you may seek the lake and
artificial island, and see the geological periods represented
in strata, and the antediluvian animals reproduced in form
if not in life. From such a stroll I returned and dined. I
could not make up my mind whether I was an Egyptian
dining at Cairo with the old Copts, or a Greek, or a Roman,
or Goth. I never once suspected I was a Yankee, eating
stout English beef and pastry.

This duty done, we go now to the Renaissance Court to
see the statues by Michael Angelo I Here are day and
night, with Julius de Medici sitting nobly above and be-
tween them. Opposite are Dawn and Twilight, with
Lorenzo de Medici sublimely thoughtful between them.
There is the slave; opposite to it the Madonna and child,
a Fiala, a Christ, but most grand of all, the Moses I These
are of the full size of the originals, and fill you with more
pleasure and wonder since they are gathered into one grand
company, and fill the whole air with the spirit of their
artist-creator.

While thus walking and musing, the grand organ in the
nave is filling all the air with its solemn harmonies! Where
else did any one ever gsze upon Michael Angelo's collected
sculptures to the sound of grand organ music ? We never
know to what proportions our joys may rise until we have
experienced them in the midst of solemn music. At such
a distance that all sense of the material instrument is lost,
solemn music seems to have a voiue out of the spirit world.
It brings to us a call from the infinite, and connects us with
it. Our joys seem no more mortal. They are related to
the eternal and spiritual, and partake of their nature. They
are preludes and presciences of immortality. The soul
takes assurance that its most precious experiences are not
transient a'id perishing. However silent for a t.me, joy
shall come again, and in the harmony of a better
sphere, and roll for ever in undisturbed and inseparable
harmonies I

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