The Sun.
London, England, 1860-04-18 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Leonore and the Little (buntess. A! Tale. By the
author of "The Myrtle and the Heather."
Bentley.
This is a simply written and interesting, though
somewhat melancholy tale. The scene is laid
in Germany. The heroine is a young orphan,
possessed of great beauty and talent, who has
been received into the family of a cousin, who
occupies the position of intendant. Nadine, the
little Countess, is also an orphan, who is living with
a female relative, the Countess Justine, and her son.
Nadine has been from infancy an invalid, and in
the love end companionship of the little Lecnore
she finds her only solace. Being accustomed to see
her wishes fulfilled, as she is a great heiress, she
finds no difficulty in procuring the removal
of Leonore from the cottage of the in-
tendant, where she is unloved and unwel-
come, to her own chateau. The two girls
grow up together, and love each other like
sisters. They spend many years of their early
youth in Paris with Nadine's grandmother, and
here Leonore first begins to discover her anomalous
position. Loved and treated as an equal by Nadine,
she is regarded only as a companion or domestic
appendage by others. In Paris, where more homage
is paid to beauty and intellect, she finds many ad-
mirers ; but on their return to Germany, the narrow
etiquette and haughty exclusiveness of the aristo-
crats of their 0-fly court inflict many pangs on the
warm hearts of the two friends. The Countess
Justine is one of the most bitter of Leonore's op-
ponents, though she is fearful of expressing her
sentiments too strongly, out of deference to Nadine,
whose wealth makes her an object of consideration.
Countess Justine is eager to secure it to her son Adal-
bert, but Leonore is a dangerous rival toler gentle
patroness. In his boyish days Adalbert bad vowed
constancy to Leonore, and though during the years
of absence he had felt the engagement irksome, on
her return from Paris he hastened to renew it with
all his old fervour. Leonore, who had refused
many brilliant offers in Paris out of regard to her
childish lover, hesitates, but persuaded by Nadine
agrees. The generous little countess, though
secretly attached to Adalbert herself, resolves to
bestow on her early friend a large portion of her
wealth, hoping thus to secure the happiness of her
two best loved friends. However, the pride which
has little to be proud of, steps in. Adalbert's mo-
ther is furious, his chosen friend equally so, and by
way of settling the affair he despatches to Leonore a
letter he had received from Adalbert while the friends
were still in Paris, setting forth all the obstacles
which existed to their union. Leonore, finding her
own fears confirmed, at once breaks off the engage-
ment; she returns to the humble cottage of the
intendant, from whence all the protestations and
persuasions of Adalbert and Nadine fail to draw
her, and finally enters a convent ; while after many
years Nadine bestows her hand upon Adalbert.
Though very pleasingly written, the story is very
unsatisfactory, Too much weight is attached all
through to the accident of birth. With Nadine's
independent position, and with her generous
attachment, Leonore's happiness might have been
secure. The great mortification experienced by
the two friends is somewhat extreme. It both
were such estimable and high-minded characters,
surely they would have learned to appreciate the
manners of a ball-room or reception at a truer esti-
mate. Adalbert, vehement and fickle, is certainly
scarcely deserving the affection so lavishly be-
stowed upon him ; while Leonore need scarcely
have abandoned the world entirely because
she could not claim descent from a German count
or baron. " The grand old gardener and his wife"
might indeed smile at such a reason. Nadine is
the most attractive character from her unselfishness
and generosity, but her kindness scarcely meets its
due reward, as Leonore evidently forgets the con-
sideration due to her friend in her despair about
Adalbert, and her grief at the treatment she
receives. The moral the book is intended to convey
is, that with the best intentions it is a cruel kind-
ness to lift persons above their station or to place
them in a false position, but it unintentionally con-
veys another also—that the ranks and divisions of
Society, though excellent in themselves, may be too
highly esteemed; and that it is a worthless ambi-
tion that would sacrifice love, friendship, and
happiness for the sake of mixing on terms of
equality with the frigid exclusives of a German
Court.

WEAVING BY BLECII7O-MAGNETISM

M. Bonelli's great invention of applying elec-
tricity to the art of weaving the most elaborate pat-
terns, is at present attracting so much attention that
we think it necessary to return to the subject, in
order to show how far it outstrips the improvements
introduced into the loom by Jacquard, improvements
which, in their time, certainly effected a thorough
revolution in the art. In Jacquard's system the pat-
term of the design was pricked on large perforated
cards, which went in an endless chain round a roller
in the centre of the loom. All the threads of the
warp were connected with bars in the upper part of
the loom, and these by a movement of the
weaver's treadle were pushed against the per-
forated cards. 'Those which faced the pat-
tern holes, and therefore corresponded with
them, remained there, and so, when the lever was
lowered, held up the threads which ought to have
been raised and allowed the shuttle to weave in the
weft or pattern between. M. Bonelli, proceeding
from quitei a now principle which had not been dis-
covered n Jacquard's time, substitutes electromag-
nets for the little bobbins or bars which hold up the
thread of the warp in the former system. The design
is painted on a sheet of tinfoil, with the portions not
used in the pattern covered with a non-conducting
varnish. The pattern passes slowly over a roller
under an in number of brass teeth, communi-
cating by fine insulated wires with the bobbins, the
pattern, of course, being in connection with one pole
of a battery, and the bobbins, or magnets, with the
other. Thus, as the tinfoil slowly moves round,
the parts which are not to be worked, being co-
vered with a non-conducting varnish, transmit no
current through the brass teeth to the bobbins.
The pattern, or exposed portion of the tinfoil, on
the contrary, does so, and transforms the bobbins
into electro-magnets, which attract and hold the
bars opposite their points attached to the threads
of the warp, which, as the lever descends, the bars
are thus held up for the instant, and, of course,
raising their threads below, and allowing the
shuttle to be passed between. In weaving by the
old a acLine, the design is drawn on paper divided
into a multitude or little squares, the horizontal
series representing the weft, or pattern ; the
cross or short series, the warp, or' substance
of the material woven. Secondly, the design must
be " read"—that is, the punches of the stamping
machine, which are equal in number to the small
squares of the pattern, must be arranged so as to
perforate the cards, which, as we have shown, form
the b sis of the present Jacquard system. Each of
these operations must be repeated as many times as
there are horizontal lines in the design (which merely
represents one thread of the weft), as there must be
as many cards as there are wefts or cross-threads
in a pattern. Lastly, all the cards must be sewn
together in the order of their succession. In
Chevalier Bonelli's plan the design being traced
on tinfoil as above described, the metal pattern
thus formed renders all this labour unnecessary, its
•onducting portions doing the work without any
intervention of human hands. When the weaver
presses the treadles with his feet the brass teeth,
forming a metallic comb, as described, are lowered
and come in contact with the tinfoil sheet of the
design. Such are the chief features of this electro-
, magnetic weaving machine, which, apart from its
scientific merits, contains, in addition, some most
admirable mechanical contrivances. Such, fof
instance, is the ingenious means by which the
design sheet moves with a speed variable at will,
and either backwards or forwards, and the addi-
tion of a little brush to clean the comb. This
last, at each motion of the loom, sweeps across all
its teeth to prevent the injurious action of the
dust, which falling upon the surface would soon
interfere with the action of the electric fluid. The
loom which we have now described is only appli-
cable to stuffs of two colours--that is to say, of
one colour upon one general ground. But a loom
capable of weaving stuffs of six, eight, or ten colours
only differs by the addition of a most simple
piece of mechanism, thus :—Each of the different
colours is insulated from the other, and along them
on the pattern the pole of the battery slowly passes
as the weaver works the machine with his feet
transmitting the current to each colour in the
order in which they occur. Thus, of course, the
current is sent through the comb to the electro-
magnets, which raise the threads of the warp beloyv,
where the weaver has his colour shuttles arranged
in the order in which they are to be used, and
throws them in accordingly. So the loom just as
easily, and on the same principle, transmits the
pattern to a stuff of 12 colours as to that of only
two. It is in this that the weaving by electricity
displays its superiority over the present system,
according to which, for example; if a material is to
be worked in six colours, it is necessary by the
Jacquard loom to employ six times more cards than
for a similar design of one colour.

COTTON AND COFFEE IN NEW. ZEALAND.—At-
tempt are now being made to introduce the cotton and
coffee plants to New Zealand. Coffee-berries from Ceylon,
and cotton•seed from China, have arrived at Auckland, and
both are now deposited in the ground in the faith of yield-
ing profitable results. Seeing that oranges, lemons, and
other delicate fruits are already successfully cultivated in
the northern portion of the colony, and that grapes of the
very best quality are grown in the province of Auckland,
there is no reason why the coffee and the cotton plants
should not be also successfully cultivated in this land of
promise,—New Zealand London -Examiner, April 16,