The interest of the Frenchman's narrative ends here, for he ceases to be an ear and eyewitness, and the melancholy journey of the king to London is described better by other Chroniclers. He returned to France without waiting the issue of the proceedings in Parliament which placed the crown of England on the head of Henry Bolingbroke. He gives sequel and conclusion to the sad story, but merely on the report of " a clerk whom Duke Henry [Bolingbroke] had taken with him when he departed from Paris," and who had remained in London until some short time after the announcement of the death of King Richard. Upon that mysterious and much-debated fact, the authority of this French clerk does not appear to be entitled to much weight. His notion is that Richard died broken-hearted and selfstarved in prison. His friend the knight is of a contrary opinion, believing that the king was yet alive and well, though most secretly immured in some prison or castle.

142.-THE SLIDE OF ALPNACH.

[THE following interesting account of a remarkable work of art was originally published in Gilbert's 'Annalen' in 1819; and a translation appeared in 'Brewster's Journal.' Mr. Babbage, who has extracted the description in his valuable work, The Economy of Machinery and Manufactures,' introduces it with the following observations:

"Amongst the forests which flank many of the lofty mountains of Switzerland, some of the finest timber is found in positions almost inaccessible. The expense of roads, even if it were possible to make them in such situations, would prevent the inhabitants from deriving any advantages from these almost inexhaustible supplies. Placed by nature at a considerable elevation above the spot on which they are required, they are precisely in fit circumstances for the application of machinery; and the inhabitants constantly avail themselves of it, to enable the force of gravity to relieve them of some portion of their labour. The inclined planes which they have established in various forests, by which the timber has been sent down to the watercourses, must have excited the admiration of every traveller; and these slides, in addition to the merit of simplicity, have that of economy, as their construction requires scarcely anything beyond the material which grows upon the spot. Of all these specimens of carpentry, the Slide of Alpnach was by far the most considerable, both from its great length, and from the almost inaccessible position from which it descended."]

For many centuries, the rugged flanks and the deep gorges of Mount Pilatus werc covered with impenetrable forests. Lofty precipices encircled them on all sides. Even the daring hunters were scarcely able to reach them; and the inhabitants of the valley had never conceived the idea of disturbing them with the axe. These immense forests were therefore permitted to grow and to perish, without being of the least utility to man, till a foreigner, conducted into their wild recesses in the pursuit of the chamois, was struck with wonder at the sight, and directed the attention of several Swiss gentleman to the extent and superiority of the timber. The most intelligent and skilful individuals, however, considered it quite impracticable to avail themselves of such inaccessible stores. It was not till November, 1816, that M. Rupp, and three Swiss gentlemen, entertaining more sanguine hopes, drew up a plan of a slide, founded on trigonometrical measurements. Having purchased a certain extent of the forests from the commune of Alpnach for 6000 crowns, they began the construction of the slide, and completed it in the spring of 1818.

The Slide of Alpnach is formed entirely of about 25,000 large pine trees, deprived of their bark, and united together in a very ingenious manner, without the aid of iron. It occupied about 160 workmen during eighteen months, and cost nearly 100,000 francs, or 4,250l. It is about three leagues, or 44,000 English feet long, and terminates in the lake of Lucerne. It has the form of a trough, about six feet broad, and from three to six feet deep. Its bottom is formed of three trees, the

middle one of which has a groove cut out in the direction of its length, for receiving small rills of water, which are conducted into it from various places, for the purpose of diminishing the friction. The whole of the slide is sustained by about 2,000 supports; and in many places it is attached, in a very ingenious manner, to the rugged precipices of granite.

The direction of the slide is sometimes straight, and sometimes zig-zag, with an inclination of from 10° to 18°. It is often carried along the sides of hills and the flanks of precipitous rocks, and sometimes passes over their summits. Occasionally it goes underground, and at other times it is conducted over the deep gorges by scaffoldings 120 feet in height.

The boldness which characterizes this work, the sagacity displayed in all its arrangements, and the skill of the engineer, have excited the wonder of every person who has seen it. Before any step could be taken in its erection, it was necessary to cut several thousand trees to obtain a passage through the impenetrable thickets; and, as the workmen advanced, men were posted at certain distances to point out the road for their return, and to discover, in the gorges, the places where the piles of wood had been established. M. Rupp was himself obliged, more than once, to be suspended by cords, in order to descend precipices many hundred feet high; and, in the first months of the undertaking, he was attacked with a violent fever, which deprived him of the power of superintending his workmen. Nothing, however, could diminish his invincible perseverance. He was carried every day to the mountain in a barrow, to direct the labours of the workmen, which was absolutely necessary, as he had scarcely two good carpenters among them all; the rest having been hired by accident, without any of the knowledge which such an undertaking required. M. Rupp had also to contend against the prejudices of the peasantry. He was supposed to have communion with the devil. He was charged with heresy, and every obstacle was thrown in the way of an enterprise, which they regarded as absurd and impracticable. All these difficulties, however, were surmounted, and he had at last the satisfaction of observing the trees descend from the mountain with the rapidity of lightning. The larger pines, which were about a hundred feet long, and ten inches thick at their smaller extremity, ran through the space of three leagues, or nearly nine miles, in two minutes and a half, and during their descent, they appeared to be only a few feet in length. The arrangements for this part of the operation were extremely simple. From the lower end of the slide to the upper end, where the trees were introduced, workmen were posted at regular distances, and, as soon as every thing was ready, the workman at the lower end of the slide cried out to the one above him, “ Lachez” (Let go). The cry was repeated from one to another, and reached the top of the slide in three minutes. The workman at the top of the slide then cried out to the one below him, 'Il vient' (It comes), and the tree was immediately launched down the slide, preceded by the cry, which was rcpeated from post to post. As soon as the tree had reached the bottom, and plunged into the lake, the cry of Lachez was repeated as before, and a new tree was launched in a similar manner. By these means a tree descended every five or six minutes, provided no accident happened to the slide, which sometimes took place, but which was instantly repaired when it did.

In order to show the enormous force which the trees acquired from the great velocity of their descent, M. Rupp made arangements for causing some of the trees to spring from the slide. They penetrated, by their thickest extremities, no less than from eighteen to twenty-four feet into the earth; and one of the trees having by accident struck against the other, it instantly cleft it through its whole length, as if it had been struck by lightning.

After the trees had descended the slide, they were collected into rafts upon the

lake, and conducted to Lucerne. From thence they descended the Reuss, then the Aar to near Brugg, afterwards to Waldshut by the Rhine, then to Basle, and even to the sea, when it was necessary.

In order that none of the small wood might be lost, M. Rupp established in the forest large manufactories of charcoal. He erected magazines for preserving it when manufactured, and had made arrangements for the construction of barrels for the purpose of carrying it to the market. In winter when the slide was covered with snow, the barrels were made to descend on a kind of sledge. The wood which was not fit for being carbonized was heaped up and burnt, and the ashes packed up and carried away during the winter.

A few days before the author of the preceding account visited the slide, an inspector of the navy had come for the purpose of examining the quality of the timber. He declared that.he had never seen any timber that was so strong, so fine, and of such a size; and he concluded an advantageous bargain for one thousand trees."

[Such is a brief account of a work undertaken and executed by a single individual, and which has excited a very high degree of interest in every part of Europe. We regret to add, that this magnificent structure no longer exists, and that scarcely a trace of it is to be seen upon the flanks of mount Pilatus. Political circumstances have taken away the principal source of demand for the timber; and no other market having been found, the operation of cutting and transporting the trees necessarily ceased.]

143 & 144.-JOHN ELWES, THE MISER.

TOPHAM.

[THE life of a mere miser can afford so little general instruction, and excite so little general interest, that had Mr. Elwes been one of that unhappy class his biography would, in all probability, so far as Mr. Topham was concerned, have remained unwritten; but Mr. Elwes was not a mere miser, he possessed qualities that might have entitled him to the love and reverence of his friends, and to the respect and admiration of his countrymen, had they but been freely developed: they were, however, during a considerable portion of his life, more or less checkered by the unfortunate desire of amassing money, and they may be said to have ultimately disappeared altogether beneath the hateful influence of that ail-absorbing passion. "During the life-time of Mr. Elwes, I said to him more than once, I would write his life. His answer was, 'There is nothing in it, sir, worth mentioning.' That I have been of a different opinion, my labours will show." Thus speaks Mr. Elwes's biographer, in the preface to his very interesting little work, which was at first published in portions in a periodica. paper called the 'World,' and received by the public with so much approbation that the whole was afterwards issued in a collective form, and ran through several editions. As much of the interest of the publication results from the author's close personal intimacy with Mr. Elwes, and from the easy agreeable style of the narration, the following account is given as nearly as possible in Mr. Topham's own words.]

The family name of Mr. Elwes was Meggot; and, as his Christian name was John, the conjunction of 'Jack Meggot' made strangers sometimes imagine that his intimates were adressing him by an assumed appellation. His father was a brewer of eminence, who died while Mr. Elwes was only four years old; little of the character of Mr. Elwes was therefore to be attributed to him: but from the mother it may be traced at once: for, though she was left nearly one hundred thousand pounds by her husband, she starved herself to death. At an early period the boy was sent to Westminster school, where he remained ten or twelve years. During that time he certainly had not misapplied his talents, for he was a good classical scholar to the last; and it is a circumstance not a little remarkable, though well authenticated, that he never read afterwards. His knowledge of accounts was very trifling, which may in some measure explain the total ignorance he was always in as to his affairs.

From Westminster school he removed to Geneva, where he soon entered upon pursuits more agreeable to him than study. The riding-master of the academy there had to boast of perhaps three of the best riders in Europe-Mr. Worsley, Mr. Elwes, and Sir Sidney Meadows. Of the three, Elwes was reckoned the most desperate; the young horses were always put into his hands, and he was the rough rider to the other two. During this period he was introduced to Voltaire, whom he somewhat resembled in point of appearance: but, though he has mentioned this circumstance, the genius, the fortune, the character of Voltaire never seemed to strike him, they were out of his contemplation and his way; the horses in the riding-school he remembered much longer, and their respective qualities made a deeper impression on him. On his return to England he was introduced to his uncle, Sir Harvey Elwes, who was then living at Stoke, in Suffolk, perhaps the most perfect picture of human penury that ever existed. Mr. Elwes, being at that time in the world, dressed like other people. This would not have done for Sir Harvey: so the nephew used to stop at a little inn at Chelmsford, the expense of which he did not much like, and began to dress in character; a pair of small iron buckles, worsted stockings darned, a worn-out old coat, and a tattered waistcoat were put on, and onwards he rode to visit his uncle, who used to contemplate him with a miserable kind of satisfaction, and seemed pleased to find his heir attempting to come up with him in the race of avarice. There they would sit, saving pair! with a single stick upon the fire, and with one glass of wine occasionally betwixt them, talking of the extravagance of the times; and when evening shut in they would retire to rest, as going to bed saved candle light." But the nephew had then, as at all other times, a very extraordinary appetite, and this would have been a monstrous offence in the eyes of the uncle, so Mr. Elwes was obliged to pick up a dinner first with some neighbour in the country, and then return to Sir Harvey with a little diminutive appetite that was quite engaging. I trust, continues Mr. Topham, a small digression, to give the picture of Sir Harvey, will not be thought unamusing or foreign to the subject. He was, as may be imagined, a most singular character. His seclusion from the world nearly reached that of a hermit, and could the extremity of his avarice have been taken out of the question a more blameless life was never led. His life shows that a man may at length, so effectually retire into himself, that he may remain little else but vegetation in a human shape.

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Providence perhaps has wisely ordered it that the possessions of estates should change like the succession of seasons: the day of tillage and the seed-time, the harvest and the consumption of it, in due order follow each other, and, in the scale of events, are all alike necessary. This succession was exemplified in the character of Sir Harvey Elwes, who succeeded to Sir Jervoise, his grandfather, a very worthy gentlemen, who had, however, involved, as far as they would go, all the estates. On his death, Sir Harvey found himself nominally possessed of some thousands ayear, but really with an income of one hundred pounds per annum. He said on his arrival at Stoke, the family seat, "that never would he leave it till he had entirely cleared the paternal estate;" and he lived to do that, and to realize above one hundred thousand pounds in addition. But he was formed of the very materials to make perfect the character of a miser. In his youth he had been given over for a consumption, (though, such is the power of temperance, he lived till betwixt eighty and ninety years of age,) so he had no constitution and no passion; he was timid, shy, and diffident in the extreme, of a thin spare habit of body, and without a friend upon earth. Next to his greatest delight, the hoarding up and counting over his money, was that of partridge-setting, at which he was so great an adept, and game was then so plentiful, that he has been known to take five hundred brace of birds in one season. He lived upon partridges, he and his whole household, consisting

of one man and two maids. When the day was not so fine as to tempt him abroad, he would walk backwards and forwards in his old hall, to save fire. His clothes cost him nothing, for he took them out of an old chest, where they had lain since the gay days of Sir Jervoise. One evening, after he had retired, some robbers, watching their opportunity, obtained admittance into the house; having previously bound the servants, then going up to Sir Harvey, they presented their pistols and demanded his money. At no part of his life did Sir Harvey behave so well as in this transaction. He would give them no answer, till they had assured him that his servant, whom they had left gagged in the stable, and who was a great favourite, was safe; he then delivered them the key of a drawer, in which was fifty guineas. But they knew too well he had much more in the house, and again threatened his life. At length he showed them a large drawer, where were two thousand seven hundred guineas. This they packed up in two large baskets, and actually carried off,—a robbery which for quantity of specie had never been equalled. On quitting him, they said they should leave a man behind, who would murder him if he moved for assistance; on which he very coolly and with some simplicity took out his watch, which they had not asked for, and said, "Gentlemen, I do not want to take any of you; therefore, upon my honour, I will give you twenty minutes for your escape; after that time, nothing shall prevent me from seeing how my servant does." He was as good as his word: when the time expired he went and untied the man. Some years afterwards the fellows were taken up for other offences, and known to be those who had robbed Sir Harvey; he was accordingly pressed to go and identify their persons: No, no," said he, "I have lost my money and now you want me to lose my time also." When Sir Harvey died, the only tear that was dropped upon his grave fell from the eye of the servant here alluded to, who had long and faithfully attended him. To that servant he bequeathed a farm of fifty pounds per annum, "to him and to his heirs." Sir Harvey's property was estimated at two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, the whole of which was left to the nephew, Mr. Meggot, whose own possessions at the time were, it was imagined, not much inferior, and who, by will, was ordered to assume the name and arms of Elwes. In conclusion of this part of the subject, it may be observed, that the popular view of Sir Harvey's character was well expressed in the almost proverbial saying, "that nobody would live with Sir Harvey Elwes if they could, nor could if they would."

To this property Mr. Elwes succeeded when he had advanced beyond his fortieth year. For fifteen years previous to this period he was well known to the fashionable circles of the metropolis. Few men, even from his own acknowledgment, had played deeper than himself, and with success more various. I remember hearing him say he had once played two days and a night without intermission; and, the room being a small one, the party were nearly up to their knees in cards. He lost some thousands at that sitting. Had Mr. Elwes received all he won, he would have been the richer by some thousands for the mode in which he passed this part of his life; but the vowels of I O U were then in use, and the sums that were owed him even by very noble names were not liquidated. On this account he was a very great loser by play. The theory which he professed, "that it was impossible to ask a gentleman for money," he perfectly confirmed by his practice. It is curious to remark how he at this period contrived to mingle small attempts at saving with unbounded dissipation of play. After sitting up a whole night, risking thousands with the most fashionable and profligate men of the time, amidst splendid rooms, gilt sofas, wax lights, and waiters attendant on his call, he would walk out about four in the morning, not towards home, but into Smithfield, to meet his own cattle, which were coming to market from Haydon Hall, a farm of his in Essex. There