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Auberge d Angleterre

the same fanous corsair Dragut. This English knight was one of the bravest of the Order!

Henry abolished the Order, confiscated their property, and put several of the knights, to death. Many English knights, who, with difficulty eluded the pursuit of the persecutor, arrived naked and destitute at Malta, and were received by L'Isle Adam with the tenderness of a father.

Upon the death of this celebrated grandmaster a permanent provision was made for the English knights; and so much was the language respected that no one of the other languages dared to usurp the dignity peculiar to the English language-that of Grand Turcopolier. And though the Order was abolished in England, the language of England was constantly represented in the council, and in the election of a grandmaster. Two centuries after the suppression of the Order in England, a new language was formed, styled the Anglo-Bavarian, the knights being unwilling to allow a name so cherished by them to sink into oblivion. In fact the language of England remained till the siege of Malta by the French, and took its place on the mole, on the Burgh side, assisted by those of Castille and Germany.

The English language monopolized the dignity of grand Turcopolier, or "Master of the Horse," even till the suppression of the Order. Henry VIII. was the first person who abolished the Order in England. Previously, Henry, on hearing of the capture of Rhodes, and following the example of the Portuguese monarch, sequestered the commanderies of the Order in his dominions. But when L' Isle Adam condescended to visit the haughty monarch, Henry, touched with the old warrior's zeal for the Order, (for Henry, notwithstanding his rigour and cruelty, had something chivalrous in his disposition) received the grandmaster in the most honourable and splendid style and sent some of the first noblemen of the court to welcome him. Henry knew also how to appreciate the dazzling actions of the hero, and conversed often with him on the feats of valour which the knights displayed at the siege of Rhodes conducted by Solyman. The historian adds, "That Henry, after diverse conferences, consented to give twenty thousand crowns, which he afterwards paid in artillery and small arms. L' Isle Adam also obtained the confirmation of all the priveleges of his Order, which was indeed the principal object of his journey.ed to vote at the election of a grandmaster: When L' Isle Adam had taken leave of the king, in order to return to Italy, Henry sent him, in his own name, and that of the queen, a golden bason and ewer, enriched with precious stones, which were afterwards placed in the treasury, and constituted one of its most magnificent ornaments."

But Henry was raised up by Providence to produce one of the greatest moral revolutions which Great Britain ever experienced. For on a discussion with the Pope, he abolished the supremacy of the pontiff in England, and declared himself head of the Anglican church,-a bolder action, whatever might have been the motive, no monarch ever achieved! and which has altered the moral map of nearly half the world.

With the fall of the Romish church in the British isles, fell the Order of St. John.

The English who, before the abolition of their Order, had places in the council, or were in the land or sea service, continued to act in the same capacity, and were allow

those Englishmen, likewise, who adhered to the Romish faith, and were desirous of entering the Order, were afterwards received, and held equally qualified with the other knights for obtaining commanderies in the priories into which they had been admitted.

During the short reign of Mary, the Order was restored in England, but Elizabeth, her successor, annihilated it for ever. "If," says Boisgelin, (whose authority we have preferred on the history of the knights,) "upon this occasion the Church had reason to regret its separation from so powerful a nation, the Order had equal cause for affliction, in being deprived of its illustrious nobility!"

Indeed, England, who now possesses these stupendous fortifications to consolidate her power in the Mediterranean, may look upon them with soine satisfaction, and say

"The gold of my children was spent in building them up, and their blood spilt in defending them against the enemy!

TELESCOPE AND MICROSCOPE. About the time of the invention of the telescope, another instrument was formed which laid open a scene no less wonderful, and rewarded the inquisitive spirit of man. This was the microscope. The one leads me to see a system in every star; the other leads me to see a world in every atom. The one taught me that this mighty globe, with the whole burder of its people and its countries, is but a grain of sand on the high field of immensity; the other teaches me that every grain of sand may harbour within it the tribes and the families of a busy population. The one tells me of the insignificance of the world I tread upon; the other redeems it from all its insignificance; for it tells me that in the leaves of every forest, in the flowers in every garden, and in the waters of every rivulet, there are worlds teeming with life, and numberless as are the glories of the firmament. The one has suggested to me, that beyond and above all that is visible to man, there may be fields of creation, which sweep immeasurably along, and carry the impress of the Almighty's hand to the remotest scenes of the universe; the other suggests to me, that within and beneath all that minuteness which the aided eye of man has been able to explore, there may be a region of invisibles; and that, could we draw aside the mysterious curtain which shrouds it from our senses, we might see a theatre of as many wonders as astronomy has unfolded; an universe within the compass of a point so small as to elude all the powers of the microscope; but where the wonder-working God finds room for the exercise of all his attributes, where he can raise another mechanism of worlds, and fill and animate them all with the evidence of his glory -CHALMERS.

NATURE has sown in man the seeds of knowledge, but they must be cultivated to produce fruits.Lord Collingwood.

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"Away, away! through the wide, wide sky,— The fair blue fields that before us lie,Each sun, with the worlds that round us roll, Each planet, poised on her turning pole, With her isles of green, and her clouds of white, And her waters that lie like fluid light.

"For the Source of glory uncovers his face, And the brightness o'erflows unbounded space; And we drink as we go, the luminous tides In our ruddy air and our blooming sides. Lo, yonder the living splendours play: Away, on our joyous path away!

"Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar, In the infinite azure, star after star, How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly pass! How the verdure runs o'er each rolling mass! And the path of the gentle winds is seen, Where the small waves dance, and the young woods lean.

"And see, where the brighter day-beams pour, How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower; And the morn and the eve, with their pomp of hues, Shift o'er the bright planets and shed their dews; And, 'twixt them both, o'er the teeming ground,

With her shadowy cone, the night goes round!

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Away, away!-in our blossoming bowers, In the soft air, wrapping these spheres of ours, In the seas and fountains that shine with morn, See, love is brooding, and life is born, And breathing myriads are breaking from night, To rejoice, like us, in motion and light.

"Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres, To weave the peace that measures the years. Glide on, in the glory and gladness sent To the furthest wall of the firmament,The boundless visible smile of Him, To the veil of whose brow our lamps are dim."— Bryant.

TRUTH is the most powerful thing in the world, since fiction can only please by its resemblance to it. -Shaftesburry.

The MALTA PENNY MAGAZINE is published and sent to Subscribers, in Valetta, every Saturday. Subscriptions at Is. per quarter received at No. 97. Str. Forni.

No. 101.

Saturday, 14th. August 1841.

ANCIENT GLASS MAKING.

One of the most remarkable inventions of a remote era was the manufacture of glass. It is not exactly known who were the original inventors of it, but the fact is well ascertained that the Egyptians were acquainted with it more than three thousand years ago. It was currently reported and generally believed by the ancients that Egypt produced a peculiar species of earth without which glass of the best quality could not be manufactured, yet we have no means now by which we can discover the nature of this substance. The descriptions given of it are so very loose, that it seems more rational to attribute the success of the Egyptians to their superior skill than to any such peculiarity in their materials. From the printed representations found in tombs, and among the ruins of temples in Egypt, we have the clearest evidence that they were not only skilled in the art of fusing the materials, but also in the use of the blowpipe, an invention so ingenious that its presence alone indicates a very high degree

of civilization.

From the great beauty of the Egyptian glass works, they were esteemed very highly in the remote ages. Job makes distinct mention of them, and in later ages when the Romans conquered Egypt the use of glass vases nearly superseded those of gold and silver. Indeed some of them were so exquisitely wrought that they were more valuable than if they had been form. ed of the precious metals.

Few, we think, could be inclined to dispute that the Phoenicians derived the art of pottery and the knowledge of the manufacture of glass from the ancient Egyptains. The general similarity in the works of the former when compared with those of the latter, has frequently in fact given rise to

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the mistake of considering as Phoenician what is in reality Egyptian; and some argued from this and other data that the Phonicians were rather a distinct race than a distinct nation occupying any peculiar spot. This abstruse question would lead us far beyond the scope of our present article, by which we hope to draw attention to some fine specimens of ancient vases which are to be found in Malta and Gozo, and which may, we think, safely be referred to the Phoenician æra.

A large mortuary vase (Fig. 1.) of rare beauty and of most elegant form. It is no less remarkable for its great height equal to about (1 palino ed otto pollici) a foot and a half.

It is said to have been found by some fishermen who had thrown their nets near Fort St. Angelo. While bringing it up and separating it from the nets, one of the handles was broken, and it now forms one of the principal ornaments of the Public Library.

Another large mortuary vase, (Fig. 2) but of a very different shape, is remarkable from the accurate account we have of its discovery. It was found by Canonico Grech of Gozo, in a field behind his house at Rabbato, which is known by the name of It Tomba, the "Tomb," and which in fact consists of rows of sepulchres cut out in the solid rock. Excavations on a large scale have been conducted there by the canonico Grech, Mr. David and other gentlemen of Gozo, but have by no means corresponded to the expectations which had been formed. There is therefore much room to suppose that the sepulchres have been robbed at some formed period. In one of these which was laid open by the Canonico Grech, an oblong square mass of stone was discovered, which on further examination was found to be a stone case hermetically

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