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Some are remarkably realistic in their forms, faithful copies of living originals, or of objects of still greater antiquity with which the wood carver has been familiar. Carvers have sometimes allowed themselves to run wild in their imaginations as they have cut and shaped a block of wood, giving it the most fantastic form, picturing myths and fables in a wonderfully realistic way.
Certain trades, as that of the cooks for instance, are almost confined to the inhabitants of particular outlying districts. The masons, carpenters, carvers, and other mechanical trades, are filled by men who do not belong to the city, and who are called and considered foreigners.
Really those black-cowled masons and carvers must have given the enthusiasm and genius of the early painters of the Virgin to these magnificent structures. I will not go into the subject at large here, leaving it to form an entire chapter, when I have seen most of the old abbeys of the country.
Even after carvers were regular features on the table the small knives and forks were brought by the guests who were bidden to the feast, for it must be remembered that it was not until 1670 that Prince Rupert brought the first complete set of forks to this country.
It was rumoured, too, in those times, that Vauxhall-gardens by day, were the scene of secret and hidden experiments; that there, carvers were exercised in the mystic art of cutting a moderate-sized ham into slices thin enough to pave the whole of the grounds; that beneath the shade of the tall trees, studious men were constantly engaged in chemical experiments, with the view of discovering how much water a bowl of negus could possibly bear; and that in some retired nooks, appropriated to the study of ornithology, other sage and learned men were, by a process known only to themselves, incessantly employed in reducing fowls to a mere combination of skin and bone.
These individuals, in bowler hats, sweeping past in sumptuous motors, as rarely seen on foot as Roman cardinals, were the destroyers of thrones, the carvers of continents, the arbiters of empires, the fashioners of the new heaven and the new earth or were they only the flies on the wheel of circumstance, to whom the world was unaccountably becoming a riddle?
It appears, however, that the Eyeo captain, Adamooli, had not quite so high an opinion of their spontaneous honesty; for he told the travellers, at Puka, to keep a good look-out after their things, as the people there were great thieves. In some branches of the arts they possess an extraordinary skill. They are great carvers; their doors, drums, and every thing of wood being carved.
At this time Garvier was in fairly good health and had plenty of orders, and besides Rodney he employed three Italian carvers, and from these Italians Rodney learned Italian, and he spent two years in London earning three pounds a week.
"To find the joints, my boy," laughed the Doctor, as if he had a sympathetic feeling for carvers who find themselves in front of a tough Duck or Goose, no matter how well they know where the joints ought to be found. "A Duck's legs are very short, and not only set far back on the body, but sunk into the skin quite up to the knees; so that the joints are very hard to find.
He who was the best of our carvers brought me a snuff-box, which he had just completed, and which, while it was yet in hand, he had often declared he would not part with under fifteen dollars. I believe the piece was worth the money too! And yet the voice stuck in my throat with which I must thank him.
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