admired, more mocked him, as if he looked on the feet, there to find the eye of the face. But he first of all discovered the light of the sun shining on the tops of the houses. God is seen sooner, easier, clearer, in his operations than in his essence,-best beheld by reflection in his creatures.-FULLer. Animal electricity. The knowledge of the laws of electricity, in its different forms, is one of the latest results which science has revealed to man. Could these laws, and their various combinations, have been unknown to the Power who created the torpedo, and who armed it with an energetic galvanic battery, constructed upon the most refined scientific principles, for the manifest purpose of enabling the animal to strike terror into its enemies, and paralyse their efforts to assail it?-ROGET. On Animal and Vegetable Physiology. Reason promoted by affection. 'Reason ought to direct us," says Lord Chesterfield, "but it seldom does; and he who addresses himself simply to another man's reason, without endeavouring to engage his heart in his interest also, is no more likely to succeed, than a man who should apply only to a king's nominal minister, and neglect his favourite." The illustration is just and beautiful, and the observation deserves the notice of every one whose employment it is to win man to faith and righteousness. Dry reasoning, though ever so solid, will not do alone.BISHOP HORne. 66 A Lesson. A friend of Dean Swift one day sent him a turbot, as a present, by a servant who had frequently been on similar errands, but who had never received the most trifling mark of the Dean's generosity. Having gained admission, he opened the door of the study, and abruptly putting down the fish, cried very rudely: "Master has sent you a turbot." Young man," said the Dean, rising from his easy chair, "is that the way you deliver your message? Let me teach you better manners; sit down in my chair, we will change situations, and I will show you how to behave in future." The boy sat down, and the Dean, going to the door, came up to the table with a respectful pace, and making a low bow said: "Sir, my master presents his kind compliments, hopes you are well, and requests your acceptance of a small present." "Does he (335.)?" replied the boy; "return him my best thanks, and there's half-a-crown for yourself." The Dean thus drawn into an act of generosity laughed heartily, and gave the boy a crown for his wit. Napoleon and the British sailor. Whilst the French troops were encamped at Boulogne, public attention was much excited by the daring attempt at escape made by an English sailor. This person having escaped from the depôt and gained the borders of the sea, the woods near which served him for concealment, constructed with no other instrument than a knife, a boat, entirely of the bark of trees. When the weather was fair, he mounted a tree and looked out for the English flag; and having at last observed a British cruiser, he ran to the shore with his boat on his back, and was about to trust himself in his frail vessel to the waves, when he was pursued, arrested, and loaded with chains. Everybody in the army was anxious to see the boat, and Napoleon, having at length heard of the affair, sent for the sailor and interrogated him. "You must," said Napoleon," have had a great desire to see your country again, since you could resolve to trust yourself on the open sea in so frail a bark. I suppose you have left a sweetheart there?" "No," said the sailor; "but a poor infirm mother, whom I was anxious to see." "And you shall see her," said Napoleon, giving at the same time orders to set him at liberty, and to bestow upon him a considerable sum of money for his mother, observing that "she must be a good mother who had so good a son.” Rabelais, a traitor. This celebrated wit was once at a great distance from Paris, and without money to bear his expenses thither. The ingenious author being thus sharp set, got together a convenient quantity of brickdust, and having disposed of it into several papers, wrote upon one, Poison for Monsieur *; upon a second, Poison for the Dauphin †; and on a third, Poison for the King. Having made this provision for the royal family of France, he laid his papers so that his landlord, who was an inquisitive man and a good subject, might get a sight of them. The plot succeeded as he desired; the host gave immediate intelligence to the secretary of state. The secretary presently sent down a special messenger, who brought up the traitor to court, and provided him, at the king's expense, with proper accommodations on the road. As soon as he appeared he was known to be the celebrated Rabelais, and his powder, upon examination, being found very innocent, the jest was only laughed at; for which a less eminent droll would have been sent to the galleys.—Spectator. Dimensions of the Planets. If we suppose the earth to be represented by a globe a foot in diameter, the distance of the sun from the earth will be about two miles; the diameter of the sun, on the same supposition, will be something above one hundred feet, and consequently his bulk such as might be made up of two hemispheres, each about the size of * Monsieur, employé absolument, s'est dit de l'aîné des frères du roi de France. † Voyez la note *, page 234. the dome of St. Paul's. The moon will be thirty feet from us, and her diameter three inches, about that of a cricket-ball. Thus the sun would much more than occupy all the space within the moon's orbit. On the same scale, Jupiter* would be above ten miles from the sun, and Uranust forty. We see then how thinly scattered through space are the heavenly bodies. The fixed stars would be at an unknown distance; but, probably, if all distances were thus diminished, no star would be nearer to such a one-foot earth than the moon now is to us.- -WHEWELL. Astronomy and General Physics. Motion of our Globe. This diurnal sphere on which we live would alone evince the power of its Almighty Maker. When we consider its magnitude, its daily rotation, its annual revolution, the rapidity of its course, and reflect how vast must be the power to move this single mass, we are lost in amazement, and humbled under a deep sense of our own weakness. It was calculated by a late astronomer, that with a lever whose fulcrum was six hundred miles from the earth's centre, and with a moving power equal to two hundred pounds in weight, or the power of an ordinary man, and in velocity equal to a cannon-ball, placed at the immense distance of twelve quadrillions of miles, it would require twenty-seven billions of years to move the earth one inch. How vain would be the united force of all the human beings that now people the earth to produce even this effect! Yet our globe rushes onward in its course, at the rate of one thousand miles a minute. But what is our earth to the planet Saturn, which is more than one thousand times bigger than this sphere of ours? What is it to the sun, nearly a million times greater? what is it to the whole planetary and cometary systems? Only one of five hundred masses. What is the planetary system itself? It is nothing when compared to the universe,-nothing to the thousands and thousands of systems, each enlightened by its sun and stars, extending through the immensity of space. From the nearest of these stars or suns our distance is not less than thirty-seven billions of miles; and when we reflect that luminous bodies are discoverable by the telescope, whose light, if we may credit the calculations of an eminent astronomer, has been nearly two millions of years in reaching our globe, though moving at the rate of more than ten millions of miles in a minute, what a conception does this give of the universe!—CRombie. Most of the following extracts, as far as page 408, are taken from the French examination papers of the University of London: * Jupiter. Planète qui est entre Pallas et Saturne, et qui fait sa révolution autour du soleil en quatre mille trois cent trente-trois jours. + Uranus. Planète découverte par Herschel, dont elle a porté le nom pendant quelque temps. Praiseworthy ambition. There are but few men who are not ambitious of distinguishing themselves in the nation or country where they live, and of growing considerable among those with whom they converse. There is a kind of grandeur and respect, which the meanest and most insignificant part of mankind endeavour to procure in the little circle of their friends and acquaintance. The poorest mechanic, nay, the man who lives upon common alms, gets him his set of admirers, and delights in that superiority which he enjoys over those who are in some respects beneath him. This ambition, which is natural to the soul of man, might receive a very happy turn; and, if it were rightly directed, contribute as much to a person's advantage as it generally does to his uneasiness and disquiet.—Spectator. Education of a poet. 1 Being now resolved to be a poet, I saw everything with a new purpose; my sphere of attention was suddenly magnified: no kind of knowledge was to be overlooked. I ranged mountains and deserts for images and resemblances, and pictured upon my mind every tree of the forest and flower of the valley. I observed with equal care the crags of the rock and the pinnacles of the palace. Sometimes I wandered along the mazes of the rivulet, and sometimes watched the changes of the summer clouds. To a poet nothing can be useless. Whatever is beautiful and whatever is dreadful, must be familiar to his imagination: he must be conversant with all that is awfully vast or elegantly little. The plants of the garden, the animals of the wood, the minerals of the earth, and meteors of the sky, must all concur to store his mind with inexhaustible variety: for every idea is useful for the enforcement or decoration of moral or religious truth; and he who knows most, will have most power of diversifying his scenes, and of gratifying his reader with remote allusions and unexpected instruction. But the knowledge of nature is only half the task of a poet: he must be acquainted likewise with all the modes of life. His character requires that he estimate the happiness and misery of every condition; observe the power of all the passions in all their combinations, and trace the changes of the human mind, as they are modified by various institutions and accidental influences of climate or custom, from the sprightliness of infancy to the despondence of decrepitude. His labour is not yet at an end: he must know many languages and many sciences; and, that his style may be worthy of his thoughts, must, by incessant practice, familiarize to himself every delicacy of speech and grace of harmony.-JOHNSON. Sublimity of conception. Looking over the late edition of Boileau's works, I was very much pleased with the article which he has added to his notes on the trans lation of Longinus. He there tells us, that the sublime in writing rises either from the nobleness of the thought, the magnificence of the words, or the harmonious and lively turn of the phrase, and that the perfect sublime arises from all these three in conjunction together. He produces an instance of this perfect sublime in four verses from the Athalia of Racine. When Abner, one of the chief officers of the court, represents to Joad, the high-priest, that the queen was incensed against him, the high-priest, not in the least terrified at the news, returns this answer: "Celui qui met un frein à la fureur des flots, Je crains Dieu, cher Abner, et n'ai point d'autre crainte." Such a thought gives no less a sublimity to human nature than it does to good writing. This religious fear, when it is produced by just apprehensions of a Divine Power, naturally overlooks all human greatness that stands in competition with it, and extinguishes every other terror that can settle itself in the heart of man; it lessens and contracts the figure of the most exalted persons; it disarms the tyrant and executioner; and represents to our minds the most enraged and the most powerful as altogether harmless and impotent. There is no true fortitude which is not founded upon this fear, as there is no other principle of so settled and fixed a nature. . . . . That courage which proceeds from the sense of our duty, and from the fear of offending Him that made us, acts always in a uniform manner, and according to the dictates of right reason. What can the man fear, who takes care in all his actions to please a Being that is omnipotent?—Addison. Poetry. Many people suppose that poetry is something to be found only in books, contained in lines of ten syllables, with like endings: but wherever there is a sense of beauty, or power, or harmony, as in the motion of a wave of the sea, in the growth of a flower that "spreads its sweet leaves to the air, and dedicates its beauty to the sun,"there is poetry, in its birth. If history is a grave study, poetry may be said to be a graver: its materials lie deeper, and are spread wider. History treats, for the most part, of the cumbrous and unwieldy masses of things, the empty cases in which the affairs of the world are packed, under the heads of intrigue or war, in different states, and from century to century: but there is no thought or feeling that can have entered into the mind of man, which he would be eager to communi cate to others, or which they would listen to with delight, that is not a fit subject for poetry. It is not a branch of authorship: it is "the stuff of which our life is made." The rest is "mere oblivion," a dead letter for all that is worth remembering in life is the poetry of it. Poetry is that fine particle within us, that expands, rarefies, |