legs are lifted up, the Semang, cautiously approaching behind one of them, drives a sharp-pointed bamboo, or piece of nibong, which has been previously well hardened in the fire, and touched with poison, into the sole of its foot, with all his force, which effectually lames, and most commonly causes him to fall, when the whole party rush upon him with spears and sharp-pointed sticks, and soon despatch him. The tusks are extracted, and bartered to the Malays, for tobacco, salt, or cloth. The rhinoceros they obtain with much less difficulty. This animal, which is of solitary habits, is found frequently in divers marshy places, with its whole body immersed in the mud, and part of the head only projecting. The Malays call it Badak Tapa, or the recluse rhinoceros. Towards the close of the rainy season, it is said to bury itself in this manner, and upon the dry weather setting in, and from the powerful effects of a vertical sun, the mud becomes hard and crusted, so that the rhinoceros cannot effect his escape without considerable difficulty and exertion. The Semangs prepare large quantities of combustible materials, with which they quietly come up to the animal, who is aroused from his reverie by an immense fire over him, and this, being well supplied by the Semangs with fresh fuel, soon completes his destruction, leaving him, also, well roasted for dinner. The projecting horn on the snout is carefully preserved, being supposed to be possessed of medicinal properties, and highly prized by the Malays.'

"The features of all the tribes that have fallen under my observation, viz., the Jakun, or Sakkye, the Belandas, the Besisik, the Akkye, and two other tribes from Salangore, as before observed, bear a common resemblance to the Malays, whose blood has not been much intermingled with that of Arabs or Mussulmans from the coast of India. In stature, they are, on the whole, a little lower than the ordinary run of the latter. Their bodies, from want of proper attention to cleanliness, emit a fetid odour, like that of Hottentots, or wild beasts. Their hair is black, often with a rusty tinge; it is sometimes lank, but generally matted and curly, differing, however, much from the woolly crisp hair of the Hottentot, and from that of the Malay, only in its being more neglected, allowed to grow to a great length, and constantly exposed to the rays of an equatorial sun, against which it forms their almost only protection, when wandering at a distance from the shades of their umbrageous forests. The eye of the Benua surpasses that of the Malay, in keenness and vivacity, as well as in varying expression; nor is it so narrow, nor are the internal angles so much depressed as among the Chinese and Javanese. The forehead is low, not receding. The eyebrows, or superciliary ridges, do not project much. The mouth and lips are large, but often well formed and expressive; the beard is scanty, as among the Tartars. They have the same sturdy legs, and breadth of chest, the small, depressed, though not flattened nose, with diverging nostrils, and the broad and prominent cheek bones, which distinguish that race of men. When we make comparisons between the physical appearances of Malay and Benua, the changes induced by a superior state of civilisation, better species of food, more settled habits of life, the admixture of Arab and Indian blood, must always be taken into calculation.

"Most of the wild tribes possess only faint glimmering ideas respecting the existence of a Supreme Being; but, with the savages of Tartary and North America, they adore a superior power, not in temples made with hands, not in the form of graven, sculptured, or painted images, but through the medium of one of the greatest and most splendid of his apparent created works-the Sun-the

feelings of gratitude and veneration, or propitiated through fear; hence what has been termed devil-worship, amongst barbarous nations, and the curious invention of fates and furies, by more intelligent theologists.

"The following passage, explanatory of the customs of the Benua, is translated from a copy of an old Malay MS., which was sent to me by one of the Salangore chiefs, and purports to be the answer given by the four chiefs, or Neneks, who were summoned to the presence of Mahomed Shah, king of Johore.

"We wish to return to our old customs, to ascend the lofty mountain, to dive into the earth's deep caverns, to traverse the boundless forest, to repose, with our head pillowed on the knotted trunk of the Durian tree, and curtained by Russam leaves. To wear garments made from the leaves of the Lumbah, or Terap tree, and a head dress of Bajah leaves. Where the Meranti trees join their lofty branches, where the Kompas links its knots, there we love to sojourn. Our weapons are the tamiang (or sumpitan), and the quiver of arrows imbued in the gum of the deadly Telak. The fluid most delicious to us is the limpid water that lodges in the hollow of trees, where the branches unite with the trunk; and our food consists of the tender shoots of the fragrant Jematong, and the delicate flesh of the bounding deer.'

"Both men and women go nearly naked whilst near their own haunts: they wear nothing but a strip of the fibrous bark of the Terap tree, beaten into a sort of cloth of a reddish-brown colour, called a Sabaring, round their loins; part of this comes down in front, is drawn between the legs, and fastened behind. The men sometimes encircle their heads with a string of Pallas leaves. On visits to Malay villages they generally contrive to appear more decently clad. The women particularly take great pleasure in silver bracelets, rings, and other ornaments. I do not recollect that I have seen any instance of the Benua wearing the skins of wild beasts, as has been alleged. They carry about them little mat pouches, containing generally a small portion of tobacco, a flint and steel, a knife, and a rude bamboo call or whistle. Their arms, as before stated, are the sumpitan, bamboo quiver of poisoned arrows, a small quantity of the dark brown poison in a semi-fluid state contained in a small bamboo, the parang, and a spear with a ong shaft. Three individuals belonging to a tribe from the interior of Sungie Rhya, who visited me at Qualla Lingie, amused themselves during the greater part of the morning in shooting their arrows at the monkeys that swarmed among the boughs of the lofty fruit trees around my tent. They evinced a remarkable dexterity in the use of these dangerous weapons, blowing the arrows with great precision of aim, and with such a velocity as to render the transit of the slender dart for a considerable distance from the mouth of the tube invisible. It is propelled by collecting a considerable quantity of air in the lungs, and suddenly emitting it with a sharp noise resembling that occasioned by the discharge of an air-gun. The sumpitans made use of on this occasion were about ten feet long. The range, to take proper effect, is about sixty or seventy feet. They employ three preparations of the Ipoh or Upas poison to tip the arrows, distinguished by the names Ipoh Krohi, Ipoh Tennik, or Kennik, and Ipoh Mallaye.

"The Krohi is extracted from the root and bark of the Ipoh tree, the roots of the Tuba and Kopah, red arsenic, and the juice of limes. The Tennik is made in the same manner as the Krohi, leaving out the Kopah root. The Mallaye poison, which is accounted the most potent of the three, is prepared from the roots

Belphegor of the Moabites. They also entertain a high veneration for the stars, which, from their brilliancy and powerful influence over the face of nature, first excite the attention and claim the adoration of rude nations. Independently of an impulse, mysterious and undefined, that exists more or less in the hearts of all rational beings, to respect the controlling influence of an infinitely superior power, there are two lower, and if I may so speak, secondary impulses, of a more tangible and apparent nature, that stimulate the mind of man, especially in an infant state of society, to look up to a God, and which seem to divide natural religion into two distinct branches; I mean the impulses of veneration and fear. The visible and glorious sources of light, darkness, warmth, and the seasons, fire, and other useful objects, excited the former: while thunder, lightning, whirlwinds, earthquakes, volcanos, disease, famine, and death, by the sensible ills they caused, awoke the latter. In the next stage of the progress of a savage to spiritual knowledge, the first impulse prompts him to the belief, that these external agents are each under the guidance of unknown superior powers, who are either worshipped from

of the shrub Mallaye; hence its name.

"The process of concocting these preparations is as follows:The roots are carefully selected and cut at a particular age of the moon; I believe about the full. The woody fibre is thrown away, and nothing but the succulent bark used. This is put into a quali (a sort of pipkin made of earth) with as much soft water as will cover the mass, and kneaded well together. This done, more water is added, and the whole is submitted to a slow heat over a charcoal fire until half the water has evaporated. The decoction is next strained through a cotton cloth, again submitted to slow ebullition, until it attains the consistency of syrup. The red arsenic (Warangan) rubbed down in the juice of the sour lime, the Limou Assam of the Malays, is then added, and the mixture poured into small bamboos which are carefully closed up ready for use. Some of the tribes add a little opium, spices, and saffron; some, the juice of the Lanchar, and the bones of the Sunggat fish burnt to ashes.

"A number of juggling incantations are performed, and the spells gibbered over the seething cauldron by the Poyangs, by whom the fancied moment of the projection of the poisoning principle is as anxiously watched for, as that of the philosopher's stone, or the elixir vitæ by the alchymists and philosophers of more enlightened races. When recently prepared, the Ipoh poisons are all of a dark liver-brown colour, of the consistency of syrup, and emit a strongly narcotic odour. The deleterious principle appears to be volatile, as the efficacy of the poison is diminished by keeping.

"The arrows are very slight slips of wood, scarcely the thickness of a crow-quill, and generally about eight inches long, tapering to a fine point. This is coated with the poison, which is allowed to inspissate thereon for the space of an inch or so. They then cut the arrow slightly all round at the part where the coat of poison ends; consequently it almost invariably snaps off on piercing the flesh of the victim, leaving the envenomed point rankling in the wound. At the other end of the arrow is a cone of light, pith-like wood, which is fitted to the tube of the sumpitan, and assists materially in the propulsion and direction of the arrow. From experiments I caused some of the aborigines to make with these poisoned weapons on living animals in my presence, I am enabled to offer the following results showing the efficacy of the Kennik preparation :

"A squirrel died in twelve minutes; young dogs in from thirty-seven to forty minutes; a fowl in two hours-one lingered seven hours and a half. Three arrows tipped with the Mallaye preparation, it is affirmed, would kill a man in less than an hour, and a tiger in less than three hours. According to the aborigines, the only remedy against the poison is the recent juice of the Lemmah kopiting, rubbed round and into the wound, and afterwards over the limb into which the puncture has been made. The arrow seldom penetrates farther than an inch, snapping off as mentioned above.

"The huts which I have seen have been invariably situated on the steep side of some forest clad hill, or in some sequestered dell, remote from any frequented road or foot-path, and with little plantations of yams, plantains, and maize, about them. The bones and hair of the animals, whose flesh the inmates of these scattered dwellings feed upon, strew the ground near them, while a number of dogs, generally of a light brown colour, give timely notice of the approach of strangers.

"The huts themselves are rude edifices, perched on the top of four high wooden poles; thus elevated from fear of tigers, and entered by means of a long ladder, presenting no very satisfactory appearance to the uninitiated, through certain holes which serve as doors. The roofs are often thatched with chucho-leaves. There is but one room, in which the whole family is huddled together, with dogs and the bodies of animals they catch. They are interdicted by one of their singular rules from using any other wood than that of the Petaling and Jambu klat, in the construction of these huts. The huts are so made as to be moveable at a moment's warning; on the appearance of small-pox, or other contagious disorder among them, or deaths, a whole wigwam will vanish in the course of a single night.

"On occasions of marriages the whole tribe is assembled, and an entertainment given, at which large quantities of a fermented liquor, obtained from the fruit of the tampui, are discussed by the wedding guests; an address is made by one of the elders to the following effect:-' Listen, all ye that are present, those that were distant are now brought together-those that were separated are now united.' The young couple then approach each other, join hands, and the sylvan ceremony is concluded. It varies, however, in different tribes. Among some there is a dance, in the midst of which the bride elect darts off, à la galope, into the forest, followed by her inamorato. A chase ensues, during which, should the youth fall down, or return unsuccessful, he is met with the jeers and merriment of the whole party, and the match is declared off. It generally happens, though, that the lady contrives to stumble over the root of some tree friendly to Venus, and falls, (fortuitously of course) into the outstretched arms of her pursuer.

"No marriage is lawful without the consent of the parents. The dower usually given by the man to the bride, is a biliong, (Malay hatchet), a copper ring, an iron or earthen cooking vessel, a parang or chopper, a few cubits of cloth, glass beads, and a pair of armlets: the woman also presents a copper ring to her intended. Polygamy is not permitted, but a man can divorce his wife, and take another. The form of divorce is that the parties return their copper wedding-rings; the children generally go with the mother.

"The preparations for funerals are few and simple. The corpse

is stripped, washed, and wrapped in cloth of Terap bark, or in a piece of white cloth, and interred, among some of the tribes, in a sitting posture, in a grave from three to six cubits deep; the cooking dish, sumpitan, quiver of arrows, parang, knife, flint and steel of the deceased, are buried with him, along with a little rice, water, and a few rokos of tobacco, to serve the pilgrim on his long and dreary journey to the West. No sort of service is recited.

"The Benuas are celebrated among Malays for their skill in medicines, and, it is said, know the use of venesection in inflammatory disorders. The following is a specimen of their rude recipes. A person with sore eyes must use a collyrium of the infusion of Niet-niet leaves for four days. For diarrhea, the decoction of the root of Kayu-yet, and Kayu-panamas; for sciatica, powdered Sabtal-wood in water, rubbed on the loins; for sores, the wood Kumbing. If the head be affected, it must be washed with a decoction of Lawong-wood; if the chest, the patient should drink a decoction of Kayu-tikar leaves.

"Such recipes as these, of which there is abundance, are not, however, supposed to be fully efficacious without the incantations of the Poyangs. This triple alliance of religion, magic, and medicine, is remarkable as having prevailed at some period or other in every nation of the globe, and did not escape the observations of Pliny and other ancient writers. Guligas, stones extracted from the heads and bodies of animals, particularly the porcupine, and the Rantei Babi, which is imagined to be endowed with powers equivalent to those of the celebrated Anguinum of the Druids of Gaul and Britain, have been previously alluded to, and hold a high place in the Materia Medica of these rude tribes."

THE EMIGRANT HIGHLANDER.*

FORTY years since, the travelling by land from New York to Albany was so toilsome and tedious, that many preferred the precarious chance of going in the small sloops up the North river. These slight vessels were so poorly provided, and the winds often so adverse, that more than a week was frequently occupied in the passage. Every tide, however, set them forward a little, even with the wind ahead: so that the voyage was not hopeless. The writer of this remembers, with singular minuteness, a voyage made in this manner, in the year 1798. One of its occurrences afforded an example of the power of sympathy, more remarkable than he had, at that time, ever witnessed. May it prove useful to others, as he trusts it has been to him!

The sloop in which he embarked had but few passengers, except a large company of Highlanders, who, in their native dress, had taken their station in the hold, with the privilege of coming on deck at their pleasure. They spoke only in their own Highland tongue, and this circumstance kept them aloof for some time from the cabin passengers. One day, the only individual among them who spoke English at all, addressed the writer in respectful terms, and inquired as to the best mode of getting a livelihood in America. In answering so reasonable a question, made in behalf of so many simple-hearted and efficient men just arrived in the country, it was evidently necessary to inquire whither they were going, and what had been their occupation. The reply was, that all intended to stop in Albany, with the exception of one, who wished to go to his brother, living on the Merrimack river, in New England. They were informed that this person ought to have gone to his brother by the way of Boston, as Newburyport was the place of his destination. This being reported to the company, they all gathered round the writer, and, through their interpreter, asked many questions; which resulted in the advice, that on their arrival in Albany, they should find some one to address a letter to their countryman on the Merrimack, and await his reply, which would doubtless contair directions as to the best way of joining him. Moreover, he perhaps himself, on hearing that so near a relative had actually arrived, would come in person, and bring him to his home.

The advice proved satisfactory, especially to the young Highlander, who immediately, and with many gesticulations, denoting great earnestness, begged the writer to frame a letter for him to his brother, that it might be in readiness for the post, as soon as they should reach Albany. It may be supposed, that a request so proper in itself, and so patriotically urged, was not disregarded, especially as there was leisure, and the time hung heavy on the protracted passage. Having learned the names and residence of his parents, and heard him feelingly respond to every inquiry about brothers, sisters, and other friends in his native Scotland, the

latter was duly prepared, and the young Highlander came to hear it interpreted.

And here the writer cannot but pause, and be deeply affected, as faithful memory brings from far-distant years the countenance and gestures of this very extraordinary person, as he drank in the words and felt the sentiments of the simple and affectionate epistle of brother to brother. It seems, he thought it more than human that any one could know the feelings of his fraternal bosom, or having no actual acquaintance with the dear objects of his affection, describe them in the same lovely features which his own warm heart portrayed. During the process of interpretation, which was probably done in language far more expressive than any which the writer had used, he would seize his hand and embrace it; then, throwing himself on his knees, burst into tears of grateful astonishment, at hearing words which represented so exactly what was at that time passing within his own breast.

This was noted at the time as remarkable, but no thought was entertained of the effect which this excess of passion might produce in case of disappointment. The result will show that our feelings, even those of the tenderest class, need the governing, overruling hand of religion, and the fear of God, to make them subservient to our real good. Like the elements, when governed, they are useful and beautiful; but left to themselves, unsubdued by a holy fear, a devout submission to our heavenly Father's will, they break forth, and with restless force consume or overwhelin all we hold most dear.

Business detained the writer in Albany for several weeks. One day, passing the house of a friend, a native of Scotland, he heard the bell of the church to which that friend belonged tolling a funeral knell. Stepping in, he inquired who of the congregation were dead.

"A young Highlander," was the reply; "he died of mere grief and disappointment."

He then related how he had left the land of his birth to find a brother; had missed the direct route, and come to Albany, instead of going to the Merrimack river, where his brother resided; how some one had written a letter for him to that brother, which he had sent, and long awaited the answer. This ardently-desired letter arrived only two days since, but, alas! instead of being the messenger of good news, it bore tidings that his brother had been dead for several months!

"Oh, sir! this is not all; the poor young man, on hearing that his brother was indeed dead, and that he must never see him more, was so overcome with grief, that he fell dead on the spot. And this is the funeral, which we Scotchmen, who love one another better than you Yankees do, are now called to attend."

So saying, he left the writer to his own sad reflections.

HINTS TO THE LADIES.

WHEN a young girl reaches the age of fifteen or sixteen years, she begins to think of the mysterious subject of matrimony a state, the delights of which her youthful imagination shadows forth in the most captivating forms. It is made the topic of light and incidental discourse among her companions, and it is recurred to with increasing interest every time it is brought upon the tapis. When she grows a little older, she ceases to smatter about matrimony, and thinks more intently on the all-important subject. It engrosses her thoughts by day and her dreams by night; and she pictures to herself the felicity of being wedded to the youth for whom she cherishes a secret but consuming flame. She surveys herself in the mirror, and, as it generally tells "a flattering tale," she turns from it with a pleasing conviction that her beauty will enable her to conquer the heart of the most obdurate, and that, whoever else may die in a state of "single blessedness," she is destined to become, ere many years roll by, a happy bride.

From the age of eighteen to twenty is "the very witching time" of female life. During that period, the female heart is more susceptible of the soft and tender influences of love than at any other; and we appeal to our fair readers to say whether, if inclination alone were consulted in the business, more marriages would not take place during that ticklish season, than in any by which it is preceded or followed. It is the grand climacter of love; and she who passes it without entering into the state matrimonial, may chance to pass several years of her life ere she is caught in the meshes of Hymen. The truth is, that the majority of women begin to be more thoughtful when they have turned the age of twenty. The giddiness of the girl gives place to the sobriety of the woman. Frivolity is succeeded by reflection, and reason reigns where passion previously held undisputed sway. The cares and the anxieties of life press themselves more on the attention;

and as its sober realities become more palpable, they tend to weaken the effect of the sanguine anticipations of unmingled feli. city in the marriage-state which the mind had formed in its youthful day-dreams. In short, to use a common phrase, women, after twenty-one, "look before they leap."

Matrimony, however, though not so ardently longed for by the damsel who has passed what we have styled the grand climacter of love, is never lost sight of either by the youngest or by the most aged spinster in her Majesty's dominions. It is a state on which the eyes of the whole female world are turned with the most pleasurable anticipations, and the spinster of forty is as full of hope of one day being married as the damsel of twenty-one. But, sorry as we always are to utter anything which may tend to damp the hopes or to cloud the prospects of a fair lady, truth compels us to say that, when once she has crossed THE LINE, which on the map of love is marked THIRTY, the chances are fearfully against the probability of her obtaining a husband, even of the sedate age of forty or fifty. If she pass many degrees beyond the line, her state becomes almost hopeless, nay desperate, and she may reconcile herself to live and die an old maid. All experience confirms this lamentable truth. No wonder, therefore, that women make a mighty secret of their age, and that they occasionally tell a pardonable fib, in the attempt to induce the men to believe that they are several years younger than they really are. Who can blame them for practising a little finesse on this awful subject, seeing that their age, if divulged, might utterly annihilate the chances of their ever enjoying the blessings of wedded love !

Experience, we have said, confirms the lamentable truth, that females who have passed "the line" seldom reach the harbour of matrimony. Lest any of our readers should lay the "flattering unction to their souls," that, though they have crossed that awful point in the voyage of life, they shall yet escape the rocks on which, if they strike, all hopes of wedlock must be for ever abondoned, we shall present them with a table, which, whilst it will exhibit to females their chances of marriage at various ages, will prove the truth of the positions which have been already advanced on the subject. The table to which we are about to draw their attention is extracted from the "Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Laws respecting Friendly Societies." It was drawn up by Dr. Granville. The doctor, whose attention had been directed to the statistical questions of the increase of population among the poor, thought that the public institutions to which he belonged might be made available in obtaining the information which he wanted. For this purpose he put questions to the females who from time to time came under his care, to ascertain the earliest age at which women of the poorer classes marry. He submitted to the committee the registered cases of 876 women; and the following table, derived from their answers as to the age at which they respectively married, is the first ever constructed to exhibit to females their chances of marriage at various ages. Of the 876 females, there were married

It is to be borne in mind, that the females whose relative ages at the time of their marriage are above exhibited, were all of the lower classes. Among an equal number from the middling or the higher classes, we should not probably find as many as 195, or more than one-fifth, married under the age of nineteen; or so few as one-sixteenth part after twenty-eight; or only one-thirtieth part after thirty.

From this curious statistical table, our fair readers may form a pretty accurate judgment of the chances which they have of entering into the holy state of matrimony, and of enjoying the sweets - we say nothing of the bitters of wedded love. They ought always, however, to remember that such of them as independently of personal charms, possess the more powerful recommendation of property, will be deemed eligible as wives, whatever may be their age.

INCREASE OF RICHES UNDER GEORGE III.

THE increase of national riches consequent on commercial prosperity was attended with the natural adjunct of a vast increase in the luxurious arts. Horticulture, architecture, music, painting, and sculpture, were munificently encouraged. Splendid mansions rose in every part of the country, replete with every enjoyment and convenience that wealth, art, and science could produce. It was about the middle of the king's reign that the nobility and successful commercialists, Angerstein, Beckford, Methuen, and Ellis, began to form those magnificent galleries of art that are now the astonishment and admiration of foreigners. The superb collections of some of the French noblesse and of their farmersgeneral, as well as those of Holland and Belgium, dispersed by political revolutions, found ready purchasers in this opulent country; and the result is, that not only in cabinet pictures, but pictures of all kinds, England is now supposed to be the richest depository of the works of the great masters in the world. Luxury and improvement were rife in everything and among all classes. Private carriages, country-seats, and pleasure-horses, multiplied. The hours of application were shortened; merchants and the better sort of tradespeople, in lieu of their ledgers and counters, devoted the afternoon to wine, music, literature, or the theatres. Employments were more nicely subdivided; and, in easement of their superiors, more superintendants, clerks, overseers, bailiffs, stewards, valets, footmen, and ladies'-maids were kept than formerly. In towns, in-door apprenticeships became less frequent; and in the country there was less of yearly hiring, and the farmer and yeoman no longer sat down in common fellowship, at a common board, with his hind and husbandman. There was also great amelioration during the war in the condition of the labouring, handicraft, and artificer classes. Their clothing, lodging, furniture, and diet, improved. If their masters exchanged the spinnet and harpsichord for the more dulcet notes of the piano or guitar, the treenware, the wooden spoon and trencher, and the pewter-platter disappeared from cottages; and, what is more, that infallible sign of plebeian luxury, the wheaten loaf, after battling against the rye, the barley, and oaten in the South, at last wended its way from the Thames to the Tees, and is now struggling onwards to the Clyde, the Frith of Forth, and John O'Groat's.-Wade's British History.

A MUSICAL ENTHUSIAST.

"Dr. Ford, the rector of Melton, was an enthusiast in music, very singular in his manner, and a great humorist. His passion for sacred music was publicly known, from his constant attendance at most of the musical festivals in the kingdom. I have frequently met him, and always found him in ecstasies with Handel's music, especially the Messiah.' His admiration of this work was car

ried to such an excess, that he told me he never made a journey from Melton to Leicester that he did not sing it quite through. His performance served as a pedometer by which he could ascertain his progress on the road. As soon as he had crossed Melton Bridge, he began the overture, and always found himself in the chorus, Lift up your heads,' when he arrived at Brooksby Gate; and Thanks be to God,' the moment he got through Thurmaston toll-gate. As the pace of his old horse was pretty regular, he contrived to conclude the Amen chorus always at the cross in the Belgrave Gate. Though a very pious person, his eccentricity was, at times. at times, not restrained even in the pulpit. It need not be stated that he had a pretty good opinion of his own vocal powers. Once, when the clerk was giving out the tune, he stopped him, saying, John, you have pitched too low-follow me.' Then, clearing up his voice, he lustily began the tune. When the psalmody went to his mind, he enjoyed it; and, in his paroxysms of delight, would dangle one or both of his legs over the side of the pulpit during the singing. When preaching a charity sermon at Melton, some gentlemen of the hunt entered the church rather late. He stopped, and cried out, Here they come; here come the red-coats; they know their Christian duties: there's not a man among them that is not good for a guinea. The doctor was himself a performer, had a good library of music, and always took the Messiah' with him on his musical journeys. I think it was at a Birmingham festival that he was sitting with his book upon his knee, humming the music with the performers, to the great annoyance of an attentive listener, who said, 'I did not pay to hear you sing.' 'Then,' said the doctor, you have that into the bargain." "-Gardiner's

Music and Friends.

APPREHENSIONS AND MISAPPREHENSIONS. THE painter Vernet relates, that somebody once employed him to paint a landscape with a cave, and St. Jerome in it. He accordingly painted the landscape with Jerome in the entrance. But when he delivered the picture, the purchaser, who understood nothing of perspective, said, "The landscape and the cave are well

"I understand you,

made, but St. Jerome is not in the cave." sir," replied Vernet; "I will alter it." He therefore took the painting, and made the shade darker, so that the Saint seemed to sit farther in. The gentleman took the painting, and it again appeared to him that the Saint was not in the cave. Vernet then wiped the figure out, and gave it to the gentleman, who seemed perfectly satisfied. Whenever he saw the strangers to whom he showed the picture, he said, "Here you see the picture by Vernet, with St. Jerome in his cave." "But we do not see the Saint," replied the visitors. "Excuse me, gentlemen," answered the owner, " he is there-I have seen him standing at the entrance, and afterwards farther back and therefore I am sure he is in it."

This anecdote reminds us of a story of old Astley, who piqued himself extremely on suffering no imposition of any kind to be practised on the public at his theatre. Having ordered a dropscene to be painted, representing a temple, he was, on examining the performance, scandalised by observing that his artist had shortened the pillars in the back-ground-in fact, that the pillar was so much the shorter as it was farther removed from the eye of the spectator. Having called the painter to account for this, in his judgment, strange irregularity, and being assured that the rules of perspective required it, he indignantly replied, "Don't talk to me, sir, of perspective-I know nothing of the rules of perspective; but I know the foot-rule, and I know by it that these pillars are not all of a length, as pillars in temples, or what is the same thing, churches, always are; and I won't have the public imposed on or defrauded of full measure of their pillars. They pay their money at the door to see pillars in my drop-scene, and they shall have good measure for their money, or my name is not Astley. Make them all of a size, sir, as I bid you, or I will find some one else that will." The painter did as he was commanded, and all the pillars were painted of such equal measure that the public had no reason to complain of any deception; it was the most candid of drop-scenes - there was no delusion in it. Another time, the same worthy seeing the trombone player in the orchestra doing nothing but patting the music-desk with his fore-finger, while the rest of his brethren were scraping and blowing away as if their lives and souls depended on it, he asked him angrily, "Pray, sir, what is the meaning of this neglect-why are not you doing your duty like the rest of the band?" "Sir," said the man, "there is a "Count

pause for my instrument, and I am counting the bars." ing the bars!" roared Astley; 'why, I don't pay you to come and sit here counting bars-I pay to play to the public; and

if you don't play this instant, I'll discharge you to-morrow morning. The public shan't be imposed on in my house. They don't pay at the door to see musicians counting bars, but to hear them playing notes."

PARADISE LOST.

For years, vext by political intrigue, domestic discord, and the ungrateful labours of the school-room, Milton's poetical powers seemed to be dormant, or the great light within him was evinced only by casual scintillations. But the finger of misfortune then came on him for good; to broken health, disappointed hopes, and shattered spirits, was added at a stroke the calamity of blindness: and thus forced into necessary retirement and contemplation, his mind began to imagine and create new worlds to repay itself for that which his outward eye had lost. So, in the sere autumn of his life, the most wonderful work ever composed by man rose unpremeditated to the dictating tongue of Milton, even as his own descriptions of supernal and infernal architecture, which framed itself complete in sublime and dreamy grandeur. Unlike other poets, whose excellence is often attributable to the " nine years' laying-by," and the continued labour of the file, Milton, in more than a seeming inspiration, would recite for many hours together to those three fair amanuenses whose filial care has so obliged mankind. At a heat, a panoplied Minerva from the head of Jove the PARADISE LOST-sprung in wondrous labour from his brain; and it stands, with nothing to add, and nothing to take away, a miracle of strength, knowledge, and invention.-Martin Farquhar Tupper.

EVILS OF RAILROADS.

The New York Gazette gives the following humorous argument which, it says, was used by a canal stockholder in opposition to railways:-" He saw what would be the effect of it; that it would set the whole world a-gadding. Twenty miles an hour, sir! Why, you will not be able to keep an apprentice-boy at his work: every Saturday evening he must take a trip to Ohio, to spend the Sabbath with his sweetheart. Grave plodding citizens will be flying about like comets. All local attachments must be at an end. It will encourage flightiness of intellect. Veracious people will turn into the most immeasurable liars; all their conceptions will be exaggerated by their magnificent notions of distance. Only a hundred miles off! Tut, nonsense, I'll step across, madam, and bring your fan!' 'Pray, sir, will you dine with me to-day at my little box at Alleghany?' 'Why, indeed, I don't know I shall be in town until twelve. Well, I shall be there; but you must let me off in time for the theatre.' And then, sir, there will be barrels of pork, and cargoes of flour, and chaldrons of coals, and even lead and whiskey, and such like sober things, that have always been used to sober travelling, whisking away like a set of skyrockets. It will upset all the gravity of the nation. If two gentlemen have an affair of honour, they have only to steal off to the Rocky Mountains, and there no jurisdiction can touch them. And then, sir, think of flying for debt! A set of bailiffs, mounted on bomb-shells, would not overtake an absconded debtor-only give him a fair start. Upon the whole, sir, it is a pestilential, topsyturvy, harum-scarum whirligig. Give me the old, solemn, straightforward, regular Dutch canal-three miles an hour for expresses, and two for jog-and-trot journeys with a yoke of oxen for a heavy load! I go for beasts of burthen: it is more primitive and scriptural, and suits a moral and religious people better. None of your hop-skip-and-jump whimsies for me."

A NEWSMONGER

He

Is a retailer of rumour, that takes up upon trust, and sells as cheap as he buys. He deals in a perishable commodity that will not keep; for if it be not fresh, it lies upon his hands, and yields nothing. True or false is all one to him; for novelty being the grace of both, a truth grows stale as soon as a lie; and as a slight suit will last as well as a better while the fashion holds, a lie serves as well as a truth till new ones come up. He is little concerned whether it be good or bad, for that does not make it more or less news; and if there be any difference, he loves the bad best, because it is said to come soonest; for he would willingly bear his share in any public calamity, to have the pleasure of hearing and telling it. He is deeply read in diurnals, and can give as good an account of Rowland Pepin, if need be, as another man. tells news, as men do money, with his fingers, for he assures them it comes from very good hands. The whole business of his life is like that of a spaniel, to fetch and carry news; and when he does it well, he is clapped on the back and fed for it; for he does not take to it altogether like a gentleman for his pleasure, but, when he lights on a considerable parcel of news, he knows where to put it off for a dinner, and quarter himself upon it, until he has eaten it out; and by this means he drives a trade, by rehearsing the past news to truck it for the first meat in season; and, like the old Roman luxury, ransacks all seas and lands to please his palate, for he imports his narratives from all ports within the geography of a diurnal, and eats as well upon the beef and Polander as the English and Dutch. By this means his belly is provided for, and nothing lies upon his hands but his back, which takes other courses to maintain itself, by weft and stray silver spoons, straggling hoods and scarfs, pimping and sets at l'ombre.-Butler.

LACONICS.

The happiness of mankind is the end of virtue, and truth is the knowledge of the means. Coleridge.

The habit of speaking is the habit of being heard, and of wanting to be heard; the habit of writing is the habit of thinking aloud, but without the help of an echo.-Hazlist.

As there are some flowers which you should smell but slightly to extract all that is pleasant in them, so there are some men with whom a slight acquaintance is sufficient to draw out all that is agreeable; a more intimate one would be unsatisfactory and unsafe. - Landor.

Those who live from hand to mouth most frequently become improvident. Possessing no stock of happiness, they eagerly seize the gratification of the moment, and snatch the froth from the wave as it passes by them.- Coleridge.

The most irreconcilable disappointments are those which arise from our obtaining all we wish.-Hazlitt.