The idea of a wild cat springing at a person's face is, to our mind, much less consonant to a warrior making an attack upon his adversary, than it would be to one of those women who, when they saw Sextus, we are told,

and is truly the picture of an enraged fury, who, with teeth fast closed, hair streaming, and talons bent, is springing at some luckless wight, who has been unfortunate enough to provoke her ire. It, however, seems to be considered a prize of great worth by Mr. Macaulay, for he gives it again in the Lay of Virginia.

The reader, no doubt, has been looking, with some anxiety, for some of those imitations of Homer, which we were promised on the score of principle, and so have we ourselves; but, although much has been found culled from other writers in Mr. Macaulay's Elegant Extracts, we have seen nothing, in the least degree, comparable to anything in the immortal bard's poems-unless it be the tenth, eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth verses of the Battle of Lake Regillus, and they do forcibly bring to our mind the celebrated catalogue of ships. After, in those verses calling the roll of his army, a fight naturally follows-and in that each of the heroes kills his man, and then politely submits to be killed himself, until at last Valerius is stricken down, and two rival leaders, striving for his body,

"Titus dragged him by the head

And Aulus by the foot."

This is a fine sample of the genuine ballad style-for in the melancholy tale of Punch and Judy, the little dog Toby seizes Punch's nose, and

The beautiful idea of Mamilias's horse flying home from the field is, undoubtedly and unmistakeably, Campbell's:

"Fast, fast, with heels wild spurning,
The dark gray charger fled;

He burst through ranks of fighting men;
He sprang o'er heaps of dead.

His bridle far out-streaming,

His flanks all blood and foam,

He sought the southern mountains,
The mountains of his home.

He rushed through the gate of Turculum,
He rushed up the long, white street,

He rushed by tower and temple,

And paused not in his race

Till he stood before his master's door,

In the stately market-place.

And straightway round him gather'd
A pale and trembling crowd,

And when they knew him, cries of rage
Brake forth, and wailing loud;
And women rent their tresses

For their great prince's fall;

And old men girt on their old swords,

And went to man the wall."

In Lochiel's warning-a piece every school-boy knows by heart-the wizard, predicting his death, says:

"But hark through the fast-flashing lightning of war,
What steed to the desert flies frantic and far?

'Tis thine, oh Glenullin! whose bride shall await,
Like a love-lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate.
A steed comes at morning; no rider is there;
But its bridle is red with the sign of despair.
Weep Albin! to death and captivity led!

Oh weep! for thy tears cannot number the dead."

If any species of literary stealing be worse than another, we take this to be the worst in the world. The first we gave was from an old ballad, read by few; but this deliberately appropriating a piece of property, whose owner is known by all, is equalled by nothing we know, unless it be the ass who put on a lion's skin, and betrayed himself by his ears.

But we have given time and space enough to these ballads, and shall only notice farther a singular and incorrect use of the word "couch," in the nineteenth verse-in which a heap of slain, covering a corpse, is called a "couch"-and the frequent use of such poetical terms as "screeching slain," and "wriggling worm."

We

Such are our views of Mr. Macaulay's ballads-but of tales of great beauty he has manufactured, by dint of evident labor, rhyming, prosy narratives, wanting the beauty of the simple, every-day style in which they are usually written and requiring, by way of explanation, nearly as many pages of pedantic prose as there are of miserable verses. would judge, then, that poetry is not his forte-the same delighted voices will not hail his verses that do his prose writings-and we would advise him to continue his vocation of writing prejudiced history, and one-sided reviews.

We have now done-if any one thinks us captious, or cavilling, we would say, that the pieces will not bear a wider and higher mode of criticism. We gave our views of the species of poetry at commencing-and in pieces of this kind the minutest faults will destroy the whole. Unlike those works of a grander sort, which can contain many faults, and still be master-pieces, ballads are, as modernised, miniatures which require the most delicate workmanship, in which the slightest mis-stroke is a great defect. And being of this character, that is a proper criticism with regard to them, which would be a pettiness applied elsewhere. Every one examines the wing of a butterfly through a microscope-but no one uses the same instrument to survey a broad and extended landscape.

A HISTORY OF THE DIVINING ROD;

WITH THE ADVENTURES OF AN OLD RODSMAN.

WITH a large portion of the simple-hearted people in the agricultural districts of the country, from the earliest ages there has been an implicit belief in the powers and virtues of the Divining Rod-either for the discovery of water, mines, or hidden treasures. This belief, it would seem, has originated from the wonderful powers of the miraculous rod in the hands of Moses and Aaron, imparted to it by the Almighty. Their rod was made from a simple twig of the almond tree; with this, water was discovered and brought forth from the flinty rock. The peach is a family variety of the almond; and with a branch of this wood our modern rodsmen, or water-wizards, make search for hidden springs of water. Others make use of the "Witch-Hazel," for this purpose; probably from its wonderful property of bringing forth its blossoms out of season, like the rod of Aaron, late in autumn, when other trees are quiescent, and also for metallic deposits. The most learned, however, in this occult science, construct them of various materials, chiefly from the mineral kingdom. Since the discovery of the mines in California, a Spanish gentleman in the city of New-York has advertised for sale to the adventurers, a mineral rod, or instrument, which will direct them to the richest deposits, and by which he had made his own fortune. In proof of their undoubted excellence, he also published the certificates of several men of science. These articles, whatever they may be, whether quicksilver, oil of amber, or dragon's-blood, are enclosed in some small, tight vessel, commonly the tip of a young heifer's horn, and mounted on two strips of slender whalebone, about eighteen inches long. The free ends of these are held in a peculiar manner, between the closed fingers and the palm of the hand in a state of supination; so that a slight pressure of the fingers, or any movement of the wrist-joint, will cause the rod to turn either towards or from the operator, despite his utmost efforts to prevent it. This motion is called the attraction of the rod to the hidden or sought article, whether water or anything else, similar to that of the magnet for iron. Others of the more modern diviners, in searching for metals, make use of a small ball, made of a similar metal to that for which they search, suspended by a long horse-hair, or silk thread. As the operator approaches the hidden mine, the ball deviates more or less from the perpendicular, and thus points out the proximity of the object sought.

Many wonderful things are told of these rodsmen, especially in searching for streams of water under ground, for the purpose of excavating wells. A few years since, in the eastern part of the township of Marietta, a farmer wished to dig a well; and fearing he might have to go very deep, or perhaps not find water at all, he applied to one of these professors of the art for information. After the usual flourishes and perambulations, he pitched on a spot near the farmer's house, where he said water would be found. Before commencing the work, to make the matter sure, he applied to another water diviner; and lest he should discover some indications from the make of the ground, he had him blindfolded, an

conducted him over the location where he desired to dig the well. Either from the actual truth of the science, or by accident, this man fixed on the same spot with the other; deviating only a few inches from the place where he said water would be found. The farmer dug the well, and found a plentiful supply. How this coincidence could possibly happen, without some truth in the art, would be difficult to explain. Water can, no doubt, be found at a certain depth, in any country, where rains prevail and springs abound, unless cut off by strata of rocks; and these always contain crevices, so that it can be obtained by boring, or blasting the rock. One well is within my knowledge, dug under the direction of the divining rod, which descended to the depth of seventy feet before water was found. It was on the slope of a hill-side, near a large creek, and penetrated to the level of the bed of the stream; so that, in this case, nothing was gained by the application of the science. Another instance is known, where the assistance was apparent. A gentleman commenced a well near his house, which stands on the declivity of a low ridge, bordered on the east by a deep ravine, only a few rods distant, while westerly it descends on to the Muskingum bottoms. At the depth of twenty feet, a shaly rock obstructed the work. About ten rods west of the house, a spring bursts out of the earth, and runs down to the low lands. Could the sources of this spring be found, a well of water might be obtained, probably not far from the house. A master of the divining rod was employed, who, after considerable labor, and many traverses back and forth between the spring and the house, pointed out a spot for the well, about midway between the dwelling and the spring. Here, he said, two small branches of water united, and running westerly, formed the fountain. At the depth named, about twenty feet, water was found, and coming into the well from two veins-one from the ridge northerly, the other easterly, towards the house. In proof of their identity, when the well fails in droughts, the spring dries up also.

A few months since, the same rodman pointed out a spot for a well to a man, on the elevated plain back of Marietta, about a quarter of a mile south-easterly from the one just described. After fixing on the location, the man wished to know the depth to the water. This question was decided by the peach-tree rod in the following manner :-The diviner stood over the place, and holding the rod in the usual way, it dipped down, or was attracted six times towards the earth, and then ceased. It is a rule amongst the diviners, in searching for the depth to the water, that each inclination of the rod indicates five feet; and as in this case the sixth dip was made rather tardily, it was inferred that the depth would be something less than thirty feet. On digging the well, an abundance of water was found at twenty-six feet, establishing the truth of the prediction. This plain is an ancient alluvion of the Muskingum river, rising more than one hundred feet above its present bed, and composed of strata of sand and gravel. At the depth of twenty-five or thirty feet, all over the northern and eastern portion of the plain, a bed of blue clay is found. The rain-water having percolated through the sand and gravel, is arrested by the clay, and conducted by its own gravity to the borders of the plain, bursts out in numerous springs along its margin. How far a knowledge of this fact might have aided in deciding the depth of the well, is best known to the operator. Wells, south or west of this clay deposit, are sunk to seventy or eighty feet, in search of water.

If there is any truth in the foregoing experiments, and there is a natural law on which that truth is based, we must first ascertain, as nigh as we can, what that law is, by some theory; as many new truths have been discovered by theory, or a course of reasoning, as well as by experiment. A theory of this kind has been proposed by a very intelligent man, who is a close observer of cause and effect, in whose hands the peach wood rod works well. It has been long known that the human frame is a good conductor of electricity; and since the discoveries in animal magnetism, which is but a modification of electricity, many new facts have been elicited. The body of the diviner or rodsman, then, makes a good conductor between the electricity of the atmosphere and the earth; while the peach twig in his hands answers to the points of the iron lightning rod. With these premises, the following theory is proposed, until a better can be found :-"The ocean is constantly in a state of negative electricity— of course the rivers emptying into it will be in a similar state, with their tributary rivulets and springs; as will also the still smaller veins ramifying beneath the surface of the ground. The layers of earth and rocks above these streams of water, are comparatively bad conductors, and therefore something like the coating of a Leyden jar. The atmosphere being in a positive state, and its electricity influenced by the negative condition of the streams, will be collected over thein, as they are passing under the ground. The rod being made of a wood very sensitive to electricity, as it is borne over the surface its motion is produced by the extra charge of electricity in the air, above the places where water may be found." Assuming this as the true principle on which the action of the rod is to be explained, the exact depth to the water may also be calculated. It is a known fact, that the lightning rod will only protect a surface equal in extent to the base line of an angle of forty-five degrees from its top. The higher the rod, the longer the base line, and the broader the surface protected. If this surface were given, the height of the rod might be calculated, since you would then have one side given, and all the angles of a triangle to find one of the remaining sides. Imagine the rod reversed, and the principle will be the same. Measure the ground over which the electrical influence is exerted on the water rod, and this will answer to the surface protected by the lightning rod. By a similar calculation, the length or depth of the perpendicular line from the surface of the earth to the water, may be ascertained.

These preliminary facts having been duly set forth, we may now proceed to narrate the adventures of "An Old Rodsman ;" which, however marvellous and apocryphal they may seem in the eyes of some people, are nevertheless the legitimate offspring of truth. For the better understanding of the character of the man, who will be designated by the name of "the Commodore," which he acquired from his life on the water as commander of various boats, with the origin of many of his peculiar views and turn of mind, it will be proper to give a brief history of his birth and parentage. He was born in August, 1775, at Westport, a small village on the southerly coast of Massachusetts, near the line of Rhode Island. The old Indian name of the place was Peckicheck. The early navigators of this region, from the intricacy of the harbour, being at the bottom of a deep narrow inlet, guarded outside, and beset within, by clusters of rocks-called, from fancied resemblances, "the old cock," "hen and chickens," "sow and pigs," &c., requiring both skill and patience to