luxurious people of their sleep. The poet illustrates him by the following appropriate image :

As when in prime of June, a burnished fly,
Sprung from the meads o'er which he sweeps along,
Cheer'd by the breathing bloom and vital sky,
Tunes up amid these airy halls his song,

Soothing at first the gay reposing throng;

And oft' he sips their bowl; or, nearly drowned,

Hle, thence recovering, drives their beds among,

And scares their tender sleep, with trump profound,
Then out again he flies to wing his mazy round.

Here follow two other guests of Indolence, coming to bask in wild thyme, or brood over their melancholy in groves. The latter portrait (if our memory is not mistaken) is understood to have been intended for Armstrong. It is a pity the former is unknown. It

is not unlike Shenstone; but we are not aware that Shenstone was acquainted with Armstrong.

Of all the gentle tenants of the place,
There was a man of special grave remark ;
A certain tender gloom o'erspread his face,
Pensive, not sad ; in thought involved, not dark ;
And sooth this man could sing as morning lark;
And teach the noblest morals of the heart;
But these his talents were yburied stark;
Of the fine stores he nothing would impart,
Which or boon Nature gave, or nature painting Art.
To noontide shades incontinent he ran,

Where purls the brook with sleep-inviting sound,
Or when Dan Sol to siope his wheels began,
Amid the broom he basked him on the ground,
Where the wild thyme and camomoil are found:
There would he linger till the latest ray

Of light sate trembling on the welkin's bound;
Then homeward thro' the twilight shadows stray,
Sauntering and slow; so had he passed many a day.
Yet not in thoughtless slumber were they past;
For oft the heavenly fire, that lay concealed
Beneath the sleeping embers, mounted fast,
And all its native light anew revealed;
Oft' as he traversed the cerulaen field,

And markt the clouds that drove before the wind,
Ten thous and glorious systems would he build,
Ten thousand great ideas filled his mind;

But with the clouds they fled, and left no trace behind.

With him was sometimes joined, in silent walk,
(Profoundly silent, for they never spoke)

One shyer still, who quite detested talk;

Oft stung by spleen, at once away he broke,

To groves of pine and broad o'ershadowing oak;

There inly thrilled, he wandered all alone,

And on himself his pensive fury wroke,

Nor ntter'd word, save when shone

The glittering star of eve-"Thank heaven? the day is done." To the second line of the sixty-eighth stanza of the poem, this note is appended: "The following lines of this stanza were writ by a friend of the Author." The friend is said to be Armstrong, and the portrait is that of Thomson himself. We have thus the curious, the very particular, and very pleasant evidence, that Thomson began the portrait with a stroke of personal candour such as would have had a very different grace from the har of any body but himself, and then suffered the canvass to be filled up by another :

A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems,
Who void of envy, guile, and lust of gain,
On virtue still, and Nature's pleasing themes.
Pour'd forth his unpreineditated strain.
The world forsaking with a calm disdain,
Here laugh'd he, careless in bis easy seat;
Here quaff'd, encircled with the joyous strain,
Oft moralizing sage. His ditty sweet
He loathed much to write, ne cared to repeat.

Ne is the old English word for nor. The poem is written in a strain of reverential mimicry of Spenser; which gives it, like Shenstone's Schoolmistress, a certain exquisiteness of mixed gravity and familiarity; as in the following instance :

Ilere urk'd a wretch who had not crept abroad
For forty years, ne face of mortal seen;

In chamber brooding like a loathly toad,

And sure his linen was not very clean.

This fellow used to take his dinner

Through secret loop-holes that had practised been,
Near to his bed-

Which, together with his other habits, so disgusted the gentles of the Castle of Indolence, that they fairly summoned up activity enough to drive him out.

Whence from his filthy nook,

We drove the villain eut, for fitter lair to look. The closing line of the following extract makes a reader of Spenser laugh, to see how admirably the poet has caught the uncouth yet ingenious manner in which his great original disposes of a difficult rhyme. In place of a newspaper, the Castle had a magic globe in which they could see all that happened out of doors :

One great amuseme t of our household was,
In a huge chrystal, n.agic globe to spy,
Still as you turned it, all things that do pass
Upon this ant-hill earth; where constantly
Of idly busy men the restless fry

Run bustling to and fro with foolish haste,
In search of pleasures vain that from them fly,
Or, which obtained, the caitiffs dare not taste:
When nothing is enjoyed, can there be greater waste?

Of vanity the mirrour this was called?

Here you a muckworm of the town might see

At bis dull desk, amid his legers stalled

Ate up with carking care and pennrie;

Most like the carcase perched on gallow tree;

"A penny saved is a penny got,"

Firm to this scoundrel maxim keepeth he,

Ne of its rigour will he bate a jot

Till it has quench'd his fire and banished his pot.

at North End."

From the words " night-pensioner," we conclude that Paterson was the "joyous youth" above described, who hindered the idlers from sleeping. In another passage of this letter, Thomson makes an allusion to Armstrong, that corroborates the tradition respecting his portrait

"Though the Doctor (Dr Armstrong-says a note) increases in business, he does not decrease in spleen, that is both humane and agreeable, like Jacques in the play. I sometimes, too, have a touch of it."

Thomson in the spleen! It must have been of a very particular and "humane" sort indeed-as good as the cheerfulness of most men. In another letter we have a distinct clue to the famous portrait of the little jovial clergyman, whose mouth watered at the sight of beauty. Plenty of the reverend profession, it seems, were occupants of "the land of Drowsyhead."

Full oft by holy feet our ground was trod;
Of clerks good plenty you might here espy.

A little, round, fat, oily man of God
Was one I chiefly marked among the fry:
He had a roguish twinkle in his eye,

And shone all glittering with ungodly dew,

If a tight damsel chanced to trippen by:

Which when observed, he shrunk into his mew,
And straight would recollect his piety anew.

"Petty," says Thomson, in a letter to a friend, "came here two or three days ago: I have not yet seen the round man of God to be. He is to be parsonified a few days hence. How a gown and cassock will become

him; and with what a holy leer he will edify the devout females! There is no doubt of his having a call, for he is immediately to enter upon a tolerable living. God grant him more, and as fat as himself. It rejoices me to see one worthy, honest, excellent man, raised, at least, to independence."

"Petty,' thus spoken of (says a note) was Dr. Patrick Murdoch, the "oily man of God" of the "Castle of Indolence," and one of Thomson's biographers and editors."

We have gone to greater length on this subject than we intended, having merely thought, in the first instance, to quote a passage or two from Thomson's "June and May" poem, in illustration of the pleasures of our week; otherwise we would have made a first article of it, and analysed the whole poem, one of our designs in this Journal being to go through some popular poem with the reader, occasionally; reading it, as it were, in company with him, and making comments as we go. We have said enough, however, we hope, in the present instance, both to give pleasant recollections of the poem to those who are acquainted with it, and to excite a desire for its perusal in those who are not; nor will our random quotations have been unsuitable to such of our readers as may chance to have perused them, lounging in their chairs or lying on the grass, in their intervals of activity during this hot weather.

And this reminds us, that we may as well close our remarks with the hint furnished to invalids and convalescents by the death of this amiable poet, who in his hurry to enjoy nature again after a fit of sickness, forgot that fine evenings in England are apt to be accompanied by dew-falls and east winds. An effeminate

carefulness is the last thing that either he or this Journal would inculcate; but proper caution on proper occasions, is a motto adopted by the hardiest adventurers, as may be seen in the gallant history of our voyagers to the North Pole.

"It was Thomson's habit to walk from his residence in Kew-lane, near Richmond, whenever the weather rendered going by water ineligible. In one of these journeys from London, he found himself, on reaching Hammersmith, tired and overheated, and he imprudently took a boat to convey him to Kew. The walk from the landing place to his house did not remove the chill which the air on the water produced, and the next day he found himself in a high fever, a state which his plethoric habit rendered alarming. His disorder yielded however, to care and medicine, and he was soon out of danger; but being tempted by a fine evening to expose himself to the dew before he was perfectly restored, a relapse took place, and he was speedily beyond the powers of human aid."

The places of residence or visiting, to which Thomson may be traced, are Kew-lane, or Kew-foot-lane, în Richmond; Lancaster-court, Strand (where he frequented the Lancaster Coffee-house); Old Slaughter's Coffee-house; East Barnet, beyond Finchley; Northend, Fulham; the Mall, Hammersmith; and Eastbury, in Dorsetshire. He was born at Ednam in Roxburghshire, and was at the Edinburgh University. We give a list of these places for the benefit of those readers who may happen to reside or be otherwise interested in them, and who may be fortunate enough to feel an addition to their enjoyments, in the consciousness that a man of genius and goodness has frequented the same spots.

BIRTH DAYS.

Alberoni (Giulio) Cardinal, and prime minister of Spain under the house of Bourbon, was born at Parma, May 28th, (15th old style) in 1664. He was the son of a gardener, and lived to the age of eighty-seven, sound in his faculties to the last. We speak of him in this place, in order to relate a saying of his, remarkable for its address and fine taste. He was a man of vehement temper, as well as open discourse, and told a boy one day, who said he feared something, that he should "fear nothing, not even God himself;" upon which the company looking shocked and astonished to hear such words from the mouth of a cardinal, Alberoni added, with a meek air and a softened voice, "" For we are to feel nothing towards the good God, but love."

Sir William Petty, a celebrated statist and mechanical philosopher, born at Rumsey in Hampshire, May 29th (16th old style), 1623. He was the son of a clothier, and was founder of the wealth, perhaps of the talent, of the Lansdowne family, who bear his name, their ancestor, the Earl of Kerry, having married his daughter. Sir William was a sort of admirable Chrich-ton at money-making, and left a curious account of his accomplishments that way. Ambrey, a gossiping biographer, who knew him, says that he had. at one time been a shop-boy; and that while he was studying physic at Paris, he was driven to such straits for a subsistence, that "he lived a week or two on three pennyworths of walnuts." Sir William was a physician, a surveyor, a member of parliament, a timbermerchant, a political writer, a speculator in iron-works, fisheries, and lead-mines; and he wrote Latin verses, and was an active Fellow of the Royal Society. But for the particulars of his money-getting see his will, which is a curious specimen of a man of his sort, not always such a perfection of human wisdom, as he seems to have supposed, but admirable for ingenuity and perseverance. He also appears to have been a wa and a buffoon! He "will preach extempore incom parably," says Aubrey, "either in the presbyterian way, independent, capuchin friar, or jesuit." The same writer tells the following pleasant story of him:

"I consider there was a great difference between him and Sir Thirom Sankey, one of Oliver's Knights about 1660. They printed one against the other. The knight had been a soldier, and challenged Sir William to fight with him. Sir William is extremely shortsighted, and being the challengee, it belonged to him to nominate place and weapon. He nominates for the place a dark cellar, and the weapon to be a great carpenter's axe. This turned the knight's challenge into ridicule, and it came to nought."

CUVIER'S THEORY OF THE EARTH.

ABSTRACTED FROM KERR'S TRANSLATIONS OF THAT WORK.

THE past history of the world we live in has always been a subject of curiosity to our kind; particularly perhaps, that portion which is most difficult of investigation, of those times when mankind had not yet peopled the surface of the globe, ere there was any human eye to see, or mind to tell us what was going on in the early days of human existence. Philosophers in all times have busied themselves to satisfy this curiosity. They have, however, rather indulged their imaginations, than used their reason. They rather busied themselves in fancying the plans upon which they might have proposed to work, than by examining existentt hings, satisfied themselves how they really originated. Each man preconceived his notion of the mode of creation, and then tried to reconcile created things to his theory. Thus much ingenuity was wasted on absurdity; much logic thrown away upon unlogical premises; castles built without even a foundation of air. Even in the later days, when the sciences were becoming fixed, philosophers indulged in these amusing freaks of fancy.

Thus, in the opinion of Burnet, the whole earth at the first consisted of a uniform light crust, which covered over the abyss of the sea, and which, being broken for the production of the deluge, formed the mountains by its fragments. According to Woodward, the deluge was occasioned by a momentary suspension of cohesion among the particles of mineral bodies; the whole mass of the globe was dissolved, and the soft paste became penetrated by shells. Scheuchzer conceived that God raised up the mountains for the purpose of allowing the waters of the deluge to run off, and accordingly selected those portions which contained the greatest abundance of rocks, without which they could not have supported themselves. Whiston fancied that the earth was created from the atmosphere of one eomet, and that it was deluged by the tail of another. The heat which remained from its first origin, in his opinion, excited the whole antediluvian population, men and animals, to sin, for which they were all drowned in the deluge, excepting the fish, whose passions were apparently less violent.

Even the great Leibnitz, as well as Descartes, amused his imagination by conceiving the world to be an extinguished sun, or vitrified globe; upon which the vapours condensing in proportion as it cooled, formed the seas, and afterwards deposited calcareous strata.

He sup

By Demaillet, the globe was conceived to have been covered with water for many thousand years. posed that this water had gradually retired; that all the terrestrial animals were originally inhabitants of the sea; that man himself began his career as a fish: and he asserts that it is not uncommon, even now, to meet with fishes in the ocean, which are still only half men, but whose descendants will in time become perfect human beings.

The system of Buffon is merely an extension of that before devised by Leibnitz, with the addition only of a comet, which, by a violent blow upon the sun, struck off the mass of our earth in a liquified state, along with the masses of all the oher planets of our system at the same instant. From this supposition, he was enabled to assume positive dates or epochs; as, from the actual temperature of the earth, it could be calculated how long time it had taken to cool so far. And, as all the other planets had come from the sun at the same time, it could also be calculated how many ages were still required for cooling the greater ones, and how far the smaller ones were already frozen.

In the present day, men of bolder imaginations than ever, have employed themselves on this great subject. Some writers have revived and greatly extended the ideas of Demaillet. They suppose that every thing was originally fluid; that this universal fluid gave existence to animals, which were at first of the simplest kind, such as the monads and other infusory microscopic animalcules; that, in process of time, and by acquiring different habits, the races of these animals became complicated, and assumed that diversity of nature and character in which they now exist. It is by all those races of animals that the waters of the ocean have been gradually converted into calcareous earth; while the vegetables, concerning the origin and metamorphoses of which these authors give us no account, have converted a part of the same water into clay; and hese two earths, after being stript of the peculiar characters they had received respectively from animal and vegetable life, are resolved by a final analysis into silex: hence the more ancient mountains are more silicious than the rest. Thus, according to these authors, all the solid particles of our globe owe their existence to animal or vegetable life, and without this our globe would still have continued entirely liquid.

Other writers have preferred the ideas of Kepler, and, like that great astronomer, have considered the globe itself as possessed of living faculties. According to them, it contains a circulating vital fluid. A process of assimilation goes on in it as well as in animated bodies. Every particicle of it is alive. It possesses instinct and volition even to the most elementary of its molecules, which attract and repel each other according to sympathies and antipathies. Each kind of mineral substance is capable of converting immense masses of matter into its own peculiar nature, as we convert our aliment into flesh and blood. The mountains are the respiratory organs of the globe, and the schists its

organs of secretion. By the latter it accomposes the waters of the sea, in order to produce volcanic eruptions. The veins in strata are caries, or abscesses of the mineral kingdom, and the metals are products of rottenness and disease, to which it is owing that almost all of them have so bad a smell.

It must, however be noticed, that these are what may be termed extreme examples, and that all geologists have not permitted themselves to be carried away by such bold or extravagant conceptions as those we have just cited. Yet, among those who have proceeded with more caution, and have not searched for geological causes beyond the established limits of physical and chemical science, there still remain much diversity and contradiction.

According to one of these writers, every thing has been successively precipitated and deposited, nearly as it exists at present; but the sea, which covered all, has gradually retired.

Another conceives, that the materials of the mountains are incessantly wasted and floated down by the rivers, and carried to the bottom of the ocean, to be there heated under an enormous pressure, and to form strata which shall be violently lifted up at some future period, by the heat that now consolidates and hardens them.

A third supposes the fluid materials of the globe to have been divided among a multitude of successive lakes, placed like the benches of an amphitheatre; which, after having deposited our shelly strata, have successively broken their dikes, to descend and fill the basin of the ocean.

According to a fourth, tides of seven or eight hundred fathoms have carried off from time to time the bottom of the ocean, throwing it up in mountains and hills on the primitive vallies and plains of the continent.

A fifth conceives the various fragments of which the surface of the earth is composed to have fallen successively from heaven, in the manner of meteoric stones, and alleges that they still retain the remarks of their origin in the unknown species of animals whose exuvia they contain.

By a sixth, the globe is supposed to be hollow, and to contain in its cavity a nucleus of loadstone, which is dragged from one pole of the earth to the other by the attraction of comets, changing the centre of gravity, and consequently hurrying the great body of the ocean along with it, so as alternately to drown the two hemispheres.

It was reserved for Cuvier, who to great acuteness and readiness of intellect, added a solid sense, and a faithful reason, to light upon the seemingly obvious plan of judging the creation by its nature; to judge of the past by the present;-in fact, to begin at the right end. Had Cuvier lived in the time of Galileo, he would, like the Florentine, have been put to the torture, for he insisted upon arguing from facts and natural appearances, and would take no evidence but that of his own eyes.

When the traveller passes through those fertile plains where gently flowing streams nourish in their course an abundant vegetation, and where the soil, inhabited by a numerous population, adorned with flourishing villages, opulent cities, and superb monuments, is never disturbed except by the ravages of war and the oppression of tyrants, he is not led to suspect that nature also has had her intestine wars, and that the surface or the globe has been much convulsed by successive revolutions and various catastrophes. But his ideas change as soon as he digs into that soil which presented such a peaceful aspect, or ascends the hills which border the plain.

The lowest and most level parts of the earth, when penetrated to a very great depth, exhibit nothing but horizontal strata composed of various substances, and containing almost all of them innumerable marine productions.

Similar strata, with the same kind of productions, compose the hills even to a great height. Sometimes the shells are so numerous as to constitute the entire body of the stratum. They are almost everywhere in such a perfect state of preservation, that even the smallest of them retain their most delicate parts, their sharpest ridges, and their finest and tenderest processes. They are found in elevations far above the level of every part of the ocean, and in places to which the sea could not be conveyed by any existing cause. They are not only inclosed in loose sand, but are often incrusted and penetrated on all sides by the hardest stones. Every part of the earth, every hemisphere, every continent, every island of any size, exhibits the same phenomenon. We are therefore forcibly led to believe not only that the sea has at one period or another covered all our plains, but that it must have remained there for a long time, and in a state of tranquillity; which circumstance was necessary for the formation of deposits so extensive, so thick, in part so solid, and containing exuviæ so perfectly preserved.

The time is past for ignorance to assert that these remains of organized bodies are mere lusus naturæ,productions generated in the womb of the earth by its own creative powers. A nice and scrupulous comparison of their forms, of their contexture, and frequently even of their composition, cannot detect the slightest difference between these shells and the shells which still inhabit the sea. They have therefore once lived in the sea, and been deposited by it: the sea consequently must have rested in the places where the deposition has taken place. Hence it is evident that the basin or reservoir containing the sea has undergone

some change at least, either in extent, or in situation, or in both. Such is the result of the very first search, and of the most superficial examination.

The traces of revolutions become still more apparent and decisive when we ascend a little higher, and approach nearer to the foot of the great chains of mountains. There are still found many beds of shells; some of these are even larger and more solid; the shells are quite as numerous and as entirely preserved; but they are not of the same species with those which were found in the less elevated regions. The strata which contain them are not so generally horizontal; they have various degrees of inclination, and are sometimes situated vertically. While in the plains and low hills it was necessary to dig deep in order to detect the succession of the strata, here we perceive them by means of the vallies which time or violence has produced, and which disclose their edges to the eye of the observer. At the bottom of these declivities, huge masses of their debris are collected, and form round hills, the height of which is augmented by the operation of every thaw and of every storm.

These inclined or vertical strata, which form the ridges of the secondary mountains, do not rest on the horizontal strata of the hills which are situated at their base, and serve as their first steps; but, on the contrary, are situated underneath them. The latter are placed upon the declivities of the former. When we dig through the horizontal strata in the neighbourhood of the inclined strata, the inclined strata are invariably found below. Nay, sometimes, when the inclined strata are not too much elevated, their summit is surmounted by horizontal strata. The inclined strata are, therefore, more ancient than the horizontal strata. And as they must necessarily have been formed in a horizontal position, they have been subsequently shifted into their inclined or vertical position, and that too before the horizontal strata were placed above them.

Thus the sea, previous to the formation of the horizontal strata, had formed others, which by some means, have been broken, lifted up, and overturned in a thousand ways. There had therefore been also at least one change in the basin of that sea which preceded ours; it had also experienced at least one revolution; and as several of these inclined strata which it had formed first, are elevated above the level of the horizontal strata which have succeeded and which surround them, this revolution, while it gave them their present inclination, had also caused them to project above the level of the sea, so as to form islands, or at least rocks and inequalities; and this must have happened whether one of their edges was lifted above the water, or the depression of the opposite edge caused the water to subside This is the second result, not less obvious, nor less clearly demonstrated than the first, to every one who will take the trouble of studying carefully the remains by which it is illustrated and proved.

If we institute a more detailed comparison between the various strata and those remains of animals which they contain, we shall soon discover still more numerous differences among them, indicating a proportional number of changes in their condition. The sea has not always deposited stony substances of the same kind. It has observed a regular succession as to the nature of its deposits; the more ancient the strata are, so much the more uniform and extensive are they; and the more recent they are, the more limited are they, and the more variation is observed in them at small distances. Thus the great catastrophes which have produced revolutions in the basin of the sea, were preceded, accompanied, and followed by changes in the nature of the fluid and of the substances which it held in solution; and when the surface of the seas came to be divided by islands and projecting ridges, different changes took place in every separate basin.

Amidst these changes of the general fluid, it must have been almost impossible for the same kind of animals to continue to live:-nor did they do so in fact. Their species, and even their genera, change with the strata; and although the same species occasionally recur at small distances, it is generally the case that the shells of the ancient strata have forms peculiar to themselves; that they gradually disappear, till they are not to be seen at all in the recent strata, still less in the existing seas, in which, indeed, we ver discover their corresponding species, and where several even of their genera are not to be found; that, on the contrary, the shells of the recent strata resemble, as it respects the genus, those which still exist in the sea; and that in the last-formed and loosest of these strata there ar some species which the eye of the most expert naturalist cannot distinguish from those which at present inhabit the ocean.

In animal nature, therefore, there has been a succession of changes corresponding to those which have taken place in the chemical nature of the fluid; and when the sea last receded from our continent, its inha bitants were not very different from those which it still continues to support.

Finally, if we examine with greater care these remains of organized bodies, we shall discover, in the midst even of the most ancient secondary strata, other strata that are crowded with animal or vegetable productions, which belong to the land and to fresh water. and amongst the more recent strata, that is, the strata which are nearest the surface, there are some of them in which land animals are buried under heaps of marine productions. Thus the various catastrophes of our planet have not only caused the different parts of

our continents to rise by degrees from the basin of the sea, but it has also frequently happened, that lands' which had been laid dry have been again covered by the water, in consequence either of these lands sinking down below the level of the sea, or of the sea being raised above the level of the lands. The particular portions of the earth also which the sea has abandoned by its last retreat, had been laid dry once before, and had at that time produced quadrupeds, birds, plants, and all kinds of terrestrial production; it had then been inundated by the sea, which has since retired from it, and left it to be occupied by its own proper inhabi

tants.

The changes which have taken place in the productions of the shelly strata, have not, therefore, been entirely owing to a gradual and general retreat of the waters, but to successive irruptions and retreats, the final result of which, however, has been an universal depression of the level of the sea.

These repeated irruptions and retreats of the sea have been neither slow nor gradual; most of the catastrophes which have occasioned them have been sudden, and this is easily proved, especially with regard to the last of them, the traces of which are most conspicuous. In the northern nations it has left the carcases of some large quadrupeds, which the ice had arrested, and which are preserved even to the present day, with their skin, their hair, and their flesh. If they had not been frozen as soon as killed, they must quickly have been decomposed by putrefaction. In one case, a rhinoceros, discovered by Mr. Adams on the banks of Jena, the flesh was so well preserved, that it was eaten by dogs. Numberless living beings have been the victims of these catastrophes; some have been destroyed by inundations; others laid dry by the bottom of the seas being instantaneously elevated. Their races have become extinct, and have left no memorial except some small fragments which the naturalist can scarcely recognize. But what is still more astonishing, and not less certain, there have not been always living creatures on the earth; and it is easy for the observer to discover the period at which the animal productions began to be deposited.

As we ascend to higher points of elevation, and advance towards the lofty summits of the mountains, the remains of marine animals, that multitude of shells we have spoken of, begin very soon to grow rare, and at length disappear altogether. We arrive at strata of a different nature, which contain no vestige at all of living creatures. Nevertheless, their crystallization, and even the nature of their strata, show that they also have been formed in a fluid; their inclined position and their slopes show that they also have been moved and overturned; the oblique manner in which they sink under the shelly strata shows that they have been formed before these; and the height to which their bare and rugged tops are elevated above all the shelly strata, shows that their summits have never again been covered by the sea since they were raised up out of its bosom.

Such are those primitive or primordial mountains which traverse our continents in various directions, rising above the clouds, separating the basins of the rivers from one another, serving, by means of their eternal snows, as reservoirs for feeding the springs, and forming in some measure the skeleton, or, as it were, the rough frame-work of the earth.

Their jagged, disorderly shapes are proofs of the violence with which they have been elevated. Yet, amidst all their confusion, some naturalists have thought that they perceived a certain degree of order prevailing, and that among these immense beds of rock, broken and overturned though they be, a regular succession is observed, which is nearly the same in all the different chains of mountains. According to them, the granite, which surmounts every other rock; and is the most ancient of any that has yet been discovered in the place assigned it by nature. The central ridges of most of the mountain chains are composed of it; slaty rocks, such as clay slates, granular quartz (Grès), and mica slate, rest upon upon its sides and form lateral chains; granular, foliated limestone, or marble, and other calcareous rocks that do not contain shells, rest upon the slate, forming the exterior ranges, and are the last formations by which this ancient uninhabited sea seems to have prepared itself for the production of its beds of shells.

On all occasions, even in districts that lie at a distance from the great mountain chains, where the more recent strata have been digged through, and the external covering of the earth penetrated to a considerable depth, nearly the same order of stratification has been found as that already described. The crystallized marbles never cover the shelly strata; the granite in mass never rests upon the crystallized marble, except in a few places where it seems to have been formed of granites newer epochs. In one word, the foregoing arrangement appears to be general, and must therefore depend upon general causes, which have on all occasions exerted the same influence from one extremity of the earth to the other.

Hence, it is impossible to deny, that the waters of the sea have formerly, and for a long time, covered those masses of matter which now constitute our highest mountains; and farther, that these waters, during a long time, did not support any living bodies. Thus, it has not been only since the commencement of animal life that these numerous changes and revolutions, have taken place in the constitution of the external covering of our globe. For the masses formed previous

to that event have suffered changes, as well as those which have been formed since; they have also suffered violent changes in their positions, and a part of these assuredly took place while they existed alone, and before they were covered over by the shelly masses. The proof of this lies in the overturnings, the disruptions, and the fissures which are observable in their strata, as well as those of more recent formation, which are there even in greater number and better defined.

But these primitive masses have also suffered other revolutions, posterior to the formation of the secondary strata, and have, perhaps, given rise to, or at least have partaken of, some portion of the revolutions and changes which these latter strata have experienced. There are actually considerable portions of the primitive strata uncovered, although placed in lower situations than many of the secondary strata; and we cannot conceive how it should have so happened, unless the primitive strata, in these places, had forced themselves into view, after the formation of those which are secondary. In some countries, we find numerous and prodigiously large blocks of primitive substances scattered over the surface of the secondary strata, and separated by deep vallies from the peaks or ridges whence these blocks have been derived. It is necessary, therefore, either that these blocks must have been thrown into those situations by means of eruptions, or that the vallies, which otherwise must have stopped their course, did not exist at the time of their being transported to their present sites.

The nature of many agents in these changes it is now impossible to determine. There still exist, however, four causes in full activity, which contribute to make alterations on the surface of our earth. These are rains and thaws, which waste down the steep mountains, and occasion their fragments to collect at their bottoms; streams of water, which sweep away these fragments, and afterwards deposit them in places where their current is abated; the sea, which undermines the foundations of elevated coasts, forming steep cliffs in their places, and which throws up hillocks of sand upon flat coasts; and, finally, volcanoes, which pierce through the most solid strata from below, and either elevate or scatter abroad the vast quantity of matter which they eject.

The rains which fall upon the ridges and summits of the mountains, the vapours which are condensed there, and the snow which is melted, descend by an infinite number of rills along their slopes, carrying off some portions of the materials of which these ridges and summits are composed, and marking their courses by numerous gutters. In their progress downwards, these small rills soon unite in the deeper furrows with which the surface of all mountains is ploughed up, run off through the deep vallies which intersect the bottoms of the mountains, and at length form the streams and rivers which restore to the sea the waters that it had formerly supplied to the atmosphere.

When the snow melts, or when a storm takes place, these mountain torrents become suddenly swelled, and rush down the declivities with a violence and rapidity proportioned to their steepness: they dash against the feet of these taluses of fallen fragments which form the sides of all the elevated vallies, carrying along with them the rounded fragments of which they are composed, which become smoothed and still farther polished by rubbing on each other. But, in proportion as the swollen torrents reach the more level vallies, and the force of their current is diminished, or when they arrive at more expanded basins which allow their waters to spread out, they then throw out on their banks the largest of these stones which they had rolled down: the smaller fragments are deposited still lower; and, in general, nothing reaches the great canal of the river except the minutest fragments, or the impalpable particles, which afterwards subside to form mud. It often happens also, before these streams unite to form great rivers, that they have to pass through large and deep lakes, where they deposit the mud brough: down from the mountains, and whence their waters flow out quite limpid.

The rivers in lower levels, and all the streams which take their rise in lower mountains or hills, produce effects on the grounds through which they flow, more or less analogous to those of the torrents from the higher mountains. When swelled by great rains, they undermine the bottoms of the earthy or sandy hills which lie in their way, and carry their fragments to be deposited on the lower grounds which they inundate, and which are somewhat raised in height by each successive inundation. Finally, when these rivers reach the great lakes, or the sea, and when of course that rapid motion by which they are enabled to keep the particles of mud in suspension has wholly ceased, these particles are deposited at each side of their mouths, where they form low grounds, by which the coasts or banks of the river are gradually lengthened out into the sea or lake. And if these new coasts are so situated that the sea also throws up sand to contribute towards their increase, provinces, and even entire kingdoms, are thus as it were created, which usually become the richest and most fertile regions, if their rulers permit human industry to exert itself in peace.

The effects produced by the sea alone, without the aid of rivers, are far less beneficial. When the sea coast is low, and the bottom consists of sand, the waves push this sand towards the shore, where at every reflux of the tide it becomes partially dried; and the winds, which almost always blow from the sea, drift up some portion of it on the beach. By this means, downs, or

ranges of low sand hills, are formed along the coast.. These, if not fixed by the growth of suitable plants, either disseminated by nature, or propagated by human industry, would be gradually, but certainly carried towards the interior, covering up the fertile plains with their sterile particles, and rendering them unfit for the habitation of mankind; because the same winds which carried the loose dry sand from the shore to form the downs, would necessarily continue to drift that which is at the summit farther towards the land.

On the other hand, when the original coast happens to be high, so that the sea is unable to cast up any thing upon it, a gradual, but destructive operation is carried on in a different way. The incessant agitation of the waves wears it away at the bottom, and at length succeeds in undermining it, causing the upper materials to slide and tumble down, and converting the whole elevation into steep sloping buffs or cliffs. In the progress of this change, the more elevated materials which tumble down into the sea, have their softer parts washed out and carried away by the waves; while the harder parts, continually rolled about in the agitated water, form vast collections of rounded stones and pebbles, and of sand of various degrees of fineness, which at length accumulate into sloping banks or flat beaches, and protect the bottoms of the cliffs against further depredations.

The importance of investigating the relations of extraneous fossils with the strata in which they are contained is quite obvious. It is to them alone that we owe the commencement even of a Theory of the Ear as, but for them, we could never have even suspec. that there had existed any successive epochs in the formation of our earth, and a series of different and consecutive operations in reducing it to its present state. By them alone we are enabled to ascertain, with the utmost certainty, that our earth has not always been covered over by the same external crust; because we are thoroughly assured that the organized bodies to which these fossil remains belong must have lived upon the surface, before they came to be buried, as they now are, at a great depth. It is only by means of analogy, that we have been enabled to extend to the primitive formations, the same conclusions which are furnished directly for the secondary formations by the extraneous fossils; and if there had only existed formations or strata in which there were no extraneous fossils, it could never have been asserted that these several formations had not been simultaneous.

It is also owing to these extraneous fossils, slight as is the knowledge we have hitherto acquired respecting them, that we have been enabled to discover the little that we yet know concerning the revolutions of our globe. From them we have learned, that the strata, or at least those which contain their remains, have been quietly deposited in a fluid; that the variations of the several strata must have corresponded with the variations in the nature of the fluid; that they have been left bare by the transportation of this fluid to some other place; and that this fact must have happened more than once. Nothing of all this could have been known with certainty, without the aid of extraneous fossils.

The study of the mineralogical part of geology, though not less necessary, and even a great deal more useful to the practical arts, is yet much less instructive so far as respects the objects of our present enquiry. We remain in utter ignorance respecting the causes which have given rise to the variety in the mineral substances of which the strata are composed. We are ignorant even of the agents which may have held some of these substances in a state of solution; and it is still disputed respecting several of them, whether they have owed their origin to the agency of water or of fire. After all, philosophers are only agreed on one point, which is, that the sea has changed its place; and this could never have been certainly known, but for the existence of extraneous fossils. These fossils, then, which have given rise to the theory of the earth, have at the same time furnished its principal illustrations— the only ones, indeed, that have as yet been generally received and acknowledged.

It is obvious, that among animal remains, the study of land quadrupids must lead to the most decided conclusions, since their race is so much better known than marine animals; and among land animals, quadrupeds, from their size, are best known of all. To the remains of the larger animals therefore, do we look for the clearest index of time and its changes.

Naturalists certainly have not explored all the continents; nor are the discoveries yet completed of the different species of animals. It therefore may be alleged that the fossil remains may belong to some yet undiscovered remains of still existent animals. A little consideration will, however, show this to be unfounded. Islands of a moderate size, and at a distance from continents, usually have none but a few small quadrupeds. It is true that the great continents have large quadrupeds, and generally speaking, contain species proper to each. If, therefore, any new continent remained to be discovered, we might expect to find unknown species of animals. A glance at the map will prove that this is not the case, unless it be at the antarctic pole, where eternal ice necessarily forbids the existence of animal life. Doubtless, European travellers cannot easily penetrate through vast extents of countries which are either uninhabited, or peopled only with ferocious tribes; and this is peculiarly the case in regard to Africa. But there is nothing to prevent the animals themselves from roaming in all directions, and penc

trating to the coasts. Even although great chains of mountains may intervene between the coasts and the interior deserts, these must certainly be broken in some parts to allow the rivers to come through; and in these burning deserts the animals naturally follow the courses of the rivers. The inhabitants of the coasts must also frequently penetrate inland along the rivers, and will quickly acquire a knowledge of all the remarkable living creatures, even to the very sources of these rivers, either from personal observation, or by intercourse with the inhabitants of the interior. At no period of our history, therefore, could civilized nations frequent the coasts of large countries for any length of time, without gaining some tolerable knowledge of all the animals they contained, or at least of such as were any way remarkable for their size or configuration. This reasoning is supported by well-known facts. Thus, although the ancients seem never to have passed the mountains of Iamus, or to have crossed the Ganges towards the east of Asia, and never penetrated far to the south of Mount Atlas in Africa, yet they were acquainted with all the larger animals of these two grand divisions of the world; and if they have not distinguished all their species, it was because the similarities of these occasioned them to be founded together, and not because they had not seen them, or heard them talked of by others.

The ancients know all the larger quadrupeds. Aristotle's descriptions of the elephant is more exact than Buffon's. They were familiar with the rhinoceros; knew the hippopotamus, both species of camel, and the giraffe, or cameleopard. In short, more or less of all the species with which we are acquainted in the present day in the old world. They describe them too, where the opportunities are equal, precisely as we do. Consequently, there has been no gradual change in animal nature.

After all that has been said, it is quite impossible to conceive that the enormous mastedontes and gigantic megatheria, whose bones have been discovered under ground in North and South America, can still exist alive in that quarter of the world. They could not fail to be observed by the hunting tribes, which continually wander in all directions through the wilds of America. Indeed, they themselves seem to be fully aware that these animals no longer exist in their country, as they have invented a fabulous account of their destruction, alleging that they were all killed by the Great Spirit, to prevent them from extirpating the human race. It is quite obvious, that this fable has been invented subsequently to the discovery of the bones; just as the inhabitants of Siberia have contrived one respecting the mammoth, whose bones have been found in that country, alleging that it still lives under ground like the mole; and just as the ancients had their fables about the graves of giants, who were thought to have been buried wherever the bones of elephants happened to be dug up.

From all these considerations it may be safely concluded, as shall be more minutely explained in the sequel, That if none of the large species of quadrupeds, whose remains are now found imbedded in regular rocky strata, are at all similar to any of the known living species. That this circumstance is by no means the mere effect of chance, or because the species to which these fossil bones have belonged are still concealed in the desert and uninhabited parts of the world, and have hitherto escaped the observation of travellers; but, that this astonishing phenomenon has proceeded from general causes, and that the careful investigation of it affords one of the best means for discovering and explaining the nature of these causes.

Every organized individual forms an entire system of its own, all the parts of which mutually correspond, and concur to produce a certain definite purpose, by reciprocal reaction, or by combining towards the same end. Hence none of these separate parts can change their forms without a corresponding change on the other parts of the same animal, and consequently each of these parts taken separately, indicates all the other parts to which it has belonged. Thus, if the viscera of an animal are so organized as only to be fitted for the digestion of recent flesh, it is also requisite that the jaws should be so constructed as to fit them for devouring prey; the claws must be constructed for seizing and tearing it to pieces; the teeth for cutting and dividing its flesh; the entire system of the limbs, or organs of motion, for pursuing and overtaking it; and the organs of sense, for discovering it at a distance.

In like manner, each minuter part of cach individual animal must correspond to its nature, wants, and habits; and, as a part, to the whole frame of the animal. So universal is this arrangement, that if one animal resembles another in a part, it also does in the whole, and in its nature and habits. With this in view, Cuvier made diligent studies among existing animals, comparing their forms with their habits, in order to deduce the habits and natures of fossil animals from the forms of those parts which have been preserved.

In this manner we have ascertained and classified the fossil remains of seventy-eight different quadrupeds, in the viviparous ana oviparous classes. Of these fortynine are distinct species hitherto entirely unknown to naturalists. Eleven or twelve others have such entire resemblance to species already known, as to leave no doubts whatever of their identity; and the remaining sixteen or eighteen have considerable traits of resemblance to known species, but the comparison of these has not yet been made with so much precision as to remove all dubiety.}

Of the forty-nine new or hitherto unknown species, twenty-seven are necessarily referable to seven new genera; while the other twenty-two new species belong to sixteen genera, or sub-genera, already known. The whole number of genera and sub-genera to which the fossil remains of quadrupeds hitherto investigated are referable, are thirty-six, including those belonging both to known and unknown species.

The most important consideration, that which has been the chief object in M. Cuvier's researches, and which constitutes their legitimate connection with the theory of the earth, is to ascertain the particular strata in which each of the species was found, and to enquire if any of the general laws could be ascertained, relative either to the zoological subdivisions, or to the greater or less resemblance between these fossil species and those which still exist upon the earth.

The laws already recognised with respect to these relations are very distinct and satisfactory.

It is, in the first place, clearly ascertained, that the oviparous quadrupeds are found considerably earlier, or in more ancient strata, than those of the viviparous class. Thus the crocodiles of Honfleur and of England are found underneath the chalk. The monitors of Thuringia would be still more ancient, if, according to the Wernerian school, the copper-slate in which they are contained, along with a great number of fishes supposed to have belonged to fresh water, is to be placed among the most ancient strata of the secondary formations. The great alligators, or crocodiles, and the tortoises of Maestricht, are found in the chalk formations; but these are both marine animals.

The earliest appearance of fossil bones seems to indicate, that dry lands and fresh waters must have existed before the formation of the chalk strata. Yet neither at that early epoch, nor during the formation of the chalk strata, nor even for a long period afterwards, do we find any fossil remains of mammiferous land-quadrupeds.

We begin to find the bones of mammiferous seaanimals, namely, of the lamantin and of seals, in the coarse shell limestone which immediately covers the chalk strata in the neighbourhood of Paris. But no bones of mammiferous land-quadrupeds are to be found in that formation; and, notwithstanding the most careful investigations, Cuvier was never able to discover the slightest traces of this class, except in the formations which lie over the coarse lime-stone strata; but immediately on reaching these more recent formations, the bones of land-quadrupeds are discovered in great abundance.

As it is reasonable to believe that shells and fish did not exist at the period of the formation of the primitive rocks, we are also led to conclude that the oviparous quadrupeds began to exist along with the fishes, and at the commencement of the period which produced the secondary formations; while the land-quadrupeds did not appear upon the earth till long afterwards, and until the coarse shell limestone has been already deposited, which contains the greater part of our genera of shells, although of quite different species from those that are now found in a natural state.

It is remarkable that those coarse limestone strata, which are chiefly employed at Paris for building, are the last formed strata which indicate a long and quiet continuance of the water of the sea above the surface of our continent. Above them, indeed, there are found formations containing abundance of shells and other productions of the sea; but these consist of alluvial materials, sand, marle, sandstone, or clay, which rather indicate transportations that have taken place with some degree of violence, than strata formed by quiet depositions; and where some regular rocky strata, of inconsiderable extent and thickness, appear above or below these alluvial formations, they generally bear the marks of having been deposited from fresh water.

All the known specimens of the bones of viviparous laid-quadrudeps, have either been found in these formations from fresh water, or in the alluvial formations; whence there is every reason to conclude that these animals have only begun to exists, or at least to leave their remains in the strata of our earth, since the last retreat of the sea but one, and during that state of the world which preceded its last irruption.

There is also a derterminate order observable in the disposition of these bones in regard to each other, which indicates a very remarkable succession in the appearance of the different species. All the genera which are now unknown, as the palæotheria, anuplotheria, &c. with the localities of which we are thoroughly acquainted, are found in the most ancient of those formations of which we are now treating, or those which are placed directly over the coarse limestone strata. It is chiefly they which occupy the regular strata that have been deposited from fresh water, or certain alluvial beds of every ancient formation, generally composed of sand and rounded pebbles; which were perhaps the earliest alluvial formations of the ancient world. Along with these there are also found some lost species of known genera, but in small numbers; together with some oviparous quadrupeds and some fish, which appear to have been inhabitants of fresh water. The strata containing these are always more or less covered with alluvial formations, filled with shells and other productions of the sea.

The most celebrated of the unknown species belonging to known genera, or to genera nearly allied to those that are known, as the fossil elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and mastodon, are never found along with the more ancient genera; but are only contained in al

luvial formations, sometimes along with sea shells, and sometimes with fresh-water shells, but never in regular rocky strata. Every thing found along with these species is either, like them, unknown, or at least doubtful.

Lastly, the bones of species which are apparently the same with those that still exist alive, are never found except in the very latest alluvial depositions, or those which are either formed on the sides of rivers, or on the bottoms of ancient lakes or marshes now dried up, or in the substance of beds of peat, or in the fissures and caverns of certain rocks, or at small depths below the present surface, in places where they may have been overwhelmed by debris, or even buried by man: And, althongh these bones are the most recent of all, they are almost always, owing to their superficial situation, the worst preserved.

An objection has been made to which we have before alluded; that the present existing species of Mammalia, may be but modifications of the remains we now find in a fossil state. If the species have changed by degrees as we may assume, we ought to find traces of this gradual modification, some intermediate condition. This, however, is not the case. It may therefore be concluded that both ancient and existing species were permanent and distinct. In addition to this, as we have before stated, as long as animals have been described, they have not varied. When we endeavour to prove that the rocky strata contain the long remains of several genera, and the loose strata those of several species, all of which are not now existing animals on the face of the globe, it is not pretended that a new creation was required for calling our present races of animals into existence. It is only urged that they did not anciently occupy the same places, and that they must have come from some other part of the globe. Let us suppose, for instance, that a prodigious inroad of the sea were now to cover the continent of New Holland with a coat of sand and other earthly materials; this would necessarily bury the carcases of many animals belonging to the genera of kanguroo, phascoloma, dasyurus, peramela, flying-phalangers, echidna, and ornithorinchus, and would consequently entirely extinguish all the species of all these genera, as not one of them is to be found in any other country. Were the same revolution to lay dry the numerous narrow straits which separate New Holland from New Guinea, the Indian islands, and the continent of Asia, a road would be opened for the elephant, rhinoceroses, buffaloes, horses, camels, tygers, and all the other Asiatic animals, to occupy a land in which they are hitherto unknown. Were some future naturalist, after becoming well acquainted with the living animals of that country in this supposed new condition, to search below the surface on which these animals were nourished, he would then discover the remains of quite different races.

What New Holland would then be, under these hypothetical circumstances, Europe, Siberia, and a large portion of America, actually now are. Perhaps hereafter, when other countries shall be investigated, and New Holland among the rest, they also may be found to have all undergone similar revolutions, and perhaps may have made reciprocal changes of animal productions. If we push the former supposition somewhat farther, and, after the supply of Asiatic animals to New Holland, admit that a subsequent catastrophe might overwhelm Asia, the primitive country of the migrated animals, future geologists and naturalists would perhaps be equally at a loss to discover whence the then living animals of New Holland had come, as we now are to find out the original habitations of our present fossil animals.

It is quite undeniable that no human bones have been hitherto discovered among the extraneous fossil remains, properly so called, and this furnishes a strong proof that the extinct races which are now in a fossil state, were not varieties of the known species, since they never could have been subject to human influence. The bones so often asserted to be human among the true fossil, never stand the test of rigid examination. Petrifactions, which have been discovered, have always proved referrable to local causes. Yet human bones preserve equally well with those of animals, when placed in the same circumstances. M. Cuvier has picked up from the excavation made in the ancient church of St. Geneveive, human bones that had been interred below the remains of the first race, and which may even have belonged to some princes of the family of Clovis, and which still retain their forms very perfectly. We do not find in ancient fields of battle, that the skeletons of men are more wasted than those of horses, except in so far as they may be influenced by size; and we find among extraneous fos sils the bones of animals as small as rats, perfectly well preserved; nor is there any observable difference in this respect in the mummies of Egypt, between the men and the quadrupeds.

Every circumstance, therefore, contributes to establish this position,--That the human race did not exist in the countries in which the fossil bones of animals have been discovered, at the epoch when these bones were covered up; as there cannot be a single reason assigned why men should have entirely escaped from such general catastrophes; or, if they also had been destroyed and covered over at the same time, why their remains should not be now found along with those of the other animals. I do not presume, however, to conclude that man did not exist at all before these epochs. He may have then inhabited some nar

row regions, whence he went forth to re-people the earth of the cessation of these terrible revolutions and overwhelmings. Perhaps even the places which he then inhabited may have been sunk into the abyss, and the bones of that destroyed human race may yet remain buried under the bottom of some actual seas; all except a small number of individuals who were destined to continue the species.

However this may have been, the establishment of mankind in those countries in which the fossil bones of land animals have been found, that is to say, in the greatest part of Europe, Asia and America, must necessarily have been posterior not only to the revolutions which covered up these bones, but also to those other revolutions, by which the strata containing the bones have been laid bare. Hence it clearly appears, that no argument for the antiquity of the human race in those countries can be founded either upon these fossil bones, or upon the more or less considerable collections of rocks or earthy materials by which they are covered.

On the contrary, by a careful investigation of what has taken place on the surface of the globe, since it has been laid dry for the last time, and its continents have assumed their present form, at least in such parts as are somewhat elevated above the level of the ocean, it may be clearly seen that this last revolution and consequently the establishment of our existing societies, could not have been very ancient. This result is one of the best established, and least attended to in rational zoology; and it is so much the more valuable, as it connects natural and civil history together in one uninterrupted series.

It is to be remarked, that every where the traditional histories, fix the date of the last revolution about the same period, viz. five or six thousand years back. The early histories of the Chinese, upon which they so much pride themselves, bear evidence of a much later invention than they would allow.

M. Cuvier's deduction from these premises is this:That if there is any circumstance thoroughly established in geology, it is, that the crust of our globe has been subjected to a great and sudden revolution, the epoch of which cannot be dated much farther back than five or six thousand years ago; that this revolution had buried all the countries which were before inhabited by men and by the other animals that are now best known; that the same revolution had laid dry the bed of the last ocean, which now forms all the countries at present inhabited; that the small number of individuals of men and other animals that escaped from the effects of that great revolution, have since propagated and spread over the lands then newly laid dry; and consequently, that the human race has only resumed a progressive state of improvement since that epoch, by forming established societies, raising monuments, collecting natural facts, and constructing systems of science and of learning.

Yet farther, That the countries which are now inhabited, and which were laid dry by this last revolution, had been formerly inhabited at a more remote era, if not by man, at least by land animals; that, consequently, at least one previous revolution had submerged them under the waters and that, judging from the different orders of animals of which we discover the remains in a fossil state, they had probably experienced two or three irruptions of the sea.

PAGANINI.

[To the Editor of the London Journal.]

Sir, these lines on Paganini,

If it should be quite conveni

ent, put them in your Magaziney.

Paganini, Paganini!

Never was there such a geni

us before as Paganini.

Though his figure's lank and leany,

I'd give something to have been he.

Though he is a little mean, he
Still, you know, is Paganini.
Like rich vallies, fresh and greeny,
Are the strains of Paganini.
Nothing's seen of the machine-
ry of art in Paganini.

From the first set off al fine,
Nature's all to Paganini.

Fifty pianos con sordini

Can't come up to Paganini.

If there is a man whom the knee
May bend to 'tis Paganini.

Bilious men, and men who're spleeny,
Ought to go to Paginini

Dullest fellows I have scen e
lectrified by Paganini.

Such his power that-" Nota bene”-
The D-l himself or else his pleni-
potentiary is Paganini,

MELIBEUS

TURPIN'S RIDE TO HOUGH GREEN.

BY WHICH HE PROVED HIS FAMOUS ALIBI AND SAVED HIS LIFE.

[From the new novel of Rookwood, a work with considerable evidences of power, but exaggerated and diffuse. When the author has learnt "the art to blot," and above all, when he has had a little more care and trouble to break into the smooth outline of his youth and satisfaction, and not render it necessary to have nine horrors at a time, in order to give him a sensation, he will become an excellent writer.]

"You are off, I understand, to Yorkshire to-night, Dick-upon my soul you are a wonderful fellow-an alibi personified !-here and there and every where at one at the same time-no wonder you are called the flying highwayman. To-day in town-to-morrow at York-the day after at Chester. The devil only knows where you will pitch your quarters a week hence neither beak nor trap can have a chance of guessing. There are rumours of you in all counties at the same mometn. This man swears you robbed him at Hounslow-that, on Salisbury Plain-while another swears you monopolize Cheshire and Yorkshire, and that it is'nt safe even to hunt without peos in your pocket. I heard some devilish good stories of y、 at D'Osyndar's t'other day; the fellow who told the, to me little thought I was a brother blade."

"You flatter me," said Dick, smiling coinplacently, "but it's no merit of mine. Black Bess alone enables me to do it, and hers be the credit. Talking of being everywhere at the same time, you shall hear what she once did for me in Cheshire. Meantime a glass to the best mare in England-you won't refuse that toast, Tom. Ah! if your mistress was only as true to you as my nag to me, you might set at nought the tightest hempen cravat that ever was twisted, and defy your best friend to hurt you.-Black Bess! and God bless her. And now for the song." Saying which, with much emotion, he chaunted the following rhymes:

BLACK BESS.

Let the lover his mistress's beauty rehearse,
Aud laud her attractions in Inngishing verse;
Be it mine in rude strains, but in truth to express,
The love that I bear to my bonny Black Bess.

From the west was her dam, from the east was her sire,
From the one came her swiftess, the other her fire;
No peer of the realm better blood can possess,
Than flows in the veins of my bonny Black Bess!
Look! look! how that eyeball grows bright as a brand!
That neck proudly arches, those nostrils expand!
Mark! that wide-flowing mane! of which each silky tress
Might adorn prouder beauties-though none like Black Bess.
Mark that skin sleek as velvet, and dusky as night,
With its jet undisfigured by one lock of white;
That throat branched with veins, prompt to charge or caress;
Now is she not beautiful-bonny Black Bess.

Over highway and byeway, in rough and smooth weather,
Some thousands of miles have we journeyed together;
Our couch the same straw, and our meal the same mess,
No couple more constant than I and Black Bess.
By moonlight, in darkness, by night or by day,
Her headlong career there is nothing can stay.
She cares not for distance-she knows not distress-
Can you show me a charger to match with Black Bess?

"Egad, I should think not," exclaimed King; "you are as sentimental on the subject of your mare, as I am when I think of my darling Susan-but I beg pardon for my interruption-pray proceed."

Once it happened in Cheshire, near Durham, I popped
On a horseman alone, whom I speedily stopped;
That I lightened his pockets you'll readilly guess-
Quick work makes Dick Turpin when mounted on Bess.
Now it seems the man knew me; "Dick Turpin," said he,
"You shall swing for this job, as you live, d'ye see;"
I laughed at his threats, and his vows of redress,

I was sure of an alibi then with Black Bess.

The road was a hollow, a suken ravine,
Overshadowed completely by wood like a screen;

I clambered the bank, and I needs must confess
That one touch of the spur grazed the side of Black Bess
Stepping carelessly forward, I lounged on the green,
Taking excellent care that by all I am seen,
Some remarks on Time's flight, to the squires I address,
But I say not a word of the flight of Black Bess;

I mention the hour-it was just about four-
Play a rubber at bowls-think the danger is o'er,
When athwart my next game, like a checkmate at chess,
Comes the horseman in search of the rider of Bess.
What matter details? Off with triumph I came,
He swears to the hour-and the squires swear the same,
I had robbed him at four-while at four they profess
I was quietly bowling-all thanks to Black Bess.
Then one halloo, boys-one loud cheering halloo-
To the swiftest of coursers-the gallant, the true;
For the sportsman unborn shall the memory bless,
Of the horse of the highwayman, bonny Black Bess!

The exact spot where Turpin committed this well-known robbery, and which has been pointed out to us, lies in what is now a woody hollow, though once the old road from Altringham to Knutsford, skirting the rich and sylvan domains of Durham, and descending the hill which brings you to the bridge crossing the river Bollin. With some little difficulty we penetrated this ravine; it is just the locality for such an adventure. A small brook wells through it, and the steep banks are overhung with every description of timber, and were, the other day, a perfect nest of primroses and wild flowers. Hough (pronounced Hoo) Green lies, we believe, at about three miles distance across the country-the way Turpin rode. The old bowling-green is one of the pleasantest inns in Cheshire.

IZAAK WALTON, AND ANGLING. [To the Editor of the London Journal.]

Sir,

I have no other biography of Walton at hand, but that in Mr. Major's edition of the "Complete Angler," and do not know whether the epitaph I am about to copy has appeared in print. Mr. M. has not noticed it, and at all events it may not be too familiar to be interesting to some of your readers. It is an inscription on a tablet in the chancel of Worcester cathedral, and appears to me, with a little quaintness, to be in a style of touching simplicity, worthy of honest Izaak. M. S.

Here lieth buried so much as could die of

ANNE, THE WIFE OF IZAAK WALTON,

A woman of remarkable prudence, and of a primitive piety; her great and general knowledge being adorned with such true humility, and chastened with so much Christian meekness, as made her worthy of a more memorable monument.

She died (alas, that she is dead!) the 17th of April, 1662, aged 53.

Study to be like her.

While on this subject, perhaps I may be allowed to add, that on renewing my acquaintance with the fine monument of Bishop Slough in the same place, I felt more strongly than ever that Mr. Alan Cunningham's admiration of the severe beauty of ancient art, had made him somewhat unjust to the genius of Roubiliac. It is said that Canova made a journey to Worcester, on purpose to see this work, (which Mr. C. has not noticed at all in his "Lives,") and recorded his admiration of its merits in very high terms. In poetry, both of design and expression, I do not know where to find many of its equals in modern sculpture. Yours obediently,

E. M.

An old reader and admirer under all your phases.

We are obligea to our correspondent, and unite with him in his love of good epitaphs and sculpture, by whomsoever produced; but in these days of general search into what is best for all creatures, great and small, we cannot pass over the name of Walton without observing, that with all our regard for some passages of his book, and no wish whatsoever to lay a common amusement to the account of a greater want of feeling in him than is necessary, we cannot call to mind that venerable, but most unscrupulous and conscious employer of worms upon his hook, without having our sense of the extraordinary "benevolence" of anglers and their pastime rendered very extraordinary indeed. We hate "pretences" to feeling, and grant that anglers may have much to which they do not pretend; but why do they pretend to more than other people, and at the same time hazard cruelties (to say the least of it) which other lovers of quiet and the country find much more inconsistent than compatible with their boasted "peace," and "innocence," and contemplative enjoyment? A very clever book, elegantly got up and embellished, has lately been published by Messrs. Chapman and Hall, called "Recollections of Fly-fishing." The author undertakes to answer objections to his amusement, but like the rest of his brethren, there are points he is either not aware of, or does not chuse to touch. His fish are not so lucky. We should like, in all fairness and good humour, to discuss the question with any angler, in two or three articles of reasonable size, as comprehensive as both parties could make them.

TABLE TALK.

Curious Ancient Boat.-There was a kind of vessel much in use among the ancient Egyptians, named Baris; these vessels had sails of byblus, but required a strong breeze to impel them against the Nile: they, however, descended the river with ease, without sails, their course being hastened by a peculiar contrivance. A sort of wooden gate was constructed, to one end of which a certain weight was attached, and the whole apparatus was fastened by a cord to the head of the baris. When all was ready, the gate was thrown into the water. one end of which sank, whilst the other was kept up by the cord; a large surface was thus exposed to the current, which hurried it rapidly forward, and the baris followed. At the same time, another rope, with a large stone at the end of it, was thrown out from the stern; and this last weight, sinking to the bottom, served to steady the vessel and keep it straight.-Romance of Ancient History.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

We have been thinking of some plan which might enable us to make due acknowledgements to our correspondents, without taking up more of our time and room than they themselves, as general readers, would approve. It is difficult; for we wish to do justice to all their communications; and we find some such plan necessary, both to the acknowledgement of their kind. ness, and the satisfaction of our own feelings. We cannot receive so many and such unceasing proofs of good will without an extreme desire to requite them week however, or of two at most, will, we trust, enable us to come to some satisfactory conclusion on the matter; and meantime we hope they will accept this notice as a proof that we have not been so inconsiderate as some of them might reasonably su розе.

The course of a