deed, the term digit or finger, applied to any single number, sufficiently indicates the primitive mode of counting. The Roman V is a rude outline of the five fingers, or of the outspread hand, narrowing to the wrist; while the X is a symbol of the two fives or two hands crossed. In all probability the earliest numerals did not exceed five, which was repeated, with additions, for the higher numbers; and it is a remarkable coincidence that to express six, seven, eight, the North American Indians repeat the five, with the addition of one, two, three, on the same plan as the Roman VI, VII, VIII. Our term eleven is derived from the word ein or one, and the old verb liben, to leave; so that it signifies one, leave ten. Twelve means two, after reckoning or laying aside ten; and our termination of ty, in the words twenty, thirty, &c., comes from the Anglo-Saxon teg to draw; so that twenty, or twainty, signifies two drawings, or that the fingers have been twice counted over, and the hands twice closed.

From the hands also, or other parts of the human body, were derived the original rude measurements. The uncia, or inch, was the first joint of the thumb, which being repeated four times, gave the breadth of the hand; and this product, tripled, furnished the measure of the foot. The passus, or pace, was the interval between two steps, reckoned at six feet; and a mile, as the word imports, consisted of a thousand paces. Other portions of the human body furnished secondary measures; the width of the hand gave the palm, reckoned at three inches:—the distances of the elbow from the tips of the fingers, the cubit; the entire length of the arm, the yard;— and the extreme breadth of the extended arms, across the shoulders, the fathom or six feet.

The Arabic numerals, derived, in all probability, from the Persians, and brought into Europe by the Moors, were a great improvement upon the clumsy system of the Romans; but it is to be regretted that we have not adopted the duodecimal in preference to the decimal scale, as it mounts faster, and being more often divisible in the descending series, would express fractions with a greater simplicity.

ART.-Man's nature. Of all cants defend me from that cant of Art which substitutes a blind and indiscriminate reverence of the painter, provided he be dead, for a judicious admiration of his paintings. Our connoisseurs reverse the old adage, and prefer a dead dog to a living lion. They are Antinomian in their critical creed; they substitute faith for good works, and will fall prostrate before any daub provided it be sanctified by a popular name.

It may be objected that no artist would have acquired a great name unless he had been a great painter; a position to which there are exceptions, although we will grant it for the sake of argument. But an artist who might command universal admiration in the olden times, is no necessary model for the present. Surely our portrait painters need not study Holbein. Many of the old masters, avowedly deficient in drawing and composition, were celebrated for their colouring, a merit which the mere effects of time, in the course of three or four centuries, must inevitably destroy: and yet Titian, the great colourist of his day, but whose pictures have mostly faded into a cold dimness, is still held up to admiration, because his bright and blended hues delighted the good folks of the fifteenth century. The pictures of Rubens preserve the richness of their broad tints, which we can admire without being blind to the vulgarity of his taste and his bad drawing, for his females are little better than so many Dutch Vrowes -coarse, flabby and clownish. To a genuine connoisseur, however, every one of them is, doubtless, a Venus de Medici; not because she is handsome or well-proportioned, for she is neither, but because she is painted by Rubens.

This idolatry of the artist and indifference to art, has had a very mischievous effect in England, first, by withdrawing encouragement from our countrymen and contemporaries, and, secondly, by injuring their taste in holding up as models for imitation, not the paintings of nature, but old Continental pictures, which, even supposing them to be genuine, have often lost the sole distinction that once conferred a value upon

them. But in many instances they are spurious, for the high prices which we so absurdly lavish upon them, has called into existence, in the chief Italian towns, manufactories of copies and counterfeits for the sole supply of England, in which happy and discerning country may be found ten times more pictures of each of the old masters, than could have been painted in a long life. Neither the most experienced artist, nor knowing virtuoso, can guard against this species of imposition. It is well known that Sir Joshua Reynolds, even in that branch of the art with which he was most conversant, was perpetually deceived, his collections swarming with false Correggios, Titians, and Michael Angelos. What wonder, then, that an old picture, as often happens, shall sell to-day for a thousand pounds, and that to-morrow, stripped of its supposed authenticity, stat nominis umbra, and shall not fetch ten? and yet it is as good and as bad one day as it was the other, viewed as a work of art. So besotting is the magic of a name.

To these pseudo-connoisseurs, who bring their own narrow professional feelings to the appreciation of a work of art, we recommend the following authentic anecdote:-A thriving tailor, anxious to transmit his features to posterity, inquired of a young artist what were his terms for a half length. "I charge twenty-five guineas for a head," was the reply. The portrait was painted and approved, when the knight of the thimble, taking out his purse, demanded how much he was to pay. "I told you before that my charge for a head was twenty-five guineas.”—“I am aware of that," said Snip; "but how much more for the coat?-it is the best part of the picture."

ART-origin of. We are struck with an admiration almost amounting to awe, when we contemplate a noble building, a fine statue, or a grand painting, and feel a pride in our species when we term them the noblest productions of human art; but such objects have a still more sanctifying effect if we suffer them so raise our thoughts to Him who

made the artist, and benevolently endowed him with faculties of which the exercise can bestow such pure delight, not only on his contemporaries, but on a long succession of generations. The races of spectators who have been gratified by the beautiful products of Grecian art, form, perhaps, but a tithe of those who are to succeed to the same pleasure, for celebrated statues are almost immortal-they can only perish at least with the civilisation that has enshrined them. The humblest work of nature, as well as the most perfect one of art, are alike exalted by tracing them to their divine original.

ARTICLES-the Thirty-nine. Spiritual canons, drawn up with the most subtle complication for the purpose of establishing a general simplicity and unity in matters of faith. Of these Polyglot persuaders to the use of one religious language, there were originally forty-two, composed in the year 1552, "by the bishops and other learned and good men in Convocation, to root out the discord of opinions, and establish the agreement of true religion." But it appears that these infallible bishops and other learned and good men, who had undertaken to fix and determine the only right road to heaven, were themselves but blind guides, for, in the year 1562, their Confession of Faith was altered and reduced to thirty-nine articles. Alas! this Convocation was no more infallible than its predecessor, for in 1571 these Articles were again revised and altered, since which time they have continued to be the criterion of the faith of the Church of England. They profess for their object" the avoiding of diversities of opinions, and the establishing of consent touching true religion," and their eminent success is attested by the fact that, if we include Ireland, Scotland, and the various dissenters, both from Episcopalianism and Presbyterianism, little more than one-third of the inhabitants of Great Britain are calculated to belong to the Established religion; while, even of that third, owing to different interpretations of these articles, framed for producing universal consent, there are various sects opposed to one ano

ther within the walls of the Church, not less zealously than to the common enemy without!

Mark the opinion upon this subject entertained by a distinguished prelate. "I reduced the study of divinity," says Bishop Watson," into as narrow a compass as possible, for I determined to study nothing but my Bible, being much unconcerned about the opinions of councils, fathers, churches, bishops, and other men, as little inspired as myself. I had no prejudice against, no predilection for the Church of England; but a sincere regard for the Church of Christ, and an insuperable objection to every degree of dogmatical intolerance. I never troubled myself with answering any arguments which the opponents in the divinity-schools brought against the Articles of the Church, nor ever admitted their authority as decisive of a difficulty; but I used, on such occasions, to say to them, holding the New Testament in my hand,‘En sacrum codicem! Here is the fountain of truth; why do you follow the streams derived from it by the sophistry, or polluted by the passions of man? If you can bring any proofs against anything delivered in this book, I shall think it my duty to reply to you. Articles of churches are not of divine authority; have done with them, for they may be true, they may be false, and appeal to the book itself."

No Christian Church ought to exact from its ministers a Confession of Faith upon numerous and intricate articles of human construction, though it may fairly claim a declaration of belief that the Scriptures contain a revelation of the divine will. Such, at least, was the opinion of Bishop Watson, as it had been previously professed by the celebrated Bishop Hoadly, and other distinguished members of the Church of England.

Xerxes, we are told, ordered the non-conforming waves of the ocean to be scourged with rods and confined within certain boundaries; in imitation of which sapient example, our Church has provided a cat-o-thirty-nine-tails, to lash back the tide of human thought and circumscribe the illimitable range