persisted in his adulation, Augustus amused him self with writing an epigram in praise of the poet, and when he received the next customary panegyric, presented his lines to the bard with surprising gravity. The poor man took and read them, and with apparent delight deliberately drew forth two farthings, and gave them to the emperor, saying"This is not equal to the demands of your situation, sire; but 't is all I have: if I had more I would give it to you." Augustus could not resist this; he burst into laughter, and made the poet a handsome present.

Pickpockets.-The old robbers, in the "good old times," when purses were carried in the hand or borne at the side, cut them away, and carried them off with the contents, and hence they were called "cut-purses." In the scarce "History of Highwaymen," by Smith, there is a story of a ludicrous private robbery, from "the person" of a man, mistakenly committed by one of these cut-purses.

Angling Anecdote.-In 1822, two young gentlemen of Dumfries, while enjoying the amusement of fishing at Dalswinton loch, having expended their stock of worms, &c., had recourse to the well-known expedient of picking out the eyes of the dead perches, and attaching them to their hooks—a bait which the perch is known to rise at quite as readily as any other. One of the perches caught in this manner struggled so much when taken out of the water, that the unseen, though not unfelt hook had no sooner been loosened from its mouth than it came in contact with one of its eyes, and actually tore it out. The pain occasioned by this accident only made the fish struggle the harder, until at last it fairly slipped through the holder's fingers, and again escaped to its native element. The disappointed fisher, still retaining the eye of the aquatic fugitive adjusted it on the hook, and again committed his line and cork to the waters. After a very short interval, the latter substance began to bob, when, pulling up the line, he was astonished to find the identical perch that had eluded his grasp a few minutes before, and which literally perished by swallowing is own eye!

LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILROAD. This railroad is thirty-seven miles in length, and is the greatest work of the kind in England. Beginning at Liverpool, this road enters an open cutting twenty-two feet deep, with four lines of railway, and leading to the mouth of the great Tunnel, which is twenty-two feet wide and sixteen high. The sides are perpendicular for five feet above the floor, and surmounted by a semi-circular arch.

This tunnel is cut through a strata of red rock, blue slate and clay, and is 6750 feet, or above a mile and a quarter in length. The whole extent of this vast cavern is lighted with gas, and the sides and roof are white washed, to give a greater effect to the illumination.

The road in the tunnel curves and begins a gentle ascent toward the east. At this extremity, the road leads into a wide area, forty feet below the surface of the ground, cut out of the solid rock, and surmounted on every side by walls and battlements. From this area a small tunnel returns towards Liverpool. Proceeding eastward from the area, the traveller finds himself upon the open road to Manchester, moving upon a perfect level, the road slightly curved, clear, dry, free from obstruction, and the rails firmly fixed upon massive blocks of stone. After some time it descends very gradually, and passes through a deep cutting, under large stone archways. Beyond this, the road leads through the great rock excavation of Olive Mount, which is seventy feet deep, and only wide enough for two trains of carriages, to pass each other, as represented in the preceding cut.

After leaving this, it approaches the great Roby bank, stretching across a valley two miles in width, and varying from fifteen to forty-five feet in height. Here the traveller finds himself mounted above the tops of the trees, and looks round over a wide expanse of country. After some further curves, and passing several other banks, bridges, and cuts, the road is carried into the city of Manchester.

The track is double. The rails are of wrought iron, laid sometimes on stone, but where the foundation is less firm, upon wood. The whole work cost 820,000 pounds sterling.

ATTRACTION.

Before proceeding farther, it may be necessary to inform the reader of the manner in which gravitation operates on its amplest scale in regulating the movements of the unnumbered orbs which compose the system of the universe. All bodies have a tendency to continue in the state of motion or of rest in which they are put. In other words, bodies do not acquire motion, nor lose motion, nor change the kind or degree of their motion, unless some force or another be applied to them. This property, as it may be termed, is called in scientific language, the inertia of matter. For instance, when an arrow is shot from a bow, it would proceed onward through the infinity of space to all eternity, if some force did not curb its speed, and finally draw it to the earth. And what power is this? Plainly that of attraction. Besides, there is the resistance which the air offers to every body heavier than itself passing through it. Now, space originally was a vast vacuity, we shall suppose, in which there being no matter, there could exist none of the laws of matter. When the Divine Creator brought into existence our own system, to take a familiar instance, he placed the sun in the centre, and endowed it, so to speak, with power and authority over all the other bodies within its range; they were compelled to pay obeisance to it like the surrounding sheaves to the central one in Joseph's dream. The lesser or subordinate orbs may be supposed, for the sake of illustration, to have been hurled from the plastic hands of the Deity in a straightforward course, in which they would forever have moved, had not the sun possessed the power of attracting them to its centre, and compelling

them to revolve round him. There was just as much attraction given as would keep them in their proper orbits of motion, and just that degree of impetus imparted which would prevent them from coalescing with the sun on the one hand, or departing beyond the sphere of his attraction on the other. With what wisdom, and yet with what simplicity, have not the worlds been framed." To each of them the Creator has traced out its course. "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther." And they cannot for a moment cross the boundaries he has assigned.

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Lightnings and storms his mighty word obey,

And planets roll where he has marked the way."

To this principle we are also indebted for the flux and reflux of the tides, which, as is well known, are caused by the moon's attraction

"For this the moon through heaven's blue concave glides, And into motion charms the expanding tides;

While earth impetuous round her axle rolls,

Exalts her watery zone and sinks the poles."-Falconer. It is also the cause of the roundness of our earth, of the moon, the planets, and the sun itself. Hence it may be inferred that originally all matter was, to a certain extent, in a fluid state, and that at the divine behest the atoms were endowed with attractive qualities, by which they were impelled to a common centre; and thus the congregated masses assumed a globular form. At New South Wales, which is situated nearly opposite to England on the earth's surface, planets hang and stones fall towards the centre of the globe, just as they do here. And the people there are standing with their feet towards us; hence they are called our antipodes, from two Greek words-anti opposite, and podes the feet. A plummet suspended near the side of a mountain