Regions in Greece and Asia; or they partly emerg'd, and became dry Land again; when (their Situation being pretty high) the Waters, after their violent Agitation was abated, retir'd into the lower Places, and into their Channels. Now if we compare these Partial Dissolutions of the Earth with an Universal Dissolution, we may as easily conceive an Universal Deluge from an Universal Dissolution, as a Partial Deluge from a Partial. If we can conceive a City, a Country, an Island, a Continent thus absorb'd and overflown; if we do but enlarge our Thought and Imagination a little, we may conceive it as well of the whole Earth. And it seems strange to me, that none of the Ancients should hit upon this way of explaining the Universal Deluge. THE CLOCK CASE. A CONFESSION FOUND IN A PRISON IN THE TIME OF CHARLES THE SECOND. BY CHARLES DICKENS. [CHARLES DICKENS, one of the greatest novelists and humorists of the world, was born February 7, 1812, at Portsea, Eng. His father being unprosperous, he had no regular education and much hardship; at fourteen became an attorney's clerk, and at seventeen a reporter. His first short story appeared in December, 1833; the collected "Sketches by Boz" in 1836, which also saw the first number of "The Pickwick Papers," finished in November, 1837. There followed "Oliver Twist," " Nicholas Nickleby," "Master Humphrey's Clock " (finally dissolved into the "Old Curiosity Shop" and "Barnaby Rudge "), the "American Notes," "Martin Chuzzlewit," the "Christmas Carol" (other Christmas stories followed later), "Notes from Italy," "Dombey and Son," "David Copperfield,” “Bleak House," "Hard Times," "Little Dorrit," "Great Expectations," ""A Tale of Two Cities," "Our Mutual Friend," and the unfinished "Edwin Drood." Several of these, and his "Uncommercial Traveller" papers, appeared in All the Year Round, which he edited. He died June 9, 1870.] I HELD a lieutenant's commission in his Majesty's army and served abroad in the campaigns of 1677 and 1678. The Treaty of Nimeguen being concluded, I returned home, and retiring from the service withdrew to a small estate lying a few miles east of London, which I had recently acquired in right of my wife. This is the last night I have to live, and I will set down the |