American and West Indian Colonies, Germany, the Netherlands, and Cuba. The glass manufacture can hardly amount to less than £2,000,000 in value, and the workmen employed in different departments of it exceed 50,000. It is to be lamented that the consumption of this article has declined, and is now actually less than it was forty years ago, which can hardly be attributable to any other cause than the oppressive duties and vexatious excise regulations to which it is subject. The details of the pernicious effects of the high duties may be found in Mr. Poulett Thomson's speech in the House of Commons in March, 1830, who urged their repeal with great force and reason. The remaining articles of export are butter and cheese, coals, apparel, haberdashery, arms, bacon, beef and pork, beer and ale, cordage, fish, hats, lead and shot, leather manufactures, machinery, painters' colours, plated goods, salt, soap and candles, stationery, and a variety of miscellaneous articles, making up the total given in a former paragraph. We shall conclude our notice of British manufactures with a brief account of the state of our silk manufacture, which, for many reasons, is a subject which ought to be well understood, the misrepresentations propagated concerning it having been, almost innumerable.

(To be continued.)

THE SOLDIER'S DOG.

A COMMON Soldier in the Italian regiment of the Veliti of the guards had, when at Milan, a dog that was much attached to him, following him to all his various military duties, and invariably mounting guard with him, and sharing his sentry-box whenever he stood sentry at the gate of the vice-regal palace.

In 1812, at the time of the disastrous Russian campaign, among the numerous regiments composing the fine Italian army that marched with the Viceroy of Italy, Eugene Beauharnais, went the Veliti, and with them the master of the dog. Tofino, who was already well-known to the soldiers, marched after his master, and crossing the Alps and traversing a great portion of the European continent (having been present at several battles where the Veliti were engaged), finally arrived at Moscow. When the armies of Buonaparte were obliged to withdraw from that capital in flames, Tofino still followed his master, and went through all the horrors of that memorable retreat. He was at the murderous battle of Malorajoshlewitz, where the Italians behaved gallantly and suffered great loss. The Viceroy's Veliti, though they had suffered tremendously, had still the consistence and appearance of a regiment when they reached the Berezina; but on the fatal passage of that river where so many thousands perished, they lost more than half of their remaining men, and the master of poor Tofino was among the number.

After that passage there was no order preserved in the retreat; the fragments of the Veliti were mixed up with the fragments of other regiments, and all went on in fearful confusion. Tofino, however, who had crossed the river in safety, and had lingered some time on the bank, barking and moaning as though he missed somebody, was soon after seen trotting after some of the Veliti; and so he continued to be seen day after day and week after week keeping up with the retreating soldiery, and always close to those who wore the uniform of his unfortunate master. The circumstance naturally made an impression on the men; and some of his master's comrades, in the midst of their own miseries and privations, attended to the wants of the dog who showed such fidelity to the regiment. But in spite of these cares and their caresses, Tofino would never exclusively attach himself to any one man; on the contrary, he always looked out for the greatest number of the Veliti, and where they went he followed, regardless of the, individuals who would have

retained him by their particular kindness. In this manner from Moscow he reached Wilna, then traversing the rest of Lithuania and Poland, the Kingdom of Prussia, a part of Saxony, the States of the Confederacy of the Rhine, Bavaria, the Tyrol, and the Alps-in short, after having performed a journey of more than two thousand five hundred English miles, Tofino again entered Milan in the summer of 1813, in the rear of a small body of the Veliti. How this poor Italian dog had travelled through regions and swum over freezing rivers, where the very horses of the country had died, was a marvel to all who witnessed the tragical retreat.

As soon as he was within the walls of Milan, Tofino went straight to the barracks which the Veliti had occupied, and after waiting there some time, he trotted to the sentry-box by the palace-gate, where he had so often mounted guard with his master-and he never more moved a hundred yards from it! The first two or three days he was heard to howl and moan, but this sad mood past, and he occupied his corner in the sentry-box in silence. The interesting anecdote reached the ears of the Viceroy Beauharnais, who ordered that poor Tofino should be kindly treated and well-fed, and considered as a pensioner of the state. But there was no need for these orders-the whole army, the whole population of Milan regarded the dog almost as a sacred animal, and were accustomed to show him to ail strangers as one of the wonders and ornaments of the city.

In 1814, when the French were driven out of Italy, Tofino fell, with all Lombardy and the States of Venice, into the power of the Austrians, who (whatever they did with the human beings that returned to their yoke) treated the dog as kindly as ever; he still occupied his corner of the sentry-box, and is as feasted and pointed out as heretofore. Tofino lived several months under the regime of the house of Austria, and then died full of honours and deeply regretted by the Milanese.

Tofino had nothing striking in his outward appearance-he could not even pretend to purity of blood or descent, for he was a mongrel-rough-haired, clumsily made, and about the size of our common breed of terriers.

SONG OF DAVID.

[The Song of David, of which the following is an extract, is a poem of very unequal merit, composed under the most unfavourable cir. cumstances, while the author was in a state of confinement in a madhouse. The lines are said to have been indented by the unhappy man with a key on the wall of his cell. Christopher Smart, although gifted by nature with considerabie talents, dragged on a wretched existence in London by endeavours to maintain himself by his pen. At this period literary labour was very inadequately rewarded. The age of patronage was passing away, and the steady support arising out of a large public demand for books was scarcely created. Smart was chiefly supported by the bounty of his friends, and died in extreme poverty in 1770, aged 48. A considerable number of Smart's poems are devoted to religious subjects; and it is an affecting example of the fervency of his piety amidst his mental wanderings, that many passages of a peculiarly serious nature are recorded to have been written while he knelt.]

HE sung of God, the mighty source
Of all things, the stupendous force

On which all things depend:
From whose right arm, beneath whose eyes,
All period, power, and enterprise,

Commence, and reign, and end.

The world, the clustering spheres he made,
The glorious light, the soothing shade,
Dale, champaign, grove and hill;
The multitudinous abyss,
Where Secrecy remains in bliss,
And Wisdom hides her skill.

Tell them, I AM, Jehovah said
To Moses, while Earth heard in dread,
And, smitten to the heart,
At once above, beneath, around,
All Nature, without voice or sound,
Replied, O Lord, THOU ART!

STIRLING, anciently Striveling, was in former times one of the most important towns, in a military point of view, in the Scottish realm. From its position on the Forth it was the key to the Highlands-" the bulwark of the north" as Scott has called it in his 'Lady of the Lake.' It stands on the south bank of that river, and used to command the only bridge by which it was crossed. The situation of the place in its general features very much resembles that of Edinburgh, which was described in the account of Holyrood House in a former number. Both towns are seated on the south bank of the Forth, and each occupies an eminence, rising by a gradual ascent from the east, and terminating at the opposite extremity in a precipitous rock, the summit of which is crowned by the fort or castle. The natural battlement, however, on which the Castle of Stirling stands, is the higher of the two, being about 350 feet above the level of the sea, while the other is not quite three hundred.

Stirling has been called the Windsor of Scotland; and it has some pretensions to that appellation. The view from the castle is of vast extent, and comprehends the richest variety both of the beautiful and the grand in natural scenery. Towards the west the prospect is bounded by the solitary Benlomond, rising in the sky, at the distance of about thirty miles, to the height of above 3000 feet. The intervening space is a level valley, through which the Forth is seen stealing its way with a thousand meanderings. Round the northern horizon sweeps the almost continuous chain of the Grampians. To the south lie the green hills of Campsie; turning round from which towards the east the eye rests on a plain of rich and cultivated beauty, with the sister towers of the capital cresting the distance, and between, the broad and fertile plains of Carron on the one hand, and on the other "the mazy Forth unravelled" in a succession of beautiful windings, till it spreads out from a slender stream into a great arm of the sea. Some idea of the singular manner in which the river lingers over this part of its course, may be formed from the fact that

it travels over about twenty-four miles in making its way through a space not more than six miles in length. The innumerable green peninsulas, of every variety of shape and dimension, which it forms in its sportive progress, present a picture which certainly has not often been surpassed in bright and animated beauty.

"Grey Stirling, with her towers and town, is unquestionably a place of very high antiquity. The oldest existing charter of the burgh is dated in 1120; but it bears to be a confirmation of former grants, and there can be no doubt that the fort at least was of importance a considerable time before this. The first mention which historians have made of it is in the ninth century, about the middle of which it is recorded to have been taken and thrown down by Kenneth II. the King of the Highlands of Scotland, when he overcame the Picts, whose principal fortress it was, and that which guarded the most exposed extremity of their territory. The whole of the south of Scotland as far as Stirling, however, appears soon after this to have fallen into the possession of the two chiefs, Osbright, or Osbert, and Ella, who, under the weak sway of the English King, Ethelred I., had seized upon the sovereignty of Northumberland; and they rebuilt the castle as a protection to their new conquests. In the next century we find it again in the hands of the Scots. It was afterwards repeatedly attacked and taken both by the English, and by the several factions whose contentions continued to distract Scotland with little intermission, during nearly all the time it remained an independent kingdom. But even to enumerate all the sieges it sustained would lead us far beyond our present limits. The last time it was attacked was by the Highlanders in the rebellion of 1745, when it was successfully defended by the governor, old General Blakeney, throughout a siege of several weeks.

Stirling appears to have become a royal residence about the middle of the twelfth century; but probably The Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, or Bernicia, ex tended from the Humber to the Forth.

the roots of the aquatic plants about two feet under water, so that they completely lose all connection with the bottom of the lake, but retain their situation in respect to each other. When thus detached from the soil, they are pressed into somewhat closer contact, and formed into long beds of about two yards breadth. The heads of the sedges, reeds, and other plants of the float are next cut off and laid upon its surface, and covered with a thin coat of mud, which, at first interrupted in its descent, gradually sinks into the mass of matted stalks. The bed floats, but is kept in its place by a stake of willow driven through it at each end, which admits of its rising and falling in accommodation to the rise and fall of the water. By means of a long pole thrust among the reeds at the bottom of the lake from the side of a boat, and turned round several times, a quantity of plants are torn off from the bottom, and carried in the boat to the platform, where the weeds are twisted into conical mounds about two feet in diameter at their base, and of the same height, terminating at the top in a hollow, which is filled with fresh soft mud, and sometimes wood ashes. The farmer has in preparation a number of cucumber and melon plants, raised under mats, and of | these, when they have four leaves, he places three plants in the basin of every cone or mound, of which a double row runs along the edge of every bed at about two feet distance from each other. No further care is necessary except that of collecting the fruit, and the expense of preparing the platforms and cones is very trifling. Mr. Moorcroft traversed about fifty acres of these floating gardens growing cucumbers and melons, and saw not above half a dozen unhealthy plants; and he says, he never saw in the cucumber and melon grounds, in the vicinity of populous cities in Europe or in Asia, so arge an expanse of plant in a state of equal health or luxuriance of growth. The general depth of the floating beds is about two feet, and some of them are seven feet broad. The season lasts for three months and a half, beginning in June. From the first setting of the fruit to the time of pulling, seven or eight days are the ordinary period. Thirty full-sized fruit from each plant, or from ninety to a hundred from each cone, are the average crops. The seed of the melon is brought annually from Baltistan, and the first year yields fruit of from four to ten pounds each in weight; but if the seed be re-sown, the produce of the second year exceeds not from two to three pounds. Unless when eaten to great excess the melon produces no disorders, and it is remarked that healthy people who live upon this fruit during the season become very speedily fat; and the effect upon horses fed upon this fruit is reported to be the same. In the early part of the season, cucumbers of full size sell at the rate of about three for a piece of coin of the value of a halfpenny; but as the weather becomes hotter, and the plants get into full bearing, ten, fifteen, and even twenty are purchased for this price. It is calculated that every cone yields a money return of about eighteen-pence. Allowing sixpence for labour of every description, and including also the tax, the clear profit is a shilling for every two square yards. The yield of the melon is numerically less, but the return of profit is at least equal. No other vegetables are raised upon the spaces between the cones, although Mr. Moorcroft thinks that onions, cresses, and other useful vegetables might be raised apon them; and water-mint grows spontaneously upon

the floats.

Cashmere, or Cassimere, is one of the northern provinces of India within the Ganges. It is surrounded by mountains, and from its beauty and fertility has been called the Paradise of the Indies. It contains upwards of 100,000_villages, is well stocked with cattle and game, and is said to be unmolested by beasts of prey. The people are ingenious, and resemble the Europeans

THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE AT LISBON IN 1755.

[The appalling events, of which the following narrative presents a picture, are brought before the eyes of the reader with a force and simplicity which leave no doubt of the exact truth of the details. It is extracted, with a few omissions, from a book little known, and in most respects of very small merit-' Davy's Letters on Literature.' This portion of a work now forgotten, purports to be communicated to Mr. Davy by an English merchant who resided in the ill-fated city.]

THERE never was a finer morning seen than the 1st of November; the sun shone out in its full lustre; the whole face of the sky was perfectly serene and clear; and not the least signal or warning of that approaching event, which has made this once flourishing, opulent, and populous city, a scene of the utmost horror and desolation, except only such as served to alarm, but scarcely left a moment's time to fly from the general destruction.

It was on the morning of this fatal day, between the hours of nine and ten, that I was sat down in my apartment, just finishing a letter, when the papers and table I was writing on, began to tremble with a gentle motion, which rather surprised me, as I could not perceive a breath of wind stirring. Whilst I was reflecting with myself what this could be owing to, but without having the least apprehension of the real cause, the whole house began to shake from the very foundation; which at first I imputed to the rattling of several coaches in the main street, which usually passed that way, at this time, from Belem to the palace; but on hearkening more attentively, I was soon undeceived, as I found it was owing to a strange frightful kind of noise under ground, resembling the hollow distant rumbling of thunder. All this passed in less than a minute, and I must confess I now began to be alarmed, as it naturally occurred to me that this noise might possibly be the forerunner of an earthquake, as one I remembered, which had happened about six or seven years ago, in the island of Madeira, commenced in the same manner, though it did little or no damage.

Upon this I threw down my pen, and started upon my feet, remaining a moment in suspense, whether I should stay in the apartment or run into the street, as the danger in both places seemed equal; and still flattering myself that this tremor might produce no other effects than such inconsiderable ones as had been felt at Madeira; but in a moment I was roused from my dream, being instantly stunned with a most horrid crash, as if every edifice in the city had tumbled down at once. The house I was in shook with such violence, that the upper stories immediately fell, and though my apartment (which was the first floor) did not then share the same fate, yet every thing was thrown out of its place in such a manner, that it was with no small difficulty I kept my feet, and expected nothing less than to be soon crushed to death, as the walls continued rocking to and fro in the frightfulest manner, opening in several places; large stones falling down on every side from the cracks, and the ends of most of the rafters starting out from the roof. To add to this terrifying scene, the sky in a moment became so gloomy that I could now distinguish no particular object; it was an Egyptian darkness indeed, such as might be felt; owing, no doubt, to the prodigious clouds of dust and lime raised from so violent a concussion, and, as some reported, to sulphureous exhalations, but this I cannot affirm; however it is certain I found myself almost choked for near ten minutes.

As soon as the gloom began to disperse and the violence of the shock seemed pretty much abated, the