X. "Shedaud! I claim thy soul!" Death's angel And Shedaud hears, as in a dream, the call. A moment more, and that stout heart of pride Hurl'd from his shudd'ring steed ter accounted for by changes of climate, arising from a very different geographical distribution of land and water, than by the hypothesis of central heat, or by the supposed passage of the solar system through planetary spaces of differing teinperature. If the whole of Europe had been at any time submerged, other tracts now beneath the sea must have been elevated, and a change of temperature might have been produced similar to that which still obtains in the Southern ocean.- Mr. Hopkins observed, that the difference in the elevation of raised beaches in different parts of Ireland did not prove an unequal elevation of the land; the beds of oysters &c. might have originally occupied different depths in the sea; and the beaches might have been formed at different periods. He did not The tyrant. Then avenged was Heaven, and earth think that any change in the distribution of land was freed! XI. Th' Avenger raised his hand on high, Shook and yawn'd the cumber'd ground; Lay that pile of promis'd bliss. XII. Ages have past-the tale is old- But ever, as the spot he gains, The vision fades, and nought remains He only views a sparkling rill, That through the sand-heap struggles still, and water would account for the depression of temperature during the glacial period. The Andes were the chief cause of the low temperature prevailing along the eastern coast of South America; and such mountains could not have existed in Europe, since the level of the land had been proved to be lower; and if the whole of Europe were submerged, he thought the temperature of the region would rather be raised than depressed. With respect to Poisson's hypothesis, he stated that such a movement of the solar system was much more consistent with analogy than the usual assumption of its rest; and it was the only hypothesis which would account for geological changes of such an order and magnitude as those under consideration. SIR J. W. F. HERSCHEL' On a remarkable Photographic process, by which dormant pictures are produced, capable of development by the breath or by keeping in a moist atmosphere.-If nitrate of silver, specific gravity 1.200, be added to ferro-tartaric acid, specific gravity 1.023, a precipitate falls, which is in great measure redissolved by a gentle heat, leaving a black sediment, which being cleared by subsidence, a liquid of a pale yellow color is obtained, in which a further addition of the nitrate causes no turbidness. When the total quantity of the nitrated solution added amounts to about half the bulk of the ferro-tartaric acid, it is enough. The liquid so prepared does not alter by keeping in the dark. Spread on paper and exposed wet to the sunshine (partly shaded) for a few seconds, no impression seems to have been made, but by degrees, although withdrawn from the action of the light, it developes itself spontaneously, and at length becomes very intense. But if the paper be thoroughly dried in the dark, (in which state it is of a very pale greenish yellow color,) it possesses the singular property of receiving a dormant, or invisible picture; to produce which, (if it be, for instance, an engraving that is to be copied,) from thirty seconds to a minute's exposure to the sunshine is requisite. It should not be continued too long, as not only is the ultimate effect less striking, but a picture begins to be visibly produced, which darkens spontaneously after it is withdrawn. But if the exposure be discontinued before this effect comes on, an invisible MR. NEVINS mentioned the occurrence of a sub-impression is the result, to develope which all that is marine forest at the mouth of a small stream in necessary is to breathe upon it, when it immediately Tramore Bay, showing a recent change of level in appears, and very speedily acquires an extraordinary a direction contrary to that indicated by the raised intensity and sharpness as if by magic. Instead of beaches. Mr. Phillips also mentioned evidences the breath, it may be subject to the regulated action of local elevation and depression, occurring in the of aqueous vapor, by laying it in a blotting-paper space of one mile, on the eastern coast of York- book, of which some of the outer leaves on both shire, from which he inferred that the movement sides have been damped, or by holding it over warm had not been uniform, but oscillating.-Mr. Lyell water. Many preparations, both of silver and gold, stated, that he believed the complicated evidence possess a similar property in an inferior degree, but of changes of level during the latest geological pe- none that I have yet met with to any thing like the riods, both in Europe and America, would be bet-extent of that above described.-Athenæum. NOTE. The authority, if I may use so grave a term, which I have chiefly followed in this little poem, is a legend (by whom and whence translated I know not) in the Lady's Magazine for October, 1809. It is entitled "The Garden of Irim: a Persian Romance. Literally Translated from the Persic." See, also, Sale's Koran, Preliminary Discourse, (in the former part of Sect. I.,) and note on chap. lxxxix. Extracts from the Proceedings of a Meeting of the British Scientific Association. HISTORY OF LETTER-WRITING. From the Literary Gazette. History of Letter-Writing from the earliest Pe- THIS massive tome is full of learning and research; too full, we fear, for popularity in these days, however much it may be prized by the judicious few who continue to regale on more solid literature. After briefly referring to Cicero, Pliny, Libanius, (the preceptor of the Emperor Julian,) and others, who have either left examples or precepts as regards the proper epistolary style, Mr. Roberts says:-"I certainly so far agree with the prevailing doctrine on this subject, as to think that letters must be natural, to be good for much. It is not necessary that they should be light or sententious, sprightly or severe, rambling or methodical. Their excellence rather consists in their affecting nothing, dissembling nothing, imitating nothing;-in their fidelity to the feelings; in their character of genuineness; in a complexional rather than a conventional humor; in an eloquence of expression, borrowing little from without, but sparkling and racy from the fountains of thought and sensibility. The play of a letter should be natural, its wit unconscious, and its vigor involuntary. In a real good letter there should be something vital, something in accordance with a healthy pulse of sentiment, something belonging to the interior man, as he stands affected by passing events, or his own experiences and recollections. But letter-writing has its laws; and it is one of its laws that nothing dried or laid up for use should find admission; its fruit should have upon it the bloom of our youngest thoughts, and a maiden dew should be upon its leaf. In the best letters we find a certain naive and arch use of language, in which images are made to play before the fancy of the reader, without the formality of decided similitudes or figures, giving a secret but a lively flow to the current of composition. To know the mystery of these happy combinations is the talent and tact of the initiated alone. These, however, are the secrets of familiar writing, and especially of letters, as they form a part of polite literature. They defy imitation, and refuse to be transplanted. They are delicacies which will not bear handling, felicities which seem to come of themselves, while they mark the perfection of skill." present is, perhaps, a juncture in which that portion of this work will be found especially interesting." The first stone also is thus laid : "In tracing the history and origin of letterwriting, we shall in vain look for any certain date. The honor of the invention has been given to Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus; married successively to Cambyses and Darius Hystaspes, by which latter prince she became the mother of Xerxes. The authority for this supposed fact is the testimony of Hellanicus, a general historian of the dynasties and catastrophies of ancient states, including that of the Persians, whose works are lost, and who seems to have lived till about the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. The fact as recorded by Hellanicus is preserved by Tatian and Clemens Alexandrinus. Tatian in his celebrated Oration against the Greeks, a work which has come down to us, contends that none of those institutions of which the Greeks were so boastful, had their origin with them, but were all invented by the Barbarians : and, according to this author, it was said by Hellanicus, that a Persian queen, whose name was Atossa, first composed epistles; which statement is copied by Clemens Alexandrinus." We We trust our readers will not feel disappointed if we stop here, and recommend to all who wish for full information on the subject, elucidated by many very curious and interesting letters, to refer to the work itself. There they will find what epistolary correspondence was in scriptural ages and the period of Homer--the history of writing materials, forms, and conveyancesGreek and Roman letter-writing; and, finally, examples from the fathers of the Church. are tempted to copy some passages from Sidonius Apollinaris, residing at the villas of two of his intimate friends, in a letter to his friend Donidius, and affording a striking picture of the manners and habits of the last days of Rome in the west, the latter half of the fifth century. His first reception is by Ferreolus, a man of prefectorean rank, and we are told: "We were hurried from one luxurious entertainment to another. Hardly had we passed the threshold, when, behold, regular matches of tennis-players, within the rings or circular enclosures, and the frequent noise and rattling of the dice, with the clamors of the players! In another part were placed such an abundance of books ready for use, that you might suppose yourself in the libraries of the grammarians, or among the benches of the Roman Athenæum, or the furniture of the shops of the booksellers. These means of entertainment were so disposed, that the books of a serious character were placed near the seats assigned to the matrons, while near the benches of masters and fathers of fami"To the letters of the wisest and most accom- lies such compositions were ranged as were in plished heathens I have added pretty copious esteem for their Latin gravity and tragic elevaspecimens from the fathers of the evangelical tion; though these volumes, the productions of Church, of the fourth and fifth centuries; in various writers, might all possess an equality of whose epistolary intercourse there will be found merit on subjects very different; for men of like matter of the gravest import, and the fullest ex-intellectual rank were mingled together: here hibition of a class of men, whose habits of Augustin, here Varro, here Horace, here Pruthought and expression were framed after a model entirely different from that which furnished the standard of heathen morality: and the We fancy this quotation to be a sort of specimen of the required character in letter-writing; rather ornate, perhaps, but what the writer would commend as a pattern. In speaking of his design, he states: dentius, caught the eye of the reader. Among whom Adamantius Origenes, as interpreted by Turranius Ruffinus, was submitted to the inspec desty does not; of which, however, I should have been much pleased to give you an account, were I not ashamed to blur over the back of my paper with my ink. Besides which we are on the point of starting, and we please ourselves with the hope of soon seeing you again, if God permit; and then we shall best commemorate the suppers we have had with our friends in the suppers we shall exchange with each other, only let a complete week first elapse to bring us back to our appetites, after this luxurious banqueting; for a stomach surfeited by luxurious fare is repaired by nothing so much as by stinting it for a time." tion of the serious readers professing our faith; | paper put that stop to my loquacity which moso that the maintainers of the different opinions on this subject might discuss the grounds upon which some of our greatest divines have condemned this interpretation as a very sinister performance, and to be altogether avoided, although it was so exact a translation of each word and sentence, that neither Apuleius nor Tully had more faithfully executed, the one the Phædo of Plato, and the other the Ctesiphon of Demosthenes, as a rule and model for Roman elocution. With these studies each of us occupied himself as he pleased, until a messenger from the chief cook reminded us that it was time to think of taking care of our corporeal part: which messenger, marking the time by the clepsydra, came very punctually at the fifth hour (11 o'clock.) Dinner was soon dispatched, after the senatorian custom, according to which a copious repast is served up in a few dishes, although the banquet consisted both of roast and boiled. Little stories were told while we were taking our wine, which conveyed delight or instruction, as they happened to be dictated by experience or gaiety. We were decorously, elegantly, and abundantly entertained. Rising from table, if we were at the villa called Voro-ized communities are exposed; and thus in the angum, we retired to our apartments to get our necessaries from our packages. If we were at Prusianum, the other villa, we turned out Tonantius and his brothers, some very select young men of quality of the same standing, to make room for us and our furniture. Having shaken off our after-dinner nap, we amused ourselves with a short ride, to get an appetite for our supper. Neither of our hosts had their baths completed for use, though each was constructing them. But after the train of servants and at tendants which I had brought with me had a little respite from their cups, whose brains were somewhat overcome with the hospitable bowls of which they had freely partaken, a sort of pit was dug in haste near a rivulet or spring, into which a quantity of hot bricks were thrown, a circular arbor being made over it by the intertexture of the boughs of willows or hazels, by which the place was darkened, and air at the same time admitted through the interspaces, while a hot vapor was sent through the willows. Here an hour or two passed in the midst of much wit and merriment, during which we were all thrown into a most salubrious perspiration, being enveloped in the steam as it came hissing from the water. When we had been suffused with this long enough, we were plunged into the hot water; and being well cleansed and refreshed, we were afterwards braced by an abundance of cold water from the river or fountain. The river Vuardus* runs between the two villas, and except when it is thickened and discolored by the influx from the snow on the neighboring heights, it is a transparent and gentle stream, with a pebbly bottom, nor on that account the less abounding in delicate fish. I might go on to give you a description of our suppers, which were sumptuous, did not my "This river runs through the country of the Volca Arecomici into the Rhone, once famous for a Roman bridge and aqueduct, of Roman structure, of which it is said some traces may yet be seen." Upon this the author justly remarks:-" The letter presents an image of more ease and cheerfulness than might have been expected to exist at a time when the Roman empire was falling to pieces, and successive incursions of barbarous and unknown enemies were shaking to their foundation the elements of society. But there is a tenacity in the habits of civilized life, and an exigency in its usages and reciprocities, which sustain it in being and operation, amidst all the casualties and revolutions to which civil last catastrophe of Rome, with Goths, and Vandals, and Visi-Goths, at her gates, and trampling on her provinces, we find the bishop of Arverne and his friends, at a retreat among the mountain-passes, enjoying all the pleasures of the festive board, and as happy as good cheer and hospitable friendship could make them." THE JEWS OF SPAIN AND THE INQUISITION. Who would have thought that, in the year 1843, a persecution of the Jews would have commenced in Europe? An edict, extraordinary at this era, though of a class common enough in the good old times, has been issued by the General Inquisitor in Ancona, and other districts in his jurisdiction. This officer, whose name is Fra Vicenzo Salina, of the order of Predicatori, master in theology, in an edict, dated in the Chancellary of the Holy Inquisition, at Ancona, 24th June, 1843, premising that, it being deemed necessary to revive the full observ ance of the disciplinary laws relative to Israelites, and "having hitherto without effect employed prayers and exhortations to obtain obedience to cred and Supreme Inquisition of Rome," decrees these laws, authorized by the despatch of the Sathat all Gipsy and Christian nurses must be dismissed from Jewish families, and that Jews are prohibited from availing themselves of the service of any Christian in any domestic occupation what ever," under pain of being immediately punished according to the pontifical decrees and constitutions;" that all Jews possessing permanent or movable property, rents or shares in funds, shall dispose of the same within three months, or the Holy Office will sell it; that no Jew shall inhabit any place where there is no Ghetto, or place of residence for Jews, &c. &c. It is not said whether imputed to their brethren at Damascus. No part the Ancona Jews are suspected of any of the pranks of the secular history of this nation is more remarkable than the barbarous and shameful persecutions they have endured in all times from people calling themselves Christians.-Asiatic Journal. THE FREE KIRK OF SCOTLAND. From the Westminster Review. Nobly have the evangelical parsons vindicated our belief in their honesty and sincerity. About five hundred of them have resigned permanent for precarious incomes, embraced a lower status in society, con The People and the Church of Scotland. A THREE years ago we wrote and published an article in this Journal, saying why we thought the Kirk had strong claims on the help and sympathy of every friend of Reform. At that time this was assuming an unique position. Letters of remonstrance poured in upon the editor. It was deemed necessary to vindicate the article. Many Radicals and Voluntaries could find no better solution of the circumstance than a love of singularity in the writer. Parliamentary Radicals, astonished to find a journal to which they defer taking a course beyond their appreciation, could do nothing but lift up their hands and eyes in amazement. Three years have elapsed. Whether we or our various critics best knew the men and the principles involved in the subject has been made clear by what, three years ago, was the darkness of the future. stipends, and disdained a hundred thousand pounds for the sake of their ecclesiastical principles. Knowing from intimacy at school and college, in the play of boyhood, in the business of manhood,-aware long before 1840 that the evangelical Kirkmen were earnest and honorable men, who meant what they said,—it was not a love of singularity, but simply an avoidance of a shameful deviation from veracity, to declare the faith which we had in these parsons. It We were told it was a mere struggle for power on the part of the clergy. Their popular cries we were loudly told were mere crafty shams and delusions to hide selfish ends. Nothing could drive this baseless idea out of the heads of the Radicals. was not an induction from evidence, else a larger and closer scrutiny of the facts on which it rested would have destroyed it. It was in vain to ask these men to look at facts, they could not see them, because It is a singular satisfaction to the writer, their eyes were blinded by the passion of both for himself and the friends who relied hatred, of which their accusation was only on his judgment, that events have justified the expression. All over Scotland, as vaevery one of his views and realized all his cancies arose in parishes, the people found anticipations. Differing entirely as he did that their will had come to be, and the pafrom almost all the ablest and most experi-tron found that his will had ceased to be, enced men of his party, it will not be the dominant thing in the appointment of egotism, but justice, to show that a love of the pastor. But this fact was disregarded. truth, a knowledge of his subject, to which It was in vain to ask the parson-haters to he could not be false, and not a conceit of remember that when the Moderates insingularity, impelled the writer to maintain truded presentees at the point of the bayhis unique proposition of friendship to the onet it was the will of the aristocratic paKirk. tron which lorded it over every other consideration; and so determinedly blind were they, that there was no use in showing them that by the Veto Act the popular will, expressed by the Vetoing cards of communicants, had obtained the ascendency. The General Assembly gave the election of elders to the people, thus enabling popularly-elected laymen to outvote the clergy in all the church courts. The opponents of the Kirkmen could not be made to see that the whole movement began in a desire on the part of the clergy to satisfy the Scriptural convictions of their people respecting the influence that they ought to have over the election of pastors. Instead of being agitators for clerical power, the clergy were themselves agitated by popular demands, their communicants requiring them to provide for them a voice in ecclesiastical affairs as the only means of preventing them Liberals who had known skeptics become parsons for the sake of tithes, manses, and chalders, might well be excused when their own minds were imbued with the ideas of the French Revolution, if they exclaimed, "Ah! we have no faith in Parsons!" But we declared our faith in the evangelical parsons of the Kirk. We rebuked the narrowness which calls every kind of honesty dishonest except the kind peculiar to the accuser. Against the bigotry which would not allow them to be honest because at first they did not agitate for the abolition of patronage, or immediately separate from the State, we maintained the wisdom of practicalness, and the honesty of practical men who do the best they can, seek the best they can get, and love a small good which is to be had better for the nonce than all the grand unattainable abstractions out of St. Luke's. VOL. III. No. III. 20 from joining the Dissenters, among whom State-paid was used by Liberal journals in they would have the power both of electing a way which favored the aristocracy and and ejecting their pastors. injured the democracy in the distribution of Church power. If there is any truth in the professions of Liberals and Radicals, the ecclesiastical democracy of Scotland are the rightful owners of Church power in the appointment of pastors. But in the recent controversy the clergy have been the champions of these popular rights, and their opponents have been the professedly Liberal press-the men who claim for themselves on all occasions the honorable character of friends of the people. It might have been acknowledged, without any very great stretch of candor, that an agitation for popular power in the admission to benefices was not a very likely scheme for adding to clerical power. The aim of the movement was to wrest power from the aristocracy, and give it to its rightful owners, the people. The friends of popular rights ought all along to have helped the Church in her struggles. To give the people who previously were scarcely consulted a right to say no-a veto, when The pretext, under color of which the they had no such thing before for a century, Liberal press have masked their hostility to was plainly to increase their power, and popular Church power, has been hatred of decrease the patronate power. Yet the clerical power. By the way, it will not do great majority of journals in Scotland which for them to tell us that they were friendly profess to support the cause of the people, to giving the election of ministers into the occupied themselves in vilifying and de- hands of all the ten-pounders in a parish, faming men at whose hands aristocratic Churchmen and Dissenters. This was never power has sustained greater reductions-feasible; and our argument is that the Kirk from whose hands democratic power has communicants were more entitled to be rereceived larger accessions, than from any garded in the State than the patrons, that other men of the present generation in the contest for the power was between the Europe. To make lords less and men communicants and the patrons, and that greater, are the professed objects of the therefore it was the duty of the friends of Liberal press; yet the tendency of the la- popular power to aid the democratic rather bors of most of them were conservative of than the aristocratic claimants. The hatred aristocratic church power. Surely the of clerical power-the outcry against priestcommunicants are worthier depositaries of craft, which these journalists assume to be the State control over the State-paid Church a praiseworthy feeling, was itself in this than the patrons. Let it be granted that, case an illiberal, anti-popular, and anti-deif the State pay the clergy, the State ought mocratic thing. When the people have a to choose them; if the nation supports them, voice in the election of ministers, whether the nation ought to decide who they shall in the shape of a no or an aye, the clergy be. Certainly Liberals cannot consistently can exercise over them only the legitimate maintain that the aristocracy are to be con- influences of wisdom, knowledge, and charsidered the State-the patrons-the repre- acter. The noblest influence one man can sentatives of the nation. Popularly elected exercise over another-the most legitimate, town councils are not the only patrons. desirable, and beneficial, is the power of Most of the patrons are landholders-men convincing his reason, of giving him conwhom Liberals cannot receive as the repre-victions, and determining his conduct by sentatives of the people, nor regard their quickening old or kindling new principles interests as identical with those of the na-in his heart. To give men moral and tion. It is rare Liberalism which would spiritual theories for the guidance of their intrust State control over State-paid clergy to an irresponsible aristocracy, rather than to the communicants who belong to the people and are identical with them in all their interests. Who are most the State? The few patrons or the many communicants? In whose hands is any portion of power best placed? The few or the many? According to the opinions of all Liberals, the aristocracy are less identified with the State than the electors or communicants, and are less worthy depositaries of power. But in Scotland, and in some cases in London, the argument of State-control over the lives is the highest and most dignified occupation which genius and talent can accomplish. Man cannot do nobler work. If the clergy implant in the minds of the people their own views of Church politics, and the people apply those views to the election of ministers and elders, to vilify this process either quoad the clergy by calling it spiritual despotism, or quoad the people by calling it religious gullibility, is to blaspheme those holy processes of thought appointed for the elimination of all that is good and beautiful in civilization. When men talk of the liberty of the press, they mean by it the |