when experienced, form a notion of the interval which | verse, and we may add that he also already began to separates two distant objects, without taking into ac- display a genius for English poetry of the very highest count the apparent magnitudes of the objects them- promise. selves. If lines be drawn from the two ends of the object AB, meeting in E, the eye of the spectator, the angle or opening which the two lines make at E is that from which he judges of its magnitude; and when he

says

that the object grows smaller as he walks from it, it is the angle BEA of which he speaks. Another and larger object CD might be so placed as to appear at the same angle, and consequently of the same magnitude. How then do we judge between two objects which appear under the same angle, and which we yet know to be at very different distances? Partly by the greater or less distinctness with which we see them, and partly, if the object be a common one, by the idea we have already formed of its real size, which causes us to form a notion as to how far off such an object must be, in order to appear to us of such a size, or under such an angle. If, for example, a man had been used to pass at some distance from a tower, situated on a wide level heath, remote from other objects; which tower was pulled down and replaced by another of exactly the same figure, but only half the size;-this man, on passing by again, would at first sight imagine that he was much farther from the tower than usual, though perhaps a second view might lead him to observe that the distinctness remained the same as before. If, however, the day were misty, he could not well make the latter remark, and would certainly imagine that he was farther from the tower than usual. Most people observe that in a foggy day objects appear larger than usual, which arises from this, that the angle under which they are seen being unaltered, and the distinctness diminished, the mind refers that diminution of distinctness to an increase of distance, and the objects appear farther off in the same angle, just as they would do if they were larger. For a contrary reason, distant objects appear nearer than usual in a very clear day. If a colossal statue were placed at a great distance from the spectator, the latter, if he had no reason to know that the statue was larger than the usual size, would imagine that it was much nearer to himself than it really was, and would place it at just that distance at which an ordinary man ought to stand, in order to appear under the same angle as the statue. When the distance of an object is so great that we cannot measure it at all by our senses, as in the case of the heavenly bodies, all phenomena, which arise merely from change of distance, are unperceived unless also accompanied with a change of direction. Hence the stars appear to us to be placed in a sphere or surface, every point of which is at the same distance

from our eye.

THE WEEK.

Milton left the university, after taking his degree of Master of Arts, in 1632, and went to reside with his father, who, having acquired a competency, had retired from the metropolis to Horton, in Buckinghamshire. Here he passed the following five years in assiduous study; and during this interval he appears to have produced both his exquisite Masque of Comus, which is stated in the title to have been performed at Ludlow Castle, in 1634, before the Earl of Bridgewater, and some of the principal of his minor poems-his Arcades, his Lycidas, and his two incomparable lyric chaunts the l'Allegro and the Il Penseroso. In 1638 he left England with the purpose of completing his education by foreign travel; and visited in succession Paris, Nice, Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Rome, and Naples. Honours from both the learned and the great waited upon the accomplished Englishman wherever he appeared. The state of his native country, however, worn by dissensions, and manifestly on the eve of a great convulsion, appealed too strongly to his patriotic ardour to suffer him to protract his stay abroad; and returning by the way of Geneva he again reached home after an absence of about fifteen months. He did not now resume his residence with his father. He probably considered that for the unsettled times which were apparently at hand the fit preparation which it behoved every man to make was the adoption of some way of earning his bread by his own independent exertions; and, hiring a house in St. Bride's church-yard, he opened a seminary for the instruction of youth in the classic languages. His school having soon increased in number he was induced to remove to a larger house in Aldersgate. How long he continued to devote himself to this laborious occupation is not ascertained; but in 1641 we find him for the first time coming before the world as an author. His earliest production from the press was a violent attack upon the Hierarchy. It was followed by several others in the same style; and these efforts must no doubt have aided powerfully in augmenting and directing the storm which now beat against the Church, and eventually laid it prostrate. From this time forward Milton may.be considered as a public character. For the following twenty years-the period of the Civil War and of the Protectorate-his pen was never idle; and several of the occasions on which it was employed were such as to bring him conspicuously before his country, and, it may be said, all Europe. In 1643 he married; and soon after, his wife having left him and refused to return, he published in succession his four tracts on the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, in which he maintained that the contumacy of one of the two parties of itself dissolved the conjugal connexion, and entitled the other to form a new union. His wife, however, thought fit to repair to him and ask his forgiveness. In 1644 he published his Tractate on Education,' in the form of a letter to his friend Hartlib. The same year appeared his noble defence of the liberty of the press, entitled, Areopagitica, or a Discourse for the Liberty of unlicensed Printing.' This year also there issued from the press the first edition of his poetical productions, comprising the several pieces that have been already mentioned. In 1649 he published his Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, in vindication of the execution of the King. Soon after he was appointed Latin Secretary of State. His Eiconoclastes (an attack on the famous Eikon Basilike, attributed to the deceased monarch), his two splendid Defences for the People of England (in Latin) in answer to Salmasius, in the course of the composition of the second of which he lost his sight, and other tracts on the same subject, were the fruits of what leisure was left him by the duties of his office between this time and the year 1655, when he resigned his public

DECEMBER 9.-The anniversary of the birth of MILTON. This illustrious poet was born in Bread-street, London, in 1608, and was the eldest son of John Milton, the descendant of an ancient family, but who had been disinherited by his father for abandoning the Catholic faith, and followed the profession of a scrivener. Milton's education was at first conducted at home under the care of a private tutor. He was then sent to St. Paul's School, from which he proceeded, in 1624, to Christ College, Cambridge. He is recorded to have distinguished himself at the university as a writer of Latin

employment. His first wife having died in 1651, after |
the birth of three daughters, he had married a second
in 1654, and he lost her also, to whom he was much at-
tached, in 1657. Steady to his principles, he did not cease,
even after the death of Cromwell, and in the midst of the
almost universal trepidation which had seized upon his
party, still to employ his pen in calling upon his country-
men to rally around what he deemed the cause of liberty.
But his efforts were vain. On the Restoration, although
he was at first apprehended, he eventually escaped
with no farther punishment than a sentence of disquali-
fication for holding any public office. Some of his
tracts too were ordered to be burnt by the common hang-
man. But he was turned from his political career only
that he might enter upon another far more glorious.
Driven from the service of his country on the scene of
public affairs, the old man now reverted to the quiet pur-
suits of his youth. Many years before, he had in one of
his early controversial publications announced his inten-
tion, if God should grant him life, of dedicating his
faculties to produce for the honour of his country some
work in the mother tongue, which men should not will-
ingly let die. He now set himself to the fulfilment of
this self-imposed task. The result was the production
of Paradise Lost, the grandest work in the whole range
of poetry.
It was published in 1667; in 1671, the
Paradise Regained and Sampson Agonistes followed in
one publication. The year before, the illustrious author
had also given to the world a History of Britain, down
to the era of the Norman Conquest; and in 1672 he
published a new Scheme of Logic, in Latin. During
the two following years also he continued his literary
labours, and even sent one or two more productions to
the press. He left a posthumous Latin work on 'The
Christian Doctrine,' which was found in the State-Paper
Office, and was edited and translated by Dr. Charles
Sumner, the present Bishop of Winchester. This was
published in 1825. He died at his house in Bunhill-
fields, on the 10th of November, 1674. He had mar-
ried a third time about the year 1661; but left no
family except the three daughters whom he had by his
first wife.

[Portrait of Milton.]

ODE TO AN INDIAN GOLD COIN.

Written in Chéricál, Malabar.

SLAVE of the dark and dirty mine!

What vanity has brought thee here?
How can I love to see thee shine
So bright, whom I have bought so dear?
The tent-ropes flapping lone I hear,
For twilight converse, arm in arm;

The jackal's shriek bursts on mine ear,
When mirth and music wont to charm.
By Chéricál's dark wandering streams,
Where cane-tufts shadow all the wild,
Sweet visions haunt my waking dreams,
Of Teviot lov'd while still a child,
Of castled rocks stupendous pil'd
By Esk or Eden's classic wave,

Where loves of youth and friendship smil❜d,
Uncurs'd by thee, vile yellow slave!
Fade, day dreams sweet, from memory fade !-
The perish'd bliss of youth's first prime,
That once so bright on fancy play'd,
Revives no more in after-time.
Far from my sacred natal clime
I haste to an untimely grave;

The daring thoughts that soar'd sublime,
Are sunk in ocean's southern wave.
Slave of the mine! thy yellow light
Gleams baleful as the tomb-fire drear.
A gentle vision comes by night,
My lonely widow'd heart to cheer;
Her eyes are dim with many a tear,
That once were guiding stars to mine:
Her fond heart throbs with many a fear!-

I cannot bear to see thee shine.

For thee, for thee, vile yellow slave,
I left a heart that lov'd me true!

I cross'd the tedious oceán-wave,
To roam in climes unkind and new
The cold wind of the stranger blew
Chill on my wither'd heart:-the grave
Dark and untimely met my view-
And all for thee, vile yellow slave!
Ha! com'st thou now so late to mock

A wanderer's banished heart forlorn,
Now that his frame the lightning shock
Of sun-rays tipt with death has borne ?
From love, from friendship, country, torn,
To memory's fond regrets the prey,

Vile slave, thy yellow dross I scorn!
Go mix thee with thy kindred clay

**The preceding poem was published amongst the Remains of Dr. Leyden, a young Scotch physician of great promise, who died in India at an early age.

SONNET.

SI.EEP, Silence' child, sweet father of soft rest,
Prince whose approach peace to all mortals brings,
Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings,
Sole comforter of minds which are opprest.
Lo! by thy charming rod all breathing things
Lie slumbering, with forgetfulness possest,
And yet o'er me to spread thy drowsy wings
Thou spar'st, alas, who cannot be thy guest.
Since I am thine, O come, but with that face
To inward light which thou art wont to show,
With feigned solace ease a true-felt woe;
Or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace,
Come as thou wilt, and what thou wilt bequeath,
I long to kiss the image of my death.

DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN.

THE APOLLO BELVIDERE. THE names of few works of art are so familiar to our ears as those of the Apollo Belvidere and the Venus de' Medici; the first one of the innumerable wonders of Rome, the second one of the ornaments of Florence. The Apollo was found at Antium, now Anzio, which was the birth-place of Nero, and one of his favourite places of residence. As in the case of the Laocoon, this statue was for some time supposed to be a work belonging to what we are accustomed to call the best age of Greek sculpture, by which, as we have already explained, we generally understand the period of Phidias and that immediately following it. Indeed the Apollo is now sometimes called the work of Phidias, just as if there were some good reason for giving it that name. And here it may be well to put our readers on their guard against giving credit to the loose assertions of most writers as to matters of antiquity: very few have either time, inclination, or sufficient knowledge to investigate them completely. When then an assertion is made, such as, "that the Apollo Belvidere is the work of Phidias," it is quite fair to ask for the proof; and perhaps this will apply equally well to other assertions about things of more importance than the paternity of a statue.

"These words," says Thiersch," seem to hang on the lips of the indignant god. Already has he turned himself from the left side, in which direction the arrow has sped, and is moving off towards the right, while his head is still directed towards his vanquished enemy on the left, to whom, while in his flight and uttering the words of vengeance, he gives a last look of indignation and contempt."

STATISTICAL NOTES.

ENGLAND AND WALES (CONTINUED).

(31.) THE British copper mines, situate chiefly in Wales Cornwall, Derbyshire, and Devonshire, were wrought with little energy till the last century. Previously to 1793 England was dependent on foreigners for supplies of copper; but from about that period downwards, has become one of the principal markets for the supply of other countries. The quantity of copper produced during the year 1829 in Cornwall, from ores raised in that county, exceeded 10,000 tons of pure metal; and if to this be added what was produced in Wales, and in other parts of Englaud, and in Ireland, the whole quantity of pure metal produced in the United Kingdom, in 1829, may be fairly stated at 12,000 tons. The quantity of British copper exported in 1829 amounted to 7976 tons of fine metal; to which, adding the exports of foreign copper, the total export was S817 tons. The copper imported is altogether intended for re-importation. The value of the 12,000 tons of copper produced in the United Kingdom, as above stated, at £90 per ton, is £1,080,000.

Some French critics first observed the fact of the Apollo being made of Carrara marble, which Pliny speaks of as being newly worked in his time, under the name of marble of Luna. If this is undisputed, we cannot assign the Apollo to any other epoch but that of the early Roman emperors, and it seems the most probable hypothesis that it was made for Nero to adorn his sea villa at Antium. This man, whom history has represented to us as a cruel tyrant, an unnatural son, and the murderer of his wife, was still a lover of the arts, (32.) The term "hardware" includes every kind of and perhaps no mean judge of them, as far as we can goods manufactured from metals, comprising iron, brass, discern through that cloud of abuse in which the history of steel, and copper articles of all descriptions, of which the the early emperors is enveloped. The noble figure of the principal seats are Birmingham and Sheffield. From Apollo, perhaps one of the last efforts of Grecian art to the abundance of metallic ores, and of coais, in this perfect the ideal form of the Archer god, stood at Nero's country, we may hope the hardware manufacture is on a bidding in all its beauty before the master of the Roman very secure foundation, although both in the Netherlands world. And can we doubt that he felt and admired that and Germany, the fabrics of hardware and cutlery have perfection which never yet was embodied in a living of late years very considerably improved and extended form? To attempt to express by words the impressions themselves. Mr. M'Culloch, in his Commercial Diewhich are produced by the highest productions of na- tionary, differing from other writers, states the total ture or art, is a vain attempt: with those who do not feel, aggregate value of the iron and other hardware manuit results in mere words that have no definite meaning; factures of England and Scotland at £17,500,000 a with those who do, it can only result in a complete con- year, affording direct employment in the various departviction of the inability of words to express the images of ments of the trade, for at least 360,000 persons. thought. No such difficulty would be felt in treating of United States are by far the most important market for the Venus de' Medici, a statue which is beautiful, and, hardware and cutlery. Of the total value (£1,389,514) for what we know, faultless in execution, but as far re-exported in 1829, they took no less than £669,871. moved from the ideal form of the goddess of Love, as the most ordinary female figure that we meet with.

It is Thiersch's opinion that the figure of the Apollo has a reference to the story of the god shooting with his arrows the great serpent Python; and that the artist had at the same time in his thoughts the passage of the first book of the Iliad, where Apollo descends in anger from the heights of Olympus, with his bow and quiver on his shoulder, hastening to deal forth death amidst the army of the Greeks. But the story of the Python, and a passage in Homer's Hymn to Apollo, seem to have suggested the ideas which the artist has embodied in this noble form.

"Apollo's bow unerring sped the dart,

And the fierce monster groaned beneath the smart.
Tortured with pain, hard-breathing, on the ground
The serpent writhed beneath the fatal wound.
Now here, now there, he winds amidst the wood,
And vomits forth his life in streams of blood.
Rot where thou liest, the exulting archer said,
No more shall man thy vengeful fury dread,
But every hand that tills earth's spacious field,
Her grateful offerings to my shrine shall yield.
Not Typho's strength nor fell Chimera's breath,
Can now protect thee from the grasp of death.
There on the damp, black earth, in foul decay,
Rot, rot to dust, beneath the sun's bright ray."

The

The East and West Indies, the British North-American Colonies, and the United States, are the principal markets for iron and steel.

(33.) Of the remaining articles of British manufacture which are exported to a considerable amount, may be mentioned as important, refined sugar, which is sent chiefly to the German and Italian markets, and of which the total export exceeds a million sterling in value. Earthenware, or crockery, is exported to the value of half a million, and is a manufacture the extension of which has added peculiarly to the comforts and ornaments of civilized life. It has superseded the less cleanly vessels of pewter and wood, and by its cheapness has been brought within the reach of the poorest housekeepers. It is to be seen in every country in America, in many parts of Asia, and in most of Europe. The principal seat of the manufacture is in the potteries in Staffordshire, where it is estimated that ware is produced to the amount of about £1,500,000 a year, and valuing that produced at Worcester, Derby, and other parts of the country, at £750,000, the whole value of the manufacture may be taken at £2,250,000 a year. The best market for British earthenware is the United States, and the next in importance are Brazil, the British North