From these inquiries, then, it appears that the substitution of his for the Saxon genitive was introduced about the middle of the sixteenth century; that the influx of Greek and Latin names probably drew to the subject the attention of etymologists, who, having but little or no knowledge of the Sanscrit, German, or other languages cognate to the Saxon, supposed that the sign of the genitive case was formed from his. We have seen also that this innovation was received at first with some caution, the Saxon form being applied to the old English words, while the new mode was used only in the declension of Latin names.

THE GRAVE.

FROM THE GERMAN OF SALIS.

DEEP is the Grave, and still;
Oh! dread the brink, I ween,
That shrouds, with dusky veil,
A world unknown, unseen.

No strains of nightingale
May break its holy rest;
E'en friendship's roses fail
Upon its mossy breast.

Forsaken brides in vain

Clasp thin pale hands, and weep;

Sobs wrung from orphans' pain

Pierce not the Grave so deep.

Elsewhere but in the tomb

Still dwelleth no repose;

Only through gate of gloom
Earth's pilgrim homeward goes.

The poor heart, here below,

Torn by each tempest's will,

There only peace can know,

Where every throb is still!

NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA.

THE glowing orb of day sinks slow to rest, In wavy crimson float the clouds of eve; The wandering sea-birds sweep the ocean's breast, And insect tribes their noonday shelter leave; The swelling waves their circling eddies weave, And chafe the shore whose bound they may not pass; The shaded hills their verdant bosoms heave, The warbling bird wheels round his nest of grass, And zephyrs wave the forests' undulating mass.

One eye there is heeds not the beauteous sight,
One heart that throbs with no fond fancy's spell;
One mind that knows no ray of treasured light
To gild the walls of memory's crystal cell:
Chaotic thoughts of scenes remember'd well,
Distracting visions of a past once fair,
Baffled remorse, and vain ambition's knell,
The hideous promptings of a soul's despair,
Within that exile's heaving breast-all, all are there.

What recks he childhood's fancy-peopled reign,
The schoolboy's daring and the student's zeal?
What the soft empire love could once retain,
Or the bright hopes enraptured youth could feel?
Long had he learnt his grasping soul to steel
Against the influence of a love-sick dream;
Since the cold treaty broke the marriage seal,
Since one dear face had ceased to shed its gleam
Around the gloomy waves of fierce ambition's stream.

With magic speed his winged thoughts survey The field of conquest and the adverse war; The varied fortune of each hard-fought day, The blood-stain'd laurel and the victor's car. Graven on his soul, each glorious name afar His eye reviews: there Lodi's slippery fight, There the fierce field* where set proud Austria's star, The streams of blood that wash'd the Alpine height, And fair Ausonia's land a captive to his might.

* Rivoli, Jan. 14, 1797.

Again he wades through Egypt's burning sands,
Again the Mamelukes wheel their fiery steeds;
Again those words enforce his proud commands-
"Soldiers! two thousand years behold your deeds!"
But no unmingled pride his memory feeds;
Let Nile bear witness to the tale of woe:
At whose dread name his inmost spirit bleeds;
And Acre boast that England's dying blow
Were freely struck to spoil the despot's laurell'd brow.

Austerlitz! Jena! say, where now the wreath
Earn'd by the slaughter of ten thousand lives!
For onward comes th' insatiate phantom death,
While vainly to escape his victim strives.

The hand that from his throne a monarch drives,
The mind that yearns to rule a land of slaves
Have lost their all; the brave guerilla knives
Fear'd not the foreign sword, for Britain waved

Her proud flag o'er the deep, and Spain from thraldom saved.

Yet far more deadly than great Austria's might,
Than Alpine danger or Egyptian heat,
Than shatter'd fleets or Syria's murderous blight,
Were Russia's ice and Moscow's dire defeat.
Driven from his lair the snowy waste to meet,
Scared, like a tiger, from the blazing pyre,
The first to tell his own, his hosts' defeat:
Still to command the world he dared aspire,
Still fiercely burnt within his heart ambition's fire.

No warning voice did Leipsic's cannon bear,
To teach the exile that his day was o'er;
And nought could check ambition's mad career
But Waterloo and Saint Helena's shore.

Fierce, then, must be the mental tempest's roar;
Chill the dark void, with giant thoughts once rife;
Peace, mirth, and love can haunt that breast no more,
But foremost there, amid that spirit-strife,

Rises each murderous deed that stain'd his daring life.

Changed is the scene: the raging whirlwinds roar,
Night's sable pall enshrouds the troubled sky;
The storm-toss'd deeps their surging billows pour,
Affrighted vessels from their moorings fly;

By blasts uptorn, the trees are whirl'd on high,
The founts of heaven pour down their floods of hail;
The sheeted lightning rushes hurtling by,

And scares the darkness with its radiance pale,

While the deep thunder roars o'er mountain, wood, and vale.

But not more fiercely raged the howling blast,
Or heaved the billows on the foaming main,
Than his proud spirit struggling as it past
From mortal dust to spirit worlds again.
Stern was the conflict round that bed of pain,
To burst the ties that link'd his soul to life.
Death grimly strove, but long he strove in vain :
That soul e'en now was in the battle strife,
Amidst some field of war with hideous carnage rife.

The strife is o'er the victory death has gain'd;
In awful grandeur sleeps that pallid face;
Closed is the eye that empire long retain'd,
For ever ended wild ambition's race.
Beneath a willow's shade that form they place,
Hard by a rill whose voice he loved to hear;

And nought remain'd to tell a future race

That one who grasp'd at worlds lay slumbering near, Save a recording stone, bedew'd with pity's tear.

THE DEATH OF THE DOVE.

FROM THE GERMAN.

"WHAT dost thou in the shadowy wood?
Oh, say, sweet plaintive Dove !”

"I moan, in broken-hearted mood,
For I have lost my love."

"And fear'st thou not that hunter's snare
Will kill thee, like thy mate?"

"I heed not; for, though Man should spare,
Still Grief must end my fate."

ON EARTHWORKS AND RETAINING-WALLS.

It is the design of this paper to lay before the readers of the King's College Magazine some notes upon earthworks and retaining-walls, with the hope that they may furnish some exemplification of the application of the mathematical theory of engineering to practice.

In the first place, it is necessary for the engineer to make himself acquainted with the soil he has to deal with-the slope it will assume when thrown into a heap, its power of resisting the action of the weather, and especially of water, which is the cause of many failures, and which has not yet been satisfactorily accounted for by any mathematical theory; and, moreover, he must know something of the geological structure of the district in which he is working.

Where the angle of repose, i. e. the angle which the surface of the earth, when thrown in a heap, makes with the horizontal, is not very small, or where the area of the land employed is no object as regards economy, there is no necessity for a retaining-wall. As a general rule, the slope of the side of the excavation or embankment must be rather within the natural slope of the soil, otherwise a slip may occur, which will not only be an additional expense, but may be the cause of great loss of life; but, on the other hand, it is not advisable to make the sides very flat, as a greater surface is thus exposed to the disintegrating action of the weather, besides increasing the expense; and it has been found to be more economical to pay additional attention to drainage than to make the sides too flat, which are generally preserved by covering them with turf, or the original surface soil, which is afterwards sown with grass seed; surface drains being formed, which run obliquely from the top to the drain at the foot of the bank.

Sometimes retaining-walls are carried up from one and a half to two yards in height on each side of the lower portions of both cuttings and embankments; by which, not only is the quantity of earth employed reduced, but also a considerable saving is effected in the area of the land. This is especially useful in the case of clay, for no soil is more acted upon by the weather; its power of absorbing