BY ELIZA MARY HAMILTON.

the death knell to a monarchy of ages, to At the thirteenth meeting of the British Assothe dynasty of the Capets, as well as to his ciation for the advancement of Science, MAJOR

L. Beamish, F. R. S., read a paper. On the ap. own domestic joys and family bliss: for the

parent fall or diminution of water in the Bal. Revolution of July 1830 has been any thing tic, and elevation of the Scandinavian Coast.'but a blessing to the then Duke of Orleans. During a journey to Stockholm in the early part of

the present summer, the author had occasion to see and hear much respecting the diminution of water in the Baltic, a practical and personal evidence of which he experienced in the harbor of Travemunde, on the 4th of May, by the sudden fall of

water at the port, which took place very rapidly, LINES,

and to great extent. The steamer, which ought to have left Travemunde on the 18th, was detained

by this cause until the 21st. It is well known, [Written at the request of a relative, on the death of a dear that, although without tide, the Baltic is subject to friend in Honiton, February, 1813.]

periodical variations of depth, but the water has From Tait's Magazine.

fallen during the present summer, to a degree far

below these ordinary variations : and the fact was Oh! blessed are the dead in Christ !

considered so remarkable as to be thought worthy Why will we mourn for them !

of being brought before the notice of the Swedish No more the stormy billows here

Academy of Sciences, by Baron Berzelius, in July With weary heart they stem !

last. This fall or diminution of water was already No more they struggle here below

perceptible in the summer of 1842, since which, To guide, through many a gulf of woe,

the Baltic has never returned to its mean height: Their being's fragile bark,

but, on the contrary, has diminished, and there But, harbored in eternal rest,

seems now no probability that the former level, or By far off islands of the blest,

the height of 1841, will be again attained. Meantime, Calm on a sunlit ocean's breast,

no perceptible change has taken place in the waAnchor their fearless ark.

ters of the North Sea, and the unscientific observer

asks, what has become of the waters of the Baltic? Seem they to sleep? 'tis but as sleeps The answer is probably to be found in a simultaThe seed within the earth,

neous phenomeuon apparent on the Swedish coast, To burst forth to the brilliant morn

the gradual elevation of which has been satisfacOf a more glorious birth ;

torily proved by the personal observation of Mr. Seem they to feel no breath of love

Lyell." Recent observation, however, would seem That o'er their icy brow will move

a

66

FACTS ON SUICIDE.

indirect and accidental. In opposition to the ar

guments derived from agricultural districts and From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.

laborers in towns, there is the fact, that suicide is

more frequent among several classes of artisans THE 29th number of the British and Foreign than it is among betier educated people. If the Medical Review extracis some facts respecting progress of civilization is to be charged with the suicide from the Third Annual Report of the increase of suicide, we must therefore understand Registrar-General. Suicide is most prevalent by it the increase of tailors, shoemakers, the in London, the proportion, there, for a year, be- small trades, the mechanical occupations, and ing 10-9 10 100,000 inhabitants. “Next to this the incidental evils to which they are exposed, discreditable pre-eminence stands the south-east- rather than the advancement of truth, science, ern counties, bordering on the metropolis, where literature, and the fine arts."* it is 8-4 to 100,000; the range in other parts of Apparently to show the distinction between England is from 6-8 10 7:4, which is the propor- the influence of education, abstractly considered, tion in the western counties; whilst in Wales and circumstances with which a certain amount it is but 2.2. The proportion throughout Eng- of education is occasionally associated. Mr. Farr land and Wales is 63 ; and the total number in mentions the facts, that about 2-0 to 10,000 perthe year was 2001. The greatest number of sons assured in the Equitable Society, and 7.8 suicides occurred in the spring and summer, in 10,000 dragoons and dragoon-guards, have when crimes attended by violence, and also at- been ascertained to commit suicide every year. tacks of insanity, are also most common. Thus, in We can see no reason for supposing that eduApril, May, and June, there were 563; in July, cation gives a tendency to suicide; but those August, and September, 539: in January, Feb-districts in which education, indicated by the ruary, and March, 484 ; and in October, Novem- proportion of the population who can write, is ber, and December, 465.” (November thus ap- most diffused, contain the most numerous class pears by no means the peculiarly suicidal month of artisans occupied within doors. Now, there which proverbial observation would make it.] is in such persons, as compared with a sailor or “The suicides in males were considerably more agricultural laborer, a low state of health, and a than double those in females; for of the 2001 morbid sensibility, which may give a proneness examples of this crime, 1387 occurred in the for- to self-destruction. As a general rule, these mer, and 614 in the latter sex, the proportions trades are least exposed to accidents; and Mr. being as 23 to 10. “ The tendency to suicide," Farr remarks, that the mind, left unexcited by adds the reviewer, “is least among persons car- natural dangers, imagines and creates causes of rying on occupations out of doors, and greatest death. We would say rather, that the individamong artisans who are weakly fiom birth, are ual rendered morbid, moody, and sensitive by confined in-doors, have their rest disturbed, or seclusion from free air, variations of temperahave little muscular exertion. The statistical ature, muscular exertion, and light, sees in the illustration of this point shows that 1 in 9382 circumstances around him, viewed through the masons, carpenters, and butchers, committed diseased condition of mind which these very suicide in the year; and 1 in 1669 tailors, shoe circumstances have engendered, a reason why makers, and bakers; the tendency to suicide in life is no longer desirable, and, consequently, an the first class being as 1 to 5.6 in the second. A incentive to the act of suicide. similar result is obtained by comparing the sui- Regarding this crime, Mr. Farr suggests, cides in the class of laborers with those among " That some plan for discontinuing, by common artisans and tradespeople; for the tendency to consent, the detailed dramatic tales of murder, buicide is more than twice as great among arti-suicide, and bloodshed in the newspapers, is sans as it is among laborers; in the former class, well worthy the attention of their editors. No the proportion being 6-0 to 10.000; in the latter, fact is betier established in science than that but 2.9 to the same number. In the miscellane- suicide, and murder may perhaps be added, is ous class, designated by Mr. Rickman,' capital- often committed from imitation. A single paraists, bankers, professional, and other educated graph may suggest suicide to twenty persons ; persons,' the proportion is 4.9 to 10,000." some particular chance, but apt expression,

Mr. Farr does not grant much force to the seizes the imagination, and the disposition to reopinion of certain theoretical writers, that sui peat the act in a moment of morbid excitement cide is most common where education is most proves irresistible. Do the advantages of pubdiffused. He admits that in England suicide is licity counterbalance the evils attendant on one most frequent in the metropolis, the south-east- such death? Why should cases of suicide be ern counties, and the northern counties, where recorded in the public papers any more than the greatest number can write; and is the least cases of sever ?” * The reviewer does not agree frequent in Wal s, where the proportion of per- in this view, thinking that the certainty of pubsons signing the marriage register with a mark licity may act more powerfully as a preventive; (the Registrar-General's test of deficient edu- but we do not concur in his opinion. He quotes, cation) is the greatest. But he remarks very with approbation, the following passage from particularly regarding these facts:

Mr. Farr's letter:--" It may be remarked, that “ There is a general, but no constant relation, the artisans most prone to suicide are subject to between the state of education thus tested peculiar visceral congestions; that suicide is and the commission of suicide. It may be ad- most common in unhealthy towns; and that the mitted that there is some relation between the influence of medicine on the mind, and on the development of the intellect and self-destruction ; but the connexion must be in a great measure * Letter to the Registrar-General, pp. 80-1.

tem :

unstable or ungovernable impulses which are Waves.- The Report of the Committee on often the harbingers of suicide, is incontestable. Waves, of the British Association for the advanceTo place the shoemaker, tailor, baker, or printer, ment of Science, was presented by Mr. S. Russell, in the same favorable circumstances with res- along with a short account of the researches with pect to air and exercise as carpenters and ma- which he had been engaged since the period of the sons, would be impossible. But the workshops former report. He had reduced the whole subject of of all artisans admit of immense improvements inquiry into a more systematic and complete form in ventilation. Cleanliness is greatly neglected. and had found that the arrangement adopted had

than it had at an earlier period in these inquiries, Neither the men nor all the masters appear to the effect of removing many of the seeming be aware that the respiration of pure air is in contradictions of wave phenomena, by showing dispensable; that the body requires as much that phenomena formerly identified were actually care as the tools, instruments, and machines, and the result of conditions essentially distinct from that without it, neither the body nor the mind each other, and that there exist orders of waves can be kept in health and vigor. The new heretofore confounded, but now ascertained to difparks and public walks will afford the artisan fer in their origin, nature, and successive phases of an opportunity of refreshing his exhausted limbs existence. These different orders he had separately and respiring the fresh air; and the health and examined; he had determined their characteristic temper of the sedentary workman may be much properties, and registered their phenomena, and ameliorated by affording facilities in towns for proposed to arrange them in the following sysathletic exercises and simple games out of doors,

Orders: waves of translation-of oscillationwhich, while they bring the muscles into play, unbend, excite, and exhilarate the mind. Moral solitary-gregarious. Species : positive or pega

capillary waves-corpuscular waves. Characters: causes, and the regulation of the mind, have tive-stationary or progressive. Varieties : freeperhaps more influence on the educated classes ; forced; of which distinctions the instances are: but all must derive benefit from outdoor exereise."

wave of resistance, tide wave, aerial sound wave, steam ripple, wind waves, ocean swell, dentate waves, zephyral waves, water sound wave.

The phenomena of these different orders had been examined, and in their mode of genesis, their | laws of motion, their form, the nature of the forces by which they are transmitted, their duration, and the manner of their final extinction, they were

found to differ essentially from each other. These A PILGRIM OF NATURE.

various properties were then illustrated by a few

examples. In the first order, the velocity is deFrom Tait's Magazine.

pendent on depth and height alone; in the second,

on length alone, being perfectly independent of You boast of the grandeur of cities in vain

depth and height; in the third case it is constant; To one who loves valleys, wild mountain, and and constant also in the fourth case. In the first, plain :

also, the nature of the motion of each individual Have you beauties to vie with the river and rill ? particle of water during wave transmission is, that Have you fragrance, like morning's, on heath and the particle describes a semi-circle or semi-ellipse, on hill?

and then relapses into repose, all the water parti0, a Pilgriin of Nature for ever I'll be ;

cles to the bottom having an equal range of horiYour city's too stilling and narrow for me.

zontal translation. In the second case there is no

permanent translation, but a continuous series of Will you match me the lamps of some festival fine, revolutions in a series of complete circles, or rather With the gems on night's mantle, so pure and di- in a spiral, and these revolutions do not estend to vine ?

great depths below the surface. In the third case Will you minister music devotion to form

the disturbances of the particles do not extend Like the voice of the forest that sings to the storm ? deeper than the range of the capillary forces, excited 0, a Pilgrim of Nature for ever I'll be ;

by the disturbance of the superficial film on the surYour city's too stifling and narrow for me.

face of the liquid. And in the fourth class, the mo

tions of the particles are only made sensible through Have you curtains like evening? Can you find hair

the organ of hearing.–Athenæum.

or eye

Like the cloud of the thunder, or smile of the sky ? The Berlin MONOMENT— to commemorate the Have

you

clothes like the lilies? Like the night duration of peace for a quarter of a century in Pruswind's a kiss ?

sia, of which the first stone was laid three years Or language like summer's pure anthem of bliss ?

ago, was uncovered on the 3d of August last. The 0, a Pilgrim of Nature for ever I'll be ;

shaft is a monolith of granite, twenty-two feet high, Your city's too stilling and narrow for me.

standing on a pedestal, with a colossal bronze statue

of Victory, by Rauch, on its summit. The capital Keep your gold-inoulded mansions, let Pomp have is Corinthian, with eagles on the side, and the

whole monument is fifty-eight feet high.— The To give him all place I will gladly retreat ; new museum, in the same city, is rapidly advancing From Vanity's banquet one guest you may spare, towards completion. One large room will be espeBrake, meadow, and wilderness, beckon me there : cially devoted to Etrurian art, of which Mr. WaaAnd a Pilgrim of Nature for ever I'll be ;

his seat,

:

CARDWELL AND AKERMAN ON COINS. some choice unique, with the sole view of

reflecting on himself an ignis-fatuus of From the Quarterly Review.

learned notoriety. He is not to be taunt

ed as a 'keen critic in rust,' nor to be dub1. Lectures on the Coinage of the Greeks and bed a jealous snatcher from time's own

Romans ; delivered in the University of teeth of morsels fit only for oblivion : and
Oxford, by Edward Cardwell, D. D., Prin- he will scorn to be accounted one of those
cipal of St. Alban's Hall, and Camden
Professor of Ancient History. pp. 232. greedy shareholders in the numismatic lot-

iery, who have in their eyes the goodness 1832.

of a bargain rather than the educational 2. A Numismatic Manual. By John Yonge ideas floating round antiquity itself-who

Akerman, F. S. A. &c. pp. 420. 1840. regard the accident of rarity rather than 3. A Descriptive Catalogue of Rare and Un. the quality of interest, --- and who are

edited Roman Coins, from the Earliest scarcely gifted with intelligence capable Period of the Roman Coinage to the Ex- of higher Hights than pricing a catalogue tinction of the Empire under Constantinus Paleologus ; with numerous Plates from These sutlers and lucre-led camp-followers,

or watching for a fortunate investment. the Originals. By John Yonge Aker- encumbering the march of antiquarianism man, F. S. A., &c. 2 vols. pp. 1018.

among the ruins of old time,-all these 1834.

and similar characters the true numismatWhen some uninitiated modern, not yet ist will disavow; and (with a humble sav. infected with the virus of virtu, sees the ing-clause for his own human infirmity) will collector doting on his coins, and hears protest against any sympathy with their him discoursing of their preciousness, he feelings, or participation in their motives. is quite at a loss to account for an interest Far higher would he claim to be regarded, so deep shown about rusty copper, and an and let us hear him in his foolishness, -eloquence so profuse displayed upon anti- as the meditative poet, as the clear-sighted quated money lost by thriftless housewives historian, as the entertained connoisseur in the times of old. It seems to him in the in art, and the well-taught student of hunature of a new sense, or likelier, of a new manity. The true collector, says Addison, nonsense. He cannot comprehend an en-does not look upon his cabinet of metals thusiasm, apparently both hot and strong, as a treasure of money, but a store of for hoarding coins no longer current, nor knowledge; seeing he may find as much can he estimate a mode of valuation so thought on the reverse of a coin as in a glaringly inadequate as that which the an- canto of Spenser.' The true collector is tiquary sets upon his mouldered pence; not the demented 'antiquist' of a wrath. nay, when he spends an instructive hour in ful Pinkerton, the pseudo-doctor who would Leigh Sotheby's prince of auction-rooms, value mystery abore knowledge, who preand is then and there made cognizant, by the fers the obscurity of rust to a legible intestimony of his own eyes and ears, of the scription, and justifies his ignorance of the startling price given for some drachma or present by doubting of the past; but rather denarius of more than common interest, he ibe good, the honest-hearted 'antiquary,' complacently thanks his own good sense, credulous, if you will, as old Herodotus, but that it has hitherto preserved him from the as brimfull of his simple charity and unfolly of walking forth a numismatic maniac. compromising truthfulness, who seeks by

Still, in sober cheerfulness, there are any means to add the history of men and many excuses to be urged on behalf of the ages past away, to a close and sociable accoin-enthusiast. He is neither a miser who quaintance with modern times and manworships money for its own dull sake, nor a He looks upon his coins as silent madman who endows it with imaginary at- monitors, teaching many things. Delicately tributes. He is nothing of the mere deal- traced upon those small green fields, he can er, who seeks bis mercenary gain in puro discern and read a thousand poetical imperchasing rare specimens at common prices, sonations; within their magic circles he dis- the matter-of-fact trader in antiquity, covers the historic record, and inspects whose first object it is to lay out his capi- the contemporary portraiture of deeds and tal shrewdly, so that from the field of pros- those who dared them centuries ago. He tituted knowledge he may reap the harvest can show to the artist and the sculptor the of vulgar cash: nor yet will be confess to time-hallowed perfection of design and the spirit of "restless Curio,' which regrouping, and microscopic modelling: he joices in the selfish possession of a Pertinax, can take the architect aside, and exhibit to and will outbid national museums to secure him triumphal arches, temples, fountains,

6

a

aqueducts, amphitheatres, circi, hippo. art; he finds them charged, on obverse or dromes, palaces, basilicas, columns, obe-on reverse, with legends of heroic valor,lisks, baths, sea-ports, pharoses,' and other with names and types of cities to their glorious edifices, which have long since modern sites unknown,—with head-dresses, in substance crumbled into dust, and the jewelry, highly-wrought arms, embroidershadows whereof, thus only fixed for ever ed robes, and, above all, with exquisite de. on a coin, may help him in his structure lineations of human beauty; he perceives of to-day, and teach him to venerate the upon them also the likeness of strange mighty builders of antiquity. He can, for creatures, as the rhinoceros, the giraffe, the his own high intellectual pleasure, make crocodile, the Tyrian murex, and the cuttleacquaintance with a world of miniature fig. fish ; as well as those more fabulous abor. ures, many and minute as the fairy forms tions, a sphinx or a minotaur, a pegasus, a in a midsummer night's dream, shaped phænix, a chimæra. He may, guided by a each and all in elegance and beauty ; fig. Gnossian didrachmon, roam now-a-days the ures, or profiles of ideal deifications, all labyrinth of Crete, and find it a maze differ. the more interesting from having probably ing only from that in the Harrow Road by been copies of then existing works by being square instead of circular : taught by Phidias, Apelles, Parrhasius, or Praxiteles, a Cydonian obolus, he may perceive that or some other Promethean quickener of the Rome, ever plagiarizing upon Greece, stole stucco, or the canvas, or the Parian stone; the idea of wolf and twins from the young and he can at sight borrow from these lit. Miletus and his foster-mother Lupa : and, tle people of the mint, faultless conceptions warned by certain well-known tetraof the excellent in form, and graceful ease drachms, bearing a crafty snake that in composition. He can amuse and in- emerges from a hamper, he may note there. struct, nay, elevate, his mind, with ingen in a fitting prototype for the hanaper office ious allegories, deep myths of eternal truth, and chancery litigation. Yet more to the and the manifold embodying of abstract at- purpose, for it tends to his deeper know. tributes. For example, let him look for a ledge of mankind, man's noblest study, he minute on these few reverses of the Roman sees the medal pictured in all faithfulness large brass,-he fees Valor standing fully with many ancient customs, as sacrifices, armed, -Honor robed and chapleted, triumphs, congiaries, allocutions, decurHappiness crowned with obliviscent pop- sions, lectisterniums, consecrations, ho. pies, -Concord with extended hand, and mages, and other antiquated names and ihe horn of plenty in her bosom,-Hope ceremonies, that we should not have had so tripping lightly, and smiling on a flower- just a notion of, were they not still prebud, -Peace offering the olive-branch, - served on coins. So, from learning ancient Fortune resting on a rudder, — Military manners, he learns man, even down to this Faith stretching forth his consecrated our day: and not less,—in the flattering standard,-Abundance emptying her cor- titles showered upon tyrants, who, being nucopia, --Security leaning on a column, such as Nero, Domitian, or Caracalla, are Modesty veiled and sitting,-Piety taking sure to go forth severally dubbed 'pius, her gift to the altar,-Fruitfulness in the felix, augustus,' and 'the father of his coun. midst of her nurslings,-Equity adjusting try,' or, in the lying epithets of warlike her scales,-Victory with wings and coro- triumph applied to effeminate cowards, nal and trumpet,-Eternity holding the who, being such as Commodus and Caligula, globe and risen Phænix, or, better, seated unblushingly take the names of Dacian, or on a starry sphere,--Liberty with cap and German, or Britannic conqueror,-he may staff, - National Prosperity sailing as a good trace the sycophancy of men in all ages to ship before the favoring gale,--and Public their worst and unworthiest oppressors; Faith (look to this, Columbia!) with joined nay, he may find Greece, the Roman's slave, hands clasping between them the palms of fawning in the depths of her degradation on success and the caduceus of health.

an emperor as her 'god’ supreme, on a These, and such as these, unillumined senate as 'the conclave of divinities.' eyes might only deem fit for some old Moreover, he can study the physiognomy, Prætorian to have therewith paid his tavern or, if he be so minded, even the more dubireckoning, or at best for some curious mo- ous phrenology, of magnates and leaders dern to use as markers at his whist: to the and liberators, and others the giants of old enlightened they are replete with classi- time—may speculate on their seeming discal interest, heraldic device, geographical positions, and compare the characters which knowledge, evidences of early civilization, history has given them with the lineaments and curious objects both of nature and ofl of their acknowledged likeness; lineaments