VOLCANIC ERUPTION-MOUNT ETNA IN 1849. "THE mass extended for a breadth of about 1000 paces, advancing gradually, more or less rapidly according to the nature of the ground over which it moved, but making steady progress. It had formed two branches, one going in a northerly, and the other in a westerly direction. No danger beyond loss of trees or orops was apprehended from the former, but the second was moving in a direct line for the town of Bronte, and to it we confined our attention. The townspeople, on their part, had not been idle. I have before mentioned the clearance which they made of their goods, but precautions had also been taken outside the town, with a view, if possible, to arrest the progress of the lava; and a very massive wall of coarse loose work was in the course of erection across a valley down which the stream must flow. We heard afterward, that the impelling power was spent before the strength of this work was put to the test, but had it failed, Bronte had been lost. It is not easy to convey by words any very accurate idea. The lava appeared to be from thirty to forty feet in depth, and some notion of its aspect and progress may be formed by imagining a hill of loose stones of all sizes, the summit or brow of which is continually falling to the base, and as constantly renewed by unseen pressure from behind. Down it came in large masses, each leaving behind it a fiery track, as the red-hot interior was for a moment or two exposed. The impression most strongly left on my mind was that of its irresistible force. It did not advance rapidly; there was no difficulty in approaching it, as I did, closely, and taking out pieces of red-hot stone; the rattling of the blocks overhead gave ample notice of their descent down the inclined face of the stream, and a few paces to the rear, or aside, were quite enough to take me quite clear of them; but still onward, onward it came, foot by foot it encroached on the ground at its base, changing the whole face of the country, leaving hills where formerly valleys had been, overwhelming every work of man that it encountered in its progress, and leaving all behind one black, rough, and monotonous mass of hard and barren lava. It had advanced considerably during the night. On the previous evening I had measured the distance from the base of the moving hill to the walls of a deserted house which stood, surrounded by trees, at about fifty yards off, and, though separated from it by a road, evidently exposed to the full power of the stream. Not a trace of it was now left, and it was difficult to make a guess at where it had been. The owners of the adjacent lands were busied in all directions felling the timber that stood in the line of the advancing fire, but they could not in many instances do it fast enough to save their property from destruction; and it was not a Mttle interesting to watch the effect produced on many a goodly tree, first thoroughly dried by the heat of the mass, and, in a few minutes after it had been reached by the lava, bursting intc flames at the base, and soon prostrate and destroyed. It being Sunday, all the population had turned out to see what progress the enemy was making, and prayers and invocations to a variety of saints were every where heard around. 'Chiamate Sant' Antonio, Signor,' said one woman eagerly to me, 'per l'amor di Dio, chiamate la Santa Maria. Many females knelt around, absorbed in their anxiety and devotion, while the men generally stood in silence gazing in dismay at the scene before them. Our guide was a poor fiddler thrown out of employment by the strict penance enjoined with a view to avert the impending calamity, dancing and music being especially forbidden, even had any one under such circumstances been inclined to indulge in them." The Marquis of Ormonde was adventurous enough, despite the fate of Empedocles and of Pliny, to ascend in the evening to see the Bocca di Fuoco, which is at an elevation of about 6000 feet. The sight which met his eyes was, he tells us, and we may well believe it, one of the grandest and most awful it had ever been his fortune to witness : "The evening had completely closed in, and it was perfectly dark, so that there was nothing which could in any way injure or weaken the effect. The only thing to which I can compare it is, as far as can be judged from representations of such scenes, the blowing up of some enormous vessel of war, the effect being permanent instead of momentary only. Directly facing us was the chasm in the mountain's side from which the lava flowed in a broad stream of liquid fire; masses of it had been forced up on each side, forming, as it got comparatively cool, black, uneven banks, the whole realizing the poetic description of Phlegethon in the most vivid manner. The flames ascended to a considerable height from the abyss, and high above them the air was constantly filled with large fiery masses, projected to a great height, and meeting on their descent a fresh supply, the roar of the flames and crash of the falling blocks being incessant. Advancing across a valley which intervened, we ascended another hill, and here commanded a view of the ground on which many of the ejected stones fell, and, though well to windward, the small ashes fell thickly around us. The light was sufficient, even at the distance we stood, to enable us to read small print, and to write with the greatest ease. The thermometer stood at about 40°, but, cold though it was, it was some time before we could re solve to take our last look at this extraordinary sight, and our progress, after we had done so, was retarded by the constant stoppages made by us to watch the beautiful effect of the light, as seen through the Bosco, which we had entered on our return."-Marquis of Ormonde's Autumn in Sicily. WE AMERICAN LITERATURE. believe it was M. l'Abbé Raynal who said that America had not yet produced a single man of genius. The productions now under our notice will do more to relieve her from this imputation than the reply of President Jefferson: "When we have existed," said that gentleman, "so long as the Greeks did before they produced Homer, the Romans Virgil, the French a Racine and a Voltaire, the English a Shakspeare and a Milton, we shall inquire from what unfriendly causes it has proceeded that the other countries of Europe, and quarters of the earth, shall not have inscribed any poet of ours on the roll of fame." The ingenuity of this defense is more apparent than its truth; for although the existence of America, as a separate nation, is comparatively recent, it must not be forgotten that the origin of her people is identical with that of our own. Their language is the same; they have always had advantages in regard of literature precisely similar to those which we now enjoy; they have free trade, and a little more, in all our best standard authors. There is, therefore, no analogy whatever between their condition and that of the other nations with whom the attempt has been made to contrast them. With a literature ready-made, as it were, to their hand, America had never to contend against any difficulties such as they encountered. Beyond the ballads of the Troubadours and Trouveres, France had no stock either of literature or of traditions to begin upon; the language of Rome was foreign to its people; Greece had but the sixteen letters of Cadmus; the literature of England struggled through the rude chaos of Anglo-Saxon, Norman, French, and monkish Latin. If these difficulties in pursuit of knowledge be compared with the advantages of America, we think it must be admitted that the president had the worst of the argument. iant lights have shone in dark and uncongenial times. Amid the clouds of bigotry and oppres sion, in the darkest days of tyranny and demoralization, their lustre has been the most brilliant. Under the luxurious tyranny of the empire, Virgil and Horace sang their immortal strains; the profligacy of Louis the Fourteenth produced a Voltaire and a Rosseau; amid the oppression of his country grew and flourished the gigantic intellect of Milton; Ireland, in the darkest times of her gloomy history, gave birth to the imper ishable genius of Swift; it was less the liberty of Athens than the tyranny of Philip, which made Demosthenes an orator; and of the times which produced our great dramatists it is scarcely necessary to speak. The proofs, in short, are numberless. Be this, however, as it may, the character of American literature which has fallen under our notice must demonstrate to every intelligent mind, what immense advantages she has derived from those sources which the advocates of her claims would endeavor to repudiate. There is scarcely a page which does not contain evidence how largely she has availed herself of the learning and labors of others. We do not blame her for this; far from it. We only say that, having reaped the benefit, it is unjust to deny the obligation; and that in discussing her literary pretensions, the plea which has been put forward in her behalf is untenable.-Dublin University Magazine. THIS MILKING IN AUSTRALIA. HIS is a very serious operation. First, say at four o'clock in the morning, you drive the cows into the stock-yard, where the calves have been penned up all the previous night in a hutch in one corner. Then you have to commence a chase after the first cow, who, with a perversity common to Australian females, expects to be pursued two or three times round But although America enjoys all these advant- the yard, ankle deep in dust or mud, according ages, it can not be denied that her social con- to the season, with loud halloas and a thick stick. dition presents impediments of a formidable This done, she generally proceeds up to the fail, character toward the cultivation of the higher a kind of pillory, and permits her neck to be and more refined branches of literature. Liberty, made fast. The cow safe in the fail, her near equality, and fraternity are not quite so favorable hind leg is stretched out to its full length, and to the cultivation of elegant tastes as might be tied to a convenient post with the universal imagined; where every kind of social rank is cordage of Australia, a piece of green hide. At obliterated, the field of observation, which is the this stage, in ordinary cases, the milking comprovince of fiction, becomes proportionately nar-mences; but it was one of the hobbies of Mr. row; and although human nature must be the Jumsorew, a practice I have never seen followed same under every form of government, the lib- in any other part of the colony, that the cow's erty of a thorough democracy by no means compensates for its vulgarity. It might be supposed that the very obliteration of all grades of rank, and the consequent impossibility of acquiring social distinction, would have a direct tendency to turn the efforts of genius in directions | where the acquisition of fame might be supposed to compensate for more substantial rewards; and when men could no longer win their way to a coronet, they would redouble their exertions to obtain the wreath. The history of literature, however, teaches us the reverse: its most brill- | (Unpublished.) tail should be held tight during the operation. This arduous duty I conscientiously performed for some weeks, until it happened one day that a young heifer slipped her head out of an illfastened fail, upset milkman and milkpail, charged the head-stockman, who was unloosing the calves, to the serious damage of a new pair of fustians, and ended, in spite of all my efforts, in clearing the top rail of the stock-yard, leaving me flat and flabbergasted at the foot of the fence. -From "Scenes in the Life of a Bushman." WH [From Household Words.] IN FOUR CHAPTERS.-CHAPTER I. THEN Death is present in a household on a Christmas Day, the very contrast between the time as it now is, and the day as it has often been, gives a poignancy to sorrow-a more utter blankness to the desolation. James Leigh died just as the far-away bells of Rochdale church were ringing for morning service on Christmas Day, 1836. A few minutes before his death, he opened his already glazing eyes, and made a sign to his wife, by the faint motion of his lips, that he had yet something to say. She stooped close down, and caught the broken whisper, "I forgive her, Anne! May God forgive me." "Oh my love, my dear! only get well, and I will never cease showing my thanks for those words. May God in heaven bless thee for saying them. Thou'rt not so restless, my lad! may be-Oh God!” For even while she spoke, he died. They had been two-and-twenty years man and wife; for nineteen of those years their life had been as calm and happy, as the most perfect uprightness on the one side, and the most complete confidence and loving submission on the other, could make it. Milton's famous line might have been framed and hung up as the rule of their married life, for he was truly the interpreter, who stood between God and her; she would have considered herself wicked if she had ever dared even to think him austere, though as certainly as he was an upright man, so surely was he hard, stern, and inflexible. But for three years the moan and the murmur had never been out of her heart; she had rebelled against her husband as against a tyrant, with a hidden, sullen rebellion, which tore up the old landmarks of wifely duty and affection, and poisoned the fountains whence gentlest love and reverence had once been forever springing. But those last blessed words replaced him on his throne in her heart, and called out penitent anguish for all the bitter estrangement of later years. It was this which made her refuse all the entreaties of her sons, that she would see the kind-hearted neighbors, who called on their way from church, to sympathize and condole. No! she would stay with the dead husband that had spoken tenderly at last, if for three years he had kept silence; who knew but what, if she had only been more gentle and less angrily reserved he might have relented earlier-and in time! She sat rocking herself to and fro by the side of the bed, while the footsteps below went in and out; she had been in sorrow too long to have any violent burst of deep grief now; the furrows were well worn in her cheeks, and the tears flowed quietly, if incessantly, all the day long. But when the winter's night drew on, and the neighbors had gone away to their homes, she stole to the window, and gazed out, long and wistfully, over the dark, gray moors. She did not hear her son's voice, as he spoke to her from the door, nor his footstep, as he drew nearer. She started when he touched her. "Mother! come down to us. There's no one but Will and me. Dearest mother, we do so want you." The poor lad's voice trembled, and he began to cry. It appeared to require an effort on Mrs. Leigh's part to tear herself away from the window, but with a sigh she complied with his request. The two boys (for though Will was nearly twenty-one, she still thought of him as a lad) had done every thing in their power to make the house-place comfortable for her. She herself, in the old days before her sorrow, had never made a brighter fire or a cleaner hearth, ready for her husband's return home, than now awaited her. The tea-things were all put out, and the kettle was boiling; and the boys had calmed their grief down into a kind of sober cheerfulness. They paid her every attention they could think of, but received little notice on her part; she did not resist-she rather submitted to all their arrangements; but they did not seem to touch her heart. When tea was ended-it was merely the form of tea that had been gone through-Will moved the things away to the dresser. His mother leant back languidly in her chair. 66 Mother, shall Tom read you a chapter? He's a better scholar than I." it. "Ay, lad!" said she, almost eagerly. "That's Read me the Prodigal Son. Ay, ay, lad. Thank thee." Tom found the chapter, and read it in the high-pitched voice which is customary in village-schools. His mother bent forward, her lips parted, her eyes dilated; her whole body instinct with eager attention. Will sat with his head depressed, and hung down. He knew why that chapter had been chosen; and to him it recalled the family's disgrace. When the reading was ended, he still hung down his head in gloomy silence. But her face was brighter than it had been before for the day. Her eyes looked dreamy, as if she saw a vision; and by and by she pulled the Bible toward her, and putting her finger underneath each word, began to read them aloud in a low voice to herself; she read again the words of bitter sorrow and deep humiliation; but most of all she paused and brightened over the father's tender reception of the repentant prodigal. So passed the Christmas evening in the Upclose Farm. The snow had fallen heavily over the dark waving moorland, before the day of the funeral. The black, storm-laden dome of heaven lay very still and close upon the white earth, as they carried the body forth out of the house which had known his presence so long as its ruling power. Two and two the mourners followed, making a black procession in their winding march over the unbeaten snow, to Milnerow church-now lost in some hollow of the bleak moors, now slowly climbing the heaving ascents. There was no long tarrying after the funeral, for many of the neighbors who accompanied the body to the grave had far to go, and the great white flakes which came slowly down, were the boding forerunners of a heavy storm. One old friend alone accompanied the widow and her sons to their home. The Upelose Farm had belonged for generations to the Leighs; and yet its possession hardly raised them above the rank of laborers. There was the house and outbuildings, all of an old-fashioned kind, and about seven acres of barren, unproductive land, which they had never possessed capital enough to improve; indeed, they could hardly rely upon it for subsistence; and it had been customary to bring up the sons to some trade-such as a wheelwright's, or blacksmith's. James Leigh had left a will, in the possession of the old man who accompanied them home. He read it aloud. James had bequeathed the farm to his faithful wife, Anne Leigh, for her life-time; and afterward, to his son William. The hundred and odd pounds in the savings'bank was to accumulate for Thomas. After the reading was ended, Anne Leigh sat silent for a time; and then she asked to speak to Samuel Orme alone. The sons went into the back-kitchen, and thence strolled out into the fields, regardless of the driving snow. The brothers were dearly fond of each other, although they were very different in character. Will, the elder, was like his father, stern, reserved, and scrupulously upright. Tom (who was ten years younger) was gentle and delicate as a girl, both in appearance and character. He had always clung to his mother and dreaded his father. They did not speak as they walked, for they were only in the habit of talking about facts, and hardly knew the more sophisticated language applied to the description of feelings. Meanwhile their mother had taken hold of Samuel Orme's arm with her trembling hand. "Samuel, I must let the farm-I must." "Let the farm! What's come o'er the woman?" "Oh, Samuel!" said she, her eyes swimming in tears, "I'm just fain to go and live in Manehester. I mun let the farm." Samuel looked and pondered, but did not speak for some time. At last he said, "If thou hast made up thy mind, there's no speaking again it; and thou must e'en go. Thou'lt be sadly pottered wi' Manchester ways; but that's not my look-out. Why, thou'lt have to buy potatoes, a thing thou hast never done afore in all thy born life. Well! it's not my look-out. It's rather for me than again me. Our Jenny is going to be married to Tom Higginbotham, and he was speaking of wanting a bit of land to begin upon. His father will be dying sometime, I reckon, and then he'll step into the Croft Farm. But meanwhile-" "Then, thou'lt let the farm," said she, still as eagerly as ever. "Ay, ay, he'll take it fast enough, I've a notion. But I'll not drive a bargain with thee just now; it would not be right; we'll wait a bit." "No; I can not wait, settle it out at once." "Well, well; I'll speak to Will about it. 1 see him out yonder. I'll step to him, and talk it over." Accordingly he went and joined the two lads, and without more ado, began the subject to them. "Will, thy mother is fain to go live in Manchester, and covets to let the farm. Now, I'm willing to take it for Tom Higginbotham; but I like to drive a keen bargain, and there would be no fun chaffering with thy mother just now, Let thee and me buckle *o, my lad! and try and cheat each other; it wili warm us this cold day." "Let the farm!" said both the lads at once, with infinite surprise. "Go live in Manchester!" When Samuel Orme found that the plan had never before been named to either Will or Tom, he would have nothing to do with it, he said, until they had spoken to their mother; likely she was "dazed" by her husband's death; he would wait a day or two, and not name it to any one; not to Tom Higginbotham himself, or may be he would set his heart upon it. The lads had better go in and talk it over with their mother. He bade them good day, and left them. Will looked very gloomy, but he did not speak till they got near the house. Then he said, "Tom, go to th' shippon, and supper the cows. I want to speak to mother alone." When he entered the house-place, she was sitting before the fire, looking into its embers. She did not hear him come in; for some time she had lost her quick perception of outward things. "Mother! what's this about going to Manchester ?" asked he. "Oh, lad!" said she, turning round and speaking in a beseeching tone, "I must go and seek our Lizzie. I can not rest here for thinking on her. Many's the time I've left thy father sleeping in bed, and stole to th' window, and looked and looked my heart out toward Manchester, till I thought I must just set out and tramp over moor and moss straight away till I got there, and then lift up every downcast face till I came to our Lizzie. And often, when the south wind was blowing soft among the hollows, I've fancied (it could but be fancy, thou knowest) I heard her crying upon me; I've thought the voice came closer and closer, till it last it was sobbing out "Mother" close to the door; and I've stolen down, and undone the latch before now, and looked out into the still, black night, thinking to see her, and turned sick and sorrowful when I heard no living sound but the sough of the wind dying away. Oh! speak not to me of stopping here, when she may be perishing for hunger, like the poor lad in the and parable." And now she lifted up her voice and | hear and see naught of her for a twelvemonth. wept aloud. me being in Manchester looking out, I'll just ha' broken my heart fairly before the year's ended, and then I shall know neither love nor sorrow for her any more, when I'm at rest in the grave-I'll agree to that, Will.” "Well, I suppose it must be so. I shall not tell Tom, mother, why we're flitting to Manchester. Best spare him." "As thou wilt," said she, sadly, so that we go, that's all." Before the wild daffodils were in flower in the sheltered copses round Upclose Farm, the Leighs were settled in their Manchester home; if they could ever grow to consider that place as a home, where there was no garden, or outbuilding, no fresh breezy outlet, no far-stretching view, over moor and hollow-no dumb animals to be tended, and, what more than all they missed, no old haunting memories, even though those remembrances told of sorrow, and the dead and gone. Will was deeply grieved. He had been old enough to be told the family shame when, more than two years before, his father had had his letter to his daughter returned by her mistress in Manchester, telling him that Lizzie had left her service some time-and why. He had sympathized with his father's stern anger; though he had thought him something hard, it is true, when he had forbidden his weeping, heart-broken wife to go and try to find her poor sinning child, and declared that henceforth they would have no daughter; that she should be as one dead, and her name never more be named at market or at meal-time, in blessing or in prayer. He had held his peace, with compressed lips and contracted brow, when the neighbors had noticed to him how poor Lizzie's death had aged both his father and his mother; and how they thought the bereaved couple would never hold up their heads again. He himself had felt as if that one event had made Mrs. Leigh heeded the loss of all these things him old before his time; and had envied Tom less than her sons. She had more spirit in her the tears he had shed over poor, pretty, inno- countenance than she had had for months, becent, dead Lizzie. He thought about her some- cause now she had hope; of a sad enough kind, times, till he ground his teeth together, and to be sure, but still it was hope. She performcould have struck her down in her shame. His ed all her household duties, strange and commother had never named her to him until now. plicated as they were, and bewildered as she "Mother!" said he at last. 66 She may be was with all the town-necessities of her new dead. Most likely she is." manner of life; but when her house was “sided,” and the boys come home from their work, in the evening, she would put on her things and steal out, unnoticed, as she thought, but not without many a heavy sigh from Will, after she had closed the house-door and departed. It was often past midnight before she came back, pale and weary, with almost a guilty look upon her face; but that face so full of disappointment and hope deferred, that Will had never the heart to say what he thought of the folly and hopelessness of the search. Night after night it was renewed, till days grew to weeks, and weeks to months. All this time Will did his duty toward her as well as he could, without having sympathy with her. He staid at home in the evenings for Tom's sake, and often wished he had Tom's pleasure in reading, for the time hung heavy on his hands, as he sat up for his mother. "No, Will; she is not dead," said Mrs. Leigh. "God will not let her die till I've seen her once again. Thou dost not know how I've prayed and prayed just once again to see her sweet face, and tell her I've forgiven her, though she's broken my heart—she has, Will." She could not go on for a minute or two for the choking sobs. "Thou dost not know that, or thou wouldst not say she could be dead-for God is very merciful, Will; He is-He is much more pitiful than man-I could never ha' spoken to thy father as I did to Him-and yet thy father forgave her at last. The last words he said were that he forgave her. Thou'lt not be harder than thy father, Will? Do not try and hinder me going to seek her, for it's no use." Will sat very still for a long time before he spoke. At last he said, "I'll not hinder you. I think she's dead, but that's no matter." "She is not dead," said her mother, with low earnestness. Will took no notice of the interruption. I need not tell you how the mother spent the weary hours. And yet I will tell you something. She used to wander out, at first as if "We will all go to Manchester for a twelve- without a purpose, till she rallied her thoughts, moth, and let the farm to Tom Higginbotham. and brought all her energies to bear on the one I'll get blacksmith's work; and Tom can have point; then she went with earnest patience good schooling for awhile, which he's always along the least known ways to some new part craving for At the end of the year you'll of the town, looking wistfully with dumb encome back, mother, and give over fretting for treaty into people's faces; sometines catching Lizzi and think with me that she is dead- a glimpse of a figure which had a kind of mo an to my mind, that would be more comfort mentary likeness to her child's, and following than to think of her living;" he dropped his that figure with never wearying perseverance, voice as he spoke these last words. She shook till some light from shop or lamp showed the her head, but made no answer. He asked again, cold, strange face which was not her daughter's. "Will you, mother, agree to this ?" Once or twice a kind-hearted passer-by, struck “I'll agree to it a-this-ns," said she. "If I by her look of yearning woe, turned back and |