horrible; but when the people themselves not only invite these tortures, but press eagerly forward to claim the honour of being first cut to pieces, or pierced with irons, or burned with hot spikes, or swung round in the air by hooks, or, in the extremity of their zeal, leap from scaffolds upon the points of naked swordsthe sentiment of indignation is changed into commiseration. For it is impossible not to feel grieved upon seeing a population so deplorably degraded; and surely there must mingle with this feeling a strong desire to ameliorate the condition of people sunk so low in the scale of human nature.-Frag. of Voyages & Travels.

"Because I am so pretty," said Arabella, in her own secret mind; but not choosing to speak that sentiment aloud, she answered, "Because-because-I don't know, mamma." "Then," replied her mother, "I don't know why you should change your dress; therefore I desire that you will go as you are. Arabella was really 66 very pretty," but unluckily she thought herself much prettier than she was. When five or six years old, she had had a very silly maid, who perpetually told her about her beauty, till the poor child became persuaded there never had been any thing like her; and she never saw a person look at her but she made herself sure they were admiring her. It was in vain that her mother talked to her with the greatest seriousness about the folly of her conduct. She represented to her that, as she had not made herself, she had no title to be conceited of her appearance, let it be ever so fair; and still more senseless was it to value that which in one single day might disappear. In vain she told her that the most beautiful persons in the world, if they are conceited or affected, will excite far less admiration than plain ones, who are simple, and free from all conceited airs.

All her mamma or papa said to her was, however, of no avail. Arabella comforted herself under every reproof, by thinking to herself that all this was just a way old people had of speaking to young ones; and the next idle fool who called her "pretty" made her just as mad with conceit as ever.

After tea was over, a young friend of Mrs Pryce's, whom she introduced as Mr Percy, called; and as he looked very often and much at Arabella, it helped to restore her good humour, for she thought he was admiring her. She twisted her head this way and that way, tossed about her hands and arms, and stuck out her feet in hopes he would see the silk stockings, and the pretty feet they covered; and, in short, she performed all the antics which silly conceited girls are wont to do; quite unconscious that they are, by means of them, gaining the ridicule, but never the admiration, of any sensible person. After sitting a little while, Mr Percy said that his mother had sent him to tell Mrs Pryce that there was to be a fine display of fireworks from one of the ships in the river, and she and the girls were going to see it from the beach, and they would be glad if Mrs Pryce and her daughters would join them. Mrs Pryce excused herself, as having a cold, but said she should be delighted to let the girls go. "And I suppose," said she, turning to Arabella, your mamma would make no objection to your going also, my dear?" "Oh, I am sure she would not,' ," said Arabella. "Then off, and get ready, all of you," said Mrs Pryce, "and be sure you all wrap well up, for it is miserably cold." Poor Arabella had it not in her power to obey this order; and her pride would not allow her to ask from her little friends the wraps which they would gladly have lent, had they known she was in want of them; so off she went, and stood for an hour and a half shivering in the frosty wind, with her uncaped cloak, and her open-work silk stockings. The consequence was, she became completely chilled; and wishing all the fireworks in the world at Jericho, she longed for the moment of returning hoine. At length that came: she would fain have gone straight to her mamma's, but Mrs Pryce's house being the nearer of the two, she could not refuse to go there.

Miss Pryce requested her to go up to the same dressing-room she had been in before, and take off her cloak and bonnet, and the shivering Arabella obeyed. The candle in the room burned very dim, and she wished to snuff it that she might have a better look of her pretty face; her hands were so benumbed that, in the attempt, she snuffed it out, and left herself in darkness. Just at that moment she heard the two Pryces come into the adjoining room, which communicated with the one she was in, the door of which was ajar. "Dear me," said the eldest, "I thought Arabella was in the dressing-room, tak ing off her things; but she seems to be away-all is dark." Arabella was just going to say, "I am here," but the reply of the other sister arrested her, and for the first time in her life she became a listener. "I wonder she was able to leave the mirror so soon, affected, conceited brat! I'm sure if she had heard what Mr Percy said of her to-night, it would have helped to cure her of her airs." "Óh, Eliza," said the other, "don't be so severe; remember how much younger she is than we only twelve years old; her folly will perhaps wear off as she gets more sense. But what said Mr Percy?" "After we went out," said Eliza, "and had walked forward a little, he asked me who she was. I told him; and he said, 'What an ugly thing she is; what a red nose-just like a Siberian crab! and what blowsy cheeks.' Oh, I said, that's accidental-it is owing to coming from the frosty air to the heated room; for she has a very pretty complexion in general. She at all events thinks herself very pretty,' said he; 'I absolutely could not keep my eyes off her. How she threw about her feet, twisted her hands and arms, and tossed her head!-she put me in mind of a baboon-not even a baboon in its senses; but an infatuated baboon !'”

After the conversation with which I opened my story, Arabella went up to her room; and since she dared not change her dress for another, she resolved "to make the best of it," as she said to herself; so she stripped, laced her stays as tight as she could pull them, and did the same to her belt, to make her waist "genteel." Then, taking off her comfortable worsted stockings, she put on a pair of open-worked silk ones, and her best and thinnest shoes. Long she brushed, and scraped, and curled, and braided her hair. It was Arabella could stand no more; she rushed out of mid-winter, and a very hard frost; and she became the room, and down stairs, and to her great joy she quite chilled, standing so long in a room without a found her mother's servant, who had been sent for fire: but vanity endures a wonderful deal in the pur- her, sitting in the hall. She bade a very hurried suit of its own gratification; and still she stood look-good-night to Mrs Pryce, and set off, refusing even to ing, now at one side, now at the other, in the glass, wait for the young ladies coming down stairs. Bitter and fancying all that would be said about "pretty lit tears of anger and mortified vanity rolled over her tle Miss Danton," in the house where she was going. face as she walked home; but I am afraid she was Her mamma called to her, "Arabella, it is more than more mortified and angry than reformed-otherwise, time you were away." "I am just going, mamma,' instead of reviling poor Mr Percy in her own mind, replied she, hastily throwing on her cloak, but leaving as "the most ill-natured brute that ever had been off the heavy capes (which would have kept her warm), heard of," she would have bethought herself that her lest they might wrinkle her full-puffed sleeves; and own folly had called down such remarks upon her, and slipping down stairs, she ran off without going into resolved to cure the fault in herself which occasioned the room where her mamma was, lest the silk stock- them. She at first thought she would tell her mamma, ings and the want of the capes should be discovered. and ask her to scold all those who had spoken so of Great was her disappointment to find that there was her; but an obscure feeling that her mamma would really "no party"-no one but Mrs Pryce and her not be very sorry for her, and also a reluctance to congirls, not one of whom seemed even to see her braided fess she had done any thing so vile as listen to a conhair, her genteel waist, her silk stockings, or her full-versation not intended for her, made her resolve to puffed sleeves; but most cruelly did she suffer for her bear her mortification in silence. She went straight genteelity. Having been very cold when she laced from the outer door up to her own room, and changed her stays, they, as well as her belt, of course drew the silk stockings for the worsted ones, which she now tighter than they would have done had she been warm: wished she never had taken off; and going down to Mrs Pryce's room was very hot, and Arabella, as she the drawing-room, she instantly stuck up her feet to heated too, could almost have screamed with the agony the fire-quite forgetting that her mamma had freof being too tightly tied ; her feet, too, swelled, and quently forbidden her to do so; telling her that to put the fine shoes pinched her across the instep, till she her feet or hands to the fire, when they were bethought they would cut the flesh. Poor Arabella, numbed with cold, was the most inevitable way to what with vexation at there being nobody to admire bring on chilblains. her, and the tortures produced by her own folly, got into dreadfully bad humour: and I can tell you, my little friends, that the expression produced on the countenance by bad humour in the mind will spoil the prettiest face in the world, and make it ugly.

Next morning, when she awoke, her lips were so painful and throbbing, she could not conceive what was the matter. Her feet, too, were so itchy and hot, that she could do nothing but scratch them; and the more she scratched the the worse they grew.

Those of my readers who have had that dreadful torment in their poor little feet will know, without my telling them, that this was chilblains, brought on by the feet being first very much chilled, and then too Those who have never had the suddenly heated. complaint, cannot by any description be made to understand its tortures. It is as if your poor heels and toes had first been well roasted before fire, and then covered with salt! It was but po 'ort for the suffering Arabella to recollect, that bedience to her mamma's often-repeated injunctions, never to thrust her feet or hands close to the fire when they were very cold, had brought this upon her; and how shall I de scribe how much her despair and vexation were increased when her mouth and nose gradually broke out into blisters, which, by dint of her perpetually picking and fingering them, ended in large brown scabs! And little Miss Ribley's ball!-and the fine dress !—oh, horror and amazement !-what was to become of her It was in vain she ran to the glass at every opportunity, to see how it looked; that did not hasten the cure one bit. The day of the ball arrived, and still her lips were cased in brown scabs, and the point of her nose looked as if it had been built up with little bits of brick! Alas! alas! Her mamma left it for herself to decide whether she would go as she was, or stay at home. After agonies of doubt and hesitation which I cannot describe, and many tears shed, she at length decided not to go" such a figure!"

Arabella was in the right. Conceited people never meet with either pity or sympathy when they are unfortunate. I have no doubt that all the boys and girls at little Miss Ribley's ball, if she had gone to it, would have laughed at her inflamed and scabbed face; while, on the other hand, had she been a modest, unassuming, good-natured little girl, every one would have been sorry for her, and tried to comfort her; and she would have enjoyed the ball as much as if her face had been quite well and pretty.

You may perhaps suppose that the severe and mor. tifying remarks of Mr Percy, which Arabella had learned, would in some degree have cured her vanity; but no fault in this world is more difficult to cure than vanity. It is so very pleasant to think well of our selves!-and Arabella found it much easier and more agreeable to believe that Mr Percy was "a vile, illnatured man," than to believe that she herself was the "conceited baboon" he had so unceremoniously called her. So in spite of that, and her chilblained toes, and her scabbed face, she remained quite as conceited as ever, and as often as ever repeated to herself, "I am very pretty."

A few weeks after the time of little Miss Ribley's ball, when Arabella's face was once more quite well, and her chilblains better, her aunt Harriet, who was on a visit to her mamma, received an invitation to dine out, and was requested to bring her little niece Miss Arabella along with her. Mamma was at first very unwilling to consent to this; but Arabella pleaded and besought so much, and got her aunt to join her in doing so, that at length it was decided she should go; and the beautiful dress intended for the ball, and which, by the way, had been sent her by this very aunt, was drawn out and looked at by Arabella with renewed admiration; and she capered about, making a thousand antics, as she anticipated how "very pretty" she would look when dressed in it.

It seemed very long indeed before the day of the dinner-party arrived: but it came at last-and what a day! The rain poured as if it never intended to be fair again, and the wind blew dreadfully. It happened that Arabella's papa and mamma were also to dine out, at a different house from that where aunt Harriet was going, and they took their own carriage, so that a hackney-coach was brought for the aunt and niece. Arabella did not much like this-she did not at all relish the idea of driving up to the door in a hired coach, instead of her papa's carriage; but she dared not say so, and was obliged to take her seat, inwardly comforting herself that no one would see her arrive. Observing that she had pulled on her long white gloves, her aunt said to her, "My love, you had better not put on those gloves till you arrive; remember this coach is not like your papa's carriageyou will get them soiled." But Arabella, like all con ceited people, loved her own way; so she replied, 'Oh, no, dear aunt; I shall take great care not to soil them;" and she kept on the gloves.

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At the moment the coach stopped, some object had just drawn the whole company to the drawing-room windows; Arabella looked up and saw them, and said to herself, "Oh, how provoking to be in a vile hack. ney-coach!-however, they shan't think I am any vulgar person, for I'll step out with so much dignity and grace, they shall see at once I am not a common person; besides, they will see how very pretty I am.” Her aunt having desired her to go out first, she proceeded to do so with what she considered " dignity and grace." She threw back her cloak, to show her blue silk slip and embroidered frock; drew up her head, and stuck out her foot, in the most affected manner, as she stepped down. The poor hackneycoachman proffered his arm to assist her; but with the white gloves on, how could she touch his wet dirty sleeve? The streets were dreadfully wet and dirty, though it did not rain at the moment; in making a long step to the pavement, Arabella lost her balance, and fell flat upon the ground. The wind caught her cloak, and, when she was struggling to rise, wrapped it over her head; she kicked and screamed,

No. 160.

THE OLD CUT. COMMUNICATED BY A SEPTUAGENARIAN.

I CANNOT say that I am at all pleased with the newfangled notions you have thought fit to favour us with in the article called "The New Cut." You have given us only one side of the question. If you will permit me, I shall try to set you and the world right about the intrinsic value of this same New Cut, about which you have made such a fuss.

In the first place, it appears that every thing was execrable and ridiculous in past times. The people were all fools till now; the time is now arrived when all are to be clever and honest; there is to be no drawback for folly or villany; we are to live in a millennium; the world is to be altogether a beautiful and delightful world. In short, the New Cut is to be seen in every thing and every where. Now, I have no particular objection to improvements that really are improvements: I have no objection, not I, to the New Cut, provided it be a good cut; but I have a decided dislike, a downright horror, of "improvements" which, instead of being improvements, are idle and vicious changes for the worse. In this sense I have no patience with your New Cuts, which are productive of nothing but loss and vexation, as I know to my cost. But, Come to the point, come to the point, old grumbler, I think I hear you say. Well, so I will; just bide a wee, and I will give you my mind on a pretty round number of matters, which you and your contemporaries conceive to be improvements, but which I think had much better never been meddled with. Excuse my speaking of myself. It is only by that means I can show what I know of the operation of the New Cut. I am an old man, and, I may say, one not without experience of the world. Born in the sixties, and married in the eighties, since which period I have brought up a family, who have gone creditably into the world, I may be supposed to know something of society and its varying fashions. It is now many years since I was called on to exercise the duties of a parent, yet I still look back upon the time with pleasure. I had little trouble with my boys: they were amenable to discipline; and the only instance of what may be called extravagance which ever occurred amongst them, when under my charge, was Bob, the eldest, when about sixteen, ordering a pair of tassel boots to wear with tight pantaloons. Bob and his brothers, however, grew up steady lads, and in the main I had no great reason to complain of my family. Things have greatly altered since that time, and altered for the worse. My sons have had nothing but endless vexation with their children, one and all of whom have been powerfully affected with the New Cut. It would seem that in this enlightened age, all boys must be considered as men before or shortly after they have entered their teens. I have three grandsons of this imposing character. Every kind of discipline has been tried upon them without avail: they are always the longer the worse. Of one thing they ap pear perfectly convinced, namely, the folly of settling to any kind of business. They are resolved on being gentlemen; and in prosecuting this agreeable scheme, they have sought out and consorted with a pack of puppies no better than themselves. They lay bets upon the number of cigars they are able to smoke; incur long bills to bootmakers and tailors; and before they arrive at manhood, will have broken their constitutions, if not at the same time broken the hearts of their parents. This is my first specimen of the New Cut-this the "improvement of society," the "march of intellect." In my humble opinion, it is the march of blackguardism. Advice and admonition, kindness and threats, are all thrown away upon the wise, the fine, the elegant young men of the rising generation.

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From this disagreeable subject of reflection, I turn to a matter which for a considerable time I have viewed with regret. I speak of the nature of the intercourse which now takes place in society, in comparison with that which was in vogue within my recollection. There was once a time when a plain but respectable family, with tolerable means, could keep up an intercourse with friends and acquaintances at a trifle of expense. Families of this description could then visit each other's houses, and maintain a kindly | species of intimacy, without that excess of formality and damage to the domestic revenue which are now observable. The invitations were always for evening parties: great, heavy, dear dinners were as yet unknown. The ladies and gentlemen met at tea, during which light easy meal-if meal it could be called there was much sprightly conversation; the young ladies had an admirable opportunity of exhibiting their wit and temper in the presence of the young gentlemen; you saw every face beaming with innocent delight or harmless mirth; and there is no doubt whatever that this kind of association of the sexes had the most beneficial effect on the manners of both, particularly of the gentlemen. On occasions such as these, there were never wanting two or three good voices, and consequently the evening's amusement was diversified with the singing of some of our most melting melodies. There might be a want of science, but a strong spice of good will, and a desire to be pleased, made these efforts to entertain the company pass off with unbounded applause. At our evening parties we had also something like conversation of an intellectual nature: it was an intercourse of mind with mind; and we had seldom any controversy worth mentioning, for there was then little to controvert. Things had not been disturbed with the New Cut. It is painful to an old man to look back to times such as I have mentioned. How is the mode of intercourse in society changed! It is now carried on by leaving cards at one another's houses, an interchange of bits of pasteboard being reckoned equivalent to a personal exchange of civilities. The great arena of meeting is the dining-room. You are asked to dinner at six or seven o'clock in the evening, it being presumed you don't rise from bed till twelve or one. The great business of dinner being over, with all its tedious details, you sit down to soak over wine for the space of three or four hours after the ladies have retired, and then, by way of conclusion, bolt a cup of coffee, and depart. Absurd as this sort of intercourse is it being in point of fact no intercourse at all-it is supposed to be consistent with that idol of the age-the "improvement of society." It is the fashion; something to be imitated by every body, whether they be able to afford it or not. It is the New Cut, and that is enough.

PRICE THREE HALFPENCE.

mind. Instead of dancing and balls, we have now the improved practice of running round a room, and other kinds of fiddle-faddlery equally preposterous. As for dancing in the old-fashioned style, that is not to be thought of. "It is so low; oh, pray do not mention it." And so this dread of doing what is low, has spoiled not only this but many other of our good old customs, while the New Cut, it is to be regretted, has not been able to present us with an equally agreeable substitute.

I have remarked, that the present generation of young men possess a great deal of self-complacency respecting their "improvement" in the useful arts. "What a clever people we are now!" I think I hear some of them saying. "Those who lived fifty years since had nothing nearly so good, nothing so fine, as we have things in this improved age. We have now the aid of science in all departments of the affairs of life. How the old toddlers of last century would stare if they were to rise from their graves, and see how cleverly every one now goes through his work!" To avoid appearing factious, I will at once own that the people of the present age do execute their labour far more rapidly than was observable forty or fifty years ago. But that proves nothing. In my young days we did things coolly; we were not in a hurry; we did not fly through the country by the power of steam, as if on affairs of life and death. Not at all. And why? Because we did not need. A small degree of exertion then made a man as rich as he could now possibly be by putting forth the whole of his energies. We could in these days take a little amusement, and a share of the good things of this world, as we went along in our course-now we must spur almost night and day, and nearly kill ourselves outright, in order to scrape up a living. We did not in these times require to travel at the speed of a hurricane; for we had no bills lying on the point of being dishonoured, no heavy long-standing accounts which required all our skill to collect funds to liquidate. You will surely therefore allow, that if this wondrous age be distinguished for its neat, quick, scientific way of doing things, it certainly has need of it all. It has no spare capital in cleverness. It is engaged in a struggle with beggary and bankruptcy, notwithstanding all its splendid abilities, all the overwhelming grandeur of its New Cut.

And then such a boasting there is about every thing being better manufactured in the present than the past age. I deny the truth of the assertion. I do not see any thing that is a whit better. I grant there is now a superabundance of gloss-no want of the "patent finish;" but what a woeful lack of substantiality! Look at the houses that are now building; they are mere shells, only the ghosts of houses; they are "rushed up any way," as the phrase goes, and will never stand like the substantial edifices of a former period. I remark, too, that the more flimsy and trashy that things are becoming, the more do we hear of their being "genuine" and "warranted." These are now very pretty hack words. When, forty or fifty year ago, I used to proceed to a draper's to purchase cloth. for a coat, the word "warranted" was never spoken of. I trusted to the honesty of the dealer, and never had a piece of stuff palmed upon me that would neither wear well nor keep the colour. A coat was then a coat worth wearing, even although it was made to

My wedding dress-and it was not an expensive one was of such good materials, that, after an interval of twenty years, it had a respectable appearance at church. Only mark the difference of times! Behold the "wonderfully improved state of our manufactures!" See what "the application of science to the arts" har done for mankind! When I purchase a coat of the

Such is a general view of magnetic induction. There are many cases of an intricate or complex nature resulting from magnetising a bar of iron placed in a certain position relative to one or more magnets. Into these, however, it is not our purpose to enter; a detail of them belongs rather to abstruse treatises than to popular articles like the present.

A circumstance alike remarkable and unaccountable remains to be stated: it is, that the line of terrestrial magnetism does not remain constantly the same in the same place, but is undergoing a slow and progressive change. For at least a century and a half, it has been tending considerably from the east to the west. About the year 1660, the needle in London pointed directly north, and of course London was then one of the points of the line of no variation: that line now, however, has passed over to North America. Similar changes have taken place at Paris; and a few years ago the variation there was ascertained by M. Arago to be 22° 12′ 5′′ west. In the year 1818, it appears to have reached its maximum at London, which was 24° 30'; since that time it has somewhat diminished. The dip has also undergone slight changes. About a century ago it was 74° 12'; but since that time it has gradually, though not very re

A striking difference exists with regard to the magnetism induced in iron and steel. When the magnet is removed from the bar of iron which has been magnetised, the latter loses all its magnetic properties, and is reduced to a state of neutrality. Steel does not lose its magnetic powers in this manner; for although it is very slowly magnetised by induction, it retains what it has received, and becomes a permanent magnet. Certain circumstances facilitate magnetic induction; for instance, concussion is found to quicken the process. By this means a tremulous motion is excited amongst the particles; and whatever does so, pro-gularly, decreased. motes induction. An electric stream passed through a steel bar under the influence of a magnet, is sufficient to produce permanent magnetism. The electricity in this instance acts mechanically. It has, however, another influence of a very peculiar nature, which however need not be treated of in this place. Whilst, however, concussion has a tendency to promote magnetism in steel, it has also a tendency to destroy the power in a magnet. If one be allowed to fall upon any thing which causes it to sound or ring (that is, excite a vibratory motion amongst its particles), its magnetic power will be very much impaired. Heat promotes magnetic induction, but the application of heat to a magnet is invariably accompanied by a dissipation of the magnetic power. Its action therefore is two-fold, and the precise nature of the influence which it exerts does not seem to be clearly understood. As in the case of gravitation, as well as chemical attraction, the intensities of magnetic attractions and repulsions depend upon the distances at which the two poles are placed from each other, the power exercised being greater the nearer the magnet is to the ferruginous body. By numerous experiments, it has also been proved that these attractions and repulsions are in no way affected by the interposition of other bodies which are not themselves magnetic.

The earth possesses a very considerable influence over a magnetic needle which is poised upon its centre and allowed to move freely round. Throughout Europe the north pole of the needle does not point directly north, but deviates a certain number of degrees to the westward. This deviation from the geographical meridian is called the variation of the compass. By a geographical or true meridian, is meant a vertical plane passing through the poles of the earth; and the vertical plane which passes through the direction of the horizontal needle, is termed the magnetic meridian of that place. It is a remarkable fact, that there are certain points upon the earth where no variation exists. These seem to be situated in a

line which encompasses the globe, and it has been designated the line of no variation. It has been thus traced: Commencing at a point somewhere to the westward of Baffin's Bay, it crosses the United States of North America; and after passing along a tract of the Atlantic Ocean till it touches the north-eastern point of the South American Continent, it stretches across the Southern Atlantic towards the south pole, whither it is impossible to follow it. In the eastern hemisphere, it re-appears to the south of Van Dieman's Land, and passes over the Australian Continent to the Indian Archipelago. According to Biot, it is here separated into two branches, one of which crosses the Indian Sea, and entering Asia at Cape Cormorin, traverses Hindostan and Persia, and stretches over the western part of Siberia to Lapland and the Northern Sea. The other branch pursues a more directly northern course, until it is lost in the Arctic Ocean. A writer upon this subject observes, "If we consider these Asiatic lines of no variation as composing a single band, we may then consider the globe as divided by this and the corresponding American line into two hemispheres. In that hemisphere which comprehends Europe, Africa, and the western parts of Asia, together with the greater portion of the Atlantic, the variation is to the west. In the opposite hemisphere, which comprises nearly the whole of the American Continents, both north and south, and the entire Pacific Ocean, together with a certain portion of Eastern Asia, the variation is to the east.'

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The needle is likewise liable to changes at different seasons of the year, and at different hours of the day. The declination increases from eight o'clock in the morning till three in the afternoon; it then decreases until eight at night, when it remains stationary for twelve hours. The amount of these daily deviations is greatest from April to July, when it is from 13' to 16'; in the other months it is from 8' to 10'. From the foregoing facts, it seems clear that the earth acts upon magnets, in the same way as if it were itself a great magnet. The hypothesis of Dr Gilbert is, that it contains within itself a great magnet, lying in a position nearly coinciding with the axis of the earth's rotation. This being the case, then it is evident, that, to accommodate theory to fact, we must suppose that the north pole of the great terrestrial magnet possesses the properties of a south pole of an ordinary magnet, because it attracts a north pole. This could not be accounted for upon any other principle, for by the law already announced, like poles repel, whilst unlike poles attract, one another. This has introduced some confusion into the terms employed by writers upon magnetism. Some have proposed to give the name of south pole to that end of the magnet which is attracted by the north pole of the earth. Others have employed the terms boreal and austral, instead of north and south; hence the southern polarity would pass by the name of boreal polarity, and northern polarity would be distinguished by the expression austral polarity. It matters not, however, what term be employed, provided the object signified is understood. That the hypothesis of Dr Gilbert affords a correct explanation of the phenomena, is now very generally admitted. The fact may be experimentally illustrated by placing a strong magnet in the centre of an artificial globe, and suspending a small needle above it, observing the position which it takes in each situation. Much discordance will no doubt exist between the results of this experiment and the phenomena observed with regard to the great globe itself. Many attempts have been made to explain the irregularities and anomalies. There is reason to believe that the northern and southern magnetic poles do not occupy points on the globe exactly opposite to each other, and that the centre of magnetic force is eccentric. Yet this supposition does not satisfactorily explain all the difficulties which are encountered in examining this subject. There is evidence of the existence of more than one pole in each hemisphere of the earth; and the probability is, that these are of very unequal intensities. Under such circumstances many irregularities will occur, and others are met with which seem to owe their existence to local causes, such as the presence of large masses of iron situated at different places, and at various depths beneath the surface of the earth.

With regard to the theories of magnetism, which for so many centuries afforded matter for interesting speculation, we shall pass on to that of pinus, the first who advanced any thing rational upon the sub. ject. His system has been reduced into a series of propositions, as follow:-1. There exists in all bodies capable of acquiring magnetic properties, a subtile fluid, which may be called the magnetic fluid. 2. The particles of this fluid repel one another with a force which decreases as the distance increases. 3. The particles of the magnetic fluid attract, and are at tracted by, the particles of iron, with a force varying according to the same law. 4. The particles of iron repel one another according to the same law. 5. The magnetic fluid is incapable of quitting the body in which it is contained, but it is capable of moving within the substance of pure iron and of soft steel, without any considerable obstruction. and more impeded in its motion as the steel is tempered harder; and in very hard-tempered steel, and in some of the ores of iron, it moves with the greatest difficulty.

It is more

From these striking circumstances, it is clear that the earth exercises a powerful influence over a magnetic body. It is also proved by the following fact, that if the needle be so placed as not only to allow of its wheeling round in a horizontal plane, but also of its moving in a vertical plane—that is, to admit of the ends rising or falling as they are acted upon by an attracting agency-this will actually be found to This theory accords admirably with almost all the take place. The phenomenon is called the inclination phenomena of magnetism, but in one important paror dip of the needle. Like the variation of the needle, ticular it fails. If a magnet be divided into two at the dip varies in different parts of the globe. As a the neutral point, that is, the middle, each part begeneral rule (not, however, without many exceptions), comes a magnet having two poles, one of which reit may be laid down that the dip diminishes as we ap-tains the character which it had before the separation. proach the equator, and increases as we recede from By the theory of Epinus, we would be led to expect it on either side. Those places on the earth where that we should find the two polarities separate, one the needle lies perfectly horizontal, and has no dip at in the one piece, and the other in the other. The all, are in a line which passes round the globe, and is author of the hypothesis was unable to remove this entitled the magnetic equator. Leaving this, and objection. Others have attempted to solve the diffiproceeding towards the polar regions, the dip gradu- culty, but it does not appear to us that their efforts ally increases, until, as we approach the poles, it be- have been attended with any success. comes nearly right angular.

There is another theory at present very prevalent,

founded on the supposition that there are two magnetic fluids, in conformity with the received opinion that there are two electrical fluids. But to enter into all the facts which either favour or go to refute this doctrine, would carry us far beyond our limits.

SCORN NOT THE LEAST. ABOUT sixty or seventy years ago, the message-porters of Edinburgh, then called caddies, were a very important, and, as they still are, a very useful class of men, but particularly so to strangers, whom they served in some measure as what the French call valetsde-place. There were then no directories, no pocket plans, or descriptions of the city, and no communication by subsidiary post-offices; neither were the houses numbered, as they are at the present day. All the duty, therefore, which is now performed by these ingenious contrivances devolved upon the caddie. With. out his assistance, the stranger could hardly have found his way through the city, for the seeing of sights or paying of visits; neither could he hold written communication with his friends through any medium so convenient and efficient as the caddie, who knew every hole and bore in the city, and every person residing in it of the smallest note. The scrupulous integrity, too, of these men, was no less remarkable than their intelligence. They could be safely trusted with property to any amount; and no instance, we believe, was ever known of any one of them having abused the confidence reposed in him. Strangers, therefore, who visited the city, either previously informed of the necessity of procuring the services of a caddie, or very soon discovering how indispensable some such assistance was, generally attached one of these men to their temporary establishments during their sojourn, to conduct them through the town, to deliver messages and notes to their friends and acquaintances, and to execute any small missions of a similar kind which they desired to have performed.

Doing in this respect as others did, Captain Chillingham, of his majesty's 29th regiment of foot, quar tered, at the time we allude to, in the castle of Edin burgh, employed a caddie of the name of Campbell to transact all that sort of business for him of which we have spoken. It was this man's custom to call every morning on his employer, at his room in the castle, to inquire whether he had any thing to be done, or was likely to require his services during the day. On one of these occasions, Campbell, when about a week's intercourse had placed him on something like a familiar footing with the captain, brought his son with him, a fine, stout, intelligent-looking boy of about fourteen or fifteen years of age, and introduced him to his employer, explaining at the same time the object which he had in view in doing so this was to assure him, that, in case he himself should happen at any time to be unable, in consequence of other engagements, to attend him or execute his commands, he might rely on receiving equally efficient services from his boy James, whom, he added, he felt satisfied the captain would find to be an uncommonly clever and active lad; faithful to his trust, and scrupulously honest; "and, sir," concluded the father, "I hope your honour, there fore, will not hesitate to employ him." Captain Chil lingham looked at the boy; and certainly, if he had not had every confidence in the integrity of his father, he might have been warranted in hesitating to accept the services of the son, under any circumstances which might demand probity as a qualification; for although his countenance was prepossessing, his appearance, so far as dress went, was certainly not calculated to inspire very high ideas of his ability to resist temptation. He was barefooted and barelegged: he wore no covering on his head, and both his trousers and his jacket were in rags. But in despite of all this, there was something redeeming in the expression of the boy's countenance, and Captain Chillingham did not fail to perceive it. He had a fine expressive dark eye in his head, and there was a frankness and manliness in his manner, which at once took the soldier's fancy, and induced him instantly to express his readiness to accept the services of the son when he could not command those of the father. From this period, the boy gradually gained ground in the good opinion of the captain, who found him all and more than his father had represented him to be; and he at length became so great a favourite, that Mr Chillingham altogether dispensed with the services of the former, and relied solely on his son.

"You would make a capital soldier, James," said Captain Chillingham to his little ragged messenger one day, after he had been some time in his service; "would you like to enlist ?"

"I would have no objection, sir," said the boy, "if you could make me an officer at once, and give me the command of men; but I would na like to gang into the ranks."

Captain Chillingham looked for an instant at the bare feet and legs and ragged jacket of the speaker, and burst into a fit of laughter. "On my word, you are an ambitious chap," said the captain ;"" but in the meantime, take this card to Mr Wilson's, the advocate. He lives in the Canongate, you know; and bring me his answer."