colouring matter, and fused boracic acid into a fit vessel, and enclosing that in another, so that the whole could be exposed to the high heat of a porcelain or other furnace, the materials became dissolved in the boracic acid; and then as the heat was continued the boracic acid evaporated, and the fixed materials were found combined and crystallized, and presenting true specimens of spinel. In this way crystals having the same form, hardness, colour, specific gravity, composition, and effect on light as the true ruby, the cymophane, and other mineral bodies were prepared, and were in fact identical with them. Chromates were made, the emerald and corundum crystallized, the peridot formed, and many combinations as yet unknown to mineralogists produced. Some of the crystals of spinel of recent production which M. Ebelman exhibited, had facets the eighth of an inch or more on the sides.-Faraday. VICTORIA: AN ODE. BY ALFRED TENNYSON.* Revered Victoria, you that hold Than arms, or power of brain, or birth I thank you that your royal grace This laurel greener from the brows And should your greatness, and the care And leave us rulers of your blood, May children of our children say, "She wrought her people lasting good :" MODERN ITALY. "Will therefore, to be strong, thou Italy! Will to be noble! Austrian Metternich Can fix no yoke unless the neck agree; And thine is like the lion's when the thick Yet the Heavens forbid Children use the fist Until they are of age to use the brain: And so we needed Cæsar's to assist Man's justice, and Napoleon's to explain Will help to look down on the swordsman's pass We find out slowly what the bee and finch Have ready found, through Nature's lamp in cachHow to our races we may justify Our individual claims, and, as we reach Our own grapes, bend the top vines to supply The children's uses: how to fill a breach With olive-branches; how to quench a lie With truth, and smite a foe upon the cheek With Christ's most conquering kiss. EXTENT OF MR. BROWN'S INFORMATION. SINGULAR PRESERVATION. - At the deGreek, there's a dual number, and a tense called struction of Callao, in 1747, no more than one aorist, and one verb in the grammar is TʊяTW, of the inhabitants escaped, and he by a provithere's Eschylus, and there's Herodotus, and dence the most extraordinary. This man was there's a war called Peloponnesian and Xerxes. on the fort that overlooked the harbour, going Latin, I know some-let me see-" bis dat qui to strike the flag, when he perceived the sea recito dat," "ingenuas didicisse,” &c., and there's tire to a considerable distance, and then, swell"post hoc non propter hoc,' and there's "sic ing mountain high, it returned with great viovos non vobis," which goes on melliki-some- lence. The people ran from their houses in terthing, but it is not usual to quote the rest, so it ror and confusion; he heard a cry of " Midon't matter my not knowing it. I know a serere!" rise from all parts of the city; and whole line, by-the-bye, " O fortunati minimum immediately all was silent-the sea had entirely sua si bona norint." Come, that would fetch overwhelmed it, and buried it for ever in its bosomething in the House of Commons. I think som. But the same wave that destroyed it it's from Ovid. There's the Augustan age, and drove a little boat by the place where he stood, Coriolanus. Brutus goes with liberty and Tar- into which he threw himself and was saved. quin's ravishing strides-a verb agrees with its nominative case. CONFISCATION OF BOOKS IN AUSTRIA.English history, there's Ar- The statesmen of Vienna have, at length, comthur - round table-Alfred burnt oatcakes-pleted their crusade against the press. All the Henry VIII. had a number of wives, was the liberties achieved in 1848 have been finally son of Queen Elizabeth, who wore a stiff frill withdrawn. A single stroke of the pen has and didn't marry. George III. had two prime abolished-so far as governments can do it—all ministers, Horace Walpole and Mr. Pitt. The right of thought, speech, and writing, in the east Duke of Wellington and Napoleon, and Water- of Europe. Whenever an Austrian journal shall loo, also Trafalgar and Rule Britannia-O, and contain any matter-news, leaders, or reportsthere's Aristotle, shone in a number of things, which in the view of the police may have a tengenerally safe to mention. Plato and friendly dency adverse to the throne, to the unity and attachment Mem., avoid mentioning Plato, integrity of the empire, to religion, to morals, to there's something about a republic, on which the fundamental principles of society, or to the don't feel safe when it's occasionally mentioned. maintenance of public peace and order, the Botany: sap, the blood of trees-the leaves of Stadtholder of the district where such publicaflowers are called petals-also parts called pis- tion exists may, after two warnings, suppress tils, which I could make a pun upon if I knew the same for the space of three months. A what they were--cosines in algebra, the same, longer or a total suppression may be pronounced which would make play with cousins- plus and by the ministerial council. There is no appeal minus, more and less-there's a word, rationale, from the decision of the Stadtholder. Hencedon't know whether French or Latin, but extremely good to use-foreign politics I don't national-it is solely ministerial. The new press forth the native press in Austria ceases to he make much of, not understanding history of law is equally arbitrary and tyrannical with foreign countries. Germans, I know, dreamy-regard to foreign papers and books. These Klopstock-know his name, and think he was a drummer. Gerter was great. And I think there's an Emperor Barbarossa, but, Mem., be cautious, for I'm not sure whether that's not the name of an animal. Understand animals, having been twice to the Zoological Gardens. Have read Shakspeare-not Milton, but it's safe to praise him. Fine, a good epithet to apply to him.-A Defence of Ignorance. ANECDOTES are often spoiled by being too long; stories, as well as boys, often outgrow their strength. CENSORSHIP. The censor of political and religious books should remember the Cayba spider Don Antonio de Ulloa talks of, which gives out a mortal poison if seized and crushed, but is perfectly innoxious when blown off the skin.-Jean Paul. the interior, or rather at the mercy of every petty latter are entirely at the mercy of the minister of official connected with his bureau, or with the police. To justify these subordinate agents in confiscating a work, it is not necessary that its title should be found in the prohibited list: the tuted authorities are under obligation to seize new decree stating formally that "the constion all prohibited foreign publications, and on all publications having similar contents." The intelligence of police agents is to apply this very comprehensive test to all the intellectual works passing from the rest of Europe into a large part of Germany, Northern Italy, and the whole of Hungary! The consequences involve what would be farce, but for the melancholy tendency of all this. Aristotle's Politics have been stopped at an Austrian custom-house. The Resolutions of Double Stars was found among the confiscated books in a Vienna bureau! Athenæum. ORIGEN says that his contemporaries believed warm springs to be fed by the hot tears of fallen angels. - Ibid. THIEVES. Of all thieves fools are the worst; they rob you of time and temper.-Goethe. LITERATURE. TRAVELS IN THE UNITED STATES, &c., DURING 1849 and 1850. By the Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley. 3 vols. (Bentley.) These very charming volumes have come before us too late in the month for us to give them that full and careful notice which their merits undoubtedly claim. Yet we have read enough to feel assured that they add another to the numerous examples which exist of "lady authors" describing their travels in an eminently pic turesque, entertaining, and instructive manner. Trifling circumstances, which yet are in themselves excessively characteristic, and never fail to give life to a picture, often escape a masculine ken; however much more deeply and searchingly it must be allowed, the latter penetrates into grave and important matters. Lady Emmeline mentions in her preface what indeed may be almost gathered from the internal evidence of the work-that it was originally written in the form of letters to familiar friends, and subsequently, at their entreaty, divided into chapters, and adapted, in some degree, to the narrative form. This is the reverse of a drawback; for the simple freedom of the confidential epistolary style is hundred times more captivating for a work that must consist chiefly of personal opinions and experiences than any other manner. Had her ladyship pondered on what the critics might think of her descriptions when the pen was in her hand, we have many doubts if they would or could have been so striking and truthful; but she poured out her fresh impressions simply and naturally, feeling with a poet's heart, and seeing with a poet's eye, and hence the value of her pages. Lady Emmeline likes the Americans, and she says so warmly and honestly; and we have no manner of doubt the liking has been mutual. It is quile amusing to observe the different tone taken by this really patrician lady from that assumed by the wouldbe "genteel." She does not seem shocked at customs because they are strange, or shrink from sociability with her fellow-travellers, or make "mountains of mole-hills" when inconveniences arise; or adopt that hateful superciliousness which always emanates from selfishness or envy in disguise. On the contrary, she looks at the bright side of everything, recognizes kindness and civility as a courtesy rather than a due, praises the beauty of the women, their grace, their manner; the kindheartedness of the men, their abilities, their perseverance; the climate, even when a turquoise sky" seems "on fire." And then, when winter comes, she commends the clean anthracite coal. She acknowledges hospitality warmly and gratefully-makes firm congenial friends-recognizes the greatness of the present and future of America, and forgives everything except their burning the British crown in their pyrotechnic displays on the 4th July. We could have said Amen to her prayer, that rain might fall and 66 put it out. Niagara has been described hundreds of times, and yet the following paragraphs appear to us so fresh and striking, that we cannot resist the temptation to extract them. Besides feeling as if it were a presumption to attempt to write about Niagara, thus in its overpow ering presence as it were, I find it very difficult to write at all now, as I am drawn to the window and balcony constantly (whence one sees both falls fully), by the irresistible fascination of this most wonderful water; and the changes that take place almost motime it looks enveloped and almost hidden in spray; mentarily are a source of great interest. At one revealed; now it seems covered with gloom, and an instant afterwards, perhaps, it shines forth fully looks black and frowning, and full of wrath and terror; and now the sun (which alone appears worthy to be its comrade and compeer) breaks forth, and makes it all one glory. Before I came here, I erroneously supposed that one should be immensely struck, and overpowered, and enchanted at first, but that afterwards there would be a certain degree of monotony attached to that unvarying sublimity, which I wrongly believed to be the great characteristic of Niagara. But, how miserably did I do it injustice! Perhaps the most less cataract, is its almost endless variety. The inpeculiar and transcendent attribute of this matchnumerable diversities of its appearance, the conti nual countless rapid alterations in its aspect; in short, the perpetually varying phases which it displays, are indeed wondrous and truly indescribable. This is a great deal owing to the enormous volumes of spray which are almost incessantly shifting and changing their forms like the clouds above. Niagara, indeed, has its own clouds, and they not only give it the great charm and interest of an ever-beautiful and exquisite variety, but also environ it with a lovely and bewildering atmosphere of mystery, which seems the very crown of its manifold perfections and glories. Niagara has its changes like the sea, and in its lesser space circumscribed, they seem fully as comprehensive and multitudinous. I have dwelt long on this, because I do not remember to have seen this mighty and transcendant feature of Niagara particularly noticed in any of the descriptions I have ever read of it, and it has most especially delighted and astonished me. dous thunder-storm here on Tuesday night, and it We were so very fortunate as to have a tremenmay be guessed what a tremendous thunder-storm must be here! The heavens seemed literally opening just over the great cataracts, and the intensely vivid lightning, brighter than day, lit up the giant Falls, and seemed mixed and mingling with the dazzling mountains of spray, which then looked more beautiful and beatific than ever. It was a wild windy night, as if all the elements were revelling together in a stormy chaotic carnival of their own, till it really presented altogether a scene almost too awfully magnificent. The deafening roar of the crashing thunder was yet louder than the roar of the cataract, and completely appeared to drown it while it lasted; but the moment the stormy roll of the thunder died away, it was grand indeed to hear again the imposing, un ceasing sound of Niagara-like the voice of a giant conqueror uttering a stunning but stately cry of victory. Then soon the bellowing thunder broke forth again, fiercer and louder than before; and oh, the lightning! it seemed like a white-winged sun-break when it blazed on the snowy glare of the everfoaming cataracts. I hardly ever saw before such dazzling lightning; and those reverberating peals of Niagara-outvoicing thunder were truly terrific, and appeared quite close: Heaven and earth seemed shouting to one another in those sublime and stupendous voices; and what a glorious hymn they sang between them! At first, the lightning was only like summer flashes, and it kept glancing round the maddened waters as if playing with them, and defying them in sport; but, after a little while, a fearful flash, updated really like a sudden sun, behind the great Horseshoe Fall, and the whole blazed out into almost unendurable light in a moment. The storm continued during the whole night. From our drawing-room windows we have a magnificent view of the Horse-shoe Fall, and almost the whole of the American one besides: and what a sublime pomp and pageant of Nature it is! What a thrilling, soul-stirring sight; and, ever new and ever changing, and eternally suggesting fresh thoughts, fresh feelings and emotions. Just now, a violent gust of wind drove a huge cloud of spray quite on our side of the Canadian Falls, and it was hovering between the two glorious cataracts Ilke a mighty, suspended avalanche, till it dispersed. This transcendantly beautiful spray is generally most brilliantly white, like sunlit snow. We saw a vast resplendent rainbow on the water itself on Tuesday afternoon, of colours quite unimaginably bright, and we had a marvellously glorious sunset last evening. There were flaming, blood-red reflections on the rocks, trees, and islands; but the most delicate suffusions only, of a rich soft rose colour, rested on the fantastic forms of the matchless spray-as if it softened and refined everything that came near it, and made all that touched it as rare and exquisite as its own etherialized self. The following, too, seems to tell us something about travelling in the New World, that stayat-homes had but vaguely imagined before. cumstance, we find the same keenness of observation, felicity of expression, and indomitable good humour. The following is a description of the famous mammoth cave : The banks of the rivers are quite natural curiosities. Very profound channels are usually worn in the calcareous rock, which they pass over in their course. The Kentucky river especially is said to have sublime precipices of great height, on either side, consisting of almost perpendicular banks of solid limestone. There are several huge caves between Green and Cumberland rivers; but the one we went to see is the largest. The size of it may be guessed when I inform the reader that we walked in it the first day eight miles, four in and four out; and the second fourteen, seven in and seven out, hardly traversing any of the same ground, except just at the beginning. In fact, this marvellous cave is a little subterranean state in itself, that might almost claim to be admitted separately into the Union, if it had any population besides mummies and bats (and, alas! the former have disappeared, to our regret.) The cave contains, it is said, two hundred and twenty-six avenues! It has, besides, forty-seven domes, eight cataracts, twenty-three pits, and several rivers-one, the river Styx-and, I believe, a small sea, the Dead Sea. The Echo river (called so from its possessing a very remarkable and powerful echo) is wide enough and deep enough to float the largest steamer. The great dome is four hundred feet high. In 1813, two Indian mummies were found here, wrapped in highly-ornamented deerskins; so that it is evident, though the white men have only of late years discovered this gigantic cavern, the red warriors knew of it in days of yore. There was a great deal of saltpetre found in this cave, and the remains of the furnaces, and large mounds of ashes, are still to be seen near the entrance. In one of the most beautiful chambers we saw in the interior of this vast underground Palace of Nature, the roof appeared to represent a firmament of stars! A comet, with its train of light, seemed sparkling in the distance. And in another place, the appearance of the roof was that of an "inverted at Washington, Though we had a very hot journey from Buffalo flower-garden" (as Professor to New York, yet we had the advantage, for a conhappily called it, in describing the wonders of this siderable part of the way, of going through charm-under-world to me). The bats, which are "located" ingly shadowy forests. Railroads in the United near the mouth of the cave (where, spacious an area States are not like railroads in other countries, for as it is, there are excellent lodgings for man and they fly, plunging through the deep umbrageous bat-if any of the former are tired of this very superrecesses of these vasty, widely-spreading woods, ficial earth), are the noisiest little rascals I ever whose sweeping verdure-loaded boughs, go arching met with. Jabbering like monkeys, chattering like and branching about the "cars" in all directions, magpies, they appear to repudiate all connexion shedding a deep, delicious, intensely-green light with their humble, quiet little cousins, the mice. around, which bathes everything and everybody in a They made such a din when we entered their chosen sea of molten emerald, and is excessively refreshing precincts, that it seemed as if they were hissing us to the passengers' eyes, though eminently unbe- off the subterranean stage on which we were making coming to the said passengers' complexions; for our début, rather agitated at our novel position; or they all look there exactly as if they were playing at perhaps they were intending those suspicious sounds for cheers-nine times nine, and one cheer more— snap dragon," and the very ruddiest and most rubicund turn to a sort of livid, ghastly, plague- and the Kentish (or, rather, the Kentuckyish) fire, struck looking green; but this may serve to give at our entry. you an idea, peradventure (and, I assure you, not an exaggerated one), of the cool, and verdant, and deeply-tinted reflections from these over-shadowing masses of forests. Lady Emmeline's travels extended as far south as Lima, but under every variety of cir * * * * * As to the cave altogether, it is magnificent-that is, what we saw of it; for many parts of it we did not see at all, which are already explored, and it is said people may go on exploring for three hundred miles or more; I should be sorry to try the experi ment. After this underground jaunt, after this sort, of temporary burial, I think one almost requires a dozen or so of balloon ascensions to restore the equilibrium of one's feelings, and take away the subterraneousness of one's sensations, and ungrovellize oneself; in short, to carry off a little of the superabundant earthliness that one feels has been acquired by walking below ground, where should be nothing but graves and gas-pipes, and cellars and worms, and Guy Fawkeses, and sorcerers, and mummies, and trains of gunpowder and fossil Ichthiosauruses. Stalactites and stalagmites are beautiful and interesting, but they seem to me to have a sort of magnetism of petrifaction about them, and to inoculate one with ossification. Glad was I when we wended our way from these mighty vaults, with their imitation stars and hobgoblin roses: we had to pass again by the same great Hall by which we entered, under the living leathern canopy of the imminent bats, which almost grazed or stuck to our inuch-enduring bonnets as we passed-so low was the roof in some places. HOME TRUTHS FOR HOME PEACE. A PRACTICAL INQUIRY INTO WHAT CHIEFLY MARS OR MAKES THE COMFORT OF DOMESTIC LIFE. (Effingham Wilson.)—We think it was Sir Joshua Reynolds who said, "he is a lucky man who has half-a-dozen original ideas in his life;" adding, as he pointed to one of his pictures, "that is one of mine." This frank avowal itself proclaimed a great truth-though whether quite fresh from the mind's mint, we will not take upon ourselves to declare. Truth, however, is one of the beautiful things which grow none the worse for wear; repeat it to triteness, and still you cannot rob it of a certain sterling value; whereas it is capable of being set forth in a novel and attractive form, with new lights thrown upon it to bring out its full force and meaning. Thus possibly the very valuable little book before us may not contain one positively new and original observation, though the "home truths" of which it treats were never more lucidly and strikingly exemplified. is especially addressed to the Young Wives and Housewives of the Middle Classes, and we recommend it very heartily to their perusal. It is not written in the tone of a moral essay; on the contrary, it makes us sinile very often, for there is a sly vein of humour running beneath all its philosophy, and we involuntarily exclaim "how true!" and then mentally add, “I wonder who the author is? a tidy wife, or an old maid, whose husband and house are proverbially so well managed?" It Whoever, whatever the author may be, we are sure of one thing, that she is a shrewd, clever, active, right-minded woman, who has seen, observed, and felt; and who, being deeply impressed with the importance of the just fulfilinent of the daily domestic duties of a woman, has set herself to produce a book that is at once pleasant and instructive. The "over particular," they who "belong to their houses and furniture," will find there is a gentle rap on the knuckles for them; but the chief antagonism of the book is directed against those who from want of tact and order live in a perpetual "mud dle." We beg pardon for using this ugly word, but it is rather a favourite one with our author, and after all is not readily translatable into one more refined and equally expressive. The titles of two or three chapters will perhaps suggest the contents of this book more forcibly than anything we can say. CHAPTER V. FURNITURE. - Particular and comprehensive directions impossible.-General recommendations, founded on experience of what lasts longest, and looks best.-Opposite excuses brought forward to justify the purchase of unsuitable furniture.Tables.-Chiffoniers.-Bed-room Couch.-Eiderdown Quilt.-Old-fashioned Bureau-One set of China. Small articles in frequent requisition. CHAPTER VI. DIVISION OF DOMESTIC LABOUR.-The fact of each person having but one pair of hands, a reason why each individual pair should be employed to the best advantage.-The duty of a housewife who has servants under her is, chiefly, to think, to look, to overlook, to order, to provide; she has no right to expect her servants to remember what she forgets. Putting away and arranging, getting out and giving out, time-taking but comfort-producing occupations; and, as such, not to be considered needless interruptions to sedentary employment. Children no excuse for the neglect of what mainly contributes to their health and comfort.-The stitch in time.-Right of old stockings to come to an end after a reasonable period of usefulness.-The procuring good and available smaller garments from partially worn and shabby larger ones, the most profitable object on which maternal industry can be exercised, and more economical than constantly mending things no longer worth the time and thread bestowed upon them. SERVICE.-Who waits at table when there are several guests and small attendance; dumb walters are exploded, and gentility forbids any one helping himself or his neighbour? Unless continual running about in nervous confusion can be designated waiting, no servant ever waits on these occasions; whilst all the guests wait the greater part of the meal for most of the things they want.—Simple arrangements by means of which, without additional service, fish needs not be eaten without sauce, nor beef without mustard, nor gooseberry-tart without sugar.-Page in a Highland family.-Making children useful the most effectual way of amusing them, as well as keeping them out of mischief. Of course this book is not intended for the very wealthy classes, though we are not quite sure that the lady whose experienced trustworthy housekeeper, and clever tasteful lady's maid, remove from her immediate thoughts her middle-class feminine cares, might not have her sympathies enlarged by its perusal. Perhaps it will remind her of the different lot of some early friend, or relation, to whom an imprudent marriage has brought comparative poverty, or make her pause to remember how many well born, well bred gentlewomen have to struggle in all the fetters of small means, and resign themselves to what always must be a sacrifice-dis |