es within a certain distance of the convent. One day he assembled his congregation under a tree, wherein a magpie had built her nest; into which he had previously found means to convey a small box filled with gunpowder, which he had well secured therein; and out of the box hung a long thin match, that was to burn slowly, and was hidden among the leaves of the tree. As soon as the monk or his confederate, had touched the match with a lighted coal, he began his sermon. In the meanwhile, the magpie returned to her nest; and, finding in it a strange body, which she could not remove, she fell into a violent passion, and began to scratch with her feet, and shatter unmercifully. The friar affected to hear without emotion, and continued his sermon with great composure; only he would now and then lift up his eyes towards the top of the tree, as if he wanted to see what was the matter. At last, when he judged the fire was very near reaching the gunpowder, he pretended to be quite out of patience, he cursed the magpie, and wished St. Anthony's fire might consume her, and went on again with his sermon; but he had scarcely pronounced a few periods, when the match, on a sudden, produced its effect, and blew up the magpie with her nest; which miracle wonderfully raised the character of the friar, and proved, afterwards, very beneficial both to him and his convent. THE TELESCOPE. In or about the year 1590, was the invention of the telescope, or spying-glass made known, being justly esteemed one of the most useful and excellent discoveries of modern times; though it was, it seems, produced by mere chance. The common account is, that two children of one Janssen, a spectacle maker of Middleburg, in Zealand, being at play in their father's shop, and looking through two pieces of glass between their fingers, which were at some small distance from each other, the weather cock of the church steeple appeared to them unusually large, and much nearer. Of this they instantly told their father, who, surprised also at first, made the experiment of fixing two such pieces of glass in brazen circles or cylinders, so as they might be placed nearer or farther, at pleasure. Janssen very soon improved this discovery so much, that he presented a telescope, 12 inches long, to Prince Maurice, and another to the Archduke Albert. Prince Maurice, it is also said, conjecturing the discovery might be made of great use in war, desired the secret might be concealed, and had nearly deprived Janssen of the honor of inventing it; the great Des Cartes attributing the invention to one Metins of Alcmaer. None of the first telescopes, however, appear to have been properly framed for astronomical observations, until Galileo, astronomer to the Grand-duke of Tuscany, hearing of this discovery for bringing objects nearer, made such great improvements therein as gained him in the opinion of many, the honor of the invention itself, by giving the telescope the appellation of Galileo's tube. Sir Isaac Newton was the inventor of the reflecting telescope; which is considered as much more exact and useful than the common or reflecting one. He completed two small ones in the year 1672. The achromatic telescope, which destroys the colors and gives a more perfect image, was the invention of Mr. Peter Dollond.. PAPER. THE materials on which mankind have contrived to write their sentiments in different ages and different countries, have been extremely various. The most ancient, perhaps, were stone and plates of metal. Tablets of wood, particularly of the cedar wood, were afterwards used; and these were again followed by tablets covered with wax, which were written on according to the fashion of the time, either with iron bodkins, the bones of birds, or reeds cut into the form of pens. At length the papyrus of Egypt was invented, which not only gave a great facility to the art of writing, but was a portable material. It was formed of thin coats stripped from the reed which grows upon the banks of the Nile. The date of its discovery and the date of its disuse have been equally disputed. Nor is it yet completely ascertained whether its first application may be ascribed to an earlier or a later date than the conquest of Egypt by the Macedonians. Parchment was the next invention; originating in a country where no such material as the papyrus reed could be discovered; and it has been found at once so durable and useful that it is still employed upon important occasions in every European country. The art of making paper, such as we now see it, was a late discovery; and its first material was cotton. The linen paper which is now in use, is supposed to have followed the discovery. They are both dated by the generality of writers at the eleventh or twelfth century, though the honor of the discovery is claimed not only by different but distant nations. The first book which was printed on paper, manufactured in England, came out without a date, about 1495 or 1496; though for a long while afterwards it was principally brought from abroad. The first paper mill in England was established about 1590 at = Dartford in Kent, by one Spilman, who died in 1607. WRITING PENS. In ancient times, when people wrote on tables covered with wax, they were obliged to use a style, or bodkin; but, when they began to write with colored liquids, they employed a reed, and afterwards quills or feathers. The most beautiful reeds grew formerly in Egypt, as well as in Armenia and Italy. Sir John Chardin speaks of the reeds which grow in the marshes of Persia, which are sold and much sought after in the Levant, particularly for writing. They are transported, he says, throughout the whole East. Miller, in his Gardener's Dictionary, says, the best writing reeds are procured from the southern provinces of Persia. They are still used by the Turks, Moors, and other Eastern people. These reeds are split, and formed to a point like our quills; but it is not possible to make so clear or fine strokes with them, or to write so long or so conveniently. The oldest certain account, however, known at present respecting writing quills, is a passage in an author (Isidore,) who died in the year 636, and who, among the instruments employed for writing, mentions reeds and feathers. Alcuinus, who lived in England in the eighth century, speaks of the pen; so that it must have been used in this country almost as early as the art of writing was known. THE ISLAND OF ATLANTIS. BY THE REV. G. CROLY. On thou Atlantic, dark and deep, Where all the tribes of earth might sleep The sunbeams on thy bosom wake, Thou thing of mystery, stern and drear, There lie their myriads in thy pall Yet on this wave the mountain's brow And on its bank the olive grove, And the damask rose-the night-bird's love- Where art thou, proud Atlantis, now? Where are thy bright and brave? Crime deepened on the recreant land, The word went forth-the word of woe- Now on its halls of ivory Lie giant weed and ocean slime, Burying from man's and angel's eye The land of wrath and crime. 1 ORIGINAL MISCELLANY. NOTES OF A VISIT IN CANADA. CHAPTER FOURTH. THE ancient capital of Canada is seated on a promontory formed by the confluence of the beautiful Saint Charles with the majestic Saint Lawrence. Descending from Montreal on the broad expanse of the latter stream, the outlet of the noble lakes and the drain of the regions of the north, the course is in a direction varying from the eastern point by a few degrees of southern inclination. The traveller finds the banks of moderate elevation, and the country in the vicinity of the river, low, level, and fertile, spreading out in rich tracts of alluvial plain studded with brilliant white cottages. On approaching Quebec, the river sinks down in the deep channel worn out by the ceaseless rushing of its waters over the rocks, and is bounded on both sides by steep and lofty banks. On the northeastern shore, extends a ridge of land terminating abruptly in a precipice elevated three hundred and forty five feet above the tide dashing on its base. Here are placed the ramparts and battlements of the grand military fortress of the new world, in the centre of a magnificent amphitheatre of hills. On the north is the estuary of the Saint Charles: southward and eastward, the precipitous banks terminating in the lofty and almost perpendicular rock of Cape Diamond, washed by the broad stream and the spacious basin of the Saint Lawrence. Thus fortified on three sides by nature, the city can be approached in one direction only by land; and there art has been exhausted in constructions for defence. Westward are the heights of Abraham, overlooked by towers and parapets, curtains and bastions, loaded with all the implements ingenuity has contrived for the work of destruction, and prepared to impede the progress of an enemy. That we may enable the reader, who has never been rolled in stages and tossed in steam boats so long and so far as to view the castellated heights of Quebec, to perceive the situation of that spot connected with the melancholy yet glorious remembrances of our history, to appreciate the natural strength of its position, and to understand the inaccessible and wild grandeur of its appearance, we must invite him to accompany us on a topographical excursion in its vicinity: we more willingly impose this tax on his patience now, because we wish, in some future chapter, to wander with him over the fields where the desolating tempest of war has broken; |