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The stranger took a place in the window-seat, and motioned to Merler to follow his example.

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Are you not convinced," said he, "that you have to do with a wizard?-does this apparatus capture your imagination ?"

"I see nothing here," replied Merler, "unsuited to the library of any man of scientific habits."

"What! yet incredulous?" returned the other, with a smile, "follow me, then."

Merler complied, as his host, taking a key from the cabinet, unlocked a small door near the window, and descended a flight of stone stairs. Arrived at their termination, Merler found himself in a low, vaulted chamber. It was full of the instruments with which the alchemists were said to torture the elements of things in their endeavours to attain boundless wealth and unceasing health. Several furnaces were burning with a light green flame.

"Now," said his conductor to Merler, "you see what are my occupations."

"You are an alchemist, then-a seeker for that which so many have failed to find?"?

Hardly so. I have wealth to satisfy my wants, without resorting to the transmutation of metals; and he who has passed half a century on the earth will scarce wish for the

elixir vita."

46

Perhaps you disbelieve in their existence ?"

"No; the powers of the human mind, when free from the clogs of sensual desires, are nearly illimitable. I could discover those secrets-I have accomplished more; but I wish not for them.",

"What, then, has been the object of your inquiries?"

Neither, as I have told you, to acquire golden dross (which many have prostituted the paths of philosophy to obtain, as a means of gaining luxuries and indulgences, and which the motive of their search has alone withheld them from discovering) nor to increase the number of my days here. My object has been, during the time allotted to me, to partake of a double existence-a spiritual one, peculiar to those who have had firmness and courage to attain it-as well as the fleshly one, which I enjoy in common with the rest of my species." "I do not perfectly comprehend."

"I know it. When we have left this place I will explain myself."

There was a short pause, during which Merler examined more minutely the appearance and furniture of the apartment. The walls, ceiling, and floors were of stone; the various utensils, which were placed on all sides, were partly of glass and partly of metal.

"How is it," said Merler, "that though your furnaces are apparently at work, I perceive none of the deleterious vapours with which their operations are usually accompanied ?"

"Because," replied his companion, "everything here has reached that state in which matter is sublimed, and loses its grosser particles. My labours now are not to find or to invent, but to continue and perfect that of which I have long been possessed. Look at this."

"I see nothing more than an empty phial-of crystal, I think-and very transparent," said Merler, as he held the vessel between his eye and the lamp.

"So it seems to you," said his companion.

full to the stopper."

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"Yet it is full,

Dew, the purest, most refined dew of heaven-the most powerful dissolvent of matter."

"I remember to have heard of it as one of the agents employed by the alchemical philosophers. Light is, I think, another."

"It is. Look once again."

He unstopped one of the retorts, and poured in the contents of the phial. A light, brilliant beyond imagination, but withal so soft that it dazzled not Merler's eyes, issued from the aperture. At the same moment the lamp became extinguished. "See," said Merler's conductor," how the grosser light is unable to sustain the pressure of the pure element. If you please, we will withdraw."

They ascended the stairs, and again entered the library.

"I have displayed to you," said the philosopher," the agents with which I work; and this, because I can read the characters of men at a glance, and your's pleased me. I know that I can confide in you; nay, no protestation-I know it. The end to which I have applied these agents you shall know before we part. Meanwhile, partake of my humble meal; the body has its wants as well as the mind."

The host ate only of a sallad, though, in regard to his visitor, more substantial food had been prepared. When the meal was ended the former rose.

"I will now," said he, "perform my promise; but first examine this picture." He pointed to one of the portraits that hung from the wall.

It was of a man, apparently about thirty, clothed in the dress of a monk, and whose square cowl betokened him of the order of Capuchins. Merler examined the features again and again, and as often turned from the contemplation of the picture to look upon his host.

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Enough," said the latter; "you discern the resemblance?" "Perfectly," said Merler.

It was the picture of a female to which Merler's attention was now directed. The countenance was sad, but full of intelligence, and beautiful as the depth of a summer's evening, Under each of the pictures the letters F. R. C., and the symbol of the cross, denoted that the originals were followers of the Rosicrucian philosophy.

"Be seated, and you shall know what I have to relate." (To be concluded in our next.)

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Forgat disguise

Ah, me! even bliss itself hath here
A need sometimes to hide a tear!

Yet sorrow sways not the night of June,
But somewhat of a blissful sadness;
Earth drinketh in the holy moon,
To ease with love day's aching gladness;
And each flower doth seem
To wear its dream,

There visibly effused upon its breast,
In liquid light, all trembling with unrest

O God! to thee this proud array

Is but the mien of humble duty!
Earth's reverent love would fain displa
Thy smile reflected back in beauty!
And the human heart
Hath its still part,

A sacrifice of deep emotion,
To swell a throbbing world's devotion!

THE GIPSY'S PROPHECY.

cut off the hand of an unknown person who would have penetrated into your chamber? Well, that hand was mine. Look T was in the year 1822 that I visited the prisons I had seen you,' he continued, and was captivated by your here.' His mutilated arm but too strongly confirmed his story. at Rome. Among the unfortunate creatures beauty. I determined to carry you off. With two of my brought hither by distress or guilt, I observed in comrades I ventured to climb up to your chamber-window. the corner of a dungeon a young female seated From the reception which you gave me, we inferred that you on a handful of straw, suckling her infant. Her had men to protect you. I retired, but learned the next day complexion was swarthy, and in her large black that to you alone I owed the loss of my hand. Shame and rage eyes glowed the fire of the sun of Italy. The at being thus baffled by a girl of sixteen awakened within me relics of her apparel indicated that previously to thoughts of revenge. I came under an assumed name to Rome; her imprisonment she had worn the garb of a Roman peasant. Her expressive physiognomy You are now in my power, the wife of a robber. At this word my friends, my artifices, my gold, accomplished the rest. and her bold look seemed calculated to excite curiosity. I approached, and begged her to relate to me through what misa feeling of horror seized my soul; nevertheless, whether it fortune she found herself in this place of horrror. was owing to the flexibility of my disposition, to the prediction "St. of the gipsy, to that secret fondness for romantic adventures to Francis!" exclaimed she; "what interest can the narrative which the female heart often but too willingly resigns itself, of my extraordinary misfortune have for free and happy people? or finally to the hope of bringing back by the power of love, a My name is Maria Grazia. My mother lost her life in giving stray soul, dwelling in a yet youthful body, to the tract of birth to me. My father, devoted to his own pleasures, and virtue; in short, I threw myeelf at the feet of my husband, caring but little about my education, placed me, while yet and implored him with tears not to cast me from him, for I very young, in a convent. The older I grew, the more irksome would never cease to love him. Moved by my tears and my this kind of life became to me; for my inclinations, my dis- resignation, he clasped me to his bosom, and for three years I position, and the vivacity of my character, all seemed to urge was, or imagined that I was, happy. One evening, however, me on to a futurity full of trouble. A circumstance which I he returned home pale and perturbed, his garments torn and never could account for, had a powerful influence upon my fate. spotted with blood. In broken sentences he told me that he On some particular occasion, a gipsy-woman was admitted into had been cbliged to defend his life against assassins, and charged the convent for our amusement. All the sisters were allowed to hold their ears to the tin-speaking trumpet of the old sibyl, ous occurrence. me to observe the profoundest silence respecting this mysteriwho moreover gave to each of us a slip of paper, on which was I could not help trembling, but not for him; written what the hag termed the decree of Heaven. Thrice kind. A horrid dream terrified me-I awoke. At the same my soul was shaken by melancholy forebodings of a different did I go up to her for the purpose of enjoying the like favour, moment my husband also was startled out of his sleep-his and thrice the oracle became mute. This refusal of the old convulsed lips several times pronounced the name of my father woman excited partly my anger and partly my curiosity. Ithe recollection of that gloomy prophecy enveloped my begged, I entreated, I wept; at length the gipsy was moved senses in darkness. O my unhappy father! O my still more by my tears. You insist upon it, unhappy girl,' said she; wretched husband! The former had actually attacked the 'well then, know that you will be the wife of a robber, who latter, having probably been apprised of the real state of the will murder your father, and that your hair will turn grey in a case, and desirous of withdrawing me from so disgraceful a dungeon.' At the age of fifteen such predictions make no very connexion. The agents of justice were soon in search of us; deep impression. I laughed heartily on the subject with my we escaped with great difficulty from Rome, and fled to the companions, and loaded the old prophetess with ridicule. At mountains. There my husband bethought himself of his for night, however, when I was alone, my mind became, against mer comrades. He sought them out, discovered them, and a my will, a prey to apprehensions. I passed the hours in cavern of banditti was now my dwelling. His companions anxiety and anxious reverie; the prediction of the fortune- welcomed him with joy; but he had violated one of their laws, teller incessantly haunted my waking dreams. My father took which forbids any of the members of the band to marry, and me out of the convent; but only to shut me up again with an enacts, that if a woman should fall into their hands, she shall old housekeeper at his country-seat about five miles from belong exclusively to the captain. No sooner had the latter Rome. One night the weather was very tempestuous. I set eyes on me than he rudely insisted on his right. His could not sleep. I fancied that I heard a confused sound of daring hand had already grasped me, when a ball from my voices under my window, which looked into the garden. I husband's pistol extended the wretch on the ground. Disliked awoke my Aji, who never went to bed without her weapon, as he was by the band, his fall was a signal for a shout of joy which was a large carving knife. Presently we heard the from his comrades, who unanimously elected my husband their outer window-shutter broken open. We concealed ourselves leader. So completely was I possessed by that wild spirit behind the curtain; I had armed myself with a knife. A pane which must have betrayed itself in my looks to the gipsy at the of the window was cut, and a hand was protruded through the grate of the nunnery, that I was quite proud of my husband's aperture to unfasten the catch which secured it. I seized the elevation. I now wrapped myself in the coarse habiliments opportunity and struck so effective a blow that the hand of a peasant, of which these rags still cover me, and with equal dropped at my feet. Ah of agony and the sound of foot-courage and pleasure accompanied my husband in his expedisteps succeeded, and then al was quiet again. At daybreak I repaired to Rome, whe e I related my adventure to my father; he admired my courage, and permitted me to leave the lonely villa. He was by this time thinking of marrying me, and even hoped that my adventure, which was soon rumoured abroad, would forward his design. Among my suitors there was a young cavalier, the beauty of whose handsome features was heightened by a delicate paleness. He gave himself out for a Florentine, and carried his arm in a sling, in consequence, as it was said, of a slight wound which he had received in an affair of honour. His kind attentions and amiable manners soon made a deep impression upon me. He solicited my hand. My father, with his usual levity, gave his consent, and we were united. The day after our marriage my husband was no longer the tender lover; his looks were wild, his voice was harsh, and his smile sarcastic. Distressed at this melancholy change, I asked with tears after the cause of it. Would you known who I am?' cried he. Do you recollect that night when you

tions. Towns and villages rang with his exploits; fate at length overtook him. He fell in a conflict with the horsmen who were sent against us and had discovered our retreat. At the moment when I saw my husband drop, I sought shelter in a cavern for my infant; there I was seized and dragged to this dungeon, where I anticipate with horror the fulfilment of the latter part of that fearful prediction." Such was the narrative of Maria Grazia, the widow of the bandit chief. In pity for her situation I offered her some picces of gold; but she refused them, at the same time caressing her child, which had fallen asleep at her bosom.

A QUESTION FOR THE MATERIALISTS.-There be powers in the human body independent of the will, by which the heart beats and the lungs play. What are these powers, ye unbelievers in the immaterial, without which even peristaltic motion would be voluntary and unconscious process?

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THIS week, if, indeed, it has not already occurred, will take place a change in the councils of the Queen of B 2271 A new train of events little expected will arise, verthrow cherished resolutions. A church dianity bow to the flexible decrees of fate, and many chees take place in our local official institutions. Bristol r nity is the sce... t a melancatastrophe by water. ad in the north of England res and disturbances prevail. The whole week! one of grat excitement and individuals her about this time will be involved

in stre

u expected. ventures.

THE ASTROLOGER'S CALENDAR.

A CHAPTER ON COMETS.

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Concluded from our last.

N the autumn of 1811, within the memory of many of the present generation, by far the finest comet suddenly appeared. to adorn our heavens, that has been seen since the age of Newton. It was first beheld in this country in the beginning of September, and was visible for more than three months in succession to the naked eye, shining with great splendour, the observed of all observers. This was a comet of the first class in point of magnitude and luminosity. Its brilliant tail, at its greatest elongation, had an extent of 123 millions of miles, by a breadth of fifteen millions; and thus, supposing the nucleus of the comet to have been placed on the Sun, and the tail in the plane of the orbits of the planets, it would have reached over those of Mercury, Ven he Earth, and have bordered on that of Mars. At its approach to us, the comet was yet distant 141 millions of les, so that even had the tail pointed to the carth, its extrem would have been eighteen millions of mile away from its s face. The following are the calcuations respect, its period revolutions:

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I ne med is a tounded at i jooney quiring the least of these y for its accor: 'is ment a period copal to that extendSag from the fabul 1. age of Greco story to the present; nor is the rough less won.ful, of the chain of solar influence follow the travel through the whole of its course, and prev trg s elopement into the regions of immensity. The laws of the ysteri, indeed, impose upon the long-period comets vist differe of velocity. The same body that rushes round the sin at the nearest point of contact with prodigious speed, will move but sluggishly through the remoter parts of its orbit. In computing the periodic time of the comet of 1811, Lemaur assigned 775 years to the half of the ellipse nearest the sun, and 3462 to the more distant half. But the space must be immense that has to be traversed by an object whose return is not expected, taking the lowest estimate given, till the year 4867. The appearance of this comet was strikingly

A Diary of Asspa ors and Latas, ous Deus, uth Weekly Indi-ornamental to the evening sky. Many a reaper late in the alonsof the Wethedea from Fe netury Influences.

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harvest field stayed his hand, and many a peasant homewardbound stopped on the way, to gaze upon the celestial novelty as it grew into distinctness with the declining day. The Ettrick shepherd has left a memorial of his impressions in the well-known lines:

t

Stranger of Heaven, I bid thee hail!
Shred from the pall of glory riven,
That flashest in celestial gale-

Broad pennon of the King of Heaven!
"Whate'er portends thy front of fire,

And streaming locks so lovely pale;
Or peace to man, or judgments dire,

Stranger of Heaven, I bid thee hail!"

Those who were alive in 1811 will recollect the high temperature of that year-its bountiful harvest-its abundant resplendent comet; and the wine of the comet was sold vintage. Popular opinion assigned these blessings to the afterwards at high prices.

The leading features of the chief cometary appearances of modern times have now been sketched. There are various inquiries which naturally suggest themselves with reference to these bodies. What is their physical constitution? What their origin and office in the system? Are they inherently luminous, or dependent upon the solar glory, shining, like the planets, by virtue of his light? Have they any terrestrial

"Are there not aspirations in each heart,

After a better, brighter world than this,
Longings for beings nobler in each part,

Things more exalted-steeped in deeper bliss?
Who gave us these? Whence are they? Soul, in thee
The bud is budding now for Immortality!"
ROBERT NICOLL.

ERHAPS there has never

influence? Is there a chance of our globe coming into actual | THE WORLD AND ITS CREATION. collision with them; and supposing collision, what would be its probable effects? Upon most of these points we have no certain knowledge. Herschel and Schroeter thought the comet of 1811 a self-luminous body, but in opposition to this opinion Cassini is quoted as having descried the comet of 1744 showing a phase. On the very day, says Arago, that any comet shall appear with a distinct phase, all doubts will have ceased. At present, however, no satisfactory evidence is possessed of such an appearance being observed. Upon the question of physical constitution, it is pretty certain that the great majority of these bodies, and most probably all of them, are entirely gaseous-simple aggregations of vapour. The evidence to this effect is various. The comet of 1770 passed twice through the system of Jupiter; and calculation shows, that had it been 1-50th of one of the satellites in mass, it would have sensibly affected that system. Yet there was not the slightest derangement of the planes of motion, or of the periods of revolution, by its intrusion among the satellites. The same body also passed at that time at no very great distance from the earth. In fact, it approached us nearer than any other that has visited our terrestrial sky. Had it possessed a quantity of solid matter equal to that of the earth, it would then have shortened the length of our year by the ninth of a day; or had it been 1-5000th of the earth in mass, it would have appreciably altered its length to a degree that must long ago have been observed. But not the least perturbation was caused by its close proximity. These are sufficient proofs of the smallness of its mass, even allowing it to have had any solid matter at all, which may be reasonably suspected. Through the very centre of Biela's comet in 1832 a group of stars of the sixteenth magnitude was very distinctly seen by Sir John Herschel. While admitting that many comets are mere agglomerations of vapour, some hold to the opinion that where there is a nucleus remarkable for its vivacity of light, there is a solid and opaque body. But several facts declare against this supposition. Instances have occurred of stars being visible through a strongly defined nucleus. In 1618, the nucleus of the comet of that year is described as having dissolved into several detached parts; that of 1661 observed by Hevelius, changed also from a globular figure, and entirely disappeared; and an appearance of a similar description was presented by the comet of Halley, when visible in the year 1607. It is most probable that a comet is altogether a gaseous body, and has no solid matter whatever. Sir John Herschel remarks that, "whenever powerful telescopes have been turned on them, they have not failed to dispel the illusion which attributes solidity to the more condensed part of the head, which appears to the naked eye as a nucleus; though it is true that in some a very minute stellar point has been seen, indicating the existence of a solid body." Mr. Airy also states, that "on the physical constitution of comets we have learnt nothing, except that they appear to be wholly gaseous."

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WOMAN'S LOVE.-Women generally love less for youth, beauty, or fortune, than for fame, especially the higher minded portion of the sex, and this proves the purity of their affections; for what, after all, can be the object of true love, but mindthe high and noble mind-which attests itself by the loud voice of fame, and the reluctant evidence of envious mankind? A noble spirited woman, in the prime of youth and the morning of beauty-whom will she choose? on whom bestow her affections? Not on the gay youth of her own age, priding himself, like another lady, on his smooth face and flexible form. She will turn away from the fair brow without a laurel, and the delicate hands that reaped no harvest from the field of houour, and place her heart in the custody of him whose vigour and energy of thought have given him a place amongst the great of the world.

been a greater sensation produced in the circles of literature and science than that arising from the recent publication of a work called the "VESTIGES OF CREATION." It has excited the ire of deans and bishops, and roused the attention of all interested in the eternal truth of a life hereafter. The columns of the Times, daily crowded with intelligence, have been thrown open to those who have felt it incumbent on them to enter the lists of controversy, and amongst the most prominent are the epistles of a writer who has, in antagonistic spirit to Buckland the geologist, christened himself Anti-Megatherium." Although evidently this gentleman is actuated by a right spirit, he is lamentably mistaken if he supposes the arguments he has brought forward will overthrow the immense mass of facts triumphantly established by geologists and astronomers. The stupid bigotry of a past age can never again return, and this spirit of intolerance with which the writer is so deeply imbued is the worst weapon in the world for a contest such as this must eventually be. It looks as if we were afraid of the discussion-as if the precipice on which we stood was so horrible that the eyes must involuntarily be closed. This is absurd; nay, more, it is highly dangerous. Those who will not take the trouble to consider for themselves will be disgusted with the fruitless attempt made to stifle inquiry, and at once go over to the popular side of the question with a fluttering feeling of infidelity in their hearts, which science never With the latter portion of the volume of the "VESTIGES" we intended-and if fairly treated never will be able-to produce. dissent; but in a popular form the author has worked up so many truths and focussed so many hitherto scattered facts-that his work deserves the overwhelming success which has attended it, and demands the most calm and dispassionate investigation.

From the extracts we have at various times given, our readers will know that the theory of developing our solar system from & nucleus, is the basis of this work. Of this we shall consider hereafter; but merely here beg to observe, for the edification of such blundering well-meaning gentry as Anti-Megatherium, that, in the whole work, the question of the soul's immortality is untouched-this stands unshaken by all the arguments-a pyramid of solid truth, existing amongst the desert of crude imaginings by which it is surrounded. This view of the question seems to have been most unaccountably overlooked, but it is the grand plain on which the battle must, at last, be fought. The solar system may have sprung from a nucleus, but the question must still be asked-who created the nucleus? Our very powers of

intellect loudly proclaim a source beyond this world of matter, and though the theory of a progressive development may be correct to the minutest details, the arguments for an original purpose and design are still incontrovertible, still the votaries of chance escape not confusion, and still the mind turns itself with confidence to an Intelligent Great Frst Cause. But to an examination of the principles thus advanced by the authorAmbitious man-placed, as Richter says, "in the centre of immensities, in the conflux of eternities"-has lately displayed his anxiety to mark the progress of his knowledge by measuring them in all directions. Girt with the vast oceans of time and space, he has cast forth his sounding lines, he has erected his watch-towers, to span and fathom the abysses that surround him; and, weighing his spherule of a world against the universe, and his span of life against eternity, has exhausted the powers of his arithmetic in endeavours to discover how much less, and how many times shorter, were the sensible than the real, the contents and the containing.

greater, we have no means of learning. It may not be beyond our hope to succeed in calculating, with some approach to accuracy, the duration of the periods during which each successive creation was permitted to exist. But the time involved in the convulsions by which they were overwhelmed, or the birth-throes that built up the materials of the new earth, when again allowed to repose and vivify, or the eras of lifeless chaos that may have intercalated between the destruction and the formation, must remain for ever undiscovered.

Not many years have passed since the inquiries into subjects such as these would have been denounced as irreverent, not to say impious, in their audacity of speculation, and this not, at the time, without reason. In almost every department of research, a period is, at one time or other, passed through, during which the progress is associated with scepticism, and the establishment of science appears to involve the shaking of the foundations of faith. But this is only a transient phenomenon. It is not more certain that the philosophy of Socrates, the astronomy of Galileo, His success has been consistent with the audacity of the at- or the geology of Hutton, contradicted and weakened the printempt. Hitherto, "all that we know is, that nothing can be ciples of the religion professed at their respective eras, than that known." The answer which the universe has returned to our philosophy, when its vision becomes clear, and science, when its painful questionings has been given only in negatives. We cal-discoveries are developed, have lent and will lend to religion the culate series of years, whose sum transcends the powers of ima- most efficacious support. gination, to conceive the period of their lapse-but time is longer than they; and myriads of millions of miles-but space is wider than them all! The units of extent and duration which nature places within our reach, aided as our calculations are by the wondrous powers of mathematical analysis, are far too minute to enable us, with any approach to certainty, to complete the measurement even of the phenomena least removed from our ken. If we reflect upon the astonishing extent to which our instruments can penetrate and measure, the sense of the profundity of those abysses to reach which their powers are vain, will be wonderfully increased. For example,-in our calculations of space, the condition of our earth as a planet enables us to view the stars from the opposite side of an orbit whose diameter is 186 millions of miles. Yet in calculating our triangles, even with this enormous base, we find only that the angle thereby formed at the fixed stars, while absolutely inappreciable in regard to most of them, is about one second of a degree in the instance of a double star distinguished as á á in the constellation of the Centaur. Now, as the second of a degree in a circle of 575 yards radius will have a chord of only the tenth of an inch, the distance of the star thus measured will be more than 80,000,000,000,000 miles. Of the stars whose angle (or parallax) is not appreciable, we can say only that they are more distant still. And if we assume, as probability entitles us to do, that the diminished light of the stars arises not from their size, but their remoteness, we must multiply the figures given above some thousands of times before we have reached the lowest limit of the distance at which many myriads of telescopic stars are placed in space. And this refers only to the visible firmament; beyond the range of our telescopes, are we to conceive that the universe is blank and unpeopled?

With regard to time, our powers of mensuration are even more limited having no certain quantity given us to form the basis of our computations of duration, such as the diameter of the earth's orbit constitutes in space'; we are, therefore, compelled to grope our way through the darkness of dead ages, by the uncertain guidance of an estimate of probabilities. Thus, when we ascertain the comparatively minute changes that have passed over the surface of our planet since the commencement of recorded history, we are able to estimate, approximatively, the period that must have elapsed in the accomplishment of the vast and repeated catastrophes which have visited the earth since the deposition of the earliest strata.

Or when we calculate the time that has lapsed without producing any new or strange developments of animal life (with certain exceptions, very minute in themselves, and occurring among the lowest in the scale of animated nature), we are furnished with an index to the extent of the period wherein could have been born and extinguished the various tribes of animals, so different in form, habit, and constitution, which have successively inherited their portion of the all-nourishing earth.

Here, too, we find only the lowest limit, the period than which we know the actual lapse cannot have been less; but how much

Nor are the effects of such studies upon the minds of their disciples, in the end, less excellent. The consequences of venturing upon speculations of this vast and mysterious character may at first be sometimes to bewilder, sometimes to dazzle the intellectual vision; a blinded vanity of its own capacity and achievements may by times invade the mind, which may even dare, in the insanity of its pride, to arraign the councils of the Supreme! But these are mists that will ere long become cleared away, and no pride can linger with us after we are once able to lift our thoughts from the difficulties of the search to the awful sublimities of the discovery. While struggling amid the steep intricacies of the upward path, natural enough is it for us to feel elated at the perseverance or skill we exert in forcing our passage, and to triumph without reserve at every conquest over difficulty-at each chasm that we have overleaped-at every precipice that we have scaled-till we reach and pause upon the summit; and then, standing face to face with Infinity, we find all other emotion extinguished in the overwhelming awe which attends the manifestation of Omnipotence.

"In the beginning," is the favourite period for our theorymakers to lay the scene of their ingenious world-dramas. Having then free scope to select the materials of their future earth, and to arrange them in the order proper for obeying the supposed influences that are to organise them into a shapely and habitable sphere, with unlimited time at their command, and a tabula rasa for their successive developments of secular phenomena and animal life, it would be wonderful if they did not succeed in constructing systems almost without number, each of which should be at least coherent and plausible, till the next one arosc to overturn it? When the framers condescended to particulars, and endeavoured to reconcile the multiform and often contradictory appearances of nature with the theoretical necessities of their respective systems, the task became one of much greater difficulty. The startling hypotheses to which they had recourse in their anxious attempts at "accounting for" what the evidence of their senses would not let them contradict--the violent convulsions summoned without stint to explain the existence of every inconvenient anomaly-will not soon be forgotten. Between Descartes' vortices and Whiston's comets-between Neptunians and Vulcanians-between the "Catastrophists" and the "Uniformitarians "- -a din of strife arose, in which the voice of real Science was not seldom drowned, while the combatants who had ranged themselves under her banners fought for victory instead of truth.

The author of the "Vestiges of Creation" is not inclined to waive his privilege to begin with the beginning of things. The universe, in his first chapter, is described as a section of space filled with the attenuated particles of nebulous matter, on which the law of mutual attraction has just begun to act. We close the book with man established in his supremacy-having replenished the earth and subdued it-and waiting for some to-beexpected change in the material organisation of the globe he inhabits, for the development of new faculties of sense or intel

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