enjoyment of their ramble; and, to say that I ever made acquaintance with in the truth, there was not one of the family, the whole course of my life." heavy Mr. Roberts himself included, who "Then what do you think she must apdid not relieve their minds by abusing pear to us, sir?" demanded Agatha, sharpher, more or less. The young gentleman, ly. Nobody seems to consider what though he confessed that he had decided up- Maria and I must suffer, such lively creaon making her his wife, notwithstanding declared that she was, beyond all comparison, the most confounded little rococo bore he had ever encountered, and that he did not believe she had ever once looked him in the face from the first moment she had entered their house at Paris to the instant she had contrived to dodge away from them at the cathedral.

"My dear Edward, the girl is a fool," observed his mother in reply. "I have watched her closely; my eyes were not given me for nothing, and I will venture to assert that her intellect is below the ordinary level. This is certainly a great misfortune, and I am very sorry for it. But we can't in this life, you know, Edward, expect to find every thing cut and dried exactly according to our wishes. I do not think she is ugly, and there is some comfort in that, you must allow."

"You are not going to fancy, I hope, that I have any intention of falling in love with her, ma'am?" said Mr. Edward, with a broad grin, and pressing the arm of his sister Maria, who at that moment had the honor of walking with him. "I must beg that you will make up your mind to be contented by my marrying her."

not."

tures as we both are, from being perpetually obliged to associate with such a girl as Bertha Harrington. I know that mamma thinks she will turn out a perfect treasure by way of a contrast, but it is not paying us a very flattering compliment to fancy we want such a one."

"You may talk of her folly, her stupidity, her melancholy, or her bad temper, as much as you like," said Maria, with a good deal of bitterness, "but I tell you it is all pride, hateful, detestable, abominable pride, and if Edward does make up his mind to marry her (which I trust he won't do if he can get any thing better), I shall take care to make her understand that she is not to play the great lady to me-I won't bear it."

Having reached the cafe, to which the military who guard the venerable town, and the fair ladies who adorn it, are wont to resort, to eat ices, sip cherry water, and to look at each other, the English party seated themselves upon a bench, and Mr. Edward inquired what they intended to take.

"Take, Edward?" replied his economizing mother, "why, good gracious, my dear, we are just going to dinner."

"And who ever heard that ice spoilt the appetite, ma'am?" rejoined the youth. "It never spoils mine, at any rate, and I shall take some, if nobody else does."

"You dear droll creature you! Who ever asked you to fall in love with her?" returned his lively mother, with a gay Mrs. Roberts gave an intelligent look to laugh. "I am afraid we all know you too her daughters, between whom and herself well, you gallant gay Lothario, for us to there was an understanding that they were entertain any such expectation. But my to spare every possible expense on the jourconscience gives me no trouble on that ney, for the purpose of saving money to head, Mr. Edward Roberts. Your angelic buy a new bonnet all round, the very first temper will be sure to make any woman you time they saw any thing decent" in that marry happy, whether you love her or line; for the getting clear of Paris had not been achieved without considerable diffiThis did not reach the still rather old-culty, and all intended farewell purchases fashioned ear of Mr. Roberts, nor was it in- there had been per force abandoned. tended to do so. But he caught enough of Mr. Edward therefore walked off alone, the conversation to know that the subject of it was his ward, as he was already beginning pretty constantly to call her, and he ventured to join in it, so far as to say, "I see you are talking of my ward, my dear, and I'll bet sixpence that there is not one of ye who can find any thing very favorable to say of her. No wonder, no wonder; I am not going to quarrel with you for that, for I do think she is the very dullest young girl

and the young ladies beguiled the period of his absence by listening with much dutiful attention to the ingenious theories by which their mamma kindly endeavored to reconcile them to remaining behind.

"It is all very natural for Edward, you know, to think more of the pleasure of eating an ice than of the value of the sons he pays for it; for it is impossible that it can make so much difference to him, as it may

These observing gentlemen, having in truth nothing very particular to do or to Their dinner was taken at the tablelook at just then, had permitted their eyes d'hôte, where the guests were for the most to reconnoitre "la famille Anglaise" with a part military. One of these gentlemen sat good deal of attention, for they possessed beside the eldest Miss Roberts, and politely one great and decided attraction for officers did the honors of the wine and the dishes in garrison-they were new. On perceiv-near him.

ing the young man of the party enter the "Qu'il est bête !" said the young lady cafe, and hearing him demand in the usual to her sister, who sat on the other side of English accent of authority, "Avez-vous her. And the phrase was uttered very des glaces?" they took it for granted that audibly, because it enabled her at once to he was about to convey this pleasant re-display her knowledge of the French lanfreshment to the ladies, and as the Miss guage, and her indignation at being spoken Robertses were really pretty girls, they to without an introduction.

PROTECTION FROM LIGHTNING,

From the Edinburgh Review.

On the Nature of Thunderstorms, and on the Means of Protecting Buildings and Shipping against the Destructive Effects of Lightning. By W. Snow Harris, FR. S. Svo. London: 1843.

WHEN, in a day calm and serene, we look upwards to and around the region of the sky, the eye encounters no obstacle in its survey, and freely penetrates the depths of space to the remotest limits of its range. No terrestrial element dims the transparency of the pure ether, no veil hides the face of the God of Day; and the tremulous ray of the minutest and most distant star finds an easy path across the unfathomable void. The blue vault which enwraps us alone indicates the diffusion of attenuated matter; but its cool and spotless azure, like the breast of the dove, embosoms only innocence and peace. Even the sounds of the material and the busy world are thrown back in subdued murmurs from the sky; and in this general repose of nature, and throughout the abyss where sparkle distant worlds,' the sharpest scrutiny can descry no element of change or of mischief. While the verdant earth, indeed, remains firm beneath his feet, man anticipates no descending danger, and the upturned eye looks but for blessings from above.

This pure and peaceful character of the firmament we contemplate, is but the normal condition which marks the rest and equilibrium of the elements. Unseen and unfelt there encompasses our globe a girdle of air, as translucent as empty space, and so thin and impalpable, that we neither feel its pressure nor experience its resistance. Even when we inhale it, and live by its inhalation, we are not sensible that we have drawn into our system any thing that is material. Yet is this invisible, and almost intangible element, instinct with mysterious properties, and charged with superhuman powers. The green and fermenting earth projects into it its noxious exhalations; the decaying structures of organic life let loose their poisonous ingredients; and even living beings, while appropriating its finer elements, ungratefully return the adulterated residue into the ethereal granary. Thus does the pabulum of life become a polluted and deleterious compound. The noble organizations of living nature languish under its perilous inspiration; while disease and

pestilence either decimate the people, or pursue their epidemic round, demanding at every stage their hecatomb of victims.

When the earth, revolving round its axis, has received from the sun its daily measure of light and of heat, different zones on its surface, and different portions of its mass -the aqueous expanse, the sandy desert, the rankly luxuriant jungle, the rocky mountain crest-all give out their hoarded caloric in unequal and commingling streams. The homogeneity and equilibrium of the elastic medium is thus speedily destroyed; the cold and dense air rushes into the more heated and rarefied regions; and the whole atmosphere around us becomes agitated with coinciding or conflicting currents. Here the zephyr breathes its softest murmurs, awakening the Eolian lyre to its most plaintive strains, and scarcely turning the twittering aspen leaf on its stalk; there the gale sweeps along, howling amidst the darkened forests, bending the majestic pines in its path, and hurrying the freighted bark to its port; and yonder the tornado cuts its way through the mightiest forests, making sport of the dwellings and strongholds of man, and dashing to the bottom of the deep the proudest of his floating bulwarks.

But while the heated air thus sweeps, in gale or in tempest, over the waters of the ocean, or rests in peace on its glassy breast, it carries upwards, by its ascending currents, the aqueous vapors it has exhaled. The denser element reflects in all directions the light that falls upon it, and diffused in mists, or accumulated in clouds, the atmosphere teems with opaque masses, which conceal the azure vault, and obstruct even the fiercest rays of a meridian sun. Here they float in majestic dignity, the aerial leviathans of the sky, veiling and unveiling the luminary which gave them birth. There they marshal their rounded fleeces, or arrange their woolly ringlets, or extend their tapering locks-now shining like the newfallen snow-now flushed with the red of the setting sun; but ever in pleasing harmony with the blue expanse which they adorn, and the purple landscape which they crown.

Over this lovely portrait of aërial nature, the curtain of night falls-and rises but to exhibit scenes of varied terror and desolation. While the solar heat is converting into vapor the water and moisture of the earth, electricity is freely disengaged during the process. The clouds which this vapor

forins exhibit different electrical conditions, the bolt crushed its victim, and the forked though the electricity of the atmosphere, messenger secured his prey, than the peals when serene, is invariably the same. Hence of its rattling artillery rebound from cloud the descent of clouds towards the earth, to cloud, and from hill to hill, as if the God their mutual approach, the force of atmos- of Nature were pronouncing the perdition pheric currents, and the ever-varying agen of ungodly men, and as if the Heavens, cies of heat and cold, convert the aerial waxed old as a garment,' were about to envelope of our globe into a complex elec- be wrapped up in the fervent heat of the trical apparatus, spontaneously exhibiting, elements. During this rehearsal of the in a variety of forms, the play and the day which is to come as a thief in the conflict of its antagonist powers. As St. night,' heaven seems to be in fierce conflict Elmo's fire, the slightly liberated electricity with earth--man the sufferer-and God the tips the yard-arms and mast-tops of ships avenger. The warrior turns pale;-the with its brilliant star, its ball of fire, or its priest stands apalled at his altar; - - the lambent flame. At the close of a sultry prince trembles on his throne. Even dumb day, and above level plains, the opposite life, sharing the perils of its tyrant, is electricities of the earth and the air effect stricken with fear. The war-horse shakes their reunion in noiseless flashes of light- under his rider ;-the eagle cowers in his ning,-illuminating as it were, in far-spread cleft of rock;-the sea-bird screams in its sheets, the whole circuit of the horizon, flight, and universal life travails with one and the entire canopy of its clouds. At common dread of the giant arm which thus other times the same elements light up the wields the omnipotence of the elements. Arctic constellations with their restless wildfires-now diffusing their phosphoric flame, and flitting around in fitful gleams, as if keeping time to the music of the spheres--and now shooting up their auroral columns, advancing, retreating, and contending, as if in mimicry of mortal strife.

That phenomena such as these, so destructive of life and property, should have been imperfectly studied and described by the ancients, cannot fail to surprise us; but our surprise becomes somewhat abated, when we consider how little has been done in modern times, after electricity became a But these various displays of the power science, either in studying its destructive of electricity, however much they may agencies, or in providing against their agstartle ignorance and alarm superstition, gressions. The carelessness of individuals are always unattended with danger; and in protecting their property against lightform a striking contrast with the full de- ning has doubtless arisen, in many cases, velopment of its unbridled and unbalanced from a distrust in the resources of science; fury. When, after a long drought, the but it may have originated also in a suspimoisture of an overloaded atmosphere is cion, that some unwise minister might tax accumulated in massive clouds, animated this species of protection as an insurance by opposite electricities and driven by an- against fire; or, perchance, punish it as an tagonist currents, the reunited elements insidious invasion of the window duty, compress, as it were, in their fiery embrace through a light borrowed from above.* But their tenements of sponge ;--and cataracts however plausibly we may account for the of rain, and showers of hail, and volleys skepticism and improvidence of individuals, of stony meteors are thrown down upon the we cannot make the same apology for the earth, desolating its valleys with floods, and ignorance and negligence of public men, crushing its vegetation by their fall. Even intrusted with the property and wielding in our temperate zone, but especially under the powers of the state. If we must not the raging heats of a tropical sun, this expect to have, like the Romans, our Ediles ferment and explosion of the elements is plebeii minores, and still less their Ædiles more terrific still. As if launched from an cereales,† to keep the poor from starvation, omnipotent arm, the red lightning-bolt cuts why should we be deprived of Ediles maits way to the earth, now transfixing man and beast in its course; now rending the scarcely believed, that a government existed in * A hundred years hence, it will, perhaps, be smitten oak with its wedges of livid fire; the nineteenth century which prevented, by taxnow shivering or consuming the storm-tossed ation, the light of heaven from entering our dwellvessel; now shattering cloud-capt towers ings, and the free air from ventilating and cleansand gorgeous dwellings--nor even sparinging them; and which also prohibited by impost the possessors of property from insuring it against the holy sanctuary, the hallowed dome, or destruction by fire! the consecrated spire. And no sooner has | + Hibernice, keepers of corn in bond,'

*

It is not very creditable to the scientific literature of our own country, that so little has been done in collecting and examining the notices and opinions of the ancients respecting the more remarkable phenomena of the atmosphere. Dr. Watson, indeed, has gathered from Pliny, Seneca, Cæsar, and Livy, several passages descriptive of the electrical light which often tipped the masts of vessels, and the spears and lances of soldiers; but nothing worthy of notice has been gleaned respecting the destructive effects of thunderstorms, and the precautions which were taken for the protection of life and property.

jores, who, in their curule-chairs on cha-1 we are persuaded that they not only used riots, might look after our palaces, our metallic conductors, but employed in some temples, and our public monuments? Rath- of their temples a more efficacious system er than that the obelisks of our heroes and of protection than we ourselves have yet sages should be dislocated or thrown down, introduced. and our towers and spires shivered by the thunderbolt, we would tolerate any Edile from the Treasury or the Home-office, any Verres, even though he might insist upon forcing into the perpendicular the elegantly sloping columns of the Temple of Vesta, or effecting an equitable adjustment, à plomb, of the pillars and buttresses of the state. After Britain had become a great naval power, covering the ocean with her ships of commerce and of war, we might have expected some energetic measures for protecting the adventurous mariner and his far-floated cargo, when fire and tempest simultaneously assailed them;-but when great interests on shore were committed to In his commentaries on Virgil's sixth inefficient hands, it was scarcely to be ex- Eclogue, Servius,* a writer in the time of pected that great interests at sea would be the younger Theodosius, observes that Probetter managed. If boards of longitude metheus discovered, and revealed to men consisted of rear-admirals who had forgotten the method of bringing down lightning from their Lunars, and politicians who had visit- above, and that it was from this that he was ed only one side of the Asses' Bridge;-if said to have stolen fire from heaven. Among fishery boards consisted of notables who the possessors of the art he enumerates ate fish, but could not catch them;--if trus- Numa, who had used it with impunity betees for manufactures had no knowledge of cause he had employed it only in the serwhat was intrusted to them;-and if light-vice of the Gods; and Tullus Hostilius, house boards were composed of lawyers who, in consequence of having made an and burgh baillies, who could hardly choose a pair of spectacles--we need not wonder that the hapless seaman was allowed to perish at his mast-foot, and our hearts of oak' to be rent by the lightning, or consumed by its fires.

improper use of it, was struck dead with lightning, and all his property destroyed. The mythological history of Numa, as given by Ovid in his Fasti, has some analogy with the theft of fire by Prometheus. Aided by Mercury, Prometheus is said to have Under such circumstances, we ought to stolen fire from the chariot of the sun; but, congratulate the public on the appearance what is more interesting, the theft was ef of Mr. Harris's work; or rather, perhaps, fected by bringing down the celestial fire at on Mr. Harris's success in compelling a the end of a ferula or rod. In like manner, reluctant government to take up the sub- Numa, prompted by his wife, the goddess ject, as a national question demanding na- Egeria, succeeded in obtaining the same tional encouragement and support. As in prize; by a species of robbery perpetrated all other great improvements, some previous on the sylvan deities Faunus and Martius steps had been taken for the protection of Picus. Having placed in their way cups ships and buildings, and officers of scien- of perfumed wine, the thoughtless Gods tific acquirements had pointed out the ne-partook too freely of the beverage, and, cessity of a more perfect system of protec- when in a state of inebriety, were bound tion. Even the ancients themselves, who hand and foot by the Roman king. While had no knowledge of electricity, seem to have exercised some ingenuity in warding off the thunderbolt; and, though it may not be admitted by those who are accustomed to underrate their scientific achievements,

CICERO, Orat. in Verrem. Act II. cap. li. See also this Journal, Vol. LXXVIII. p. 321, note.

เ

Deprehendit præterea rationem fulminum eliciendorum, et hominibus indicavit; unde celestem ignem dicitur esse furatus: nam quadam arte ab eodem monstratà supernus ignis eliciebatur, qui mortalibus profuit, donec eo bene usi sunt: nam postea malo hominum usu in perniciem eorum versi sunt '-SERVIUS in Virgil, Ecl. vi. line 42. Edit. Burman, tom. i. p. 99.