Among the long roll of blind poets who have gained a death+ less fame for their effusions, two distinguished names will readily occur to remembrance-those of Homer and Milton. Happily for themselves these renowned followers of the Muses had not been always blind, and having made good use of their eyes in youth, they had little difficulty in presenting finished pictures of natural scenery and other visible objects of creation which are to be found in their compositions. Blind Harry, an eminent Scottish poet of the era of Chaucer, was less fortunate, as he was blind from birth, yet has presented many vivid descriptions of natural scenery. Dr Blacklock, the early friend and patron of Burns, blind from infancy, left behind him poetical compositions remarkable for their taste and feeling. But of modern blind poets none has excelled Carolan, the celebrated Irish musician and lyrical writer. A piece which he composed in his native Irish on the death of his wife-an event he did not long survive -has been generally admired. From a translation we extract the following lines. "Once every thought and every scene was gay, Friends, mirth, and music, all my hours employed--- Alas, the change !---to change again no more--- Adieu each gift of nature and of art, That erst adorned me in life's early prime! The soul ethereal, and the flights sublime! Thy sweetness cheers, thy judgment aids no more; And lost is every joy that charmed before." How far the deaf may be made to acquire an idea of sounds, has been a subject of much conjecture. In comparatively few cases is the auditory nerve entirely destroyed, and it is often only in a state of dormancy or secluded by superficial disease from the action of sounds. We have seen how the unfortunate boy Mitchell delighted in tingling a key or tuning-fork on his teeth. The greater number of those who are ordinarily considered deaf are keenly alive to sensations produced by music, when the instrument is brought in contact with their persons. We are told of a lady in Paris who tried an experiment upon a young woman who was both deaf and dumb. She fastened a silk thread about the girl's mouth, and rested the other end upon her pianoforte, upon which she played a pathetic air; her visitor soon appeared much affected, and at length burst into tears. When she recovered, she wrote down upon a piece of paper that she had experienced a delight which she could not express, and that it had forced her to weep. Another anecdote of the power of music over a pupil at the institution for deaf-mutes in Paris has been mentioned to us. The hand of a girl was placed on the harmonica—a musical instrument which is said to have a powerful influence over the nerves--whilst it was playing; she was then asked if she felt any sensation; she answered that she felt a new sensation enter the ends of her fingers, pass up her arms, and penetrate her heart. It is mentioned in a German journal, that, in 1750, a merchant of Cleves, named Jorrisen, who had become almost totally deaf, sitting one day near a harpsichord where some persons were playing, and having a tobacco-pipe in his mouth, the bowl of which rested against the body of the instrument, he was agreeably surprised to hear all the notes in the most distinct manner. By a little reflection and practice he again obtained the use of this valuable sense; for he soon learned by means of a piece of hard wood, one end of which he placed against his teeth, to keep up a conversation, and to be able to understand the least whisper. He soon afterwards made his beneficial discovery the subject of an inaugurate dissertation, published at Halle in 1754. The effect is the same if the person who speaks rests the stick against his throat or his breast, or when one rests the stick which he holds in his teeth against some vessel into which the other speaks. Various devices have been adopted to teach the blind to read, the most successful being that in which raised letters are employed; the touch of the fingers answering the purpose of sight. To perfect this species of printing for the blind, several kinds of letters, all more or less arbitrary in form, have been tried, in each case with some degree of success. In our opinion, however, no kind of letter is so suitable as the ordinary Roman capitals; because they have the advantage of being intelligible to the seeing without any special instruction, and can be at once adopted by persons who have lost their sight after having been taught to read. Under the fostering care of a benevolent gentleman (Mr Alston), a number of books in Roman capitals has been printed for the use of the asylum for the blind in Glasgow, as well as for general sale; and we believe they have been very generally acceptable. In this literature for the blind is the entire Bible, several works of piety, and some volumes of elementary science and general knowledge. On this plan of raised figures susceptible to the touch, maps and globes for teaching geography have been formed for the use of the blind, and are now introduced into all well-conducted asylums. It need scarcely be added, that by means of the literature and other apparatus we mention, the blind are now in most instances instructed in the more familiar branches of learning; and with the industrial exercises which they acquire, they enjoy a position in society and scale of intelligence very different from that which was occupied by their less fortunate predecessors. THE SPICE ISLANDS. HE continent of Asia, as may be observed on looking at a map, terminates on the south in three peninsulæ projected into the Indian Ocean-one being Arabia, the second Hindostan or India, and the third Siam; this last being longer and narrower than the others, and ending in a projection called Malaya, near the extremity of which is the settlement of Malacca. Carrying our eye across the Indian Ocean, we observe that off the southern point of Malaya there are numerous islands of larger and smaller dimensions; the sea for hundreds INDIAN OCEAN of miles is studded with them, and group after group stretches across the ocean almost to the northern shores of Australia. As these islands lie in an easterly direction from India, they are sometimes styled the Eastern Archipelago, and at other times the Spice Islands, because their chief produce, or at least articles of export, are pepper, cloves, nutmegs, ginger, and other spices. The principal of these fine islands are Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, Timor, and the Moluccas-the latter being more strictly called the Spice Islands by geographers; but all are equally entitled to be classed under this distinctive appellation. To the north of Borneo, in the Chinese Sea, lies an additional group of islands, the Philippines; but of these it is here unnecessary to speak. Travellers who have visited the Spice Islands describe some of them as a kind of earthly paradise. Lying under the equinoctial line, their climate is excessively hot, but they are daily fanned by sea breezes, which temper their heated atmosphere; from their mountains flow streams of pure water; their valleys are green and picturesque; and the luxuriance of their vegetation is beyond anything that the natives of northern Europe can imagine. In their thick groves swarm parrots and other birds of the gayest plumage; monkeys of various species are seen skipping from rock to rock, or darting in and out among the bushes; and wild beasts and snakes live in their thickets and jungles. The native inhabitants, whose wants are easily supplied, spend the greater part of their time in the open air, cultivating their fields, or reclining under awnings, or beneath the more delicious shade of the nutmeg trees. Inhabited chiefly by an aboriginal Malay race, some of the islands are still under the government of native chiefs or sultans; but most of them have been, in whole or part, appropriated by European powers. The Portuguese, being the first navigators who reached this part of the world by sailing round the Cape of Good Hope, acquired large possessions not only in India but in the Eastern Archipelago; but towards the end of the sixteenth century, the Dutch, animated by a vigorous spirit of commercial enterprise, dispossessed the Portuguese, and gained the ascendency in Java and other islands, finally reducing them to the condition of Dutch colonies-a change of masters which we shall immediately see brought no advantage to the unfortunate natives. object of the Dutch in getting possession of these remote Asiatic islands was to procure spices, wherewith to supply the general market of Europe; and as this was long an exceedingly profitable trade, no pains were spared to keep the Spice Islands as a kind of preserve for the special benefit of Holland. The We have two reasons for introducing these islands and their history to our readers-the first is, to show how selfishness in trade, like selfishness in everything else, is weakness and loss, and how benevolence is power and gain; the second is, to point out, by way of example, how much may be done to remedy the greatest grievances, and produce national happiness, by the efforts of one enlightened and generously-disposed mind. In the performance of this task, we shall have occasion to notice biographically one of the few great statesmen whom England has within the last half century had the good fortune to produceThomas Stamford Raffles. JAVA. For convenience we begin with an account of Java, one of the largest and finest of the Spice Islands. Java is separated from Borneo on the north by a channel called the Java Sea, and on the north-west from Sumatra by the Straits of Sunda. The island is upwards of 650 miles long, and from 60 to 130 miles broad; its whole area being about equal to that of England. Its surface is beautifully diversified with hill and valley; its soil is of the richest possible nature, and yields in abundance coffee, sugar, rice, pepper, nutmegs, and ginger. Java appears to have been peopled by a branch of the Malay race about the commencement of the Christian era. From that period to the fifteenth century, the Javanese increased in consequence and opulence, and acquired a civilisation scarcely inferior to that of the Hindoos or the Chinese; evidences of which exist in the traditions of the natives, in their literature, and in numerous architectural remains scattered over the island. Mahommedanism latterly found its way into Java, and became mingled with the doctrines and ceremonies of Buddhism and Hindooism, which had hitherto been the religions of the people. The Portuguese settled in the island in 1511; the English also established themselves in it in 1602; but ultimately the Dutch dispossessed both, and became the only European power. They continued to enjoy this sway undisturbed till the year 1811, a period of two hundred years. Any one who visited the island in 1811, would have found it generally in a more barbarous condition than it was five hundred years before. It was divided into three sections:-1. The Dutch possessions, properly so called, meaning that part in which the Dutch power was absolute; 2. The kingdom of the Susuhúnan, or hereditary Javanese emperor; and, 3. The territories of the Sultan, another native prince. The last two sections, however, were not really independent-they were subordinate or tributary to the Dutch. At this period the entire population amounted to about five millions, consisting of Dutch, Javanese, foreigners, and slaves. The Dutch inhabited principally the provinces of Jacatra and Bantam in the west, and the northern line of coast as far as the small island of Madura. Here they had built numerous towns and villages, the two largest being the city of Batavia, the population of which at one time exceeded 160,000, and the city of Surabaya, with a population of about 80,000. Firmly fixed in their possessions, and supported by a military and naval force, the Dutch seem to have had but one object in view, |