decayed around its gnarled and fantastic root, singleleaved and simple of form, like the Scolopendria of our caverns and rock recesses, or fretted into many a slim pinnate leaflet, like the minute maiden-hair or the graceful lady-fern. Flying reptiles have perched amid its boughs; the light winged dragon-fly has darted on wings of gauze through the openings of its lesser twigs; the tortoise and the lizard have hybernated during the chills of winter amid the hollows of its roots; for many years it formed one of the minor features in a wild picturesque scene, on which human eye never looked; and at length, touched by decay, its upper branches began to wither and bleach white in the winds of heaven; when shaken by a sudden hurricane that came roaring adown the ravine, the mass of rock in which it had been anchored at once gave way, and, bearing fast jammed among its roots a fragment of the mass which we still find there, and from which we read a portion of its story, it was precipitated into the foaming torrent. Dancing on the eddies, or lingering amid the pools, or shooting, arrow-like, adown the rapids, it at length finds its way to the sea; and after sailing over beds of massive coral-the ponderous Isastrea and more delicate Thamnastrea-and after disturbing the Enaliosaur and Belemnite in their deep green haunts, it sinks, saturated with water, into a bed of arenaceous mud, to make its appearance, after long ages, in the world of man-a marble mummy of the old Oolite forest-and to be curiously interrogated regarding its character and history.

[Glaciers in Scotland.]

The glaciers of Scotland have, like its icebergs, contributed their distinctive quota to the scenery of the country. The smoothed and rounded prominences of the hills, bare and gray amid the scanty heath, and that often, after a sudden shower, gleam bright to the sun, like the sides and bows of windward-beating vessels wet by the spray of a summer gale, form well-marked features in the landscapes of the north-western parts of Sutherland and Ross, especially in the gneiss and quartz-rock districts. The lesser islets, too, of these tracts, whether they rise in some solitary lochan among the hills, or in some arm of the sea that deeply indents the coast, still bear the rounded form originally communicated by the ice, and in some instances remind the traveller of huge whales heaving their smooth backs over the brine. Further, we not unfrequently see the general outline of the mountains affected; all their peaks and precipices curved backwards in the direction whence the glacier descended, and more angular and abrupt in the direction towards which it descended. But it is in those groups of miniature hills, composed of glacial debris, which so frequently throng the openings of our Highland valleys, and which Burns so graphically describes in a single line as

Hillocks dropt in Nature's careless haste, that perhaps the most pleasing remains of our ancient glaciers are to be found. They seem to be modified moraines, and usually affect regular forms, resembling in some instances the roofs of houses, and in some the bottoms of upturned ships; and, grouped thick together, and when umbrageous with the graceful birch, or waving from top to base with the light fronds of the lady-fern and the bracken, they often compose scenes of a soft and yet wild loveliness, from which the landscapegardener might be content to borrow, and which seem to have impressed in a very early age the Celtic imagination. They constitute the fairy Tomhans of Highland | mythology; and many a curious legend still survives, to tell of benighted travellers who, on one certain night of the year, of ghostly celebrity, have seen open doors in their green sides, whence gleams of dazzling light fell on the thick foliage beyond, and have heard voices of

merriment and music resounding from within; or who, mayhap, incautiously entering, have listened entranced to the song, or stood witnessing the dance, until, returning to the open air, they have found that, in what seemed a brief half-hour, half a lifetime had passed away. There are few of the remoter valleys of the Highlands that have not their groups of fairy Tomhans-memorials of the age of ice.

[The National Intellect of England and Scotland.]

There is an order of English mind to which Scotland has not attained: our first men stand in the second rank, not a foot-breadth behind the foremost of England's second-rank men; but there is a front rank of British intellect in which there stands no Scotchman. Like that class of the mighty men of David, to which Abishai and Benaiah belonged-great captains, who went down into pits in the time of snow and slew lions, or 'who lifted up the spear against three hundred men at once, and prevailed'-they attained not, with all their greatness, to the might of the first class. Scotland has produced no Shakspeare; Burns and Sir Walter Scott united would fall short of the stature of the giant of Avon. Of Milton we have not even a representative. A Scotch poet has been injudiciously named as not greatly inferior, but I shall not do wrong to the memory of an ingenious young man [Pollok], cut off just as he had mastered his powers, by naming him again in a connection so perilous. He at least was guiltless of the comparison; and it would be cruel to involve him in the ridicule which it is suited to excite. Bacon is as exclusively unique as Milton, and as exclusively English; and though the grandfather of Newton was a Scotchman, we have certainly no Scotch Sir Isaac. I question, indeed, whether any Scotchman attains to the powers of Locke: there is as much solid thinking in the Essay on the Human Understanding, greatly as it has become the fashion of the age to depreciate it, and notwithstanding his fundamental error, as in the works of all our Scotch metaphysicians put together. It is, however, a curious fact, and worthy, certainly, of careful examination, as bearing on the question of development purely through the force of circumstances, that all the very great men of England-all its first-class men-belong to ages during which the grinding persecutions of the Stuarts repressed Scottish energy, and crushed the opening mind of the country; and that no sooner was the weight removed, like a pavement slab from over a flower-bed, than straightway Scottish intellect sprung up, and attained to the utmost height to which English intellect was rising at the time. The English philosophers and literati of the eighteenth century were of a greatly lower stature than the Miltons and Shakspeares, Bacons and Newtons, of the two previous centuries; they were second-class men-the tallest, however, of their age anywhere; and among these the men of Scotland take no subordinate place. Though absent from the competition in the previous century, through the operation of causes palpable in the history of the time, we find them quite up to the mark for the age in which they appear. No English philosopher for the last hundred and fifty years produced a greater revolution in human affairs than Adam Smith; or exerted a more powerful influence on opinion than David Hume; or did more to change the face of the mechanical world than James Watt. The History of England produced by a Scotchman is still emphatically the English History;' nor, with all its defects, is it likely to be soon superseded. Robertson, if inferior in the untaught felicities of narration to his illustrious countryman, is at least inferior to none of his English contemporaries. The prose fictions of Smollett have kept their ground quite as well as those of Fielding, and better than those of Richardson. Nor does England during the century exhibit higher manifestations of the

poetic spirit than those exhibited by Thomson and by Burns. To use a homely but expressive Scotticism, Scotland seems to have lost her bairn-time of the giants; but in the after bairn-time of merely tall men, her children were quite as tall as any of their contemporaries.

MR DAVID THOMAS ANSTED (born in London in 1812), Professor of Geology at King's College, London, has written several valuable works on his favourite science. The most popular of these is his Geology, Introductory, Descriptive, and Practical, two volumes, 1844; The Ancient World, or Picturesque Sketches of Great Britain, 1847; also several geological manuals.

progress spread desolation over the earth. But the reptiles that crawled upon the half-finished surface of our infant planet, have left memorials of their passage enduring and indelible.'

MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.

SIR HUMPHRY DAVY.

patrician, poetical and discursive, whose views on religion entered the verge of scepticism. The former he calls Ambrosio ; the latter, Onuphrio. Another interlocutor is named Philalethes. We subjoin part of their dialogues.

[The Future State of Human Beings.]

In the first year of this section appeared Consolations in Travel, or the Last Days of a Philosopher, by SIR HUMPHRY DAVY (1778-1829). The celebrated chemist united the fancy of a poet to the ardour for science which pre-eminently distinguished The late PROFESSOR JOHN FLEMING, Edinburgh him, and this posthumous volume contains some (1785-1857), did much to advance natural science finely written speculations on moral and ethical in Scotland. His principal works are-The Philos-questions, with descriptions of Italian scenery. The ophy of Zoology, two volumes, 1822; The History of work is in the form of dialogues between a liberal British Animals, 1828; Molluscous Animals, including and accomplished Roman Catholic and an English Shell Fish, 1837; The Temperature of the Seasons, 1851; On the Different Branches of Natural History (Address at the meeting of the British Association), 1855; The Lithology of Edinburgh, 1858; and various papers in the scientific journals. Dr Fleming was born at Kirkroads, near Bathgate, Linlithgowshire. He entered the Scottish church, and was successively minister of Bressay in Shetland, Flisk in Fifeshire, and Clackmannan. He afterwards was Professor of Natural Philosophy in King's College, Aberdeen; and from 1845 till his death, Professor of Natural Science in the New Free Church College, Edinburgh. The most valuable of his works is the History of British Animals, which embraces a palæontological history of animals, as well as an account of the present existing races. In his geological views, Dr Fleming was opposed to the theory of Sir Charles Lyell. Another early student of geology in Scotland was MR CHARLES MACLAREN, Edinburgh, who has published an account of the Geology of Fife and the Lothians, 1839. Before this, he had contributed to various scientific journals, and written a Dissertation on the Topography of the Plain of Troy, 1822. Mr Maclaren was the original editor of The Scotsman, Edinburgh newspaper, commencing in 1817, and he still enriches its columns with notes and remarks on scientific subjects.

Ambrosio. Revelation has not disclosed to us the nature of this state, but only fixed its certainty. We are sure from geological facts, as well as from sacred history, that man is a recent animal on the globe, and that this globe has undergone one considerable revolution, since the creation, by water; and we are taught that it is to undergo another, by fire, preparatory to a new and glorified state of existence of man; but this is all we are permitted to know, and as this state is to be entirely different from the present one of misery and probation, any knowledge respecting it would be useless, and indeed almost impossible.

Philalethes. My genius has placed the more exalted spiritual natures in cometary worlds, and this last fiery revolution may be produced by the appulse of a comet.

tion;

Amb. Human fancy may imagine a thousand ways in which it may be produced; but upon such notions it is absurd to dwell. I will not allow your genius the slightest approach to inspiration, and I can admit no verisimility in a reverie which is fixed on a foundation Popular views of physical science in almost every you now allow to be so weak. But see, the twilight is department will be found in the works of DR beginning to appear in the orient sky, and there are DIONYSIUS LARDNER (1793-1859). These aresome dark clouds on the horizon opposite to the crater Hand-book of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, three of Vesuvius, the lower edges of which transmit a bright volumes, 1851-53; Museum of Science and Art, twelve light, shewing the sun is already risen in the country volumes, 1854-56; Railway Economy, 1850; with beneath them. I would say that they may serve as an treatises on Hydrostatics and Pneumatics, Heat, &c. image of the hopes of immortality derived from revelaThe REV. HENRY DUNCAN (1774-1846) of Ruth- clouds that the lands below us are in the brightest sunfor we are sure from the light reflected in those well, in Dumfriesshire, published a series of readings shine, but we are entirely ignorant of the surface and in natural history and science, entitled The Sacred the scenery; so, by revelation, the light of an imperishPhilosophy of the Seasons. Though chiefly a compil-able and glorious world is disclosed to us; but it is in ation, this work is pervaded by a fine benevolent eternity, and its objects cannot be seen by mortal eye or spirit and love of nature, and embodies the results imaged by mortal imagination. of most recent discoveries and striking scientific facts. The author is known as the founder of savings' banks in this country. He was also the first to discover the footprints of animals, supposed to be tortoises, on sandstone rocks in a quarry in Dumfriesshire. Dr Buckland, who followed up the search for fossil remains with so much ardour, beautifully remarks of these 'footsteps before the Flood: The historian may have pursued the line of march of triumphant conquerors whose armies trampled down the most mighty kingdoms of the world. The winds and storms have utterly obliterated the ephemeral impressions of their course. Not a track remains of a single foot, or a single hoof of all the countless millions of men and beasts whose

เ

Phil. I am not so well read in the Scriptures as I hope I shall be at no very distant time; but I believe the pleasures of heaven are mentioned more distinctly than you allow in the sacred writings. I think I remember that the saints are said to be crowned with palms and amaranths, and that they are described as perpetually hymning and praising God.

Amb. This is evidently only metaphorical; music is the sensual pleasure which approaches nearest to an intellectual one, and probably may represent the delight resulting from the perception of the harmony of things and of truth seen in God. The palm as an evergreen tree, and the amaranth a perdurable flower, are emblems of immortality. If I am allowed to give a metaphorical allusion to the future state of the blest, I should

practice is also necessary, since it is one thing to see that a line is crooked, and another thing to be able to draw a straight one. It is not quite so easy to do good as those may imagine who never try.

WILLIAM MAGINN.

Light for long was his heart, though his breeches
were thin,

Else his acting for certain was equal to Quin;
But at last he was beat, and sought help of the bin-
All the same to the doctor from claret to gin-
Which led swiftly to jail and consumption therein.
It was much when the bones rattled loose in the skin,
He got leave to die here out of Babylon's din.
Barring drink and the girls, I ne'er heard a sin:
Many worse, better few, than bright, broken MAGINN.

This gentleman, one of the most distinguished periodical writers of his day, a scholar and wit, has left scarcely any permanent memorial of his genius or acquirements. He was born at Cork in 1794, and at an early period of life assisted his father in conducting an academy in that city. He received his degree of LL.D. in his twenty-fourth year. In 1819 Maginn commenced contributing to Blackwood's Magazine. His papers were lively, learned, and libellous-an alliterative enumeration which may be applied to nearly all he wrote. He was a keen political partisan, a Tory of the old Orange stamp, who gave no quarter to an opponent. At the same time there was so much scholarly wit and literary power about Maginn's contributions, that all parties read and admired him. For nine years he was one of the most constant writers in Blackwood. He had removed to London in 1823, and adopted literature as a profession. In 1824 Mr Murray the publisher commenced a daily newspaper, The Representative. Mr Disraeli was editor, and Maginn was engaged as foreign or Paris correspondent. His residence in France, however, was short; the Representative soon went down, and Maginn returned to London to 'spin his daily bread out of his brains." He was associated with Dr Giffard in conducting the Standard newspaper, and when Fraser's Magazine was established in 1880, he became one of its chief literary supporters. One article in this periodical, a review of Berkeley Castle, led to a hostile meeting between Maginn and the Hon. Grantley Berkeley. Mr Berkeley had assaulted Fraser, the publisher of the offensive criticism, when Maginn wrote to him, stating that he was the author. Hence the challenge and the duel. The parties exchanged shots three several times, but without any serious result. Happily, scenes and such literary personalities have passed away. The remainder of Maginn's literary career was irregular. Habits of intemperance gained ground upon him; he was often arrested and in jail; but his good-humour seems never to have forsaken him. He wrote a series of admirable Shakspeare papers for Blackwood in 1837, and in the following year he commenced a series of Homeric ballads, which extended to sixteen in number. In 1842 he was again in The elder of these brothers-sons of an English prison; his embarrassments increased, and his health gentleman, James Roper Head, Esq.-was author gave way. One of his friends wrote to Sir Robert of Forest Scenes in North America, 1829, and Home Peel, acquainting him with the lamentable condi-Tours in England, 1835-37. The Home Tours were tion of Dr Maginn, and the minister took steps for the relief of the poor author, at the same time transmitting what has been termed a 'splendid gift. Maginn died on the 29th of August 1842. The sort of estimation in which he was held by his contemporaries may be gathered from the following rhyming epitaph on him by Lockhart:

ALEXANDER AND JOHN BETHUNE.

These humble but noble-minded brothers, sons of a farm-labourer in Fifeshire, cultivated literature under circumstances the most discouraging, and with a spirit of independence and virtuous selfreliance above all praise. ALEXANDER BETHUNE (1804-1843) commenced his career as an author by contributing to Chambers's Edinburgh Journal in the year 1835. In 1838 he published a volume of Tales and Sketches of the Scottish Peasantry. JOHN BETHUNE (1810-1839) wrote a small portion of the work, and in 1839 appeared another joint-production, a treatise on Practical Economy. After John's death, Alexander collected a volume of poetical pieces, and published them (1840) with an interesting and affecting memoir of his brother's. life. In 1843, Alexander published a second volume of tales, The Scottish Peasant's Fireside; and in the same year he was offered the editorship of a weekly newspaper, The Dumfries Standard, but his health was now gone, and he died on the 13th of June 1843. The education of those remarkable men was confined to a few months' schooling; they had both wrought as labourers, working in quarries or breaking stones on the highway, and though they had occasionally short glimpses of prosperity, they never Out of their rose above the humblest condition. scanty wages they maintained their parents and built a house for them, mostly with their own hands. Alexander was offered pecuniary assistance, but declined it. such

Here, early to bed, lies kind WILLIAM MAGINN,
Who, with genius, wit, learning, life's trophies to win,
Had neither great lord nor rich cit of his kin,
Nor discretion to set himself up as to tin;
So his portion soon spent-like the poor heir of
He turned author ere yet there was beard on his chin,
And, whoever was out, or whoever was in,

His parents and brother were then gone, and he had saved sufficient to defray the expenses of his illness and his funeral. The prose and poetry of the Bethunes bear no tokens of their imperfect education; all is simple, truthful, and correct-often elegant.

SIR GEORGE AND SIR FRANCIS BOND HEAD.

made in the manufacturing districts, through which the author travelled as a Poor-law Commissioner, and were written in a light, pleasing style. He afterwards applied himself to a laborious topographical and antiquarian account of Rome, in three volumes, 1849, and he translated Cardinal Pacca's Memoirs and Apuleius' Metamorphoses. He died in 1855, aged seventy-three.

His brother, FRANCIS BOND HEAD (born January 1, 1793), has had more vivacity and spirit as an author, though retaining many of the family characteristics. While a captain in the army, he published Lynn-Rough Notes taken during some Rapid Journeys Across the Pampas and among the Andes, 1826. The work was exceedingly popular, and the reputation of 'Galloping Head,' as the gay captain was termed, was increased by his Bubbles from the Brunnen of Nassau. He was appointed governor of Upper Canada in 1835, and created a baronet in 1837;

For your Tories his fine Irish brains he would spin,
Who received prose and rhyme with a promising grin
"Go ahead, you queer fish, and more power to your fin,'
But to save from starvation stirred never a pin.

but his administrative was not equal to his literary talent, and he was forced to resign in 1838. He published a Narrative of his Administration, which was more amusing than convincing. Turning again to purely literary pursuits, Sir Francis wrote The Emigrant, 1852, and essays in the Quarterly Review, afterwards republished in a collected form with the title of Stokers and Pokers-Highways and Byways. The national defences of this country appearing to Sir Francis lamentably deficient, he issued a note of warning, The Defenceless State of Great Britain, 1850. Visits to Paris and Ireland produced Faggot of French Sticks, or Paris in 1851, and 4 Fortnight in Ireland, 1852. All these works are lively and entertaining. The judgments and opinions of the author are often rash and prejudiced, but he is seldom dull, and common-place incidents are related in a picturesque and attractive manner.

[Description of the Pampas.]

The great plain, or pampas, on the east of the Cordillera, is about nine hundred miles in breadth, and the part which I have visited, though under the same latitude, is divided into regions of different climate and produce. On leaving Buenos Ayres, the first of these regions is covered for one hundred and eighty miles with clover and thistles; the second region, which extends for four hundred and fifty miles, produces long grass; and the third region, which reaches the base of the Cordillera, is a grove of low trees and shrubs. The second and third of these regions have nearly the same appearance throughout the year, for the trees and shrubs are evergreens, and the immense plain of grass only changes its colour from green to brown; but the first region varies with the four seasons of the year in a most extraordinary manner. In winter the leaves of the thistles are large and luxuriant, and the whole surface of the country has the rough appearance of a turnip-field. The clover in this season is extremely rich and strong; and the sight of the wild cattle grazing in full liberty on such pasture is very beautiful. In spring the clover has vanished, the leaves of the thistles have extended along the ground, and the country still looks like a rough crop of turnips. In less than a month the change is most extraordinary: the whole region becomes a luxuriant wood of enormous thistles, which have suddenly shot up to a height of ten or eleven feet, and are all in full bloom. The road or path is hemmed in on both sides; the view is completely obstructed; not an animal is to be seen; and the stems of the thistles are so close to each other, and so strong, that, independent of the prickles with which they are armed, they form an impenetrable barrier. The sudden growth of these plants is quite astonishing; and though it would be an unusual misfortune in military history, yet it is really possible that an invading army, unacquainted with this country, might be imprisoned by these thistles before it had time to escape from them. The summer is not over before the scene undergoes another rapid change: the thistles suddenly lose their sap and verdure, their heads droop, the leaves shrink and fade, the stems become black and dead, and they remain rattling with the breeze one against another, until the violence of the pampero or hurricane levels them with the ground, where they rapidly decompose and disappear-the clover rushes up, and the scene is again verdant.

[A French Commissionnaire.]

In Paris this social luxury has been so admirably supplied, that, like iced water at Naples, the community could now hardly exist without it. Accordingly, at the intersection of almost all the principal streets, there is posted by the police an intelligent, respectable-looking

man-there are about twelve thousand of them-
cleanly dressed in blue velveteen trousers, and a blue
corduroy jacket, on the breast of which is affixed a brass
ticket, invariably forfeited by misconduct, bearing his
occupation and number. The duties of this commis-
sionnaire are not only at various fixed prices to go
messages in any direction, and at determined rates to
perform innumerable other useful services, but he is
especially directed to assist aged and infirm people of
both sexes in crossing streets crowded with carriages,
and to give to strangers, who may inquire their way,
The luxury of living,
every possible assistance.
wherever you may happen to lodge, within reach of a
person of this description, is very great. For instance,
within fifty yards of my lodgings, there was an active,
honest, intelligent dark-blue fellow, who was to me a
living book of useful knowledge. Crumpling up the
newspaper he was usually reading, he could in the
middle of a paragraph, and at a moment's notice, get me
any sort of carriage-recommend me to every description
of shop-tell me the colour of the omnibus I wanted-
where I was to find it-where I was to leave it-how I
ought to dress to go here, there, or anywhere: what was
done in the House of Assembly last night-who spoke
best-what was said of his speech-and what the world
thought of things in general.

[The Electric Wires, and Tawell the Murderer.]

Whatever may have been his fears-his hopes-his fancies-or his thoughts-there suddenly flashed along the wires of the electric telegraph, which were stretched close beside him, the following words: 'A murder has just been committed at Salthill, and the suspected murderer was seen to take a first-class ticket for London by the train which left Slough at 7 h. 42 m. P. M. He is in the garb of a Quaker, with a brown greatcoat on, which reaches nearly down to his feet. He is in the last compartment of the second first-class carriage.'

And yet, fast as these words flew like lightning past him, the information they contained, with all its details, as well as every secret thought that had preceded them, had already consecutively flown millions of times faster; indeed, at the very instant that, within the walls of the little cottage at Slough, there had been uttered that dreadful scream, it had simultaneously reached the judgment-seat of Heaven!

On arriving at the Paddington station, after mingling for some moments with the crowd, he got into an omnibus, and as it rumbled along, taking up one passenger and putting down another, he probably felt that his identity was every minute becoming confounded and confused by the exchange of fellow-passengers for strangers that was constantly taking place. But all the time he was thinking, the cad of the omnibus-a policeman in disguiseknew that he held his victim like a rat in a cage. Without, however, apparently taking the slightest notice of him, he took one sixpence, gave change for a shilling, handed out this lady, stuffed in that one, until, arriving at the bank, the guilty man, stooping as he walked towards the carriage-door, descended the steps; paid his fare; crossed over to the Duke of Wellington's statue, where pausing for a few moments, anxiously to gaze around him, he proceeded to the Jerusalem Coffeehouse, thence over London Bridge to the Leopard Coffeehouse in the Borough, and finally to a lodging-house in Scott's Yard, Cannon Street.

He probably fancied that, by making so many turns and doubles, he had not only effectually puzzled all pursuit, but that his appearance at so many coffee-houses would assist him, if necessary, in proving an alibi; but, whatever may have been his motives or his thoughts, he had scarcely entered the lodging when the policemanwho, like a wolf, had followed him every step of the way

opening his door, very calmly said to him-the words no doubt were infinitely more appalling to him even

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