mended him, upon the whole, as the best thing "Hic sinuosa volumina versat, The delusion as to the substance and weight of the bird was perfect. At first we doubted being able to lift him without considerable effort. On making the attempt, however, we find him light as a Nola jar. A glorious bird is the eagle, well worthy the attention and regard bestowed on him in ancient times by prophet, priest, and poet; but had they been silent, we should have learned the veneration in which he was popularly held by the frequent recurrence of his image - whether incised on Egyptian obelisk, chiselled by Grecian hands on ornamented casque, guarding the tombs of heroes, grasping the thunderbolts of colossal Joves, perched on Latin standards, carrying off young Ganymedes to wait, invitâ Junone, on the gods above*— bearing aloft, on consecrated coin, some most religious and gracious Augusta to Glory and to Olympus! - or One day, meeting the elder Cadet in the street returning alone from the bird-market- a very unusual occurrence, for they generally hunted in couples-we asked after the daughter, and hearing she was ammalata assai, and wanted one of our little pills to set her to rights, turned in with the mother, and found the young naturalista reclining on an ill-stuffed bergère, with a large Coluber coiled round her temples, and a half prepared Hoopoe in her hand. In the same apartment were a vulture picking an old shoe to pieces under the belly of an Esquimaux dog, and some little land-tortoises nibbling away at a large lettuce in the middle of the floor. Our inquiries were somewhat embarrassed by the unusual circumstances of our patient, particularly by the presence of the snake, which now began to untwist. "See! he has recognized his master," said the dame: "or perhaps has raised his head with a view of taking part in the consultation." We had seen snakes entwining the lovely brow of Medusa, in marble, cameo, and intaglio — and painted snakes in clusters hissing in the hair of the Eumenides-but a living snake wound round living temples we had never seen till to-day. "Come, sir, you are only the snake to Esculapius; and though I am not ungrateful for what you have done in refreshing my hot forehead with your cool skin, now the doctor is come bon giorno!" and, removing him like a turban from her head, she placed him in a box at her side. This was, then, that Epidaurian Coluber which we had so frequently seen in marble effigy wound round the consultation cane of the God of Physic,† and not to be viewed by us alive for the first time without interest. "Mother," said the younger Cadet, brightening up when she perceived this, "Invitâque Jovia nectar Junone ministrat."-Ovid. † Divine honors were first paid to this snake in Rome on occasion of a great pestilence which prevailed during the consulate of Q Fabius and J. Brutus. His form, rudely sculptured, and much water-worn, is still to be made out on the side of a stone barque, stranded in a Tiber-washed garden belonging to a convent of Franciscans, which convent, rich in Christian as well as these Pagan relics, possesses the complete osteology of two of the Apostles. 66 bring our snake-boxes, and let us show them all to the dottore." In less than five minutes the cases were before us. The first contained a mother blind-worm and her viviparous family of ten offspring, not two inches long, while she stretched to about twelve. A Coluber Natrix inhabited the second. "He is a great favorite with children in Sardinia," said Cadet, "twisting himself round their arms, and sucking milk from their mouths; but if these supplies fail, he feeds on frogs and fish. His flesh is a sovereign remedy, say our doctors, in skin diseases; and they also say--but you know best how true this may bethat one of the late Dukes of Bavaria became a father by merely eating fowls that had been fattened on them." A Coluber Austriacus followed —a rare snake, and chiefly remarkable for his pleasant herbaceous smell, very unlike what proceeded from a neighboring box, holding a Coluber Viperinus, who secretes, when irritated, a yellow fluid of intense fœtor, like the mixed stinks from asafoetida and rotten eggs. The specimen in this box was large. It had vomited, we were told, two frogs the day after its capture; and on cutting open another of the same species, Annetta had seen a living toad creep, Jonaslike, from the paunch, and make the best of three legs to escape, the fourth being already disposed of, and digested in the body of the serpent. The solitary Coluber Atro-virens passed next in review. She gave him a character for preferring good cheer to the best company, ex gr. — Out of two taken last week, one only survived; the other devoured his friend in the night, and next morning they found his enormously distended body dilated almost to transparency, and palpitating under the feeble movement of the victim, doubled up in his inside, but not yet dead. Being very exclusive, some call him “il milordo ;" others, from the beauty of his color, “ il bello." When about to moult, his wonted vivacity changes to moroseness. Like a mad dog, he will snap at every thing. Perhaps the loss of all his beauty, which then takes place, may account for such peevishness. A glaucomatous state of the eye always precedes by some days the moult, which is accomplished by the skin cracking from the jaws, and afterwards being reflected over the head and shoulders, till by degrees the snake skins himself alive, leaving his old investment turned completely inside out. As gross a feeder as an alderman, he more frequently recovers from a surfeit, perhaps, because, though a glutton, he will not touch wine. Snakes are not so plentiful about Rome as further south. Terracina in particular swarms with them, as did its ancient predecessor Amycle, which was once nearly depopulated by them. Their chief haunt hereabouts is two miles beyond the Porta Salara, at a place called Serpentina, on the opposite side of the Tiber, and nearly in front of the embouchure of the Cremara. At last we come to the family viper box, which perhaps we "would like to peep into with our gloves on?" "Per Carita, no," said we, seizing the naturalista's handon no account a bite would be no joke!" Cadet laughed, observing that curiosity should not be baulked by timidity for a trifle. "A trifle! had she ever been bitten, then?" "Come? sicuro ogni anno." It was of familiar occurrence: the part would swell, be stiff and sore for a couple of days, but that was all. Fontana found that it required four large and very angry vipers to kill a dog- of course it must require as many to kill a man. As to the Egyptian Queen's death being caused by a viper's bite, that question having been properly ventilated, (ventillata) by Professor Lancisci, might be considered as set at rest. One viper could not kill one person, much less three; and we might remember that Cleopatra's memorable asp is said to have bitten two maids of honor, Neæra and Carmione, before it came to her turn, by which time the poison must have been expended and the viper's tooth dry. "Two things," added she, "I have noted about vipers; one regards the parturient viper, and is to the effect that, a prisoner, she never survives her confinement many days; long before the quarante jours y compris l'accouchement* are over, she has ceased to be a mother and a viper. The other regards her progeny, and is this; that young viperlings come into the world in full maturity of malice, offering to bite as soon as their mouths are open, and flying at each other when they have no other society to attack. We have five varieties in Rome." "Is the viper deaf, Cadet ?" "You should read the experiments of Peter Manni, a great friend of ours who tames snakes; these will completely satisfy your curiosity on this point:" and she fetched us the work of Manni, in which he gives a curious account of the influence exercised upon several varieties of the species by the sound of a pianoforte, and afterwards goes on to relate the effects produced upon the same serpents by electricity and light. "The Viper,” says he, " was impassive to the second of these agents, suffering a lighted candle to be brought close to his eyes before he turned away his head; of the harmless snakes, Coluber Esculapius came up to look at a lighted torch, but, finding it too strong for him, gnashed his teeth and bolted; Coluber Elaphis bore the beat of a lighted candle in his mouth with apparent indifference; but the Coluber Atro-virens flew at it in a passion, snapping and biting while he strug *See the Affiche of the Parisian Sage Femme; passim. gled to retreat; he also appeared most distressed under the application of slight electric shocks, from which indeed all the snakes suffered, and the smaller ones died." The action of some poisons upon snakes is similar to that on our own economy. For instance, on administering half a grain of strychnine to a full-grown Coluber Atro-virens four minutes elapsed before any change was visible. During this period the snake moved in the hand with his usual vivacity; the flesh then began to grow rigid under the finger; and in half a minute, the whole body, with the exception of three inches of coil, was seized with a tetanic spasm the beautiful imbrication of the scales was dislocated by the violence of the muscular action, and the sleek round cylinder of the body was hardened into knots and reduced to half its former bulk. Reviving for a few seconds, the snake started, opened its jaws, but immediately afterwards became stiff and motionless except at the tail, which continued to exhibit feeble contractile action for about twenty minutes. After death, the body, losing its unnatural rigidity, became unnaturally supple, seemed without a spine, and might be doubled upon itself like a ribbon. In two cases which we witnessed of individuals poisoned by strychnine, similar tetanic phenomena were observed. Corrosive sublimate and prussic acid do not appear to act on snakes either with such violence or rapidity as on warmblooded animals; for a dose of three grains of the former, and several drops of the latter (Majendie's), remained inactive for a quarter of an hour; then, two grains of arsenic being added, the snake suddenly raised his head half a foot from the ground, remained motionless as in a trance, for a minute, then fell back quite dead. We are not proud of these experiments, nor do we intend to repeat such; but having been guilty of them, the recital of the results can do no harm. What various and even opposite qualities, owing to the supposed versatility of his character, have been ever attributed to the serpent! Viewed as fancy dictated, under different phases, men were not content to ascribe to him their vices only, but must also attribute to him most of their moral excellences: wisdom, prudence, vigilance, fortitude, and sobriety, were all his; he was symbolical of the divine nature, of eternity, and of youth. Long before viper broth was used in medicine, the Coluber was at Hygeia's side by the fountain of health, and was twined round the stick of Esculapius, at once silent and expeditious in his motion. Harpocrates favored, and Mercury the Olympic messenger employed him as his deputy; though victim on one occasion to the archery of Appllo, the god of verse found something in his "winding 'bout Of linked structure long drawn out," so akin to poetry (particularly to the kind called epic) that he took an additional cognomen (Pytheus) out of compliment to him; whilst Alexander and Augustus, those worthy descendants of Jove (whom he is said to have befriended in his amours), stamped his image on their coins, and assumed it as their crest. So far we behold him in favor both with gods and men ; but opinions vary, applause is inconstant; and accordingly we equally find him charged with envy, hatred, malice, hypocrisy, ingratitude, cruelty, and almost every other vice. He is also accused of devastating towns, of usurping islands,* of impeding armies,† of destroying priests at the altar, and it is certain that he lent his name to heresy, and permitted the great Heresiarch to assume his form in order to beguile Eve.— Blackwood's Mag. CHARITY A DOUBLE BLESSING. There is no virtue in being relieved; a poor man is not a better man for the charity he receives; it brings with it an increase of duty, and calls upon him for a more sure trust in God, for greater thankfulness to him; and some obligations it lays him under with regard to his benefactors here. And it may happen, that the charity which is his present relief, may be a burden upon his future account; and will be so, if he misapplies the gift. But the giver has a better prospect before him; charity is the discharge of duty, and has the general promises of obedience; it is a virtue likewise distinguished from the rest, and has its own reward; the blessing of the life which is, and of that which is to come; it is a debt which God will own at the last day; it is a treasure transferred to heaven, and will be repaid in never-failing riches. To conclude, charity is a double maintenance; it gives temporal life to the poor and spritual life to the rich; it bestows the comforts of the world on the receiver, and the glories of immortality on the giver.Bishop Sherlock. MUSIC FOR THE MILLION.-The Manchester tradesmen are really producing this long promised phenomenon. Many of them are wrapping up their tea, coffee, snuff, tobacco, &c., in paper on which are printed many of the popular songs of old England; - furnishing their cus tomers with music at positively the cheapest rate ever yet attained.- Universe. *Colubraria insula maris Balearinci colubris scatens, vulg. Dragonera. † Vide Aulus Gellius, lib. vi. Translated for the Daguerreotype. THE CLOCK IN STRASBURG MINSTER. Incomprehensible and solitary, like, matician, Schwilgué, to the present state of science, has now been going four years. My friend at last appeared, and we had barely time to push our way through the crowd and to ascend the small winding staircase which leads into the four stories of the clock, and the small balcony in which we were suspended like swallows, against this mathematical monument, looking down perpendicularly, upon a dense mass of heads, whose eyes and lips were all fixed upon one point. On one of the lower galleries, an angel, guarded by lions which formerly roared, and holding a sceptre and bells in its hands, strikes the quarters, and another turns round the hour-glass. In an upper space, the four ages of life then step forward: the child strikes the first quarter with its thyrsus upon a bell, the youth strikes the half hour with his arrow, the armed warrior the third quarter with his sword, and the old man the fourth with his crutch; then Death appears and strikes the hour with his bone, and as the sound of the last stroke dies away, the figure of Christ comes forward in a yet higher story, and raises its right arm as for a blessing; the twelve Apostles, one after the other, pass before him, and, in passing, incline themselves before the Saviour, who, in conclusion, gives his blessing to the spectators; their eyes, in the meanwhile, turn to the cock who proudly sits high up on a small tower; he flaps his wings, stretches out his head and his tail, ruffles his neck, and thrice his shrill crowing sounds loud and clear. all that is great and true, rises the Minster of Strasburg. I walked round and round it, and sought the entrance at which stands Erwin's statue, the figure of Justice. On the opposite side of the church is the portal on which is the martyrdom of St. Laurentius, within an arbor, as it were, of stone, open all around and full of hanging grapevines. In the principal entrance on the left are the wise virgins with their lamps, innocent and simple; on the right are saints, with demons, or evil spirits under their heels; on the one gate are angels above angels, on the other, martyrs. As I look up and down and contemplate the countless images of stone in their niches, their stiffened lips are loosened; I hear their voices, their hymns; the whole pile becomes melody; the swell of separate tones melts into one gigantic symphony. A countryman was sitting cosily with his wife upon one of the steps of the church, smoking his pipe. Near them I sheltered myself in a recess of the wall from the midday sun, and there awaited the friend who was to take me to the restored clock, the work of Dasypodius and of the Habrechts, the great masterpiece of the sixteenth century, which has been celebrated in German and Latin by the poets of that age, Xylander, Fischart, Crusius, Cell, and Frischlin, and which, according to the Latin inscription on the portal of the archiepiscopal palace at Mayence, is one of the seven wonders of Germany, "the tower at Strassburg, the choir at Cologne, the clock at Strassburg, the organ at Ulm, the fair at Frankfort, the works of art at Nuremberg, and the hôtel de ville at Augsburg." There is a popular tradition, according to which, the magistrates or clergy of Strassburg caused the eyes of the builder of this old clock to be put out, in order that he might not achieve another work of the kind; and he, to revenge himself, with a single push deranged the whole machine, so that no one was able to repair it. The origin of this tradition may be, that the sister of the two Habrechts became blind about the same time that Josias, the younger of these Schaffhausen mechanics was invited, before the works were quite completed, by the Elector of Cologne, to erect an astronomical clock in the castle of Kaiserswörth. Among the old paintings which adorn the case of the clock, one of the most conspicuous is the portrait of Copernicus, according to whose system the planetarium, which is over the gallery of the lions, is erected; at the moment when Galileo was condemned, the scientific men of Strassburg protested against the judgment, and erected a monument to the Polish astronomer in this astral clock, which, like a trophy of truth, is placed in the sanctuary. After the exhibition was concluded, we stepped into the interior of the astronomical works, which are wound up once in eight days, and in which endless combinations of wheels were revolving in perfect silence. A solemn and mysterious sensation seizes upon one here, as if one were in the workshop of the spirits of the hours; the conception is certainly a lofty one, that of showing As the twelfth hour approached, multitudes forth the whole structure of the heavens. Became running from every side; they were all hold that small wheel, the only purpose of which eager to see this curiosity of medieval times, is to make a 2 take the place of a 1, when the although the clock, adapted by the aged mathe-second thousand years of the Christian era shall have clapsed. On last new year's night, the whole was illuminated, the interior also, and all the aisles of the church were crowded with spectators. The interest which was excited was intense, when, with the twelfth stroke of the clock, a 7 sprang into the place of the 6 after the 4. The man who explained it all to us, a mere laborer, exclaimed, with much warmth, "One would almost suppose that the machine can think; it makes one think of the blood which circulates through the veins of the human body."- Das Morgenblatt. SCENES AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE. Scenes and Thoughts in Europe. By an near the residence of the Poet-laureate. The "Beautiful to behold is England on a sunny summer's day; so clean, so verdant, so full of quiet life, so fresh, wearing so lightly the garland of age. What a tree; that cottage, how fragrant it looks through its flowers;-the_turf about that church has been green for ages. Here is a thatched hamlet, its open doors lighted with rosy faces at the sound of our wheels;-this mansion at the end of it. What town is that avenue of oaks sets the imagination to building a clustered around yon huge square tower? and the ear welcomes a familiar name, endeared by genius to the American heart. At every pause in our walk, the aspect of the landscape varied, under the control of the chief with their vast company of shadows which, as feature of the scenery, the encircling mountains unconsciously changing your position you shift the This little volume is evidently not the production of an ordinary tourist; but that of a man of large and well-cultivated mind, who has a nice perception of the beautiful, a love for literature and the arts, and a capacity to comprehend and enjoy them beyond the average range of travellers. The author is a person of mature age and mature thought—having a considerable acquaintance with men and things, — with the history of the past and with the form and pressure of the present, with political institutions, and with the conditions under which society at present exists. Upon these and other topics a three years' residence in different parts of Europe, - England and Italy, France and Germany, Belgium and Switzerland, suggests many thoughts: some characterized by much political sagacity. The style of the book is somewhat curt; with a consequent tendency to baldness, which occasionally mars the effect of an otherwise fine passage. Brevity, however, is so little the general failing of publishing travellers, that we are almost un-point of view, open or close gorges and valleys, willing to suggest the possibility of its degenerating into a fault. But there are cases in which the sententious epigrammatic style is undesirable. With good material and capacity to use it, an occasional touch of gossip in the tone is a relief. Herodotus is more read than Tacitus, or even Xenophon; and for this reason:— - his book instructs as much as, and amuses more than, those of his severer successors. The work before us is, also, too general. It wants more speciality. Often clever, it is always more or less unsatisfactory. It has a vague title- and justifies it. This implies a mixture of the descriptive and the critical. The pictures are failures; but, to make amends, the exegeses are often happy. The scenes are not strikingly reproduced; but the thoughts are always sensible, and at times eminently suggestive. If not very profound itself, the book has the merit of inducing reflection in the reader :- and few will peruse it without being favorably impressed. Our author dates his first note at Ambleside, and hide or reveal their own tops, producing the effect of a moving panorama. But a week since we were on the ocean, a month since, in the New World, - now on the beaten sod of the Old, young Americans enjoying old England. Every object within sight, raised by the hand of man, looks touched with antiquity; the gray stone wall, with its coping of moss, the cottage ivy-screened, the Saxon church tower. Even what is new hasn't a new look. The modern mansion is mellowed by architecture and tint to keeping with its older neighbours. To be old the epithet most coveted. You see no sign of here, is to be respectable, and time-honored is the doings of yesterday or yesteryear: the new is careful of obtruding itself, and comes into the world under matronage of the old. But the footprint of age is not traced in rust and decay. We are in free and thriving England, where Time's accumulations are shaped by a busy, confident, the 'ceaseless loom of time,' so that little be sagacious hand, man co-working with Nature at wasted and little misspent. The English have a strong sympathy with rural nature. capabilities of the landscape are developed and The |