Joy! Say, reader, did you ever wait through the still, solemn night for the coming of such a guest? When the clock struck twelve was there no startling signiflcance in the announcement, "He will come ere the sun is up!" How much of life, hope, and fear were crowded into those remaining hours!

For a moment we rested upon a pillow. Dreams, full of bright, heavenly visions, delighted the spirit, as they bore it away to Elysian flelds. But the sweet spell was broken by the sound of a voice, "He has come! He has come!" In an instant we were leaning over the cradle, and looking down into the face of our angel babe. Sure enough (and none but those who have had the bitter experience can know how terrible is the reality) the expected messenger had coine. His name was DEATH.

MOUNT WASHINGTON.

THOSE who are familiar with the majestic grandeur of the scenery here alluded to, will appreciate this description from the pen of EDWARD EVERETT :

I have been something of a traveler in our own country, though far less than I could wish; and in Europe have seen all that is most attractive, from the Highlands of Scotland to the Golden Horn of Constantinople; from the summit of the Hartz Mountains to the Fountain of Vaucluse; but my eye has yet to rest on a lovelier scene than that which is discovered from Mount Washington, when, on some clear, cool summer's morning, at sunrise, the cloud-curtain is drawn up from nature's grand proscenium, and all that chaos of wildness and beauty starts into life; the bare gigantic tops of the surrounding heights; the precipitous gorges a thousand fathoms deep, which foot of man or ray of light never entered; the somber matted forest; the moss-clad rocky wall, weeping with crystal springs; winding streams, gleaming lakes, and peaceful villages below; and in the dini, misty distance, beyond the lower hills, faint glimpse of the sacred bosom of the eternal deep, ever heaving up with the consciousness of its own immensity; all mingled in one indescribable panorama by the hand of the DIVINE ARTIST.

CLERICAL REPUTATION.

DR. CHEEVER, in an address before the Andover Theological Seminary, made some forcible and pertinent remarks on the present position of the pulpit with reference to its efficiency. We copy a few sentences:

Preachers should have no care for their reputation as preachers, but they should have all-absorbing love for the truth; they should be permeated with it, and then their reputation will take care of itself. There are many men, who, having acquired a reputation, spend not a little of their precious time in taking care of it! It is their wealth; they hoard it as they do money.

The price of fancy stocks in this world depreciates in proportion as we lay up treasures in the world to come, and the beautiful bubbles which we blow, burst in proportion as we look at the substantial and enduring relations of eternity. The physician of the body never asks if the medicine is agreeable to the patient, or to the friends of the patient, and so should the preacher ever be deaf to the opinions and prejudices of men to the truth. The human heart is not to be approached by the preacher as if he were afraid of it; VOL. XI.-35

as if it was a fort or citadel, and that he was to be annihilated by its guns; but it must be approached boldly; not by zigzag approaches, but by all the great park of artillery at his command; the cannon shotted, ready to be touched off; not with mere intellectuality; with beautiful banners, too nice to be blackened by the smoke.

To speak with power, the pulpit must preach to the conscience, and not to prejudices and opinions. Human opinions or laws never should come between the preacher and his duty. Pew rents have nothing to do with preaching. Only think of St. Paul or Timothy being waited upon by a committee of the society, advising them not to preach to the consciences of men, because it will affect the rents of the pews!

MAN'S NOBLEST WORK.

THERE is a great deal of cant about the works of nature. They are commended as the sole object worthy of study. God made the country, we are told, but man made the town, and the line has passed into almost perpetual currency. Like many other proverbs, however, it conveys more than the truth. There is something more than the work of man in the crowded city. There is mind there, intellect, genius. And it is well said by a writer in a recent number of Blackwood:

When the labors of the day are over, the delicious calm of candle-light invites us to quiet intercourse with one of the great spirits of the past, or one of their worthy successors in the present. It is well thus to refresh the mind with Literature. Contact with Nature, and her inexhaustible wealth, is apt to beget an impatience at man's achievements; and there is danger of the mind becoming so immersed in details, so strained to conteinplation of the physical glories of the universe, as to forget the higher grandeurs of the soul, the nobler beauties of the moral universe. From this danger we are saved by the thrill of a fine poem, the swelling sympathy with a noble thought, which flood the mind anew with a sense of man's greatness, and the greatness of his aspirations. It is not wise to dwarf Man by comparisons with Nature; only when he grows presumptuous may we teach him modesty by pointing to her grandeur. At other times it is well to keep before us our high calling and our high estate. Literature, in its finest moods, does this. And when I think of the delight given by every true book to generations after generations, molding souls and humanizing savage impetuosities, exalting hopes and prompting noblest deeds, I vary the poet's phrase, and exclaim:

An honest book's the noblest work of man!

PUSEYISM FOR YOUNG LADIES. CONYBEARE is satirical. Describing an academic belle, and her High Church proclivities, he says:

She was also very romantic, very enthusiastic, passionately fond of music and poetry, and a most devoted disciple of Tractarian orthodoxy. Indeed, it may be remarked in passing, that this faith is peculiarly suited to young ladies; for it encourages and utilizes their accomplishments, sets them upon embroidering altar cloths, illuminating prayer-books, elaborating sur

plices, practicing church music, carving credence tables, and a hundred other innocent diversions, which it invests with the prestige of religious duty. And besides this, it imposes no cruel prohibition (like the rival creed) upon their favorite amusements; but commends the concert, smiles upon the ball, and does not even anathematize the theater.

THE BEAUTY OF WOMAN

Is not increased by gaudy dress, nor heightened by costly ornaments. Feminine loveliness is not a purchasable commodity. Like the absolute necessaries of life, air and water, grace and loveliness are within the reach of all; and there is truth in the sentiment that

A woman has not a natural grace more bewitching than a sweet laugh. It is like the sound of flutes on the water. It leaps from her heart in a clear sparkling rill, and the heart that hears it feels as if bathed in the cool, exhilarating spring. And so of the smile. A beautiful smile is to the female countenance what the sunbeam is to the landscape. It embellishes an inferior face, and redeems an ugly one. A smile, however, should not become habitual, or insipidity is the result; nor should the mouth break into a smile on one side, the other remaining passive and unmoved, for this imparts an air of deceit and grotesqueness to the face. A disagrecable smile distorts the lines of beauty, and is more repulsive than a frown. There are many kinds of smiles, each having a distinctive character; some announce goodness and sweetness, others betray sarcasm, bitterness, and pride; some soften the countenance by their languishing tenderness, others brighten it by their brilliant and spiritual vivacity. Gazing and poring before a mirror cannot aid in acquiring beautiful smiles half so well as to turn the gaze inward, to watch that the heart keeps unsullied from the reflection of evil, and is illumined and beautified by all sweet thoughts.

LIGHT FROM GERMANY.

THE Germans are great book-makers, and England steals from them, expanding their thoughts, and not unfrequently appropriating them without acknowledgment. There is truth, however, in the somewhat satirical remarks of an English reviewer upon the subject:

Modern Germany is everything by turns and nothing long. With her, and with not a few of her admirers, newest and best are synonymous terms. She is vain, not so much of her consistency, as of her mu

SEA-WEED.

SEA-WEED! what a loss those inland people have, who, when they read Longfellow's exquisite lay, can only fancy what it is like,

and do not know how true is the musical murmur of the song of the sea-weed. When descends on the Atlantic

The gigantic

Storm-wind of the equinox, Landward in his wrath he scourges

The toiling surges,

Laden with sea-weed from the rocks:
From Bermuda's reefs; from edges
Of sunken ledges,

In some far-off, bright Azore;
From Bahama, and the dashing,
Silver flashing

Surges of San Salvador;

From the tumbling surf, that buries
The Orkneyan skerries,
Answering the hoarse Hebrides;
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting
Spars uplifting

On the desolate, raving seas:
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting,
On the shifting

Currents of the restless main;
Till in shelter'd coves, and reaches
Of sandy beaches,
All have found repose again.

PLAIN SPEAKING.

IN former days, it seems, as well as now, ministers were in the habit of dealing in fine phrases and dainty epithets. That stern Anglo-Saxon, SOUTH, was unmitigated in his denunciation of the practice. Speaking of one of Paul's discourses, he says:

Nothing here (in Paul's discourse) of the fringes of the North star, nothing of the down of angels' wings or the beautiful locks of cherubim, and clouds rolling in airy mansions. No; these were similitudes above the apostolic spirit; for they, poor mortals, were content to take lower steps, and to tell the world in plain terms that he who believed not should be damned.

FRIENDSHIP.

THERE is a great deal of selfishness in the world, and it is the common cant to magnify men's failings, and to darken the picture presented by the rarity of true friend

man that to know him once is to know him always. Whereas a German may have a new speculative whereabouts every twelvemonth or two years, and may regard each new change as a creditable indication of his activity and independence. Hence the neverending contradiction, not only between each man and his neighbor, but between each man and himself. It becomes a thoughtful man, therefore, to be careful how he avails himself of apparent light from that quarter, seeing that much of it is-cannot fail to be, of the ignis fatuus description.

has it, that

We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. Mauger all the selfishness that chills the world like east winds, the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether. How many persons we meet in houses whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we honor, and who honor us! How many we see in the street or sit with in church, whom, though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with! Read the language of these wandering eyebeams. The heart knoweth.

The National Magazine.

NOVEMBER, 1857.

EDITORIAL NOTES AND GLEANINGS.

THE TERRIBLE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN INDIA is just now attracting the attention of the civilized world. That country has become an object of great interest, and several correspondents have inquired where may be found the best history of the rise and progress of British power in the East. We shall do a favor to such, and to many of our subscribers who may have slightly passed over the articles, by referring them to THE NATIONAL for March, April, and May of the present year, where may be found an admirably condensed account of the origin of the East India Company, its resources, wealth, and power. At this time those articles will be read with increased interest. They are from the pen of our esteemed contributor, I. W. Wiley.

THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH. Mingled with regret for the untoward accident by which the hopes of so many were blasted, we find in the public prints of England and the United States the opinion almost universal that success will yet attend the effort. It is said to be deferred only for a season; a mere question of time. Its absolute practicability, we are told, has been demonstrated, and those who hint at the possibility of failure are regarded as croakers. There are, however, a few who have spoken of the enterprise, from the beginning, as likely to be unsuccessful. Among others a writer in the Brooklyn Eagle, who seems capable of forming a scientific judgment upon the subject, thus speaks of the accident, and looks gloomily upon the prospects for the future:

"At the time the deep-sea soundings were being made which resulted in the supposed feasibility of the Atlantic telegraph, it was supposed that some parts of the ocean were unfathomable. The line would run out eight or ten miles, and yet give no evidence of having touched the bottom. The simple reason was at last discovered to be, that when the weight on the end of the line touched the bottom, the line itself was borne off by the undercurrents, and was merely floating away, while it was supposed to be going directly

to the bottom.

"In order to remedy this difficulty, a sort of sinker was adopted, in which a tube was passed through a heavy ball, and the moment the ball touched the bottom this tube-we must call it tube for want of a better name, as it would require a model to explain the contrivance of its operation-caught up some of the matter at the bottom, the ball became detached and remained below while the line was hauled up again.

"Now the cause which rendered ordinary soundings impossible was precisely that which caused the breaking of the cable. The cable was running out more rapidly than the ship progressed, just as the ne ran on for miles upon miles in the soundings, and we doubt not that those on board the Niagara could have paid out the whole cable on the spot without the ship moving another mile. And this is the cause why it seems impossible for the scheme ever to succeed. There is, no doubt, still water at the bottom of the ocean, but the strong currents above will prevent the cable from ever reaching that quiet location. If it is ever attempted to keep up a strain that will allow the cable to be paid out a mile for each mile the ship sails, the result will be the same as before-to snap it like a spider's thread.

"A cable of sufficient strength to admit of such a strain would load all the ships afloat on the ocean But it may be supposed that by providing a sufficiez

length of cable to allow of an indefinite quantity of waste the ocean might be spanned. But the level plateau,' as it is called, which is supposed to reach from Newfoundland to Ireland, is nearly in the line traversed by ocean steamers, and if the cable should get drifted away out of that line before it touched the bottom, there is no knowing what subterranean obstacles it would have to encounter. The feasibility of the scheme is predicated entirely on the existence of this plateau, the irregularities of the bottom of the ocean elsewhere precluding the idea of a cable being laid. Besides, if thousands upon thousands of miles of cable existed, the transmission of the electric fluid would be impossible.

"Looking at these plain facts, we cannot see how any hope of the success of the enterprise can be enter tained. On the contrary, we must look upon it as one of those things that cannot be done, such as propelling vessels with hot air, obtaining light from water, or extinguishing fire by Barnum's patent backet."

FROM GEORGIA. It may gratify our subscriber at Cuthbert, Georgia, to be informed that his envelope, with the inclosure, came safely to hand, and afflicted us quite as much as could be expected. The inclosure was two or three leaves of THE NATIONAL for July, with marginal annotations upon Dr. M'Clintock's sketch of Judge M'Lean. Over the bold brow of the judge our Georgia friend places, in very neat penmanship, done with a lead pencil, the classic quotation, "Too much pork for a shilling." We submit, with all meekness, whether

some of the notes are not couched in rather harsh language for so chivalrous and welleducated a gentleman. The bad Latin we attribute to a defective memory. "It is rare," says the article referred to, "in these latter days of the republic, to find a man of pure morality in public life." To which our Georgia friend says: "This is false. Mr. Pierce, Calhoun, Buchanan, Cass, Hunter, Marcy, et id omners, etc., are men of pure morals." Possibly he is right about the id omners! Again, Dr. M'Clintock says: "Religious men generally refuse to enter the arena of political strife," which sounds very much like a truism in our unsophisticated ears. But the Cuthbert subscriber italicizes his indignant dissent thus: "Pre-eminently false, as is proven by more than five hundred Methodist preachers at the North." To the sentiment that "Many, if not most of our political leaders are men of doubtful character," the reply is, "A slander unmitigated, unless it be confined to Northern politicians." He adds: "The devil reproving sin would provoke derision, but for a New York Methodist preacher to talk of honesty in politics excites contempt." There is much more in the same strain, and there are two or three naughty words that we may not copy; but, on the whole, the annotations do quite as much credit to the writer's heart as to his head, and the entire article, although we must decline to print it in extenso, is worthy of the high source from which it emanates.

EGOTISM is universally denounced and almost universally indulged in. The editorial fraternity pluralize the pronoun, and the great "We" assumes the post of honor in long-winded "leaders" until it becomes nauseous. Curran's tribute to Grattan is suggestive:

"Lord Erskine was a great egotist; and one day in conversation with Curran he casually asked what Grattan said of himself. Said of himself,' was Curas astonished reply; nothing; Grattan speak of

himself! Why, sir, Grattan is a great man. Sir, the torture could not wring a syllable of self-praise from Grattan; a team of six horses could not drag an opinion of himself out of him. Like all great men, he knows the strength of his reputation, and will never condescend to proclaim its march, like the trumpeter of a puppet-show. Sir, he stands on a national altar, and it is the business of us inferior men to keep up the fire and incense. You will never see Grattan stooping to do either the one or the other.' Curran objected to Byron's talking of himself as a great drawback on his poetry. Any subject,' he said, but that eternal one of self. I am weary of knowing once a month the state of any man's hopes or fears, rights or wrongs. I would as soon read a register of the weather, the barometer up to so many inches to-day, and down so many inches to-morrow. I feel skepticism all over me at the sight of agonies on paper; things that come as regular and notorious as the full of the moon. The truth is, his lordship weeps for the press, and wipes his eyes with the public."

THE QUARRELS OF RELIGIOUS JOURNALS are attracting the notice of the secular press, and the rebukes administered are in many instances truthfully severe. The Springfield Journal propounds some queries on the subject which we may copy, perhaps, without giving offense; and which, it seems to us, all editors of professedly religious papers may profitably ponder:

"We sit at the editorial table, and take up a religious newspaper. The first article which strikes the eye is controversial-nay, worse-personal. One professed Christian is pitching into another, questioning his candor and truthfulness, and endeavoring, with might and main, to become a personal victor over his brother, the point in difference having no special importance with the public. We take up another religious newspaper, and we find it upholding a bigot who refuses the use of his pulpit to one whose blameless life, and noble genius, and gentle good fellowship win the love of every man with whom he is brought into association, because his sectarian affiliations are not identical with those of the editor. . . . At this moment, a mail comes in. The first document we take from the pile is an Address on the state of Knox College, delivered by Rev. Edward Beecher, D.D., before the citizens of Galesburg, Ill.' It occupies, with its shameful story, sixteen newspaper colunins, showing how the college has literally been rent in pieces by movements having their basis in a sectarian strife between Presbyterians and Congregationalists. If the address be true, nothing less than rascality has been at work there, rooting out President Blanchard, grieving and disgusting the students, ruining the hopes and thwarting the aims of a hundred Christian families who had come in to educate their children..

"As these things followed one another, the exclamation sprang unbidden to our lips: How long?' How long shall Christian men quarrel in the name of Christianity? How long shall partisan feeling in the Christian church disgust the world with Christians and with their religion? How long shall religious newspapers engage their most powerful efforts in personal attacks, or disputes upon points of little practical importance to the world? How long shall the Jesuit point to the conflicts, growing out of 'private judgment,' between sects that are counted by fifties, as his comment on the sin of forsaking the infallible rule of Rome? How long shall the world repel the appeals of the real Christian by referring him to such fruits and developments of Christianity as are represented in the cases we have cited?

....

How long shall those who represent religion to the world be allowed to prove to the world that the religion they profess has not liberalized or softened them, but has rather intensified their selfishness by concentrating it, and embittered their temper by yoking it with partisan zeal?"

in fue simile for the Homes of American Authors. It is dated

"NAHANT, July 9, 1852. "MY DEAR SIR,-As you desire, I send you a spe cimen of my autograph. It is the concluding page of one of the chapters of the Conquest of Peru, book iii, chap. 8. The writing is not, as you may imagine, made by a pencil, but is indelible, being made with an apparatus used by the blind. It is a very simple affair, consisting of a frame of the size of a common sheet of letter-paper, with brass wires inserted in it to correspond with the number of lines wanted. On one side of this frame is pasted a leaf of thin carbonated paper, such as is used to obtain duplicates. Instead of a pen the writer makes use of a stylus of ivory, or agate, the last better or harder. The great difficulties in the way of a blind man's writing in the usual manner, arise from his not knowing when his ink is exhausted in his pen and his lines run into one another. Both difficulties are obviated by this simple writingcase, which enables one to do his work as well in the dark as in the light. Though my trouble is not blindness, but a disorder of the nerve of the eye, the effect, as far as this is concerned, is the same, and I am wholly incapacitated from writing in the ordinary way. In this manner I have written every word of my historicals. This modus operandi exposes one to some embarrassments; for, as one cannot see what he is doing on the other side of the paper, any more than a performer in the treadmill sees what he is grinding on the other side of the wall, it becomes very difficult to make corrections. This requires the subject to be pretty thoroughly canvassed in the mind, and all the blots and erasures to be made there before taking up the pen, or rather the stylus. This compels me to go over my composition to the extent of a whole chapter, however long it may be, several times in my mind before sitting down to my desk. When there the work becomes one of memory rather than of creation, and the writing is apt to run off glibly enough. A letter which I received some years since from the French historian, Thierry, who is totally blind, urged me by all means to cultivate the habit of dictation to which he had resorted; and James, the eminent novelist, who has adopted his habits, finds it favorable to facility of composition. But I have been too long accustomed to my own way to change, and, to say the truth, I never dictated a sentence in my life for publication without its falling so flat on my ear that I felt almost ashamed to send it to the press. I suppose it is habit.

"One thing I may add. My manuscript is usually too illegible (I have sent you a favorable specimen) for the press, and it is always fairly copied by an amanuensis before it is consigned to the printer. I have accompanied the autograph with these explanations, which are at your service if you think they will have interest for your readers. My modus operandi has the merit of novelty, at least I never heard of any history monger who has adopted it besides myself. I remain, dear sir, very truly yours,

WM. H. PRESCOTT."

LIFE FROM THE DEAD.-The Newburyport Herald announced, some time ago, the loss of a pilot belonging to that place in the following brief but emphatic sentence:

"All that we know-all that will ever be known, till the ocean shall give up its dead, is that the sturdy man and brave, the useful citizen and valued public officer, has disappeared in the waves."

The same paper of the next day has the following:

"THE PILOT RECOVERED.-The day of miracles is past-so it has, and let it go; but so long as Michael Stevens, Jun., shall live, we shall look upon him as one risen from the dead. While we were all lamenting that this worthy man was gone, and the flags had drooped in mourning for the dead; while people were stopping each other at the corners of the streets to talk over the matter, and some were raising a subscription for the benefit of his family; after we had published his obituary, and already had another paragraph written, calling for a material testimonial to aid the widow and orphans-as suddenly as though he had fallen from the heavens above, Captain Stevens, yesterday, at noon, appeared in our streets. Wildly the story goes

about town; speedily he is rushed home to a family mourning his demise; instantly the flags from half mast are run hard up; and gladness is upon all faces, for the lost is found and the dead is alive again.

"With the tide of men moving to the south end, we go to greet him and learn his story. Almost immediately after his companions had retired below, as he was standing on the quarter with the spyglass to his eye, the main boom jibed over, striking him in the back of the neck and sweeping him into the sea. Instantly the boat filled away, and sailed off with a six knot breeze. He turned in pursuit; but one hundred yards' swimming satisfied him that that was useless. He halloed; but the noise of the sails, the rushing of the waters, and the intervening decks, shut off all communication. There he was in the midst of the ocean; the boat receding, and no friendly sail in sight; he lay for some time upon the surface, when, by and by, five miles away, a sail appears standing toward him; it is his only hope; a faint hope, but the last. He did not swim to her, but reserved his strength; and when she was within two miles it was evident she was going a long way to the windward.

"He then, cool-O, how can a man be cool with the deep waters below and naught but the deeper heavens above-struck out to head her off. For three quarters of a mile or more he swam for dear life; but now he begins to fail. His legs are already cold and stiff, and hang down deep, the waves breaking to his mouth. Tis the last chance; he raises his head and shouts; and a woman-a woman's ears are always open to the ery of distress-says, 'I hear a voice. All hands look around. It is now or never; and as a last effort ho stretches himself above the waves and says: I am drowning! They hear; they see. Ease off sheets! up helm man the boat!' It is done as quick as said, quicker than written. 'I shall drown,' calls the brave, struggling, but sinking man, 'before the boat can row." "The captain turns the craft full upon him, and minus of help, gives the helm to his wife, while with the coil of rope he stands in the bows. The rowers pull strong, but many yards are yet between them and the sinking man, when the vessel's prow came near the spot, and with the captain's call-catch hold,' the rope falls upon his head and is turned around the waist. The rope is paid out, the sails shake in the wind, and in two minutes more-after he had been in the water an hour and a half-the captain and his wife pulled him over the side, helpless, and for a long time clouded and wandering of mind.

"This yacht proved to be the Bloomer, from Salem, Captain Dudley Davis, who was taking his family on a trip to Portland, Me. He rendered Captain Stevens all the assistance needed; landed him in Portland on Sunday; and with the first train that reached here at noon on Monday, he was returned to his family; returned to startle, to gladden, to change! Great God! what a change! The father with three score and ten years upon him; the young wife stricken to the soul; the little children to whom home was gloomy; they ean tell; we can't."

THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, at its last annual meeting, voted the publication of Tracts on the moral evils and sinful aspects of Slavery. This duty was assigned to the Executive Committee, who, in a public manifesto, inform us that they have deliberately determined to disregard the instructions of the society upon the subject. They have gone further, and suppressed a tract which was in course of publica

tion. And all this, because some slaveholders threaten to withhold their sympathies, prayers, and cash, if that particular sin is alluded to in the society's publications.

per was folded before the ink was dry, and the writing is blotted in many places. The legatees assert that the apostrophe is one of those blots; but the heir-at-law, a legitimate son of the defunct, maintains, on the contrary, that the apostrophe is intentional. This apostrophe is worth, to him, two hundred thousand francs, or eight thousand pounds sterling; and as the learned in the law cannot find in the context any clew to the real intention of the testator, it will be curious to watch the result of the contest.

He

VALUE OF TIME.-When the Roman Emperor said, "I have lost a day," he uttered a sadder truth than if he had exclaimed, "I have lost a kingdom." Napoleon said that the reason why he beat the Austrians was, that they did not know the value of five minutes. At the celebrated battle of Rivoli, the conflict seemed on the point of being decided against him. saw the critical state of affairs, and instantly took his resolution. He dispatched a flag to the Austrian head-quarters, with proposals for an armistice. The unwary Austrians fell into the snare; for a few minutes the thunders of battle were hushed. Napoleon seized the precious moments, and, while amusing the enemy with mock negotiation, re-arranged his line of battle, changed his front, and in a few minutes was ready to renounce the farce of discussion for the stern arbitrament of arms. The splendid victory of Rivoli was the result. The great moral victories and defeats of the world often turn on five minutes. Crises come, the not seizing of which is ruin. Men may loiter, but time flies on the wings of the wind, and all the great interests of life are speeding on, with the sure and silent tread of destiny.

66

ERICSSON'S CALORIC ENGINE.-Mr. Ericsson does not despair of success in applying the new motor. He is said to have built eight small engines, on the hot-air principle, since the experiment with the Ericsson steamship, and to be still engaged in the pursuit of his favorite study. The Scientific American says: He has now floating on the Hudson a small steamer, or air-er, about seventeen feet long, which he has succeeded in driving at a good rate by the combustion of an almost incredibly small quantity of pine kindling wood. There are two engines, horizontal, single acting, and apparently about thirty inches diameter by thirty-six inches stroke. The vessel is an open boat, or mammoth yawl, and the paddle wheels are about ten or twelve feet in diameter. We believe air

alone is the fluid employed as a medium to generate the power.

COST OF KEEPING A LION.-From "Gerard's Lion Hunting and Sporting in Algeria," we learn that the cost of keeping a monarch of the forest amounts to considerably more for his animal food alone, than for half a dozen sovereigns of the United States. He says that the duration of the lion's existence is from thirty to forty years, and that he destroys an annual value of six thousand francs (one thousand two hundred dollars) in horses, mules, oxen, camels, and sheep. Taking the average of the lion's life at thirty-five years, each lion costs the