Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

opening this port to commerce, Dr. Yates dwelt upon the absence of all good ports on the coast of Syria. That of Alexandretta is infamous as the most unhealthy on the whole coast; hence, no one can reside there: whereas Seleucia and its beautiful neighbourhood is comparatively very healthy, and would soon become the most frequented spot in Syria. The navigation of the Gulf of Alexandretta is, at times, difficult and dangerous; that of the Bay of Antioch is seldom so, and it is nearer. Alexandretta is under the Pasha of Adana, which is often a source of great annoyance to ship-masters trading with Aleppo. Seleucia is under the Pasha of Aleppo. Between Alexandretta and Aleppo there is the formidable Pass of Bailan, the Syrian gates of old; between Seleucia and Antioch and Aleppo, comparatively open country. Cilicia is a country much disturbed by local dissensions: the valley of Seleucia is mainly inhabited by peaceful Christians and Ansayrii. There is plenty of fresh water. In fact, the same circumstances that existed when Seleucia became the port of Babylonia and Mesopotamia, and which induced Colonel Chesney to make it the landing-place of the Euphrates Expedition, exist to the present day, and point out the great importance of opening the old harbour, as the very best (especially for steam) in North Syria, and the most advantageous point for opening commerce and intercommunication from this direction with the Euphrates and Tigris, with Mesopotamia, Kurdistan, Babylonia, Persia, India, and the

far East.-Athenæum.

VARIETIES.

PREPARATIONS for the erection of a Midland Observatory, at Nottingham, are said to be in a good state of progress. Mr. Henry Lawson, of Bath, offers a collection of astronomical, optical, and meteorological appar. atus, collected at the cost of £10,000, with a thousand guineas in cash besides, if a building and garden can be found, and a yearly salary of £200 provided for a resident astronomer.

Another indication of scientific advancement in the provinces ap

pears in the institution of a Museum at Bury St. Edmunds,

For purposes of communication and intelligence, science continues to achieve her wonders. To the Submarine Telegraph will soon be added (if no unexpected barrier prevent) "the Channel Telegraph," between Holyhead and Dublin, over about thrice the distance that separates Dover from Calais. Mr. Stephenson is labouring in Egypt to lay a railway across the Isthmus of Suez, or

its neighbourhood, in order to make | lithographs, 885 pieces of vocal music, a passage to the East, almost independently of the great continents of Africa and Asia; and Dr. Cullen has been surveying the Isthmus of Darien for the similar purpose, if it be possible, of conquering the obstacle that, as yet, prevents voyagers from passing over that piece of land from the Atlantic to the Pacific, without circumnavigating South America, by uniting the two oceans.

More wonderful still! Locomotives have actually rolled between Paris and Lyons, in obedience to the force of electro-magnetism.

[ocr errors]

The "Athenæum furnishes an abstract of the literary statistics of France, during the year 1851, as follows:-"The total number of books, newspapers, pamphlets, and works of all kinds, published during the year, is 7,250; showing an increase of 142 on the preceding twelvemonth. 6,817 works have been published in French, in which are included 47 written in the different provincial dialects. Among the works published in foreign languages, we notice 65 German, 68 English, 93 Spanish, and 160 Latin publications. Of these, 4,219 were printed in Paris alone, and 3,031 in the departments; Algeria furnishing 44 for her share. Reprints and new editions figure in the list for 1,677; leaving 5,573 works which may be considered new. 182 geographical maps and plans, 3,961 engravings and

and 809 works of instrumental music, complete the intellectual and artistical harvest of France for 1851. The labours of French Journalism are worth looking back to. Of the 166 newspapers which enlivened the past year, and many of which were its offspring, nearly three fourths have ceased to exist. Several of them were destined to supply special wants which were not, it appears, so generally felt by the public as the Editors surmised, or were not, at any rate, sufficiently pressing to compel subscription. As a concluding and sweeping statistical remark, we may add, that the French press, during the last ten years, has given to the world 82,000 works of literature and art. A somewhat too sanguine organ of the present system in Paris, whose idea of the forcing power of decrees and martial law seems unbounded, throws out that the intention of Government, when it has settled more pressing matters, is to "create a literary movement resembling that of 1828." We suspect that such movements are not to be compassed by any dictatorship: at any rate, it would, we think, be advisable, with such projects, to reconsider the lists of proscription, which contain a host of literary names. It would be rather awkward if Augustus, when he wished to make his literary movement," were to find out that Virgil had been sent to Cayenne.

POETRY.

TO A DEPARTED PARENT.

My mother, O my mother! and hast thou reach'd thy home, Where clouds ne'er hide the light of day, and tempests never come; Where thy form is garb'd with glory, and thy brow is crown'd

with gold,

And thou sittest down at God's right hand in happiness untold?

My mother, O my mother! and dost thou see the face
Of that most blessed Saviour, who saved thee by His grace?

Does He lead thee by the silvery stream, dost thou hear His tender

voice,

And, cheer'd by His approval, does thy beating heart rejoice?

Thy pathway through this desert-land was strew'd with many a

thorn;

With many a grief and sorrow thy tender heart was torn :

Yet, even here, whilst smarting beneath the' afflicting rod,

Thou didst bow in meek submission to thy Father and thy God.

My mother, O my mother! thou hast left me in the storm,
Where never shall I hear thy voice, or gaze upon thy form;
But, mother, I am following thee to thy eternal home:

Thou wilt welcome me,-O wilt thou not?-when I to heaven shall

come.

Then, O, my dearest mother, I will wipe these tears away,
And, treading in thy footsteps, will hasten to the day,
When, one family unbroken, we shall stand on Canaan s shore :
There, by the mercy of our God, we'll meet to part no more.
Chorley.

R. M. W.

ANIMATED AND VEGETABLE NATURE.

MARCH.

HEAVEN'S unvarying chronologe, as read by our astronomers, determines that the Spring quarter shall begin on the 20th day of March. But when Spring really will begin, with what pace the returning season shall advance, how far accelerated by clear sunshine, or chilled and retarded by the blasts of invidious winter, that clings with stubborn grasp to his latest hold in the more northern regions, the almanack is insufficient to divine. Warm days, perhaps, succeeded by frosty nights and mornings. Winds, drying, indeed, but cold and boisterous, are looked for; and thus we say, "March winds," and "equinoctial gales," and expect to hear of damage done among the shipping, and of wrecks along the coast and when they who "travel by land or by water" are remembered in the Litany, the wind whistling around reminds the congregations that they should send up a fervent Amen from their hearts' depth, offering such a prayer as God will hearken to, hold those wild winds in His fist, and save the weary mariners from perishing. Cold winds! And thus

[ocr errors]

The tyrannous breathing of the north
Checks all our buds from blowing."

We long for milder skies; and when the fitful gusts are lulled, and the sun breaks forth in strength, we gladly throw open our windows to receive his warmth, forgetful that a few days of sunshine may only beguile those buds into a premature unfolding, and leave them naked to the mercy of returning frost. Better that the cold wind and the hoar-frost continue on to the end of March; better that the vegetation be kept in check up to the last week, than that the orchards be stripped bare in April, of the too-early blossoms. The discipline of Heaven is better than the hurry and the waywardness of men.

But, withal, the season is advancing. The ploughs drive hard, furrowing broad acres. Oats and barley shower into the furrows, the harrow sweeps over the surface to hide them in the earth, the scarecrow is planted, the rattle crakes, and the watchman goes his round to "tent the birds." The throstle, perched on the bare bough, sings. The ringdove cooes. The rooks are sailing aloft in cloud-like flocks, or they cover the new-ploughed land, like a living carpet, in spite of man and beast, clearing the clod of grubs; and each bold bird, jet black, erect and sleek, marches as proudly as if he knew that the domain was his by the prescription of a tenure older than the Norman, or the Saxon, or the Roman either. And so indeed it is: they hold it by a universal gavelkind, and they render good service; and, in spite of shot and rattle, their heritage is not likely to escheat. A few birds, that were driven last winter from the bleak mountain-ridges of Norway and Sweden to our milder climate, are going back to their summer quarters; and again the solan-geese whiten the rocks in the Scotch isles, and make those quiet shores hoar with eggs and goslings. Frogs are swarming, again, on the edges of our ponds; the rivers abound in fish that come in from the seas to spawn; the new-dropped lambs sport upon the fields; or, if the weather be wet and inclement, are tended in places of shelter. by every hand that can be mustered, through day and night. The busy bees, instinct with renovated life, issue from their hives in favourable hours, and, exquisitely weather-wise, choose the mornings of days that will be fine, and buzz away to reconnoitre the scenes of their next summer's diligence. And He who openeth His hand, and satisfieth the desire of every living thing, has already provided their earliest. repast in bright crocuses, in modest wild flowers, in primroses, and violets, and daffodils; but, best of all, they shall be regaled with honeysuckles in hedgerows and round cottage-windows, and rich blossoms of peach, apricot, cherry, almond, and nectarine.

On the 21st day of this month, measuring time by the great orrery above us, day and night are equal all over the globe, and the globe itself, now trimmed equally, with its poles just square to the plane of the orbit, is in precisely such a position as poets would have it to be the whole year round, with "everlasting spring," just as they sometimes fancy it must have been before angry angels were permitted to twist its axis out of place. But the reign of the seasons is more salutary than the dominion of the muses. This vernal equinox, like its counterpart in autumn, does not outlast a night; and the daylight of the 22d will shine at Greenwich four minutes longer than that of this nychthemeron, and so will protract itself until there be "no real night" at all in our latitudes.

Young

All sleeping things have now left their hibernacula. nature is awake and merry. The husbandman is vigilant. He sows the seed, and must be content to wait until it shoots forth the blade, and the stem rises, and the blossom opens, and the fruit is ready. Now, if the citizen can take a trip into the circumjacent

country, and observe rural occupations, and climb the hills, and look abroad into the great factories of sustenance for man and beast, and see Nature-shall we so speak?-sporting in the fickle sky, and observe that the very clouds and winds are breathing promise, and yet lecturing patience, and calm trust in the Divine Governor of earth and sky, he will come home refreshed in soul and body, and better instructed than ever to pursue his vocation with a tranquil perseverance and sure trust. And with renewed admiration he will adore the faithful One who makes the outgoings of the morning and the evening to rejoice, who visits the earth and waters it, who greatly enriches it with the river of God which is full of water, who prepares us corn when he has so provided for it; who waters the ridges thereof abundantly, who settles the furrows thereof, who makes it soft with showers, who blesses the springing thereof.

ASTRONOMICAL FACTS OF MARCH, 1852.

RISING AND SETTING OF THE SUN.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Or

MERCURY, in the constellations Aquarius and Pisces, is invisible till the 21st, then an evening star to the end of the month. the 15th, at 10h. 30m., A.M., in superior conjunction with the Sur, on the 29th, at 1h. 41m., P.M., in perihelion. VENUS, in the con stellations Pisces and Aries on the 14th, at 2h. 35m., P.M., in conjunction with Uranus at 1° 9' S.: on the 15th, at 3h. 6m., A.M., with Saturn, at 3° 3' S. MARS, in the constellation Cancer, on the 4th, at 10h. 38m., P.M., stationary; on the 15th, passes the meridian at 8h. 18m., P.M. JUPITER, in the constellation Libra, on the 9th, at 4h. 41m., A.M., stationary; on the 15th, passes the meridian at 3h. 53m, A.M. SATURN, in the constellations Pisces and Aries, on the 15th, passes the meridian at 2h. 30m., P.M., and sets at 9h. 26m. URANUS, in the constellation Aries, on the 15th passes the meridian at 2h. 28m., P. M.

H. T. & J. Roche, Printers, 25, Hoxton-square, London.

« VorigeDoorgaan »