Who thought to rule the roaring sea,
And make it bow unto his hand.

Where is he now ?—a little dust,

And but a mere remembered name; His arms long since have gone to rust, And all that's left of him is fame.

Then vain the boast of princes,-vain, Are all the gifts of earthly pow'r, At most they're but a glit'ing train, The offsprings of a sunny hour. September, 1852.

MAKES NO DIFFERENCE.

A SINGULAR COURTSHIP.

THE Rev. Dr. L—n, an eminent Scotch divine, and professor of theology, was remarkable for absence of mind and indifference to worldly affairs. His mind, wrapt up in lofty contemplations, could seldom stoop to the ordinary business of life, and when at any time he did attend to the secular affairs, be generally went about them in a way unlike any body else, as the history of his courtship will show. He was greatly beloved by his elders and congregation; was full of simplicity and sincerity, and entirely unacquainted with the etiquette of the world. Living the solitary, comfortless life of a bachelor, his elders gave him frequent hints that his domestic happiness would be much increased by his taking to himself a wife, and pointed out several young ladies in his congregation, any one of whom might be a fit match or companion for him.

and promised to look after it," the first convenient season." The elders, however, were not to be put off any longer; they insisted on the doctor at once making use of the means, and requested from him a promise that, on Monday afternoon, he would straightway visit the house of a widow lady, a few doors from him, who had three pretty daughters, and who were the most respectable in the doctor's congregation. To solve any difficult passage in the book of Genesis, to reconcile apparent discrepancies, or clear up a knotty text, would have been an agreeable and easy task to the doctor, compared with storming the widow's premises. But to the raising of the siege the doctor must go, and with great gravity and simplicity, gentle reader, you can imagine you see him commencing the work

After the usual salutations were over, he said to Mrs. W—n :

me to take a wife, and recommended me to "My session, have, of late, been advising

call

daughters, I would like to say a word to the eldest, if you have no objection.”

upon you; and as you have three fine

Miss W- -n enters, and the doctor, with his characteristic simplicity, said to her :

"My session have been advising me to take a wife, and recommended me to call up

on you.

The young lady, who had seen some thirty summers, was not to be caught so easily. She laughed heartily at the doctor's abruptness; hinting to him that, in making a sermon, it was necessary to say something first The elders finding all their hints had no ef- to introduce the subject properly, before he fect in rousing the doctor to the using of the entered fully upon it; and, as for her part, means preliminary to entering into a matri- she was determined not to surrender her libmonial alliance, at last concluded to wait erty at a minute's warning-"the honor of upon him, and stir Lim up to the perform- her sex was concerned in her standing out." ance of his duty. They urged on him the This was all a waste of time to the doctor, advantages of marriage--its happiness--and he requested to see her sister. spoke of it as a divine institution, and as affording all the enjoyments of sense and reason, and, in short, all the sweets of domestic life. The doctor approved of all they said, and apologised for his past neglect of duty, on account of many difficult passages of Scripture he had of late been attending to,

Miss E. W7-n then entered, and to save time the doctor says, "My session have been advising me to take a wife, and I have been speaking to your sister who has just gone out at the door, and as she is not inclined that way, what would you think of being Mrs L- ?"

binds

SECTS.

"Oh! Doctor, I don't know; it is rather a INSTINCTIVE KNOWLEDGE OF INserious question. Marriage, you know, one for life, and it should not be rashly entered into-I would not consent without taking time to deliberate upon it."

"My time," says the doctor," is so much occupied, and my session has said so much to me on the business, that I must finish it to day, if I can, so you had best tell your youngest sister to come to me."

Of all animals, insects afford the most numerous instances of instinctive proceedings with this sole end in view (self-preservation); the pitfalls of the ant-lion, the webs and nets of the various sorts of spiders spread over the face of nature, furnish instances of stratagems to secure their daily

In a moment comes the honest, lively Miss food, while an infinity of others acquire it Mary W

Come away, my child," said the doctor, "it is getting on in the afternoon, and I must get home to my studies. I have been speaking to both of your sisters on a little business, and they have declined-I am a man of few words, and without misspending precious time, what would you think of being made Mrs. L-n?"

aided only by their senses and natural weapons. Let any one look at the prominent eyes, tremendous jaws, and legs and wings formed for rapid motion on the earth or in the air, of tiger-beetles, and he will readily see that they want no other aid to enable them to seize their less gifted prey ; and numerous other tribes, both on the earth and in the water, emulate them in these respects. The pacific or herbivorous insects, also, are mostly fitted with an extraordinary acute

ness of certain senses to direct them to their

"Indeed I always thought a deal of you, doctor, and if my mother does not say aught against it, I have no objections." The doctor left Miss Mary in a few min-appropriate pabulum. The sight of the bututes, enjoining her to fix the day, for any terfly and the moth invariably leads them would suit him, but to send him up word to flowers, to suck whose nectar their multivalve tubes are given them. The scent of the day before. the dung-beetles and the carrion flies, allures them to their respective useful, though disgusting repasts. A very numerous tribe of those that derive their nutriment from other animals, neither entrap them by stratagem, nor assail them by violence; but, as the butterfly and the moth deposit their egg upon their appropriate vegetable, so do these upon their appropriate animal food. Every bird, almost, that darts through the air, every beast that walks the earth, every fish that swims in its waters, and almost all the lower animals, and even man himself, the lord of all, are infested in this way.

The doctor was scarcely home before a keen dispute arose in the family an:ong the three young ladies, all claiming the doctor. The eldest one said the offer was first made to her, and she did not positively refuse. The second one declared that she wished only a little time to think upon it; and the youngest insisted that it was completely settled with her. The mother of the young ladies was in such difficulty with her daughters, that she was obliged to call upon the doctor himself to settle the dispute. She called, and the reverend doctor, in his characteristic way, said:

My dear Mrs. W– —n, I am very fond of peace in families. It is all the same thing to me which of them, so just settle it among yourselves and send me up word."

The doctor was married to the youngest, and one of his sons is at this day a respectable clergyman, "in the land of the mountain and the flood,"

Many spiders prepare a web for their protection, although the most employ it for predatory purposes; and some again envel ope their eggs with such material; and hence Menge distinguishes it as residence, net and nest. One of the most singular constructions belong to the trap-door spider, a species of which is described by M. Audoin,

except that in fabricating the first, the animal has to knead the earth as well as to spin the layers of web. By this admirable arrangement, these parts always correspond with each other, and the strength of the hinge and the thickness of the frame will always be proportioned to the weight of the door. If we examine the circular margin of the door, we shall find that it slopes inwards, so that it is not a transverse section of a cylinder, but of a cone; and, on the other side, that the frame slopes outwards, so that the door exactly applies to it. By this structure, when the door is closed, the tube is not distinguishable from the rest of the soil, and this appears to be the reason that the door is formed with earth. Besides, by this structure also, the animal can more readily open and shut the door; by its con-

under the name of pioneer or fodiens. He says some spiders are gifted with a particular talent for building; they hollow out dens; they bore galleries; they elevate vaults; they build, as it were, subterranean bridges; they construct, also, entrances to their habitations, and adapt doors to them which want nothing but bolts, for, without any exaggeration, they work upon a hinge, and are fitted to a frame. The habitations of the species in question, are found in an argillaceous kind of red earth, in which they bore tubes about three inches in depth, and ten lines in width. The walls of these tubes are not left just as they are bored, but are covered with a kind of mortar, sufficiently solid to be easily separated from the mass that surrounds it, and as smooth and regular as if a trowel had been passed over it, and this is covered with some coarse webb onical shape, it is much lighter than it would which is glued a silken tapestry. If this passage were always left open, the spider would be subject to intrusion and attack; she has therefore been instructed to fabricate a very secure trap-door, which closes the mouth of it. To judge of this door by its outward appearance, we should think it was formed of a mass of earth, coarsely worked, and covered internally by a solid web; which would appear sufficiently wonderful for an animal that seems to have no special organ for constructing it; but if it be divided vertically, it will be found a much more complicated fabric than its out-of these grubs forms a case of leaves glued ward appearance indicates, for it is formed of more than thirty layers of earth and web, emboxed, as it were, in each other, like a set of weights for scales.

If these layers of web be examined, it will be seen that they all terminate in the hinge, so that the greater the volume of the door, the more powerful is the hinge. The frame in which the tube terminates above, and to which the door is adapted, is thick, and its thickness arises from the number of layers of which it consists, and which seem to correspond with those of the door; hence the formation of the door, the hinge, and the frame, seem to be a simultaneous operation,

have been if cylindrical, and so more easily opened, and by its external inequalities and mixture of web, the spider can more easily lay hold of it with his claws. Whether she enters the tube or goes out, the door will shut of itself.

The caddis worms, or larvæ of the fourwinged flies. in the order Trichoptera, live under water, where they construct for themselves movable habitations of various materials, according to their habits or to the substances most conveniently procured, such as sand, stones, shells, wood and leaves. One

together longitudinally, but leaving an aperture sufficiently large for the inhabitant to put out its head and shoulders when on the look-out for food; another employs pieces of reed-grass, straw or wood, carefully joined and cemented together; another makes choice of the tiny shells of young fresh-water mussels and snails to form a movable grotto, and as these little shells are for the most part inhabited, he keeps the poor animals close prisoners, and drags them along with him. But one of the most surprising instances of their skill occurs in the structures of which small stones are the principal materials. The problem is to make a tube

The priestess stared; the bachelor remained perfectly cool. Here was a customer! A man who wanted something better-dearer. More veils-lace ones-were displayed.

'Dis is only sixtee, sair; and dis one, seventee-five."

is

Dear me only seventy-five? Well, that wonderful, to be sure. It's a very pretty article, I see-but-can't you show me something better?"

about the width of the hollow of a wheat-kuacks. Only fifty? Dear me ! Show me straw, and equally smooth and uniform; something better." and as the materials are small stones, full of angles and irregularities, the difficulty of performing this problem will appear to be considerable, if not insurmountable; yet the little architects, by patiently examining their stones, and turning them round on every side, never fail to accomplish their plans.— This, however, is only part of the problem, which is complicated with another condition, namely, that the under surface shall be flat and smooth, without any projecting angles which might impede its progress when dragged along the bottom of the rivulet where it "You don't say so! Well, well. Who resides. In some instances, where these lit- would have thought it? These women, tle cases are found to possess too great a these women! they always were a mystery, specific gravity, a bit of light wood or a hol-ever since the days of Adam. Give me the low straw is added to buoy them up.-The change for a dollar-in quarters." Passions of Animals.

"No, sair; dis is de most dear-de plus cher article in de citec."

The milliner did so.

"I'll take this one," said the simple-mind

THE BACHELOR AND THE LACE ed bachelor, folding up the seventy-five veil.

VEIL.

Give me a quarter, and keep the seventyThe following very good story is told by Who would have thought it?” five for yourself. Dear me, how cheap!

the Columbian & Great West:

Not many days since, a gentleman, who had lost a bet with a lady, and who had heard her say that she had lost a lace veil which she prized much, thought he would pay his debt and " do the polite thing" by purchasing a new veil of fine quality, and present it to his fair creditor.

It must be stated, for a proper understanding of what followed, that the gentle man was a bachelor of long standing, and a mau of little information touching the world of "fancy goods," though a proficient in sugar, cotton, and provision speculations.

He accordingly stepped into a fashionable milliner's establishment, and asked to see a lace veil of fine quality.

"Here is one, Monsieur," said the amiable priestess at the lead of the temple. 46 How much is it?"

"It is only fiftee, sair."

"I see no seventee-five, sair. You have

no hand them to me," said the milliner.

I beg your pardon, ma'am," said the bachelor, amiably and smilingly; "there they are on the counter," pointing to the three quarters.

'Dis?" exclaimed the milliner, with an astonished look.

That," said the bachelor, more smilingly than ever, preparing to put the veil in his pocket.

"Ah, de man fou-crack-a-brain! I tell you, Monsieur, dat article de most dear in the citec! You onderstan me-you no onderstan de Inglish! De most dear, I tell you-seventee-five dollar."

“What !” said the bachelor, turning rather pale, and dropping the veil as if it had suddenly turned to a coal of fire in his hands 'Seventy-five dollars!"

"Yes, sair; and very sheep at dat."

Seventy-five dollars for that cobweb! I thought you meant seventy-five cents!"

"What! only fifty! Dear me! I thought these things were exceedingly dear. If that's all they cost, I don't wonder at the ladies If ever a bachelor walked fast, that bachbeing fond of wearing such flimsy knick-elor did. He goes around, now, in a stew