Part 2
The _Wapiti_, in the Zoological Gardens, shed his immense horns on the 6th of February last. Their weight was twenty-one pounds five ounces. In 1831 he shed them on the 1st of February, when their weight was twenty three pounds two ounces. In captivity, therefore, the Wapiti shows no deviation from the law of nature, which he exhibits in his own American forests,--that he should shed his horns, or bony excrescences, every year. All the deer tribe are subject to this law. Already the new horns of the Wapiti are beginning rapidly to grow--at first looking like a soft velvety substance, and gradually getting harder and more branching, till they become the gigantic antlers, which within a year will drop off, again to be renewed. It is generally considered that the horns of the deer tribe increase in size as the animal advances in age; but in the individual instance of the Wapiti of the Zoological Gardens, the horns of 1832 weigh less, by one pound thirteen ounces, than those of 1831.
[Illustration: Horns of the Wapiti.]
A very large bear, of the species called the Grizzly, has been recently brought to the Zoological Gardens. This is the largest and most ferocious of the bear tribe--the most terrible quadruped of North America, whom even the Indians, accustomed as they are to every danger, fly from and fear. He is exceedingly tenacious of life, and thus, if he encounters a single Indian, there is little chance of destroying him with the generally fatal rifle. Lewis and Clark, two enterprising travellers in the wildest regions of North America, describe an encounter with a bear of this species. Six hunters went to attack him: four fired and each wounded him. The two who had reserved their fire, hit him when he sprang forward. Before they could again load, the fearful animal was upon them. They fled to a river: four were able again to fire, concealed behind a tree, and again hit him. He turned upon them, and they were obliged to throw themselves into the water, from a bank twenty feet high. He took also to the water in chase of his hunters; and had not one of the two men who remained on shore shot him through the head, the hindmost swimmer would at least have rued the perilous adventure.
The Brown Bear of the northern parts of Europe is not so ferocious as the Grizzly Bear, but of prodigious strength. Mr. Lloyd, in his Northern Field Sports, says, “he walks with facility on his hind legs, and in that position can bear the heaviest burthens.” Indeed Mr. Neilson (a Swede) says, “a bear has been seen walking on his hinder feet along a small tree that stretched across a river, bearing a dead horse in his fore-paws.”
[Illustration: A bear, carrying a dead horse, crosses a river on a fallen tree.]
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THE WEEK.
April 1.--The anniversary of the birth of the celebrated philosopher, René Des Cartes, who was born at La Haye, in Touraine, in 1596. When a child he was so remarkable for the anxiety he showed to know the _cause_ of every thing, that his father used to call him his young philosopher. He entered the army when very young; and continued to serve for some years, but zealously pursued his mathematical and other studies all the time. An anecdote, illustrative of the extent of his acquirements under apparently unfavourable circumstances, is given in ‘The Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties.’ “He happened to be in garrison with his regiment at the town of Breda, in the Netherlands, when, walking out one morning, he observed a crowd of people assembled around a placard or advertisement which was stuck up on the wall. Finding that it was written in the Dutch language, which he did not understand (for he was a native of Touraine, in France), he inquired of a person whom he saw reading it what it meant. The individual to whom he addressed his inquiries happened to be the Principal of the University of Dort, a man of distinguished mathematical attainments; and it was with something of a sneer that he informed the young officer, in reply to his question, that the paper contained the announcement of a difficult geometrical problem, of which the proposer challenged the most able men of the city to attempt the solution. Not repulsed, however, by the tone and manner of the learned Professor, Des Cartes requested to be favoured with a translation of the placard, which he had no sooner received than he calmly remarked that he thought he should be able to answer the challenge. Accordingly next day he presented himself again before Beckman (that was the name of the Professor) with a complete solution of the problem, greatly to the astonishment of that distinguished person.” At last Des Cartes left the army, and travelled through a great part of Europe, visiting England among other countries. He then fixed his residence in Holland, where he wrote the greater number of his works. They relate to metaphysics, geometry, and various departments of natural philosophy. He is now principally remembered for the impulse which his works gave to the study of metaphysics in Germany, and for his ideas being now, in a great degree, the foundation of what is called the Ideal School of Philosophy, as opposed to the Sensual, or Material. His celebrated axiom was “_Cogito ergo sum_,” (I think, therefore, I exist). His astronomical speculations were very singular and extravagant. He explained the constitution of the heavens by means of a multitude of vortices, or elementary whirlpools, of which the sun and every other fixed star, according to him, had one, forming as it were its system, and supporting and keeping in motion the other lighter bodies that circle round it. Notwithstanding these fancies, Des Cartes was a most profound and ingenious mathematician; and the science of optics is also greatly indebted to him. Having been invited by Christina, Queen of Sweden, to take up his residence in Stockholm, he repaired to that capital in 1648; but died there of an inflammation of the lungs on the 11th of February, 1650, in the fifty-fourth year of his age.
April 1.--_All-Fools’-Day_, like many other days that were once observed by most people, has no honours now but in the gaiety of school-boys. The old custom of sending individuals on this day on a fool’s errand is not peculiar to England. Scotland has her _April gowk_, and France her _Poisson d’Avril_ (April fish). It is probable that the custom is a relic of a high and general Pagan festival, in which the wildest spirit of frolic expressed the universal gladness. It is to be remembered that the year anciently began about the time of the vernal equinox, when the awakening of all the powers of nature from their wintry sleep--the leafing of trees, the budding of flowers, and the singing of birds--made men look forward with joy to a season of long days and sunny skies. In simple ages rough jokes, given and taken without feelings of unkindness, form one of the most usual expressions of hilarity. There is a festival amongst the Hindoos, called the _Huli_, which is held in March, in honour of the new year, in the observance of which the practice of sending persons on errands which are to end in disappointment, forms a prominent feature. This circumstance would show that the custom, which still remains with us, is one which has its origin in remote ages, and is derived from a common source, accessible alike to the Hindoo and the Briton.
April 2.--On this day, in the year 1578, was born at Folkstone, in Kent, Dr. William Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood. Harvey published this important discovery in 1620. Before this time it was universally believed that the arteries, or vessels through which the blood flows from the heart, did not contain blood at all, but only air; and, indeed, the word artery was originally used to signify the windpipe, and an air-tube. The body, it was thought, was fed with blood entirely through the veins, which carried it at last to the heart, where it was in some way or other absorbed or drunk up. Thus, one of our old poets, Phineas Fletcher, in a curious allegorical poem, descriptive of the body and mind of man, which he entitles ‘The Purple Island,’ written (although not published) before Harvey announced his discovery, gives the following account of the manner in which the body is watered and fertilized by the different channels that pervade it:--
“Nor is there any part in all this land, But is a little isle; for thousand brooks In azure channels glide on silver sand; Their serpent windings and deceiving crooks, Circling about and watering all the plain, Empty themselves into the _all-drinking main_, _And creeping forward slide, but ne’er return again_.”
Nobody imagined that there was any _circulation_ of the blood, till Harvey demonstrated that the same blood which the veins brought _to_ the heart the arteries immediately carried away again _from_ it. Harvey lived for many years to enjoy the glory of this discovery; dying at Hampstead, in Essex, on the 3d of June, 1658, in the eighty-first year of his age.
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EXCELLENCE NOT LIMITED BY STATION.
There is not a more common error of self-deception than a habit of considering our stations in life so ill-suited to our powers, as to be unworthy of calling out a full and proper exercise of our virtues and talents.
As society is constituted, there cannot be _many_ employments which demand very brilliant talents, or great delicacy of taste, for their proper discharge. The great bulk of society is composed of plain, plodding men, who move “right onwards” to the sober duties of their calling. At the same time the universal good demands that those whom nature has greatly endowed should be called from the ordinary track to take up higher and more ennobling duties. England, happily for us, is full of bright examples of the greatest men raised from the meanest situations; and the education which England is now beginning to bestow upon her children will multiply these examples. But a partial and incomplete diffusion of knowledge will also multiply the victims of that evil principle which postpones the discharge of present and immediate duties, for the anticipations of some destiny above the labours of a handicraftsman, or the calculations of a shopkeeper. Years and experience, which afford us the opportunity of comparing our own powers with those of others, will, it is true, correct the inconsistent expectations which arise from a want of capacity to set the right value on ourselves. But the wisdom thus gained may come too late. The object of desire may be found decidedly unattainable, and existence is then wasted in a sluggish contempt of present duties; the spirit is broken; the temper is soured; habits of misanthropy and personal neglect creep on; and life eventually becomes a tedious and miserable pilgrimage of never-satisfied desires. Youth, however, is happily not without its guide, if it will take a warning from example. Of the highly-gifted men whose abandonment of their humble calling has been the apparent beginning of a distinguished career, we do not recollect an instance of one who did not pursue that humble calling with credit and success until the occasion presented itself for exhibiting those superior powers which nature occasionally bestows. Benjamin Franklin was as valuable to his master as a printer’s apprentice, as he was to his country as a statesman and a negotiator, or to the world as a philosopher. Had he not been so, indeed, it may be doubted whether he ever would have taken his rank among the first statesmen and philosophers of his time. One of the great secrets of advancing in life is to be ready to take advantage of those opportunities which, if a man really possesses superior abilities, are sure to present themselves some time or other. As the poet expresses it, “There is a _tide_ in the affairs of men,”--an ebbing and flowing of the unstable element on which they are borne,--and if this be only “taken at the flood,” the “full sea” is gained on which “the voyage of their life” may be made with ease and the prospect of a happy issue. But we should remember, that for those who are not _ready_ to embark at the moment when their tide is at its flood, that tide may never serve again; and nothing is more likely to be a hinderance at such a moment than the distress which is certain to follow a neglect of our ordinary business.
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ISAAC ASHFORD.
[From Crabbe’s Parish Register.]
One of the most eminent of our modern poets died a few weeks ago, the Reverend George Crabbe. Mr. Crabbe was born in 1754, at Aldborough in Suffolk, and, consequently, at the time of his death, had reached the advanced age of seventy-eight. Although his last work, his Tales of the Hall, in two volumes, was published so lately as 1819, he had been for many years by far the oldest of our living poets; for his first production, The Library, was published so long ago as the year 1781. His poetical career, therefore, reckoning from this commencement to his death, had extended over more than the long space of half a century. A second poem, entitled The Village, however, which quickly followed the Library, was the only additional work which he produced during the first half of this period. It was not till 1807 that he again came before the world as an author, by the publication of two volumes of Poems, comprising the Parish Register and other pieces. This publication was followed by another poem, entitled The Borough, in 1810; by two volumes of Tales, in 1812; and, as already mentioned, by his ‘Tales of the Hall,’ the last work which he gave to the press, in 1819. Mr. Crabbe had been Rector of Trowbridge, in Wiltshire, for eighteen years before his death.
Notwithstanding considerable peculiarities, and some obvious faults of manner, it is impossible to peruse any of Crabbe’s productions without feeling yourself to be in the hands of a writer of great power, and a true poet. In some of his pieces he has displayed both a soaring imagination and a delicate sense of beauty; but he is most popularly known as the poet of poverty and wretchedness,--the stern explorer and describer of the deepest and darkest recesses of human suffering and crime. Perhaps he has occasionally painted the gloom of the regions in which he was thus accustomed to wander with somewhat of exaggeration; but it would be easy to select abundant proof from his writings, that if he delineated with an unsparing pencil both the miseries and the vices of the poor, he could also sympathize with their enjoyments and estimate their virtues as cordially as any man that ever lived. The following passage from the Third Part of his Parish Register, that in which he reviews the list of burials, is an admirably drawn picture of a lofty character in humble life. The writer, it will be observed, speaks in the character of the clergyman of the parish. He has related the lives and deaths of two of his female parishioners, after which he proceeds thus:--
Next to these ladies, but in nought allied, A noble peasant, _Isaac Ashford_, died; Noble he was, contemning all things mean, His truth unquestioned, and his soul serene. Of no man’s presence _Isaac_ felt afraid; At no man’s question _Isaac_ looked dismayed: Shame knew him not, he dreaded no disgrace; Truth, simple truth, was written in his face; Yet while the serious thought his soul approved, Cheerful he seemed, and gentleness he loved. To bliss domestic he his heart resigned, And with the firmest, had the fondest mind: Were others joyful, he looked smiling on, And gave allowance where he needed none; Good he refused with future ill to buy, Nor knew a joy that caused reflection’s sigh; A friend to virtue, his unclouded breast No envy stung, no jealousy distressed; Yet far was he from stoic pride removed, He felt humanely, and he warmly loved. I marked his action when his infant died, And his old neighbour for offence was tried; The still tears, stealing down that furrowed cheek, Spoke pity, plainer than the tongue can speak. If pride were his, ’twas not their vulgar pride, Who, in their base contempt, the great deride; Nor pride in learning, though my clerk agreed, If fate should call him, _Ashford_ might succeed; Nor pride in rustic skill, although we knew None his superior, and his equals few: But if that spirit in his soul had place, It was the jealous pride that shuns disgrace; A pride in honest fame, by virtue gained, In sturdy boys, to virtuous labours trained; Pride in the power that guards his country’s coast, And all that Englishmen enjoy and boast; Pride in a life that slander’s tongue defied, In fact, a noble passion, misnamed _Pride_.
He had no party’s rage, no sectary’s whim; Christian and countryman was _all_ with him: True to his church he came; no Sunday shower Kept him at home in that important hour; Nor his firm feet could one persuading sect By the strong glare of their new light direct; ‘On hope, in mine own sober light, I gaze, But should be blind and lose it in your blaze.’
In times severe, when many a sturdy swain Felt it his pride, his comfort, to complain, _Isaac_ their wants would soothe, his own would hide, And feel in _that_ his comfort and his pride.
At length, he found, when seventy years were run, His strength departed, and his labour done; When, save his honest fame, he kept no more, But lost his wife, and saw his children poor; ’Twas then a spark of--say not discontent-- Struck on his mind, and thus he gave it vent:--
‘Kind are your laws (’tis not to be denied) That in yon house for ruined age provide; And they are just;--when young, we give you all, And then for comforts in our weakness call. Why then this proud reluctance to be fed, To join your Poor and eat the Parish bread? But yet I linger, loathe with him to feed, Who gains his plenty by the sons of need; He who, by contract, all your Paupers took, And gauges stomachs with an anxious look! On some old master I could well depend, See him with joy, and thank him as a friend; But ill on him, who doles the day’s supply, And counts our chances, _who_ at night may die; Yet help me, Heaven! and let me not complain Of what befalls me, but the fate sustain.’
Such were his thoughts, and so resigned he grew, Daily he placed the Workhouse in his view; But came not there; for sudden was his fate, He dropt expiring at his cottage-gate.
I feel his absence in the hours of prayer, And view his seat, and sigh for Isaac there; I see no more those white locks thinly spread Round the bald polish of that honoured head; No more that awful glance on playful wight, Compelled to kneel and tremble at the sight; To fold his fingers, all in dread the while, Till Mister _Ashford_ softened to a smile: No more that meek and suppliant look in prayer, Nor the pure faith (to give it force) are there; But he is blest, and I lament no more A wise good man contented to be poor.
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A QUAINT SERMON.
Mr. Dodd was a minister who lived many years ago a few miles from Cambridge; and having several times been preaching against drunkenness, some of the Cambridge scholars (conscience, which is sharper than ten thousand witnesses, being their monitor) were very much offended, and thought he made reflections on them. Some little time after, Mr. Dodd was walking towards Cambridge, and met some of the gownsmen, who, as soon as they saw him at a distance, resolved to make some ridicule of him. As soon as he came up, they accosted him with “Your servant, sir!” He replied, “Your servant, gentlemen.” They asked him if he had not been preaching very much against drunkenness of late? He answered in the affirmative. They then told him they had a favour to beg of him, and it was that he would preach a sermon to them _there_, from a text they should choose. He argued that it was an imposition, for a man ought to have some consideration before preaching. They said they would not put up with a denial, and insisted upon his preaching immediately (in a hollow tree which stood by the road side) from the word M.A.L.T. He then began, “Beloved, let me crave your attention. I am a little man--come at a short notice--to preach a short sermon--from a short text--to a thin congregation--in an unworthy pulpit. Beloved, my text is _Malt_. I cannot divide it into sentences, there being none; nor into words, there being but one; I must therefore, of necessity, divide it into letters, which I find in my text to be these four--M.A.L.T.
M--is Moral.
A--is Allegorical.
L--is Literal.
T--is Theological.
“The moral, is to teach you rusticks good manners: therefore M--my Masters, A--All of you, L--Leave off, T--Tippling.
“The Allegorical is, when one thing is spoken of, and another meant. The thing spoken of is Malt. The thing meant is the spirit of Malt, which you rusticks make, M--your Meat, A--your Apparel, L--your Liberty, and T--your Trust.
“The Literal is, according to the letters, M--Much, A--Ale, L--Little, T--Trust.
“The Theological is, according to the effects it works--in some, M--Murder--in others, A--Adultery--in all, L--Looseness of Life, and in many, T--Treachery.
“I shall conclude the subject, First, by way of Exhortation. M--my Masters, A--All of you, L--Listen, T--To my Text. Second, by way of Caution. M--my Masters, A--All of you, L--Look for, T--the Truth. Third, by way of communicating the Truth, which is this:--A Drunkard is the annoyance of modesty; the spoil of civility; the destruction of reason; the robber’s agent; the alehouse’s benefactor; his wife’s sorrow; his children’s trouble; his own shame; his neighbour’s scoff; a walking swill-bowl; the picture of a beast; the monster of a man!”
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DESCRIPTION OF POLAND.
The kingdom of Poland, which has lately been the theatre of so disastrous a war, was established in 1815, by the treaty of Vienna, and was composed of four territories placed respectively under the following sovereignties, viz.:--
1. _Gallicia_; assigned to Austria.
2. _The Grand Duchy of Posen_, including the Western Palatinates bordering on Silesia; surrendered to Prussia.
3. _The city and district of Cracow_; constituted a free republic; and
4. The remainder of ancient Poland, comprising the bulk of what was before the Grand Duchy of Warsaw; made to revert to Russia.
The kingdom was divided into eight Palatinates: viz., Masovia, Cracow, Sandomir, Kalisz, Lublin, Plotsk, and Augustowa. The population, according to the last census of 1829, was, exclusive of the army, 4,088,290, which have been thus classed:--
Employed in agriculture (householders) 1,871,259 Their families and servants 2,221,188 In manufactures 140,377 Their families 358,035 Tradesmen 49,888 Their families 131,331 Landed Proprietors 4,205 Copyholders 1,886 Freeholders in towns 41,654 Employed under government 8,414 Patients in the 592 public hospitals 5,376 Prisoners in the 76 prisons 7,926