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where they thought that they had only one corpse to inter, they would have six or eight, and oftentimes more. Nor were these honored by lighted tapers, or mourners or other followers. Things had come to that pass that no more regard was paid to dead men than is now paid to goats.

The consecrated ground not being sufficient to contain the multitude of corpses which were brought, not only daily but hourly, to the several churches, and it being desirable to appropriate to each a proper place according to ancient custom, enormous ditches were dug in each churchyard, as every place was full, and into these were the dead huddled by hundreds. Here, covered with a little earth, were they piled, like merchandize on shipboard, tier over tier, until they reached from the bottom even unto the top of the trench.

But it is unnecessary for me to enumerate every particular of our past misfortunes. I will merely add that having ravaged the city so destructively, it did not on that account spare the surrounding country the more. Here (not to mention the castles, which resembled the city in miniature) the poor husbandmen and their families died, night and day, in scattered villages, in the fields and on the roadside, not like men, but like cattle, without troubling a physician, and without any sort of assistance. The country people, like the citizens, became, hence, careless, and paid no attention to any of their affairs. On the contrary, all, as if expecting death within that day, exercised their ingenuity, not in preserving the products of their cattle, of their lands, and the fruits of their past industry, but in consuming whatever they could lay hands on. Wherefore it came to pass, that the oxen, the asses, the sheep, the goats, the swine, the fowls, and even the very dogs, the most faithful followers of man, turned out of their houses, wandered wherever they pleased, through the fields, where the grain still remained, not only unharvested, but uncut. Many of them, however, having been well foddered through the day, returned, like rational beings, at night, satisfied, to their folds.

Quitting the country and returning to the city, what more can be said than that Heaven was so implacable and man so hardened of heart, that, between the virulence of this fatal plague and the improper attendance or utter abandonment of the sick in their need, owing to the terror which seized those in health, more than one hundred thousand human beings, for a certainty, perished, from the month of March to the ensuing July, within the walls of the city of Florence! Who would have imagined, before this destructive visitation, that so many dwelt therein? O how many stately palaces! how many beautiful houses! how many noble mansions, recently crowded with noble lords and ladies, remained now without the meanest servant! many renowned families! how many splendid inheritances! what enormous wealth, was left without an heir! How many gallant men; how many beauteous women; how many handsome youths, whom Galen, Hippocrates or Esculapius would have pronounced in the ruddiest health, dined in the morning with their relatives, friends and companions, and supped on the next evening with their ancestors in the other world!

O how

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The word was spoken, and this green earth
In its youth and its beauty sprang into birth;
The streamlet murmured along the wood,
And the oak in its strength and its beauty stood;
Bowers of roses and freshness sprung:
Music in heaven's blue arches rung.
Paradise rose in its light and flowers;
Beauty and joy lit the glowing hours;
Zephyrs perfumed the clear ambient air,
With each leaf and each flow'ret that whispered there;
Birds of bright beauty were on the wing:
All was joy, fragrance and murmuring.

The stars were hymning their heavenly song,
As they passed in the space with their light along ;
Angels were bending on wings of gold,

As the strange new world in its music roll'd;
Joy was in heaven and joy on earth,
That a new creation was given birth.
Midst fragrant bowers, by streamlets' flow,
Man was there with his lofty brow;
Woman was smiling with eyes of light,
Making the air as she pass'd more bright;
For them bloom'd earth, and for them the sky
Sent forth its balm and its melody.

Reapings by a Reader.-No. 1.

M. Passy then proceeds to inquire what change has

On the influence of the division of heritable property occurred in the amount of fortunes distributed among on the accumulation of wealth. the class possessing property. The value of property

1,345,711,516 francs, and in 1836 it had increased to 1,560,320,825 francs, thus showing that the real and personal property transmitted by deaths increased nearly sixteen per cent in eleven years.

It is probably the popular opinion that the law of in-transmitted by will or inheritance in 1826, was, heritance adopted in France since the revolution, and which divides a man's property among his heirs, has had the effect, if not of reducing each man's share almost to a minimum, at least of greatly equalizing property. M. Passy has examined this point with the aid of statistical facts, and is induced to question its cor

rectness.

The author concludes by stating that division of indistribution of wealth, has been overcome by the causes heritance, far from having produced equality in the tending to inequality, and a tendency towards concen

Among the special causes operating against it in France, he refers to the very unequal number of chil-tration has resulted. The population has increased in

dren born to a marriage in the different classes of society, and the fact that the rich class has the fewest of all. From 1826 to 1836, the average number of legitimate children born annually in France, was 904,702, and as the average number of marriages during the same period was 256,927, it follows that the number of births to each marriage has been 3.52. The thirty-nine principal towns of more than 20,000 inhabitants, contain a population of 2,634,525, and the annual average of births has been 65,290, and of marriages 21,374, giving only 3.05 births to a marriage. The average of births in these towns is thus less than that of the country by 0.47. | It appears therefore that the average of the births is least in those of the towns where the inhabitants live upon their means, and is greatest where the working class is

most numerous.

The truth of this proposition is still more strikingly verified in the city of Paris. The most opulent families in France congregate there, and the marriages show fewer births where the population is richest. Thus in the four first arrondissements united, which are the four where the richest families reside, the number of children to a marriage is 1.97, while the average of the four poorer is 2.86.

the last thirteen years eight per cent, wealth more than
sixteen per cent, and if the classes of proprietors have
seen their fortunes augmented, the working classes have
also seen the fund which remunerates their toil increase
more rapidly than the hands which divide it.
Buttons from Clay.

The principle of forming mosaic tessera by the pressure of dry powder has been applied to the manufacture of various kinds of buttons. They are called agate buttons, and are made of kaolin, or China clay, brought from the neighborhood of St. Austell in Cornwall. This kaolin is the same as the celebrated pottery clay of the Chinese, which is obtained from disintegrated granite. The buttons are pretty and clear in appearance, and very hard. They are manufactured in all shapes and sizes, plain and ornamented, and as compared with the cost of mother of pearl, are said to be about one-third the price.-[Chambers' Journal.

Cast-Iron Buildings in China.

Letters from Rev. Mr. Gutzlaff state that the art of constructing buildings in cast-iron has been known for centuries in China. He has found a pagoda entirely composed of cast-iron. It is covered with bas-reliefs and inscriptions, which, from their forms, characters and dates, show that they are as old as the dynasty of

It

The prevailing opinion that riches diffuse themselves and pass from the hands of their possessors amongst the mass of the population is based upon the incontroverti-Tang, which was upon the throne as far back as from ble fact of the gradual multiplication of the subdivisions the fifth to the tenth century of the Christian era. is in the shape of an octagonal pyramid, is forty feet in of the soil. Thus 123,630,328 subdivisions are now admitted in France, and it is argued that this parcelling height, and eight feet in diameter at the base. It has seven stories, each containing extremely curious hisout of the soil would not have occurred without the number of landed proprietors having immeasurably torical pictures. M. Gutzlaff represents this monument as being strikingly elegant, and surpassing in this reaugmented. But what is the fact? In 1815, there were 10,083,751 names registered as landed proprietors, and spect, every thing of the kind he had previously seen in China.-[London Athenæum. in 1835, there were 10,893,528, giving an increase in twenty years of eight per cent of proprietors. The population stands thus:

In 1815, 29,152,743

In 1835, 33,326,573

Being an increase of fourteen per cent, and proving that instead of increasing in equal ratio, the number of landed proprietors is diminished, by the difference between fourteen and eight per cent. It was moreover computed in 1815, that France contained one hundred fixed capitalists in every two hundred and ninety inhabitants, but in 1835, only one hundred in three hundred and five, showing that the number of proprietors, as compared to the rest of the population, has decreased two and a half per cent.

Thunder Storms and Lightning Rods.

St. Martin's church (London) was struck by lightning on the 28th of July, 1842. The spire is a light hollow structure, forty feet high, standing on an open cupola, and surrounded by ornamental columns and arches. The floor of this cupola is covered with lead, and there is a massive framework of wood and iron resting on it; the spire terminates in an iron rod formed into a spindle at its extreme point for the support of the vane, four to five inches square and twenty-seven feet long; its extreme point being about two hundred feet from the ground. Beneath the cupola is the dial room, containing the iron spindles of the clock faces, and these are connected by an upright spindle with the clock

itself, which is in an apartment forty-six feet below. Under the dial room are the bells, and beneath the clock room is the ringer's chamber, on a level with the roof of the church itself.

The Cuttle Fish.

Moral Suasion among Monkeys. These animals, which are surpassed by none other in the philoprogenitive feeling, are observed to go through something like a process of education with their The first point struck was the vane-spindle, and the young. They keep them under proper obedience and electric discharge passed into the spire by the long iron restraint, much after the fashion of human mothers. rod already described, and so far as this rod continued A set of female monkeys has been observed to suckle, no damage was done to the building, but at the bottom caress and cleanse their young ones, and then sit down of the rod there existed no metallic conductor to carry to see them play with each other. If, in the course of the fluid further, and it had to force its way through their sports, any showed a tincture of malice, the dams the masonry, starting an angle stone, and thence down- would spring upon them, and seizing them with one wards, and so shattered the spire as to leave it in tot-paw by the tail, correct them severely with the other. tering state. Two blocks of stone were thrown com--Chambers' Journal. pletely out of their places, and fell through the roof into the church; the joints of the spire were all loosened and its general surface contorted. Two other stones were dislocated, and if these also had been thrown out, the whole of the upper portion of the spire must have fallen. Arrived at the floor of the cupola, the discharge forced a passage into a metal clamp within the masonry, where it tore up and fractured a large stone and turned it completely over. Thus it came to the dials, at a point intermediate between the north and west dials, where it divided and fell upon the gold letters XI and XII, which, especially on the west dial, it burnt up and blackened; thence it exploded on the minute hands, blackening the gold and injuring their points. But it had now reached a new metallic conductor and proceeded without further damage; for by the hands of the clock it reached the spindles of the dial room, and so passed along to the top of the upright spindle, along which it descended forty-six feet downwards with perfect safety to the clock. On reaching the works of the clock, the discharge melted a small copper wire, by which the lever handle key was suspended on the iron frame, and spread over the wheels and other parts, magnetized the steel pivots, blackened the silver face of the regulator, and burst open the door of the outer wooden casing, but did not stop the clock! Here once more the metallic conductor ceased, and the discharge had to force a passage through the floor of the clock room, leaving it as if blown up by gunpowder, and coming out just over one of the iron window frames in the ringer's room, shattered all the glass, and left marks of fusion on small streaks of lead in the joints of the stones. By this course, it reached the lead of the roof, and through the pipes connected with the roof was carried into the ground without furthar damage.

Mr. Snow Harns, from whose work on Thunder Storms, this account is taken, remarks that it is impossible to conceive a case giving a better insight into the nature of disruptive discharges, through a fortuitous arrangement of good and imperfect conductors, than this before us. All the damage occurred in points where good conducting matter (i. e. metal) ceased to be continued, and again passing along the upright rods and spindles of iron, without even injuring the slender wooden case in which one of these (the clock spindle, forty-six feet long and one inch in diameter,) was enclosed.

Had the iron rod been carried from the vane of the spire to the lead of the roof, the damage to the building would have been averted.

We

"The cuttle fish," says Kirby in his Bridgewater Treatise, "is one of the most wonderful works of the Creator." We have no creature at all approaching it in size that departs so widely from the familiar every-day type of animal life, whether developed on the land or in the water. A man buried to the neck in a sack, and prepared for such a race as Tennent describes in his Anst'er Fair, is an exceedingly strangelooking animal, but not half so strange-looking as a strollach. Let us just try to improve him into one, and give in this way some idea of the animal to those unacquainted with it. First, then, the sack must be brought to a point at the bottom, as if the legs were sewed up tightly together, and the corners left projecting so as to form two flabby fins; and further, the sack must be a sack or pink, thickly speckled with red, and tolerably open at the upper end where the neck and head protrude. So much for the changes on the sack; but the changes on the parts that rise out of the sack must be of a much more extraordinary character. must first obliterate the face, and then, fixing on the crown of the head a large beak of black horn, crooked as that of the parrot, we must remove the mouth to the opening between the mandibles. Around the broad base of the beak must we insert a circular ring of brain, as if this part of the animal had no other vocation than to take care of the mouth and its pertinents; and around the circular brain must we plant, as if on the coronal ring of the head, no fewer than ten long arms, each furnished with double rows of concave suckers that resemble cups arranged on the plane of a narrow table. The tout ensemble must serve to remind one of the head of some Indian chief bearing a crown of tall feathers; and directly below the crown where the cheeks, or rather the ears had been, we must fix two immense eyes, huge enough to occupy what had been the whole sides of the face. Though the brain of an ordinarysized loligo be scarcely larger than a ring for the little finger, its eyes are scarce smaller than an ox. To complete our cuttle-fish we must insist, as a condition, that when in motion, the metamorphosed sack-racer must either walk head downwards on his arms, or glide, like a boy descending an inclined plane on ice, foot foremost, with the point of his sack first and his beak and arms last; or, in other words, that reversing every ordinary circumstance of voluntary motion, he must make a snout of cut-water of his fect, and a long trailing tail of his arms and head. The cuttle-fish, when

2

lustrations which the past history and present condition of the inhabitants occupying the various regions of the frigid, temperate and torrid zones, afford, of the principle here adverted to, its existence is a legitimate deduction from the soundest and best established theories of science and philosophy, in their application to the physical and mental constitution of our being. Whatever advantages then, in the formation and development of character, are derivable from the favorable influences of climate, are enjoyed in the most abundant profusion by the inhabitants of a region like our own, comprising almost every variety of temperature within the extremes of heat or cold-washed on its principal borders by the ocean- penetrated in every direction by noble rivers-enriched by inland seas—and variegated by ample forests, lofty mountains, and extended plains.

walking, always walks with its mouth nearer the earth becomes capable of expanding to a loftier and more than any other part of either head or body, and, when substantial flight. Independently of the numerous ilswimming, always follows its tail instead of being followed by it. This last curious condition, though doubtless, on the whole, the best adapted to the conformation and instincts of the creature, often proves fatal to it, especially in calm weather and quiet inland friths, when not a ripple breaks upon the shore to warn that the shore is near. An enemy appears; the creature ejects its cloud of ink like a sharp-shooter discharging his rifle ere he retreats; and then, darting away tail foremost under the cover, it grounds itself high upon the beach and perishes there. Few men have walked much along the shores of a sheltered bay without witnessing a catastrophe of this kind. The last loligo I saw strand itself in this way was a large and very vigorous animal. The day was extremely calm-I heard a peculiar sound —a squelch, if I may employ such a word; and there, a few yards away, was a loligo nearly two feet in length, high and dry upon the pebbles. I laid hold of it by the sheath or sack; and the loligo, in turn, laid hold of the pebbles just as I have seen a boy, when borne off against his will by a stronger than himself, grasping fast to projecting doorposts and furniture. The pebbles were here, smooth, and heavy, but the creature raised them with ease, by twining its flexile arms around them, and then forming a vacuum in each of its suckers. I subjected one of my hands to its grasp and it seized fast hold; but though the suckers were still employed, it employed them on a different principle. Around the circular rim of each there is a fringe of minute thorns, hooked somewhat like those of the wild rose. In fastening on the hard smooth pebbles these were overtopped by a fleshy membrane, much in the manner that the cushions of a cat's paw overtop its claws when the animal is in a state of tranquillity; and, by means of the projecting membrane, the hollow inside was rendered air tight, and the vacuum completed; but in dealing with the hand, a soft substance, the thorns were left bare, like the claws of the cat when stretched out in anger, and at least a thousand minute prickles were fixed in the skin at once. They failed to penetrate it, for they were short, and, individually, not strong, but, acting together and by hundreds, they took at least a very firm hold.

Effect of Climate and Scenery upon Mind.

BY S. S. RANDALL.

To these advantages must be added those which belong to the magnificent and beautiful scenery which Nature has so bountifully spread out to view, in all the great features of our landscapes. From the bold, rugged and strongly marked outline of our Northern border, with its wild and gigantic acclivities, its lavish profusion of lakes, its labyrinth of islands, its majestic rivers, and its perpetually resounding cataract, to the green savannahs and verdant loveliness of the South, and the vast prairies, mighty streams and unexplored forests of the West,—the eye and the mind continually rest upon images of grandeur and of beauty; and the active energies of a great and united people have devised and executed the noble conception of rendering this diversified scenery in all its vast proportions accessible, to the humblest and least favored individual, and have opened up its wide expanse of territory to the highways and thoroughfares of civilization.

It is impossible that these diversified influences should fail to affect, in a material degree, the growth and expansion of character. The associations which constantly surround the dwellers in cities - the bustle and the hum of business-the anxious and care-worn faces - the incessant excitement of contending interests — the monotonous uniformity of artificial life in all its ceaseless and dull routine-tend directly to the depreciation of humanity in all its higher and most enduring aspects. Hence the proportion of elevated and vigorous minds-minds capable of penetrating through the thick veil of selfish aspirations, and of rightly appreThe effect of climate upon the character of indi- ciating the deceptive appearances engendered by the viduals and of communities is known to be very impor- perpetual collision of the passions and propensities — tant. The mind in its present condition of existence is small, not only when compared with the mass of igis dependent for its healthy and vigorous manifestation norance, of delusion and error which propagates itself upon the degree of energy and elasticity with which at a fearful rate in our great capitals, but also when the physical organs fulfil their functions. The inha- compared with the general intelligence, integrity and bitants of the polar and equatorial regions are subjected moral and social worth of the rural population. That to the paralyzing and debilitating influences of the ex- this diversity is mainly attributable to the associations tremes of cold and heat; and accordingly we find their and scenery of city life, would, doubtless be a violent intellectual and moral faculties scarcely susceptible of presumption; but it is not too much to say that the any considerable development. On the other hand, as comparative absence of the invigorating and untainted we advance from the extremes to a more equable and breezes of the country, and the total seclusion from all temperate region, the mental incubus gradually disap- those genial influences which nature dispenses in bounpears'; and in proportion to the salubrity and genial tem-tiful profusion, wherever her domains are not systeperament of the climate, the mind in all its powers matically invaded by man, enter largely into the de

Summer Fancies.-No. 1.

BY ALFRED B. STREET.

pressing tendencies which are invariably found to characterize the crowded marts of business and pleasure. On the other hand, the quiet repose and placid loveliness of the cultivated landscape stretching out in dim This life is very pleasant in despite of "all the ills perspective no less than the rugged grandeur and that flesh is heir to." The ills are half the time of our wild sublimity of the mountain and the forest - the own seeking, diligent seeking too, while the pleasures purity of the atmosphere and the habitual contem- are positive. The drawling sentimentality about the plation of the ever changing phenomena of nature, irre-heavy burthen of existence, bitter sorrows, overwhelmsistibly tend to the elevation of character - the germi-ing cares and so on, is very ridiculous to men of sense. nation and growth of thought—and the predominance The laughing philosopher is the true philosopher. I of the better feelings and impulses of the heart. The don't mean to deny that life has not its evils; it has, intellectual faculties may be and frequently are, more and plenty of them. But the gloom is only deepened rapidly developed, and more speedily matured by the by the mind conjuring up its own shadows. If there is collision of mind with mind, produced by the diversi-a sorrow to be borne, it only becomes heavier by yield. fied interests and pursuits of a crowded population: but ing to it. A bright and cheerful spirit is the moral sunall history and experience has demonstrated that the shine of life. substantial elements of character- the moral and religious sentiments- the virtues and the graces of public and private life-incorruptible integrity-devoted patriotism diffusive benevolence and an abiding and cheerful faith, are best promoted and most effectually cherished amid the secluded scenery, and pure associations of the country. These aids to the formation of character are enjoyed by the citizens of our Republic in a degree unsurpassed by any people of any clime and their influences are purely beneficial.

The Thoughts of Home.
Wanderer in life's thorny way,
Where'er thy foot may roam,
Still think upon thy early day,

Thy loved and simple home.
The violet sheds its deepest blue,
That blooms within thy bowers,

A softer tint is on the hue,

That trembles on the flowers.

The music in the wildwood green,

Has charmed thy infant ear,

The streamlet glittering through the scene,
Is to thy bosom dear.

Wanderer though thy foot may tread,
The foreign sunny clime,

Where roses round their fragrance shed,
Where glows the palm and lime.
Where waves in softer purple roll,
Round isles of summer bloom,
Yet sweeter to thy weary soul,
Will be the thoughts of home.

For thee the sunshine richly lies,
On grass, on trees and flowers,
And green woods through the azure skies,
Spread their cool shady bowers.

And sweetly to thy swelling breast,
The song of other days,

Will breathe to thee of joy and rest,
Midst home's green hills and ways.
The wood lark in the morning bright,
Her strain mid crimson sings,
And

young leaves stir in tender light,
To zephyr's balmy wings.

Then, wanderer, turn thy weary eye
And foot no more to roam,
And view again thy native sky,
That smiles above thy home.

ATTICUS.

-

If there is any season that should make us more cheerful and happy than another, it is summer glorious, Paradise then reappears upon golden, leafy summer. the earth - beauty and grandeur, fragrance and music are the component parts of her being. In our climate too, nothing can be more delightful than her coming. We will suppose that winter has passed away, that is, the month of February-spring (nominally I mean) of course succeeds. But it is real spring no more than a snow flake is a dogwood blossom. The hours are pleasantly varied by snow squalls and north-westers. March blusters behind the back of winter with a south wind sometimes, as though he intended to chase the hoary headed monarch from the field, but the very moment the old warrior turns towards him, he becomes as white as snow can make him, and freezes stiff with terror. And April too, that thing of "smiles and tears," as the poets call her smiles indeed! an instant ray of cold sunshine between black stormy clouds, and as for the tears, she has enough in all conscience. She is nothing but tears for that matter, and pretty cold ones too. Tears of snow one minute and hail the next. If you have been lured out by the chirp of a blue bird in the hope of finding spring, and do not return with the seeds of a catarrh or of a reumatic affection in your system, you are lucky. Then comes May-sweet smiling cheerful May, that is if we believe the poets again, particularly the English ones-"Tomorrow will rise up thy loveliest day," sang Miss Landon, apostrophising the month on the last of April. What visions of dances on the village green around the May pole crowned with fresh flowers, beam before the mind, at the mention of the first day of May. Well, I don't wish to be captious or slanderous, but I must say with regard to all this, that the old adage, vulgar though it be, of "the proof of the pudding," &c., applies here very particularlyI speak from my own experience only, be it understood, and would'nt depreciate for the world. My own experience then of this month is that it is a sort of olla podrida, a blending of March and April with a good proportion of the unpleasant elements peculiar to itself. I speak now of the first half, rain and wind, wind and rain; these vary the barometer. The last half, however, is devoted to a preparation for summer. Tiny deep. folded leaves burst out from the buds - the trees and bushes are turned into orchestras for the display of bird-music-the streams prattle their songs, and old

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