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places, under ground, which communicate with the bed of the river, and which are filled with water in ordinary seasons, but in times of drought become empty, and absorb the water from the river to re-fill them. When this is the case, the bed of the river becomes dry; and Burford bridge often presents the odd appearance of a bridge over land dry enough to be walked on. The river, however, always rises again about Letherhead, and suffers no further interruption in its course."

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Arrived at the Isle of Wight, the little pupil is told that in shape it 'has been compared to that of a turbot, of which the point called the Needles forms the tail. From this point, which is the extreme west, to Foreland Farm, near Bembridge, which is the extreme east, the whole island measures only twenty-four miles in length; and its greatest breadth, which is from Cowes Castle to Rock End, near Black Gang Chine, is only twelve miles. It is therefore extremely creditable to this little island to have made such a noise in the world as it has done; and its celebrity shows that, small as it is, it contains a great many things worth looking at.'

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At Carisbrook Castle the tourists repaired to the wellhouse, to visit the celebrated donkey. When they first entered, Agnes was a little disappointed to see the donkey, without any bridle or other harness on, standing close to the wall, behind a great wooden wheel. "Oh, mamma,' cried she, "I suppose the donkey will not work to-day, as he has no harness on?" "I beg your pardon, miss," said the man; "this poor little fellow does not require to be chained like your London donkeys; he does his work voluntarily. Come, sir," continued he, addressing the donkey, "show the ladies what you can do." The donkey shook his head in a very sagacious manner, as much as to say, you may depend upon me," and sprang directly into the interior of the wheel, which was broad and hollow, and furnished in the inside with steps, formed of projecting pieces of wood nailed on, the hollow part of the wheel being broad enough to admit of the donkey between its two sets of spokes. The donkey then began walking up the steps of the wheel, in the same manner as the prisoners do on the wheel at the treadmill; and Agnes noticed that he kept looking at them frequently, and then at the well, as he went along. The man had no whip, and said nothing to the donkey while he pursued his course; but as it took some time to wind up the water, the man informed Mrs Merton and her daughter, while they were waiting, that the well was above three hundred feet deep, and that the water could only be drawn up by the exertion of the donkeys that had been kept there; he added, that three of these patient labourers had been known to have laboured at Carisbrook, the first for fifty years, the second for forty, and the last for thirty. The present donkey, he said, was only a novice in the business, as he had not been employed much above thirteen years; and he pointed to some writing inside the door, in which the date was marked down. While they were speaking, the donkey still continued his labour, and looked so anxiously towards the well, that at last Agnes asked what he was looking at. "He is looking for the bucket," said the man; and in fact, as soon as the bucket made its appearance, the donkey stopped, and very deliberately walked out of the wheel to the place where he had been standing when they entered.'

Various lessons in natural history were conveyed when suitable objects presented themselves; and the young pupil, though only absent from home six days, received a greater amount of useful information than if she had studied from books during a much longer period. It is in the power of every parent to communicate instruction on the same plan, and we have noticed this little work chiefly for the purpose of recommending the 'out-door' system of instruction.

SUPERSTITIONS.

It is singular that superstitious ideas of the same character should be prevalent in different countries-that the same inference and deduction should be drawn from the same false data, and the same sayings become current: it is a subject for the consideration of a physiologist. It is a common remark, as regards some birds, that they bring good luck to the houses on which they build. Swallows and storks belong to this category, and they build, especially the latter, on such houses as seem to offer the greatest security to the nest, from the state in which they are

kept; and because industrious and provident people take care of their houses and property, and generally prosper in their worldly affairs, it is easy to establish a paralogis and to argue from the effect rather than the cause. The luck is to the nest, not to the house.-Note-Book of a Natoralist.

TO THE UNSATISFIED.

[BY H. W. OF FOTLAND, MAINE.]

WHY thus longing, why for ever sighing,

For the far-off, unattained and dim; While the beautiful, all around thee lying, Offers up its low perpetual hymn? Wouldst thou listen to its gentle teaching,

All thy restless yearning it would still;
Leaf, and flower, and laden bee are preaching,
Thine own sphere, though humble, first to fill
Poor, indeed, thou must be, if around thee
Thou no ray of light and joy canst throw,
If no silken cord of love hath bound thee
To some little world, through weal and wo;

If no dear eyes thy fond love can brighten-
No fond voices answer to thine own;
If no brother's sorrow thou canst lighten,
By daily sympathy and gentle tone.

Not by deeds that win the world's applauses,
Not by works that give thee world-renown,
Nor by martyrdom, or vaunted crosses,
Canst thou win and wear the immortal crown.

Daily struggling, though unloved and lonely,
Every day a rich reward will give;
Thou wilt find, by hearty striving only,
And truly loving, thou canst truly live.
Dost thou revel in the rosy morning,

When all nature hails the lord of light,
And his smile, the mountain-tops adorning,
Robes yon fragrant fields in radiance bright?
Other hands may grasp the field and forest,
Proud proprietors in pomp may shine;
But with fervent love if thou adorest,

Thou art wealthier-all the world is thine!

Yet if through earth's wide domains thou rovest,
Sighing that they are not thine alone,

Not those fair fields, but thyself thou lovest,
And their beauty and thy wealth are gone.

Nature wears the colour of the spirit;
Sweetly to her worshipper she sings;
All the glow, the grace she doth inherit,
Round her trusting child she fondly flings.
-From a newspaper.

GUILT.

Guilt, though it may attain temporal splendour, can never confer real happiness. The evil consequences of our crimes long survive their commission, and, like the ghosts of the murdered, for ever haunt the steps of the malefactor. The paths of virtue, though seldom those of worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and peace.— Sir Walter Scott.

MODERATION.

Let your desires and aversions to the common objects and occurrences in this life be but few and feeble. Make it your daily business to moderate your aversions and desires, and to govern them by reason. This will guard you against many a ruffle of spirit, both of anger and sorrow,Watts.

FUTURE STATE.

We are led to the belief of a future state not only by the weaknesses, by the hopes and fears of human nature, but by the noblest and best principles which belong to it, by the love of virtue, and by the abhorrence of vice and injustice.-Adam Smith.

Published by W, and R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh (also 98, Miller Street, Glasgow); and with their permission, by W. S. ORR, Amen Corner, London.-Printed by BRADBURY and Evans, Whitefriars, London,

JOURNAL

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.

No. 93. NEW SERIES.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1845.

'SENTIMENT OF PRE-EXISTENCE.' THIS is an expression of Sir Walter Scott for a peculiar feeling which he is supposed to have been the first to describe. The description is thrown into the mouth of Henry Bertram on his return to Ellangowan Castle: 'How often,' he says, 'do we find ourselves in society which we have never before met, and yet feel impressed with a mysterious and ill-defined consciousness that neither the scene, the speakers, nor the subject are entirely new; nay, feel as if we could anticipate that part of the conversation which has not yet taken place!' It appears, from a passage in the Wool-gatherer,' a tale by James Hogg, that that extraordinary son of genius was occasionally conscious of the same feeling. Wordsworth, too, hints at it, with an intimation that it is the recollection of a former existence

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises in us, our life's star,
Has had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar.

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In a curious and original book, entitled 'The Duality of the Mind,' written by Dr Wigan, and published last year, this strange sentiment is adduced as an evidence in favour of the conclusion aimed at, that the mind is double in its whole structure, correspondently with the duplicity of the structure of the brain. It is a sudden feeling, as if the scene we have just witnessed (although from the very nature of things it could never have been seen before) had been present to our eyes on a former occasion, when the very same speakers, seated in the very same positions, uttered the same sentiments in the same words-the postures, the expression of countenance, the gestures, the tone of voice, all seem to be remembered, and to be now attracting attention for the second time: never is it supposed to be the third time. This delusion,' pursues the writer, occurs only when the mind has been exhausted by excitement, or is, from indisposition or any other cause, languid, and only slightly attentive to the conversation. The persuasion of the scene being a repetition, comes on when the attention has been roused by some accidental circumstance, and we become, as the phrase is, wide awake. I believe the explanation to be this: only one brain has been used in the immediately preceding part of the scene; the other brain has been asleep, or in an analogous state nearly approaching it. When the attention of both brains is roused to the topic, there is the same vague consciousness that the ideas have passed through the mind before, which takes place on re-perusing the page we had read while thinking on some other subject. The ideas have passed through the mind before; and as there was not sufficient consciousness to fix them in the memory without a renewal, we have no means of knowing the length of time that had elapsed between the

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faint impression received by the single brain, and the distinct impression received by the double brain. It may seem to have been many years. I have often noticed this in children, and believe they have sometimes been punished for the involuntary error, in the belief that they have been guilty of deliberate falsehood.

'The strongest example of this delusion I ever recollect in my own person was on the occasion of the funeral of the Princess Charlotte. The circumstances connected with that event formed in every respect a most extraordinary psychological curiosity, and afforded an instructive view of the moral feelings pervading a whole nation, and showing themselves without restraint or disguise. There is, perhaps, no example in history of so intense and so universal a sympathy, for almost every conceivable misfortune to one party is a source of joy, satisfaction, or advantage to another. The event was attended by the strange peculiarity, that it could be a subject of joy or satisfaction to no one. It is difficult to imagine another instance of a calamity by which none could derive any possible benefit; for in the then state of succession to the throne no one was apparently even brought a step nearer to it. One mighty allabsorbing grief possessed the whole nation, and was aggravated in each individual by the sympathy of his neighbour, till the whole people became infected with an amiable insanity, and incapable of estimating the real extent of their loss. No one under five-and-thirty or forty years of age can form a conception of the universal paroxysm of grief which then superseded every other feeling.

'I had obtained permission to be present on the occasion of the funeral, as one of the lord chamberlain's staff. Several disturbed nights previous to that ceremony, and the almost total privation of rest on the night immediately preceding it, had put my mind into a state of hysterical irritability, which was still further increased by grief, and by exhaustion from want of food; for between breakfast and the hour of interment at midnight, such was the confusion in the town of Windsor, that no expenditure of money could procure refreshment.

'I had been standing four hours, and on taking my place by the side of the coffin, in St George's chapel, was only prevented from fainting by the interest of the scene. All that our truncated ceremonies could bestow of pomp was there, and the exquisite music produced a sort of hallucination. Suddenly after the pathetic Miserere of Mozart, the music ceased, and there was an absolute silence. The coffin, placed on a kind of altar covered with black cloth (united to the black cloth which covered the pavement), sank down so slowly through the floor, that it was only in measuring its progress by some brilliant object beyond it that any motion could be perceived. I had fallen into a sort of

torpid reverie, when I was recalled to consciousness by a paroxysm of violent grief on the part of the bereaved husband, as his eye suddenly caught the coffin sinking into its black grave, formed by the inverted covering of the altar. In an instant I felt not merely an impression, but a conviction that I had seen the whole scene before on some former occasion, and had heard even the very words addressed to myself by Sir George Naylor.'

The author thus concludes-Often did I discuss this matter with my talented friend, the late Dr Gooch, who always took great interest in subjects occupying the debateable region between physics and metaphysics; but we could never devise an explanation satisfactory to either of us. I cannot but think that the theory of two brains affords a sufficient solution of the otherwise inexplicable phenomenon. It is probable that some of the examples of religious mysticism, which we generally set down as imposture, may have their origin in similar hallucinations, and that in the uneducated mind these apparent recollections of past scenes, similar to the present, may give to an enthusiast the idea of inspiration, especially where one brain has a decided tendency to insanity, as is so often the case with such persons.' In the more recently published Dashes at Life' of Mr N. P. Willis, there is an article entitled A Revelation of a Previous Life,' in which the actuality of such a life is assumed as the veritable cause of the phenomenon. The whole paper has the air of fiction; yet, as it relates to a subject on which our materials are meagre, we shall make some reference to it. The writer first makes the following statement of (apparently) a serious nature:- Walking in a crowded street, in perfect health, with every faculty gaily alive, I suddenly lose the sense of neighbourhood. I see-I hear-but I feel as if I had become invisible where I stand, and was, at the same time, present and visible elsewhere. I know everything that passes around me, but I seem disconnected and (magnetically speaking) unlinked from the human beings near. If spoken to at such a moment, I answer with difficulty. The person who speaks seems addressing me from a world to which I no longer belong. At the same time, I have an irresistible inner consciousness of being present in another scene of every-day life-where there are streets, and houses, and people-where I am looked on without surprise as a familiar object-where I have cares, fears, objects to attain a different scene altogether, and a different life from the scene and life of which I was a moment before conscious. I have a dull ache at the back of my eyes for the minute or two that this trance lasts, and then slowly and reluctantly my absent soul seems creeping back; the magnetic links of conscious neighbourhood, one by one, re-attach, and I resume my ordinary life, but with an irrepressible feeling of sadness.'

The author then relates an adventure which occurred to him a few years ago at Gratz, in Styria, on the occasion of his being taken by a friend to an evening party, at the house of a noblewoman of that country. It was a lovely summer's night when we strolled through the principal street toward our gay destination; and as I drew upon my friend's arm to stop him while the military band of the fortress finished a delicious waltz (they were playing in the public square), he pointed out to me the spacious balconies of the countess's palace, whither we were going, crowded with the well-dressed company, listening silently to the same enchanting music. We entered, and after an interchange of compliments with the hostess, I availed myself of my friend's second introduction to take a stand in one of the balconies beside the person I was presented to, and, under cover of her favour, to hear out the unfinished music of the band.

As the evening darkened, the lights gleamed out

from the illuminated rooms more brightly, and most of
the guests deserted the balconies, and joined the gayer
circles within. The music ceased at the beat of the
drum. My companion in the balcony was a very quiet
young lady, and, like myself, she seemed subdued by the
sweet harmonies we had listened to, and willing to
remain without the shadow of the curtain. We were
not alone there, however. A tall lady, of very stately
presence, and with the remains of remarkable beauty,
stood on the opposite side of the balcony, and she too
seemed to shrink from the glare within, and cling to the
dewy darkness of the summer night.
an excuse for intermittent conversation, and starting a
'After the cessation of the music, there was no longer
subject which afforded rather freer scope, I did my best
to credit my friend's flattering introduction. I had
discoursed away for half an hour very unreservedly,
before I discovered that, with her hand upon her side,
in an attitude of repressed emotion, the tall lady was
earnestly listening to me. A third person embarrasses
even the most indifferent dialogue. The conversation
languished, and my companion rose and took my arm
for a promenade through the rooms.

'Later in the evening, my friend came in search of me to the supper room.

"Mon ami!" he said, "a great honour has fallen out of the sky for you. I am sent to bring you to the beas reste of the handsomest woman of Styria-Margaret, Baroness R, whose chateau I pointed out to you in She wishes to the gold light of yesterday's sunset. first sign of ordinary feeling that she has given in know you-why, I cannot wholly divine-for it is the twenty years. But she seems agitated, and sits alone in the countess's boudoir. Allons-y!"

'As we made our way through the crowd, he hastily sketched me an outline of the lady's history: "At seventeen, taken from a convent for a forced marriage with the baron whose name she bears; at eighteen, a widow, and, for the first time, in love-the subject of her passion a young artist of Vienna on his way to Italy. The artist died at her chateau-they were to have been married-she has ever since worn weeds for him. And the remainder you must imagine for here we are!"

"The baroness leaned with her elbow upon a small table of or-moulu, and her position was so taken that I seated myself necessarily in a strong light, while her features were in shadow. Still the light was sufficient to show me the expression of her countenance. She was a woman apparently about forty-five, of noble physiognomy, and a peculiar fulness of the eyelid-something like to which I thought I remembered to have seen in a portrait of a young girl many years before. The resemblance troubled me somewhat.

"You will pardon me this freedom," said the baroness, with forced composure," when I tell you that a friend whom I have mourned twenty-five years-seems present to me when you speak.”

The

'I was silent, for I knew not what to say. baroness shaded her eyes with her hand, and sat silent for a few moments, gazing at me.

"You are not like him in a single feature," she resumed, "yet the expression of your face strangely, very strangely, is the same. He was darker slighter."

"Of my age?" I inquired, to break my own silence; for there was something in her voice which gave me the sensation of a voice heard in a dream.

"Oh, that voice! that voice!" she exclaimed wildly, burying her face in her hands, and giving way to a passionate burst of tears.

"Rodolph," she resumed, recovering herself with a strong effort" Rodolph died with the promise on his lips that death should not divide us. And I have seen him! Not in dreams-not in reverie-not at times when my fancy could delude me. I have seen him suddenly before me in the street-in Vienna-hereat home at noonday-for minutes together, gazing on me. It is more in latter years that I have been visited

by him; and a hope has latterly sprung into being in my heart, I know not how, that in person, palpable and breathing, I should again hold converse with him-fold him living to my bosom. Pardon me! You will think me mad!"

I might well pardon her; for as she talked, a vague sense of familiarity with her voice, a memory powerful, though indistinct, of having before dwelt on those majestic features, an impulse of tearful passionateness to rush to her embrace, well-nigh overpowered me. She turned to me again.

"You are an artist?" she said inquiringly.
"No; though intended for one, I believe, by nature."
"And you were born in the year
"I was."

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With a scream she added the day of my birth, and, waiting an instant for my assent, dropped to the floor, and clung convulsively and weeping to my knees. "Rodolph! Rodolph!" she murmured faintly, as her long gray tresses fell over her shoulders, and her head dropped insensible upon her breast.

Her cry had been heard, and several persons entered the room. I rushed out of doors. I had need to be in

darkness and alone.'

The hero of the tale then receives a letter from the baroness, professing to consider him as her lost Rodolph Isenberg, and offering him her undying affections. Your soul comes back,' she says, youthfully and newly clad, while mine, though of unfading freshness and youthfulness within, shows to your eye the same outer garment, grown dull with mourning, and faded with the wear of time. Am I grown distasteful? Is it with the sight only of this new body that you look upon me? Rodolph!-spirit that was my devoted and passionate admirer! soul that was sworn to me for ever!am I-the same Margaret, re-found and recognisedgrown repulsive? O Heaven! what a bitter answer would this be to my prayers for your return, to me! I will trust in Him whose benign goodness smiles upon fidelity in love. I will prepare a fitter meeting for two who parted as lovers. You shall not see me again in the house of a stranger, and in a mourning attire. When this letter is written, I will depart at once for the scene of our love. I hear my horses already in the courtyard, and while you read this I am speeding swiftly home. The bridal dress you were secretly shown the day before death came between us, is still freshly kept. The room where we sat, the bowers by the stream, the walks where we projected our sweet promise of a future, they shall all be made ready. They shall be as they were! And I, oh Rodolph! I shall be the same. My heart is not grown old, Rodolph! Believe me, I am unchanged in soul! And I will strive to be-I will strive to look-Heaven help me to look and be-as of yore!'

The revived Rodolph was unfortunately engaged to a youthful mistress, and he was therefore obliged to leave the baroness to the tragic consequences of her too deep feelings.

other persons living far apart, and in no degree related; nature having, as it were, a certain set of moulds for the various peculiarities of her children, and of course now and then associating the whole in more instances than one.

MR LYELL AND THE AMERICANS.

IN 1841-2 Mr Lyell, the well-known geologist, took a run through a great portion of the United States, Canada, and Nova Scotia. His primary object was the geology of the North American continent, but the manners and customs of the people did not altogether escape his attention. Dismissing his scientific observations for the present, it may be interesting to learn the opinions of such a traveller*-as distinguished from the mere literary or fashionable tourist-respecting the social characteristics of the young republic. Accustomed to reflection and accuracy of statement, his remarks are of more than ordinary value; at least they are not likely to be biassed by the desire of producing an attractive book, in which sober truth is subordinated to satirical brilliancy.

Mr Lyell sailed from Liverpool in the steam-ship Acadia, on the 20th July 1841, and after a voyage of twelve days dropped quietly into the harbour of Boston. Here he found everything bearing a close resemblance to what he had left in the mother country. • Recollecting the contrast of everything French when I first crossed the straits of Dover, I am astonished, after having traversed the wide ocean, at the resemblance of everything I see and hear to things familiar at home. It has so often happened to me in our own island, without travelling into those parts of Wales, Scotland, or Ireland, where they talk a perfectly distinct language, to encounter provincial dialects which it is difficult to comprehend, that I wonder at finding the people here so very English. If the metropolis of New England be a type of a large part of the United States, the industry of Sam Slick, and other writers, in collecting together so many diverting Americanisms, and so much original slang, is truly great, or their inventive powers still greater.' After some pleasant excursions in the neighbourhood of Boston, our traveller started for Newhaven in Connecticut, going the first hundred miles on an excellent railway in three and a half hours, for three dollars. At Newhaven, which is a town with a population of 21,000, and having a university, Mr Lyell attended divine worship according to the Presbyterian form, and found things differing so little from what he had been accustomed to, that he could scarcely believe that he was not in Scotland.

Completing his investigations in the neighbourhood of Newhaven, Mr Lyell steamed for New York-a distance of ninety miles, in six hours; and from thence up the We would now remark, that the so-called sentiment Hudson to Albany. Having the best of all introductions, of pre-existence may often be produced by a simpler an established fame, the American geologists were ever cause than that suggested by Dr Wigan; namely, the willing guides and companions, and thus he was enabled recollection of some actual circumstances in our life, of which the present are a repetition. In the routine of to pass on directly to the objects of special interest. ordinary existence, there is much that is the same from From Albany he proceeded to Niagara, to examine day to day. We must often stand in exactly the same the falls, and the deposits along the lakes Erie and relations to certain persons and scenes that we stood in Ontario. In this route he passed through many new many years ago; those of the past are, in their parti- and flourishing towns, the nomenclature of which is culars, forgotten, but still the shade of their general grotesque and incongruous in the extreme. In one short memory lasts, and this may be what revives on the month we had been at Syracuse, Utica, Rome, and Parma, new occasion. With regard to such apparent revivals had gone from Buffalo to Batavia, and on the same day of a whole being, as Mr Willis's story describes-and to breakfasted at St Helena and dined at Elba. We colus it is the same at least as if founded on fact, for welected fossils at Moscow, and travelled by Painted Post have undoubted knowledge of a case precisely similar in the main features-we can explain it to our own satisfaction by the fact that individuals are occasionally met with who very nearly resemble, in person, features, voice, and even moral characteristics, certain

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*Travels in North America; with Geological Observations on the United States, Canada, and Nova Scotia. By Charles Lyoll, Esq. F.R.S. 2 vols. 8vo. London: Murray. 1845.

French is quite remarkable. There is a spirit of true gallantry in all this; but the publicity of the railway car, where all are in one long room, and of the large ordinaries, whether on land or water, is a great protection, the want of which has been felt by many a female traaddress no conversation to strangers, we soon became toler veller without escort in England. As the Americans ably reconciled to living so much in public. Our fellowpassengers consisted, for the most part, of shopkeepers, artisans, and mechanics, with their families, all well dressed, and, so far as we had intercourse with them,

on pleasure excursions, in which they delight to spend settled districts of New York, it was intimated to us that their spare cash. On one or two occasions, in the newlyusually the son or brother of the farmer who owned the we were expected to sit down to dinner with our driver, vehicle. We were invariably struck with the propriety of their manners, in which there was self-respect without forwardness. The only disagreeable adventure, in the way of coming into close contact with low and coarse companions, arose from my taking places in a cheap and corresponding somewhat, in the rank of its passengers, canal-boat, near Lockport, partly filled with emigrants, with a third-class railway carriage in England.

and Big Flats to Havanna. After returning by Auburn to Albany, I was taken to Troy, a city of 20,000 inhabitants, that I might see a curious landslip, which had just happened on Mount Olympus, the western side of that hill, together with a contiguous portion of Mount Ida, having slid down into the Hudson. Fortunately some few of the Indian names, such as Mohawk, Ontario, Oneida, Canandaigua, and Niagara, are retained. Although legislative interference in behalf of good taste would not be justifiable, congress might interpose for the sake of the post-office, and prevent the future multi-polite and desirous to please. A large part of them were plication of the same name for villages, cities, counties, and townships. That more than a hundred places should be called Washington is an intolerable nuisance.' Notwithstanding the absurdity of their names, the fact of towns with 20,000 inhabitants flourishing in the wilderness where, twenty-five years ago, the first settler built his log-cabin, gives rise to pleasing and hopeful reflections. 'The vast stride made by one generation in a brief moment of time, naturally disposes us to magnify and exaggerate the rapid rate of future improvement. The contemplation of so much prosperity, such entire absence of want and poverty, so many school-houses and churches rising everywhere in the woods, and such a general desire of education, with the consciousness that a great continent lies beyond, which has still to be appropriated, fills the traveller with cheering thoughts and sanguine hopes. He may be reminded that there is another side to the picture; that where the success has been so brilliant, and where large fortunes have been hastily realised, there will be rash speculations and bitter disappointments; but these ideas do not force themselves into the reveries of the passing stranger. He sees around him the solid fruits of victory, and forgets that many a soldier in the foremost ranks has fallen in the breach; and cold indeed would be his temperament if he did not sympathise with the freshness and hopefulness of a new country, and feel as men past the prime of life are accustomed to feel when in company with the young, who are full of health and buoyant spirits, of faith and confidence in the future.'

Having inspected the falls and the lake district, Mr Lyell returned to New York; from which, after a short stay, he departed for Philadelphia. In this journey he met with all sorts of people, and had excellent opportunities for studying the national peculiarities. The following anecdotes, dismissed in a dozen lines, would have supplied Mrs Trollope with comment for a chapter:-'I asked the landlord of the inn at Corning, who was very attentive to his guests, to find my coachman. He immediately called out in his bar-room," Where is the gentleman who brought this man here?" A few days before, a farmer in New York had styled my wife "the woman," though he called his own daughters ladies, and would, I believe, have freely extended that title to their maid-servant. I was told of a witness in a late trial at Boston, who stated in evidence, that "while he and another gentleman were shovelling up mud," &c.; from which it appears that the spirit of social equality has left no other signification to the terms "gentleman" and "lady," but that of " male and female individual." Though thus confounding the terms which with us bear so important a distinction, the Americans are everywhere most polite and attentive to the fair sex. One of the first peculiarities,' says Mr Lyell,' that must strike a foreigner in the United States, is the deference paid universally to the sex with regard to station. Women may travel alone here in stage-coaches, steamboats, and railways, with less risk of encountering disagreeable behaviour, and of hearing coarse and unpleasant conversation, than in any country I have ever visited. The contrast in this respect between the Americans and the

'Travellers must make up their minds, in this as in other countries, to fall in now and then with free and easy people. I am bound, however, to say that, in the two most glaring instances of vulgar familiarity which we have experienced here, we found out that both the offenhad risen rapidly from a humble station. Whatever good ders had crossed the Atlantic only ten years before, and breeding exists here in the middle classes, is certainly not of foreign importation; and John Bull in particular, when out of humour with the manners of the Americans, is often unconsciously beholding his own image in the mirror, or comparing one class of society in the United States with another in his own country, which ought, standard of refinement and intelligence.' In addition to from superior affluence and leisure, to exhibit a higher this good breeding, which makes travelling in America so pleasant, Mr Lyell met with no beggars-witnessed no signs of want, but saw everywhere unequivocal proofs of prosperity and rapid progress in agriculture, commerce, and great public works. This prosperity he ascribes neither to a republican institution, nor to an absolute equality of religious sects, and still less to universal suffrage; it is, he believes, owing to the abundance of uncecupied land, and a ready outlet to a redundant labouring population.

district of New Jersey, and thence westward to the anFrom Philadelphia our traveller proceeded to the chalk thracite coal-measures of Pennsylvania. By the time he had reached the summit of the Alleghanies, symptoms of approaching winter were around him, and so he retraced his route to Philadelphia, which he found (October 12) in the bustle of a general election. Processions, music, thronged the streets, and the great bell of the State banners, and other paraphernalia suiting the occasion, House tolled all day to remind the electors of their duties. This leads Mr Lyell into some reflections on politics and repudiation, both of which we gladly eschew; trusting that a country with such resources and enterprise will not be guilty of any breach of faith which would be to it a disgrace that ages could not obliterate. From Philalivered a course of lectures on geology, and spent part delphia our tourist passed on to Boston, where he deof the winter. His audience, he informs us, usually con sisted of 3000 persons, of every station in society, from the most affluent and eminent in the various learned profes sions to the humblest mechanics, all well-dressed and observing the utmost decorum. Attendance on public leetures seems, indeed, to be a common feature in the habits of the New Englanders. author, 'I was getting some travelling instructions at the 'At a small town,' says our bar of an inn, when a carpenter entered who had just finished his day's work, and asked what lecture would be given that evening. The reply was, Mr M. on the astronomy of the middle ages. He then inquired if it was

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