are innumerable, unfolds its thousand doors on the surface of every limb. These gateways, which we otherwise name the Organs of the Senses, and call in our mother-speech, the Eye, the Ear, the Nose, the Mouth, and the Skin, are instruments by which we see, and hear, and smell, and taste, and touch; at once loop-holes through which the spirit gazes out upon the world, and the world gazes in upon the spirit: porches which the longing, unsatisfied soul would often gladly make wider, that beautiful material nature might come into it more freely and fully; and fenced doors, which the sated and dissatisfied spirit would, if it had the power, often shut and bar altogether. The soul and its servants were not intended to be at war with each other, and the better the wise king is served the more kingly will he appear. We have a strange fear of our bodies, and are ever speaking as if we could right the spirit by only wronging the flesh, and could best sharpen our intellects by blunting our senses. But our souls would only be gainers by the perfection of our bodies, were they wisely dealt with; and for every human being we should aim at securing, so far as they can be attained, an eye as keen and piercing as that of an eagle ; an ear as sensible to the faintest sound as that of the hare; a nostril as farscenting as that of the wild deer; a tongue as delicate as that of the butterfly; and a touch as acute as that of the spider. No man ever was so endowed, and no one ever will be; but all come infinitely short of what they should achieve were they to make their senses what they might be made. The old have outlived their opportunity, and the diseased never had it; but the young, who have still an undimmed eye, an undulled ear, and a soft hand, an unabated nostril, and a tongue which tastes with relish the plainest fare, can so cultivate their senses as to make the narrow ring which for the old and the infirm encircles things sensible, widen for them into an almost limitless horizon. --Wilson's "Five Gateways of Knowledge."

THE HALCYON, OR KINGFISHER.

THE kingfisher is the halcyon of the ancient poets, who placed it on a floating nest, and endowed it with power to calm the adverse winds and waves. Nay, Aristotle and Pliny gravely relate that it sat only a few days in the depth of winter, when the mariner might prosecute his voyage in full security; and hence the halcyon days-an expression which has descended to our own times. The ancients, moreover, believed that it rendered the fisherman's labour prosperous, dispelled lightning, imparted personal grace and beauty to individuals, and diffused peace and harmony among families. Even at the present day the Tartars and Ostiacs apply the feathers of this bird to many superstitious uses. The former pluck them, cast them in the water, and carefully preserve such as float; and they pretend that if with one of them they touch a woman, or even her clothes, she must fall in love with them. The Ostiacs enclose the skin, the bill, and the claws in a purse, and as long as they preserve this sort of amulet, they believe that they have nothing to fear. An idea long prevailed in the most

enlightened portions of Europe, that if the body of a kingfisher was suspended by a thread the breast always pointed to the north. The flesh, too, was believed to be incorruptible, and to guard wardrobes and the stores of the woollen draper from the depredations of moths. -Encyc. Edinensis.

THE HAND.

IF the hand munificently serves the body, not less amply does it give expression to the genius and the art, the courage and the affection, the will and the power of man. Put a sword into it, and it will fight for him; put a plough into it, and it will till for him; put a harp into it, and it will play for him; put a pencil into it, and it will paint for him; put a pen into it, and it will speak for him, plead for him, pray for him. What will it not do? What has it not done? A steamengine is but a larger hand, made to extend its powers by the little hand of man! An electric telegraph is but a long pen for that little hand to write with! All our huge cannons and other weapons of war, with which we effectually slay our brethren, are only Cain's hand made bigger and stronger and bloodier! What, moreover, is a ship, a railway, a lighthouse, or a palace-what indeed is a whole city, all the cities of the globe, nay the very globe itself, in so far as man has changed it, but the work of that giant hand with which the human race, acting as one mighty man, has executed its will! When I think of all that man and woman's hand has wrought, from the day when Eve put forth her erring hand to pluck the fruit of the forbidden tree, to that dark hour when the pierced hands of the Saviour of the world were nailed to the predicted tree of shame, and of all that human hands have done of good and evil since, I lift up my hand, and gaze upon it with wonder and awe. What an intrument for good it is! What an instrument for evil! and all the day long it is never idle. There is no implement which it cannot wield, and it should never in working hours be without one. We unwisely restrict the term handicraftsmen, or hand-worker, to the more laborious callings; but it belongs to all honest, earnest men and women, and is a title which each should covet. For the queen's hand there is the sceptre, and for the soldier's hand the sword; for the carpenter's hand the saw; for the smith's hand the hammer; for the farmer's hand the plough; for the miner's hand the spade; for the sailor's hand the oar; for the painter's hand the brush; for the sculptor's hand the chisel; for the poet's hand the pen; and for the woman's hand the needle. If none of these or the like will fit us, the felon's chain should be on our wrist, and our hand on the prisoner's crank. But for each willing man and woman there is a tool they may learn to handle; for all there is the command: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might."-Wilson's "Five Gateways of Knowledge"

OLD VIOLINS.

PERHAPS it never occurred to our readers that there was much difference between one fiddle-head and another; yet a Stradiuarius is

known from a Stainer, for instance, by his head, as surely as you can tell a Greek from a Jewish face. Take up your Stradiuarius, hold it straight against the light with its belly towards you, and take in the commanding outline of the head, full front. The two sides of the scroll seem to be almost in motion, like curling wood thrown off by a revolving centre-bit or a plane in action. The two points seem a little lifted up with incomparable energy and strength, and lightly balanced with each other. The dip of the head, relieved by the fine fluting, is powerful but not heavy; and in the finest Stradiuarius and Joseph Guarnerius patterns, reminds one of a lion's face in repose, only the Stradiuarius is invariably more graceful and beautiful in its majesty, where the Guarnerius is strong, with a sort of rough and massive grandeur. But turn from either of these full-fronted heads to lesser magnates, and what a falling off is there-some are what we may call potbellied heads; others brutal, snub, bull-dog heads; others lean and poor; others simply coarse and stupid; others cut mechanically, without character, or top-heavy, poor and thin flanked near the neck; others without any sense of proportion, the two sides of the scroll uneven, one dipping down lop-eared, and the other turning up like a nez retroussé, and so on, until the eye comes back and rests upon the perfect and dignified charms of the Stradiuarius head. It will bear inspection-look at it sideways, mark the throw of the scroll; was there any carving of Gibbons or the Belgians, any trailing vine-stem, any circling ivy cut in rich oak, more finely felt in its sensitive edges, its harmonious sweep, its delicate tendril-curves, than the Stradiuarius maple scroll, with its smooth flesh-like flutings, its soft clean edge and circular bends, which, like the convolvulus or jessamine coil, is never any part of a true circle?

And then look at the varnish lying like a sheet of thin jasper on the back and belly, at once shielding these from decay, whilst revealing century after century the transparent filaments of the mottled maple or sycamore, and the symmetrical deal crossed between the fibres with millions of tiny rays which show where lie the desiccated cells now hollow and fit for perfect resonance through which the sap once flowed. The rich, almost orange-coloured varnish, is as good as a magnifying glass; through it we can at this day judge of the loving selection made of the choicest timber, and the infinite care bestowed upon its preparation, the tempering as well as the carving of it.

And this same varnish, how was it made? And can it not be made now? The ingredients of it are pretty well known, but how were they put together and applied? That is not known, and it seems now, after infinite controversy and analysis, that it never will be known. There was gum-dragon, or dragon's blood, from Africa, which the ships brought into Venice; there was fine oil; there was rare spirit; and above all, there was plenty of time, a beautiful climate, and a life of such absorbed devotion and cumulative experience as, in these days of hurry and demand, can scarcely be looked for over again. We seek in vain for the conditions under which the great violins were produced. Even if we had the love, the patience, and the inspiration

for the work, the work itself would never pay-it would never fetch the price of the labour and time bestowed upon it. The instrument itself, simple as it looks, is to be composed of no less than seventy-one pieces. Sycamore or maple must be got for the back, sides, neck, and circle. Soft deal for the belly, bass bar, sound post, and six internal blocks; ebony for the finger-board and tail-piece; white and ebony for the purfling. The wood must be cut only in December and January, and only that part must be used which has been exposed to the sun. You may cut up planks and planks before you find a piece suitable for a really fine back or belly. Witness the grain of a Stradiuarius or Amati violin; mark the almost pictorially beautiful health and evenness of its wavy lines, free from all knots and irregularity of growth, studded with symmetrical and billowy veins, where the rich sap once flowed. And when the wood is cut, it must be tempered and dried, not with artificial warmth, but with the slow and penetrating influence of a dry warm Cremona climate. For no customer, for no market, can the process be hurried. And the application of the varnish required corresponding care. It was to be perfectly wedded to the rare wood; a companionship destined to last for ages, to outlast so many generations of men and women, was not to be enterprised or undertaken lightly.

In the spring, when the air got clear and bright, and the storms were past, the subtle gums and oils were mixed slowly and deliberately; hours to stand, hours to settle, hours for perfect fusion and amalgamation of parts; clear white light gleaming from roads strewn with the dazzling marble dust of Lombardy; clear blue sky, warm dry air, and the skill of an alchemist,—these were the conditions for mixing the incomparable Cremona varnish. So deliberately was it prepared and laid on, just when the wood was fit to receive it-laid on in three coats in such a manner as to sink into the desiccated pores and become a part of the wood, as the aromatic herbs and juices become a part of the flesh that is embalmed for a thousand years. All through the summer did that matchless varnish, which some say contained ground amber, and which, at any rate, was charged with subtle secrets, sink and soak into the sycamore and deal plates, until now, when age has rubbed away its clear and agate crust in many places, the violin is found no longer to need that protection; for the wood itself seems to have become petrified into clear agate, and is capable, throughout its myriad pores and fibres, of resisting the worm, and even damp, and the other ravaging influences of ordinary decay.

The old varnishes have been closely imitated by M. Vuillaume and other clever makers, but a good judge can tell the genuine from the false. It has often been maintained that the dryness of the wood gave the fine quality of tone desired; and the French makers have accordingly baked the wood of their new violins; but although the tone has been thus, to some extent, prematurely mellowed, there is every reason to fear that the baked fiddles, like some old fiddles made of too slight wood, and cut too thin, have a tendency to get " played out”—that is, after attaining tone they lose tone. Age, no doubt, improves wood;

and the constant vibration of playing tends, it is said, to shake into hollows the pores of the wood, and expel the particles of dried sap in dust. But the grand secret, after all, lay in the manufacture of the original instrument,-in the shape, in the preparation of the wood before the parts were fixed together, in the varnish and general adjustments of the interior. The violin, as it came from the hands of the great makers, was always fine. Age and playing cannot make a good fiddle out of a bad one; although age and playing doubtless improve good fiddles. There are hosts of instruments a hundred years old which are, and always will be, bad to the last degree.-H. R. Haweis in the Contemporary Review.

LITERARY GEMS, OLD AND NEW.

OF WIT.

IT may be demanded, what the thing we speak of is? Or what this facetiousness doth import? To which questions I might reply, as Democritus did to him that asked the definition of a man: ""Tis that which we all see and know." Any one better apprehends what it is by acquaintance than I can inform him by description. It is, indeed, a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and judgments, that it seemed no less hard to settle a clear and certain notion thereof than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define the figure of the fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to a known story, or in seasonable application of a trivial saying, or in forging an apposite tale; sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of their sound; sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of humorous expression; sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude; sometimes it is lodged in a sly question, in a smart answer, in a quirkish reason, in a shrewd intimation, in cunningly diverting or cleverly retorting an objection; sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in a lusty hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense; sometimes a scenical representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture, passeth for it; sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness, giveth it being; sometimes it riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange; sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the purpose. Often it consisteth in one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unaccountable and inexplicable; being answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy and windings of language. It is, in short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and plain way Such as reason teacheth and proveth things by), which by a pretty