destroy or impair. Whosoever, therefore, suffering under this doom, shall not bate a jot Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer Right onward," be the healing and strengthening toils in which he exercises his spirit those of science or of song, still presents us with an example of heroic wisdom well worthy of our admiration. It seems to have been the tradition of Greece that the Iliad and Odyssey were both composed by HOMER after he was blind, although, of course, from materials which he had collected before that misfortune befel him; for it is very evident that the author of these poems must, at one time of his life, have surveyed whatever was most interesting that the world had at that early age to shew, with no dim or unobservant eye. But of Homer, in truth, we know nothing. The origin of the Iliad and the Odyssey is the most perplexing problem in literature; and Homer must, in all probability, ever remain to us a mere name. The poems themselves are Homer, and perhaps there never was another. But if "Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides, And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old," instead of being fablers themselves, were merely the creations of other fablers, the Poet of Paradise at least uttered his harmonious numbers in darkness,— -as he himself expresses it, "In darkness, and with dangers compass'd round." MILTON is supposed to have been in the fifty-fourth year of his age when he commenced the composition of his immortal epic, although the high theme had doubtless for some time before occupied his thoughts. At this period of his life he was quite blind, having lost his sight, which had early begun to decay, during the composition of his famous 'Defence of the People of England,' in answer to Salmasius. He felt the calamity that was coming upon him while occupied with this work, but the apprehension did not induce him even to relax his labours; and after the foreseen event had occurred, we find him, in one of his majestic strains, consoling himself under the extinction of his sight by the thought of the cause in which he had sacrificed it: "What supports me, dost thou ask? The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied Whereof all Europe rings from side to side." Paradise Lost was probably only the work of three or four years, since there is reason to believe that it was completed in 1665, although not published till 1667. But this poem, as is well known, was not the only fruit of the noble intellect of Milton, while bearing up against the accumulated pressure of disease, old age, and the " evil days" on which he had fallen. Beside a mass of philological labours of extraordinary magnitude, and several political tracts, which in eloquence and power are scarcely surpassed by anything he had written in the vigour of life and health, we owe to the blind old man the Paradise Regained, and the Samson Agonistes, the not unworthy companions of his grander song. We cannot mourn over the sightless orbs of Milton; he could not have done greater things than he did in his blindness: Samson hath quit himself Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail, Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt, The Spanish musician, FRANCIS SALINAS, who flourished in the sixteenth century, was born blind. Nevertheless, he early distinguished himself by his proficiency, not only in music, but in the ancient languages and in science. This blind man eventually became Professor of Music in the University of Salamanca; and he published an able work in Latin on the theory of his favourite science. We had in later times, in our own country, an eminent example of musical attainments made in similarcir cumstances to those of Salinas. JOHN STANLEY was born in London in 1713, and lost his eyesight, when only two years old, by a fall. In this condition he applied himself with such extraordinary success to the study of music, that in his eleventh year he was chosen organist to the church of Allhallows, in Breadstreet, and two years afterwards obtained the same situation in the church of St. Andrew, Holborn, although opposed by many other candidates. From this he went, in 1734, to the Temple Church, having already, when only sixteen, taken his degree of Bachelor of Music, at Oxford. Mr. Stanley died in 1786, after having for many years stood at the head of the practitioners of sacred music in England. The names of other distinguished musical composers, who were either born blind or became so in early infancy, might be added to these. Nor is music the only one of the fine arts in which the blind have excelled. We read of a sculptor who became blind at twenty years of age, and yet ten years afterwards made a statue of Pope Urban VIII. in clay, and another of Cosmo II. of Florence, of marble. Another blind sculptor is mentioned by Roger de Piles, in one of his works on painting; he executed a marble statue of our Charles I. with great taste and accuracy. Nor ought we to be surprised at this dexterity, if we may believe what is told us of a young French lady, who lost her sight in her second year, and of whose marvellous accomplishments we have an account in the Annual Register for 1762. This lady is said, notwithstanding her blindness, to have been an excellent player at cards, a ready and elegant writer, and even to have been able to read written characters. On sitting down to play at cards, she first went over the pack, marking every one of the fifty-two cards by so slight an indentation, as scarcely to be perceptible to any one else on the closest inspection, but which, nevertheless, she herself, by the delicacy of her touch, instantly recognised. She then proceeded without difficulty, only requiring, of course, that every card should be named as it was played. In writing she used a sharp and hard-pointed pencil, which marked the paper so as to enable her to read what she had written with her finger-ends. All this, it must be confessed, seems very like a fiction; but it is, perhaps, scarcely so wonderful as what is told of an English lady, who was examined by several eminent physicians, and among others by Sir Hans Sloane. She had been deprived by disease, not only of her sight but of her powers of speech and hearing, so that there remained only the organs of touch, taste, and smell, by which she could hold communication with others. Deaf, dumb, and blind as she was, however, she yet in course of time learned to converse with her friends by means of an alphabet made by their hands or fingers pressed in different ways upon her's. She very soon also acquired the power of writing with great neatness and exactness, and used to sit up in bed, we are told, at any hour of the night, either to write or to work, when she felt herself indisposed to sleep. We shall feel what an invaluable possession the knowledge of writing must have been to this individual, when we reflect, that on first being reduced to the state of deplorable helplessness which she afterwards found admitted of so many alleviations, nothing but the power she still retained of scrawling a few words, which yet she could not discern, could have enabled her at all to communicate her wishes or feelings to those around her But for this power it would seem that she must have been for ever shut out from even the most imperfect intercourse with her species; for it was through it alone that she could intimate to them the meaning she wished to be assigned to each of the different palpable signs which constituted her alphabet. With this instrument of communication, the arrangement would be easily effected; it would otherwise have been impracticable. We have abundant reason to set a high value on the art of writing, but to this person it was invaluable. To us it is the most useful of all the arts; to her it was the means of restoration to life from a state of exclusion, almost as complete as that of the grave. But perhaps the most singular instance on record of a blind person triumphing over those difficulties of his situation, which are apparently most insuperable, is afforded in JOHN METCALF,or, as he was commonly called, Blind Jack, a well-known character, who died only a few years ago. This person was a native of Manchester or the neighbourhood, and Mr. Bew has given an account of him in the paper we have already quoted. After telling us that he became blind at a very early age, so as to be entirely ignorant of light and its various effects, the narrative proceeds as follows :— "This man passed the younger part of his life as a waggoner, and occasionally as a guide in intricate roads during the night, or when the tracks were covered with snow. Strange as this may appear to those who can see, the employment he has since undertaken is |