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It is easy to understand how the Tulipomania may have
originated in the enthusiasm of some devoted cultivator
of flowers. He had tended and watched them so long,
that at last he knew not where to set a limit to their
value. Nature speaks to the heart in a thousand ways,
giving rise to emotions as various: the same objects
will excite joyousness, melancholy, pleasure, and pain,
hope and despondency, according to the state of mind
of those to whom they are presented. Thomson has a
beautiful passage-

Fair-handed spring unbosoms every grace;
Throws out the snowdrop, and the crocus first;
The daisy, primrose, violet darkly blue,
And polyanthus of unnumbered dyes;
The yellow wallflower stained with iron-brown;
And lavish stock that scents the garden round:
From the soft wing of vernal breezes shed
Anemonies: auriculas enriched

With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves;
And full ranunculas of glowing red.

Then comes the tulip race, where beauty plays
Her idle freaks:

No gradual bloom is wanting; from the bud,
First-born of spring, to summer's musky tribes:
Nor hyacinths, of purest virgin white,

Low bent, and blushing inward; nor jonquils,
Of potent fragrance; nor Narcissus fair,

As o'er the fabled fountain hanging still;
Nor broad carnations, nor gay spotted pinks;
Nor, showered from every bush, the damask rose,
Infinite numbers, delicacies, smells,
With hues on hues expression cannot paint,
The breath of nature, and her endless bloom.'

A LADY'S CONSOLATION.

the liberty of coming down the chimney. The floor was covered with filth and dirt, to the thickness of one inch: the very sky, seen through the window, was black. The postmaster had likewise black hair, besides being a reprehensibly ill-looking individual, with only one eye, and marked with the small-pox. Yet with this fright she was doomed to travel, in a crazy, dirty, rickety sort of gig, the seat of which, stuffed with hay, resembled a manger. The next vehicle was a 'huge nuisance' of a diligence, already possessed by four lumbering men; and the atmosphere of a snuffy German, a Frenchman reeking of stale cigar smoke, one or two India-rubber cloaks, and all their respirations, was really atrocious.' In the next there was a man who was so uncivil as to be fat and elderly, and to have a threatening of gout and a terror of cold. A countrywoman they met on the road wanted to join them in the full inside; but the Frenchmen were so revoltingly selfish, as not to get out to accommodate her. Among many hundreds of people going to a fair, they saw only one good-looking girl.

At Lyons, the fair traveller was shamefully fleeced in the hotel, and not allowed to wash herself even so well as at Paris. On arriving at Marseilles, her fellowtravellers went off without taking leave of her: an eloquent fact, that gives rise to some severe strictures on the national degeneracy. While waiting her departure for Genoa, she amused herself with the appearance of her fellow-passengers. A cargo came on board of two clean, cross-looking men, and four veiled women, who began stumping up and down the deck, each on her own hook, betraying, in the very hang of their multitudinous shawls, the English creature how peculiar they are, to Rome in a crazy, rickety, dusty, dirty, ragged, filthy At length she found herself bowling on conveyance, into which she had clomb by three horrid hoes, that scraped her shins to death,' and was fairly set down in the dark, deep, dismal, stinking streets' of the city of the past.

to be sure!'

EVERYTHING goes by comparison. A man brought from a dungeon into the morning twilight, will think himself in the midst of noonday; and, for aught we know, the travelling miseries of Mrs Butler may to her be absolute consolation.* It is said that a sailor is fated to eat a peck of dirt during his life, but that allowance is nothing to hers in her consolatory year. She sets out, in This is not an overcharged account of Mrs Butler's fact, by asserting her belief that England is the only ing, are exhibited much talent, fancy, and power of dejourney from Paris to Rome; in which, notwithstandplace in the world where the people are not disgustingly scription. With a very common blindness, she relates dirty, and that exceedingly few people are clean there.' an anecdote which reads like a satire on herself. 'We As for the French, they would not permit her to be have just made an expedition to Tivoli,' says she, clean even in her own person; giving her, in the best which was highly prosperous till its very close. Dihotels of Paris, a cream-jug for a water vessel, a pud-rected by to one inn in preference to the rival ding-bowl for a basin, and not so much warm water as establishment, we repaired to the Queen of England, would suffice for the youngest gentleman shaving the and found her most gracious majesty dark, dingy, dirty faintest hopes of a beard.' On leaving Paris for Mar--in short, indescribably dreadful; but, however, thanks seilles, she was still worse off, getting into a 'filthy inn, to some omnipotent charm, which we, alas! had not, had found sweet smells and savoury food, and sunny sights, while our experience was-of dirt to eat, dirt to drink, and dirt to sleep in.'

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crowded with men in blue blouses and black muzzles;' and thence into a diligence with the head and tail cut off,' where her maid lay down in the straw at the bottom, and where the seats were so contrived, that it was impossible to sit on them without sliding off every five minutes.

But even here she was not allowed to indulge herself, being ejected at midnight, to her intense dismay and indignation,' and sent into the inn at Château Chinon, the most horrible cut-throat-looking hole she ever beheld.' It was dirty of course, and the serving-girl dirty too, as well as sleepy and stupid, poor thing, at such an hour. The kitchen (into which, in France, travellers always make their way from the road) was black and filthy; and a gentleman had two abominable dogs, which kept running about, and all but knocking her down; so that, taking things upon the whole, poor Mrs Butler was so terrified, disgusted, and annoyed, that she literally shook from head to foot.'

But in the bedroom she was out of the frying-pan into the fire or rather into the smoke, for the storm took

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Having thus hinted-with comparative mildnessthat our fair author, in spite of the title of her book, does not derive from foreign travel that consolation' it is fitted to bestow upon well-regulated minds, we must, in justice to her, turn the reverse of the medal. The

scene is in Rome.

Now for the chapter of compensations: my bedroom door and window opened upon a terraced garden at least forty feet above the street, full of orange and lemon trees, magnolias, myrtles, oleanders and camelias, roses and violets, in bloom; a fountain of the acqua felice trickles, under the superintendence of a statue, into a marble shell, and thence escapes under the garden. The view from thence of the eternal city and its beauteous girdle of hills surpasses all description, and the twin towers of the Trinità rise close to it up into the blue sky, which looks through the belfry arches as through windows down into my sleeping-room. The coloured tiles of all our anterooms and passages enchant me; so do the gay-painted ceilings. The little room where I bathe is a perfect delight to me, with its Latin inscription on the lintel, its marble bath, its walls covered with fresco Cupids and dolphins, and altars with flames, and baskets with flowers, all strung together by

CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH JOURNAL.

waving patterns of wreaths and garlands. This afternoon we drove through the streets of Rome, out to a place that was once one of the innumerable Cenci possessions, but which is now a farmhouse of the Borghese. In one corner of the littered stable-yard, where heaps of manure occupied most of the ground, stood a stone sarcophagus, with spirited and graceful rilievi, into which fresh water was pouring itself in a glassy stream. As we went round the house, we came upon another stone basin, of beautiful form and proportions, into which another gush of living water was falling in the bright sunshine: farther on, again, beneath a sombre avenue of ilex, another of these precious reservoirs sparkled and gleamed. I cannot describe my delight in living water: these perpetually-running fountains are a perpetual baptism of refreshment to my mind and senses. The Swedenborgians consider water, when the mention of it occurs in the Bible, as typical of truth. I love to think of that when I look at it, so bright, so pure, so transparent, so temperate, so fit an emblem for that spiritual element in which our souls should bathe and be strengthened, at which they should drink and be refreshed! Fire purifies, but destroys; water cleanses and revives. Christ was baptised in water, and washed, himself, in the regenerating element, his disciples' feet. He promised living waters to all those who, thirsty, drew near to him, and spoke of that well of everlasting life, which those to whom he gave to drink possessed for ever in their souls. I do not wonder at all the marvellous wasser-cur reports. I believe the material element to be as potent in regenerating and healing the body, as the spiritual element its clearness dimly represents is to regenerate and heal the mind.

It is impossible to describe the soft beauty of everything that surrounded us here; the ilex- trees, the graceful stone pines, the picturesque colour and outline of the house itself, the sunny far - stretching campagna, with its purple frame of mountains; Soracte, standing isolated like the vanguard of the chain; the sullen steeps of the Sabine; the smiling slopes of the Alban hills; Frascati, Tivoli, glittering in the sunshine, on their skirts; the light over all radiant and tender; the warmth and balmy softness of the atmosphere everything was perfect enchantment. Everything was graceful, harmonious, and delightful to the eye, and soothing beyond expression to the mind. Presently came two of the beautiful mouse-coloured oxen of the campagna, slowly, through the arched gateway of the farm-yard, and, leaning their serious-looking heads upon the stone basin, drank soberly, with their great eyes fixed on us, who sat upon the hem of the fountain; I, for the first time in my life, almost comprehending the delight of listless inactivity. As the water ran lullingly by my side, and between the gray shafts of the tall pine-trees, and beneath the dark arches of their boughs, the distant landscape, formed into separate and distinct pictures of incomparable beauty, arrested my delighted eyes. Yes, I think I actually could be content to sit on that fountain's edge, and do nothing but listen and look for a whole summer's afternoon. But no more: "Up, and be doing," is the impulse for ever with me; and when I ask myself, both sadly and scornfully, What? both my nature and my convictions repeat the call, "Up, and be doing;" for surely there is something to be done from morning till night, and to find out what is the appointed work of the onward-tending soul.'

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The following specimen will likewise give a favourable idea of the descriptions which form the staple of the work. Soon after our arrival, donkeys were procured, and we started on the usual giro of the valley, beginning our pilgrimage at the Villa d'Este, where we sat by fountains falling in this lovely solitude, and gathered branches thick with orange blossoms, and looked from crumbling princely terraces over the glorious campagna, and heard-in a sort of dark chamber of cypresstrees, with the red buds of delicate China roses blooming at their feet-the loud sweet singing of a fearless

nightingale. Thence we proceeded to what is called, by those who know, Mæcenas's Villa; and by those who know better, the Temple of Hercules. neither know, nor know better, saw a fine collection of extensive iron forges, a species of place that I have I, who black chambers, and fiery furnaces, and sooty poputhe greatest delight in, because of their picturesque lation, all which we had in great perfection here; for after walking out on the huge noble roof that juts like with young verdure, amidst which the milk-white casa promontory over the glen, its sides all garlanded catelle went rolling in round fleecy ropes down the steep cliff, we descended to visit the valley, passing through the iron-works-through dark passages, where the sound of rushing waters rolled above our heads, and where fast beneath the planks under our feet. some sudden furnace - gleam betrayed them hurrying lows and hammers, wielded by the subject elements, resounded with deafening clangour through the black Huge belvaults. from one of which a long bar of iron, that had writhed itself crooked in the intense heat, was drawn out, and Presently we passed deep-glowing furnaces, thrown like a red snake upon the ground; close to those toiling fires sprang up white sheets of toiling water, wrestling with powerful wheels, that they lashed till they turned the appointed way; and sweating, begrimed, sooty-smaller than the smallest part of this vast machinery, and weaker than its weakest-stood mighty task-master-man. in the midst of these, his bright powerful slaves, the regions, we descended a steep path, through vineyards, where the vines, instead of being cut short and fastened Leaving these Vulcanic over trellises-a mode of training them, disadvantain little stacks to reeds a few feet high, are spread all geous, it is said, to the grapes, but which produces a very pleasant appearance, and looked down upon from above, has the effect of a sort of false-bottom to the whole country-that which seems the verdant ground being nothing but the vine-covered trellis that hides it. The whole valley, as we wound round it, was exquisitely beautiful, and we paused by some golden tufts of broom opposite the cascatelle to enjoy the view.

the trees through which we passed glittered all in the 'As we wound down the steep paths to the cavern, rain that still rested on them, and added much to the beautiful effect of the shadowy procession moving in torchlight through the surrounding gloom, and descending, apparently, into the very bowels of the earth. Arrived at the bottom of Neptune's Cave, which is the top of the Syren's Grotto, all sorts of illuminations took place. Bundles of hay were piled beneath the rocky arch, below which the waters disappeared, and being set fire to, the sudden light sent a blood-red flare deep down into the gulf and upon the foaming waters. Wreaths of burning straw were floated down into the abyss, whose darkness swallowed them instantly; the rocky roof and eager forms and faces of the assistants, and terrified leaping wild waters, all being suddenly illuminated by the strong light only for a few seconds. Then fires were lighted half-way up the glen in a sort of rocky gallery, with open arches looking down into the deep. Here, as we stood below and opposite, we run to and fro through the ruddy rock passage: the effect was perfectly infernal; and nothing but demons, saw the men who were employed in lighting these fires or some religious rites, such as men have devised for suggested by this strange spectacle. flaring fires were extinguished, and a pale white chethemselves, and which are fit only for devils, mical light was made to pour its radiance into the Then the red rocky cup, at the bottom of which we stood.'

were

tion of the carnival, and it is no small praise to her to
say, that she has contrived to render readable even so
Mrs Butler devotes considerable space to a descrip-
sion:-'I believe I have nothing more to say of the car-
threadbare a subject.
nival, but to notice the closing-in of the last evening,
The following is the conclu-
when, as the daylight grew thick, suddenly a thousand

tapers from the street, the carriages, the windows, the balconies, the house-tops, shone out upon the dusky twilight. The Corso looked like a whole street full of fire-flies; everybody carried in their hands a sheaf of small wax tapers, and the swarming sparks in a burning piece of paper, or an assembly-general of all the ignis fatui in the world, or the Milky Way suddenly fallen from the sky into the Corso, are the only things I can compare this wonderful and beautiful spectacle to. Far down the thronged irregular thoroughfare, this magical illumination flickered and twinkled; the street was alive with light; the carriages formed little clusters or constellations of burning tapers; from the projecting parts of every house the little moccoli were held aloft; sticks, with lights fastened to them, were pushed far out from the very tops of the houses, like strings of strange stars up against the violet-coloured evening sky; little boats of green and red oiled silk, with burning tapers in them, were set afloat in the air, and came flickering down like showers of illuminated flowers into the street. No words can convey any adequate idea of the brilliancy and singularity of the spectacle. In the meantime the sport consisted, not in the beauty and strangeness of the sight, but in everybody's endeavouring to extinguish everybody else's light, and keep his own from being extinguished. This, which might be supposed a satirical representation of society, was carried on with a frantic activity irresistibly ludicrous to a looker-on. We had gone to our balcony, the better to enjoy the coup d'œil; and anything more magical, more fairy-like, and more devilish at the same time, cannot be conceived: pocket-handkerchiefs, sticks with little flags tied to them, wisps of paper, and all imaginable weapons, were used to put out the little moccoli; extinguishers of oiled paper or parchment, fastened to long sticks, were in great requisition, and everywhere the little tapers burned and flamed, and were blown out and relighted, while screams of laughter, and shouts of "Senza moccolo-senza moccolo!" resounded from one end of the street to the other. For a while I remained intent upon preserving my light from extinction, but the blows and blasts aimed at it from above, below, and all round, rendered it impossible; and finding that this individual care for my own luminary was depriving me of the curious spectacle, I put mine out once for all, and gave myself up to gazing at the comic rout all round. At length we retreated from our stand, and threading our way through the crowd, regained our carriage. Immediately on leaving the Corso, all seemed dark and still; and though the blaze still streamed partly up some of the side streets communicating with it, and the confused uproar followed us like the sound of a distant beach some way after we had turned homewards, when we reached our own serene height on the Pincio, not a sound was to be heard but our own carriage-wheels, nor a light seen but the everlasting stars of heaven, which seemed to look down in quiet supremacy and an easy consciousness that they were not soon likely to be flapped out.'

Throughout the volumes are sundry strictures on the dishonest charges of continental innkeepers and shopkeepers, together with some ridicule of the extravagance of the English. For our own part, though tolerably well acquainted with the countries alluded to, we must confess we never happened to meet with a single specimen of this extravagance. The great majority of English residents abroad have not one shilling to spare; while English travellers, rich and poor alike, appear to live in constant dread of imposition, and to have set out with the most absurd notions of what are fair charges. On the coach highways in France, for instance, a man dines on soup, fish, meat, poultry, game, asparagus, cauliflower, haricot beans, pastry, and a plentiful dessert-the last always including (to the amusement of the Englishman) cheese; and throughout the meal he has bread and common wine at discretion. For this he is charged three francs (half-a-crown), and complains bitterly of the imposition; while at home, under similar

circumstances, he pays the same sum, without scruple, for his share of a single joint, with cheap vegetables, bread and cheese, and a glass of table-beer. Upon the whole, we must say that we have met with more instances of meanness among the English abroad, than of extortion among the natives.

GOLD IS EXPORTING-MONEY WILL BE SCARCE. In an able paper of the 92d number of the Westminster Review (entitled 'Postscript'), there occur some remarks on the monetary crisis, which have to us a supernumerary interest, in as far as they support a view taken by ourselves in a paper entitled 'The Metaphysics of Business,' which appeared in the 74th number of the Journal (new series). The subject is well worthy of being taken to heart by the guiding minds of our community. The financial embarrassment and monetary crisis through which we have passed, and which have appeared immediately to result from the Irish measures of government, may in part be traced to the currency delusions, upon which we commented in a former paper-delusions still popular with the editors of city articles, although of late exposed by some of the ablest thinkers of the day. We allude chiefly to the doctrine, both of the bullionists and the Birmingham philosophers, that commercial transactions, and the prices of commodities, are governed by the quantity of money in circulation, as represented by gold and paper. The text of the alarmists is now the drain of gold:" Gold is being exported to pay for corn; more gold will be exported;* money will be scarce; all kinds of property will fall in value; prepare for ruin." "The time will come when the prevailing notion that the prosperity of nations depends upon the question, whether a ton weight of gold shall lie buried in a vault in Hamburg or a vault in London, will be classed with the chicherished, will hereafter appear the more strange, since to meras of the nursery. That such an idea should still be all men the fact is palpable, that the use of gold or notes has long been practically superseded by accounts and cheques; that what is called the currency of the country is, in fact, only the small change of society, and an element absolutely insignificant in the vast transactions of a commercial people. The balances adjusted in the London clearing-house of L.3,000,000 per day, afford an indication that we should be quite within the mark in asserting that L.100,000,000 per day would often inadequately represent the real daily business done in buying and selling by the the property actually transferred from one to another, or whole population of the British empire. In but few comparatively of these transactions is the actual passing of either gold or notes from hand to hand required. The great majority are effected by figures, placed on the debtor or credit side of an account. A metallic currency belongs to a state of society (one of semi-civilisation) which is passing away; and it is not true that notes have replaced it the modern medium of exchange is a ledger.

'Yet we are told that a handful of gold, or Bank of England notes, disappearing from the circulation, has the power to affect, by an extreme depreciation, the whole property of the United Kingdom! What is certain is, the predictions; but it is most important the public should that the realisation of these prophecies generally follows understand that they lead to their own fulfilment; a fact beginning to be suspected, and of easy demonstration.

Value is governed by supply and demand; but supply and demand are governed by opinion. Faith is necessary to the husbandman: he must have confidence in the seed he is to put into the ground, or it will not be sown. Faith is necessary to the merchant: he must have a reasonable prospect of a market, or no vessel will be sent by him to a distant port. All buying and selling, not designed for imthe opinion of the buyer and seller that prices will rise, or mediate consumption, is regulated by belief that is, by that they will fall, or that they will remain stationary. All are buyers when there is a hope of profit; all are sellers when there is a prospect of loss: hence the fluctuations

*The anticipation of a continued drain of gold will, perhaps, be somewhat modified by the information, derived from official sources, and communicated to the public by Mr Frederick Scheer, that the Siberian gold mines are annually increasing in produc87 zol., surpassing, by 336 poods, 28 liv., 46 zol., the produce of 1845. tiveness. The produce, in the year 1846, was 1722 poods, 29 liv., A pood is equal to 36 lbs.

of the funds and of the share markets, which have literally nothing whatever to do with the permanent security for investment of any of the stocks quoted; and are certainly never affected, to any perceptible extent, by a difference in the quantity of money. The prices of share lists indicate nothing but the fears or confidence of holders. Create a belief that money will be scarce, and you produce the same effect as if money had suddenly vanished from the world by a miracle, and were really that indispensable medium of exchange in large commercial transactions which, as we have shown, it is not. With the cry-" Gold is going out -money will be scarce," all prudent men begin at the same time to contract their obligations, to call in their debts, and to make reserves. Hence, and hence only, a pressure, for which the shipment of a box or two of bullion, and the withdrawal of a few bundles of bank-notes from a banker's drawer, can never adequately account.

who uses a tea-kettle, leaves an incrustation on the vessel carbonate of lime. This is a source of great danger with boilers, causing explosions, by forming a layer of nonconducting matter between the metal and the fluid to be heated, and thus allowing the temperature of the former to rise to a high point, even to redness. The metal oxidises rapidly at this temperature, and the boiler is thereby weakened and rendered incapable of sustaining the necessary pressure. But a more fruitful cause of accidents, is the sudden removal of portions of incrustation, when the metal expands on the attainment of the high temperature; the water is thereby brought in contact with the heated metal, and evaporation takes place so suddenly, as to resemble the evolution of gases from the firing of gunpowder. Indeed the results in both cases are identical. To avoid this peril as far as practicable, the water, when it becomes dense, is frequently blown off,' or driven out of the boiler. The loss arising from the failure of the potato crop is But this is only a partial remedy, and the crust has to be said to be L.16,000,000. How much per cent. is that upon removed by means of the hammer and chisel, to the injury the fixed and floating capital of the British empire, usually of the vessel. About two years ago, Dr Ritterbandt disestimated at L.5,000,000,000? Less than 6s. 6d. Why, covered a cure for this. He found that, by introducing then, if in consequence only of such an insignificant dimi- muriate of ammonia into a boiler containing water holding nution of our exchangeable commodities, have we seen, lime in solution, the carbonate of lime, instead of depositwithin the last six months, a fall of L.10 per cent. in the ing when the carbonic acid by which it was held in solution most solid securities in the kingdom-the funds, and the was expelled at a high temperature, became converted into shares of the North Western Railway Company? Potatoes muriate of lime, a substance eminently soluble; while the were innocent of this extreme depreciation. The shipment carbonate of ammonia, likewise formed by the double deof L.3,000,000 of bullion could not have occasioned it: composition, passed off with the steam, so that the boiler want of confidence alone was the cause. Belief in a falling could not foul. The process is equally applicable to fresh market, produces a falling market; because all are sellers and salt water.' It has also resulted in dissolving the crust at the same moment, and no buyers. A few years back, formed before its application. It is still necessary to blow there was a belief in the minds of some hundreds of ig- off the water occasionally, but only to the extent of onenorant and credulous persons that London would be de-fourth of what is requisite without Dr Ritterbandt's invenstroyed by an earthquake. There was no earthquake; but tion. The Times' has tried the plan on its own boilers, they had hastened to fly into the country.' and a twelvemonth has fully proved its efficacy.

TERRACE CULTIVATION IN CHINA.

The terrace cultivation of China has been noticed by nearly all writers upon this country; and like most other subjects, it has been either much exaggerated, or undervalued. It appeared to me to be carried to the greatest perfection on the hill-sides adjacent to the river Min near Foo-choo-foo; at least I was more struck with it there than anywhere else. On sailing up that beautiful river, these terraces look like steps on the sides of the mountains, one rising above another, until they sometimes reach six or eight hundred feet above the level of the sea. When the rice and other crops are young, these terraces are clothed in luxuriant green, and look like a collection of gardens among the rugged and barren mountains. The terrace system is adopted by the Chinese, either for the purpose of supplying the hill-sides with water where paddy is to be grown, or to prevent the heavy rains from washing down the loose soil from the roots of other vegetables. Hence these cuttings are seen all over the sides of the hills, not exactly level like the rice terraces, but level enough to answer the purpose of checking the rains in their descent from the mountain. For the same reason, the sweet potato, and some other crops which are grown on the hills, are always planted in ridges which run crossways or horizontally; indeed, were the ridges made in a different direction, the heavy rains which fall in the early summer months would carry both the loose soil and crops down into the plains. Rice is grown on the lower terrace ground; and a stream of water is always led from some ravine, and made to flow across the sides of the hills, until it reaches the highest terrace, into which it flows and floods the whole of the level space. When the water rises three or four inches in height, which is sufficiently high for the rice, it finds vent at an opening made for the purpose in the bank, through which it flows into the terrace below, which it floods in the same manner, and so on to the lowest. In this way the whole of the rice terraces are kept continually flooded, until the stalks of the crops assume a yellow ripening hue, when the water being no longer required, it is turned back into its natural channel, or led to a different part of the hill, for the nourishment of other crops.-Fortune's Wanderings in China.

INCRUSTATIONS ON STEAM-BOILERS.

The Times' makes an important announcement of the complete success of a plan for preventing incrustations on the boilers of steam-engines. The water employed to be converted into steam, as is familiarly known to every one

THE PERSIAN PEASANT.

Where the effects of war have not been felt, and the hand of oppression has not fallen heavily, the situation of the Persian peasant is not uncomfortable. His house, though built of mud, is warm, and may be clean; and he can always spread a carpet, or felt nurmuds (the work, probably, of the women of his own family), on the floor of his best room, for the accommodation of a guest. He is comfortably clad in cotton or woollen cloth of home manufacture, or purchased with his own produce from the nearest bazaar. The fleecy skins of his own sheep afford him a warm covering in winter, and a cap of the national shape for his head. His wife and children are equally well clothed. Silk handkerchiefs, European or native printed calicoes, stout home-grown and home-made cottons, compose the apparel of the former, who, as well as the children, and especially the girls, exhibit many coins and ornaments of silver about their persons. His family fare is generally frugal: good wheaten bread, in long thin flaps, cheese, sour milk, honey, grape-treacle, herbs and vegetables-such as onions, radishes, beetroot-and some eggs occasionally; or a little meat, stewed or roasted in small pieces, or made into soup with a sort of pea or vetch, into which the bread is broken; and sometimes a pillau of rice well buttered, or with meat, and a few plums and raisins by way of feast; fruits in their season, or preserved by being dried; rice, or flour and milk, boiled with sugar into a sort of porridge: these things form nearly the whole of the peasant's bill of fare for the year round; but when a stranger of any consequence arrives, there are few respectable villages that cannot furnish him with a meal that leaves no cause for complaint, even though his cook be the wife of a peasant.

CARE OF ANIMATE AND INANIMATE MACHINES.

creatures, they may also be considered as indispensable Independently of men being sentient beings and fellowmechanical instruments. But in former times they had not the attention paid to them which would have been due even to inanimate machines of equal utility; for there seemed to be much more anxiety about preserving arms from rusting, and cordage from rotting, than about maintaining men in an effective state of health.-Sir Gilbert Blanc on the Comparative Health of the Navy.

Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh. Also sold by D. CHAMBERS, 98 Miller Street, Glasgow; W. S. Ore, 147 Strand, and Amen Corner, London; and J. M'GLASHAN, 21 D'Olier Street, Dublin.-Printed by W. and R. CHAMBERS, Edinburgh.

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

No. 180. NEW SERIES.

SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 1847.

FORGETFULNESS.

PRICE 1d.

been in all times a synonyme for wo! But all is hushed up and buried under this very surface which, when I look abroad upon it in the sunlight of May, laughs in the joy which great God has sent down upon it. Thus it is with our daily existence. We walk enjoyingly each moment on a mental sward of freshest verdure, composed of the trodden-down hopes and extinguished joys of the past. Blessed, blessed is this moral chemistry which works so well! Could all of these lost hopes and joys revive before our eyes, and look as they once looked, it would be suffering too great for poor humanity. We are happy on the express condition that we forget.

EVERYBODY trumpets the advantages of a good memory. Plans for cultivating it, or supplying its deficiencies by artificial means, make a great figure in 'Watts on the Mind,' and other slender-witted wellmeaning books. Grave middle-aged people shake their heads to little boys, and tell them there is nothing like MEMORY. With that, all comes easy; without it, nothing is to be done. And so Memory keeps up a tremendous character in the world-has always done, and will continue to do so. Nobody in the meantime thinks of saying a word in praise of Forgetfulness. Yet is Forgetfulness a blessed thing too, although, no doubt, in a different kind of way. The one is a noted source of positive good, in as far as it is intellectual power and wealth. So far well. The other, while a source of certain positive evils, in as far as it engenders ignorance, and leads to neglect, is only attended by negative benefits. Thus may the different reputations of the two-it may do some good to remember them as errors to things be accounted for. Nevertheless, it is clear as noonday, or any other very clear thing whatever, that we owe as much to Forgetfulness as to Memory, and that it is as much a duty to cultivate the one as the other.

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We should be ready to forgive, say all the good ethical codes. Well, I forgive,' cries the wronged or affronted man; but I cannot forget.' How unfortunate!-seeing that, while he cannot forget, he has not forgiven; he only thinks he does. Forgetfulness is necessary to this solemn duty: it is vain to think of doing without it. But let us not speak of duty, but only of the comfort of having nothing to complain of or avenge. How blessed for the man himself, if-having undergone an injury or a mortification-he only can forget! Then, truly, is the good thing insured: forgetting, he has no occasion to think of forgiving; it is the major proposition containing the minor within itself. Happy, happy, thrice happy he who simply has not a Memory for his wrongs or his sufferings! Happy the mind which, like water, may be lashed into foam, and in an instant will resume the placid smile in which it reflected heaven-compared with that obdurate one which may be said to resemble the marble tablet-let it be struck with the same force, and it lies in hopeless ruins for ever!

Misfortunes occur and gall us. We meet disappointments, and for the time are wretched. Frantic, and darkly groping, the mind roams about its little worldprison in search of consolation. Something of the kind is encountered and grasped at, and the crisis passes. But how must we all acknowledge that, in the long-run, the true and perfect consoler was Forgetfulness! What pains have been suffered on this earth from first to last! How sad have hearts been, sitting by the firesides of five thousand years ago! How has human life

Perhaps it might admit of question, if history is the unmixed good it is usually thought to be. It gives to nations and other bodies of men long Memories, which it were better for them to want. The great public criminalities of the past-such as the settlements in Ireland, the Smithfield Burnings, the Partition of Poland

be avoided, but it seems a pure evil for the descendants, or the party of the sufferers, to keep these things in mind. They cannot now be remedied-not even revenged. It only keeps alive bad feelings to remember them-exasperation to those interested in the injured; vexation, without correction, to those who represent the injurers. Could they be entirely forgotten, the present generation might better exemplify the Christian precepts. On a serious reflection, the making holidays of the anniversaries of the great treason of 1605 and the death of Charles I., appears as the most deliberately wicked conduct of which a people or a party could be guilty-determining to remember injuries by statuteconsecrating offences to all time-howling out 'I wont forget!' even after there is no one against whom the remembrance is a stigma, which is the case with the Martyrdom.' We only do not at once condemn and abolish such practices, because seriousness has actually long ago departed from them, leaving them only as empty mockeries or childish sports. War, wholly, might be better forgotten. Its Memories tend continually to make more war, less by encouragement to victors, than mortification to the vanquished; for a Waterloo may sooner cease to be boasted of than to be resented. Could the horrid story, and all its tangible memorials in soldiery, artillery, fortresses, bellicose songs, pass at once from remembrance, the chances of a renewal of hostilities would be greatly lessened. Would that all who have ever warred, and particularly those who have been worsted, could forget!

Memory is directly useful, Forgetfulness indirectly or negatively so. We might have had more of the one, if it had not been necessary that the other should also have its share of us. When disposed to lament a failure or deficiency of Memory, let us remember that, had

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