as the resident in the moister stratum which fills the valley.

was a different affair to theirs. Mystification was all the help he gave them.

Fortunately, we are able to re-assure our fat friends; no operation is involved in the modern system of treating their superfluities. Dr. Dancel's grand principle is this; to diminish embonpoint without affecting the health, the patient must live principally on meat (eating but a small quantity of other aliment), and drinking but little, and that little not water. In a hundred parts of human fat, there are seventy-nine of carbon, fifteen and a fraction of hydrogen, and five

But the grand cause of obesity, is our eating and drinking more than enough. It has been said that one of the privileges of the human race is, to eat without being hungry, and to drink without being dry. This double propensity is found wherever men exist. Savages indulge it to a brutal extent, when ever they have the opportunity; and it is undeniable that we, members of civilized society, both eat and drink too much. As dinner-givers, as diners-out: at weddings and other family meetings, at political feasts, and a fraction of oxygen. But water is nothat charity banquets, enormous quantities of ing but the protoxide of hydrogen; and hyeatables and drinkables are consumed, of drogen is one of the main elements of fat. which our bodily frame stands in no real Therefore, the aspirant after leanness, must need. Such of us as have good stomachs, eat but few vegetables, or watery messes, or convert the surplus into fat, while those who hot-rolls, puddings, tarts, potatoes, haricots, have bad ones transmute it into indigestions, pease-soup, charlottes, sweet biscuits, applecolics, and cramps. rolls, nor cakes in any of their protean forms; because all those dainties have carbon and oxygen for their principal bases. If he will persist in living on leguminous, farinaceous, and liquid diet, he will make fat as certainly as the bee makes honey by sucking flowers. Chemistry tells us that the principal base of meat is azote, which does not enter into the composition of fat; while the principal elements of fruits, sugar, flour, and starch, are carbon and hydrogen, the elements of fat. Human fat is found ready-made in certain aliments which are not flesh, as in olive-oil and in all the oleaginous seeds. If you live principally on lean meat, you will not fatten so fast as those who follow a regimen composed of carbonic and hydrogenic bases.

The prospect for fat folks is far from cheering; but happily there is no occasion for them to despair so long as Dr. Dancel shall continue to reside in Paris. He asks the question, "Is it possible to diminish embonpoint without injuring the bealth?" and he answers it in the affirmative.

There have existed professional emaciators, who have attained their result by a surgical operation, which consisted in cutting a hole in the patient and taking out his troublesome lump of fat, very much in the way in which the avaricious farmer opened his goose that laid golden eggs. I have heard of a man-cook who possessed everything that could make life happy-health, wealth, fame, good children, and attached friends, who not unusually follow the rest with the sad drawback that he was very fat. So he went to be operated on, and died. There is a story of a Pasha, who was always accompanied by a travelling surgeon, to relieve him of his fat in this way, as often as it became troublesome. In seventeen hundred and eighteen, a Parisian surgeon, named Rhothonet, is said to have delivered a noted personage of an enormous paunch; after the operation, the bread-and-cheese; besides which they drink patient became slim and active. Rhothonet copiously. The supposition that they imbibe was soon assailed by crowds of persons suf- their fat from the flesh-laden atmosphere in fering from repletion, and begging him to un- which they live, is a hypothesis which redertake their alleviation. He paid little heed mains to be proved. What is the best fatto the weight of their afflictions. He sent ting diet for pigs? Barley-meal and milk, them all about their business, simply telling assuredly, and not flesh, although pigs eat flesh them that the case in which he had succeeded greedily. What made Louis the Eighteenth

It may be objected to this theory, that butchers, and butcheresses are in general fat; because (as is taken for granted), they live on meat. But inquiry will prove that the premises are false. Butchers and their wives (as any one may learn by taking the trouble to inquire), dislike meat. When they do eat flesh, they prefer poultry; but they are much better pleased with a meal consisting of fish, vegetables, pastry, or even

so enormously fat? for mealy potatoes? mals-lions, tigers, fat.

What, but his passion of making themselves thinner. A persistWhile carnivorous ani- ence in drinking strongly acidulated lemonand wolves-are never ade as a habitual beverage, for the same purpose, has proved scarcely less injurious. As to slight doses of tincture of iodine, or iodide of potassium, to diminish fat they may bedescribed in one word-POISON.

The great comfort is, that fat folk now need not go and hang; for drown they cannot. Ladies and gentlemen who have not seen their shoe-strings for years, may still hope to see them yet. Twenty stone need be no solid ground for despair. Mortals grown to the proportions of a Stilton cheese have yet returned to the aspect of humanity. Listen, all ye disconsolate situation-seekers, who are unable to advertise yourselves as without incumbrance!

To aid you to in shaking off your superabundant fat, other means besides diet may be brought into action. Overladen sufferers ought to take internally certain substances which aid in the decomposition of fat. The alkalis, for instance, combining with it, form soaps. You may thus establish a home manufactory of real brown Windsor, and other fancy articles. Such alkalis, administered in ordinary doses, never produce inconvenience; they increase, rather than diminish the appetite, and thus favor the decrease of fat. Soap pills have been prescribed for ages past, to cure obstructions of (i. e. fat in) the liver. The Vichy waters are recom- Monsieur Guenaud, master baker, of the mended for the same purpose and it is by Rue St. Martin, Paris, at the age of twentythe portion of alkali still left free in the soap eight was not quite four feet high. He pills, and by the same alkali in the Vichy grew so fat that he could scarcely waddle. waters, that obstructions of the liver are re- As soon as he made an attempt to walk, he moved. Dr. Cullen, in his Elements of was overcome by the oppression of his own Practical Medicine, relates that a physician weight. If he remained long in a standing named Fleming, sometimes succeeded in re- posture, he was seized with violent pains. ducing embonpoint by prescribing soap pills. He could not follow his business; he could Another English writer speaks highly of al- not lie down in bed; he could not wear a kaline baths as an antidote to obesity; while hat without turning giddy. Had he seen a French practitioner records a case of ema- the Regent diamond lying on the pavement ciation resulting in a very stout lady from in the street, he would not have dared to the use of carbonate of soda and soda water which she was ordered to take with a different object in view.

stoop to pick it up. The poor man thereupon took to bleeding and purging, to sorrel and spinach, to plenty of bread and water You will understand that alkalis alone will and no meat, only to progress from bad to not deliver you from your burden of fat. If worse. He was disbanded out of the Naby your diet you take in as many grease- tional Guard, and he fell into a state of making elements as the alkali drives out, somnolent indifference which might have things will remain in their old condition, the ended in a journey to Père-la-Chaise, had supply being equal to the demand. Even not his mother happened to read the very when living exclusively on meat, you may book I have just been quoting. spoil all by drinking too much. The absorption of the smallest possible quantity of liquid is an indispensible condition, whether in the form of food, drink, or baths. A moist atmosphere even encourages the growth of fat some people become sensibly heavier in muggy weather. As a warning, be it mentioned that draughts of vinegar and other acids produce leanness (when they do not cause death) only by deranging the general health through the injury they cause to the digestive canal. Many young persons have fallen victims to the marasm brought on by daily doses of vinegar taken with the object

The sequel may be guessed. In thirteen days, M. Guenaud was able to take a long walk, carrying his hat on his head all the while, which latter fact is not mentioned as a joke. In a month he had lost sixteen pounds of weight, and eighteen centimètres of circumference.

In three months, his fat was diminished by forty pounds, and his abdominal equator by forty centimètres. Finally his heavy luggage in front was ul timately removed. When M. Guenaud reappeared in the ranks of the National Guard, his return created immense sensation amongst his gallant comrades. He rendered

justice to the author of his restoration to meat and very little vegetable. From being moderate breadth and thickness; who, in a great water-drinker, he restrained himself return, has rendered his patient the justice to a bottle or a bottle and a half of liquid to record that he punctually observed the per day. When thirsty, he drank very little treatment prescribed for breakfast, a beef- at a time; and between meals he rinsed his steak or a couple of cutlets, with a very mouth with water, either pure or slightly small quantity of vegetables and a demi- acidulated with vinegar, whenever a wish to tasse of coffee; his dinner likewise consisted of drink was felt, as a substitute for it.

Young gentlemen, going abroad in their raw
age,

Have need of a decent compagnon-de-voyage,
Like Pallas, who once condescended, they say,
To abandon Olympus's blisses,
Her sex to disguise, and the posters to pay

For the Hopeful of prudent Ulysses.

"O needless 'tis now that her honors, and bod

dice

THE OLD HUNDREDTH.-Dr. Gauntlett has the above very useful, though now obsolete, such a strong claim on every church musician, book. that I cannot refrain from a communication, which may be of interest to him personally, and to all those who are seeking the origin of the above tune. I remember, some years ago, while making a musical search in the Dean and Chapter's library at St. Paul's Cathedral, the Rev. R. H. Barham (Thomas Ingoldsby of legendary fame), being then librarian, accompanied me to the library, "up the church," and he showed me a Genevan Psalter, by Theodore Beza, and Clement Marot, in which the Old Hundredth is printed as usually sung in our churches. As I did not make a note of the title-page, I cannot give its proper date; but well remembering the book, a duodecimo, and that Mr. Barham considered it a curiosity, and kept it locked up among the more choice works in that library, besides it being entered in the catalogue there kept, I have no doubt, if Dr. Gauntlett is anxious to see it, he will easily find it by applying to the present librarian (the Rev. R. C. Packman, I believe).

M. C.

Enclosed are extracts from The Doncaster Gazette, on the subject of the Old Hundredth Psalm, recently noticed in your very interesting paper, which you may deem worthy of notice.

"The long-disputed question whether Purcell or Handel was the author of the grand music of the Old Hundredth has been set at rest by a discovery made a few days since in Lincoln Cathedral library. Purcell died in 1695, and Handel in 1759. But in the Cathedral library a French psalter, printed in 1546, contains the music of the Old Hundredth, exactly as it is now sung, so that it could not be the production of either of the great musicians to whom it has been attributed."-Notes and Queries.

MRS. STARKE'S "CONTINENTAL GUIDE.”. Those who lived before the days of handbooks will appreciate the following lines, incerti auctoris, which I found written in a copy of

Shd be turned into breeches and boots by a
Goddess :

Mrs. Starke, that most learned old matron,
will serve a

Youth's turn, or they misrepresent her, Will chatter of flannel and thread like Minerva,

And spout crabbed Greek, like old Mentor. 'Tis clear, though divinely inspired, that

acuter

Than her cd be never or Courier or Tutor; From the price of a house to the pace of a Vet.

From the relics stupendous of Rome,

To where you can purchase the best heavy

wet.

The old woman's alwavs at home.

Cyclopean walls, and Gorgona Anchovies,
Westphalian hams, and proconsular Trophies,
Swiss chalêts, Dutch Inns, and Sicilian clois-
ters,

Danube, Silarus, Tiber, or Po,

Quails, ortolans, sparrows, Marsala, Port, oysters,

For her nought's too high, or too low. Weird woman, indeed! human things and divine,

She crams in one page, nay, and oft in a lines
Like a poet in phrenzy her vision can glance
In a twinkling creation all o'er,
From Parthenope's Bay to the paves of
France:

Say, what could the Goddess do more?''
-Notes and Queries.

From The Literary Gazette.

Dialogues on Divine Providence. By a Fellow of a College. John W. Parker and Son.

denial or forgetfulness of them has proved as fatal to philosophy as to religion.

The popular error, into which we are all apt to fall, is, that God having created the universe and subjected it to certain laws, leaves it to their guidance. But that when these laws are in danger of producing some great evil or injustice-when a dignus vindice modus occurs-He interferes to correct His own laws, by what is popularly called " an Interposition of Providence."

THIS is a confutation of popular errors in religion and philosophy, conveyed in a popular form. An accident is supposed to occur to a young lady named Eliza: what it is we are not informed; but we are given to understand that she has escaped death by one of those surprising combinations of circumstances which are vulgarly called "In- To this supposition is opposed the fact, terpositions of Providence." This gives that, according to the only notion that we occasion to two friends, Henry and Philip, can form of Deity, God is the sole original to discuss the subject of Divine Providence worker in nature, and therefore no less the in general, in the Socratic method. Henry executor than the framer of its laws. When is Socrates, and Philip and Eliza, when she we speak of "a law of nature," we mean recovers, are the respondents, whom he only the uniform operation of God's will envelopes in the meshes of his leading ques-under certain circumstances which we have tions.

had the opportunity of observing. Now, to say that he sometimes interposes, is to assert that, at some given moment, He begins to work, and therefore that, before that moment arrived, He was not working. But this is absurd.

This plan has many advantages. It enables the writer to avoid formal introductions to each topic, and to put his objections in a short and succinct form. But we doubt whether it is the best that could be adopted at the present day. In the dia- It is objected, however, that miracles are, logues of Plato there is an indescribable from their very nature, interpositions of interest in perusing, even to the faintest Providence. No, replies the philosopher; sketch, the familiar conversation of that miracles are evidence of the activity of some knot of great and subtle minds who repre- law with which we are not acquainted, but sent the highest development of the un- which may be neither more nor less a law of assisted reason and virtue of the old civiliza-nature than that of gravitation. The wontion. But an imitation of the exquisite derful acts which signalized our Lord's apsimplicity of the Phædo is apt to degenerate pearance upon earth, may have been as into puerility; and the introduction of pic-much the necessary effects of the causes at turesque descriptions of English firesides and autumnal leaves into a philosophical discussion, rather distracts than assists the mind in its effort to follow the thread of the argument. There is something which strikes us as affected in illustrating the omniscience of the Deity, by asserting that the particular curve, formed by the combination of Eliza's graceful ringlet with the dark vein in the marble chimney-piece, is as much present to the mind of God as that which is formed by the orbit of a planet. This reminds one of a frippery altar-piece of the eighteenth century in a Gothic cathedral.

But having pointed out what we conceive to be obvious blemishes of taste, we can give our hearty approval of the philosophical principles which it is the design of the book to uphold; we are convinced that the

work, as the tidal wave which flows up the Seine to Barre-y-va, or the power of electricity to supersede the law of gravitation. "On the same occasions God acts in the same way; but miracles occur on extraordinary occasions, and then God acts in an extraordinary way."

This appears to us a much truer mode of viewing miracles than the ordinary one, which defines them to be reversals of the laws of nature. In the Bible it is certain that the ordinary laws of nature, providential circumstances by which those laws were made to minister to God's moral government, and the seeming reversal of those laws, as in some of our Lord's miracles, are all placed in the same category, as alike tho direct effects of the divine will alone. For this reason we never could see how the Mosaic account of the drying up of the Red

Sea was invalidated by showing that it science, and corrects the common error of might have been the effect of a strong wind supposing that the Almighty concerns himblowing continually in one point. It very self only with great events or general laws. likely was so; but that only means that in It seems to us so essential to the notion of this particular case we can discern the Deity that every event that has occurred, is means, predetermined by God from the be- occurring, or shall occur, for all eternity, ginning of time, for preserving the people every thought or emotion that has arisen in whom he had chosen to be the guardians of the mind of men or animals, and every partrue religion. The miraculous character of ticle of matter and inch of space throughout a miracle depends entirely upon our ignor- the universe, are at every moment of time ance. To a being accustomed to witness the present to the consciousness of the divine operations of God's power in a larger sphere mind, that we should scarcely have thought than ours, what we call natural laws and this dialogue necessary. Indeed, all these miracles would both appear exactly on the questions have been discussed and settled same footing, inasmuch as they are both the by the great philosophical theologians of the results of an exertion of the will of God. early church. But from a passage quoted It is only our limited experience which from the works of some popular divine of makes what we call miracles appear to us the present day, it seems that even our comunconnected and arbitrary acts, contradic-mentators on scripture-men who pretend to tory to the other phenomena of nature. teach theology-are guilty of the absurdity Miracles are not, however, the less satisfac-of supposing that there are some things so tory proofs of a divine mission; because insignificant that they escape the notice of they are as much acts of divine power as the sustaining the earth in her course; only from their want of connection with the phenomena which we are in the habit of observing they are calculated to convince

us.

In the second chapter the origin of the erroneous idea of "Interpositions of Providence" is asserted to have arisen from a false analogy with human laws. In these providence or prudence must precede the law, in order that all cases may be provided for. But as human foresight is limited, it is necessary that a providence should follow the law in the shape of some corrective, lodged in the executive power. Hence it is supposed that God, having in like manner once for all framed general laws, must leave them to execute themselves, and when they go wrong, must interpose to correct their decisions.

Him who contains all in Himself, and “sustains them by the word of His power." When our Saviour told His disciples that even the very hairs of their heads were numbered, He was enunciating a fact which even unassisted reason must accept as essential to the idea of God's omniscience.

Hitherto the friends have been discussing the power and wisdom of God; in the last dialogue they treat of His love. This is a more difficult subject. There is nothing in the universe to oppose itself to His two former attributes; all bears witness to the all-wise and almighty Creator. But the existence of sin and evil seems to contradict His love. Their origin and final destiny are not touched upon, because they are inscrutable, and under every system of theology, whether founded upon unassisted reason alone, or Revelation, must remain a difficulty.

for

But this is evidently an error-God's providence does not precede the law, nor To say that any statement of Christian follow it-it acts in the law, and what we doctrine is new, is at once to condemn it. It distinguish as the general law and the is not for nothing that the subtlest intellects special interposition are both equally the and the most religious minds have been, immediate operation of God's will. A law more than a thousand years from the enunciwithout a personal law-giver and executor ation of the gospel message, sifting revela is the idlest dream of metaphysicians, and tion by the light of reason; and he must be has no place in the reality of things. a bold man indeed who expects to glean a But the only law-giver and executor is God.

The third dialogue treats of God's omni

large harvest in the field of philosophical theology after the Fathers and Schoolmen. But it is the office of the scribe instructed