same serrated letter, in one hundred and fifty pages, price 5s. Besides these books, Mr. Gall printed a series of tracts for the blind for the London Tract Society, in 1837, price 6d. each. It is a matter of surprise that these excellent and wellprinted books of Mr. Gall are not more generally used. With the exception of the school at Abbey Hill, Edinburgh, it is believed that they are adopted by no public institution in Great Britain. It is still a question if the roughness of the serrated character possesses any advantage over the smooth, sharp embossing. Old and used books are frequently preferred by the blind to new and fresh ones. While Mr. Gall was thus engaged at Edinburgh, the Rev. Mr. Taylor, of York, displayed an intelligent and active interest in the education of the blind. In 1828 he published the "Diagrams of Euclid's Elements of Geometry," in embossed or tangible form, in 8vo. This was done on Bristol board, but was found too expensive. His mode of embossing, we believe, was forcing the paper, by means of heavy pressure, into the deep cut lines of a copper plate. It was not successful. He published also a map of England and Wales. In 1836 he printed, in raised characters, "Selections of Psalm Tunes and Chants," in oblong 4to, Also a short history of "Elijah the Prophet," and of "Naaman the Syrian," and the "History of Joseph." The efforts of Mr. Alexander Hay, in the cause of embossed typography, deserve mention, although a failure. He devised an alphabet of twenty-six arbitrary characters, which by certain combinations could represent the abbreviations and double letters; so that in all he had fifty-eight characters. He procured types and other printing apparatus, and in 1828 or 1829 issued a prospectus for publishing the "Gospel of St. Matthew," at 7s. 6d. The book was never published. The public interest in the blind became so great, that in 1832 the Society of Arts of Edinburgh offered a gold medal of the value of £20,"for the best communication on a method of printing for the blind;" and the result was, that between the 9th of January, 1832, and the 25th of February, 1835, nineteen different alphabets were submitted, of which sixteen were in a purely arbitrary character. The grand problem was to produce an alphabet that would unite cheapness and legibility. While the puzzling question of an alphabet best adapted both to the fingers of the blind and the eyes of their friends, was under warm discussion in Europe, Dr. Howe was developing his system. In 1833 the Perkins Institution for the Blind was established at Boston, and Dr. S. G. Howe, a gentleman distinguished through a long series of years for his philanthropic labors, was placed at its head. As Mr. Gall had done, Dr. Howe took Haüy's invention as the basis of his system, and soon made those improvements and modifications which have rendered the Boston press so famous. He adopted the common Roman letter of the lower case. His first aim was to compress the letter into a comparatively compact and cheap form. This he accomplished by cutting off all the flourishes and points about the letters, and reducing them to the minimum size and elevation which could be distinguished by the generality of the blind. He so managed the letters that they occupied but a little more than one space and a half instead of three. A few of the circular letters were modified into angular shapes, yet preserving the original forms sufficiently to be easily read by all. So great was this reduction, that the entire New Testament, which, according to Haüy's type, would have filled nine volumes, and cost $100, could be printed in two volumes for $5. Early in the summer of 1834 he published the "Acts of the Apostles." Indeed, such rapid progress did he make in his enterprise, that by the end of 1835 he printed in relief the whole of the New Testament for the first time in any language, in four handsome small quarto volumes, comprising six hundred and twentyfour pages, for four dollars. These were published altogether in 1836. The alphabet thus contrived by Dr. Howe in 1833, it appears, has never since been changed. It was immediately adopted, and subsequently became extensively and almost exclusively used by the seven principal public institutions throughout the country. It is now the only system taught or tolerated in the United States, and deserves only to be better known in Great Britain and elsewhere, to be appreciated. In this country, seventeen of the states have made provision for the education of their blind, and as universal education is the policy of the country, as well as its proudest boast, these books for the blind soon became in great demand. About the same time that the Perkins Institution was established at Boston, another was commenced in Philadelphia, under the direction of Mr. J. R. Friedlander. To this gentleman the blind owe much for the Philadelphia contributions to their literature. To the American Bible Society, also, at New-York, much praise is due for their commendable efforts in the circulation of the Holy Scriptures among the blind. peopled district, and that in which the spoiling element had given up its prey, after having marked it for a howling, uninhabitable shore. Of the former of these periods there is a tale of some interest related, in which it is asserted that a green and fertile coast extended out as far as the present seamargin at least; and that, on the beach, there was a fishing hamlet, called Garvoch, consisting of about a dozen huts. This colony had been perched here from immemorial time; but, latterly, vague alarms had arisen that the great sea, which the amphibious hamleteers had so often taken by the mane, was moving awfully in his deep caverns, and was about to send out a swell that would flood the country to the base of the nearest hills. No one could tell whence this vague rumor had arisen: some supposed it was in the feigned prophecy of a weird native, THE SEA-FLOOD-A LEGEND OF THE who had passed nearly a century there in THERES NORTH. listening to the mysterious voices of the ocean; others conceived, with greater likelihood, that certain irruptions already made at a point to the eastward, and plain indications of encroachments nearer at hand, had given ground for the whisper of alarm. However that may be, it is certain Garvoch became gradually deserted; one after another of the old tribe of fishermen left the foredoomed place, and the cots, that had sheltered their hardy race for generations, began to fall into grass and weeds grew round them; moss stains fell upon the rocks where the nets had been hung to dry in the sun; and the echoes that had once been invoked by the fisherman's song or the chime of his busy toil, were now wakened only by the wailing of the sea-bird, as it sailed over the broad bosom of the frith. HERE is a spot on the northern coast of Great Britain, where the billows of the broad Moray Frith roll their whitened ridges on a long line of dreary sand. This tract extends for miles, as it would appear, and far inland, till the prospect is lost among the bare heathy swells that rise beyond, and close, with their unshapely heights, 'the distant horizon. I have been told that once the surges of the ocean ran to the very edge of this heath-rapid and melancholy ruin. Tangled clad expanse; and still may be seen, in their desolate solitude, the ruins of ancient cots that fishermen had inhabited, now far from the sounding beach, and standing out like specters of the past, but once, no doubt, having the ripple of the sunlit waves rushing to their very threshold. Here there has been dark and wild fluctuation. Tales are told of the great tides One hut, amid all this ruin and solirolling, as if borne in from the utmost tude, continued to send up from its little polar verge, and overwhelming great wooden chimney the curling blue vapor, tracts of country in their mighty flood. that told it still was tenanted. The ocMiles, thus wasted, became the bed of cupant was the last of his race, as truly ocean; till, at another era, the turbulent he might be called, by name Peter Ericksurges would give back, and leave the son. He was descended from a long line tracts they had overwhelmed as suddenly, of fishers, and was presumed, indeed, to a dreary waste of sand. Thus it had have the blood of the old Scandinavian been with the spot in question. It was Erlkings in his veins. His life, like the now the home of desolation, and had its lives of his forefathers, had been spent on traditions of two periods of change-that the wild northern seas. At the period when first the waves had broken loose, of which I write he was advanced in and raged in a vast sea over a hitherto | years, but still hale and ruddy in his hood. It was a strange, wild life this ancient fisherman and his daughter ledperched upon the beach then, it might be, in the dark howling blasts that racked the winter nights, and sent sheets of spray hissing over their cabin; or, it might be, in the still, sunny days of summer, when the azure heavens were without a cloud, the calm, slumbering sea stretching away northward, till sky and waters met and mingled, and leftward, the blue masses of the far-off hills seen as if floating on the waves. But Katie never felt weary; even if her parent was for days absent on the deep seas, she never knew the hush of terror; her spirit was fearless as it was innocent and simple; and as she sat by the little lamp she kept burning like a star at the open window, as the beacon that should guide her father through the murky night, she cowered not for the hoarse music of the billows; but in every swell dreamed of hearing the voices of the stern Vikingr, whose spirits she could not help thinking were yet ranging on their ancient tracks. Her father, indeed, often, when the blast was at its highest, made the cabin ring with their rude sea-songs; and would startle the imagination of the awed and wondering girl with the tales of their daring, their stern, unbending virtues, and the mystic lore of their bards and heroes. A few paces to the right of the ruined hamlet a small creek was formed by a mountain stream issuing there into the sea. Peter used to bring in his craft, and in this haven moor them in security, and without the need of much personal exertion. It was Katie's wont, when she had note of her father's return, to speed hither with all the vivacity and glee of her simple love; and it was a touching spectacle, when the great rugged fisherman leaped on the yellow sand, to see him clasp the gentle little girl within his arms, and kiss her sweet face a score of times, at least, in succession. This had occurred many times without further incident; but at last, after a year of their solitude had passed, Katie, on hastening one sunny afternoon to the creek, found, to her exceeding surprise, that, for the first time, there was a stranger with her father in the little boat. He was a young gentleman of so handsome an exterior, so pale and comely a face, so full, dark-flashing an eye, and hair so richly curling beneath His Habited aspect, and every muscle, as it seemed, trained and vehement as whipcord. hair was of silvery whiteness, and streamed in long locks round his broad, open features; his eyes, piercing blue, could yet range the horizon undimmed. in his fishing integuments, he presented no mean idea of that daring old race, who made the northern main at its wildest but their pillow, and who eagerly coveted to sink into its bosom as their last bed of repose. That Peter should abandon his time-honored roof that he should be terrified by the phantom that had scared all his neighbors from the place-that he should fear, in any shape, the green billows that had daily rocked him from infancy till now, was not for a moment to be supposed. When every other tumbling rooftree was deserted, therefore, Peter clung obstinately to his, and avowed that, even if the sea-ripples should murmur above his grave, it would be the dirge that would soonest soothe his spirit; he coveting no other burial than beneath the waves. He was left, then, to his weary solitude; but yet that solitude was shared by one other, his only child Katie. Her beauty has been heard of, in the traditions of these coasts, as something little less than marvelous. She was small in stature, but of proportions just and exquisite, as if she had come from the hand of that sculptor whose fame so ennobles elder Greece. The light on her fair countenance was like a gleam of golden sunshine. Her blue eyes, soft and deep, told of her descent from the old Norse race; and these were matched by the long, waving tresses of light sunny brown that fell about her throat. The sun and the sea-breeze had given a tint to her skin; but this only added a freshened glow to its loveliness. The whispering wavelet, as it kissed the sand, was not lighter than the spring of her airy step, and its clear music fell short in sweetness of the music that was heard from Katie's voice and laugh. Beyond Peter's old cabin, his coble, and his lugsailed barge, she was his sole treasure on earth; and beyond the tending of his silver hairs, the industry required in their humble dwelling, and occasionally, it might be, the sale of a few fish at the little market town of P- Katie had no other care or pleasure. Katic was now seventeen, and beginning to bud into the charms of woman '' his cap, that Katie stopped, at first, in sheer admiration. Then, as her father leaped out, and the stranger followed, she hung back in deep bashfulness, and the blood rose richly to her forehead. She heard them talk; but she knew not clearly what was said. The youth was mentioned by her father as Mr. Arthur Trower; but this only increased poor Katie's confusion, for the only one of that name she had ever heard of was a nobleman, whose great castle was situated about four miles in the interior, and had been the awful object of her contemplation on more than one occasion. When the stranger spoke then, she could reply only at random, and hardly above a whispered tone; and when she raised her look timidly to his face, it fast sunk again, for he had fixed on her an ardent gaze. He accompanied them to the little cot, and appeared to have acquired over old Peter the influence of an open, frank, joyous manner, a hearty laugh, quick wit, and the kindest humor. It made Katie marvel to listen to his rich musical voice -nay, to hear him sing, as the evening advanced, such songs as made the heart beat and the eyes overflow. His talk about far-off places, also, could not but charm her simple fancy; and not less did his deep lustrous glance gain a mysterious influence, the readiness with which he joined their simple board, and the mirth with which he inspired his old Triton host. Even, at length, Katie lost somewhat of her shyness, and was tempted to ask such questions as an untaught maiden might suggest. It was not the least of his triumph that his answers spoke to her heart as well as her ear. But at length, late in the night, he arose to depart. | "I am here only for the vacation, as we call it," said he. "I have to return to Oxford again in the end of the season; but, in the mean time, I shall have a couple of months, and I mean we shall be constant and almost daily friends. My father, Lord Trower, has a great many guests coming north, but I shall easily escape them." And with this remark, he took Katie's little hand, gently and gracefully carried it to his lips, wrung old Peter's horny fist, and was off, with a light step, to pursue his way over the dreary moor. ter from the large Bible, (as was her pious wont,) while Peter drew on his furred nightcap, and smoked his ancient pipe by the low hearth, she could not, alas! command her thoughts from a guilty wandering on the track of the dark-haired stranger; and when she laid her head on what' had hitherto been the pillow of calm and innocent thought, it was to dream of the pale, noble face, and the pressure of those lips of gentleness. She was restless and thoughtful again when day dawned, and often was she, half-unconsciously, at the gable of the cot, shading her eyes from the sun, as she gazed across the moor, and wished for the apparition of the slight, bounding figure of her father's guest. At length, in the evening, he did come, and nervously did she flutter as she heard his voice at the threshold, and deeply did she blush, as, whispering apart from her father, he first called her by her name, and expressed his happiness in returning to her side. He from that night became Peter's pupil in the construction of nets and other mysteries; and day after day was he at the little cabin, his ardor unabated, and his welcome happier than even at the first. It was a dangerous charm for poor Katie. Her old peace had utterly departed; she gazed often with an absent and deeply-clouded eye, her bosom heaved with many a long-drawn breath, and a changing color often stole across her cheek. Peter at length could not shut his eyes to these tokens. It occurred to him, after many hours of deep pondering, what might be his daughter's peril. His strong heart beat vehemently at the flashing thought, but it might not yet be too late he would, without delay, rescue her from temptation. Accordingly, frankness being the chief trait in his composition, next day, when Arthur Trower was half-way between his father's castle and Garvoch, Peter met him in the path, and, causing him to sit down upon a knoll, honestly opened to him his mind. Arthur was generous and noble in his nature; and the deep distress of that old father's eye, the tones of anguish in which his love for his child found utterance, the trouble and the beads of sweat upon his storm-beaten brow, all resistlessly appealed to a heart that gave instant response. He grasped Peter's hand with a warm pressure, gave him the That evening, as Katie read the chap- sacred promise that he would not visit Garvoch again, and, with heartfelt regrets, both parted to go back on their several ways. Peter's heart was much lightened. Nevertheless, he watched Katie with keenness for the next few days. He ceased to mention Arthur's name in her presence, after telling her he had suddenly departed for England. At this the poor girl's heart sank, and to her father's eye a shade of pallor began, day by day, to be seen marking the fair cheek, and the brilliant light of the large eye was downcast and dimmed. The vivacity of step, the lightness of the laugh, the mirth of the song, was likewise gone. Everything was silently done, and Katie's greeting was as warm and soft as ever; but, how it was he could not specially define, there seemed to be a ray of sunshine lost, a charm about the little cabin wholly gone. However, he trusted in the infallible cure of time; and in this confidence returned cheerily to his toils, for the winter was fast approaching. A fortnight had nearly passed since Arthur Trower's last visit, and Katie, left alone, was cheerless and weary enough. Many a long sigh made her gentle bosom heave; and if she opened her lips to chant a song, it was the saddest melody that first arose, and was breathed from her tongue. She was no whit suspicious that any extraordinary cause had made Arthur's visits cease; she only loved to dwell upon the moment when his approaching step would ring on her ear, and to think that he was many long miles from their dreary home, and would never turn a thought | on the lot of the cabin girl. It was a day of clear sunshine; and that she might see her father's boat afar on its return, she was seated on the stone bench at the cottage gable, weaving the tissues of a net, and her head sadly drooping, when, all at once, a shadow came between her and the sunshine; she heard a heavy footfall on the sod, and, looking up, beheld Arthur Trower, mounted on a steed of glossy black. He had in a moment leaped down, fastened the reins to the wall, and half inclosed her in a warm embrace. How poor Katie blushed and fluttered, and was half alarmed, and knew not how to find her tongue! Arthur seated himself by her side, and took her little hand. He had a great deal to pour into her ear, as he sought to pierce the depths of her blue eyes with his gaze. He told her of his sadness while absent for so long a time, the misery it caused him to withstand the temptation again to visit her, and how at last he had yielded to what could no longer be resisted. Twice had he come to the brow of the hill that overlooked the shore, and as often had his courage faltered, and he had gone back. But this time he had watched her father's receding sail, and seized the chance. "And why not come when my father would be here to give you welcome?" inquired the maiden, manifesting some surprise. "Because," replied Arthur, as a blush rose upon his face, "he would reproach me with acting falsely. He took from me a pledge that I would never more visit his roof, that I would never more see you or him. And why? you think, dearest Katie. Why, because he feared I might love you. I gave the promise, but I had not then learned that I loved you, indeed, and far too dearly to sacrifice you thus for a word. I did, indeed, strive earnestly against the thought, for I was bound to make an effort that my word be kept; but, Katie, who can tell the torment I have suffered, and who can wonder if at last I gave way, and risked everything again to see you thus ? You know now why it is that, in your father's presence, I would not be a welcome guest." Katie put one hand upon her brow, for she felt her thoughts somewhat confused. The impetuous youth at her side gave her, however, no time to think. "I love Katie more dearly than my own existence," said he, drawing her close in his embrace; "but fearful am I that you heed not one who has known you so briefly. Is it so, sweet girl? I will make any sacrifice for your sake; you are to me richer in beauty and in graces than the fairest dames I have seen in my father's halls; and whisper but the word, and one day you shall be queen among them. Even thus do I love you, Katie. Tell me, darling, if you have thought of me in my absence, and if I may think to win your love." And with such pleading wiles did he win from the simple maiden the story of her heart's misgivings, its vacant wanderings, and its longings for his presence. Her innocence had loved unconsciously |
