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pearance, that they render death still more hideous. Their bodies are supported round the waist by cords, concealed beneath the outward dress; but this partial support, while it precludes the corse from falling to the earth, does not prevent its assuming the most grotesque attitudes. Old and young, male and female, are here brought in juxtaposition. The octogenarian, with his white locks still flowing from his temples, stands next a boy of six years old, whose ringlets have been curled for the occasion, and whose embroided shirt-collar, and jacket with well-polished buttons, indicates the pains bestowed on his toilette. Those ring lets twine round a face resembling nothing human, a sort of mask of discoloured leather, with fallen jaws and distended lips; and the embroidered collar leaves disclosed the shrunken dark brown chest, once fair and full, where, perhaps, a fond mother's lips often were impressed, but which now looks fearful, contrasted with the snowy texture of this bit of finery. This faded image of what was once a fair child, has tied to its skeleton fingers a top, probably the last gift of affection; the hand, fallen on one side, leans towards the next disinterred corpse, whose head also, no longer capable of maintaining a perpendicular position, is turned, as if to ogle a female figure, whose ghastly and withered brow, wreathed with roses, looks still more fearful from the contrast with their bright hue. Here the mature matron, her once voluminous person reduced to a sylph-like slightness, stands enveloped in the ample folds of the gaudy garb she wore in life. The youthful wife is attired in the delicate tinted drapery put on in happy days, to charm a husband's eye: the virgin wears the robe of pure white, leaving only her throat bare: and the young men are clothed in the holiday suits of which they were vain in life; some with ridingwhips, and others with canes attached to their bony hands. A figure I shall never forget, was that of a young woman, who died on the day of her wedding. Robed in her bridal vest, with the chaplet of orange flowers still twined round her head, her hair fell in masses over her face and shadowy form, half veiling the discoloured hue of the visage and neck, and sweeping over her, as if to conceal the fearful triumph of death over beauty. Each figure had a large card placed on the wall above the places they occupied; on which was inscribed the names, date of their ages, and death, with some affectionate epigraph, written by surviving friends. It would be impossible to convey the impression produced by this scene: the glare of the torches falling on the hideous faces of the dead, who seemed to grin, as if in derision of the living, who were passing and repassing in groups around them. Not a single face among the ghastly crew presented

the solemn countenance we behold in the departed, during the first days of death; a countenance more touching and eloquent than life ever possessed: no, here every face, owing to the work of time, wore a grin that was appalling; and which, combined with the postures into which the bodies had fallen, presented a mixture of the horrible and the grotesque, never to be forgotten. Around several of the defunct, knelt friends, to whom in life they were dear, offering up prayers for the repose of their souls: while groups of persons, attracted merely by curiosity, sauntered through this motly assemblage of the deceased, pausing to comment on the appearance they presented.' From Lady Blessington's "Idler in Italy."

BIBLICAL CRITICISM.

EVERY reader of the Bible must have observed the frequent recurrence of the number forty in the text, in cases where no material reason appears for preferring that number to another. Thus, at the flood, the rain fell forty days, and when the waters abated, Noah opened the window of the ark after forty days. Moses was forty days in the Mount; forty days without eating or drinking. Elijah travelled forty days from Beersheba to Mount Horeb. Jonah prophesied that Nineveh should be destroyed in forty days. Our Saviour was forty days in the Wilderness, and appeared on earth forty days after the resurrection. The Israelites lived forty years in the Wilderness; Ezekiel prophesied that Egypt should be desolated for forty years, &c. Now, it is a curious fact that the modern Arabs, Persians, and Turks, employ the word forty to express an indefinite number, in a manner analogous to the use of the term dozen or a score with us in familiar conversation. Chardin describes Erivan as standing between two rivers, one of which has an Armenian name, signifying forty springs. A rivulet in the Iroad, which has been the subject of much controversy, bears the Turkish name of Kirke Jos, or forty springs, though it has only sixteen or eighteen. Instances of this kind are innumerable. The Hebrew, it is well known, is a sister dialect of the Arabic, and from frequency of intercourse the Jews and Arabs must have had many idioms and forms of speech in common, Is it not probable, that the term allnded to may sometimes have the same value in the Hebrew Scriptures as among the modern Turks, Arabs, and Persians? Much light has been thrown on the text of the Bible in a thousand instances from the examination of oriental customs and idioms, and great additions, in fact, have been made from this source to the evidence we possess of the genuineness of the holy volume.

The Gatherer.

Celebrated Oaks.-The oldest oak in England is supposed to be the Parliament Oak (so called from the tradition of Edward I. holding a Parliament under its branches), in Clipstone-park, belonging to the Duke of Portland, this park being also the most ancient in the island: it was a park before the conquest, and was seized as such by the conqueror. The tree is supposed to be 1,500 years old. The tallest oak in England was the property of the same nobleman; it was called the Duke's walking-stick," was higher than Westminster Abbey, and stood till of late years. The largest oak in England is called the Calthorpe Oak, Yorkshire; it measures 78 feet in circumference where the trunk meets the ground. The "Three-Shire Oak," at Worksop, was so called from covering parts of the counties of York, Nottingham, and Derby. It had the greatest expanse of any recorded in this island, dropping over 777 square yards. The most productive oak was that of Gelonos, in Monmouthshire, felled in 1810. Its bark brought 2007, and its time ber 670%. In the mansion of Tredegar-park, Monmouthshire, there is said to be a room

42 feet long and 27 feet broad, the floor and wainscoat of which were the produce of a single oak tree grown on the estate.

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A curious and remarkably rare case of complete transposition of the organs of respiration, circulation, and digestion was recently witnessed at the School of Medicine at Nancy. On opening the body of a patient about 38 years of age, who died in the esta blishment of consumption, it was found that his heart was on the right side, and that the whole system of circulation corresponded with this extraordinary disposition; the lungs presenting but one lobe, instead of three on the right and two on the left; the liver being on the left, the spleen on the right, the cardia, or entrance of the stomach, on the right, and its lower orifice or pylorus, the duodenum and cœcum, on the left. GalignaniMarch, 1839.

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Remarkable Longevity-In a small town in Massachusetts, containing less than 1,000 inhabitants, there are living almost within a stone's throw of each other, no less than 13 persons whose united ages amount to 1,071 years, making an average of $2 years to each person, the youngest 79, the oldest 92. For a series of years a very large proportion of the deaths in this town has been of persons whose ages averaged about 83 years. In one year; there were 14 deaths in the town, and of these 11 were of persons whose ages averaged over 83 years.

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A Curious Fact.There is a pauper in Farringdon union work-house, named. Mary Stanby, aged about 24 years, who has already

had 132 needles extracted from her person, the greatest number of which has been taken from the breast. It is conjectured by the medical officer that she must have swallowed the needles, but she positively denies having any knowledge of the circumstance. Reading Mercury.

An apt Proposal.-A Gascon having been ordered for some offence to jump from a considerable height, showed great reluctance, and twice retreated when at the brink. The offi cer in command threatened him with a se verer punishment, on which the Gascon ab. ruptly addressing him, said, I will lay you a wager you do not do it in four times.'

The earliest herbal was printed for Peter Treveris, in Southwark, 1529-a thin folio: the next, printed by Jhon King, 1561: but there was a book called "The vertuose Boke of Distillacion," by Jerom of Brunswick, containing a large herbal, printed by Laurence Andrew, 1527.

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Remarkable Fatality-The Rev. George Vance, died lately at Hampstead, by, being thrown from his horse: the death of his occasioned by being pushed down stairs by. father, (Dr. Vance, of Sackville-street,) was Oxford, by being thrown from a gig; and a lunatic; his brother was also killed at his sister fractured her skull, and ultimately died, in consequence of falling over the ban nisters in her father's house.-Gentleman's Magazine. erat

The first Greek musicians were gods; the second heroes; the third bards; the fourth beggars.Dr. Burney?

Laughable Gravity.—The men in Persia have not the same gaiety as the French have: they discover none of that freedom of mind, that satisfied air, which are here [in Paris] found in all degrees and conditions of life. It is much worse in Turkey. There you may find families wherein from father to son no one has laughed since the foundation of the monarchy.Montesquieu.

Wisdom of Candour.-A man should never be shamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser to-day than he was yesterday.-Pope.

If any one can convince me of an error, I shall be very glad to change my opinion, for truth is my business; and right information hurts nobody. No: he that continues in ignorance and mistake, 'tis he that receives the mischief.-Marcus Antoninus.

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Uncandid people forget that they are not judged by what they admit but what they do.

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A TREATISE ON PHOTOGENIC

DRAWING.

OUR prefixed engraving is a fac-simile of a photogenic drawing, for which we are indebted to the kindness of Dr. Golding Bird, a distinguished botanist, who has published the following very interesting paper on the application of the photogenic art to botanical purposes, in that excellent periodical, the Magazine of Natural History.

“The mode of fixing the images of the camera obscura, and copying engravings, by means of the chemical action of light on paper prepared with a solution of chloride of silver, has attracted so much notice, and produced so much popular excitement, that a few observations on this interesting process will not, perhaps, be considered out of place in your Magazine. I venture to occupy your pages with the less reluctance, because I feel that the application of this heliographic or photogenic art will be of immense service to the botanist, by enabling him to procure beautiful outline drawings of many plants, with a degree of accuracy which, otherwise, he could not hope to obtain.

"That light will act on chloride of silver is by no means a novel discovery, and paper prepared with it was long ago used by Ritter and Wollaston, in testing the chemical action of the rays of the solar spectrum; still, in this country it was not, I believe, applied to any purpose likely to be of use to the naturalist and traveller, until brought into notice by the researches of Mr. Talbot. It is not a little amusing to observe how many pretenders to the discovery have started up since the announcement of Mr. Talbot's discovery, and that of M. Daguerre in France. The latter gentleman has, through M. Arago, at a late meeting of the French Institute, announced his mode of preparing a sensitive paper, far exceeding that of Mr. Talbot in delicacy, but otherwise possessing the same property of indicating intensity of light by depth of colour, and consequently differing from that marvellous preparation which he is said to possess, and which represents shadows by depth of colour, precisely as in

nature.

"M. Daguerre prepares his heliographic paper by immersing a sheet of thin paper in hydrochloric ether, which has been kept sufficiently long to be acid; the paper is then carefully and completely dried, as this is stated to be essential to its proper preparation. The paper is next dipped into a solution of nitrate of silver, (the degree of concentration of which is not mentioned,) and dried with out artificial heat in a room from which every ray of light is carefully excluded. By this process it acquires a very remarkable facility in being blackened on a very slight exposure to light, even when the latter is by no means

intense, indeed by the diffused daylight of early evening in the month of February. This prepared paper rapidly loses its extreme sensitiveness to light, and finally becomes not more readily acted upon by the solar beams than paper dipped in nitrate of silver only. M. Daguerre renders his drawings permanent by dipping them in water, so as to dissolve all the undecomposed salt of silver.

"This process is very inconvenient, for many reasons, among which are the diffi culty of procuring, as well as the expense of, hydrochloric ether: on this account I prefer Mr. Talbot's process, although it is to be regretted that this gentleman has not stated more explicitly the proportions in which he uses the ingredients employed in the preparation of his sensitive paper. I have performed a set of experiments on this subject, and can recommend the following proportions as the most effective and economical:-200 grains of common salt are to be dissolved in a pint of water, and sheets of thin blue wove post paper saturated with the solution, which, for this purpose, should be poured into a dish, and, the paper being immersed, the application of the solution to every part should be ensured by the use of a sponge. The paper is then to be removed, drained of its superfluous moisture, and nearly dried by pressure between folds of linen or bibulous paper.

"240 grains of fused nitrate of silver are then to be dissolved in 12 fluid ounces of water, and this solution is to be applied by means of a sponge to one side of each sheet of the previously-prepared paper, which side should be marked with a pencil, so that when the paper is fit for use the prepared side may be distinguished. The sheets of paper are then to be hung upon lines in a dark room to dry, and when nearly free from moisture, their marked sides are to be once more sponged over with the solution of silver, and finally dried; they are then to be cut into pieces of convenient size, and preserved from light, or even too much exposure to air, by being wrapped up in several folds of brown paper, and kept in a portfolio.

"The proportions above recommended are sufficient for the preparation of a quire of the kind of paper alluded to; if more of the salt of silver were used, the paper would indeed become darker by the action of light, but its expense would be proportionally increased: and when prepared in the manner directed, it assumes, by less than a minute's exposure to the rays of the sun, a rich mulberry brown tint, of sufficient intensity to define an out. line very beautifully, which indeed is all that is required.

"To use this paper, the specimen of which a drawing is required, is removed from the herbarium, placed on a piece of the paper, and kept in situ by a pane of common glass

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