66 ; he was a moderate ruler in England. His aim was to leave it to itself as much as possible, and to live out of it as much as he could. His heart was in Hanover. When taken ill on his last journey, as he was passing through Holland, he thrust his livid head out of the coach-window, and gasped out, "Osnaburg, Osnaburg!" He was more than fifty years of age when he came amongst us; we took him because we wanted him, because he served our turn; we laughed at his uncouth German ways, and sneered at him. He took our loyalty for what it was worth; laid hands on what money he could; kept us assuredly from popery and wooden shoes. I, for one, would have been on his side in those days. Cynical and selfish, as he was, he was better than a king out of St. Germains, with the French king's orders in his pocket, and a swarm of Jesuits in his train. good-humor himself, was the pleasantest | morning to pass away the time,is always so full companion in all England. I should like to that a man can scarce turn about in it." Dego into Lockit's with him, and drink a bowl lightful as London city was, King George I. along with Sir R. Steele (who has just been liked to be out of it as much as ever he could knighted by King George, and who does and when there passed all his time with his not happen to have any money to pay his Germans. It was with them as with Blucher, share of the reckoning). I should not care one hundred years afterwards, when the bold to follow Mr. Addison to his secretary's old reiter looked down from St. Paul's, and office in Whitehall. There we get into pol- sighed out, "Was für Plunder!" The Geritics. Our business is pleasure, and the man woman plundered; the German secretown, and the coffee-house, and the theatre, taries plundered; the German cooks and inand the Mall. Delightful Spectator! kind tendants plundered; even Mustapha and friend of leisure hours! happy companion! Mahomet, the German negroes, had a share true Christian gentleman! How much of the booty. Take what you can get was greater, better, you are than the king Mr. the old monarch's maxim. He was not a Secretary kneels to! lofty monarch, certainly: he was not a paYou can have foreign testimony about old-tron of the fine arts: but he was not a hypworld London, if you like; and my before- ocrite, he was not revengeful, he was not quoted friend, Charles Louis, Baron de Pöll- extravagant. Though a despot in Hanover, nitz, will conduct us to it. "A man of sense," says he, or a fine gentleman, is never at a loss for company in London, and this is the way the latter passes his time. He rises late, puts on a frock, and, leaving his sword at home, takes his cane and goes where he pleases. The park is commonly the place where he walks, because 'tis the Exchange for men of quality. "Tis the same thing as the Tuileries at Paris, only the park has a certain beauty of simplicity which cannot be described. The grand walk is called the mall; is full of people every hour of the day, but especially at morning and evening, when their majesties often walk with the royal family, who are attended only by a halfdozen yeomen of the guard, and permit all persons to walk at the same time with them. The ladies and gentleman always appear in rich dresses, for the English who, twenty years ago, did not wear gold lace but in their army, are now embroidered and be- The Fates are supposed to interest themdaubed as much as the French. I speak of selves about royal personages; and so this persons of quality; for the citizen still con- one had omens and prophecies specially retents himself with a suit of fine cloth, a garding him. He was said to be much disgood hat and wig, and fine linen. Every- turbed at a prophecy that he should die very body is well clothed here, and even the beg-soon after his wife; and sure enough pallid gars don't make so ragged an appearance as Death, having seized upon the luckless printhey do elsewhere." After our friend the cess in her castle of Ahlden, presently man of quality, has had his morning or un-pounced upon H. M. King George I., in his dress walk in the Mall, he goes home to dress, travelling chariot, on the Hanover road. and then saunters to some coffee-house or What postilion can outride that pale horsechocolate-house frequented by the persons man ? It is said, George promised one of he would sce. "For 'tis a rule with the his left-handed widows to come to her after English to go once a day at least to houses death, if leave were granted to him to revisit of this sort, where they talk of buisness and the glimpses of the moon; and soon after news, read the papers, and often look at one his demise, a great raven actually flying or another without opening their lips. And hopping in at the Duchess of Kendall's 'tis very well they are so mute for were window at Twickenham, she chose to imagthey all as talkative as people of other na-ine the king's spirit inhabited these plumes, tions, the coffee-houses would be intolerable, and took special care of her sable visitor. and there would be no hearing what one man Affecting metempsychosis-funereal royal said where there are so many. The chocolate bird! How pathetic is the idea of the duchhouse in St. James' Street, where I go every ess weeping over it! When this chaste ad dition to our English aristocracy died, all her jewels, her plate, her plunder, went over to her relations in Hanover. I wonder whether her heirs took the bird, and whether it is still flapping its wings over Herrenhausen ? The days are over in England of that strange religion of king-worship, when priests flattered princes in the Temple of God; when servility was held to be an ennobling duty; when beauty and youth tried eagerly for royal favor; and woman's shame was held to be no dishonor. Mended morals and mended manners in courts and people, are among the priceless_consequences of the freedom which George I. came to rescue and secure. He kept his compact with MAMMOTH CAVE IN MISSOURI.-A great natural curiosity has lately been discovered in Missouri, which bids fair to rival the great Kentucky cave. The following description of it is given in the Jefferson City Examiner : "The cave is in Phelps County, one and threequarters of a mile from the Gasconade River, on a creek called Cave Spring Creek, in township 38, section 21, range 9 west. We went into the cave, guided by Mr. R. H. Prewett, a young man about twenty-five years old, who was born and raised about a quarter of a mile from this place. In front of the entrance was a small stone house, which the old settlers thought was built by the Indians, but now in ruins. The entrance goes straight in the rock on a level with a surrounding surface rock, is about one hundred feet wide, and in the centre about twenty-five feet high, arched. | Prewett states that he has been in this gallery "They were afraid their lights would give out, therefore retraced their steps to the main chamber, from which they ascended to the middlo gallery, where a large stream of clear water issues from the interior of the cave, and has a fall of about six feet, and falls in several large "Messrs. Friede and Prewett entered the cave round basins. The water has a pleasant taste, for nearly four hundred feet, where it narrows and flows all the year round, without variation, to about twenty-five feet wide by five high, and in sufficient volume to drive a mill. They nspresents the appearance of an ante-chamber; cended the galleries, and found themselves in from there they passed into a large chamber several beautiful chambers leading from one to about one hundred feet in height, where the the other, in which, however, they did not penc three galleries branch off-they then passed into trate to more than six hundred feet. There is sit the left gallery, which ascends nearly twenty a strong draft of air settling in from the en-t feet on a bed of saltpetre. This gallery is called trance; inside of the cave the atmosphere was huk the Dry Chamber, and is about five hundred mild. The chambers are all of unusual height feet in height; the height varies from one hun-and extent. They went in at one o'clock, and dred to about thirty feet. The ceiling and sides emerged from the cave at half-past three." are composed of solid rock. Near the end is a large round chamber, which Mr. Prewett calls the Ball-room. "After exploring the chamber, they retraced their steps, and passed in the right branch-or fork-of the cave, where they ascended a rise of about twelve feet, and entered another gallery, the end of which is not known. They, however, explored it about three-quarters of a mile. Mr. THE Royal Society, at the recommendation of their council, have elected the following distinguished men of science foreign members of the society: Mr. Alexander Dallas Bache, of Washington; M. Helmholtz, of Berlin; M. Albert Kölliker, of Wurzburg; and M. de Verneuil, of Paris. fa From Fraser's Magazine. forces. It is simply a very delicate pair of scales. In one scale you put all that can be said on one side, in the other scale you put all that can be said on the other side, and the beam passively follows the greater weight. Of course, the analogy between the physical and the spiritual is never perfect. The scales which weigh argument differ in various respects from the scales which weigh sugar or tea. The material weighing-machine accepts its weights at the value marked upon them, while the spiritual weighing-machine has the additional anguish of deciding whether the argument put into it shall be esteemed as an ounce, a pound, or a ton. CONCERNING THE DIGNITY OF DULNESS. Ir any man wishes to write with vigor and decision upon one side of any debated question, it is highly expedient that he should writes before he has thonght much or long upon the debated question. For calmly to look at a subject in all its bearings, and dispassionately to weigh that which may be said pro and con, is destructive of that unhesitating conviction which takes its side and keeps it without a misgiving whether it be the right side, and which discerns in all that can be said by others, and in all that is suggested by one's own mind, only something to confirm the conclusion already arrived at. All this which has been said has been It must be often a very painful thing to have keenly felt by the writer in thinking of the what may be termed a judicial mind-that subject of the present essay. I am sorry now is, a mind so entirely free from bias of its that I did not begin to write it sooner. I own, that in forming its opinion upon any could then have taken my side without a subject, it is decided simply by the merits of scruple, and have expressed an opinion which the case as set before it; for the arguments would have been resolute if not perfectly on either side are sometimes all but exactly right. Various facts which came within my balanced. Yet it may be necessary to say yes observation impressed upon me the fact that, to the one side and no to the other; it may in the judgment of very many people, there be impossible to make a compromise-i.e., is a dignity about dulness. Various considto say to both sides at once both yes and no. erations suggested themselves as tending to And if great issues depend upon the conclu- prove that it is absurd to regard dulness as sion come to, a conscientious man may un- a dignified thing; and the business of the dergo an indescribable distraction and an- essay was designed to be, first to state and ilguish before he concludes what to believe or lustrate the common view, and next, to show to do. If a man be lord-chancellor, or gen- that the common view is absurd. But who eral commanding an army in action, there is there that does not know how in most inmust often be a keen misery in the incapacity stances, if it strikes you on a first glance to decide which of two competing courses that the majority of mankind hold and act has most to say for itself. Oh, that every upon a belief that is absurd, longer thought question could be answered rightly by either shakes your confident opinion, and ultimately yes or no! Oh, that one side in every quar-you land in the conviction that the majority rel, in every debate, were decidedly right, of mankind are quite right? The length of and the other decidedly wrong! Or, if that time requisite to reach those second thoughts cannot be, the next blessing that is to be de- which are proverbially best, varies much. sired by a human being who wishes to be of It seems to require a lifetime (at least for use where God has put him in this world, is, men of warm heart and quick brain) to arthe gift of vigorous and intelligent one-sided-rive at calm, enduring sense in the compliness; for in practice conflicting views are cations of political and social science. often so nearly balanced, and the loss of time and energy caused by indecision is so great, that it is better to adopt the wrong view resolutely, and act upon it unhesitatingly, than to adopt the right view dubiously, and take the right path falteringly, and often looking back. And one feels somehow as if there were something degrading in indecision; something manly and dignified in a vigorous will, provided that vigorous will be barely clear of the charge of blind, uncalculating obstinacy. For the spiritual is unquestionably a higher thing than the material, the living is better than the inert, the man than the machine. But the judicial mind approaches to the nature of a machine. It seems to lack the power of originating action; to be determined entirely by foreign In the mellow autumn of his days, the man who started as a republican, communist, and atheist, has settled (never again to be moved) into liberal conservatism and unpretending Christianity. It requires two or three years (reckoning from the first inoculation with the poison) to return to common sense in metaphysics. For myself, it cost a week of constant thought to reach my present wit-stand, which may be briefly expressed as follows. Although many men carry their belief in the dignity of dulness to an unjustifiable excess, yet there is no small amount of sense in the doctrine of the dignity of dulness. Thus, in the lengthening light of various April evenings, did the writer muse; thus, while looking at many crocuses, yellow in the sun of several April mornings. Why is it, thought I, that dulness is dignified ? majority of steady-going old gentlemen ? I Why is it, that to write a book which no will tell you how. You have, in the mornmortal can read, because it is so heavy and ing, attended a public meeting for some uninteresting, is a more dignified thing than religious or benevolent purposes. Many to write a book so pleasing and attractive speeches were made there. In the evening that it shall be read (not as work, but as you meet at dinner a grave and cautious play) by thousands? Why is it that any man, advanced in years, whom you beheld article, essay, or treatise, which handles a in a seat of eminence on the platform, and grave subject and propounds grave truth, you begin to discourse of the speeches with only in an interesting and readable style, is him. Call to your remembrance the speech at once marked with the black cross of con- you liked best-the interesting, stirring, tempt, by being referred to the class of light thrilling one that wakened you up when the literature, and spoken of as flimsy, flashy, others had wellnigh sent you to sleep-the slight, and the like; while a treatise on the speech that you held your breath to listen self-same subject, setting out the self-same to, and that made your nerves tingle and' views, only in a ponderous, wearisome, un- your heart beat faster, and say to the old readable, and (in brief) dull fashion, is re- gentleman, "Do you remember Mr. A.'s garded as a composition solid, substantial, speech ? Mere flash! Very superficial. and eminently respectable? Is it not hard, Flimsy. All figures and flowers. Flights that by many stupid people a sermon is es- of fancy. Nothing solid. Very well for suteemed as deep, massive, theological, solid,perficial people, but nothing there for peosimply because it is such that they find they ple who think." Then fix on the very dullcannot for their lives attend to it; and an- est and heaviest of all the speeches made. other sermon is held as flimsy, superficial, Fix on the speech that you could not force flashy, light, simply because it attracts or yourself to listen to, though, when you did compels their attention ? And I saw that by a great effort follow two or three senthe doctrine of the dignity of dulness, as tences, you saw it was very good sense, but held by commonplace people, is at the first insufferably dull; and say to the old gentleglance mischievous and absurd, and appar- man, "Very different with the speech of Mr. ently invented by stupid men for their B. Ah, there was mind there! Something encouragement in their stupidity. But grad- that you could grasp! Good sound sense. ually the thought developed itself, that rapid- No flash. None of your extravagant flights ity of movement is inconsistent with dignity. of imagination. Admirable matter. Who Dignity is essentially a slow thing. Agility cares for oratory? Give me substance!" of mind, no less than of body, befits it not. Say all this, my youthful reader, to the solid Rapid processes of thought, quick turns of old gentleman, and you will certainly be refeeling a host of the little arts and char-garded by him as a young man of sound acteristics which give interest to compo- sense, and with taste and judgment mature sition-have too much of the nimble and beyond your years. And if you wish to mercurial about them. A harlequin in cease- deepen the favorable impression you have less motion is undignified; a chief justice, made, you may go on to complain of the sitting very still on the bench and scarcely triviality of modern literature. Say that moving, save his hands and head, is toler-you think the writings of Mr. Thackeray ably dignified; the king of Siam at a state wearisome and unimproving; for your part, pageant, sitting in a gallery in a sumptuous you would rather read the sermons of Doctor dress, and so immovable, even to his eyes, that foreign ambassadors have doubted whether he were not a wax figure, is very dignified; but the most dignified of all in the belief of millions of people of extraordinary stupidity was the Hindoo deity Brahm, who through innumerable ages remained in absolute quiescence, never stirring, and never doing any thing whatever. So here, I thought, is the key of the mystery. There is a general prepossession that slowness has more dignity than agility; and a particular application of this general prepossession leads to a common belief, sometimes grossly absurd, sometimes not without reason, that dulness is a dignified thing. Would you know, my youthful reader, how to earn the high estimation of the great Log. Say that Fraser's Magazine is flip- But whatever you may be yourself, do not fall into error in your judgment of the old gentleman and his compeers. Do not think so attractive that it becomes pleasant instead of him uncharitably. If he made a speech of painful to receive it, you are startled. at the meeting, you may be ready to con- Your suspicions are aroused. You begin to clude that the reason why he preferred the think that he must have sacrificed the solid dull speech to the brilliant one is, that his and the useful. This cannot be work, you own speech was very, very dull. And no think: it must be play, for it is pleasant. doubt, in some cases, it is envy and jealousy This cannot be instruction, you think: it that prompt the commonplace man to under- must be amusement, for it is easy and agreerate the brilliant appearances of the brilliant able to follow it. This cannot be a right man. It must be a most soothing thought sermon, you think, for it does not put me to the ambitious man of inferior ability that asleep: it must be a flimsy and flashy declathe speech, sermon, or volume which greatly mation: or some such disparaging expressurpasses his own shall be regarded by many sion is used. This cannot be the normal as not so good as his own, just because it is essay, you think, for you read it through so incomparably better. It would be a pleas- without yawning; you don't know what is ing arrangement for all race-horses which wrong, but you are safe in saying that its are lame and broken-winded, that because order of thought must be very light; the Eclipse distances the field so far, Eclipse fact that you could read it without yawning shall therefore be adjudged to have lost the proves that it is so. You forget the alternarace. And precisely analogous is the float-tive, that solid and weighty thought, both in ing belief in many commonplace minds, that essay and sermon, may have been made easy if a discourse or composition be brilliant, it to follow, by the interesting fashion in which cannot be solid; that if it be interesting, they were put before you. But stupid peothis proves it to be flimsy. No doubt bril- ple forget this alternative: they never think liancy is sometimes attained at the expense of it, or they reject it at the first mention of of solidity; no doubt some writings and it. It is too absurd. It ignores the vital speeches are interesting whose body of difference between work and play. Try a thought is very slight; which, as Scotch parallel case with an unsophisticated underpeople say, have very little in them. But the standing, and you will see how ingrained in vulgar belief on this matter really amounts our nature is this prejudice. Your little boy to this: that if a speech, sermon, or book is ill. He must have some medicine. You be very good, this proves it to be very bad. give him some of a most nauseous taste. He And as most people who produce such things takes it, and feels certain that it will make produce very bad ones, you may easily see him well. It must be medicine, he knows; how willingly this belief is accepted by most and good medicine; because it is so abomipeople. Still, this does not entirely explain nably disagreeable. But give the little man the opinion expressed by the old gentleman some healing balm (if you can find it) whose already mentioned. It does not necessarily taste is pleasant. He is surprised. His follow that he declares the speech of Mr. A faith in the medicine is shaken. It wont to be bad simply because he knows it was make him well; it cannot be right medicine; provokingly good, nor that he declares the because to take it is not painful or disagreespeech of Mr. B to be good simply because able. A poor girl in the parish was dying he knows it was soothingly bad. The old of consumption. Her parents had heard of gentleman may have been almost or even cod-liver oil. They got the livers of certain entirely sincere in the opinion he expressed. cod-fish and manufactured oil for themselves. By long habit, and by pushing into an ex- It was hideous to see, to smell, and to taste. treme a belief which has a substratum of I procured a bottle of the proper oil, and truth, he may have come to regard with sus- took it up to my poor parishioner. But it picion the speech which interests him, and was plain that neither she nor her parents to take for granted, with little examination had much faith in it. It was not disgusting. of the fact of the case, that it must be flimsy It had little taste or odor. It was easy to and slight, else he could not take it in so take. And it was plain, though the girl used pleasantly and easily. And all this founds it to please me, that the belief in the cottage not merely on the grand principle of the dig-was, that by eliminating the disgusting clenity of dulness, but likewise on the impassa- ment, you eliminated the virtue of the oil; ble nature of the gulf which parts instruc-in brief, that when medicine ceases to be tion from amusement, work from play. disagreeable, it ceases to be useful. There Work, it is assumed as an axiom, is of the is in human nature an inveterate tendency nature of pain. To get solid instruction to judge so. And it was this inveterate tencosts exertion: it is work: it is a painful thing. And the consequence is, that when a man of great skill and brilliant talent is able to present solid instruction in a guise dency, much more than any spirit of envy or jealousy, that was at the foundation of the old man's opinion, that the dull speech or sermon was the best; that the interesting |