POETRY.

Heights thyme-encover'd, leaps the in-She wove its fair profusion; or in nets Of silvery tint, captiv'd its plenteous

THE study of natural history has a tendency to expand the mind and invigorate the understanding. It seems to give us new senses, by furnishing so many new objects of sense. It discovers to us worlds before unknown. It helps us to look through nature, to see through this air, this ocean and this earth."

To the mind that takes pleasure

could not exist without fire, for remove this, and it changed into ice. The next ingenious theorist was ANAXIMENES. He forsooth had most certainly discovered primary matter. He grasped the phantom and found it air: Air was an element, without which neither water nor fire could subsist. The corpuscular system of DEMOCRITUS Came last.

With him the origin of the universe was an atom. What this atom was, he could not say; he could affirm only what it was not. It was neither a drop of water, a spark of fire, nor a bubble of air, but all these and something else. From these atoms or corpuscles were made seeds and eggs; that in the pursuit of first principles, the from seeds originated vegetables, various theories with respect to and from eggs animals were born. primary matter, cannot be uninter- Independent of his theory, though incidental thereto, Democritus exesting. It was sometime after Pythagoras flourished, that this sub-pressed important ideas, which have ject first attracted attention. Thales of Miletus, produced the first hy pothesis. He declared that all things were made out of water; that only water existed prior to the birth of matter. "And the spirit of God moved upon the waters," is a passage from Genesis, that has been thought to confirm the Mile- from nothing create substance: none sian's conjecture. Soon however but He could reduce substance back HERACTICUS arose, daringly conto nothing again. Democritus tradicted THALES, and maintained dwelt among the tombs the more that fire was the origin of the world, meditations. He was called PENuninterruptedly to pursue his own and what it contained; that, tho' invisible, it was essential to the be- TATHIUS, or the conquerer in five ing of every thing; that water contentions.

been sanctioned by the countenance He confidently asserted the quantiof illustrious modern authority.ty of matter to be the same now as at the beginning of creation that it was not in the power of man to create or annihilate one particle of matter that none but God could

is an-age. But when we have seen these wonders of nature, how far have we advanced? Comparitively no farther than when we began. In the scale of infinity, we can never

Let

Ir is amusing to contemplate this | proportion to minuteness, a moment excrtion of human ingenuity We should not smile in derision of what may now seem simple, but gaze in wonder at what was then so gigantic. We find that the philosopher's stone was the object that be nearer to the end. When the monopolized literary attention at a powers of art have magnified animuch later day; an object moremated particles to one million times visionary and far less instructive. their real size, we are just able to We here witness the first attempts behold them alive, to realize that at the analysis of matter. We see they have voluntary motion. original chemists without a labora- us reason then when we we can no tory; the various objects of nature longer perceive. We have no right tried in the crucible of mind. The to believe that we can look to the labors of Thales and Heraclitus, end of creation; that where our inAnaximenes and Democritus are struments fail there animation ends. stupendous. They are proofs of The successive improvements of great strengh of understanding and the microscope have always enlarg spirit of research. They show the ed the bounds of animated nature ardor of enterprize in pursuit of first to our eyes, and we have really no principles; the genius of nature right to believe but that the smalunassisted by the exertions of art. lest animalcule we behold are the They are of the utmost importance whales of these little oceans, and to him, who delights in speculations prey on others as much more mion the philosophy of the human nute than themselves, as they are mind, and are among the most in- smaller than the common insects teresting objects, that attract atten- that meet our eye. Those infinitetion, in the antiquity of natural his-ly small beings then which are too

tory.

minute to be perceived by our senses with the best assistance, must have a regular organization, they must be supplied with vessels capable of receiving and digesting the food on which they live; a circulation of some fluid answerable to blood must be kept up through the body. Now how incredibly minute must be the particles of a fluid which

We cannot but notice with satisfaction, as connected with the amusements of philosophy, the exhibition of the SOLAR MICROSCOPE. The new world which the Microscope discovers, is as grand and magnificent as the understanding can comprehend. It is doubtful whether we have most to admire the sub-runs through the body of an animallime operations of nature in the stupendous works she presents to us, or the wonderful organization of those infinitely small portions of animated life which the microscope unfolds. We discover animation where it would be incredible that matter can be found. We see beings to whom the point of a needle is an extensive plain, a drop of water an ocean, and if existence is in

cula not capable of being perceived by the senses at a magnifying power of one million; and of what size must be that particle of air, which shall be more rarefied than this oth-' er fluid we have mentioned; and yet this particle of air is grossness itself when compared with a ray of light; and this again is comparitively a mountain to the "primary matter." The mind is pained by

ideas of this kind, as the eye is strained by attempting the view of objects too small for comprehension. Yet as we sometimes admire to look beyond our own range into the unbounded field of etherial grandeur, to trace worlds beyond worlds, as tho' the Almighty word went on creating through the immensity of space, so it is pleasing to look downward to a no less wonderful exertion of infinite power, to real-evils and the distresses which more ize the incredible minuteness of animated particles, feeling in turn the delights and the troubles of life, partaking probably of joy and sorrow, happiness and pain.

serve and the stateliness of gravity,

Cheerfulness of this kind makes

every thing pass pleasantly; it gives to the present its full share of delight without robing the future of its charms or memory of its joys. The cheerful man is a kind of Alchymist who transmutes into the gold of satisfaction the baser metals of life. It is not that a want of sensibility prevents his feeling for the

or less inevitably meet him, nor that with a careless indifference to the welfare of his fellow men he can smile with satisfaction though surrounded by their miseries, and enjoy the luxuries he possesses without regarding the want and poverty of his less affluent neighbors. A cold and ungenerous selfishness of this kind has no communication with cheerfulness.

The exhibition of the Microscope is a real gratification to a philosophical and intelligent mind. It gives a range of ideas that to the inexperienced would be new, and to those who have cultivated such stuIt is requisite that dies, delightful and improving. It the bosom expand with those feelexhibits a fairer view of Almighty ings which humanity enjoins, and benevolence, that gives life and plea- the heart beat with a consciousness sure to such an unbounded and in- of performing the duties it comnumerable tribe of beings, and teach-manded to ensure that cheerful sunes us that literally the dust beneath our feet is alive,

For the Emerald.

CHEERFULNESS.

E.

shine of the soul which raises and brings to maturity the sweetest flowers of pleasure.

You will find however that circumstances produce very different effects on the disposition and manners of different individuals. One set is gloomy and desponding, though fortune's choicest favors inTHE pleasantest of all compan- vite them to lay aside every thing ions is the cheerful man. Preserv- but mirth; and others, whose coming an equal distance from noisy merce with the world is a miserable and obstreperous mirth and dull un-barter of injuries and misfortunes, sociable melancholy he gives to life wear nevertheless the smile of conthat amusement and pleasure which tent, and greet you with a sweet seis at the same time suited to ration-renity that speaks welcome, to the al reflection and liberal indulgence. heart. Some are of so restless a Conscious of the proper dignity make that every east wind is a fever which his situation requires he nev-and every cloud a storm; others en er diminishes from it by the vulgar joy forever an uniform tranquility riots of intemperate gaiety, nor which defies the power of the cle seeks to support it by a gloomy re- ments to disturb.