The preceding engravings are representations of the cradle and chair in which James VI. of Scotland was nursed, while under the care of the Earl of Mar, in Stirling Castle.

These articles of the nursery furniture of James I. the first of the family of Stuart that ascended the throne of England-are now in the possession of Lady Frances Erskine. They are of oak; and the design and carving, of the cradle especially, are affirmed by the gentleman who communicates the sketches to be very beautiful.

In consequence of their being in a state of rapid decay, Lady F. Erskine caused drawings of them to be taken by Mr. W. Geikie, the able artist who sketched the spirited figure of "Allan-a-Maut" in the Table Book. As Archæological curiosities, which have not been published before, the present inadequate memorials of their form are placed before the reader.

The cldest oradle of which there is an

engraving is the cradle of Henry V., figured by Mr. Fosbroke, who describes it as "a wooden oblong chest, swinging by links of iron, between two posts, surmounted by two birds for ornament." In short, that early cradle is of the self same form with the children's cots, now made by the upholsterers, and commonly used in our present nurseries. The cradle with rockers, which, within recollection, was used in all families, is becoming obsolete, except in the dwellings of the poor. The late King George IV., and his brothers and sisters, all the royal family of George III., were rocked."The rocker" was a female officer of the household, with a salary. One of the most magnificent presents sent from India by Mr. Warren Hastings to the late Queen Charlotte was a cradle, ornamented with the precious metals, and richly jewelled.

Mr. Maurice says-"The first of April was anciently observed in Britain as a high and general Festival, in which an un bounded hilarity reigned through every order of its inhabitants; for the sun, at that period of the year, entering into the Sign Aries, the New Year, and with it the season of rural sports and vernal delight, was then supposed to have commenced. The proof of the great antiquity of the

Of

observance of this annual Festival, as well as the probability of its original establishment in an Asiatic region, arises from the evidence of facts afforded us by Astronomy. Although the reformation of the year by the Julian and Gregorian Calenders, and the adaptation of the period of its commencement to a different and far nobler system of theology, have occasioned the festival sports anciently celebrated in this country on the first of April to have long since ceased; and although the changes occasioned, during a long lapse of years, by the shifting of the Equinoctial points, have in Asia itself been productive of important Astronomical alterations, as to the exact æra of the commencement of the year; yet, on both continents, some very remarkable traits of the jocundity which then reigned remain even to these distant times. those preserved in Britain, none of the least remarkable or ludicrous is that relic of its pristine pleasantry the general practice of making April-Fools, as it is called, on the first day of that month; but this, Colonel Pearce (Asiatic Researches, vol. ii. p. 334) proves to be an immemorial rice then inserts the Colonel's account of custom among the Hindoos." Mr. Mauthe "Huli Festival," as cited in the Every Day Book, and adds that "the least enquiry into the ancient customs of Persia, or the minutest acquaintance with the general astronomical mythology of Asia, would have taught Colonel Pearce that the boundless hilarity and jocund sports prevalent on the first day of April, in England, and during the Huli Festival of India, have their origin in the ancient practice of celebrating with festival rites the period of the Vernal Equinox, or the day when the new year of Persia anciently began.'

The "Blackburn Mail," May 10, 1810, contains the following verses :

THE ORIGIN OF ALL-FOOL DAY, Which happened in the Isle of Chickock, on the 7th of the moon Ni-ada, which, in the European Calender, makes the First of April

AN EASTERN TALE.

Ye sportive nymphs who on Parnassus play, Though old as ages,-young and ever gay!

* Maurice vi. 71-74: Sketch of the Religion of the Hindoos, ii. 52-57; cited in Fosbroke's Enc. of Antiquities.

O hither wing from Parna's flow'ry side, Through aerial oceans cleave the liquid tide: Feed, feed your vot'ry, while he sounds the strings,

With gen'rous draughts from Helicon's pure springs !

In days of yore as orient legends sing,

In Chiekock's isle there reign'd a righteous king,

The heav'nly virtues in his heart were stor'd,
His subjects lov'd him, and the gods ador'd;
But still, alas! (no modern deeds to tell)
Infernal fiends with heavenly minds rebel.
Th' enchanter vile, Ciongock, had decreed,
No branch should rise of their illustrious
breed;

His queen was barren in her blooming prime,
And doom'd to suffer for her grandsire's crime.
At length a heavenly goddess intervenes,
Pussa, the fair, a friend to virtuous queens.
This th' enchanter heard, and, raging wild,
Denounc'd destruction on the queen and child.
The blue-eyed elves all hailed the happy morn
With joys extatic, when the prince was born;
Their comely queen thrice kiss'd the babe, and
cries,

"Reign like thy sire, be virtuous, just, and wise."

But soon dark gloom obscur'd the blissful day;
High o'er the sofa upon which she lay,
The fiend appear'd, a sable cloud within,
With voice terrific and malicious grin,
He awful roar'd" Deluded woman, know,
That now and henceforth, I will be his foe!
Her trembling soul could not sustain the fright,
But sought the regions of eternal light!
The guardian fair in spite of vengeance smil'd,
Vow'd to protect and educate the child;
She kiss'd, she taught, and led the boy to
fame;

He hopeful grew, l'Scamma was his name;
With guardian care she reared the youth alone,
And plac'd him safe on his paternal throne;
Then scal'd a cloud, ethereal, blue, and bright,
And to celestial worlds betook her flight.

Within the entrance of his gloomy cell, Respiring vengeance sat the fiend of hell; High in the air the goddess queen he spies, And shouts of joy re-echo through the skies; "Now, now's the time!" and then, on triumph bent,

A work of mischief was his dire intent. "Yes, feeble mortal! yes, I'Scamma, know, That now and henceforth I will be thy foe! The pow'r thou hast shall soon evade thy sight,

Like fleeting visions of the gloomy night,"Th' enchanter thus, with voice of thunder cried;

Three times he laugh'd, and three times nature sigh'd!

Then he rose up, through aerial fields he flew His beaming car, which four grey dragons

drew;

His awful flight inspired the earth with dread!
And wild confusion o'er the land was spread !
The roses wither'd and the lilies died,
And Flora's train no healing balm supplied;
No tuneful notes through fragrant valleys rung,
For terror chain'd each feather'd warbler's
tongue

Like Sol's quick rays, the moving clouds he drives,

And o'er the temple's glittering spires arrives; He curb'd his steeds, and gnash'd his teeth with rage,

And dared the youthful monarch to engage.
I'Scamma scorn'd his rising fame to stain,
And vow'd to meet him, fearless, on the plain,
He hail'd fair Pussa and the heavenly choir,
And she appear'd, in clouds of flaming fire;
With her right hand Ciongock she defied,
And with her left a talisman she tried ;
On it "Mamu Amuda” dreadful shone,
He saw it and fell headlong from his throne;
But soon arose, and with audacious might,
Defied the guardian queen to single fight.
Again on high the talisman she held;
Again th' enchanter's vile intent was quell'd
Yet hopeful still, and still her pow'r to mock,
Transformed himself to an o'erwhelming rock;
But, helpless he! Mamu Amuda's glow
The rock dissolv'd like show'rs of vernal snow,
At last a mighty flood he form'd, and, sad to
say!

He, with himself, I'Scamma swept away!
Fair Pussa saw, but saw, alas ! too late!
And all the Island mourn'd their monarch's
fate !

His soul celestial sought the high abodes;
Pussa enroll'd him in the list of gods,
And stemm'd the roaring torrent for his sake;
And there I'Scamma stands, a stagnant lake.
Thus fell the best of princes from his throne,
But why it happen'd, know the gods alone.
On that dread day a hallow'd fast was made,
And yearly tributes to his mem'ry paid;
The parents sent their lovely offspring swift,
To seek their god, and ask a yearly gift;
But him they found not, yet, for his dear sake,
Cast stones of vengeance in the stagnant lake.
"Go seck l'Scamma," says the virtuous wife,
"He'll tell thee if I love thee as my life."
The husband goes, but him he cannot find,
Yet seeks the lake to ease his vengeful mind.
"Go seek I'Scamma of immortal fame,"
The mother says, "Thy husband he will
name;"

The daughter goes ;-no soothing power

appears,

And soon returns dsssolv'd in doubtful tears.

So did those customs to his mem'ry rise, From babes that lisp, to sages who are wise. From Chiekock's Isle, told by some sacred

man,

The story got abroad, and reach'd Japan, From thence by story-tellers it was hurl'd Into these islands of the western world;

--

It is difficult to say which of the birds is at this early season the most useful to man; they often nip off the buds of trees, but in most instances they thereby cut off in each bud a whole colony of caterpillars. Buds are never a favorite food with birds, though some of the species that remain with us, or visit us in the winter months, have recourse to them after all other kinds of food are exhausted. Generally speaking, they are all, however, in quest of insects in some stage or other

of their existence, in the spring months; and as they carry on their hunting with great vigor, until their broods be able to provide for themselves, they annually cut off as many destroyers as, but for them, would produce famine in the most fertile country.

The insects which the birds thus consume for their own food and that of their callow young, by so many myriads, have no doubt their use in the economy of nature, as well as the others. We know that the insects and the parasitical fungi consume substances of which the decomposition in the air would be disagreeable, because we find that they resort to those substances. It may be, too, that there is some good in the havoc which they commit among the vegetable tribes, however much it may interfere with our operations. The germs of life are so thick every where that there is really no room for them in the world, if the one were not so constituted as to put down the other; one single plant might be made to clothe a whole country, to the prevention of all other vegetation, in the course of a few years. Were it not for the goldfinches, thistles and ragweed would soon become intolerable; and, in spite of all the means by which they are destroyed, there is really no place free from the winged seeds of the syngenesiæ of Linnæus. Also, as all the buds and leaves upon a living tree are in a state fit for growing, the pruning by the insect, when not carried to excess, may be healthful to it. Before, however, we can make any remarks upon the usefulness of natural objects or events, farther than as they are useful to ourselves, we must know the whole; and how far we may yet be from that is not a measurable quantity. Still the little that we do know about it is very delightful, and never more so than when the breath of spring first wiles us into the field, wondering at every thing around us. There is a richer tone of color in the sky, and certainly in the clouds; the air, as it fans the newly loosened earth, is all perfume, without any of the heaviness of that which comes from particular substances. The turned sod shows us that we have not in all our chemical apparatus an elembic like the earth.*

*British Naturalist, vol. ii. p. 104-106.

Bayle, art. Cardan.

Clear had the day been from the dawn,
All chequered was the sky,
Thin clouds, like scarfs of cobweb lawn,
Veil'd heaven's most glorious eye.

The wind had no more strength than this,
That leisurely it blew,

To make one leaf the next to kiss,

That closely by it grew.

The flowers, like brave embroider'd girls,
Looked as they most desired,

To see whose head with orient pearls,
Most curiously was tyr'd.

:

The rills that on the pebbles play'd

Might now be heard at will; This world the only music made, Else every thing was still. And to itself the subtle air

Such sovereignty assumes, That it received too large a share, Prom Nature's rich perfumes.

DRAYTON.

ALMOND-TREE, and Bees. Yesterday I had the pleasure to dine with a very amiable and worthy friend at his villa a few miles distant from town; and, while the company were high in mirth over the afternoon's bottle, slipped aside to enjoy half an hour's sober thought and salutary air. An almond-tree, in the centre of the garden, presented an immense tuft of flowers, covering its whole surface. Such a glow of floral beauty would at any time have been an object of admiration; but at a season when every thing else is dead, when not a leaf appears on any of the vegetable tribe besides, and the adjacent trees are bare skeletons, it claimed a peculiar share of attention.

An inquisitive eye loves to pry into the inmost recesses of objects, and seldom fails of a reward more than proportioned to the trouble of the research. Every one must have observed, that in all flowers there is an apparatus in the centre, different from the leafy structure of the verge, which is what strikes the eye at first sight; the threads which support the yellow heads in the centre of the rose, and those which serve as pedestals to the less numerous, but larger, dusky black ones in the tulip, are of this kind. Formerly, these were esteemed no more than casual particles, or the effect of a luxuriance from an abundant share of nourishment sent up to the leaves of the flower, throw ing itself into these uncertain forms, as they were then esteemed. But science disclaims the supposition of nature's having made any thing, even the slightest

particle of the meanest herb, in vain; and, proceeding on this hypothesis, has discovered that the gaudy leaves which were, at one time, supposed to constitute the essence of the flower, are merely a defence to the thready matter within; which, despised as it used to be, is indeed the most essential part of the whole-is that for which almost the whole has been formed, and that alone on which the continuation of the species depends. It has been found that, of the minutest threads in this little tuft, there is not one but has a destined office, not one but joins in the common service; and that, though so numerous and apparantly indefinite, every single flower on the whole tree has precisely the same number to the utmost exactness, and precisely in the same situation. Nor is it credible that there ever has been, or ever will be, through successive ages, a tree of the same kind every single flower of which will not be formed with the same

perfect regularity.

In the beautiful Almond-tree before me I saw a confirmation of this accurate exactness in the care of providence. Not a flower of the millions that crowded upon the sight in every part but contained the precise number of thirty little threads;

and not one of these threads but had its regularly-figured head placed in the same direction on its summit, and filled with a waxy dust, destined for impregnating the already teeming fruit. The fruit showed its downy rudiments in the centre, and sent up a peculiar organ to the height of these heads, to receive the fertilising dust when the heads should burst, and convey it to the very centre of the embrio fruit.

Such is the economy of nature in the production of these treasures; but she has usually more purposes than one to answer in the same subject. It was easy to conceive, that one of all these little receptacles of dust might have contained enough of it to impregnate the kernal of a single fruit, for each flower produces no more. Yet, surely, twenty-nine in thirty had not been created in vain. It was not long before the mystery was explained to me.

The sun shone with unusual warmth, for the season, led forth a bee from a neighbouring hive, who directed her course immediately to this source of plenty. The little creature first settled on the top of one of the branches; and, for a moment, seemed to enjoy the scene as I did. She just gave me time to admire her sleek, silky coat, and glossy wings, before she

plunged into a full blown blossom, and buried herself among the thready honors of the centre. Here she wantoned and rolled herself about, as if in ecstasy, a considerable time. Her motions greatly disconcerted the apparatus of the flower; the ripe heads of the thready filaments all burst, and shed a subtile yellow powder over the whole surface of the leaves, nor did she cease from her gambols while one of them remained whole, or with any appearance of the dust in its cavity.

Tired with enjoyment, she now walked out, and appeared to have paid for the mischief she had done at the expense of strangely defiling her own downy coat. Though some of the dust from the little capsules had been spread over the surface of the flower, the far greater part of it had evidently fallen upon her own back, and been retained there among the shag of its covering.

She now stationed herself on the summit of a little twig, and began to clear her body of the newly gathered dust, and it was not half a minute before her whole coat was as clean and glossy as at first: yet it was most singular, not a particle of the dust had fallen upon any of the flowers about her, where it must have been visible as easily as on the surface of that it was taken from.

A very labored motion of the fore legs of the bee attracted my eye, and the whole business was then immediately explained; I found she had carefully brought together every particle that she had wiped off from her body, and formed it into a mass, which she was now moulding into a firmer texture, and which she soon after delivered to the next leg, and from that, after a little moulding more, to the hinder one, where she lodged it in a round lump in a part destined to receive it; and, having thus finished her operation, took wing for the hive with her load.

It was now evident, that what had seemed sport and pastime was business to the insect; that its rolling itself about was with intent to dislodge this yellow dust from the little cases that contained it; and that this powder, the abundance of which it was easy to perceive could not be created for the service of the plant, was destined to furnish the bee with wax to make its combs, and to serve us for a thousand purposes afterwards.

The return of this single insect to the hive sent out a legion upon the same expedition. The tree was in an instant co

vered as thick almost with bees as with flowers. All these employed themselves exactly as the first had done, except that some forced themselves into flowers scarcely opened, in which the reservoirs of this waxy powder were not ripe for bursting. I saw them bite open successively every one of the thirty heads in the flower, and, scooping out the contents, add them to the increasing ball, that was to be carried home upon the thigh.

Such then is the purpose of nature in providing what may appear to us profusely an abundant quantity of this powder. The bee wants it, and the labour which the insect employs to get it out never fails to answer the purpose of impregnat ing the fruit; for a vast quantity of it is thus scattered over the organ destined to the conveying of it thither. The powder is the natural food of the bee. What is lodged in the hive is eaten by the swarm, and, after it has been retained in the stomach long enough to be divested of its nutritive qualities, it is disgorged in a state ready for moulding into real and finished wax.

In the great chain of beings no one is created solely for itself; each is subservient to the purposes of others; each, besides the primordial office to which it is destined, is a purpose, or means, of good to another, perhaps to many. How gratified is the mind that comprehends thishow infinite the wisdom of the appointment!

WHALE-FISHING.

Early in April ships are fitted out for, and sail upon their voyages, for whaling adventures in the sea which the fish inhabit.

There is a bluff whalers' song, careless in expression, but very descriptive of the occupation; and, there being nobody to object, we will have it at once from the "Collection of Old Ballads, 1726," iii. 172.

THE GREENLAND VOYAGE, OF THE WHALE-
FISHER'S DELIGHT: being a full de-
scription of the manner of the taking of
Whales on the coast of Greenland.—
TUNE.-Hey to the Temple.

Why stay we at home, now the season is come!
Jolly lads let us liquor our throats;
Our interest we wrong, if we tarry too long,
Then all hands, let us fit out our boats;

Sir John Hill.