gentlemen collected within the space of a couple of miles, they lead a very pleasant life. They have a reunion at one or other of their houses every evening; in fine weather they have pic-nics and fishing excursions, and in winter go out sleigh-riding in procession, waking up their more quiet neighbours when they return at night by a concert principally sustained by cornet-à-pistons and the human voice divine. But they who have nothing to depend upon but their farms, had better avoid such a neighbourhood; for there it is almost impossible for a man who is fond of good society, and who cannot spare time or money to enjoy it, to avoid being ruined. His wife must receive visits, and have a handsome sleigh; and his daughter will throw aside the Cook's Oracle to study Lord Byron; and he will soon find that he will have to clear out' for some more quiet neighbourhood, and recommence life perhaps in a far worse condition than he began it. The settlers in this quarter are all exceedingly hospitable; but I did not get on so well with them as with the farmers. The information on the state of the markets, which I took every opportunity of collecting, and which I retailed to great advantage everywhere else, did not produce the slightest interest here; and I was set down as an ignoramus because I did not even know the name of the favourite for the Derby, and had not the slightest idea whether the hundred and ninety-ninth regiment had adopted percussion muskets or not.

Before starting back for the United States, I will say a few words on the different classes of emigrants. Canada offers the greatest inducements to agricultural labourers; they are always in request, and at good wages. Mechanics may remain out of work for months at a time, but good farm-servants can almost anywhere obtain situations. They are treated well by their employers; and from the excellent system of education, the mere contact with the older settlers highly improves both their minds and morals, and in a short time they may count on being themselves employers of labour. I never knew or heard of a sober industrious couple that came out, even if they had not a farthing in the world when they arrived in Toronto, who had not, at the end of ten years, a well-stocked farm of their own. I do not think that, in general, single mechanics are better off than good workmen at home-perhaps the only exceptions are blacksmiths, tailors, and shoemakers. Their wages are nominally higher; but owing to the great scarcity of money, work is generally paid on the trucksystem, and an order for a barrel of flour or a ham is of very little use to a man who is paying two dollars a-week for his board. If a mechanic of any of the common trades has a few pounds to spare, and cannot get work in the large towns, let him buy enough of land near some village in a good situation, to support his family. If a skilful workman, he will soon have a connexion in the surrounding country; and when the neighbourhood becomes more populous, his established reputation will prevent all injury from competitors. But to all intending emigrants I say-marry. It is an axiom with the domestic economists of North America, that a man and his wife can live for less than a single man, even in a city. But do not suppose that a wife can be easily met with in Canada. Women are in as much demand there as dollars; and none that are young and in good health need remain for many months without being either married or engaged. When families bring out female servants, it is necessary, in order to prevent their going off at a time when they are most wanted, to make them sign a written agreement to serve for a stipulated period.

The better class of emigrants may be divided into those who have a small annuity and those who have a capital. The former will do well, even if they have but twenty or thirty pounds a-year; they can buy a hundred acres of good land, for which they can pay in instalments spreading over twelve years, commencing at L.2 for the lot, and annually increasing until it reaches L.16 in the last year; and they must be very

idle if they cannot make their farm support them comfortably while the annuity is paying the instalments, and purchasing stock and agricultural instruments. Those, however, who think of embarking all their property in a scheme by which they will, for years at least, be deprived of the luxuries, and many of what they had considered the necessaries of life, would do well to consider before they take this step. A steady persevering person, if used to agricultural pursuits, would get on very well; but a young man, who had perhaps lived in a city all his life, and who had not very clear ideas as to which end of the plough went first, and who wished to become a settler for the sake of hunting deer and bears, would very soon find his capital slip through his fingers. A Canadian farmer must work harder in summer than an English one, on account of the sudden changes of the seasons and the length of the winter; and in winter he will have to get in firewood to last during the next year. If he gets over his chopping soon, and has no friends to visit, he may have a little shooting for a few days; but in general he will not require any gun but an old musket to drive away the pigeons in spring; and pretty sharp practice he will have in banging away all day at birds that do not come in flocks, but in clouds some three or four miles long; and, after all, if he should lie in bed after daybreak, perhaps he may find that the half of a field of corn has taken to itself the wings of the morning. Perhaps the best way for a young man of this kind to learn what he has to expect in the backwoods, and to gain a knowledge of the world in a cheap manner, would be to go on the same plan as I was taught to swim. When bathing on the sea-side, I was enticed into a boat, and when about thirty yards from the shore, I was thrown overboard into the deep water by my remorseless father. Before this I had always considered that there was some bodily defect that prevented me from floating; but somehow or other I very speedily managed to get on land, and have been able to swim ever since. Let him leave his capital at home, and with ten pounds in his pocket start for Canada in the cheapest way, for he must begin to rough it at once. Let him stay there a year, and if at the end of that time he writes home to his friends that he has chopped for three months in the bush in the depth of winter, sleeping at night in a bark shanty; that he has, by the blessing of Providence, only cut off two of his toes, had a touch of the fever and ague, his face skinned by the March winds, and suffered from the snow-blindness, and knows the bite of a musquito when he feels it; and if he adds that he has worked during a whole harvest cradling and binding at just four times the rate they reap in England, with the sun at 80 degrees in the shade, and says that he is still determined to become a settler, then, and not till then, that young man may be considered fit for a backwoodsman. He will become rich in a few years, and may send home for his money and a wife; the wife, at all events, money or no money.

There can be no doubt that Upper Canada is the best place for the emigrant who intends to settle in North America. He will not only have the advantage of living among fellow-countrymen, who, whatever may be their character at home, will here be sociable and anxious to assist and advise him, but he will be under a lighter government. The taxes are not nearly so heavy as in the United States, as in that country they have not only to pay for the national expenditure, but also each state has a large establishment of its own to be supported by its citizens. The land and climate are as good in Canada as in any of the old states; and a farm near a good market can be had for less money. It is true that much better crops can be raised on the banks of the Mississippi and its tributaries; but the countries in that region are exceedingly unhealthy; and who is there that would purchase the advantage of growing twice the quantity of corn on an acre by the life of friends near and dear to him?

The winter was now fairly set in; sleighs of all sizes and descriptions were dashing along the roads, without,

however, making any further sound than was caused by the musical tinkling of bells fastened round the horses' necks. Winter seems to be the time of the year most enjoyed by the backwoodsman. It is then that the produce of his farm is brought to market, both on account of the badness of the roads in summer preventing much land-carriage in that season, and from the facility with which great weights can be drawn along the surface of the snow: this period is also devoted, by the old settlers who have time to spare, to visiting their friends. It is common enough for a farmer and his family to make a circuit of perhaps a hundred miles in a large market-sleigh drawn by two horses, spending a day or two with each of their more intimate friends.

As I found that, after I was used to it, chopping was the kind of labour the most agreeable to me, it being cleanly work, and the exercise sufficient to keep me warm even in the coldest weather, I resolved to employ myself in that manner until I had acquired a few necessary articles of clothing, as I had before this time reduced my wardrobe to what could be carried in a pocket-handkerchief. I engaged with a man who was clearing some land about thirty miles or so west of St Catherine's, on the Welland canal, and who, besides being a farmer, had a share in a mill, and owned a tavern and a store. Besides myself, there were three other choppers, one of them also an Englishman, and a raw hand. We were all to be paid in goods at the rate of about eighteenpence for each cord which is a pile of wood in four-feet lengths, eight feet long, and four feet high-and a dollar a-week was to be deducted from each for board and lodging. Two cords is an average day's work, although I have known some to cut down three, and even four. The first fortnight of chopping is exceedingly trying to a tyro, but after that it becomes pleasant enough. It is not a work that requires so much strength as skill, or, as the Americans call it, the fling of the axe; and for that reason, a person who has not been used to hard work, and is in good health, will, from his arms being supple, and easily adapting themselves to the exercise of force in a new direction, have an advantage over the superior strength of an agricultural labourer or an excavator. Our mode of life was pleasant enough. We had breakfast as soon as it was light, and chopped until one o'clock, when a tin horn, blown by the wife of the 'boss,' summoned us to dinner; after that we worked till sunset, when we supped, and generally spent the evening in listening to the adventures of one of our companions who had travelled through a great part of America, lived for two years among the Indians, and, as a sailor, visited several parts of the world. I have no doubt that if he were to write an account of his life it would make a very readable book. We occasionally shot a deer, rather plentiful in the surrounding woods, but which are

rapidly disappearing before the advances of man. After I had spent about a month in this way, I met with an accident very common to choppers. I was beginning to cut down a tree, and when taking out the first chip, not making my stroke sufficiently slanting, the axe merely took off a piece of the bark, and came down on my foot, making what is technically called a spreadeagle,' although not a large one. This would have been dangerous to me in England, but the atmosphere here is very favourable for healing cuts, and my blood being in a good state from exercise, I was quite well in a fortnight. However, as I had, during the time I was laid up, to pay for my board, the sum I had expected to have made was much reduced; and as I did not care to remain in this place any longer, I was obliged, in order that I might have enough to purchase clothes, to draw on the amount I had reserved to take me home; and after I had done so, I found I should only have enough, by the strictest economy, to carry me to one of the Atlantic cities. I accordingly shaped my course for the Falls of Niagara, intending to cross to the United States at that place.

As I was passing through a clearing on my first day's journey, I was hailed by a man who was splitting rails for a fence by the side of the road, and, on turning round, was not a little surprised to see Mr Eccles, the quondam weaver, and whom I before mentioned as one of my shipmates. He greeted me very joyously, and while walking up to his house, which was in sight, informed me that he was living on a farm purchased by his brother, who had come out a few years before in a condition similar to his own, and who at present was building a store at a village a couple of miles off. Our sudden arrival startled Mrs Eccles, who, in consequence of her husband's having cut a piece off his boot on his first day of chopping, had been living since in a continued state of nervousness, expecting to see him come in with some mortal injuries, and who had therefore prepared a large pile of lint, a ball of bandages, and a roll of sticking-plaster, in case of accidents. They both looked very different from the pale sickly beings they were on board ship. I stopped with them a couple of days, assisting them as much as was in my power; for they were exceedingly ignorant of the various contrivances or make-shifts that are matters of necessity in the woods. I heard since that they had both been laid up with the naturalisation fever.' Such emigrants as these, who have been accustomed during life to a sedentary employment, and one that seems so unhealthy as weaving, do not answer for farmers, unless they have some small capital to support themselves, or friends to assist them. Their constitutions, weakened at home by want of nourishing food and pure air, could not withstand the hardships and privations of the life of a pioneer. They will have to adopt some other trade, a very common custom in America, or set themselves up in business; and after they have gained experience by being ruined once or twice, which is not there so grave a matter as it is in England, they may do well.

LEGENDS OF THE LOIRE.

POSTHUMOUS HISTORY OF ST FLORENT.

WHIMSICAL as the fact may seem, the history of some men after their death is more curious than their history during life; and perhaps a set of posthumous biographies would make not the least amusing book of its season. St Cuthbert is one of those whose life is but the briefest and least important part of their career: his bones, as is well known, have had a history of a thousand years in duration, and perhaps have not yet gathered all their fame. I propose now to introduce another hero of this class to the English reader.

The life of St Florent very much resembled that of many other early converts from paganism; and the persecutions which he met with were those common to the Christians of the age in which he lived. With his brother Florian, he served in one of the Roman legions in Germany, and made profession of his new faith during the persecution of Maximian in 297. The brothers, refusing to offer sacrifice to Jupiter, were condemned to death; but on the night previous to their execution, says the legend, Florent was miraculously delivered from his bonds, and escaped from his sleeping guards. Under the guidance of an angel, he crossed the Rhone in a crazy boat without oar or rudder: his brother in the meanwhile received the honours of martyrdom, and the rescued prisoner continued his route into Gaul under the guidance of his heavenly conductor. Having reached the Loire, he took up his abode on its banks as a hermit, delivered the neighbour. hood from a dreadful serpent which had laid it waste for a considerable time, and finally closed his life on the 22d of September A. D. 360, at the extraordinary age of 123 years. Upwards of four hundred years after, Char

least happy of his life. He here enjoyed the society of one or two persons akin to himself in tastes, and who could promote his love of study. His attention was now chiefly turned at his leisure hours to the mathematics, in which he became a proficient without any regular master. A poor teacher of music, with so many extraordinary qualifications, must have been a wonder in the Yorkshire of 1766. In that year he was attracted to Bath, by obtaining there the situation of organist in the Octagon chapel, besides an appointment for himself and his brother in the band kept by Mr Linley in the Pump-room. Here, amidst his duties, which were very multifarious, he still kept up the pursuit of knowledge, although his studies were often postponed to the conclusion of fourteen hours of professional labour. It was now that he for the first time turned any attention to astronomy. Some recent discoveries in the heavens arrested his mind, and awakened a powerful spirit of curiosity, under the influence of which he sought and obtained the loan of a two-feet Gregorian telescope. Still further interested in the pursuit, he commissioned a friend to buy a larger instrument for him in London. The price startled his friend, who returned without making the designed purchase, and Herschel, being equally alarmed at the price of the desired instrument, resolved to attempt to make one for himself. To those who know what a reflecting telescope is, and have in particular a just sense of the difficulty of preparing the concave metallic speculum which forms the principal part of the apparatus, this resolution will appear in its true character, as will the fact of his actually succeeding, in 1774, in completing a five-feet reflector, by which he had the gratification of observing the ring and satellites of Saturn. Not satisfied with this triumph, he made other instruments in succession of seven, ten, and even of twenty feet. And so great was his enthusiasm in this work, that, in perfecting the parabolic figure of the seven-feet reflector, he finished no fewer than two hundred specula before he produced one that would bear any power that was applied to it.

The early investigations of Herschel were made with this last instrument. Meanwhile, he was still chiefly occupied with the profession which gave him bread; but so eager was he in his astronomical observations, that often he would steal away from the room during an interval of performance, give a little time to his telescope, and then contentedly return to his oboe. So gentle and patient a follower of science under difficulties scarcely occurs in the whole circle of biography. At this time Herschel was forty years of age; his best years, it might have been said, were past; but he was to show that even forty is not too old an age at which to commence a pursuit that is to give immortality. About the end of 1779 he began to make a regular review of the heavens, star by star, and in the course of the examination he discovered that a small object, which had been recorded by Bode as a fixed star, was gradually changing its place. On the 13th of March 1781 he became satisfied that this was a new planet of our system, one moving on the outside of Saturn, eighteen hundred millions of miles from the sun, and with a period of revolution extending to eighty-four of our years. Having determined the rate of motion and orbit, he communicated the particulars to the Royal Society, who, partaking of the universal enthusiasm which the discovery had excited in the public mind, elected him a fellow of their body, and decreed him their annual gold medal. The new planet was at first called Georgium Sidus, in honour of the king-then Herschel, from the name of the discoverer-but has finally been styled Uranus (from Urania, the muse of astronomy), a term deemed more appropriate, since all the other planets bear mythological titles.

The Bath musician had now become a distinguished scientific character, and it was necessary that he should be rescued from his obscure and unworthy labours. This public service was rendered by George III., who had at all times a pleasure in patronising scientific talent.

Herschel, endowed with a handsome pension, and the title of astronomer-royal, was translated to a mansion at Slough, in the neighbourhood of Windsor, there to prosecute his researches in entire leisure. He had now attained what was to him the summit of earthly felicity, and his mind immediately expanded in projects for the advancement of his favourite science. He constructed an enormous telescope, the tube of which was forty feet long, in his garden at Slough, and for a time hopes were entertained of great discoveries resulting from it; but the mechanical difficulties attending a structure so vast, were too great to be overcome in the existing state of science, and this great telescope was never in reality of much use, although we believe it was by it that the sixth and seventh satellites of Saturn were added to our knowledge of the heavens. It was with a much smaller instrument that he made his observations on the surface of the moon (discovering what he thought to be two active volcanoes in it), and scanned over the heavens for the purpose of cataloguing objects hitherto unobserved. In these investigations the astronomer was materially aided by a younger sister, Caroline Herschel, who was able to take down the observations as he dictated them, while he still kept his eye upon the glass. This lady survives (1844) at a very advanced age. Herschel gave his attention chiefly to the more distant class of heavenly objects; and by his acquaintance with telescopes in their various forms and powers, he was the inventor of a most ingenious though simple mode of reckoning the distances of some of these bodies. Taking one power of glass, and noting all the stars and nebula which could be seen by it, he then took another power, and afterwards another and another, and, observing the various objects brought into view in succession by each, he calculated their respective distances by the relative powers of the instruments employed. This he very happily called gauging the heavens. In 1802 the result of his labours was communicated to the world in a catalogue of five thousand new nebulæ, nebulous stars, planetary nebulæ, and clusters of stars, which was published in the Philosophical Transactions, being prefaced by an enlarged view of the sideral bodies composing the universe. These labours of Herschel have added a most interesting chapter to the book of nature. They make us aware that there are other clusters of stars, or star-systems, besides the vast one to which our sun belongs-that these are placed at enormous distances beyond the limits of our system-that within our system, again, there are objects in all degrees of condensation between a diffused nebulous matter and well-defined stars, representating various stages of progress in the formation of suns. And these great facts he has connected with others more familiar, so as to form a beautiful hypothesis of the cosmogony, showing how it was in every stage under the strict charge of natural law. Another interesting discovery of Herschel, which subsequent observation has fully confirmed, is, that our solar system has a movement of its own amidst the other stars, and that this is slowly carrying us towards a point in the constellation of Hercules. The scientific world received these new truths with awestruck reverence, and the university of Oxford conferred on Herschel the degree of Doctor of Laws, which is rarely given to any one not reared there. The praise of the astronomer was the greater, that he announced all his discoveries with an air of genuine modesty, and received the distinctions conferred upon him with the same meekness which he had displayed in his days of poverty and obscurity. He was remarkable for great sweetness of temper, and for a natural simplicity which often accompanies great genius. It appears that his astronomical researches had created a notion among his rustic neighbours that he carried on a mysterious converse with the stars. One rainy summer a farmer waited upon him to solicit his advice as to the proper time for cutting his hay. The doctor pointed through the window to an adjoining meadow, in which lay a crop of grass utterly swamped. Look at that field,' said he, and