aged high priest, sat on a stone by the side of the gate, when the messenger, who had fled out of the army, came into Shiloh with his clothes rent, and with earth upon his head, and made known to Israel that Hophni and Phinehas were dead, and the ark of the Lord taken. (1 Sam. iv. 18.)

The book of Proverbs concludes with the commendation of the industrious God-fearing wife-"Let her own works praise her in the gate.”

To the common custom of idling away the hotter hours of the day, David alludes (Psalm lxix. 12) when he says, "They that sit in the gate speak against me." To this custom a very recent traveller (See Illustrated News, Feb. 21, 1857) bears witness in the following words :—

"In all hot countries, the favourite resorts of the natives during the heat of the day, are the dark, arched gateways, which almost invariably are constructed through the walls of the city. Here there is at all hours a gentle eddy of air, whose value is beyond price to the panting, languid, inhabitants; and here parties of travellers and villagers congregate to sleep or smoke the sultry portions of the day away. Perhaps few places can boast of a larger number of long, dark, black-vaulted gateways, than Beyrout, the rising capital of Syria."

A second, and equally familiar, use of the gate of a city was to hold assemblies and courts of law there. Justice was dispensed, and cases heard, in a spot where witnesses were easiest collected, and audience most readily obtained. In turning to the Scriptures, we find Abraham purchasing a field, to bury his wife in, of Ephron the Hittite," in the audience of the children of Heth, even of all that went in at the gate of his city." (Gen. xxiii. 10.) Boaz, previous to marrying his kinswoman Ruth, goes up to the gate of Bethlehem to await the coming of the nearest of kin; and in the presence of the bystanders and witnesses, purchases, by a certain form, Ruth the Moabitess, to be his wife; "and all the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said, We are witnesses." (Ruth iv. 11.)

Job (xxix. 7), when recounting his former prosperity and honour, lays especial stress upon the attention and respect paid to him at the gate, "When I went out to the gate through the city, when I prepared my seat in the street! the young men saw me, and hid themselves: and the aged arose, and stood up. The princes refrained talking, and

laid their hands on their mouth." One of the especial blessings attending a numerous family is referred to the same Eastern custom. The father "shall not be ashamed when he speaks with the enemies in the gate.” (Psalm cxxvii. 5.) That is, the presence of a train of children will strengthen his cause, and daunt his adversary.

In the concluding chapter of the book of Proverbs, to which allusion has been already made, we find (ver. 27) the industry and economy of the notable wife commended in these words," Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land."

In the New Testament we find no mention of this twofold use of the city gate. The gate, however, of private houses, as in the case of Lazarus in the parable, was the resort of the destitute. It was at the gate, which was called "Beautiful," of the temple repaired by Herod, that the lame man asked alms of Peter and John, and received from them a more precious gift than silver and gold. But the beauty of that gate is as nothing when compared with St. John's description of the twelve gates of the New Jerusalem (Rev. xxi. 21) :—“ The twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there." How much then ought we to strive to improve our time and talents, that at last, for the merits of our Saviour, we may be thought worthy to dwell eternally in that happy place" where there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, and pain ;" where there shall be no need at its portals to administer justice, and to right the oppressed; to relieve the sick, or to feed the hungry,—" for the former things are passed away."

RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST.

MATLOCK.

Ir was a year or two ago, in the leafy month of June, that finding, not only my complexion, but even my very ideas, all smoke dried, from being long" in populous city pent," I determined to take a trip to

Matlock, which, as all the world knows, is a pretty little town, in the beautiful county of Derbyshire. I had only three days to spare; but if steam-engines do bring noise and smoke into our towns, they compensate for it by taking us, when we desire it, quickly away into the country. The sun may rise, to our view, out of a London chimney pot, and set in grandeur over the Orme's Head in these days. So, thanks to steam, eleven in the morning found me at the Matlock Bath Station. The very view of the high Tor told me that I should enjoy my ramble; but an Englishman's first care is his inn, and old bachelors, say what you will, fair ladies, about their miserable state, always enjoy creature comforts, and generally manage to get them too; so at once I comfortably settled myself and my carpet bag at the Old Bath Hotel, and then sallied forth into the streets to see whatever was to be seen.

A stranger is soon discovered, and ere long, guides beset me on all sides-" Caverns, sir," "Cumberland Cavern, sir," "Take you round the Heights, sir." Now if there be anything in the world I dislike, it is a guide, especially through the beauties of nature, but in Matlock every visitor deems it a duty to visit the caverns; it is a kind of necessary penance: so submitting quietly to my fate, I put myself under the care of the least importunate of the numerous candidates for the honour of conducting me.

My guide first took me to a petrifying spring, which though it cannot, like the enchanted water in the Arabian Nights, make any one who bathes in it half man and half marble, is yet a real curiosity. The explanation of its power is simple:-a stream rich in carbonic acid, dissolves in consequence much carbonate of lime in its passage down the rocks, but on a larger expanse of the water than usual, being exposed to the air, as would be the case, on the wetted surface of anything placed in its course. The car

bonic acid escapes and the carbonate of lime is deposited, covering the object so placed, whatever it may be, with a superficial crust of limestone. The favourite subjects for experiment were birds' nests, rams' heads, and barristers' wigs. I could not help thinking that if one of the last was to be imbedded in some other deposit, and remain in all the pristine beauty of its form, until the hammer of the geologist, in a future phase of the world's history, revealed it to the ken of scientific eyes, it would indeed afford vast scope for many a learned lecture, until the wig of stone would occasion, perhaps, more bursts of eloquence and more elaborate reasoning, than the owner of it, in its former existence, ever displayed in his time.

Before leaving the well I took a draught of its water, which was pleasant to the taste, cold, fresh, and sparkling. My guide and I now bade adieu, for a time, to the realms of upper air, and descended one of the caverns. Of this part of my journey I shall not say much, though it was not without interest, and a certain kind of grandeur, nor indeed wholly without beauty, for the walls were often encrusted with selenite, or pendant icicle-like stalactites of carbonate of lime, and at times a vein of spar, the crystals sparkling in the torchlight, ran across our path.

It was in one little chamber whose floor was strewed with large pieces of broken spar, that my guide gave vent to a speech, which made me sigh for the days of chivalry, when the heaviest burden was light to bear for a fair ladye: but I had better return to my tale, that you too, gentle reader, may mourn over the lost gallantry of the Anglo-Saxon race.

"I makes one rule, sir," he said, "never to take a lady in here-it would be, 'Guide, will you put this in my basket, it is such a pretty crystal; and I must have this piece of spar, guide;' and then when the basket was quite full, I should hear, 'Will you carry it for me, guide ?' and so I often have had to climb

the hill, laden with two or three heavy baskets of spar." You will agree with me, ladies, that the man was unworthy of the honour done him, and will easily believe me, when I tell you, that out of respect to your sex, as soon as we were above ground, and he was of no further use to me, I dismissed him!

Even in the very town, to which I now returned, there are some plants of interest, the elegant fronds of one of our most beautiful British ferns (Cystopteris fragilis) are abundant; the handsome Meadow Crane'sbill was also plentiful; and a rarer, though not such a showy plant (Cardamine impatiens), was here very frequent. My first walk was to the Romantic rocks, as they are called; a little winding path, through a wood, immediately behind the town soon led me to them. By the road-side grew the herb Paris (Paris quadrifolia), with its curious whorl of four leaves, to borrow old Gerarde's description, "directly set one against another, in the form of a Burgundian Crosse, or True-love Knot, for which cause, among the ancients, it hath been called Herb True-love. In the midst of the said leafe, comes forth a starre-like flowre, of an herby or grassie colour." The gooseberry was plentiful in the wood, looking like a genuine native; and at the rocks themselves, grew the yew-tree. tree, which is common throughout the whole of the limestone district, is evidently wild; it is one I always look upon with a species of veneration-a true old English heart it has, and one which has often stood us in good stead in times of danger; all honour, therefore, to the yew-tree and to our brave soldiers, who in all ages of our country's history, have so gallantly defended our fatherland from foreign foes. The Romantic rocks well deserve their name; masses of limestone seem to have been torn from the rocks, and set up as obelisks, by no mortal power, however, unless we suppose the Titans to have torn them forth to hurl in their battle.

This