upwards; then cut a nick at one end of another cork, and insert a shilling; into the same cork insert two forks as shown in the figure, with the handles inclining downwards. If the edge of the shilling be placed upon the point of the needle, it may be turned round with considerable rapidity, and it will continue to rotate without any risk of falling off, because the centre of gravity is below the point of suspension. The toy shown in fig. 3 is another illustration of the same kind. A dancing figure fixed to a ball E, and so placed upon the stand z. However we may disturb this figure from its erect position, it turns and balances itself in all directions, and recovers its erect position as soon as the disturbing force is removed. The two weights F G evidently bring the centre of gravity of the figure far below the point of support, such centre being somewhere at or near z, and as such centre always tends to the lowest point, it cannot attain such point without making the figure stand erect. Fig. 4 is the figure of a laughing mandarin, and however much we may disturb his gravity, he soon recovers it, although he continues to laugh on. He is a light-bodied little fellow, sitting upon a very hard and heavy seat,-his body is made of pith, and his seat of lead; the latter being in fact the half of a leaden bullet; so that in consequence of the disproportion between the weight of the body and its seat, the curved surface of the latter, in any other position than that shown in the figure, will not have its centre of gravity at the lowest point to which it can descend. If we tilt the figure on one side, its centre of gravity is made to ascend, and on the removal of the disturbing force, it will descend to its original position by a series of oscillations which give to the figure a very funny effect. In our next article we will bring forward some more illustrations on this amusing, but important subject. LET thy hospitality be moderate; and, according to the means of thy estate, rather plentiful than sparing, but not costly. I never knew any man grow poor by keeping an orderly table, but some consume themselves through secret vices, and their hospitality bears the blame. But banish swinish drunkards out of thine house, which is a vice impairing health, consuming much, and makes no show. I never heard praise ascribed to the drunkard but the wellbearing his drink; which is a better commendation for a brewer's horse or a drayman, than for either a gentleman, or a serving-man. Beware thou spend not above three of four parts of thy revenues, nor above a third part of that in thy house; for the other two parts will do no more than defray thy extraordinaries, which always surmount the ordinary by much: otherwise thou shalt live, like a rich beggar, in continual want. The needy man can never live happily nor contentedly, for every disaster makes him ready to mortgage or sell, and that gentleman who sells an acre of land, sells an ounce of credit.-LORD BURLEIGH. THE name Civet, which was first applied to the odoriferous substance produced by this animal, is of Arabian origin, but the animal itself has received the same appellation. There are several species of the genus Viverra which produce the civet, but that figured in our engraving is the animal from which it is most commonly obtained. It belongs to the carnivorous tribes, and is placed between the dogs and the martens, being less addicted to animal food than the animals constituting the dog tribe, and more so than the martens. The Civets appear to be nocturnal animals, and hunt their prey at the same time as foxes and cats, surprising birds and small quadrupeds during the night. The species we are speaking of is about two feet four inches in length, exclusive of the tail; its muzzle is less pointed than that of the fox, but more than that of the marten; the ears are round and short; the lips furnished with long moustaches. The hair with which the body is covered is of a moderate length, and rather coarse; that which runs down the middle of the back is longer, and the animal is able to erect it when in anger. The general colour of the animal is a grayish brown, variegated with spots and bands of a darker colour; a stripe of this last colour runs the whole length of the body, from the nape of the neck to the tail; the sides are covered with irregular spots, which become larger near the tail and on the thighs. The head is whitish, with a large brown band, which, after surrounding the eye, comes down the cheek and passes under the chin. Civets are found in all the warm parts of Asia and Africa, in Madagascar, and the East Indian islands. The In some parts of the East the Civets are taken alive, and retained in a state of captivity, for the sake of collecting the perfume for which they are famed. This perfume is produced by both sexes, and is contained in two cavities, or pockets, placed beneath the tail; these cavities are smooth internally, and covered with numerous small pores, connected with the glands from which it is secreted. Civet is a perfume which was formerly in high repute in Europe, but it is at present very little used, excepting in the composition of some kinds of perfumery, to increase the power of other scents. That which is brought to England at present reaches us from the Brazils, Guinea, and the interior of Africa. When genuine it is worth as much as thirty or forty shillings an ounce. Pure civet is of a clear yellowish or brownish colour, about the consistence of honey, and uniform throughout. Undiluted the smell is offensively strong, but when mixed with other substances it becomes what some consider a fragrant perfume. Civet is often noticed by our older dramatists, and, although fashionable, was even then not to the taste of all; Massinger makes one of his cha racters say, Lady, I would descend to kiss your hand, THE PASSING BELL. No. II. ITS PRESENT OBJECT. WE nave seen in a former paper, what was the ought now to be considered. It is, as it were, the herald of the doom that awaits each of us and all; a proclamation of the common necessity we all lie under, of once dying. It is one remembrancer more, to remind us of the approaching period of our own departure. It may sound unwelcome in the ears of those who too much love this world; who have made here their homes, and whose heaven of enjoyment is centred upon some earthly object too dearly loved, some dream of earthly happiness too fondly cherished. But the wise, the serious, and the reflecting, will not turn a deaf ear, or a dead heart, to the friendly warning of these funereal notes, to the voice, as it were, from the tomb, which thus claims their attention. Amongst the many motives which call them daily to an increased spiritual energy, the sound of the Passing Bell will not be lost on them, but will contribute to rouse them more and more from the sleep of sense, and the torpor of worldly mindedness, to new life and activity, and to fresh exertions in their Christian career! It may be well to remember, that, although the tolling of the Passing Bell is not now intended to admonish the parishioners to offer up their prayers for one of their number now at the point of death, there is still one occason on which something of a similar practice, designed for a similar purpose, still remains in our church,- -a practice, however, which seems to be too much forgotten by all classes of Christians in general. And this change in the usage, we may at once perceive, makes a correspondent change in one portion of the practical duties which was connected with it. The Passing Bell now announces not that the person is in the act of dying, but that he is already dead. Now, therefore, the Christian, when he hears the tolling of the bell, is no longer called upon to offer up prayers, as before, for the happy passage out of this life, for the individual to whose death it has reference. But still, on the other hand, we must recollect that one most important duty connected with the usage in question yet remains for us in full force. We must remember the announcement it gives to those who survive, that another human being has departed, and the warning held out by it to each of us, that we should hasten onward in our prepara-church; whereas it was to be remembered in the private tion for our own departure, which must come, we know not how soon, in God's own good time. The practice may, indeed, be reckoned amongst the instances of becoming respect on the part of the living, to the memory of the dead. It is, in truth, no trivial occurrence, when rightly considered, when the Passing Bell proclaims that the common lot of humanity has removed another fellow creature from this fleeting state of existence. To him the change which has occurred in his condition, is most momentous and important. Eternal happiness, or eternal misery, one or the other of these things, is then become the fixed, unalterable condition of the departed. It is only becoming, that an event so solemn should be in some manner notified in the immediate neighbourhood where it has occurred; that there should be some public expression of serious sympathy, on the part of the survi vors, with what has befallen one of their number, in which it is impossible that the rest, as fellow Christians, can be altogether uninterested. The living inhabitants of the same district will see their departed fellow-parishioner no more; and by his dissolution they must be conscious of a gap, a chasm, a vacancy amongst them. They meet him as one of their number-they see him in the sphere of their society —in their domestic, their social, or their religious intercourse, as they were accustomed—no more. But it is not simply as a tribute of respect to the memory of the dead, not merely to tell of the demise of one of the living, but as a means of instruction to The custom (says Mr. Greswell,) which still prevails, or at least, from the rule to this effect in the Prayer Book of the Church of England, is supposed to prevail, of soliciting the prayers of the congregation for the sick, is not unlike what, in accordance with the original intention of the Passing Bell, was supposed to be notified by it. In both cases, the effect of the invitation to the living Christian was, or is, the offering up of prayer to God in behalf of his sick and afflicted, perhaps too, in both cases, his dying Christian brother; only in the latter instance, this is supposed to be done by the whole congregation assembled at devotions of Christians, that the sounding of the Passing Bell, in former times, was presumed to be a memento. Alas, no such sympathy for each other is generally felt, or expressed, amongst the members of the same community of professing Christians now. The Passing Bell has long ceased to be a warning to such a duty, which never called, and was never heard to call to its performance in vain. Christians, generally speaking, care not now for the deathbed scenes, the death-bed agonies and sufferings of each original and primary purpose, has long become silent; other. The parish bell, so far as concerns any such its and, in all probability, were its affecting signal again to be sounded, at the same crisis of a dying Christian's fate, and with the same tender and affecting solicitude in his behalf, as in former days-its solemn injunction, amidst the present apathy of truly reciprocal, kindly, and Christian feelings, would mingle with the winds, would be unheeded and lost, for any such pious and charitable purpose. Blood, affinity, friendship, indeed, have yet power to bind,-to procure for the living, for the sick, and dying, whether it be this good office, of which we are speaking, namely, prayer for their spiritual welfare, or any other expression of sympathy and kindness befitting their situation. But Christianity, abmembers of one mystical body in Christ Jesus, that Chrisstractedly considered,-the idea that it is as component tians stand related to each other; if that be the only string we attempt to touch, the only sympathetic chord by which the emotions of the living may be excited in favour of the sick or dying; this is a language, which to modern Christians is a dead one; this is an appeal to which modern Christian sensibilities have no response: they cannot understand its meaning; they have ceased to feel its force. There is too much truth in these remarks. Sick and dying persons do not seem to expect, for they the surviving, that the sounding of the Passing Bell gregation; and it is to be feared, that when such a very, very seldom request, the prayers of the con Rev. William Lisle Bowles. request is made, the congregation, as a body, feel but little interest in the spiritual welfare and comfort | in creating difficulties, knows also how to conquer of their fellow Christians. Surely there is great them? scope here for a reformation; and it is clearly a reformation which every individual Christian may, if willing, assist in advancing. D. I. E. THE PASSING BELL. Or everlasting night! "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," Sin's awful curse demands; Oh well! if, pure before the throne, Oh well! for if uncleansed from guilt, To live through an eternal death, From sin, the sting of death and hell, THE REPLENISHMENT OF THE EARTH THIS earth is a mass of vegetable life. In animals, the fact of replenishment is less visible; superior as the numbers are, and more numerous, too, as are the appointed species. The plants display themselves everywhere: they are the universal covering, the dress, of the naked earth: they are that life which would render the inanimate globe all one life, though not an animal existed. Did they not even perform the vast functions with which they have been charged, in reclaiming, extending, and improving the earth, in being the basis of animal life and existence, and in more, their very life and beauty would render the world a place of delight; as for this also were they ordained, commanded to abound, and commanded to luxuriate in more than conceivable variety. The abundance and the luxuriance may differ throughout the earth; but there is life everywhere; everywhere there is beauty; and everywhere there is utility and pleasure. The lofty mountains are clothed as densely as the plains below: if their tenants are less aspiring, they fill the rejected places and cover the hopeless; rendering the bare wall of rock a home for life, and ceasing not, even to the appointed boundary which separates that life from the eternal cold of death. Zones upon zones, from the mountain summit to the plain, and from the pole to the equator, produce their plants, their shrubs and their trees, increasing in stature and luxuriance and multitudes, as they approach the centre of light and heat; and, as they attain that, it is a perpetual contest of plants, which shall gain the superiority, and occupy the soil. If, in the polar regions, the sun of a day brings out the whole mass of dormant life, to flourish as long as water can flow, it is but the same energy, the same command, which heaps life upon life in the tropical lands. And what Power, what Will but that could have covered with His life the arid desert, the surface of the waters, and the depths beneath the sea? -who but Hc to whom nothing is impossible; who, Thus does He command the earth to ne filled, and it is filled: thus does He say to His plants, Replenish ye the earth for ever; and it is for ever replenished. Let the casualties of the earth itself, let seasons, let animals, let man, destroy, consume, change, impede as they may, they shall not cease, they shall not fail anywhere, not for one year; the blanks shall be filled, the earth shall not remain anywhere destitute of life, nor anywhere shall His animals want that which He promised when He created them. If His rivers form new lands, if His sea quits the shores which He had first appointed for its bounds, if He raises new islands from the deep, and covers oceans with another earth, His plants are still obedient to His orders, and all is clothed, everything is replenished, that all may be full. The earth itself may fail; but He has assured us that while it stands, seed-time and harvest shall not fail; and His words are confirmed by His works. If the cities of men are deserted or disappear, Nineveh is no longer known amid the world of plants from which it first arose, and the vanished towns of Lydia, and Pamphylia, and Phrygia have surrendered their foundations to that vegetable life over which man had obtained a brief conquest. If he but leaves his streets for a short summer, he returns to find that vegetation has resumed its rights and its place. Plants cover the walls of his abandoned castles, and even load the roofs above his head; they fill his imitative lakes and his canals, and incumber his made paths; causing him to remonstrate against the law which clothes his fields to enrich him. Even his ships cannot sail the sea without being detained by the universality and activity of vegetation: and it pursues him everywhere, in his walls, his vaults, his clothing, his books, his provisions, in everything. It overloads the very plants which he cultivates; and if it thus penetrates into his domestic intimacies, and assails him in that external world of life which he has selected for himself, so does it multiply to destroy those laborious architectures through which he desires to leave a name behind him, and to triumph over the ocean. ocean. Nothing is hidden from its activity, when it penetrates the mine as the vault, and when it has chosen to make a place for itself on the uncertrin, the unstable, and the deadly surface of the eternal mountain snows. This is indeed a perseverance, an obstinacy of vegetation, which, could we assign it to will, would imply an unconquerable determination to succeed in what it desired. But it is will: for it is His will. From the beginning He had determined that the earth shouid be filled with vegetable life; and His power for ever effects what His benevolence had planned. [Abridged from MACCULLOCH'S Proofs and Illustrations of the Attributes of God.] THERE is a certain magic or charm in company, for it will assimilate, and make you like to them, by much conversation with them; if they be good company, it is a great means to make you good, or confirm you in goodness; but if they be bad, it is twenty to one but they will infect and corrupt you. Therefore be wary and shy in choosing, and entertaining, or frequenting any company or companions; be not too hasty in committing yourself to them: stand off awhile till you have inquired of some (that you know by experience to be faithful,) what they are; observe what company they keep; be not too easy to gain acquaintance, but stand off and keep a distance yet awhile, till you have observed and learnt touching them. Men or women that snared in ill company before they are aware, and entangled are greedy of acquaintance, or hasty in it, are oftentimes so that they cannot easily get loose from it after, when they would.-SIR MATTHEW HALE, THE PROFILE MACHINE. A PROFILE, or as it is also called a silhouette, is the representation of the outlines of an object filled up with a dark colour, so as to represent the shadow of the object; the ease with which these works of art are executed, has caused the art of taking profile likenesses to be very extensively practised. When carefully executed, the resemblance to the party intended is frequently very striking, especially if the features have a decided character. The fashion for this art arose in France about the year 1759. The word silhouette applied to shade-likenesses, is derived from Etienne de Silhouette, the French minister of finance in that year. He strove by severe economy to remedy the evils of a war which had just terminated, leaving the country in great exhaustion. At the end of nine months he was obliged to resign his office. During this period all the fashions in Paris took the character of parsimony. Coats without folds were worn; snuff-boxes were made of plain wood; and instead of painted portraits, outlines only were drawn in profile and filled with Indian ink, &c. All the fashions were called à la Silhouette; but the name remained only in the case of the profiles. In executing these likenesses the outlines were frequently drawn with a pencil by hand, at other times they were cut out in white paper with a pair of scissors, the white paper being afterwards placed on a piece of black; but as those artists who were willing to practise in this department were not always good draughtsmen, several instruments have been invented and mechanical means resorted to, to obtain a correct outline with facility. At first the shadow of the head was received on a screen, and the outline traced of the natural size, this outline being afterwards reduced with the assistance of a pentagraph; then the pentagraph by a peculiar arrangement was enabled to effect the same. object by one effort; this is the most expensive, but, at the same time, the most correct instrument for taking profiles. The Profile Machine we are about to describe, is the simplest in its construction, and that in most common use; its principle is correct, but in practice it is liable to error. A is a long rod jointed for the convenience of being easily taken to pieces; it passes through a solid ball seen in the upright frame in which it is fixed, and can be adjusted so as to make the comparative lengths on each side this ball whatever may be required. The ball through which the rod passes works upon a universal joint called the L B all and socket, which allows it free motion in all directions, upwards, downwards, or sideways. The point of the short end of the rod is formed of steel, sufficiently sharp, when gently pressed against a piece of card-board, to make a slight but a visible mark; this point is pressed upon by a piece of heavy wood, loaded at the back with lead, and swinging like a side-board in the frame B. The whole is firmly fixed on a table. To prevent the weight of the longer arm of the rod overbalancing the shorter, a piece of silk which is fastened to the long end goes over two pulleys in the ceiling, having a counterbalancing weight attached to it at B. The sitter is placed in a chair with arms, and having a pad attached to it to rest the head against; to prevent its shifting, this pad slides up and down so as to be capable of adjustment to the height of the party in the chair. A piece of card-board of the requisite size is placed in a kind of frame in the board at B, and pressed by its weight against the short end of the rod; everything being arranged, the profilist takes in his hand the long end of the rod, and passes it slowly and steadily along the features of the sitter, taking care not to press upon the soft parts, such as the lips. It is best to begin at the back of the shoulders, and move the rod carefully over the head and down the front of the face. While the profilist is guiding the long end of the rod in reduced outline on the card on the board. The this manner, the point at the short end is making a smaller, in proportion to the size of life, the reduced head is intended to be, the shorter the short end of the rod ought to be, in relation to the long end. The following diagram will explain the reason of this :-Suppose A в to represent the rod, and the ball through which it passes; if it moves upon its centre so that A shall traverse as far as c, it is evident that the short end в will be moved as far as D: so that if A, in moving from A to c, shall have passed over so much of the face as lies between the forehead and the chin, in the same manner B, in being moved as far as D, will have marked the same features on the card-board on a reduced scale. But if the rod had been moved through the ball so that A should have been at E, and B at F, then if the long end moved from E to G, the shorter arm would be moved from F to H, and the difference between the natural size of the profile and the reduced copy would not be so great, for there is not so much difference between EG and F H as there was between A C and B D. The outline of the profile being marked on the card by the point at B, has to be filled up with lampblack, ground in a weak solution of glue, sufficient to bind the colour, but not enough to give it a glossy surface. THE velocity of the wind varies from nothing up to 100 miles in an hour; but the maximum is variously stated by different authors. According to Smeaton, a gentle breeze moves between four and five miles per hour, and has a force of about two ounces on a foot; a brisk pleasant gale moves from ten to fifteen miles, with a force of twelve ounces; a high wind, thirty to thirty-five miles, with a force of five or six pounds; a hurricane, beating along trees, houses, &c., has a velocity of one hundred miles, and a force of forty-nine pounds on the square foot.? LET no company or respect ever draw you to excess in drink, for be you well assured, that if ever that possess you, you are instantly drunk to all the respects your friends will otherwise pay you, and shall by unequal staggering paces go to your grave with confusion of face, as well in them that love you, as in yourself: and therefore abhor all com way.-LORD STRAFFORD. pany that might entice you that way. LONDON: JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, WEST STRAND. PUBLISHED IN WEEKLY NUMBERS, PRICE ONE PENNY, AND IN MONTHLY PARTS PRICE SIXPENCE. Sold by all Booksellers and Newsvenders in the Kingdom. Lives there a man, so lcst to Nature's charms, WHITCHURCH-GREAT AND LITTLE DOWARD-NEW WEIR-MONMOUTH. IN resuming our account of the "Wye Tour," we will begin by noticing those singular oval tub-shaped skiffs, used by the fishermen on the Wye, below New Weir, and some other Welch rivers, called "coracles," pronounced truckles, or cruckles, by these primitive sportsmen," the remains, perhaps, of the ancient British navigation, which the least motion will overset, and the slightest touch may destroy." These tiny boats are so light, being constructed of canvass or hide, well pitched and stretched over a slender frame-work of wood, that the fishermen carry them on their backs from one part of the river to another. The scenery around the sweetly-retired village of WHITCHURCH is pleasing; and the Great and Little Doward hills, which bear the name of King Arthur's Plain, (the latter an eminence of peculiarly fine outVOL. XIII, line,) boldly rise in the background with a remark able effect. Upon the summits of both these hills are interesting remains of ancient British hill-forts. The western, or most accessible side of the Great Doward, is strongly fortified by entrenchments. Three circular terraces wind up to the summit of the Little Doward, which is supposed to have been defended by Caractacus in his war with the Romans. In a valley between the hills is a romantic cavern, called "King Arthur's Hall," evidently nothing more than the level of a worn-out iron mine. After leaving Cymon's Yatt, and on our approach to NEW WEIR, which Gilpin terms "the second grand scene on the Wye," the view consists of exquisite crags, thrown into fine confusion by falls from the upper rim. These crags are full of projections and recesses, and heaps of ruin, all shrubbed and weather-holed, and present a most romantic variety of shelves, rude arches, clefts, and mimic towers. Between these and the opposite bank of rock-wall and hanging wood, the river, rapid and confined, roars hastily along. In front are rich wooded eminences, rising above or lapping over each other. Along the banks is a series of meadows, of deep rich green, just enlivening the dusky solemn gloom of the narrow dell. A single rock-column gives an 410 |