condition than those of Turkey, and even some of the European states. Though oppressed, they often contrive to live well. Their food, though simple, is good. They eat wheat-bread; and sometimes indulge in the luxury of a piece of meat. In some of the villages, they are, for peasants, decently clothed; and the houses of the better sort are tolerably furnished, generally having one room neatly plastered and carpeted; and a good set of household vessels, arranged on shelves or in cupboards.

In the villages between Tehran and Hamadan, however, I found such exceptions extremely rare. The people are evidently a Turkish race; but they have no affinity with, nor love for, the Turks of Aderbeijan. They are poorer; apparently more oppressed; complain more of poverty; are lower in their habits; more degraded in mind; and more wretched in appearance. Their soil is less fertile, their houses meaner; their villages generally unwalled, poorly constructed, and often half ruined. The villages in other parts are sometimes walled, and sometimes open; but, in the last case, they have often an enclosure, or citadel, near them, to which the people may fly in case of danger, and from which they can defend themselves.

There is nothing which can be called education among the Persian peasantry. There is, generally, a Mollah in each village, who teaches the children in winter; but the sum of instruction is, as before said, to teach them to cantillate the Koran and the prayers, without understanding them.

[His work is, certainly, one of the most attractive and important of its class, that has, for a long time, been added to our records of philanthropic enterprise.]

Scientific Facts.

THE OCEAN.

THE requisitions for information relative to the depth, constitution, temperature, and currents of the ocean, are both numerous and calculated to excite a lively interest. The explanation of the oceanic currents can never be complete till we know the elements which affect the density of the water at different depths, and the seat of action of the forces which produce the disturbance of its equilibrium of density and pressure. Those elements are, the temperature, saltness, and compression of the sea-water; the two former of which are determinable by direct observation; the latter, by calculation from the depth. As regards the seat of action of the motive forces, it is justly remarked, that the order of the phenomena is precisely the reverse

of what obtains in the atmosphere. In the sea, the sun's rays are totally absorbed at the surface, or within a few fathoms of it, and, having no tendency to penetrate deeper by conduction, and but little liability to be carried down by superficial agitation, are merely, as it were, floated on the surface, without any tendency whatever to produce ascensional currents, such as arise in the atmosphere, from the heated surface of equatorial continents or seas. On the other hand, as the density of seawater goes on increasing by cold to its freezing point, it follows that there must be constantly in action, in the two polar basins, but chiefly in that where winter, or, rather, the maximum of cold at the surface of the sea, in contact with the floating ice, prevails, a descensional force producing subaqueous currents radiating outwards from the poles, which in their progress towards the equator are, of course, modified by the earth's rotation, in analogy with the trade-winds, whenever the form of the bottom, or the depth and extent of the channels by which the deeper seas communicate, will permit. The depth and form of these channels, therefore, and of the subaqueous basins which they connect -or, in other words, the configuration of the subaqueous mountains and valleys, enters as a most material element into the problem, and adds greatly to the geological interest attached to deep-sea soundings. On this head we understand that Captain Ross has already arrived at some very remarkable results, having so completely overcome the great difficulty which attaches to this operation, as to have procured soundings at a depth beyond all former experience, and, in one instance especially, to have attained a depth below the surface exceeding the altitude of the summit of Mont Blanc above it!-and that, too, with a facility and certainty which promises to afford a speedy solution of the long agitated question of the mean and maximum depths of the ocean. In fact, we may already fairly conclude, from these experiments, a general depth of sea far exceeding the general elevation of the continents; since it is extremely improbable, either that the deepest, or nearly the deepest region should have been the scene of the few successful trials yet made; or that, within the particular region attempted, precisely the deepest points should have been those which have now, for the first time, received the lead.-Quarterly Review. Notes of a Reader.

THE CLASSICS.

CLASSICAL quotations are the watchwords of scholars, by which they distinguish

each other from the ignorant and illiterate; and Greek and Latin are insensibly become the only test of a cultivated mind.-Sydney Smith.

PRACTICAL DEFINITION.

The Jesuit, Manuel de Vergara, used to relate, that, when he was a little boy, he asked a Dominican friar what was the meaning of the seventh commandment, for he said he could not tell what committing adultery was. The Friar, not knowing how to answer, cast a perplexed look around the room, and thinking he had found a safe reply, pointed to a kettle on the fire, and said the commandment meant, that he must never put his hand in the pot while it was boiling. The very next day, a loud scream alarmed the

family; and, behold, there was little Manuel running about the room, holding up his scalded finger, and exclaiming, "Oh dear! oh dear, I've committed adultery! I've committed adultery! I've committed adultery!"-The Doctor.

PREFACES.

Prefaces, (said Charles Blount, gent.,) ever were, and still are, but of two sorts, let other modes and fashions vary as they please. Let the profane long peruke succeed the godly cropt hair; the cravat, the ruff; presbytery, popery; and popery presbytery again, yet still the author keeps to his old and wonted mode of prefacing; when, at the beginning of a book, he enters, either with a halter about his neck, submitting himself to his reader's mercy, whether he shall be hanged or no; or else, in a huffing manner, he appears with the halter in his hand, and threatens to hang his reader, if he gives him not his good word. This, with the excitement of some few friends to his undertaking, and some few apologies for want of time, books, and the like, are the constant and usual shams of all scribblers, as well ancient as modern. Most prefaces are effectually apologies, and neither the book nor the author one jot the better for them. If the book be good, it will not need an apology; if bad, it will not bear one: for where a

man thinks, by calling himself a noddy, in the epistle, to atone for shewing himself to be one in the text, he does, with respect to the dignity of an author, but bind up two fools in one cover.- Sir Roger D'Estrange.

EDUCATION OF THE TIMES.

It would be much more fortunate for mankind, if the public opinion, which regulates the pursuits of individuals, were more wise and enlightened than it at present is. Sydney Smith.

LOVE AT WATERING-PLACES.

Watering-places might, with equal propriety, be called fishing-places, because they are frequented by female anglers, who are in quest of such prey, the elder for their daughters, the younger for themselves. But it is a dangerous sport; for the fair piscatrix is not more likely to catch a bonito, or a dorado, than she is to be caught by a shark.-The Doctor.

POLITICAL ALARMISTS.

There is a political as well as a bodily hypochondriasis; and there are empirics always on the watch to make their prey, either of one or of the other.-Sydney Smith.

AN APPEAL TO THE READER.

Place but as much confidence in me as you do in your review, your newspaper, and your apothecary; give me but as much credit as you expect from your tailor; and, if your apothecary deserves that confidence as well, it will be well for you; and if your credit is as punctually redeemed, it will be well for your tailor.-The Doctor.

SMOKING.

Joshua Silvester questions whether the devil has done more harm, in later ages, by means of fire and smoke, through the invention of guns or of tobacco-pipes; and he conjectures that Satan introduced the fashion, as a preparatory course of smoking for those who are to be matriculated in his own college:

As roguing gipsies tan their littles elves,

To make them tann'd and ugly like themselves."

When the practice of smoking was first introduced into England, it was said children "began to play with broken pipes instead of corals, to make way for their teeth."

WEATHER-WISDOM.

The Jews say that the Sun always shines on Wednesdays, because his birth-day was on Wednesday, and he keeps it in this manner every week. In Feyjoo's time, the Spaniards had a proverbial saying, that no Saturday is ever without sunshine; nor could they be disabused of this notion, thing to have a Saturday, or any other day, because, in their country, it is really a rare in some part or other of which the sun is not seen. But, on the Wednesday in Passion week, they held that it always rained, because on that day it was that Peter went out and wept bitterly; and they think that it behoves the heavens to weep after this manner, as if in commemoration of his tears.-The Doctor.

thing useful. If not the salt of the earth, they are its manure, without which it could not produce so abundantly.

PRIVATE HISTORY.

The history of any private family, however humble, could it be fully related for five or six generations, would illustrate the state and progress of society better than could be done by the most elaborate historian.-The Doctor.

TITLES AND NAMES.

Our men of rank are not the only persons who go by different appellations in different parts of their lives. We all moult our names in the natural course of life.

AMATORY POETRY.

Under the inspiration of Love, more bad poetry has been produced than by any or all other causes. Vanity, presumption, ambition, adulation, malice and folly, flatulent emptiness and ill-digested fulness, misdirected talent and misapplied devotion, wantonness and want, good motives, bad motives, and mixed motives, have given birth to verses, in such numberless numbers, that the great lake of oblivion in which they have sunk, must long ago have been filled up, if there had been any bottom to it. But, had it been so filled up, and a foundation thus laid, the quantity of love poems which have gone to the same place, would have made a pile there that would have been the eighth wonder of

the world. It would have dwarfed the Pyramids.-The Doctor.

Obituary.

DIED, at an advanced age, Samuel Birch, Esq., formerly an alderman of London. He was the son of a celebrated pastrycook in the metropolis, where he was born, we believe, in the year 1757. He received a liberal education, and, at an early age, excelled in poetry. In 1781, he was elected into the Common Council, and, in 1807, Alderman of the ward of Candlewick; and in 1815, he was elected Lord Mayor. At his father's death, he succeeded to his business, as a cook and confectioner, in Cornhill: he excelled in his art, and his cuisine was unrivalled in the city of London: the late Dr. Kitchine immortalized his soups in print, and the grand civic entertainments of the last fifty years have presented successive evidences of Birch's skill in confectionary; his "court dinners," for the various companies, were perfection; and he is known to have provided the best of the Mansionhouse banquets. We have mentioned the Alderman's early taste for poetry; and

among his publications are, Thoughts on various subjects, and The Abbey of Ambresbury. He was likewise a liberal patron of the drama; and produced several musical entertainments, the most popular of which is The Adopted Child, a stock-piece to the present day. About a year since, Alderman Birch resigned his gown, and altogether retired from public life; his business in Cornhill being carried on to this day.

On the 9th instant, in his forty-eighth year, James Warde Prescott, Esq., of the Theatre Royal Covent Garden; a very meritorious and painstaking actor. He was born in 1792, and was the son of an officer of high rank in the British army, on which account, when he first entered on the stage, he assumed the name of Warde. He received a liberal education, and his father obtained for him a commission, though he never reached a higher rank than that of a lieutenant of artillery. Early in life, he went upon the stage, in the provinces; but he did not appear in London until his twenty-sixth year, when he played Leon, in Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, at the Haymarket Theatre. He returned to the country, and, we believe, did not reappear in the metropolis until the year 1827, when he opened the season at Covent Garden Theatre, as Brutus, in Julius Cæsar. His performance was successful; and, for some time, he played the leading tragic parts at Covent Garden.

He remained at this theatre for several seasons, playing second only to the leading tragedians-Macready, Young, Kean, and C. Kemble. His best tragic performance was the part of Macbeth, which was considered, by some judges, to be the best since John Kemble and Young. His success in melodrama was more uniform; and he enacted, with singular felicity, the role of Napoleon, in the spectacle of that name, produced from the French, a few years since, at Covent Garden Theatre. If the mantle of the Emperor had not fallen upon our actor, the hat had; for he wore, during the performance, a hat that had formerly belonged to Napoleon. In this part, Mr. Warde evinced considerable genius, as well as artistical skill, and knowledge of effect; and the portraiture was pronounced excellent. In serious comedy, too, Mr. Warde had few rivals though he acted to perfection that class of characters in which the villany of the part and the actor's success often cheats him of merited applause. "At one period, Mr. Warde received a weekly salary of seventeen pounds; and, while engaged in the metropolis, he was never paid less than eight guineas per week."-(Observer.) Yet his life, since his appearance on the

stage, was one long struggle against pecuniary difficulties: his family expenses were heavy, and his habits were not strictly prudent and economical. At length, his health gave way; and when we last saw him, as Baradas, in Sir Edward Bulwer's play of Richelieu, he was scarcely equal to the labour. Now, he has passed from among us at the early age of forty-eight. In figure, Mr. Warde was well suited to the dignity of tragedy; he had a fine, intellectual eye, powerful voice, and distinct enunciation. His style of acting partook of the school of John Kemble; and he was, a few years since, a very popular performer. In private life, his manners were quiet and gentlemanly, and marked by well-bred ease; which accomplishments extend rather than lessen the liabilities of their possessor to "the whips and frowns of fortune."

On the 29th ultimo, at Viterbo, Lucien Buonaparte, Prince of Canino, at the age of sixty-six. Of this highly respected member of the Napoleon family, a memoir shall appear anon.

Varieties.

Foot Guards.-Of late, reading-rooms and a library have been established among some regiments of Foot Guards; to which a large proportion of the men have subscribed. This, together with facilities of recreation within the barrack-yard, cannot but tend to diminish the sum of those causes which act injuriously on the morals of this truly gallant and superb body of men.-Quarterly Review.

An Aspiration for Place.

If kisses be the coin of love,

The die, sweet woman's rosy mouth,
Found still on earth, where'er we rove,
Or east, or west, or north, or south;
Let statesmen on to glory plod,

And climb Ambition's paths of flint;
I only wish the little god

Would make me master of his mint. B. I. M.-Bentley's Miscellany. Mortality of Cities.-In Naples, the annual mortality is 1 in 28; in London, 1 in 44 dies in the year; in Vienna, 1 in 22; in Paris, 1 in 36; in Brussels, 1 in 29; in Geneva, 1 in 43; in Rome, 1 in 24; in Madrid, 1 in 35: in Amsterdam, 1 in 25.Quarterly Review.

Fossil Trees.-A number of fossil trees have been discovered in cutting a new road to Norham-bridge, on the north side of the Tweed. The roots cannot be perfectly traced, but the branches are very distinct; the largest of the trunks are from five to six feet in diameter.

The Dandy belongs rather to the present and future, than to past time. The reigns of Queen Anne and of the two Georges could furnish no type of him; he was unknown to Addison, Fielding, Smollett, Hogarth. Sheridan was the first who described him, as Lord Foppington.-Bentley's Miscellany.

The Trigonometrical Survey of Ireland is now drawing to a close; and arrangements are in progress for beginning that of Scotland, during the progress of which the head-quarters of the surveyors will be at Edinburgh.

Cicero's Letters.-The temper, habits, and posi

tion of Cicero were natural, congenial to a good epistolary style; and his letters are, to our taste, among the very best of his works: they were, no doubt, carefully revised and polished for publication; and, probably, lost in that process something of their lighter merits; but they are still easy and

graceful, and full of miscellaneous, yet interesting

matter, which we should in vain look for elsewhere. -Quarterly Review.

At Turkish entertainments, the guests never become boisterous, excepting among the Christians, whose meals are generally accompanied with wine or rakee.

Progress of Temperance.-Nearly 500 whiskeyshops have been abandoned in Cork alone; and 1,500,000 members have already taken the pledge.Bentley's Miscellany.

Why is the Duke of Wellington like a pigeon pie?-Because he is known by his feets.

Penny Postage.-Why are the adhesive stamps like idle little boys? Because they want well lick

ing to make them stick to their letters.

Mazes. In those few places where labyrinths at present exist in England, they are always great sources of amusement to the young people who are allowed to visit them. Every one who has been at Hampton Court will recollect the labyrinth there, which is open at all times to the world, and is the source of perpetual amusement to the public. There is also a very well-kept labyrinth at Chevening, the seat of Earl Stanhope, where the grounds have been laid out, by the present earl, chiefly in the ancient style, and in very correct and appropriate taste; and where, with an example worthy of imitation, they are at all times open to the public.-Loudon.

The Bullhead.-Pallas relates this fish to be used in Russia, by some, as a charm against fever; whilst others suspend it horizontally, carefully balanced by a single thread; and, thus poised, but allowed, at the same time, freedom of motion, they believe this fish possesses the property of indicating, by the direction of the head, the point of the compass from which the wind blows.

The Maigre. The two hard bones usually found just within the sides of the head in fishes, are larger in proportion in the maigre than in any other fish, and were supposed, the older writers say, to possess medicinal virtues. According to Belon, they were called Colic-stones, 'and were worn on the neck, mounted in gold, to secure the possessor against the colic: to be quite effectual, it was pretended that the wearer must have received them as a gift; if they had been purchased, they had neither preventive or curatic power.

Kenwood, the seat of the Earl of Mansfield, at Hampstead, is, beyond all question, the finest country residence in the suburbs of London, in point of natural beauty of the ground and wood, and in point, also, of the main features of art. The park may be said to consist of an amphitheatre of hills; the house being situated on one side, backed by natural oak wood, rising behind it, and looking across a valley, in which there is a piece of water, to other natural woods, also chiefly of oak, which clothe the opposite hills; and which, combined, give the name to the place; ken being derived from kern, the ancient British name for an acorn. consequence of this natural disposition of the grounds, and of the woods, all exterior objects are excluded; and a stranger, walking round the park, would never discover that he was between Hampstead and Highgate, or even suppose that he was so near London. It is, indeed, difficult to imagine a more retired, or more romantic spot, and yet of such extent, so near a great metropolis.-Loudon,

In

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