brance of those who sowed the harvest from which | free-hearted laugh. But in autumn the vivacity they are revelling in plenty. We must, like Old Mortality, deepen the inscription, or moss and time will cover and obliterate it.

and glee which charmed us erewhile, seems almost to reproach us, and comes like the dying tone of a harp-string snapped by too rude a hand. It may be an unmanly sensibility, but I cannot endure to hear in the woods of autumn the loud voice, awakened by hilarity, or sent out to find an echo in the answering hills and trees. When green foliage clothes the boughs, and the voices of birds are merry among the tops of the trees, then send abroad the many-toned song and peal: but when the stir of the wind is like a complaining melody among the stricken leaves let the hushed tone make no discord upon the great

So thought my cicerone as she moved along,

The approach to the mansion of Mrs. L. is by a road, studded on either side with a row of forest-trees; standing in sentinel array, as a guard of honor come out to welcome the expected guest. This avenue opens by a wicker gate to a broad area of mingled forest, garden, and sunny park: the view expanding and widening, until it is crowned and lost in the far-off glories of the river, the champagne country beyond, and the noble Catskills, springing away and burying their heads in the clouds. Numberless bridle-forest-harp of nature. paths run off from the carriage road; serpentining in mazy pleasure-now approaching, now re- pointing out to my notice, in a low, subdued ceding, until, diving down some little ravines, they disappeared from the sight. The garden, which salutes you as you emerge from the deep shade of the grove, was now mourning the loss of its summer, holiday garb; and showed only here and there a lingering flower, the lone companions of a bright and laughing company. The purpling fruits of summer had been gathered; autumn had touched the parterre, and shaken its rich and variegated honors to the ground; and even the sculptured gardener seemed to hang his head in sorrow, and mutter between his marble lips, "Othello's occupation 's gone." To be sure, we could commission the imagination to perform the office of nature. We could bid her summon back from their decay the flowers, teint them with the never-ending hues of summer, hang them in ripe and nodding beauty along the winding walk, and relieve the flush and circling richness of the expanded flower, with the folded or half-opened bud. Yet this is but a tantilizing occupation. The magic pleasure, the exquisite and liquid delight which thrills us when nature herself bids the desolate storm to bloom, adorns the naked stem with green leaves, and fills the flowering cup with the breath of perfume-these, imagination cannot supply. Yet why deplore their loss? The same autumnal spirit which spreads a pall over the glad beauty of the garden, covers with richest mantle the forest. The leaves of the oak and maple had been touched with the frosty influence, and were here and there borne from their withered stems and whirled upon the ground, and as we sauntered along the winding path, rustled to our tread with that gentle, melancholy stir which subdues, not saddens the mind, and fits it for a serene communion with the sobered grandeur of the season.

voice, the impressive beauties which met us. The
grounds, which retreat to the north, are irregular,
and endlessly varied. Sometimes they slope off
by a regular descent, and again drop suddenly
down; forming a dell in which, one might easily
imagine, the winds strewed their couches at
night, and soothed themselves to rest with the
musical murmur of a little stream, which led its
silver thread at the bottom. Descending farther
along the edge of this ravine, we crossed a rustic
bridge thrown over the brook, which here
escaping from its narrow channel, defied the
nimble foot of the pedestrian to leap it. A
lengthening vista, formed by the branches of the
linden, intertwining and bending over your head
an arch, the thousand hues of their taper leaves
peeping out from between the lattices, tempted
you away from the water, eddying and sporting
among the rocks of its bed. Mounting by a nar-
row path, by dint of climbing and catching to the
under-brush which lined its sides, we were warn-
ed of our close vicinity to a waterfall, which a
few steps forward revealed to us, dashing down
a perpendicular ledge, and hurrying away its
chafed and foaming water to an expanded bay, in-
to whose unruffled bosom it soon buried itself
and was soothed to quiet. I have sometimes
thought that to cascades nature has given a
greater and more unending variety than to any
other feature of her creation. Everything else
has its cognate, its counterpart. Every landscape
has in it something, which looks familiar and
common, if not absolutely vulgar. But in the
dash of water as it tumbles down and finds an
echo on either shore, there is a freshness which
is ever renovating, and which breaks upon you
with an inspiration that verges upon ecstasy. I
have seen many a waterfall, from the "
of Niagara" to the humble rapid; but I have never
found one to which I was indifferent, which pos-
sessed the same charm, or stirred within me kin-
dred emotions.

cataract

could

My companion was one of the few who possess that instinctive delicacy which shrinks from forcing an unseasonable gayety upon those who, like myself, feel the influence of the dying year. Woman best knows how to adapt herself to the That over which we were now hanging had its varying mood of man, and interprets more readily own features, its guardian divinity to preside than our sex the changing language of the seasons. over its influences. Shall I describe it? In summer we love to see the light, graceful form only sketch a few obvious traits, who will attempt of the girl, floating in a playful motion among to paint the emotions which are evoked, the flowers and green things; now stopping to pluck thousand undefined thoughts which spring and live a breathing gem, and now, while you are admiring in its roar, but flee for ever as we depart? I could her heightened glow and beauty, breaking away speak of the stream, plunging like a bison over and sending upon the scented breeze her innocent, a precipice, recovering from its leap, and shaking

the rocks as it bounded away; of the evergreens, country was divided into states, and a Roman which seemed to love their dangerous eminence, governor was appointed over the whole. advancing to the very brink of the shelf, and contrasting their bright hues with the milky foam into which the dusky-colored water had been fretted; of the creeping plants, which hung their festoons over the face of the jagged rock, and fringed with living green the otherwise naked bank; but who shall delineate the rush of memory from its secret, viewless depths, the tide of retrospection, the gush of feeling,

"When thoughts on thoughts a countless throng,
Came chasing countless thoughts along!"

when the fountains of the mind are broken up,
and its waters mingle and blend in richest con-
fusion? Words are sometimes impotent; never
more so than when employed to give an idea of
reverie. After lingering some time in silent admi-
ration and thought, we bent our way backward
along the shore of the river; delaying a little to
hear the dash of the wave upon the rocks, and
anon stopping upon some gentle ascent to mark
the hectic beauty of the leaves, brightening under
the hand of decay.
Correspondent of the N. Y. Mirror.

About the sixtieth year of our era, Suetonius Paulinus, one of the greatest generals of the age, was appointed governor of Britain, and allowed an army of about one hundred thousand men to keep the natives in subjection. The infamous Nero was at that time emperor of Rome, and Paulinus was a fit instrument to execute the orders of his master, who cared not how many people suffered, if his unbounded avarice and lust were satisfied, To fill the coffers of the emperor, the Britons were subjected to the most cruel taxation, and those who but recently were in the full enjoyment of peace and liberty, were reduced to the most abject slavery.

But the inherent principles of freedom, actively alive in the breast of the Briton, could not be destroyed, and when the oppressions of their conquerors became too severe to be borne, they raised the banner of revolt, around which every true Briton rallied. The spirit of revolution, prompted by a love of liberty and keen resentment for wrongs inflicted, which had been increasing in intensity for a long time, broke out into open re

ROMANCE OF HISTORY.-No. IX. bellion, at a time when Paulinus was absent upon

THE QUEEN OF THE ICENI.

BY B. J. LOSSING.

the island of Mona or Anglesey. A peculiar act of cruelty on the part of the Romans, was the immediate cause of this general revolt, and to that act and its consequences, we devote this paper.

Prasatugus, king of the Iceni, and a prince much beloved for his mildness and equity, when kingdom, one half of which he bequeathed to the on his death-bed made an equal division of his Roman emperor, and the other to his family. The reason for making this bequest to the emisfy his rapacity, as to secure his protection for peror, was the vain hope, that it would so far sathis wife and children. death of Prasatugus came to the ears of Paulinus, But the moment that the he sent an army sufficient to take forcible possession of the whole of the wealth and kingdom

THE history of ancient Rome is written in characters of blood, and over her whole widespread empire, from the Caledonian hills to the confines of India, from Torneo's rock to the cataracts of the Nile, the blood of slaughtered hecatombs of men, women and children has soddened the earth. Physical strength was her standard of right, and by that standard she measured her claims to every country of the globe, wherever her cohorts could gain and maintain a footing. Intellectual Greece bowed to her yoke-the islands of the Mediterranean paid her homage of the deceased prince. Against this unjust act, Carthage fell beneath her power-Iran acknowledged her authority-Egypt became her tributary, and even the remote Island of Britain, did not escape the power of ambitious Cesar, when Gaul lay prostrate at his feet. The estuaries of Britain

his queen, Boadicea, a woman of extraordinary spirit, warmly remonstrated; but her remonstrance

was met with the most brutal treatment from the minions of the governor. They even went so far this inhuman injury of her person, those brutal as to scourge her publicly, and not content with men ravished her daughters in the presence of the queen!

were filled with his war-galleys, and the quiet of that happy island was broken by the clangor of Roman arms. A peaceful people, unaccustomed to the business of war, and illy armed, the Britons made but feeble resistance to their invaders, and soon another rich territory of earth was added to the collossal dominions of Rome. The whole island became subject to Roman authority, the the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge and Huntingdon. This state included that portion of England now known as

This outrage aroused the Iceni to revenge, and every man took a solemn oath to avenge this

Britons amounted to one hundred thousand men, while Paulinus could muster only about ten thousand. Alarmed at his comparatively weak condition, and the numerical strength of the revolters, the Roman general was perplexed to know what course to take. First he resolved to shut himself up in London, and bide the issue of a siege, but when he found the triumphant enemy marching toward the capital, he resolved to con. quer them or die. The inhabitants of London begged him to remain in their defence, but he yielded to the solicitations of his soldiers, and the dictates of his own judgement, and resolved to do battle with the enemy.

Boadicea encouraging the Britons. brutal wrong inflicted upon their queen and family. The Trinobantes next raised the war cry, and in every part of the island where the injuries of the queen of the Iceni became known, the indignant Britons crowded around the standard of revolt, eager for the blood of the Roman barbarians. Camelodunum (London) was the only town that remained loyal, but even there, the Romans were not safe. Throughout the whole island, an indiscriminate massacre of men, women and children took place; and in one instance a legion of the Roman army attempting to stay the dreadful retribution of the Iceni, were all slaughtered to a man. In London the revolters made terrible havoc. The Romans in great numbers fled to their principal temple for protection, but it was set on fire, and with its living contents entirely consumed. That outrage upon the queen of the Iceni, cost Rome eighty thousand of her citizens !

As soon as Paulinus heard of this general revolt, he left Mona and hastened to the assistance of his people. This the Britons expected, and the armies of the several states were combined, and, by unanimous consent, Boadicea, was chosen commander-in-chief. The combined army of the

The Roman army marched out into the open country and awaited the approach of the Britons. They chose for their camp a narrow strip of land, with a dense forest in the rear, while before them spread out a spacious plain. On this plain the host of Boadicea encamped, now numbering, (including the women and children who had been invited by the soldier-queen to witness the contest and share in the spoils of the undoubted victory,) two hundred and thirty thousand.* Boa

Dion Cassius.

into the hands of the conquerors; but stung with remorse and despair at her accumulated misfortunes, she took poison and died.

Such, in brief, is a romantic chapter of the early history of Briton, and in it we see shadowed forth many of the bolder features of the human character:-the tyranny of uncontrolled power, ambition, avarice, cruelty, lust, the generous heroism of woman, the strength of innate principles of freedom, the meanness of cowardice and the

dicea, still stung with the wrongs she had suffer-¡ children lay dead upon that battle-field. Boadi ed was eager to engage with Paulinus. With cea and her daughters narrowly escaped falling her daughters beside her, in a war chariot, she traversed the ranks of the Britons, inflaming their zeal for her cause, and animating them with courage, by passionate addresses. "This is not the first time," cried she, "that Britons have been victorious under their queen. I come not here as one descended from royal progenitors, to fight for empire or riches, but as one of you-as a true Briton-to avenge the loss of liberty, the wrongs done to my own person, and the base violation of the chastity of my daughters. Roman suicidal tendency of misfortune and despair. lust has grown so strong, that nothing escapes And such are the leading features in almost every its pollution-old and young are alike liable to its chapter of the world's history, where states and outrages. The gods have already begun to punish empires have changed masters. The record of them according to their deserts. One legion that the political progress of nations, is a wonderful durst hazard a battle, was cut in pieces, and romance, where truth and fable are combined in others have fled like cowards before us. Raise presenting to generation after generation, an enloud your war-shout, and their fears will make tertaining volume for amusement and instruction: them flee. Consider your numbers and your and doubtless Byron was not wide of the mark, motives for the war, and resolve to conquer or when he denominated all history, "a splendid die. It is better to fall honorably in defence of fiction." liberty, than to submit to Roman outrage. Such is my resolution; but ye men, if ye choose, live and be slaves!"

THE DAGUERREOTYPE.

When the brave queen had concluded her harangue, a loud shout rang along the lines of the British army, and exclamations of loyalty were In our last number we gave a full description heard on every side. But while these demon- and illustration of the Daguerreotype, as constructstrations denoted confidence of victory on the ed by the original inventor, and alluded to the part of the Britons, Paulinus was unawed, and by fact, that Mr A. S. Wolcott, of New York City, forcible appeals to his soldiers, he raised their had made important improvements on the origi hopes and courage to the highest pitch. He nal invention, by which he is enabled to produce pointed to the multitude of Britons, as a handful perfect transcripts of the human face; a result of men and immense numbers of women and regarded by M. Daguerre as unattainable, because children-he exhorted them to believe the Brit- of the want of strong lights in the subject. This ons to be cowards-charged them to keep close difficulty is completely obviated by the improvetogether so as to advance in an unbroken phalanx, ment of Mr W.; and the miniatures which we have and to fight sword in hand after they had thrown seen produced by his process, exhibit all those their darts. Then ordering a charge to be sound-beautiful gradations of light and shade expected ed, the Romans advanced in a solid column, from the pencil of experience; and for truth, are hurled their javelins with terrible effect, with desperate power broke into the ranks of the Britons, and with sword in hand spread death and desolation in their path. Such an unexpected and fierce onslaught, struck terror to the islandMr. Wolcott intends, (if he has not already done ers, for they supposed the Romans would be so,) to take out letters-patent for his valuable disawed by their numbers; and it was in vain that covery and improvement, which if we mistake Boadicea encouraged them to repel the attack. not, as much advances toward perfection and useThey fled in dismay in every direction, the fulness, the process of photogenic drawing, as the women and children were exposed to the fury of discoveries of M. Daguerre have advanced the the Romans, neither age nor sex, nor even horses art from the point where the combined discoverwere spared, and when the sun set upon Briton ies, and practice of Porta and Wedgewood left that night, more than seventy thousand of her it.

unsurpassed. The nature of Mr. Wolcott's improvement is fully explained in the subjoined letter from him to Professor Mapes, the editor of the "American Repertory of Arts."

DEAR SIR:

New-York, March 13th, 1840.

When the announcement was first made of M. Daguerre's method of imprinting the beautiful images of the camera on silver plates, the remark was very generally made, that taking likenesses from life, would be one of the most important uses to which it could be applied.

On reflection it appears that on account of the difficulty of a person's remaining perfectly still for any great length of time, without the appearance of constraint, or without changing the expression of the face, the great desideratum was to construct a camera that should condense the greatest quantity of light to form the image, that was consistent with distinctness. Not having an achromatic glass in my possession larger than the object-glass of a microscope, I proceeded to experiment with a single concave reflector, as the most simple of all optical instruments, and as the one which, if of large dimensions and truly elliptical, would most probably best answer the above ends of distinctness and brilliancy combined.

Loss by flat speculum,

70.62 26.48

Rays transmitted after one reflec-
tion, and refraction through
three lenses, as compared with
that transmitted through one
lens of the same aperture
44.14

Now as 44 100 so is 100: 227; that is, if the area of the single lens is 100, that of the triple lens must be 227; and taking the square roots of the numbers for the apertures, we have 100: 227, so is 3.66, the aperture of the single lens, to 5.49, that of the compound one.

With a lens, we are under the disagreeable necessity of placing it about of its focal distance nearer the plate than the luminous focus, which may prevent that nice adjustment which is so desirable; besides, the question remains, whether the lens can be made to form as distinct an out

lens and the reflector, it would appear that the chymical and luminous rays do not follow the same laws with respect to reflection and refraction. Thus it is estimated that there is a loss of about the light from a speculum by reflection when the rays fall nearly perpendicular to the surface.

My first experiment was, I think, in October, with a reflector of 14 inches aperture and 2 in-line as the reflector. ches focus. With this I took the profile of a If I have not erred in my experiment with the person standing opposite a window; and here having but the three principle facts relating to M. Daguerre's process, viz: the exposing the plates to vapor of iodine, afterward to that of mercury, and the washing in hyphosulphite of soda, or in common salt, I fell into the same error as probably many others, which was that I supposed it necessary to keep the plate in the camera until the image was visible. This error prevented my making a larger instrument immediately; that which I now use is 7 inches clear aperture, and is used in the following manner. The person is placed at A, and in the axis of the reflector B. C -A is the plate on which the image

E

D
D

is to be formed. D D are rays radiated from the person, and falling on the mirror B. E E are the same rays converging to a focus after reflector C is inclosed in a box to exclude the extraneous light.

From experiments which I have made, I find that a speculum, of 7 inches aperture and 12 inches focus, will form a picture in about the same time as a single lens, of 33 inches aperture and 12 inches focus. Taking this as a standard of comparison, we may make an estimate of the

action of lenses and reflectors.

In consequence of a lens inverting the image of an object, it will be necessary to use a flat speculum, in order to cross the rays; and to reduce the aberrations, the lens should be a compound one, consisting of at least 3 glasses. If we estimate the rays lost by reflection from each surface as and the rays transmitted by a single we have, Loss by 1st surface of 2d glass

lens, as

Loss by 2d surface of 2d glass

100.00

8.33

Call the rays falling on the speculum 100
Loss one half

50

50

Loss, by the plate being interposed 8

Light falling on a lens,

42

- 100

16

Loss by reflection from 2 surfaces,

84

Thus we have, after reflection, 42 parts, and after refraction 84 parts; that is, half the area with the glass would be just as effectual with light as the whole would with a reflector; this would give 5 inches as the diameter of the glass, and 7 inches that of the reflector, whereas by my experiment 33 is the diameter of the glass when it is equally efficacious with the chymical rays as the reflector of 7 inches. This would give nearly twice as great a loss of the chymical rays, by reflection, when compared with refraction, as there is of the luminous rays..

If there is this difference between reflectors and refractors there should be a much greater allowance than for the loss from reflection from the flat speculum used with the lens. This would bring the aperture of the glass about equal to that

of the reflector.

I shall repeat the experiment more carefully when I have time, and if I am in error, will give 91.67 7.63 you the result. Yours, respectfully, 84.04 JAMES J. MAPES, Esq. A. S. WOLCOTT.