of this animal which show it to be peculiarly different from the rest of the feathered race, It seems to form one of the links of union in the great chain of nature, connecting the winged with the four-footed tribes.

The Black Ostrich.

Its strong jointed legs, and (if I may venture so to call them) cloven hoofs, are well adapted both for speed and defence. The wings and all its feathers are insufficient to raise it from the ground. Its camelshaped neck is covered with hair; its voice is a kind of hollow, mournful lowing, and it grazes on the plain with the gua-cha and the zebra.

The ostriches frequently do great damage to the farmers in the interior of Southern Africa, by coming in flocks into their fields, and destroying the ears of wheat so completely, that in a large tract of land it often happens that nothing but the bare straw is left behind. The body of the bird is not higher than the corn; and when it devours the ears, it bends down its long neck, so that at a little distance it cannot be seen; but on the least noise it rears its head, and generally contrives to escape before the farmer gets within gunshot of it.

When the ostrich runs, it has a proud and haughty look; and even when in extreme distress, never appears in great haste, especially if the wind is with it. Its wings are frequently of material use in aiding its escape, for when the wind blows in the direction that it is pursuing, it always flaps them in this case the swiftest horse cannot overtake it; but if the weather is hot, and there is no wind, or if it has by any accident lost a wing, the difficulty of out-running it is not so great.

:

The ostrich itself is chiefly valuable for its plumage, and the Arabians have reduced the chase of it to a kind of science. They hunt it, we are told, on horseback, and begin their pursuit by a gentle gallop; for, should they, at the outset, use the least rashness, the matchless speed of the game would immediately carry it out of their sight, and in a very short time beyond their reach; but when they proceed gradually, it makes no particular effort to escape. It does not go in a direct line, but runs first to one side, then to the

other; this its pursuers take advantage of, and, by rushing directly onward, save much ground. In a few days, at most, the strength of the animal is much exhausted, and it then either turns on the hunters, and fights with the fury of despair, or hides its head and tamely receives its fate.

Frequently the natives conceal themselves in the skin of one of these birds, and by that means are able to approach near enough to surprise them.

Some persons breed up ostriches in flocks, for they are tamed with very little trouble, and in their domestic state few animals may be rendered more useful. Besides the valuable feathers they cast, the eggs which they lay, their skins, which are used by the Arabians as a substitute for leather, and their flesh, which many esteem as excellent food, they are sometimes made to serve the purposes of horses.

In a tame state it is very pleasant to observe with what dexterity they play and frisk about. In the heat of the day, particularly, they will strut along the sunny side of a house with great majesty, perpetually fanning themselves with their expanded wings, and seeming at every turn to admire and be enamoured of their own shadows. During most parts of the day, in hot climates, their wings are in a kind of vibrating or quivering motion, as if designed principally to assuage the heat.

They will swallow, with the utmost eagerness, rags, leather, wood, or stone, indiscriminately. "I saw one at Oran," says Dr. Shaw, "that swallowed, without any seeming uneasiness or inconvenience, several leaden bullets, as they were thrown upon the floor scorching hot from the mould!"

During Mr. Adamson's residence at Podor, a French factory on the southern bank of the river Niger, he says that two ostriches, which had been about two years in the factory, afforded him a sight of a very extraordinary nature. These gigantic birds, though young, were of nearly the full size. "They were," (he continues) so tame, that two little blacks mounted both together on the back of the largest. No sooner did he feel their weight than he began to run as fast as possible, and carried them several times round the village, as it was impossible to stop him otherwise than by obstructing the passage. This sight pleased me so much that I wished it to be repeated; and, to try their strength, directed a fullgrown negro to mount the smallest, and two others the largest. This burden did not seem at all disproportioned to their strength. At first they went at a tolerable sharp trot; but when they became heated a little, they expanded their wings, as though to catch the wind, and moved with such fleetness, that they scarcely seemed to touch the ground. Most people have, at one time or other, seen a partridge run, and consequently must know that there is no man whatever able to keep up with it; and it is easy to imagine, that if this bird had a longer step, its speed would be considerably increased. The ostrich moves like the partridge, with this advantage; and I am satisfied that those I am speaking of would have distanced the fleetest race-horses that were ever bred in England. It is true they would not hold out so long as a horse, but they would undoubtedly be able to go over the space in less time. I have frequently beheld this sight, which is capable of giving one an idea of the prodigious strength of an ostrich, and of showing what use it might be of, had we but the rethod of breaking and managing it as we do a horse.

He who is catching opportunities because they seldom occur, would suffer those to pass by unregarded which he expects hourly to return.--JOHNSON.

THY walls transferred to Leicester's favoured earl
He long, beneath thy roof, the maiden queen
And all her courtly guests, with rare device
Of mask and emblematic scenery,
Tritons, and sea-nymphs, and the floating isle,
Detain'd. Nor feats of prowess, just, or tilt
Of harness'd knights, nor rustic revelry,

Were wanting: nor the dance, and sprightly mirth
Beneath the festive walls, with regal state,
And choicest luxury, served. But regal state
And sprightly mirth, beneath the festive roof,
Are now no more.

THE magnificent CASTLE OF KENILWORTH, of whose ruins we here present an engraving, was founded by Geoffrey de Clinton, in the reign of Henry I. On the death of Geoffrey, it descended to his son, from whom it was transferred to the crown, and was garrisoned by Henry II during the rebellion of his son. In the reign of Henry III it was used as a prison, and in 1254, the king, by letters patent, gave to Simon Montford, who had married Eleanor the king's sister, the castle in trust for life. Simon soon after joined the rebellion against the king, and, together with his eldest son, was killed at the battle of Evesham, in 1265. His youngest son, Simon, escaped, and with other fugitives took shelter in the Castle, where they became regular banditti.

The king, determined to put an end to their excesses, marched an army against them. Simon fled, and escaped to France, but his companions held out against a six months' siege. At length their provisions failed, a pestilence, broke out, and the governor surrendered the castle to the king, who bestowed it upon his youngest son, Edmund, Earl of Leicester, afterwards created Earl of Lancaster.

In 1286, a grand chivalric meeting of one hundred knights of high distinction, English and foreign, and the same number of ladies, was held at Kenilworth; and at this festival, it is said, that silks were worn for the first time in England.

In the reign of Edward II the castle again came into the hands of the crown, and the king intended to make it a place of retirement for himself; but in the rebellion which soon followed, he was taken prisoner in Wales, and brought to Kenilworth: here he was compelled to sign his abdication; and soon after was privately removed to Berkeley Castle, where he was inhumanly murdered in 1327.

Edward III restored the Castle to the Earl of Lancaster, whose grand-daughter brought it in marriage to the celebrated John of Gaunt, afterwards duke of Lancaster, who made many additions to the

castle, which still retain the name of Lancaster's buildings. On his death it descended to his son, afterwards Henry IV.

During the civil wars between the houses of York and Lancaster, it was alternately taken by the partizans of the white and the red roses: and very long after their termination, Queen Elizabeth bestowed it upon her heartless and ambitious favourite, Dudley, Earl of Leicester. That wealthy nobleman spared no expense in beautifying the castle, and in making many splendid additions, called after him Leicester's Buildings. But the most memorable incident in the history of Kenilworth Castle, is the royal entertainment given by the aspiring earl to his queen.

Elizabeth visited him in state, attended by thirtyone barons, besides her ladies of the court, who, with four hundred servants, were all lodged in the castle. The festival continued for seventeen days, at an expense estimated at one thousand pounds a day (a very large sum in those times). The waiters upon the court, as well as the gentlemen of the barons, were all clothed in velvet: ten oxen were slaughtered every morning; and the consumption of wine is said to have been sixteen hogsheads, and of beer, forty hogsheads, daily.

An account of this singular and romantic entertainment published at the time, by an eye-witness, presents a curious picture of the luxuriance, plenty, and gallantry, of Elizabeth's reign.

66

After her journey from London, which the queen performed entirely on horseback, she stopped at Long Itchington, where she dined; and hunting on the way, arrived at the castle, on Saturday, July 9, 1575. 'Here," says the writer of the curious little book to which we have referred, and whose descriptions we borrow in his own words, "she was received by a person representing one of the ten sybills, cumly clad in a pall of white sylk, who pronounced a proper poezie in English rime and meteer," on the happiness her presence produced, wherever it appeared; concluding with a prediction of her future eminence and success.

"On her entrance into the tilt-yard," continues the writer, "a porter, tall of person and stern of countenance, wrapt also in sylk, with a club and keiz of quantitee according, in a rough speech, full of passions, in meter aptly made to the purpose," demanded the cause of all this "din and noise, and riding about within the charge of his office," but upon seeing the queen, as if he had been instantaneously stricken, he falls down upon his knees, humbly begs pardon for his ignorance, yields up his club and keys, and proclaims open gates and free passage to all.

After this pretty device, six trumpeters, "clad in long garments of sylk, who stood upon the wall of the gate, with their silvery trumpets of five foot long, sounded a tune of welcome." These "harmonious blasters, walking upon the walls, maintained their delectable music, while her highness, all along the tiltyard, rode into the inner-gate," where she was surprised "with the sight of a floating island, on the large pool, on which was a beautiful female figure, representing the Lady of the Lake, supported by two

was seized by Cromwell, and by him given to some of his officers. These rapacious plunderers, who had no sort of feeling for the beauteous and majestic, soon reduced it to what it now is, a pile of ruins. They drained the lake which once flowed over so many hundred acres, ravaged the woods, beat down the walls, dismounted the towers, choked up its fair walks, and rooted out its pleasant gardens; destroyed the park, and divided and appropriated the lands.

On the restoration of Charles II, the estate and ruins of the castle were granted to Lawrence, Viscount Hyde, of Kenilworth, second son of the celebrated Lord High Chancellor, created Baron of Kenilworth, and Earl of Rochester; and by the marriage of a female heiress descended from him, passed in 1752, into the possession of Thomas Villiers, Baron Hyde, son of the Earl of Jersey, who was advanced in 1776, to the dignity of the Earl of Clarendon; in the possession of whose son it still remains.

REPLY TO THE LINES ON AN HOUR-GLASS."*

Say not, so long a toil were vain,
To gather up a single grain,
When time has scatter'd with his hand
The life compared to precious sand:
Save that you only mean to teach
Such power lies not within the reach
Of man. His highest thought and art
Could not one spark of life impart.
There is a hand that needs not years,
Nor months, nor days,-nor toils, nor cares,
To turn the glass for lifeless man,
From which the golden current ran,
Still quicker than you turn the glass
Through which the golden grains must pass,
To measure by their ceaseless fall,
Heaven's most precious gift, to all;
Can HE! who spake and it was done,
When the wide earth its race begun,
Bring back life's stream with vital power,
And bid it run an endless hour.

Thus it will be! His hand will raise
To life, and strength, and boundless days,
The wreck from which sweet life has fled,
When graves deliver up their dead.
Speak not of toil! the trumpet's sound,
In one short moment, will be found
Sufficient to awake the dead,

And place them with their Living Head.
Yea, in the twinkling of an eye,

The power that rules both earth and sky,
Shall into ceaseless motion bring

The long stopp'd wheels-of life the spring. J. P. * See page 69.

MIDDLESEX LUNATIC ASYLUM.

Be you to others kind and true,
As you'd have others be to you,
And neither do or say to men,

Whate'er you would not take again.

THIS was one of the earliest maxims impressed upon our mind in the nursery, and taught us by the monarch of our village school. First impressions are always the strongest and most lasting, and whether conveyed in prose or in rhyme, they will often recur to the mind, when more recent acquirements have become lost and forgotten. But what, our kind reader may ask, have these moral maxims to do with the magnificent asylum of which we have here given a view? A good deal, my friend; for here we have a splendid instance of the kindness of man to his unfortunate and destitute fellow creatures. A place of rest and comfort for the hitherto too much neglected sufferers of our species. An asylum that does honour to human nature, and cannot fail to prove a blessing to the country.

It is a curious circumstance, that in all countries, the feelings of mankind seem to have been alike in all that regarded the care and treatment of their insane brethren. We every where find that the lunatic and the criminal have been classed together; and, too often, the murderer and the furious maniac have been chained to the walls of the same dungeon.

Previously to the suppression of Catholic monasteries and religious houses in this country, the poor, as well as others who were deranged in mind, were taken care of, and supported in these establishments, sometimes with great humanity, and at others with great neglect; but at the Reformation, a multitude of these wretched beings were cast upon society, as helpless as they were often dangerous to the community. Their numbers in and about the Metropolis, very soon made it necessary to take some measures for their protection and seclusion; and the government of the day, or as it is generally stated, the king, (Henry VIII) gave the Priory of Bethlem,* one of the suppressed religious communities, to the magistrates of London, to be converted into an asylum for the lunatics then wandering about the city. This priory stood to the east of London, nearly surrounded by what was called the Moor-fields, a large tract of uncultivated swampy land. Here, for nearly two centuries, the lunatics were shut up like wild beasts, and very little better attended to, until at last the ruinous state of the old buildings obliged the city to think of providing a more secure and comfortable abode for their increasing number of lunatics. In April 1675, the first stone, of the first building, ever raised in England, expressly for the accommodation of lunatics, was laid by the president and governors of the Bridewell and Bethlem hospitals; and in about fifteen months from that date, a very foolish and extravagantly gaudy building, was completed, which continued to be used for the confinement (we can scarcely say for the care) of lunatics, till 1815, when the present more suitable and conve nient hospital was erected, on the Surrey side of the Thames, near Westminster bridge.

Very carly in the present century there seems to have been a kind of general movement all over Europe in favour of the poor forsaken lunatic. In France, Pinel; in Germany, Drs. Horn, Frank, and others, not only succeeded in calling public attention to the subject, but in effecting the most beneficial changes in their condition and treatment; and in this country the first warning voice proceeded from a poor, and then powerless medical student at the University of Edinburgh, in the form of an anonymous pamphlet addressed to Lord Henry Petty, (the present Marquis of Lansdown) then Chancellor of the Exchequer. This pamphlet described in very simple language, some of the scenes which the author had witnessed in what were called public and private mad-houses, and made a very strong impression upon the minds of several very eminent individuals in England. The subject was mooted in the House of Commons, and a select committee appointed to inquire into the truth of the various statements which were now of daily occurrence, The inquiry led to an Act for providing county asylums for the insane population in England, which first passed in 1808, and since the passing of that Act, various county hospitals have been provided for the treatment of insanity, upon sound and rational principles, and with a success that has scarcely been equalled in the treatment of any other disease.

Amidst the congregated multitudes of this great and overflowing metropolis, it was found that insanity for a mad-house. This was the cause of Bethlem or Bedlam being a general term The present Sir Andrew Halliday, M.D. of Hampton Court.

prevailed to a very great extent; and that the parishes had long been in the custom of providing for their security by contracting with what was called a private mad-house keeper for their confinement. Further inquiry detecting the most disgusting cruelties and abuses in these dens of human suffering, the magistrates of the county of Middlesex commenced the erection of a county asylum, and in about three years the present magnificent establishment was completed, and opened about two years ago, for the reception of patients.

To the indefatigable zeal and humane feelings of the late Lord Robert Seymour, and the unwearied attention and exertions of Colonel James Clithero, among many other worthy and zealous members of the magistracy, this great metropolitan county is in an especial manner indebted for this splendid establishment, which is perhaps the largest and best arranged of any in Europe, or in the world. It was built under the direction and superintendence of Robert Sibley, Esq., then county surveyor, and does the greatest credit to his professional skill. The site chosen was perhaps the best in point of economy, healthiness, and convenience, that could have been found; and the architect has made the utmost of its advantages, in securing for the inmates of every room and cell the benefits of warmth and light and air. The arrangement of the whole building, with its offices, wards, and places for exercises, is perfect in its kind.

The whole expense has been about £120,000, and it will contain 500 patients; who are placed under the care of Dr. Ellis, so well known for his skill in the treatment of insanity. The females are under the management of Mrs. Ellis.

The Middlesex Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell, is highly deserving of a visit from every friend of humanity. Here are no secrets to be hid from the eyes of man. No dungeons where only the rattle of chains and manacles, or the moans of the oppressed, are to be heard. But a regular and well ordered community, many of them cheerfully enjoying the labours of the field, or busy at their usual trade, and all occupied and industrious, and evidently happy.

We cannot conclude these remarks without earnestly, most earnestly, exhorting all those counties in England, and there are still many, who have not availed themselves of the provisions of the law to follow the example of the magistrates of Middlesex, and to lose no time in providing County Asylums for their Insane Poor.

THE LEAF, BY BISHOP HORNE.
We all fade, like a leaf.-ISA. lxiv. 6.

SEE the leaves around us falling,
Dry and wither'd to the ground;
Thus to thoughtless mortals calling,
In a sad and solemn sound
Sons of Adam, once in Eden,

Blighted when like us he fell,
Hear the lecture we are reading,
'Tis, alas! the truth we tell.
Virgins, much, too much presuming

On your boasted white and red,
View us, late in beauty blooming,

Number'd now among the dead. Griping misers, nightly waking,

See the end of all your care; Fled on wings of our own making,

We have left our owners bare. Sons of honour, fed on praises,

Flutt'ring high in fancied worth, Lo! the fickle air, that raises,

Brings us down to parent earth. Learned sophs, in systems jaded,

Who for new ones daily call, Cease, at length, by us persuaded,

Ev'ry leaf must have its fall. Youths, though yet no losses grieve you, Gay in health and manly grace, Let not cloudless skies deceive you, Summer gives to Autumn place. Venerable sires, grown hoary,

Hither turn th' unwilling eye. Think, amidst your falling glory Autumn tells a winter nigh. Yearly in our course returning,

Messengers of shortest stay, Thus we preach, this truth concerning, "Heaven and earth shall pass away." On the Tree of Life eternal,

Man, let all thy hope be staid, Which alone, for ever vernal,

Bears a leaf that shall not fade.

I HATE to see a thing done by halves; if it be right, do it boldly if it be wrong, leave it undone.-GILPIN.

Glasgow .........Griffin and Co.

C. RICHARDS, Printer, 100, St. Martin's Lane, Charing Cross.