A FATHER'S ADVICE TO HIS SON. THE following letter was written by Sir Henry Sidney to his son Philip, then twelve years of age, at school in Shrewsbury. The original is kept at Penshurst. "I have received two letters from you; which I take in good part; and, since this is my first letter that ever I did write to you, I will not that it be empty of some advices, which my natural care of you provoketh me to wish you to follow, as documents to you in this your tender age. "Let your first action be the lifting up of your mind to Almighty God by hearty prayer; and feelingly digest the words you speak in prayer, with continual meditation, and thinking of him to whom you pray, and of the matter for which you pray; and use this at an ordinary hour, whereby the time itself will put you in remembrance to do that which you are accustomed to do in that time. "Apply your study to such hours as your discreet master doth assign you, earnestly; and the time, I know, he will so limit as shall be both sufficient for your learning, and safe for your health. "And mark the sense and the matter of that you read, as well as the words; so shall you both enrich your tongue with words, and your wit with matter; and judgment will grow as years groweth in you. "Be humble and obedient to your master; for, unless you frame yourself to obey others, yea, and feel in yourself what obedience is, you shall never be able to teach others "Be cautious of gesture, and affable to all men, with diversity of reverence, according to the dignity of the person. There is nothing that winneth so much with so little how to obey you. cost. "Use moderate diet, so as, after your meat, you may find your wit fresher and not duller, and your body more lively, and not more heavy. "Seldom drink wine, and yet sometimes do; lest being enforced to drink upon the sudden, you should find yourself inflamed. "Use exercise of body, but such as is without peril of your joints or bones; it will increase your force and enlarge your breath. 66 Delight to be cleanly, as well in all parts of your body as in your garments; it shall make you grateful in each company, and, otherwise, loathsome. "Give yourself to be merry; for you degenerate from your father, if you find not yourself most able in wit and body to do any thing when you be most merry. But let your mirth be ever void of all scurrility and biting words to any man; for a wound given by a word is oftentimes harder to be cured than that which is given with the sword. "Be you rather a hearer and bearer away of other men's talk, than a beginner or procurer of speech; otherwise you shall be counted to delight to hear yourself speak. "If you hear a wise sentence, or an apt phrase, commit it to your memory, with respect to the circumstance when you shall speak it. "Let never oath be heard to come out of your mouth, nor word of ribaldry; detest it in others, so shall custom make to yourself a law against it in yourself. "Be modest in each assembly; and rather be rebuked of light fellows for maiden-like shamefacedness, than of your sad friends for pert boldness. Think upon every word that you will speak before you atter it, and remember how nature hath rampired up, as it were, the tongue with teeth, lips, yea, and hair without the lips, and all betokening reins or bridles for the loose use of that member. "Above all things, tell no untruth; no, not in trifles. The custom of it is naught; and let it not satisfy you, that, for a time, the hearers take it for a truth; for, after, it will be known as it is, to your shame; for there cannot be a greater reproach to a gentleman than to be accounted a liar. "Study and endeavour yourself to be virtuously occupied; so shall you make such a habit of well-doing in you, that you shall not know how to do evil though you would. Remember, my son, the noble blood you are descended of by your mother's side, and think that only by virtuous life and good action, you may be an ornament to that illustrious family; and otherwise, through vice and sloth, you shall be counted labes generis, one of the greatest curses that can happen to man. Well, my little Philip, this is enough for me, and too much, I fear, for you. But, if I shall find that this light meal of digestion nourish any thing the weak stomach of your young capacity, I will, as I find the same grow stronger, feed it with tougher food. "Your loving father, so long as you live in the fear of God. H. SIDNEY." The Little Philip of this beautiful letter was the Sir Philip Sidney, of whom we gave a memoir and a portrait in a former number. THE WALRUS. THE WALRUS, (frequently but unmeaningly, called Sea-Horse and Sea-Cow,) formerly resorted to the shores of the Gulf of St. Laurence, but is now chiefly seen on the northern coast of Labrador and Hudson's Bay, and occasionally at the Magdalen Islands, and near the Straits of Belle Isle. They are fond of breeding in herds, and their affection for each other is very apparent. The form of the body, and of the head, with the exception of the nose being broader, and having two tusks from fifteen inches to two feet long in the upper jaw, is not very unlike that of the seal. A full-grown Walrus will weigh at least four thousand pounds. The skins are valuable, being about an inch in thickness, astonishingly tough, and the Acadian French used to cut them into stripes for traces and other purposes. The tusks are excellent ivory. The flesh is hard, tough, and greasy, and not much relished even by the EsquiThey are said to feed on shell-fish, and marine plants. They will attack small boats, merely through wantonness; and, as they generally attempt to stave it, are extremely dangerous. Their blazing eyes, and their tusks, give them a formidable appearance; but, unless wounded, or any of their number be killed, they do not seem ever to intend hurting the men. maux. They have been known at times to enter some distance into the woods; and persons acquainted with the manner of killing them, have got between them and the sea, and urged them on with a sharp-pointed pole, until they got the whole drove a sufficient distance from the water, when they fell to and killed these immense animals, incapable of resistance out of their element. It is said, that on being attacked in this manner, and finding themselves unable to escape, they have set up a most piteous howl and cry. The foregoing account is abridged from Mr. M'Gregor's valuable work on British America, to which we add some interesting particulars from Brooke's Winter in Lapland. The sea-horse fishery in the north, partly on account of the war, and other causes, among which the increasing scarcity of this animal was a principal one, was for some time almost given up by the Russians. The respite, however, that the animal obtained in consequence, for some time, again brought immense herds of the walrus to Cherie and the Spitzbergen Islands; and this fishery is again prosecuted with spirit by the Russians, as well as by the people of Finmark. The success of the vessels sent has been great, without the numbers of the animal being visibly diminished. Mr. Colquhoun, who lately returned from an expedition to Spitzbergen and the Finmark coasts, to try the power of the Congreve rocket against the species of whale, known by the name of 'the finner,' informs me they found the walrus lying in herds of many hundreds each, on the shores of Hope and Cherie Isles, and took a great quantity of them. The most favourable time for attacking them is when the tide is out, and they are reposing on the rocks. In this case, if the sailors be very alert, and fortunato enough to The Walrus, or Sea Horse. kill the lower rank of them, which lies nearest the shore, before the hindmost can pass, they are able to secure the whole; as the walrus, when on shore, is so unwieldy a creature, that it cannot get over the obstacles thrown in its way by the dead bodies of its companions, and falls in this manner a prey to the lance of the seamen. It does not, however, die tamely; and perhaps no animal offers a more determined resistance, when attacked on an element where they are incapable of exerting their prodigious strength, striking furiously at their enemy, and continually turning round to assist their companions in distress. When an alarm of the approach of an enemy is given, the whole herd makes for the sea. When they reach the water they tumble in as expeditiously as possible; but the numbers are often so immense, and the size of the animal is so great, that a short time clapses before they can escape, from want of space. In this case, those who happen to be in the rear, being pressed by the danger behind them, and finding their way blocked up by their companions in front, attempt, by means of their tusks, to force their way through the crowd; and several that have been taken at the time by means of the boats, have borne visible proofs of the hurry of their comrades, in the numerous wounds inflicted on their hind quarters. The principal use of their tusks is probably to enable them to detach their food from the ground or rocks. They also employ them to secure themselves to the rocks while they sleep; and it not unfrequently happens, that during their sleep the tide falls, and leaves them suspended by their tusks, so that they are unable to extricate themselves. Though the value of the ivory and oil obtained from the walrus has latterly suffered a considerable fall, the fishery is still a very profitable one; and the distance from Finmark to the seat of it not being great, two voyages may be made sometimes in the course of the season. The oil derived from the animal, as well as the ivory from the tusks, is of a very fine quality. EVERY man hath a kingdom within himself: Reason, as the princess, dwells in the highest and inwardest room: the senses are the guard and attendants on the court; without whose aid, nothing is admitted into the presence: the supreme faculties (as will, memory, &c.) are the Peers: the outward parts, and inward affections, are the Commons: violent passions are rebels, to disturb the common peace. -BISHOP HALL. COTTON.-The following account of a pound weight of unmanufactured Cotton strikingly proves the importance of the trade and employment afforded by this vegetable."The cotton wool came from the East Indies to London; from London, it went to Manchester, where it was manufactured into yarn; from Manchester it was sent to Paisley, where it was woven; it was then sent to Ayrshire, where it was tamboured; it came back to Paisley, and was there veined; afterwards it was sent to Dumbarton, where it was hand sewed, and again brought to Paisley; whence it was sent to Renfrew to be bleached, and was returned to Paisley, whence it went to Glasgow and was finished, and from Glasgow was sent, per coach, to London. The time occupied in bringing this article to market was three years, from its being packed in India till it arrived in cloth at the merchant's warehouse in London: it must have been conveyed 5000 miles by sea, and about 920 by land; and contributed to support not less than 150 people, by which the value had been increased 2000 per cent. GRASSES.-Grasses are Nature's care. With these God clothes the earth; with these He sustains its inhabitants. Cattle feed upon their leaves, birds upon their smaller seeds, men upon the larger; for few readers need be told that the plants which produce our bread-corn belong to this class. In those tribes, which are more generally considered as grasses, their extraordinary means and powers of preservation and increase, their hardiness, their almost unconquerable disposition to spread, their properties of reproduction, coincide with the intention of Nature concern ing them. They thrive under a treatment, by which other plants are destroyed. The more their leaves are consumed, the more their roots increase; the more they are trampled upon, the thicker they grow. Many of the seemingly dry and dead leaves of grasses revive, and renew their verdure in the spring. In lofty mountains, where the summer heats are not sufficient to ripen the seeds, grasses abound, which are able to propagate themselves without seed. It is an observation, likewise, which has often been made, that herb-eating animals attach themselves to the leaves of grasses, and, if at liberty in their pastures to range and choose, leave untouched the straws which support the flowers.-PALEY. PRAYER. THERE is an eye that never sleeps, When human strength gives way; When earthly loves decay. That eye is fix'd on seraph throngs; That ear is filled with angels' songs; That arm upholds the world on high; That love is throned beyond the sky. But there's a power which man can wield When mortal aid is vain ; That eye, that arm, that love to reach, That listening ear to gain. That power is Prayer, which soars on nigh, And feeds on bliss beyond the sky! Of the beautiful and interesting cluster of islands lying close to the coast of France, in the Bay of La Manche, though belonging to England, little more is known to the generality of the English people than the names of the three principal of them, Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney. We are proverbial for our love of travelling, and the reproach is often but too well deserved, that we traverse the remotest parts of the globe, in search of scenes and objects which yet scarcely surpass in splendour, beauty, or interest, those near our own homes. The distance, however, of these islands from England, is some excuse for the neglect they experience. They are visited chiefly by persons engaged in trade, or by those who, from motives of economy, seek a place where the necessaries of life are cheap, and its luxuries untaxed. These islands, however, deserve to be better known, both for their beauty, and even for some degree of historical interest which attaches to them. They are numerous, beautifully grouped, and have a considerable resemblance to each other in character. Of the three already mentioned, it is to Jersey that we shall confine our present observations. Belted by granite rocks of the boldest character, and worked by the waves into the most fantastic and picturesque forms,-displaying, upon a nearer approach, every variety of shade, from a deep purplishblack, through the brown and glowing red, till far out of reach of the foaming wave, they are bleached by the sun and rain to a bright and silvery-grey. With this rugged exterior, the island is singularly VOL. I. fertile, and the deep valleys which cross it abound in beauty, though, from the quantity of wood, its views are generally too narrow in extent. To excite an historical interest, it will only be necessary to mention one point. These islands are the only remains of all our Norman possessions; the only portions which have invariably followed the fortunes of our own country in all changes of religion and of government. Long, however, after we had ceased to hold any part of Continental France, except the port of Calais, they continued under the Bishop of Coutance, from whom they were only transferred to the diocese of Winchester about the year 1500, by a bull of Pope Alexander VI. Of antiquities, properly speaking, Jersey can boast but little. It is a place whose importance was understood too recently, the distance from England was too great, and the nearness to France too close, to allow of those enormous expenditures which raised edifices to contribute to the splendour and luxury of ages long gone by, and to be, even in ruins, the wonder and admiration of our own. But though ornament was neglected, all that could contribute to its strength and security seems to have been sufficiently provided. The castle, of which we give a view, is situated on a high rocky promontory, which, (to use the somewhat pompous words of its native historian, Falle,) "proudly overlooks and threatens the neighbouring coast of France," whence it is distant only about fourteen miles. It is said to derive its name of Mont Orgueil (Mount Pride) from the Duke of Clarence, brother to Henry 23 V., one of its governors. It is a place of considerable extent, and, before the perfection of artillery, of vast strength. Indeed, it is its great size and strength, its position, and some historical recollections attached to it, that form its chief attractions; for it seems to have been constructed at the lowest possible expense compatible with its utility as a fortress. There is a total absence of ornament, and it is built of irregular pieces of the stone of the island, without much regard to beauty of form or regularity of proportions. But it But it commands a splendid view of the coast of France for many leagues, and possesses that peculiar interest which belongs to the half-ruinous structures of antiquity: The date of its first erection is doubtful, nor is it possible even to guess at it with any thing like probability; though, as in many other places whose origin is wrapped in the obscurity of time, the credit of the foundation is given to that great castle-builder, Julius Cæsar. It is evidently, however, even from portions of the present structure, of very great antiquity. War has done its work upon some parts, and time has not been idle with others; but still the walls, which are of immense thickness, stand firm, and may still stand for ages. Among the most ancient parts are two chapels, or crypts, on different elevations, but formerly communicating, by means of a stair and gallery, now stopped with rubbish. The lower of these crypts, too, is almost choked up, and an entrance is only to be obtained through the roof. The pillars are short and conical, a good deal like the usual stone supports of a cornstack. The arches are pointed, and the whole is composed of very small stones strongly cemented together. Within the outer wall of the fortress the rock rises to a considerable height, and its natural form has been taken advantage of to a surprising extent in the construction of the different walls, stairs, and towers. Upon passing through the first gate-way, which is possessed of all the usual defences, we proceed through a long narrow passage, between the outer wall and the rock, to a second gate-way, beyond which is a court, and opposite, a curious half-bastion of ancient construction. To the left is a gate-house, with defences leading into the centre of the castle, and over the gate are the arms of Edward VI.; the lion, and the red dragon, with the date of 1553. Within this gate on the left is a dark cell-like apartment, and on the right a small gallery raised eight steps, with brick seats on both sides, where it is said that the court was held in former days, and criminals were tried. When sentenced they were put into the cell, which is so conveniently near; and that there might be no hindrance to the full course of justice, the two ends of a beam are shown just above the entrance, on which the final sentence might be executed. Among the prisoners confined in this castle was the notorious Prynne, so well known in the history of Charles I., for the malice of his writings and the severity of his punishment. Beyond the gallery is an open space, now rank with weeds, though formerly covered with buildings, underneath which is the crypt, or under-ground chapel, before mentioned. It is entered, as already described, by a small hole in the roof, which is at present level with the ground. Adjoining is the keep, or main fortress,--an immense round, or rather oval building. The history of the castle of Mont Orgueil is of course the history of the whole island. D'Argentré states, that the English were so jealous of this castle, that no Frenchman was suffered to come within its gates without being blindfolded. It has successfully resisted several attacks of the French, One in par-. | ticular during the reign of Edward the Third, when Philip de Valois made an attempt upon it, hoping to alarm the king and prevent him from pursuing his conquests in France. But the most formidable attack was made by the famous Bertrand du Guesclin, the constable of France, accompanied by the Duke de Bourbon, and the flower of the French chivalry. Some of the outer walls were thrown down without injuring the body of the place; and at last, an agree ment was entered into, that if not relieved before a certain day, it should be surrendered. In the mean time, the English fleet appeared, and Du Guesclin was glad to provide for his own safety. But the circumstance which most distinguishes this island, is its conduct during the trying period of the civil wars, which terminated in the murder of Charles the First; unshaken in their loyalty, devoted to their religion, decent and orderly in their mode of life, and withal, brave and enterprising, as were the people, it formed the last retreat of royalty, the last hold of fidelity to its king. In the year 1648, Prince Charles, who had been sent into the west of England by his unhappy father, was forced to retire to Jersey, where he landed, April 17, accompanied by the historian Clarendon, and others of the privy council. After a residence of two months in Mont Orgueil, he was induced, contrary to the remonstrances of his council, to trust himself to France, and the power of the crafty Mazarin. Clarendon remained behind, residing with his friend Carteret, so often and so honourably mentioned in his celebrated history. In writing that work, he here employed his leisure; and thus began a monument to his own fame, which as long as the English language endures, will remain a lesson and a warning to future generations. The house in which he lived, was ever after called the Chancellor's house. A few days after the Prince had landed in Jersey, Charles the First gave himself up to the Scots at Newark. When he escaped from Hampton Court, he seems to have had Jersey in view. Charles the Second, after staying some time at the Hague, returned to Jersey in the autumn, and remained there till the following spring. He was well acquainted with the island, and even drew a map of it; which was long after preserved in the cabinet of a collector at Leipsic. In October, 1651, an armament was fitted out against Jersey, under the command of Blake. After much opposition, and several days' manœuvring, a landing was effected. The news was received with great joy in St. Stephen's, and so important was it deemed, that public thanksgivings were ordered for the success. Mont Orgueil Castle did not on this occasion preserve its ancient reputation; indeed, it seems to have been but indifferently provided for a siege. They had but eighteen guns mounted, many of these unserviceable, and five iron murderers, as they were then called. Sir George Carteret shut himself up in Elizabeth's castle, another fort of considerable strength, and defended it with so much courage and skill, that the parliamentary general was glad to enter into a treaty with him, by which all who chose were allowed to leave the castle with their arms and property, and transport themselves to France. The scenes which then followed, were unhappily too common in those times: 5000 republican soldiers were put into free quarters, among the peaceable inhabitants; the churches were turned into stables and guard-houses, and the decent reverence of the people for sacred things was shocked with all kinds of profanation and impiety. The Restoration brought back to the islanders the free enjoyment of their religion and liberty, and they have ever since continued a loyal, contented, and happy people. We can only recommend those who are disposed to wander abroad in search of objects of interest, or scenes of natural beauty, to pay a visit to these islands; and we think they will not be disappointed. THE WATERS OF THREE RIVERS.-In the year 1801, when an expedition from this country landed in Egypt, under the command of the gallant and lamented Sir Ralph Abercrombie, it was joined by a British force from India. The vessels which conveyed the army from England had taken in their provision of water from the Thames; the troops which came from India had brought with them a supply from the Ganges. A party of British officers mixed some of the water from these two famous rivers together, adding some of that of the no less famous Nile; and with it making a bowl of punch, they drank it on the top of one of the pyramids. CONVERSION OF FORESTS INTO BOGS.-Natural woods have long ceased to exist except in a few instances-this has been owing to various causes. Extensive forests, occupying a long tract of tolerably level ground, have been gradually destroyed by natural decay, hastened by the increase of the bogs. The wood which they might have produced, was useless to the proprietors; the state of the roads, as well as of the country in general, not permitting so bulky and weighty an article to be carried from the place where it had grown, however valuable it might have proved had it been transported elsewhere. In this situation, the trees of the natural forest pined and withered, and were thrown down by the wind; and it often necessarily happened that they fell into or across some little stream or rivulet, by the side of which they had flourished and decayed, The stream being stopped, the soil around it became soaked with standing water, and instead of being, as hitherto, the drain of the forest, the stopping of the rivulet turned into a swamp what its current had formerly rendered dry. The loose bog-earth, and the sour moisture with which it was soaked, loosened and poisoned the roots of other neighbouring trees, which, at the next storm, went to the ground in their turn, and tended to impede still more the current of the water; whilst the moss (as the bog-earth is called in Scotland) went on increasing and heaving up, so as to bury the trunks of the trees which it had destroyed. In the counties of Inverness and Ross, instances may be seen at the present day where this melancholy process of the conversion of a forest into a bog is still going forward. [From a most useful and entertaining article in the Quarterly Review, Vol. xxxvi., attributed to SIR WALTER SCOTT.] SOCIAL WORSHIP. THERE is a joy, which angels well may prize : To see, and hear, and aid God's worship, when Unnumber'd tongues, a host of Christian men, Youths, matrons, maidens, join. Their sounds arise, "Like many waters;" now glad symphonies Of thanks and glory to our God; and then, At once to pray, at once in God rejoice!-D. C. AT Persherg there are not less than thirteen different mines, all worked for iron, which have no communication with each other; and so extensive are they, that to see the whole of them would require at least three days of active exertion. A careful examination of one of them may, therefore, serve to afford a tolerably accurate knowledge of the whole. The author's visit to these mines was made after he had personally visited many of the principal works of the same nature in other countries, and especially in his own. For the last ten years of his life, he had been much in the habit of seeing similar works; it is not, therefore, owing to any surprise at the novelty of the scene before him, that he has now to mention the astonishment he felt when he arrived at the mouth of one of the great Persberg mines; but he is fully prepared to say of it, and with truth, there is nothing like it in all that he has beheld elsewhere. For grandeur of effect, filling the mind of the spectator with a degree of wonder which amounts to awe, there is no place where human labour is exhibited under circumstances more tremendously striking. As we drew near to the wide and open abyss, a vast and sudden prospect of yawning caverns, and of prodigious machinery, prepared us for the descent. We approached the edge of the dreadful gulf whence the ore is raised, and ventured to look down, standing upon the verge of a sort of platform (seen in the accompanying engraving), constructed over it in sucht a manner as to command a view into the great opening as far as the eye could penetrate amidst its gloomy depths,-for to the sight it is bottomless. Immense buckets, suspended by rattling chains, were passing up and down; and we could perceive ladders scaling all the inward precipices, upon which the work-people, reduced, by their distance, to pigmies in size, were ascending and descending. Far below the utmost of these figures, a deep and gaping gulf, the mouth of the lowermost pits, was, by its darkness, rendered impervious to the view. From the spot where we stood, down to the place where the buckets are filled, the distance might be about four hundred and fifty feet; and as soon as any of these buckets arose from the gloomy cavity we have mentioned, or until they entered into it in their descent, they were visible; but below this point they were hid in darkness. The clanking of the chains, the groaning of the pumps, the hallooing of the miners, the creaking of the blocks and wheels, the trampling of horses, the beating of the hammers, and the loud and frequent subterraneous thunders, from the blasting of the rocks by gunpowder, in the midst of all this scene of excavation and uproar, produced an effect which no stranger can behold unmoved. We descended, with two of the miners and our interpreter, into this abyss. The ladders, instead of being placed, like those in our Cornish mines, upon a series of platforms, as so many landing-places, are lashed together in one unbroken line, extending many fathoms; and, being warped to suit the shape of the sides of the precipices, they are not always perpendicular, but hang over in such a manner that, even if a person held fast by his hands, and if his feet should happen to slip, they would fly off from the rock, and leave him suspended over the gulf. Yet such ladders are the only means of access to the works below; and as the labourers are not accustomed to receive strangers, they neither use the precautions, nor offer the assistance, usually afforded in more frequented mines. In the principal tin-mines of Cornwall, the staves of the ladders are alternate bars of wood and iron; here they were of wood only, and in some parts rotten and broken, making us often wish, during our descent, that we had never undertaken an exploit so hazardous. In addition to the danger to be apprehended from the damaged state of the ladders, the staves were covered with ice or mud, and thus rendered so cold and slippery, that we could have no dependence upon Then, our benumbed fingers, if our feet failed us. to complete our apprehensions, as we mentioned this It was just to the miners, they said, "Have a care! so (talking about the staves) that one of our women * Females, as well as males, work in the Swedish mines. * |