of Alexander the Great. It had been removed from the mosque, formerly the church of St. Athanasius, by the French while in Egypt. It was brought to England, and deposited in the British Museum; but the fact of its having been the tomb of Alexander the Great has been much disputed. buildings worthy of powerful sovereigns and an en- | Edward Daniel Clarke, which is supposed to be that lightened people. As the site of Alexandria is totally destitute of fresh water, a canal was cut to the Nile, by means of which a vast number of cisterns were filled, into which the water was admitted at stated times. Of these about two hundred are still in use. The palaces, temples, theatres, and buildings of Alexandria were most numerous and splendid. But its chief glory was its magnificent harbour, situated in a deep and secure bay of the Mediterranean. The neck of land which stretched from the continent to the Isle of Pharos divided the great harbour into two -that division towards the north being styled the Great Port, and the other Eunostus, or the safe return. A wall drawn from the island to the rock on which the Pharos, or lighthouse, was built, preserved the former port from the westerly winds. There are still two harbours, called the Old and the New Port. The Old Port, which is much larger and more safe than the other, is reserved exclusively for Mohammedan shipping. At the entrance to the other port is a fort, which stands upon a rock connected with the land by a dike constructed of granite columns from some ancient edifice. The celebrated lighthouse, or watchtower, of Pharos, finished in the first year of the reign of Ptolemy II., surnamed Philadelphus, was the work of Sostratus, a celebrated architect. The lighthouse was an immense square building of white marble, on the top of which fires were constantly kept burning for the direction of mariners. Among the great features of ancient Alexandria were the Necropolis, or city of the dead (its general cemetery), extending upwards of a mile along the seashore*, and some excavations which now bear the name of Cleopatra's Baths. Two granite obelisks, called Cleopatra's Needles, one still standing, and the other lying beside it, formed the entrance to what is called the palace of Cæsar, and are of red granite, or Syenite. These obelisks are sixty-five feet high, and between seven and eight feet square. The one standing was cleared of the sand that had accumulated round its base, by the French, down to the foundation, to a depth of sixteen feet. Each side is covered with sculptures; those on the west are in the best state of preservation; on two of the sides the hieroglyphics are nearly effaced. Some years since, a subscription was raised, by several officers of the British service, to remove the fallen obelisks to this country; but for some unexplained reason the sailors of our fleet were forbidden to assist in the labour. A proposition to effect the same object was made in the House of Commons on the 15th of April, 1832, under the sanction of Government. It was then stated that the huge mass of stone weighed 284 tons, and would cost 15,000l. for its transport. It has not transpired whether any farther steps have been taken. The well-known Pompey's Pillar stands between the walls of the city and the lake; and it is, according to Pococke, 117 feet high; but other authorities make it only 95 feet: the pedestal and shaft are each composed of single masses of granite. Alexander expired at Babylon, from whence his body was conveyed to Alexandria in a splendid car, and deposited in a coffin of gold in a temple erected to his memory. The fate of his remains has never been ascertained; but his mausoleum was violated by Seleucus Cibyofactes, who carried off the golden coffin, and put a glass one in its place. In 1804, a sarcophagus was discovered near Alexandria, in the hold of an hospital ship, by the celebrated traveller, Dr. * See Saturday Magazine, Vol. II. p. 255. Alexander the Great gave considerable encouragement to the Jews to settle in this city. He allowed them the free exercise of their religion, and admitted them to a share of the same franchises and liberties which he granted to his own Macedonian subjects. Accordingly, the city of Alexandria was in a great measure peopled by Jews, and it is chiefly this circumstance which connects its history with the elucidation of the Scriptures. Of this city, Apollos, the companion of St. Paul, was a native (Acts 18. 24); and of the Jews that disputed with Stephen and put him to death, many were Alexandrians, who, it seems, had a synagogue at that time in Jerusalem. (Acts 6. 9.) It is said, that at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, there were not less than a million of Jews dispersed throughout the whole province of Egypt, in which they had numerous synagogues and oratories, which were either demolished or consumed by fire, upon their congregations refusing to set up the statues of the Roman emperor, Caius Caligula. Christianity was planted in Alexandria at a very early period; and it is possible that it was first carried there by some of the Jews who were converted by the preaching of St. Peter on the day of Pentecost. Some illustrious names in the annals of the Church are found among the bishops of Alexandria, such as Clemens, St. Athanasius, and others, particularly Origen, who flourished here. The Arian heresy, which denies the divinity of our Saviour, was first embraced by Arius, a presbyter in this diocese, and, according to some writers, a native of Alexandria. The city still continues a bishopric and patriarchate in the Greek church, but most of its present inha bitants are Mohammedans. The celebrated collection of books, called the Alexandrian Library, was first formed by Ptolemy Soter, for the use of the academy, or society of learned men, which he had founded at Alexandria. It was placed partly in the academy in the suburb, called Brucheon, which contained the royal palace, and partly within the precincts of a magnificent temple, called Serapeum, which was esteemed only inferior to the Capitol at Rome. Ptolemy Philadelphus, the successor of Ptolemy Soter, made so many additions to it, that, at his death, it had increased to 100,000 volumes. The method by which those books or manuscripts were collected, was, to seize all the books which were brought by the Greeks and other foreigners into Egypt, and send them to the academy or museum, where they were transcribed by persons employed for that purpose; and those transcripts were given to the proprietors, but the originals were retained in the library. When Julius Cæsar attacked Alexandria, in his Egyptian wars, that division of the library in the suburb Brucheon was accidentally burnt, and the 400,000 volumes it contained were consumed; but the library in the temple of the Serapeum was preserved. Cleopatra also deposited in it 200,000 volumes of the Pergamean library, which had been presented to her by Mark Antony. These, and other additions from time to time, made the Serapean library more considerable than the former, and amply repaired the losses of the Brucheon; and though it was often afterwards plundered, it was continually restored. In this state it continued for centuries, long after Egypt had passed from the sceptre of the Ptolemies, till about the middle of the seventh century of the Christian æra, when Alexandria was stormed and taken by the Saracen general Amrou Ebn-al-Aas. On application for the preservation of the library having been made to him, he wrote to the caliph Omar, whose laconic answer has been often quoted :"If these writings of the Greeks agree with the Koran, or book of God, they are useless, and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to be destroyed." The sentence of destruction was executed with blind obedience. The volumes of the Alexandrian library were distributed as fuel to the baths in the city, of which there were no less than 4000, and such was their number, that six months were hardly sufficient for their consumption. Alexandria, when in its glory, was extremely populous. Diodorus Siculus relates, that in his time, B.C. 44, it contained 300,000 free inhabitants, and if, as has been well conjectured, the slaves were as numerous, the whole population would then amount to 600,000. On the fall of the Ptolemies, Alexandria became a provincial city of the Roman empire. It was, A.D. 615, taken by the Persians, but recovered by Heraclius, the Emperor of the East. At length it fell, A.D. 640, into the hands of the Saracens. Amrou, the Saracen general, thus wrote to the caliph Omar :— "I have taken the city of the west. It is of immense extent. I cannot describe to you how many wonders it contains, There are 4000 palaces, 4000 baths, 12,000 dealers in fresh oil, 12,000 gardeners, 40,000 Jews who pay tribute, 400 theatres, or places of amusement." From the consequences of this event Alexandria has never recovered: though during the middle ages it enjoyed some importance as the centre of the limited trade then carried on with the East by the nations of Europe. The discovery of the passage to India round the Cape of Good Hope, however, destroyed its commerce, and the city sank into apparently total ruin. But another change has at length taken place, and it now stands a phenomenon in the history of a Turkish dominion: it appears once more to be raising its head from the dust. The Pacha of Egypt has made great efforts to restore its commercial prosperity, which have been attended with marked success. It is also the station of his fleet, is provided with fortifications, dockyards, and arsenal, and has a population three times as great as it was twenty years ago. It would be difficult (says a most intelligent and enter taining female traveller,-Baroness von Minutoli, in her Recollections of Egypt,) to express the sensations I ex perienced, when, for the first time, I passed through the streets of Alexandria. It would require the talents of a Hogarth, to paint all the various scenes of this magic lantern. What bustle, what confusion, is in these narrow streets, continually blocked up with an innumerable multitude of camels, mules, and asses! The cries of the drivers, incessantly calling to the passengers to take care of their naked feet; the vociferations and grimaces of the jugglers the splendid costumes of the Turkish functionaries; the picturesque habit of the Bedouins, their long beards, and the grave and regular countenances of the Arabs; the nudity of some santons, round whom the crowd throngs; the multitude of negro slaves; the howlings of the female mourners, accompanying some funeral procession, tearing their hair and beating their breasts by the side of a noisy train of a marriage; the cries of the muezzins from the top of the minarets, summoning the people to prayers; lastly, the afflicting picture of wretches dying with misery and want, and troops of savage dogs which pursue and harass you; all this every moment arrests the progress and attracts the attention of the astonished traveller. Count Dumas says: Donkeys are the vehicles of this country, and it is almost impossible to dispense with them in the midst of the mud. It is necessary to water the streets five or six times a day, on account of the heat. This measure of police is intrusted to the fellahs, who go about with a leathern bag under each arm; they press these alternately to force out the water, accompanying the alternate squeeze with a double Arabic phrase, which they pronounce in a monotonous voice, "Have a care to the right-have a care to the left." Thanks to this system of portable irrigation, which gives these fine fellows the appearance of Highland pipers, the sand and water form a kind of Roman cement, froin which asses, horses, and dromedaries can alone extricate themselves with honour; Christians in some degree protect themselves by boots, but the Arabs leave their slippers behind them. KING ARTHUR. THE ridiculous legends which have been strung together in relation to this ancient British prince have made his history little better than a romance. We owe this to the bards, who used to divert the court and gentry of olden times with the creations of their own fancy, and thus alloy the truth with fictions of the most extravagant description. Much wrong has in this way been done to the fame of this prince: for instance, he is said to have vanquished a king of the Franks, whose very name, Frollo, is not to be found in their annals; and to have slain the emperor's governor in Italy, one Lucius, of whom no historian, Roman, Frank, or Saxon, makes any mention whatever: next, it is asserted that he not only conquered all Ireland, taking Gillamur, the king, and all his nobles prisoners, but passed over to Holland, Gottland, (Sweden?) and the Orkney Isles, and made them all tributary and lastly, we are told that, after subduing the Picts and Scots, he overrun France, Germany, Dacia, and other lands, and thence acquired the title of Emperor of Britain, Gaul, Germany, Dacia, &c. It were strange indeed that a prince who had much difficulty in defending his own inheritance against domestic enemies, particularly towards the close of his reign, should have found time or resources to bring, as it has been pretended, no fewer than thirty kingdoms under his dominion. But we will leave these fictions to shift for themselves among the waters of oblivion: it is enough for King Arthur's memory to know that he was a prince of a gallant and magnanimous spirit, and appears, from the report of impartial history, to have been the means, in the hands of Providence, of rescuing the remnant of the British people, and sheltering them among the Welsh mountains, from the grasp of the barbarous Saxons, who had overrun the largest and most fertile parts of Britain. According to the most credible testimony, Arthur was the son of Uter Pendragon, king of the Britons, who died by poison, ten years after the coming of Cerdic, the king of the West Saxons: his mother was Ingerna, (widow of Gorlois, duke of Cornwall,) whose affection, devoted as it was to the memory of her late consort, Uter succeeded in gaining, by putting on the appearance and manners of its first object. Arthur, who was born at Tintagell, a castle of Cornwall, "began to rule the Britons at fifteen years of age,' and was crowned by St. Dubrisius, either at Winchester, according to Leland, or, as Cressy maintains, at Caerleon, in Monmouthshire, where the ceremony was performed in a general assembly of the prelates and nobility, in the year 516. Arthur's accession was much disrelished by the kings of the Scots and Picts, who were married to two of his aunts, and one of whom, Lotho, charging Arthur with illegitimacy, laid claim to the crown, in right of his queen. The Saxons were prompt to take advantage of this hostile feeling, and entered into an ill-assorted alliance with the two princes; they being Christians, and akin with Prince Arthur, and the Saxons being pagans and aliens. In these critical circumstances Arthur struck the first blow, by marching into the north in quest of his foe, where he made onset upon the Saxons in Northumberland, and driving them before him into York, besieged them in that town. Colgerne, their leader, conveyed himself, however, secretly into Germany, where he interested Cherdic, a prince of that country, in his favour, and brought him over to Scotland, with seven hundred sail of vessels. When the news of this reinforcement reached the ears of Arthur, he immediately retired south to London, and sent messengers to Hoel, king of Armorica, or Lesser Britanny, his sister's son, who lost no time in hastening to his assistance, with a powerful force. Cherdic had in the meanwhile advanced to Lincoln, and laid siege to it. Thither, therefore, Arthur and his nephew directed their march; and they not only delivered the place from its beleaguerers, but drove them into a wood, where they were surrounded, and forced to purchase their safety by a promise to depart from the soil of Britain, and abandon their horsearmour and other muniments to the victors. Twelve battles in succession were afterwards fought between Arthur and the Saxons, each of which terminated in his favour. These victories the popish historians ascribe to the miraculous interposition of the Virgin Mary in the hour of battle, whose image Arthur wore over his armour, and bore painted on his standard. Arthur, conceiving that he had nothing further to dread from the Saxons, went into France, and forgiving the unkindness and persecution he had suffered from Lotho, his uncle, king of the Picts, intrusted his son Mordred with the care, not only of his kingdom, but of his queen, Ginever, during his absence. The base Mordred, however, usurped the government for himself, and delivered up several provinces to the king of the West Saxons, in order to purchase his alliance, and added to his treachery the crime of violently taking to himself his royal cousin's wife. King Arthur, burning with wrath and vengeance, instantly returned to Britain, where Mordred stoutly opposed his landing at Richborough, near Sandwich, (as Stowe affirms in his Chronicle,) and fought a furious battle with him, in which Augusellus and Walwan, two of Arthur's relatives, "noted thunderbolts of war," as Leland calls them, fell fighting for the king. Arthur, however, having the advantage, renewed the contest, and at length put Mordred to flight. The traitor fled first to Winchester, but being hotly pursued by the injured monarch, afterwards directed his course into Cornwall, where Arthur at last overtook him near the Alaune, or Cambian, where the town of Camelford now stands. Mordred, having drawn up his army in battle array, resolved to die rather than again show his back to his pursuer, and at once precipitated himself into the midst of the hostile ranks. The combat raged almost the whole day, and after horrible bloodshed on both sides, was put an end to by Arthur himself, who rushed among the troops surrounding Mordred's person, and, cutting a passage through them, slew him on the spot, and dispersed his enemies, but not without falling himself, pierced with "death's wounds." He was conveyed from the field of triumph to the abbey of Avalon, now Glastonbury, through the charitable offices of Morgaius, a noble kinswoman of his, and there died of his wounds, on the 21st of May, in the year of our Lord 542. The noble matron, | having superintended the dressing of his wounds while alive, took upon herself the chief care of his funeral when dead. This was conducted with great privacy, though several British nobles assisted at it, in order that the Saxons should not be flushed, and the Britons dispirited, with the knowledge of his death. He was buried sixteen feet under ground, in order to prevent the Saxons from offering any indignity to his corpse, in case they prevailed, " which, for the sins of the Britons, Almighty God shortly after permitted." This sepulture has been beautifully depicted by When Arthur bowed his haughty crest, But when he fell, with winged speed, No mouldering trophies mark the grave. In the reign of Richard the First, the then abbot of Glastonbury, Henry de Soilly, ordered men to dig between two pyramids in "the holy church-yard," which, according to an ancient Welsh ballad, was the spot where King Arthur was buried; and at seven feet deep they found a huge broad stone, where "on that syde that laid downwards was found a thin plate of lead, about a foot long, in the form of a cross, and on that syde of the plate towards the stone was engraven, in rude and barbarous characters, this inscription :-Hic jacet sepultus inclytus Rex Arturius in Insula Avalonia." discovered those of Queen Ginever, his wife, whose corpse was conveyed privately to the place, and there quietly buried, in or near her consort's grave. The king's bones were of large size, so that when his shinbone was laid to the foot of a very tall man, it reached three fingers above his knee; and in his skull were perceived ten wounds, one of which was very large, and looked upon as the cause of his death. The queen's body seemed to be perfect and whole, and her hair was found to be neatly plaited, and of the colour of burnished gold; but her corpse being touched by the finger of one of the spectators, it fell to dust. The abbot caused both to be deposited in a stately mausoleum, "nobly graven on the outside," in which they placed the king's body by itself at the head of the tomb, and the queen's at his feet, being the east side of it. Inscriptions commemorative of both were put on the corresponding sides of the mausoleum. And here they remained until the year 1278, when Edward the First and Queen Eleanor visited Glastonbury, "attended by many of the topping men of the nation, clergy as well as nobility. Whereupon the 19th of April, they caused King Arthur's tomb to be opened, and both the shrines to be taken out of the monument, which when the court and its attendants had thoroughly viewed, King Edward opened the shrine wherein King Arthur's bones were laid, and Queen Eleanor the chest wherein were those of Queen Ginever, and then each of them taking the respective bones out of their respective chests, they exposed them on two credences, or side tables, near the high altar, till the next morning, for every one that had a mind to gratify their curiosity; and early the next morning, being the Wednesday before Easter, the king and queen, with great honour and respect, wrapped up all the bones, excepting the two skulls, (which were set up and to remain in the Treasury,) in rich shrouds or mantles," and placed them again in their separate shrines, with an inscription in that of Arthur's. "And then the king and queen, fixing their royal signets to each chest, they caused the chests to be placed in the old mausoleum, where they remained undisturbed about two hundred and fifty years, that is to say, till the dissolution of the abbey in King Henry the Eighth's days;" "and then this noble monument, saith Speed," among the fatal overthrows of infinite more, was altogether razed at the dispose of some then in commission, whose over-hasty actions, and too forward zeal in these behalfs, hath left unto us the want of many truths, and cause to wish that some of their employments had been better spent." An account of the Round Table, still preserved at Winchester, and falsely ascribed to King Arthur, will be found in another volume of this work*. *See Saturday Magazine, Vol. II., p. 188. Ir may be painful to be ignorant, though the more usual pain arises from the consciousness of appearing so: yet ignorance is still preferable to that which is not knowledge; as to be sensible of it is the first step in the road to truth. -MACCULLOCH. THE great secret of doing much is doing one thing at a time.-LoCKE. THOUGH nothing is so vain as the eager pursuit of empty applause, yet to be well thought of, and to be kindly regarded by the world, is like a glory about a woman's head. "Tis a perfume she carrieth about with her; 'tis a charm against ill-will. Malice may empty her quiver, but cannot wound: the dirt will not stick-the jests will not take. Without the consent of the world, a scandal doth not go deep: it is only a slight stroke upon the injured party, and returneth with greater force upon those that gave it.The Lady's New Year's Gift. THIS is the largest and most powerful of all the Corvus family, measuring two feet in length, and four feet in the stretch of the wings, and having the tail firmly feathered, and equal in length to half the body. The plumage of this bird is black, glossed over with blue on the upper part, which, in particular lights, gives a colour known by the name of raven-grey. This species is distinguished by having the tail very much rounded, the feathers on the throat narrow, sharp, pointed, and raised, those on the back part of the neck soft and silky, the bill and feet black, and the irides of the eyes in two circles of colour, the outer brownish, the inner pale smoke gray. Ravens are widely distributed throughout the world, and are able to endure the extreme rigours of polar regions, or the burning influence of a tropical sun. Wherever the enterprising traveller has yet penetrated, there has he found the dark, forbidding raven, ready to greet him with the same hoarse note as in his native land. The appearance, habits, and disposition of the raven are very similar to those of the carrion-crow; but, being a much stronger bird, the former is more rapacious as a bird of prey. Like the rest of this remarkable family, it possesses great acuteness of senses, and what appears like curiosity of observation; so that, in its wild or tame state, it is always prying about, and taking especial observation of all that is going on around it. This faculty renders it a bird of great vigilance and self-possession, and enables it, not only to act with caution and address in circumstances of danger, but also to accommodate itself to the situations in which it may be placed. This seems to be the principal reason why this wary bird, and the crow tribe in general, can be so easily tamed. The raven inhabits wild and hilly countries, though it nestles in woods, or in sheltered situations in the clefts of rocks, at no great distance from cultivated lands. The nest is formed on the outside with sticks, and is lined with wool, hair, or any other convenient in number from two to five, and are of a greenish material that can be readily procured. The eggs vary colour, with markings of brownish-ash. birds are very clamorous for food, and greedy in devouring it; and the old ones are not less eager and diligent in supplying them. When the nest is in a tree, it is always placed among the topmost branches, beyond the reach of bird-nesting hands, and where The young the enemies most to be dreaded are other birds of prey. These, however, are so valiantly opposed by the parent birds that it is not supposed they have much chance of doing mischief to the brood. Careful and attentive as these birds show themselves towards their young, the affection does not last long; and when the young birds are able to provide for themselves, and even, occasionally, before they are well able to do so, the parent birds desert or persecute them, and effectually cast them off. The clamour of the young brood, when thus left to themselves, often attracts attention to the nesting-tree, and some that are weakly, and have fallen from the nest in their first attempt at flight, are usually tamed, and, owing to their sagacious habits, turned to some account. In former times ravens were much more numerous in this country than they are at present. There is an old saying, Every rock has its raven;" but these birds are now comparatively rare amongst us in the southern parts of the kingdom. This is accounted for by the consideration that the improved state of cultivation in this land, with the great attention paid to the flocks during winter, must have diminished the food, and consequently thinned the numbers of these birds. The weak and sickly of the flock are now so carefully looked after, that there is no longer oppor. tunity for these birds to seize on their victim, and complete the work which disease had begun. Nor does the raven attempt to intrude himself where his services are not required. In poor and badly-cultivated countries, subject to great variations of climate, he performs an essential service in clearing the land of animal substances in a decaying state, or in destroying such victims of disease as would soon become noisome and injurious to the living around them; these are the situations in which ravens are numerous and busily employed; but where wholesome and sufficient food is provided for the flocks, and they are in a thriving condition, the number of these birds is generally small, and they are only seen at intervals, and rather employed in watching for wild animals that may fall in their way, than for those who participate in the benefits of man's cultivation. In lowering and stormy weather, sometimes called "ravens' weather," this bird is particularly active. While the rest of the feathered tribe gladly seek shelter from the rain beneath the covert of the forest, or in holes and caverns of the rocks, the raven braves the inclement season for the sake of the prey which he expects to find plentiful at that time. And seldom is he disappointed of his expected feast; for there are many poor birds tired of being long on the wing, or young nestlings that have scarcely learned to fly, that are easily secured as they are battling with the tempest. Young rooks form a favourite food of these birds: between rooks and ravens, therefore, there is eternal enmity; and though the latter have sufficient boldness to attack the nests, and often succeed in carrying off the unfledged rooks, the warfare is so determined and universal on the part of the inhabitants of the rookery, that they do not always succeed. . The strokes given by the raven in the conflict are exceedingly powerful; for this bird, keeping his neck in a stiff position, appears to throw the whole weight of his body against his antagonist. Though ravens are less frequently seen in the southern parts of England than in the northern, and though, when compared with the numerous tribes of rooks and crows, they may be called rare birds, yet it is said, that in traversing the open country, in hilly districts, there are generally some of these birds upon the watch for us, though we may be unable to see them. If a traveller should be pursuing his way in such a district after sunset, when the whole scene has become of a dusky raven hue, he will probably catch sight of one of these birds cautiously following his steps for a great distance, and yet managing his approach so well that, on turning to look at him, he always appears to be hopping away in another direction. But though he appears to be on the retreat, it is nothing less than an oblique method of advancing, and if the traveller sits down to rest, he will soon find the bird perched on some stone at no great distance from him. Here again the cautious cunning of the raven is manifested: he perches with his tail towards the observer as if he were going to make off in another direction; but he is at the same time secretly looking over his shoulder, to ascertain the state of things. If the traveller now stretches himself on the ground, as if dead, the bird becomes more bold and decided in his approach, but still observes all necessary caution. He is said to make his advances " in perfect conformity with the tactics of a siege, never upon the direct line, but at an angle, working by traverses more and more oblique as he comes nearer, so that when you observe him in motion, he is always as if he were passing by, and regarding you with a mixture of fear and wonder." If he observes any movement of the body, he will take wing, but his flight is with an appearance of pain and difficulty, and, taking a lateral direction, he will generally alight rather nearer to his object than when he set out. Thus gradually and stealthily gaining upon his intended victim, his last step is to dart suddenly at the eyes, and so unexpected and rapid is this movement, after a lengthened and timid approach, that the traveller had need beware how he amuses himself with watching the manœuvres of the bird, at the dreadful risk of being deprived of sight. The voracity of the raven is expressed by its name, which, when used as a verb, signifies to reave, or tear away, to seize by violence; yet this bird, though greedy of food, and not particular as to the means of obtaining it, is capable of enduring hunger for a very long time. The number of years to which these birds attain has not been ascertained, but they are understood to be extremely long-lived; and it is remarkable that in places where they most abound, a dead raven, unless killed by man, is a most unusual sight. The raven, when taken young, may be easily tamed, and made use of almost as a dog to watch and protect premises, as well as to devour offal. In the course of their taming, however, they exhibit many mischievous propensities, and require to be closely watched. They show likings and dislikings to particular persons, and will strike very severe blows with their sharp bills. Their peculiar sagacity and acuteness have often been the subject of anecdote. THERE is no vice which does so overwhelm a man with shame, as to be found false or perfidious; and therefore Montaigne saith very acutely, when he inquired the reason why the giving the lie should be such a disgraceful and odious charge, "if it be well weighed," said he, "to say that a man lies, is as much as to say, he is a bravado towards God, and a coward towards man, for the liar insults God and crouches to man."-LORD BACON. Is there not practical wisdom in commencing every day with the steady effort to make as much of it as if it were to be our whole existence? If we have duties to perform, in be not some way by which to invest them with pleasant themselves severe and laborious, we may inquire if there associations? A man may find amusement in free thoughts, while following his plough upon the hill-side; in digging up the words for a dictionary, or in copying out a brief: or he may train himself, by an inefficient and shrinking spirit, to recoil from these tasks as insupportable burdens. How many men find their pleasure in what would be the positive horror and torment of the indolent! How weak the spirit, narration of our personal troubles, pains, and misfortunes! and how silly the vanity, which we display in ever renewing If we would have the discretion to measure the sympathy which we may expect from others by that which we are conscious of feeling for theirs of the same character, it would go far to teach us the folly of that querulous spirit, which doles forth the story of sufferings and sorrows, as though the narrator were the only sufferer, and were entitled to a monopoly of all the passing pity.-FLINT. |