contact with the chloroform; and into this plate I pour the chloroform. I now quickly and cautiously lift the hive from the board on which it is standing, set it down on the top of the table, keeping the plate in the centre; cover the hive closely up with cloths, and in twenty minutes or so the bees are not only sound asleep, but, contrary to what I have seen when they are suffocated with sulphur, not one is left among the combs; the whole of them are lying helpless on the table.

You now remove what honey you think fit, replacing the hive on its old stand, and the bees, as they recover, will return to their domicile. A bright, calm, sunny day is the best, and you should commence your operations in the morning, before many of them are abroad."

"FLORA" desires to have "some receipts for the making of perfumery;" but we doubt much whether any sylvan genius of the fields and garden would like to engage in the chemical artifices now used in the preparation of essences, &c. Dr. Playfair has initiated us into the mysteries of the laboratory. The perfume of flowers often consists of oils and ethers, which the chemist can easily compound. Singularly enough, the most delicate perfumes are generally derived from substances of intensely disgusting odour. A peculiarly fetid oil, termed "fusel oil," is formed in making brandy and whiskey. This fusel oil, distilled with sulphuric acid, and acetate of potash, gives the oil of pears. The oil of apples is made from the same fusel oil, by distillation, with sulphuric acid and bichromate of potash. The oil of pine-apples is obtained from a product of the action of putrid cheese on sugar, or by making a soap with butter, and distilling it with alcohol and sulphuric acid. The artificial oil of "bitter almonds, now so largely employed in perfuming soap, and for flavouring confectionery, is prepared by the action of nitric acid on the fetid oils of gas tar. Many a fair forehead is damped with eau de mille-fleurs, without knowing that its essential ingredient is derived from the drainage of cow-houses. The oil of lemons, turpentine, oil of juniper, oil of roses, and many other oils, are identical in composition. These are certainly not very inviting processes for delicate manipulation, and we advise "FLORA" to leave them for rougher hands.

A young poet, with the high-sounding designation of "TASSO-REDIVIVUS,' " has sent us some verses, which, for his own credit's sake, we withhold from the public gaze. Our correspondent must greatly mature his thoughts, and improve his versification, before he can creep into the shoes of the immortal author of "La Gerusalemme Liberata." Rome was not built in a day; nor can TASSO-REDIVIVUS become suddenly a poet. The greatest bards of our country have been pains-taking writers. Pope was accustomed to distribute and vary the vowels in his lines, so as to attain the highest pitch of modulated harmony.

Dryden also was a thorough theoretic master of all the rules of poesy. Cowper, simple as his style is, has told us with what diligence he laboured nightly to build, as Milton terms it, "the lofty rhyme :"

"There is a pleasure in poetic pains,

Which poets only know. The shifts and turns, The expedients and inventions multiform, To which the mind resorts, in chase of terms, Though apt, yet coy, and difficult to win." He also says, "to touch and retouch, is the secret of almost all good writing; I am never weary of it myself."

MARY G. will find, to our great contentment, her wishes anticipated. A paper on Porcupine Quill Work, written by an experienced hand, will shortly appear in the FAMILY FRIEND.

"Is it proper, Mr. Editor, to receive a bouquet from a gentleman ?" inquires A. W. Our fair questioner need be under no apprehension of infringing the laws of etiquette by accepting a bouquet. There is poetry "to the brim" in flowers, it is true; but in our conventional country the imagination is confined to the simple loveliness of the present, and the attention of the giver.

"In Eastern lands they talk in flowers,

And they tell in a garland their loves and cares. Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers On its leaves a mystic language bears." Of all the votive offerings made to the and young the fair, flowers are the most beautiful and most unexceptionable. Where it is the fashion for gentlemen to present bouquets to their female friends, so many are given, that it seems more like a tribute to the sex than a mark of particular regard, and their perishable nature exempts them from the ban put upon more enduring memorials. You can accept and wear flowers without committing yourself, and to refuse them would be unnecessary rigour.

A youthful observer of nature, A. E., inquires "why flies are enabled to walk on the ceiling." The answer is simple enough to mature thinkers; but as we like to encourage the laudable curiosity of childhood, and have a lurking partiality to the age, whose "summer's lease hath all too short a date," we will reply to the question by recommending A. E. to inspect a fly by the microscope. He will then see that the joints in the foot make it very flexible, and the two claws can lay hold of any object which may help it along. But the most remarkable parts are the pads, or cushions, at the side of each claw of the fly. It used to be supposed that by their aid the fly walks on smooth glass, or on the ceiling, on the same principle by which a stone is lifted by a leathern sucker; but later and more careful observers have thought that a sort of glue comes out of the pores in the pads, which enables the fly to walk on glass.

is my father, a hair-dresser did not he give you shelter when you had nothing but your garret and skylight?-when you had to lie in bed and write for want of coals to warm you? Yes, in spite of your boasted genius and the praises you received, you were forced to come to him for bread !"

"He gave me more, Nanny," said her husband, meaningly.

"Yes his daughter, who had refused half the gallants in Vienna for whom halfa-dozen peruke-makers' apprentices went mad. Yes and had he not a right to expect you would dress her as well as she had been used at home, and that she should have servants to wait upon her as in her father's house? A fine realizing of his hopes and schemes for his favourite child-this miserable lodging, with but a few pence a day to keep us from starving!"

"You should not reproach me, Nanny, Have I not worked incessantly till my health has given way? And if fortune is still inexorable"

"Ah, there it is, fortune! as if fortune did not always wait, like a handmaid, upon industry in a proper calling! Your patrons may admire and applaud, but they will not pay; and yet you will drudge away your life in this ungrateful occupation. I tell you, Joseph, music is not the thing."

"Alas!" sighed Haydn, "I once dreamed of fame."

"Fame-pshaw! And what were that worth if you had it? Would fame clothe you or change these wretched walls to a palace? Believe me for once, and give up these idle fancies."

His large, dark, flashing eyes, his olive complexion and the contour of his face bespoke him a native of a sunnier clime than that of Germany.

Haydn sprang up and welcomed him with a cordial embrace.

"And when, my dear Porpora, did you return to Vienna ?" he asked.

"This morning only; and my first care was to find you out. But how is this? I find you thin and pale, and gloomy. Where are your spirits?"

"Gone," murmured the composer, and dropped his eyes on the floor. His visitor regarded him with a look of affectionate interest.

"There is something more in this than there ought to be," said he, at length. "You are not rich, as I see; but so you were not when we last parted, nor when I first found-in the youthful, disinterested friend, the kind companion of a feeble old mana genius such as Germany might well be proud of. Then you were buoyant, full of enthusiasm for art, and of hope for the future."

"Alas!" replied Haydn, "I was too san. guine. I judged more favourably of my self

"Did I not say you were destined to something great?"

"Your friendship might deceive you." "And think you I had lost my judgment because I am old?-or am a fool, to be blinded by partiality?"

"Nay, dear Porpora' "Or that, because you were fain to serve me like a lacquey from pure love, I rewarded you with flattering lies, eh?" Friend, you mistake me. I know you to be just and candid-yet I feel that! shall never justify your kind encourage

66

I have toiled till youth is passing away in vain. I have no heart to bear up against the crushing hand of poverty-1 succumb."

reverie.

"How now, Haydn, what is the matter, my boy?"

The speaker was an old man, shabbily dressed, but with something striking and even commanding in his noble features,

"Not so.

"You have lost, then, your love ofour art!" What your valuable lessons, dear master, have opened to me, forms the only bright spot in my life. Oh, that I could pursue could grasp it!"

Why can you not?"

"I am chained!" cried Haydn, bitterly and giving way to the anguish of his heart, he burst into tears.

Porpora shook his head, and was silent

for a few moments. At length he resumed "I must, I see, give you a little of my experience; and you shall see what has been the life of a prosperous artist. I was, you know, the pupil of Scarlatti; and from the time I felt myself capable of profiting by the lessons of that great master, devoted myself to travel. I was more fortunate than you, for my works procured me, almost at once, a wide-spread fame. I was called for not only in Venice, but in Vienna and Lon

don."

"Ah, yours was a brilliant lot!" cried the young composer, looking up with kindling

eyes.

"The Saxon court," continued Porpora, "which has always granted the most liberal protection to musical art, offered me the direction of the chapel and of the theatre at Dresden. Even the princesses received my lessons in short, my success was so great, that I awakened the jealousy of Hasse himself."

"That was a greater triumph still," observed Haydn, smiling.

"So I thought; and still greater when I caused a pupil of mine, the young Italian Mengotti, to dispute the palm of song with the enchantress Faustina*--ay, to bear it away upon more than one occasion. All this you know, and how I returned to London upon the invitation of amateurs in Italian music."

"Where you rivalled Händel!" said Haydn, enthusiastically.

66

Ah, that was the turning point in my destiny. Farinelli, the famous singer, gloried in being my scholar. He turned all his splendid powers to the effort of assuring

Faustina Bordoni, born at Venice in 1700, was one of the most admirable singers Italy ever produced. She was a pupil of Gasparini, but adopted the modern method of Bernacchi, which she aided greatly to bring into popular use. She appeared on the stage at the age of sixteen; her success was so great that, at Florence, a medal was struck in her honour; and it was said that even gouty invalids would leave their beds to hear her performance. She was called to Vienna in 1724; two years afterwards she came to the London theatre with a salary of 50,000 francs. Everywhere she charmed by the freshness, clearness and sweetness of her voice, by the grace and perfection of her execution, so that she was called the modern siren. It was at London she met the celebrated Cuzzoni, who enjoyed a brilliant reputation; and the lovers of song were divided in their homage to the two rivals. Händel took part in these disputes. Faustina quitted England in 1728, and returned to Dresden, where she became the wife of Hasse.

the triumph of my compositions. I could have borne that these should fail in commanding popularity; I could have borne the defeat by which Händel was elevated at my expense to an idol shrine among the English—but it grieved me to see that Farinelli's style, so really perfect in its way, was unappreciated by the most distinguished connoisseurs. I did justice to the strength and grandeur of my rival; should he not have acknowledged the grace, finish and sweetness of Italian song? But he despised Farinelli, and his friends made caricatures of him.”

"Händel, with all his greatness, had no versatility," observed Haydn.

"I wished to attempt another style, for this repulse had somewhat cooled my zeal for the theatre. I set myself to cultivate what was new-what was not born with me. I published my sonatas for the violin-the connoisseurs applauded, and I was encouraged to hope I could face my rival on his own ground. I composed sacred music"

"And that," interrupted his auditor, "will live-pardon me for saying so-when your theatrical compositions have ceased to enjoy unrivalled popularity."

66

When they are forgotten, say rather— for such, I feel, will be their fate. My sacred compositions may survive and carry my name to posterity-for taste in such things is less mutable than in the opera. You see now, dear Haydn," he resumed, after a pause, "for what I have lived and laboured. I was once renowned and wealthy-what. did prosperity bring me? Envy, discontent, rivalship, disappointment!. And did art flourish more luxuriantly on such a soil? With me the heavenly plant languished, and would have died but that I had some energy within me to save it. I repine when I look back on those years."

"You?" repeated Haydn, surprised.

"Would you know to what period I can look back with self-approbation, with thankfulness? To the toil of my early years; to the struggle after an ideal of self-forgetfulness that saw only the glogreatness, goodness and beauty; to the rious goal far, far before me; to the undismayed resolve that sought only its attainOr to a time still later, when the visions of manhood's impure and selfish ambition had faded away; when the soul

ment.

had shaken off some of her fetters, and roused herself to a perception of the eternal, the perfect, the divine; when I became conscious of the delusive vanity of earthly hopes and earthly excellence, but at the same time awakened to the revelation of that which cannot die!

"You see me now, seventy-three years old, and too poor to command even a shelter for the few days that yet remain to me in this world. I have lost the splendid fame I once possessed; I have lost the riches that were mine; I have lost the power to win even a competence by my own labours; but I have not lost my passion for our glorious music, nor enjoyment of the reward, more precious than gold, she bestows on her votaries; nor my confidence in Heaven. And you, at twenty-seven, you -more greatly endowed-to whom the world is open-you despair!

Are you

worthy to succeed, O man of little faith?" "My friend-my benefactor!" cried the young musician, clasping his hands with deep emotion.

"Cast away your bonds; cut and rend, if your very flesh is torn in the effort; and the ground once spurned, you are free. Come, I am pledged for your success-for if you do not rise, I am no prophet! What have you been doing?" and he turned over rapidly the musical notes that lay on the table. "Here, what is this a symphony? Play it for me, if you please."

So saying, with a gentle force he led his young friend to the piano, and Haydn played from the piece he had nearly completed.

66 Ah, this is excellent, admirable !" cried Porpora, when he rose from the instrument. "This suits me exactly. And you could despair while such power remained to you! When can you finish this? for I must have it at once.' "To-morrow, if you like," answered the composer, more cheerfully.

"To-morrow, then; and you must work to-night. I see you are nervous and feverish; but seize the happy thought while it lives-once gone, you have no cord to draw it back. I will go and order you a physician not a word of remonstrance he will come to-morrow morning-how madly your pulse throbs-and when your work is done, you may rest. Adieu for the present; and pressing his young friend's hands, the eccentric, but benevolent old

man departed, leaving Haydn full of new thoughts, his bosom fired with zeal to struggle against adverse fortune. In such moods does the spiritual champion wrestle with the powers of the abyss, and mightily prevail.

When Haydn, late that night, threw himself on his bed, weary, ill, and exhausted, his frame racked with the pains of fever, after having worked for hours in the midst of reproaches from her who ought to have lightened his task by her sympathy, he had accomplished the first of an order of works destined to endear his name to all succeeding time. Who that listened to its clear and beautiful melody, could have divined that such a production had been wrought out in the gloom of despondency, poverty, and disease?

While the artist lay on a sick bed, attended only by the few friends whom compassion, more than admiration of his genius, called to his side, and forgotten by the great and gay to whose amusement so many years of his life had been devoted, a brilliant fête was given by Count Mortzin, an Austrian nobleman of immense wealth and influence, at which the most distin guished individuals in Vienna were present. The musical entertainments given by these luxurious patrons of the arts were, at that time, and for some years after, the most splendid in Europe, for the most exalted genius was enlisted in their service; and talent, as in all ages, was often fain to do homage to riches and power.

When the concert was over, Prince Anthony Esterhazy expressed the pleasure he had received, and his obligations to the noble host. "Chief among your magni ficent novelties," said he, "is the new symphony, St. Maria. One does not hear every day such music. Who is the composer?"

The Count referred to one of his friends. The answer was-" -"Joseph Haydn.” ol "I have heard his quartettos--he is no common artist. Is he in your service, Count?"

"He has been employed by me."

"With your good leave, he shall be transferred to ours; and I shall take care he has no reason to regret the change. Let him be presented to us.'

There was a murmur among the audience, and a movement, but the composer