countries where it is cultivated largely, a great deal is sown broad-cast, and cut for fodder like other grass, when the stems are a foot or cighteen inches high. MAIZE, OR INDIAN CORN In Piedmont and Lombardy the flour of Maize is employed in the preparation of many dishes, which have the generic name of polenta. RICE. THERE are few pleasant associations connected with the name of this genus of Cerealia; it constitutes the food of the greatest part of the human race, but wherever it is so extensively used, the population are in the poorest and lowest state consistent with the civilization of any longestablished society. The friend of his species must rejoice in every circumstance that tends to raise the standard of the common food of the people. A peasantry accustomed to consider wheaten bread as a necessary of life, must be as certainly and as far removed from all apprehensions of absolute famine, as they are from the oppressed and degraded state of one that lives on rice. If any extraordinary natural occurrences were to diminish or injure the graincrop of Britain, so that the lower orders were reduced to employ oats, or barley, or rye, for their bread, they would regard it as so intolerable a grievance, that all their energies would be roused to remedy the evil. Not so the population of a country like China and the greatest part of India, which, for ages, has fed on rice, or which has been brought up to consider the scantiest and poorest diet all they are entitled to or can require; if that fail, their enfeebled bodies are incapable of any additional exertion, and they possess no moral incentive to the attempt; they have no inferior scale of food to fall back upon, so, regarding the calamity as inevitable, they abandon themselves to their fate, and die by thousands from absolute want. But it must be understood, that it is only as the sole or principal grain for food, that we deplore its extensive culture; in combination with other grain, rice is both a nutritious and agreeable addition to our tables; and that it is considered so, is proved by the great increase in the quantities imported into Britain within the last ten years. Rice succeeds best in a low marshy soil; in most countries, indeed, it is raised on lands which are absolutely flooded for weeks together; hence its cultivation is the most unhealthy of all agricultural pursuits. The seed is sown in drills, sufficiently wide apart to admit of deep and frequent inter-tillage; the water is then let on for a week or ten days, which promotes the germination of the grain, and when this takes place the water is drawn off. The fields are left dry for a month or more, till the young plants are three or four inches high, when the plantations are again flooded, and left in that state for two or three weeks; this soaking destroys the weeds which have sprung up with the rice. After this the plants are left dry till the ears are formed, being repeatedly hoed between and kept clear of weeds; the irrigation is again renewed, and the water left on the ground till the grain is ripe, which, in Carolina, it generally is in August. The rice is cut with a sickle like corn. The outer skin, or the husk, adheres more closely to the seed of rice than it does to that of wheat; the former grain is not, therefore, threshed, but is passed between mill-stones, placed far enough apart just to separate the seed from the husk without bruising it. The grain is then pounded in large mortars to free it from the pellicle, which constitutes the true fruit, this operation corresponding to the boulting of wheat. Latterly, rice has been imported from Benga, with the husk on, because it is found to keep better in that state than when cleaned; this is called paddee. Most of the supply to Britain comes from India or from Carolina. Bread can be made from rice, but it soon becomes dry and harsh. In the years of scarcity of corn, rice has been mixed with wheat to make bread, but its principal con sumption in England is for puddings, and in other dishes. THE RAINBOW. THE evening was glorious, and light through the trees On the lap of the year, in the beauty of May. For the Queen of the Spring, as she pass'd down the vale, Left her robe on the trees, and her breath on the gale; And the smile of her promise gave joy to the hours, And flush in her footsteps sprang herbage and flowers. The skies, like a banner in sunset unroll'd, O'er the west threw their splendour of azure and gold, But one cloud at a distance rose dense, and increas'd, Till its margin of black touch'd the zenith, and east. We gazed on the scenes, while around us they glow'd, When a vision of beauty appear'd on the cloud;'Twas not like the Sun, as at mid-day we view, Nor the Moon, that rolls nightly through star-light and bluc. Like a spirit, it came in the van of a storm! And the eye and the heart, hail'd its beautiful form. For it look'd not severe, like an Angel of Wrath, But its garment of brightness illumed its dark path. In the hues of its grandeur, sublimely it stood, O'er the river, the village, the field, and the wood; And river, field, village, and woodlands grew bright, As conscious they gave and afforded delight. 'Twas the bow of Omnipotence; bent in His hand, Whose grasp at Creation the universe spann'd; 'Twas the presence of God, in a symbol sublime; His vow from the flood to the exit of time! Not dreadful, as when in the whirlwind he pleads, When storms are his chariot, and lightnings his steeds, The black clouds his banner of vengeance unfurl'd, And thunder his voice to a guilt-stricken world;In the breath of his presence, when thousands expire, And seas boil with fury, and rocks burn with fire, And the sword, and the plague-spot, with death strew the plain, And vultures, and wolves, are the graves of the slain: Not such was the Rainbow, that beautiful one! Whose arch was refraction, its key-stone-the Sun; A pavilion it seem'd which the Deity graced, And Justice and Mercy met there, and embraced. Awhile, and it sweetly bent over the gloom, Like Love o'er a death-couch, or Hope o'er the tomb; Then left the dark scene; whence it slowly retired, As Love had just vanished, or Hope had expired. I gazed not alone on that source of my song: To all who beheld it, these verses belong; Each full heart expanded,-grew warm, and adored! Its presence to all was the path of the Lord! Like a visit the converse of friends-or a day, That bow, from my sight, passed for ever away: Like that visit, that converse, that day-to my heart, That bow from remembrance can never depart. 'Tis a picture in memory distinctly defined, With the strong and unperishing colours of mind: A part of my being beyond my control, Beheld on that cloud, and transcribed on my soul.-CAMPBELL THE HEAD-STONE. THE Coffin was let down to the bottom of the grave, the planks were removed from the heaped-up brink, the first rattling clods had struck their knell, the quick shovelling was over, and the long, broad, skilfully-cut pieces of turf were aptly joined together, and trimly laid by the beatingspade, so that the newest mound in the church-yard was scarcely distinguishable from those that were grown over by the undisturbed grass and daisies of a luxuriant spring. The burial was soon over; and the party, with one consenting motion, having uncovered their heads, in decent reverence of the place and occasion, were beginning to separate, and about to leave the church-yard. Here some acquaintances, from distant parts of the parish, who had not had opportunity of addressing each other in the house that had belonged to the deceased, nor in the course of the few hundred yards that the little procession had to move over from his bed to his grave, were shaking hands quietly but cheerfully, and inquiring after the welfare of each other's families. There, a small knot of neighbours were speaking, without exaggeration, of the respectable character which the deceased had borne, and mentioning to one another little incidents of his life, some of them so remote as to be known only to the gray-headed persons of the group. While a few yards further removed from the spot, were standing together parties who discussed ordinary concerns, such as the state of the markets, the promise of the season, or change of tenants; but still with a sobriety of manner and voice that was insensibly produced by the influence of the simple ceremony now closed, by the quiet graves around, and the shadow of the spire, and gray walls of the house of God. Two men yet stood together at the head of the grave with countenances of sincere, but unimpassioned grief. They were brothers, the only sons of him who had been buried. And there was something in their situation that naturally kept the eyes of many directed upon them, for a long time, and more intently than would have been the case, had there been nothing more observable about them than the common symptoms of a common sorrow. But these two brothers, who were now standing at the head of their father's grave, had for some years been totally estranged from each other, and the only words that had passed between them during all that time, had been uttered within a few days past, during the necessary preparations for the old man's funeral. No deep and deadly quarrel was between these brothers, and neither of them could distinctly tell the cause of this unnatural estrangement. Perhaps dim jealousies of their father's favour-selfish thoughts that will sometimes force themselves into poor men's hearts, respecting temporal expectations-unaccommodating manners on both sides taunting words that mean little when uttered, but which rankle and fester in remembrance-imagined opposition of interests, that, duly considered, would have been found one and the same-these, and many other causes, slight when single, but strong when rising up together in one baneful band, had gradually but fatally infected their hearts, till at last they who in youth had been seldom separate, and truly attached, now met at market, and, miserable to say, at church, with dark and averted faces, like different clansmen during a feud. Surely if any thing could have softened their hearts towards each other, it must have been to stand silently, side by side, while the earth, stones, and clods, were falling down upon their father's coffin. And doubtless their hearts were so softened. But pride, though it cannot prevent the holy affections of nature from being felt, may prevent them from being shown; and these two brothers stood there together, determined not to let each other know the mutual tenderness that, in spite of them, was gushing up in their hearts, and teaching them the unconfessed folly and wickedness of their causeless quarrel. A head-stone had been prepared, and a person came forward to plant it. The elder brother directed him how to place it a plain stone, with a sand-glass, skull, and crossbones, chiselled not rudely, and a few words inscribed. The younger brother regarded the operation with a troubled eye, and said, loud enough to be heard by several of the by-standers, "William, this was not kind in you: you should have told me of this. I loved my father as well as you could love him. You were the elder, and, it may be, the favourite son; but I had a right in nature to have joined you in ordering this head-stone, had I not?" During these words the stone was sinking into the earth, and many persons who were on their way from the grave returned. For a while the elder brother said nothing, for he had a consciousness in his heart that he ought to have consulted his father's son in designing this last becoming mark of affection and respect to his memory; so the stone was planted in silence, and now stood erect, among the other unostentatious memorials of the humble dead. The inscription merely gave the name and age of the deceased, and told that the stone had been erected "by his affectionate sons." The sight of these words seemed to soften the displeasure of the angry man, and he said, somewhat more mildly, "Yes, we were his affectionate sons, and since my name is on the stone, I am satisfied, brother. We have not drawn together kindly of late years, and perhaps never may; but I acknowledge and respect your worth, and here, before our own friends, and before the friends of our father, with my foot above his head, I express my willingness to be on other and better terms with you, and if we cannot command love in our hearts, let us, at least, brother, har out all unkindness." The minister, who had attended the funeral, and had something intrusted to him to say publicly before he left the church-yard, now came forward and asked the elder brother, why he spake not regarding this matter. He saw there was something of a cold and sullen pride rising up in his heart, for not easily may any man hope to dismiss from the chamber of his heart even the vilest guest, if once cherished there. With a solemn and almost severe air, he looked upon the relenting man, and then, changing his countenance into serenity, said gently Behold how good a thing it is, | Together such as brethren are, And how becoming well, In unity to dwell. The time, the place, and this beautiful expression of a natural sentiment, quite overcame a heart, in which many kind, if not warm, affections dwelt; and the man thus appealed to bowed down his head and wept. "Give me your hand, brother;" and it was given, while a murmur of satisfaction arose from all present, and all hearts felt kindlier and more humanely towards each other As the brothers stood fervently, but composedly, graspLig each other's hand, in the little hollow that lay between tae grave of their mother, long since dead, and of their father, whose shroud was haply not yet still from the fall of dust to dust, the minister stood beside them with a pleasant countenance, and said, "I must fulfil the promise I made to your father on his death-bed. I must read to you a few words which his hand wrote at an hour when his tongue denied its office. I must not say that you did your duty to your old father; for did he not often beseech you, apart from one another, to be reconciled, for your own sakes as Christians, for his sake, and for the sake of the mother who bare you, and, Stephen, who died that you might be born? When the palsy struck him for the last time, you were both absent, nor was it your fault that you were not beside the old man when he died. "As long as sense continued with him here, did he think of you two, and of you two alone. Tears were in his eyes; I saw them there, and on his cheek, too, when no breath came from his lips. But of this no more. He died with this paper in his hand; and he made me know that I was to read it to you over his grave. I now obey him. My sons, if you will let my bones lie quiet in the grave, near the dust of your mother, depart not from my burial till, in the name of God and Christ, you promise to love one another as you used to do. Dear boys, receive my blessing.' Some turned their heads away to hide the tears that needed not to be hidden; and when the brothers had released each other from a long and sobbing embrace, many went up to them, and in a single word or two, expressed their joy at this perfect reconcilement. The brothers themselves walked away from the church-yard, arm in arm with the minister to the manse. On the following Sabbath, they were seen sitting with their families in the same pew, and it was observed, that they read together off the same Bible when the minister gave out the text, and that they sang together, taking hold of the psalm-book. The same psalm was sung, (given out at their own request,) of which one verse had been repeated at their father's grave; a larger sum than usual was on that Sabbath found in the plate for the poor, for Love and Charity are sisters. And ever after, both during the peace and the troubles of this life, the hearts of the brothers were as one and in nothing were they divided.-WILSON, SIR FRANCIS BACON. FRANCIS BACON, Viscount St. Alban's, and Lord High Chancellor of England, was the youngest son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, and of Anne, daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, tutor to King Edward the Sixth. This lady was a good wife and mother, as well as an excellent classical scholar; and her son, doubtless, experienced in his childhood the happy effects of maternal education. While he was yet a boy, the signs of genius for which he was in after-life distinguished, began to show themselves. He answered questions which were put to him with a ripeness above his years, and with such gravity, that Queen Elizabeth would often call him her young lord keeper. While the children, his companions, were diverting themselves near his father's house in St. James's Park, he went alone to the brick conduit to ascertain the cause of a singular echo; and in his twelfth year he was meditating upon the laws of the imagination. At thirteen he was sent to Trinity College, Cambridge, of which Dr. Whitgift, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, was then master; and he soon attracted attention, both for his high talents and for his dislike of the dry and barren course then followed in the University, the philosophy of Aristotle; real knowledge being in his view "not a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort, or commanding ground for strife and contention; or a shop for profit and sale; but a rich store-house for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of man's estate *." At sixteen, he was sent to Paris under the care of Sir Amias Paulet, the English Ambassador at that court, by whom, soon after his arrival, he was fortunate enough to be intrusted with an important mission to the queen. His manner of executing it tended to raise his reputation, and on the death of his father, which occurred when Bacon was twenty, he returned to England from the French provinces, possessed of the "golden opinions of all sorts of people," but dependent on his own exertions in a profession for his support. Politics he would have preferred, and he even sounded his uncle, the wary Lord Burleigh, towards securing some place under the crown, but in vain. To the sure profession of the law, therefore, he determined to devote himself, and was admitted a student of Gray's Inn, instead of venturing on the uncertain sea of politics. Such a mind as Bacon's cannot be supposed to have confined its researches within the narrow and perplexed study of precedents and authorities: it extended itself to the whole circle of science, by exploring the principles of universal justice, the laws of law. During this legal and philosophical course, while making his way to the highest point which a lay subject could reach, and meditating on his immortal work, the Novum Organum, he found time for relaxation, gained the affections of the whole society of which he was a member, assisted in their festivities, and beautified their spacious garden t. When he was only twenty-six, he became a bencher, and at thirty was sworn Queen's Counsel learned extraordinary, an honour which till then had never * Montagu's valuable edition of Bacon's Works to which we are indebted for materials for this paper. The apartments in which Lord Bacon resided are said to be at No. 1, Gray's Inn Square, on the north side, one pair of stairs. In the books in the steward's office, there are many of his autographs, being his admission, when a bencher, of the different students. He always delighted in gardens, thinking them conducive to the purest of human pleasures; and as Chancellor, he had the pleasure of signing the patent for converting Lincoln's Inn Fields into walks, extending almost to the wall where his faithful friend Ben Jonson had, when a boy, worked as a bricklayer. been conferred on any member of the profession. But disappointment was in store. Though related to Lord Burleigh, his intimacy was with the rival peer, Devereux, Earl of Essex; and when the office of Solicitor-General became vacant, he owed his rejection to the hostility of the heartless Burleigh. Essex, mortified almost as deeply as his friend, generously undertook the care of Bacon's future fortunes, and gave him an estate in the village of Twickenham. This friendship grew somewhat cold on Essex's appointment as lord-lieutenant of Ireland, Bacon having endeavoured to dissuade him from that unhappy enterprise. When misfortunes gathered thickly round the head of the rash and ill-fated Essex, Bacon continued to serve and watch over him with almost parental anxiety; but he was at length compelled, as counsel for the crown, to denounce him as a traitor. At thirty-seven Bacon put forth his first publication, a volume of Essays, Religious Meditations, &c. In 1603 he was knighted; a doubtful honour coming from King James, who had ascended the throne, but pleasing to our philosopher, as it gratified a handsome maiden, the daughter of Alderman Barnham, "whom he had found out to his liking," and whom he afterwards married. His next great work was the Advancement of Learning, which professes to be a survey of the then existing knowledge, and a designation of the parts of science which were unexplored. Meanwhile he laboured to better the condition of Ireland, advocated the union of England and Scot land, and assisted in measures for the improvement of the church. His influence was soon increased by his appointment to the office of Solicitor-General, and subsequently of Attorney-General. In March, 1616-17, in his fifty-seventh year, Sir Francis Bacon was made lord chancellor of England, a place combining four great qualifications, those of a lawyer, a judge, a statesman, and the patron of preferment; and, in 1618, he became baron of Verulam. The title was taken from Old Verulam, in Hertfordshire, near his noble residence at Gorhambury, where he lived in great splendour united with study. The king bestowed on him the lucrative farm of the Alienation-office, and made him viscount St. Alban's; and the greatest of English philosophers was at the height of his accumulated honours when he celebrated his sixtieth birth-day, surrounded by his admirers and friends, one among them, "not least in love," Ben Jonson, who composed a poem in honour of the day. We now turn to the reverse of the picture, and find him falling rapidly from his proud eminence, and becoming an object of bitter triumph to his enemies. In 1620, committees had been appointed to inquire into abuses; and in one of these, touching courts of justice, two suitors in chancery charged Bacon with bribery and corruption in his judicial character, he having, as it was alleged, received money to secure their success, in which, however, they had after all failed. But it appears, that the custom of the chancellor's receiving presents, though an abuse, had prevailed from the earliest times; that the gifts in question had been made openly in the presence of witnesses; that, moreover, his judgment could not have been biassed, as he had decided against the donors. In addition to these points of defence, he might have called upon the House of Commons for protection against calumny, at a time when the excited people wished for some victim, as a tribute to public opinion, and a sacrifice for public wrongs. The popular complaint was loud upon the rapacious exactions of the favourites of the king, especially of George Villiers, marquis of Buckingham, who, under pretence of granting patents, which were made out for even the common necessaries of life, grasped at large and shameful fees. Bacon, however, treated the charge of these disappointed suitors with contempt; until increased daily by fresh accusations, amounting altogether to twenty-three, the attack could no longer be disregarded. From the pinnacle on which he stood, he could see the storm gathering round him; and though he had considered himself much beloved in both Houses of Parliament, he felt that he had secret enemies, and FRANCIS BACON, LORD VERULAM AND ST. ALBAN'S. began to fear that he had false friends. He resolved, therefore, to meet his accusers; but his health, always delicate, gave way, and, instead of being able to attend in person, he was obliged to address his Peers in writing, requesting them to suspend their opinion for the present, to give him time for procuring evidence in his defence, &c., to which they readily agreed. After this, he had an interview with King James, when he said, "The law of nature teaches me to speak in my own defence: with respect to the charge of bribery, I am as innocent as one born upon St. Innocents' Day; I never had bribe or reward in my eye, or thought, when pronouncing sentence or order." Subsequently, the king, who had resolved to leave Bacon to his fate, rather than risk Buckingham, gave him his advice that he should submit himself to the House of Peers, and that upon his princely word he would then restore him again, if they should not be sensible of his merits.. How little this command accorded with the chancellor's desire to defend himself, may be gathered from his affecting and ominous remonstrance to James:-"I see my approaching ruin; there is no hope of mercy in a multitude; those who strike at your chancellor will strike at your crown; I am the first, I wish I may be the last sacrifice." He accordingly submitted, and couched his confession in a form which he thus acknowledged as his own:-" It is my act, my hand, my heart; I beseech your lordships be merciful unto a broken reed!" The king did not interpose, and the lords adjudged upon this humbled nobleman, a fine of 40,000l., imprisonment in the Tower during his majesty's pleasure, and disqualification for ever for place or employment in the state or commonwealth. Thus fell from the height of worldly prosperity Francis, lord chancellor of Great Britain. In his letter to the king from the Tower, he says; "For the briberies and gifts wherewith I am charged, when the book of hearts shall be opened, I hope I shall not be found to have the troubled fountain of a corrupt heart, in a depraved habit of taking rewards to pervert justice; howsoever I may be frail, and partake of the abuse of the times." In his will are found these remarkable words; "For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and the next ages." After two days imprisonment, he was liberated; in the September following, the king signed a warrant for the release of the parliamentary fine, and in October the pardon was sealed. Baeon then retired to Gorhambury, and gave up his mind to those literary labours from which the world has derived such important benefits. His lordship was summoned to parliament in the succeeding reign, in 1625, but was prevented by his infirmities from taking his seat as a peer. During this year he published a new edition of his essays, his apophthegms, and a translation of a few of the Psalms of David into English verse, which he dedicated to his friend, the learned and religious George Herbert. This was the last exercise, in the time of illness, of his mighty mind. The immediate cause of his death deserves to be stated. In the spring of 1626, says Aubrey, his strength and spirits revived, and he returned to Gray's Inn, from whence, on the 2nd of April, going into the country with Dr. Witherborne, the king's physician, it occurred to him as he approached Highgate, the snow lying on the ground, that he would ascertain whether flesh might not be preserved in snow as well as in salt, and he resolved immediately to try the experiment. They alighted out of the coach, and went into a poor woman's house at the bottom of Highgate hill, bought a hen, and stuffed the body with snow, my lord helping to do it himself. The snow chilled him, and he immediately became so extremely ill that he could not return to Gray's Inn, but was taken to the Earl of Arundel's house at Highgate, where he was put into a warm bed; but it was damp, and had not been slept in for a year before. He died on the 9th of April, 1626, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. He was buried, by his own desire, in St. Michael's church, near St. Alban's, in the same grave with his mother. Sir Thomas Meautys, his faithful friend and secretary, who "loved and admired him in life, and honoured him when dead," erected a noble monu. ment, which cannot be viewed without the deepest interest. Meautys lies near him, as is shown by the inscription on a neighbouring stone, which, however, is partly concealed by a pew. LONDON M. JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, WEST STRAND. PUBLISHED IN WEEKLY NUMBERS, PRICE ONE PENNY, AND IN MONTHLY PART PRICE SIXPENCE. Sold by all Booksellers and Newsveuders in the Kingdom, |