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There is, as Strutt remarks at the close | beautifully alluded to the popular super.

of the foregoing account, something in it extremely captivating to the imagination, in the thought, that these venerable trees witnessed the rearing of that noble edifice, on whose ruins they seem to look in sympathetic decay. The slow growth of the yew renders it probable that these trees are now above a thousand years old.

The Ankerwyke yew, near Staines, is supposed to be also above a thousand years of age. The girth of this tree, at thirty feet from the ground, is twentyseven feet. Its height is forty-nine feet six inches; and the branches extend so as shade a circumference of two hundred and seven feet. It is said to have been the trysting place of Henry VIII., and the hapless Anna Boleyn, when she was in that neighbourhood. But it is yet more interesting from the circumstance, that king John was compelled, by his barons, to sign the Magna Charta in its immediate vicinity, on a little island in the Thames, between Runnymede and Ankerwyke. "Here patriot barons might have musing stood, And planned the charter for their country's good; And here, perhaps, from Runnymede retired, The haughty John with secret vengeance fired, Might curse the day which saw his weakness yield Extorted rights in yonder tented field. Here, too, the tyrant Henry felt love's flame, And sighing breathed his Anna Boleyn's name; Beneath the shelter of this yew tree's shade, The royal lover woo'd this ill-starred maid." Under a yew at Cruxton castle, tradition states, that Mary, queen of Scotland, consented to marry the unfortunate lord Darnley, and that in remembrance of this circumstance, she ordered the figure of a yew tree to be stamped upon her coin. The tree has been dead some years; but a young tree, raised from it, is now in the Glasgow Botanic Garden. Close to Dryburgh abbey is a large yew tree, which, in 1837, was in perfect health; its head was fifty feet in diameter, though the circumference of the trunk, at a foot from the ground, was only twelve feet. This tree is supposed to have been planted at the time the abbey was founded, which was in 1150. At Mulcross Abbey, in Ireland, is a very large tree. It is probably coeval with the abbey, which was renowned so early as the year 1180. An author, writing of it fifty years ago, described it as a most prodigious tree, its branches forming a canopy over one of the courts in which it stands. It is still in a flourishing condition.

Our poet of nature, Wordsworth, in describing some celebrated yew trees, has

stitions connected with this tree, as well as the use made of it by our forefathers.

"There is a yew tree, pride of Lorton vale,
Which to this day stands single in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood in yore:
Not loath to furnish weapons for the bands
Of Umfraville or Percy, ere they marched
To Scotland's heaths; or those that crossed the
seas,

And drew their sounding bows at Agincourt,
Perhaps at earlier Cressy, or Poictiers.
Of vast circumference, and gloom profound,
This solitary tree! A living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay:
Of form and aspect too magnificent
To be destroyed. But worthier still of note
Are those fraternal four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove :
Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres, serpentine
Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved;
Nor uninformed with phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane; a pillar'd shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially; beneath whose sable roof of boughs,
As if for festal purpose, decked

With unrejoicing berries, ghostly shapes
May meet at noontide: fear and trembling hope,
Silence and foresight, death the skeleton,
And time the shadow; there to celebrate,
As in a natural temple, scattered o'er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.

CONVERSATION.

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"I HAVE been dining out," says Mr. Wilberforce, in his diary, "and was then at an assembly at the Chief Baron's. Alas! how little like a company of Christians!-a sort of hollow cheerfulness on every countenance. I grew out of spirits. I had not been at pains before I went to fit myself for company, by a store of conversation, topics, launchers, etc." "These," his biographer adds, "were certain topics.carefully arranged before he entered into company, which might insensibly lead the conversation to useful subjects. His first great object was to make it a direct instrument of good; and in this he was much assisted by his natural powers, which enabled him to introduce serious subjects with a cheerful gravity, and to pass from them by a natural transition, before attention flagged. He was also watchful to draw forth from all he met their own especial information, and for some time kept a book in which was recorded what he had thus acquired. This watchful desire to make society useful, saved him from the danger to which his peculiar powers exposed him; and he never engrossed the conversation." It would be well were there many imitators of this eminent man in these respects.

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TYRE.

Ruins of the Port of Tyrc.

ANTIQUITY speaks of three cities, erected at different times, and bearing a similar designation: Tyre on the continent; Tyre on the island, about half a mile from the former; and Tyre on the peninsula; but it appears they were one, for an artificial isthmus is said to have joined the old and new cities.

Tyre was the most celebrated city of Phenicia. Every part of the known world wafted treasures to its ports, and people of all languages thronged its streets. It was the nursery of arts and science, the city of a most industrious and active people, the mart of nations, the vast emporium of the ancient world.

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Meanwhile the heart proved, as it has done universally, to be deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." The pride of the Tyrians, their exultation over the calamities of Israel, and their cruelty in selling them into slavery, brought upon them the judgments of God. Nebuchadnezzar came forth from the north, with horses and chariots, and companies, and much people, and continued the siege of Tyre for thirteen years. Availing themselves of their physical superiority over the invader, the Tyrians made their escape by sea; and hence the city, which was called the daughter of Sidon, became the parent

of Carthage, the rival of Rome. Success was therefore to the conqueror only the harbinger of disappointment; he found Tyre stripped of its treasures, and almost deserted; and, in the fury of his wrath, he put the remnant of a vast and luxurious population to a cruel and immediate death, and consigned the place of their departed glory to utter destruction.

Insular, or New Tyre, however, soon rose to distinction, became a mart of universal merchandize, heaped up silver as the dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets. Surrounded by a wall, a hundred and fifty feet high, built on the very extremity of the island, and washed on every side by the ocean's billows, it appeared impregnable. But the revival of power was transient, for scarcely had a century elapsed, when Alexander desired to reckon it among his proud possessions.

Rarely, if ever, has the collision of human passions enkindled a more violent and sanguinary contest than that which immediately commenced. Furiously repelled by a desperate people, the invaders had to contend with the rage of the elements. A junction with the main land, rendered necessary by the previous destruction of the isthmus, was almost complete, when a storm arose, the waves

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dashed with resistless force against the | mass, the waters penetrated the strong foundation, and, like the sea-girt rock, when riven by the earthquake, it sank at once into the abyss.

ditors were astonished; and well may our feelings resemble theirs. But other predictions equally remarkable demand our devout regard. Let us then diligently examine the inspired record, reSpeedily was this mischief repaired,membering that "The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," 2 Pet. i. 21. W.

PHOTOGENIC DRAWING.-No. II.

THE first thing to be done in pre

and military engines hurled arrows, stones, and burning torches on the besieged, but, to the unutterable dismay of the Tyrians, the Cyprian fleet approached the harbour, and darkness was suddenly spread over the sky, another storm arose, the vessels fastened together, were torn asunder with a horrid crash, and the flotilla, once tremend-paring for photogenic drawing is to proous in appearance and threatening destruction, returned a wreck to the shore. Alexander, dispirited by these events, had almost determined to raise the siege, when a supply of eight thousand men having arrived, in compliance with his demand, from Samaria, then the asylum of all the malcontents in Judea, he renewed the conflict, and, at length, the sceptre of Tyre was broken, the splendid city was destroyed by fire, thirty thousand were sold into slavery, fifteen thousand escaped in ships; and two thousand victims remaining, when the soldiers were glutted with slaughter, they were transfixed to crosses along the sea-shore.

A few years ago, Asaad Kehaba, the Syrian, who is known to many in this country, was in the immediate neighbourhood of ancient Tyre, when the following conversation took place between him and some of the passersby :

Of what are there here the ruins?
A great city.

For what was it famous ?

Its power and merchandize.
Are many people found here now?
No! only a few.

What did you observe on the rocks as you passed?

Nothing but the nets of the fishermen. True," said the Syrian, "but I can tell you that in my bosom there is a book in which all this was foretold when Tyre was in the height of its power; and there," he continued, "it is said by the great and only true God, of this the greatest commercial city of the world, whose merchants were princes, whose traffickers were the honourable of the earth, I will make thee like the top of a rock. Thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon,' Ezekiel xxvi. 14; and of the fulfilment of these predictions, you and I are witnesses this day." His au

vide ourselves with a suitable paper on which the sun itself may draw the objects it illuminates. Several methods have been proposed by different experimenters, which we shall first give to the reader as nearly as possible in their own words, and afterwards throw out a few practical hints.

Mr. Talbot recommends the following process for the preparation of photogenic paper.

"Take superfine writing paper and dip it into a weak solution of common salt, and wipe it dry; by which the salt is uniformly distributed throughout its surface. Then spread a solution of the nitrate of silver on one surface only, and dry it at the fire. The solution should not be saturated; when dry, the paper is fit for use.

"To render this paper more sensitive, it must be again washed with salt and water, and afterwards with the same solution of nitrate of silver, drying it between times. I have increased the sensibility to the degree required for receiving the images of the camera ob

scura.

"In conducting this operation, it will be found that the results are sometimes more, and sometimes less satisfactory, in consequence of small and accidental variations in the proportions employed. It happens sometimes that the chloride of silver is disposed to blacken of itself without any exposure to light. This shows that the attempt to give it sensibility has been carried too far. The object is to approach to this condition as near as possible without reaching it, so that the substance may be in a state ready to yield to the slightest extraneous force, such as the feeble impact of the violet rays when much attenuated."

Another kind of paper exceedingly delicate may be made, according to Mr.

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Talbot, in the following manner :"Wash the paper over first with nitrate of silver, then with bromide of potassium, then with nitrate of silver again." M. Daguerre recommends another process. Immerse a sheet of thin paper in hydrochloric ether, which has been kept sufficiently long to have become acid; the paper is then carefully and completely dried. The paper is then dipped into a solution of the nitrate of silver, and dried without artificial heat in a room from which every ray of light is carefully excluded. By this process it acquires a very remarkable facility in being blackened on a very slight exposure to light, even when the latter is by no means intense. This paper rapidly loses its extreme sensitiveness to light, and finally becomes not more readily acted upon by the solar beams than paper dipped into nitrate of silver only.'

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Mr. Cooper, who exhibits and lectures on the Daguerreotype, at the Polytechnic Institution, recommends another process. "Soak the paper," he says, "in boiling hot solution of chlorate of potash. After a few minutes, it must be taken and dried, and then covered on one side with the nitrate of silver, which may be laid on with a brush. Sixty grains, he says, "to an ounce of water when the paper is required to be very sensitive, or otherwise thirty grains would be sufficient."

It must, at first, appear an exceedingly easy task to manufacture a paper according to either of the receipts we have mentioned; and yet in practice many difficulties will arise, sometimes in the manipulation, and sometimes when the paper is to be used. There are, however, a few hints which, if regarded, will be the means of preventing much inconvenience and trouble. The entire process must be conducted with great care, and this is of the first importance. It must, on no account, be done in a hurry, or the experimenter will certainly fail to accomplish his object; it must always be commenced when there is no lack of time. Be careful in the choice of paper, which must be of an uniform tint and of even surface. The various washings must be laid on as carefully as possible; and all the operations should be conducted with the aid of a candle in a darkened apartment or during the night. That side of the paper which is prepared

should be always marked to prevent the possibility of mistake when it is about to be used. The thinner kinds of printing paper are very well suited for the photogenic drawing, as also the highly glazed writing papers.

In the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, a method is given, by Mr. Ponton, of preparing a photogenic paper without using a salt of silver, and of this it will be necessary we should take some notice before we proceed to explain the manner in which the drawing is formed upon the prepared medium. The substance used by this gentleman is a bichromate of potash, into which the paper is immersed. A saturated solution of this salt should be used; and when the paper is thoroughly soaked, it should be dried rapidly before a brisk fire, taking care to prevent the access of day-light.

"When an object is laid in the usual way on this paper, the portion exposed to the light speedily becomes tawny, passing more or less into a deep orange according to the strength of the light. The portion covered by the object retains the original bright yellow tint which it had before exposure; and the object is thus represented yellow upon an orange ground, there being several gradations of shade or tint, according to the greater or less degree of transparency in the different parts of the object. In this state, of course, the drawing though very beautiful is evanescent. To fix it, all that is required is careful immersion in water, when it will be found that those portions of the salt which have not been acted on by the light are really dissolved out, while those which have been exposed to the light are completely fixed in the paper. By the second process, the object is obtained white upon an orange ground, and quite permanent. If exposed for many hours together to strong sunshine, the colour of the ground is apt to lose in depth; but not more so than most other colouring matters.'

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Being prepared with one of the several kinds of photogenic paper, we have to produce a picture on it, which may be done in two ways, both of which we shall explain.

1. Take a piece of the paper and, placing it on a table with the prepared side upwards, place on it the picture which is to be represented face to face, and place them between two pieces of glass.

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B

Expose the prepared face to the light, | to the purpose for which it is intended; the direct rays of the sun if possible, but that represented in the following and that part of the prepared paper which is not covered by the engraving or drawing will be blackened; those parts which are protected by the dark shades of the picture will remain white. We have mentioned above that the prepared paper and object may be placed between two pieces of glass; but as it is important to bring the two papers as closely together as possible, a pad of woollen or flannel may be placed at the back, and being pressed upon by a piece of wood, or a book cover, facilitates the action of the light upon the prepared surface. Those of our readers who may attempt to make experiments themselves, will find the leaves of plants and fine fabrics excellent specimens for trial.

We have already stated that the lights and shadows are reversed in every photogenic copy from a natural object or from an engraving. It is evident, however, that if this copy be then made the object, the shadows will again be reversed, and a natural representation be produced; but it will lose much of the sharpness and vigour of an original copy. The drawing being completed, it must be fixed, or in other words a process must be adopted, by which the action of the sun's rays upon the other parts of the picture may be prevented. Mr. Talbot says that for this purpose it is only necessary to dip the drawings into a saturated solution of salt and water. This is well known to retard the discoloration, and in some cases seems to prevent it altogether, though it cannot be depended on as a certain means of accomplishing the object. Sir John Herschel has proposed the use of a solution of the hyposulphite of soda, which is without doubt the best substance that can be employed. The hydriodate of potash dissolved in water and very much diluted, is also a good preparation with which to wash the drawings and prevent further change of colour; but if it be not used in a very diluted state, it will destroy instead of preserve the picture, by removing that which has been changed into an oxide as well as the unchanged

muriate.

2. But we must now proceed to explain the second mode of producing the photogenic drawing; namely, by the aid of the camera obscura, an instrument which must be itself first described. It may be made in any form according

diagram is the most convenient for the production of photogenic drawings. The instrument is a rectangular box, with a double convex lens, A, at one end, and a glass reflector, B, which is generally a piece of looking glass, at the other. Now supposing the rays of light to proceed from an extensive landscape and pass through this small convex lens, as we well know they may do, what will be the effect produced? They will be in the first place thrown upon the reflector, which is fixed at an angle of forty-five degrees to the horizon. Now it follows from a law well known to opticians, that these rays will be reflected to the top of the box immediately over the mirror; so that if a ground glass, or any medium capable of receiving the reflected image, be placed there, a representation of the landscape may be observed. It has been proved by innumerable experiments that reflected light has, in proportion to its power, as much influence upon the photogenic paper as the direct rays of the sun; hence it follows that if a piece of the prepared paper be placed in the same situation as the ground glass, the reflected image, be it a landscape, a figure, or an artificial object, will be formed on the medium. All that is therefore required to be done in using the camera obscura for photogenic drawing, is to place upon the opening at the top of the box the prepared paper, and immediately to cover it with the lid c, so that it may not be acted upon by any other light than that reflected from the mirror. The time required for producing the necessary effect will depend on several circumstances, such as the preparation of the paper and the intensity of the light when the experiment is made; the latter, however, is by far the most important. On a bright sunshining day, the drawing will be produced in one half the time and with far more sharpness of outline, than on a dull wintry day, when the sun struggles with the mists by which its radiant beams are encumbered.

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