Or o'er your stretching heaths, by fancy led,

Or o'er your mountains creep, in awful gloom.
Then will I dress once more the faded bower
Where Jonson sat in Drummond's classic shade;
Or crop from Teviot Dale each lyric flower,

Or mourn on Yarrow's banks the widow'd maid!"

PORTEUS, bishop of London, was a lover of the more tranquil style of scenery; and being in the earlier part of his life presented to the rectory of Hunton by Archbishop Secker, he embellished his parsonage with all the elegance of a refined taste. To this spot he was devotedly attached, and even continued to reside there, for some months in the year, after his promotion to the bishopric of Chester. Never was there a better man than Dr. Porteus! And, for the honour of the age in which he lived, let him ever be distinguished by the title of the "GOOD BISHOP OF LONDON." To him are the slaves of Africa, in a great degree, indebted for the abolition of that monstrous traffic which continued so long a disgrace to this free country. He assisted in the formation of a society for their conversion to the Christian faith; he was a warm encourager of Sunday-schools, and an early patroniser of the British system of public education. As a master, he was so kind and indulgent that his servants shed tears over his grave; as a friend, he was ardent and sincere; as a preacher, so admirable in delivery, in language so elegant, in argument so striking, that a whole court hung with rapture on his lips. Only one spot rests upon the memory of Porteus: it is the following passage in his Poem on Death:

"War its thousands slays :

Peace its ten thousands!"

To confound peace with luxury argues little of logic, and places a sword in the hands of the hero which that most excellent bishop could never have intended.

Germany has produced many genuine lovers of

Nature, and none more so than Goëthe, who, shortly before he died, called for paper, that he might express his delight at the coming of spring. France, too: Fenelon, the amiable and illustrious Fenelon, the tutor of princes and the shepherd of a flock, was a strict observer and beautiful describer of Nature in all her serenity and elegance. How often has this archiepiscopal patron of those doomed to blush at the severity of their wants, sat on the grass with a group of villagers sitting around him: realizing in his practice the scenes of Elysium, which he had described with all the grace and tranquillity of a pure mind in his Adventures of Telemachus. In an age like this, how delightful it is to dwell on the memory of so wise and excellent a man; to meditate on the purity of his affections, the gentleness of his manners, and the nobleness of his sentiments; the richness of his imagination, and the refinement of his sensibility. Breathing love and friendship around him, and benevolence to all mankind; penetrating and conciliating every heart-we become enamoured of himself no less than of his genius.

THE INTELLECTUAL UNIVERSE.

AMONG the ARUNDEL MANUSCRIPTS is one written by Leonardo da Vinci (in his own hand), containing unconnected observations and demonstrations on subjects of mixed mathematics: viz., reflection, refraction, and optics in general; astronomy, gravity, motion, percussion, and the mechanical powers and forces, illustrated by diagrams and delineations. It is written backward in Italian. It is a most remarkable collection, having been composed a full age before the Novum Organon.

This manuscript reminded me of the monument

of Galileo in the Santa Croce of Florence, supported by the statues of geometry and astronomy; and also of the eloquent declaration of La Grange, that, had he been born to a fortune, he never would have studied the mathematics. It reminded me, too, of the circumstance that, though the mathematics may afford no great assistance to our search into Nature, it cannot be denied that they are of positive and indispensable use to confirm the knowledge of what has already been discovered.

Geometry renders even the Venus de Medicis an object for measurement, that is, of truth: yet Bossuet thought it totally useless in religion, and Fenelon even wrote to a ward, "Do not suffer yourself to be bewitched by the infernal attractions of geometry, for they will extinguish in you the spirit of grace." May we not say, the deeper the knowledge, the clearer the water; the shallower the knowledge, the more turbid and obscure?

Fontenelle has asserted that Newton never studied EUCLID, because his problems were too plain and simple, and therefore it was not worth taking up his time. This is absurd! Newton must have studied Euclid in the first instance. When he had mastered him, of course he studied him no longer. It is very easy to disdain our masters; but Newton never disdained Euclid. They were of a kindred genius; for they had both a very curious perceptive felicity in the art of demonstration, in common with Copernicus, Napier, La Grange, Condillac, and La Place.

The principle of analysis has been employed to pre-eminent advantage in a vast variety of instances; but some are disposed to believe that in many respects philosophers have endeavoured to carry it beyond its natural power. The Greek geometry, as pursued by Plato, Pappus, Euclid, and Apollonius, is, it is true, rigid and severe; but its beauty will ever prevent it from losing its attraction with the highest order of minds. Nor will the Calculus ever be able to destroy that taste.

Though the mathematics are essential to advancement in any of the higher departments of practical science, Gray was of the opinion that a knowledge of them is not absolutely essential to ensure maturity to the understanding. He thought that a fixed attention to any subject of deep reasoning might produce similar accuracy. He nevertheless felt their power in leading to a true knowledge of Nature, and therefore signified to a friend that, though late in the day, he should devote his mind to the study of them.

Mathematics open to genius a horizon so interminable as no imagination of man will ever be able to compass or explore. Notwithstanding this, mathematicians have never had any considerable influence on the manners or destinies of mankind. The power of poetry united to skill in mathematics is said nowhere to have been found; and Gibbon went even so far as to assert that the mathematics so harden the mind by the habit of rigid demonstration, as to destroy those finer feelings of moral evidence which must determine the actions and principles of life. But who does not know, on the contrary, that Euclid, Archimedes, Galileo, Napier, Newton, and Euler were not only in the first class as mathematicians, but also in the first rank as excellent men? For my own part, though I think the chief use of them is to strengthen the power of continuous thought, I conceive that no one can exalt his capacity for all good more than by adopting that course of education which will enable him to derive the best advantage from Newton's Principia, D'Alembert's Calculus of Variations, La Place's Traité de Mécanique, and his Théorie Analytique des Probabilités. And, since seven crotchets are sufficient to enable us to cause almost infinite combinations of sound, eighteen characters to express all our wants, sensations, and ideas, and nine ciphers to calculate numbers almost to infinity, truly

may it be said that the mathematics serve as a passage or an arch to true theology, and as a vestibule to a comprehensive knowledge of the DEITY.

We must, however, remember that no nation has been redeemed from barbarism by the mathematics, and that Religion, Poetry, and the useful arts have ever been the means that have improved society, and held it together. Geometry, when applied to the higher objects of the universe, is, nevertheless, the most beautiful of the sciences, because it is the most perfect; the cultivator of it feeling in its study not only that he is right, but that he cannot be wrong.

It must nevertheless be conceded, that if the grandest object of an aspiring mind is to cultivate the nobler faculties in the highest possible degree, the mathematics are far from ensuring that great result; quantity only being its basis, diameter and circumference, height, width, and depth. Quality is unrecognised in its empire; the feelings have no exercise; the imagination-the noblest of all the faculties no existence. It not only has no existence, but is not allowed to have any: the mathematician not only expels, but disdains it.

CUVIER assures us, that in an insect which he dissected, not one inch long, there were 494 muscles, 494 pairs of nerves, and 40,000 antennæ! Pythagoras might well say that a knowledge of numbers was a knowledge of Deity.

The number THREE is a remarkable number. Thus the CHALDEANS regarded it as being illustrative of figure, light, and motion; the EGYPTIANS, of matter, form, and motion; the PERSIANS, of past, present, and future; ORPHEUS, of life, light, and wisdom; the GREEKS, of the God of Heaven, the God of Earth, and the God of the Sea; the early Cretans, of life, cause, and energy; and the HINDUS, of power, understanding, and love. With CHRISTIANS this number is illustrative of the Trinity, “Three Persons in One God.”