of his age.

In August, 1807, he was engaged in the memorable trial of Aaron Burr, for high treason. In this remarkable cause Mr. Wirt immortalized himself as an orator, and evinced his love of rural beauty, and his high appreciation of domestic bliss, in the vivid picture which he drew of Blannerhasset-the dupe of Burr-and his family scenes, at his lovely islandhome in the Ohio river, that bore his

name.

In 1808, the most earnest persuasions were made from the highest authorities to induce him to engage in political life, and consent to enter Congress. Mr. Jefferson, then President, wrote to him in the following language: "The object of this letter is to propose to you to come into Congress. With your reputation, talents, and correct views, you will at once be placed at the head of the Republican body in the House of Representatives; and, after obtaining the standing which a little time will ensure you, you may look, at your will, into the military, the judiciary, diplomatic, or other civil departments, with a certainty of being in either whatever you please, and be assured of being engaged through life in the most honorable employments.

To this flattering proposal he replied that he loved his country, and was willing to devote his life to her interests, but preferred first to place his loved ones beyond the reach of future want, and that the "loaves and fishes" of office might never be charged upon him as a motive or necessity leading him to public pursuits. A seat in the Virginia legislature was the only office he ever held by a popular elec

tion.

In 1817, Mr. Wirt was called by President Munroe to the office of Attorney General of the United States, which he accepted with a reluctance that was an unaffected and mature sentiment. He coveted no political honor. His thoughts were turned toward a life which was to derive its pleasures from the domestic circle, and its fame from private pursuits. He refused to be a candidate for the United States' Senate in 1815, presenting a rare instance of a lawyer and orator, abundant

any field, refusing to accept an honorable theater for forensic achievements, and a sure avenue to enduring renown.

His manner as an orator was singularly attractive, smooth, polished, scholar-like, sparkling with pleasant fancies, often rising with the majesty of his subject to a style of startling sublimity, yet the sunshine and the rainbow followed in such quick succession as to cheer and beautify the departing storm.

His "British Spy," "Patrick Henry," but more especially his epistolary correspondence, unveil the mind and style of the man. Grave minds, like that of Locke, have regarded Wirt's opulent fancy as a blemish in his style. But who would change a word of " Blannerhassett's Island," or the "Blind Preacher ?" Or why should his description of Henry's oratory be regarded as redundant? It was, indeed, high-wrought imagery, but to what human being could it be more felicitously applied?

From the death of his first wife his mind had assumed a religious tendency, which ripened into a fervent Cristian hope that cheered him in his final hour. He died at Baltimore, February 18th, 1834.

DISCOVERIES OF THE LAST HALF

CENTURY.-No. II.

PRINTING-PRESS, PINS, CHEMISTRY, GASLIGHT, DA~ GUERREOTYPES, ASTRONOMY, ETC.

B

EFORE the beginning of this century, what was the printing-press in comparison to what it now is? A few years ago there was not a single printingpress driven by steam; now there is not a paper with a large circulation printed without it. From printing 1,000, 2,000, and 4,000 copies per hour, the latest improved press can print 20,000 in that time. In other departments of typography the improvements have been equally striking and beneficial.

Fifteen years ago pins were all made by hand; each was made of more than one piece, and a number of persons were required to finish every one. A single machine now completes the operation from

beginning to end; and, in Waterbury, Conn., 4,030,000 are finished every day; and the machinery for counting and sticking them in papers is equally ingenious.

In all kinds of machinery for manufacturing textile fabrics, the improvements made during the last half century would require volumes to describe them in all their numberless variations. In weaving, especially, we now behold the most beautiful carpets, with their most intricate patterns, woven by a few rods and cams, without the finger of man touching them after they are set in motion. The rich carpets of Brussels are now made by steam, and iron fingers lap the wires, to raise the figures, with more accuracy and speed than the most skillful weaver.

In Chemistry, what discoveries have been made; in fact, the whole science has been remodeled. The discovery of the voltaic battery was to chemistry what a strong man is to a great law-giver in executing his mandates. In the hands of Davy, chemical compounds of what were supposed mere earthy crystals, were resolved into metals in 1808, and since that time the most astonishing progress has been made in the science.

Agricultural chemistry is but a few years old; and bromine, iodine, palladium, rhodium, &c., are discoveries of very late years. The Animal Chemistry of Liebig has been but recently given to the world. Cotton and sawdust are now made to propel cannon-balls, and rend rocks by a spark from a battery. Chloroform has come to the aid of surgery, and arms and limbs are amputated from men and women every day, and they as ignorant of the operation performing on them as the dead in their graves.

Gaslight was unknown in 1800; it was not until two years after this that Murdoch made his first public exhibition at Soho. Since that time his discovery has encircled the earth; in Europe and America all the principal cities are lighted with it; and even in New Zealand, villages, where no white man had built his residence in 1800, are now illuminated by the same subtle but beautiful agent of human comfort and happiness.

Who, if he were told, twenty years ago,

that the sunlight would be used for a limner's pencil, would have believed it? Not one; and yet this has been done. When M. Daguerre, a distinguished chemist, of Paris, first published, in 1839, that he had discovered a method of taking pictures on metal plates by the sun, the public regarded his metal tablets with feelings of wonder.

And if this discovery has not yet produced such important results, nor affected the customs of society so much as the steamships and railways, still it is a beautiful and wonderful discovery; and the time may not be far distant when it will be applied to paint the planets as they roll in their courses, and thus impress the warm kiss of the star on the pale cheek of the artist's metallic canvas.

Already it is announced that a discovery has just been made by which the colors of nature can be accurately and beautifully transferred to the metallic plates; so that landscapes, and even the beauties of a summer's golden sunset, may be copied with all the natural colors by this new process of daguerreotyping.

In Astronomy the advancement has been equally rapid and wonderful. Mechanics has come to the aid of mathematics; new and powerful telescopes have drawn the stars down to earth, and opened up the secret chambers of Orion to the ken of mortals; and so refined have the disquisitions of philosophy become, that the planet Neptune was discovered even before a ray of its light had entered human eye.

As Sir David Brewster has well observed, "By a law of the Solar System, just discovered by Daniel Kirkwood, an humble American mechanic, who, like Kepler, struggled to find something new among the arithmetical relations of the planetary elements, we can determine the broken magnitude of the original planet long after it had been shivered to atoms."

There is not a single department in science and art but has been greatly enriched with splendid discoveries during the last fifty years; and those discoveries, although so many are blind to their value, have been the means of conferring great benefits upon all classes.

Look at the simple article of Lucifer Matches: twenty years ago we knew nothing about their benefits. None but those who were comparatively rich could buy them; and fifteen years ago, a box, which now sells for one cent, could not be purchased for less than twelve cents. During the last war between America and England, cotton cloth, which now can be purchased for eight cents, could not be purchased for forty.

Blanchard has given to the world a machine, which, by putting a rough block of marble upon a spindle, soon turns it into the likeness of Clay or Webster. Bogardus has invented an engraving machine, which can engrave the finest numbers, and the most beautiful flowers, on metal, with a facility and accuracy which baffles all manual workmanship.

We have now gold and steel quills instead of goose quills. This is certainly the age of invention. The triumphs of warriors are naught compared with the triumphs of inventors. The iron bridge spanning the sea, the iron ship sailing on the ocean, are greater evidences of mental power than Austerlitz or Waterloo.

And if the last half century has given birth to so many grand discoveries and inventions, is there any reason to doubt that the future may more than outstrip the past? We can see none. Hope is pointing her finger to the year 1900.

MY MOTHER.

BY GEORGE D. PRENTICE.

My mother, 'tis a long and weary time
Since last I looked upon thy sad, sweet face,
And listened to the gentle spirit-tones
Of thy dear voice of music. I was then

A child, a bright-haired child. The fearful thought,
That thou wast passing from the earth away,
Was my young life's first sorrow. Through the long
And solemn watches of that awful night,
Kind friends, who dearly loved us, gathered round
Thy dying couch, and in my agony,
My childish agony, I shrieked to them

To save thee, mother; but, with streaming tears,
And in the tones of holy sympathy,
They told me thou wouldst die.

Oh! then I bowed

I

My head to God, whose worship thy dear lips
Had taught me ; and to Him, with bursting heart,
I prayed that he would spare thee. And, as there
knelt, a holy calm, as if from Heaven,
As 'twere a melody from some star,
Came stealing o'er my spirit, and a voice,
Floated into my soul. It said that thou
Must leave me, that thy home was in the sky,
But that thou still wouldst love and guard thy child,
And hover round him on thy angels' wings
In all his wanderings here.

My mother, then
I rose in more than childhood's strength, and watched
The fading of thy life. Dear friends still hung
Around thy pillow, but I saw them not.
Wild lamentations and deep sobs were breathed
From hearts of anguish, but I heard them not.
A man of God poured forth his soul in prayer
For thy soul's welfare, but I heard him not.
Thy half-closed eyes, so meek and calm beneath

I

saw but thy wan cheeks, thy parted lips,

Their blue-veined lids, thy bright, disheveled locks,
Thy pallid brow, damp with the dews of death,
And the faint heaving of thy breast, that oft
In happy hours had pillowed my young head
To sweet and gentle slumber, and I heard
But the faint struggles of thy failing breath,
Thy stifling sighs, and the high, holy words
That seemed to fall like dew-drops on my soul
From out the blessed skies. All suddenly
Upon thy child with one fixed, burning gaze,
Thy blue eyes opened, and a moment looked
In which the deep and hoarded love of years
Was all concentrated; a convulsive thrill
Shot through the fibers of thy wasted frame;
And death was there-ay, thou wast mine and

death's.

And then my tears again rushed wildly forth,
But light from heaven broke through them with a
soft, prismatic glory, as I gazed,
And saw thee mounting, like a new-made star,
Far up thy pathway in the heavens.

Long years,

Long years, my dear lost mother, have gone by
Since that wild hour. My childhood and my youth
Have passed away, and now my manhood's prime
Is fading like a vision, for my years
Far, far outnumber thine upon the earth,
This dark, cold exile of the gentle heart
From the bright home to which it longs to fly,
And be at rest forever. I have seen
Much, much of joy and sorrow; I have felt
Life's storms and sunshine; but I ne'er have known
Such raptures as my full heart shared with thee
In childhood's fairy years. Now, time no more
Scatters fresh roses round my feet, his hand
Lets fall upon my path but pale, torn flowers;
Dead blossoms, that the genial dews of eve,
The morning sunlight, and the noontide rain,

Can ne'er revive again, for they are dust-
Ay, dust and ashes.

Even thine image now,
The image of thy lovely form, that shone
The starlight of my childhood, seems to fade
From memory's vision. 'Tis as some pale tint
Upon the twilight wave, a broken glimpse
Of something beautiful and dearly loved
In far gone years, a dim and tender dream,
That, like a faint bow on a darkened sky,
Lies on my clouded brain. But, oh! thy voice,
Its tones can never perish in my soul,
It visits me among the strife of men
In the dark city's solitude. It comes,
Amid the silence of the midnight hour,
Upon my listening spirit, like a strain

Of fairy music o'er the sea. And oft,
When at the eventide, amid a hush
Deep as the awful stillness of a dream,
I stray all lonely through the leafless woods,
And gaze upon the moon, that seems to mourn
Her lonely lot in heaven, or on the trees,
That look like frowning Titians in the dim
And doubtful light, that unforgotten voice
Swells on my ear like the low, mournful tone
Imprisoned in the sea-shell, or the sound,
The melancholy sound, of dying gales
Panting upon the far-off tree-tops.

Yes,

My dear mother, though mountains, hills, and
streams,

Divide me from thy grave, where I so oft
In childhood laid my bosom on the turf

That covered thine, though the drear winter-storms
Long, long have cast o'er these their spotless shroud,
And night her pall, and though thine image sweet,
The one dear picture cherished through my life,
Grows dim and dimmer in my brain, thy voice
Is ever in my ear and in my heart,

To teach me love, and gentleness, and truth,
And warn me from the perils that surround
The paths of pilgrims o'er the desert earth.

Selected.

In

nature may appear one complicated mass, indescribable and unknown; but investigation will prove the above assertion. every flower, in every rippling stream, in every rock-ribbed" hill, is this lesson, this beautiful lesson, indelibly written. From the tiny bud that lifts its meek brow to the soft caress of spring, up to the frowning Alps, hoary with the storms of countless ages, we may read-simplicity, simplicity.

Who would think, while looking at the everlasting mountains, that their ingredients could be the same as those of the pebbles we tread heedlessly beneath our feet; and yet, so mighty, so wonderful, so grand, are they, that we are lost in their overwhelming sublimity, and forget that it is by an accumulation of sand, and grain after grain, that they have attained their almost fearful size, and that their giant heads are upreared to heaven by the mighty internal action of the earth, the result of that simple law-the expansion of bodies by heat.

Do we ever think when we lift a cup of water to our lips, or listen to the pleasant murmur of the rill, or to the sullen roar of the unresting ocean, that to the combustion of two simple elements we are indebted for the cooling draught, the dancing streamlet, and the wayward sea? when we admire the beauty of the little cascade, the grandeur of the mighty cataract, the sublimity of the majestic river, do we pause to consider how simple, yet how vast, the cunning workmanship of nature?

And

How much of simplicity and vastness is embodied in that little acorn! We would scarcely think that it contains the embryo

rounding forest. The blessed air! how it lifts the locks from the toil-worn brow of labor, and softly fans with its invisible wings the fevered cheek of sickness ! A simple, but a wonderful thing; now whispering sweetly to the trembling leaflets, now hoarsely shrieking in its wrath, prostrating the forest monarchs, and tossing them like the foam of the billows.

From such reflections, O man! canst thou not see the wisdom and power of Him who is the author of existence?

Go forth into the green fields, or seek that blessed retreat in the shady wood; go forth at the holy twilight hour, go talk to the majestic mountains, or hold sweet converse with the flower at thy feet, still, wherever thy walks may be, thou wilt plainly see graven on every object-" Simplicity and Vastness mark the works of God."-ANGELINE.

T

RURAL LIFE.

HIS primeval enjoyment of man is the most healthful of all occupations; healthful for the body and the soul. What other pursuits by which men obtain honest bread afford such vigorous training for the physical power, such various and extensive ranges of mental exercise?

And where may the moral nature of man be preserved unsullied from vice, and grow and expand more, than in the rural scenes beneath the purest air of heaven?

The farmer's life is not to scratch with the pen, or rap, rap, with the hammer, nor an everlasting unpacking and repacking of another's labor. He walks forth under the open sky, his broad acres spread out beneath his feet; the blue concave, sunlit or starlit, or shrouded in clouds, is still above him. Health claims him as her favorite child, and the glorious sun loves to kiss a cheek that is not ashamed to wear the ruddy imprint of such affection. Nature's own inimitable babbling brooks, birds, breeze, or rustling foliage, enter his ear on their glad mission to his heart. He listens to instructive voices continually speaking from the universe around him. His eyes gather truth from pages of wisdom everywhere open before him. Each day, each month, season after season, year after year, these teachings are given to him, infinite in variety, and endless in extent.

When toward the close of a sultry day the summer's blessing comes pouring down, as says the beautiful poetry of the sacred volume, the trees of the field clap their hands, and the valleys covered with corn shout for joy, the farmer, retiring from his labors to the friendly shelter of his cottage roof, improves his leisure hours with measures of wisdom.

So, too, while his fields are sleeping beneath frost and snow, what profession affords more available opportunities for self-culture? Where was the lyric poetry composed that makes Scotland prouder of her Burns than of all her ancient race of warlike kings? Was it not between the handles of the plow?

I

THE FIRST PRINTED BOOK. T is a remarkable and interesting fact, that the very first use to which the discovery of printing was applied was the production of the Holy Bible. This was accomplished at Mentz, between the years 1450 and 1455. Gottenberg was the inventor of the art, and Faust, a goldsmith, furnished the necessary funds.

Had it been a single page, or even an entire sheet, which was then produced, there might have been less occasion to have noticed it; but there was something in the whole character of the affair which, if not unprecedented, rendered it singular in the usual current of human events.

This Bible was in two folio volumes, which have been justly praised for the strength and beauty of the paper, the exactness of the register, and the luster of the ink. The work contained twelve hundred and eighty-two pages, and, being the first ever printed, of course involved a long period of time, and an immense amount of mental, manual, and mechanical labor; and yet, for a long time after it had been finished, and offered for sale, not a human being, save the artists themselves, knew how it had been accomplished.

Of the first printed Bible, eighteen copies are now known to be in existence, four of which are printed on vellum. Two of these are in England, one being in the Grenville collection. Of the fourteen remaining copies, ten are in England, there being a copy in the libraries of Oxford, Edinburgh, and London, and seven in the collections of different noblemen. The vellum copy has been sold as high as $1,300.

Thus, as if to mark the noblest purpose to which the art would ever be applied, the first book printed with moveable metal types was the Bible.