The natives informed us that the fruit ripens early in autumn, and consists of bunches of apples, thinly beset with sharp thorns, each when broken producing one or two large kernels, about 2 in. in circumference, of the finest bright mahogany colour without, and white within; that the tree is deciduous, and just before its fall changes to the finest tints of red, yellow, orange, and brown. When divested of its luxuriant foliage, the buds of the next year appear like little spears, which through the winter are covered with a fine glutinous gum, evidently designed to protect the embryo shoots within, as an hybernaculum, from the severe frosts of the climate, and which glisten in the cold sunshine like diamonds. It has the strange property of performing the whole of its vigorous shoot, nearly a yard long, in the short space of three weeks, employing all the rest of the year in converting it into wood, adding to its strength, and varying its beauty. The wood when sawn is of the finest snowy whiteness. The tree is easily raised; indifferent as to soil, climate, or situation; removed with safety, of quick growth, thrives to a vast age and size; subject to no blight or disease; in the earliest spring bursting its immense buds into that vigour, exuberance, and beauty, which we have here feebly attempted to describe. The natives said it was originally brought from the east of Asia, but grows freely in any climate, and in their tongue its name is designated by a combination of three words, signifying separately, a noble animal, an elegant game, and a luscious kernel. Had Linnæus seen this tree, he would have assuredly contemplated it with delightful ecstacy, and named it the 'sculus Hippocastanum.—Magazine of Natural

History.

SPIRIT OF THE

Public Hournals.

CIGAR-SMOKING.

THE Surgeon-General of the Forces has recently made public his belief, that never, till within the last twenty years, did he see so many young men with pale faces and emaciated figures, and he attributes the existence of the evil to the use of Cigars. The unreflecting servility with which men adopt new and foreign practices, is fully exemplified in the present case; for it is notorious that the practice of cigar-smoking, the modern foppery from Regent-street to Cheapside and Cornhill, was an impor

tation of the Peninsular War; the imitation having been begun by the Spaniards, whose models are what are usually called the savages of America. The dietetic mischief, and consequent paleness of complexion and emaciation of muscle, which are attributable to the use of cigars, belong, no doubt, to an injury inflicted, perhaps, in more ways than one upon the aids and organs of digestion; nor is that hypothesis at all inconsistent with what we hear from so many cigar-smokers, namely, that their cigar is their dependence for digestion ! That, after having impaired the organ, or weakened its tone, or dried up the salival menstruum, they should need a stimulant, even in the very form of the bane which injures them, is only of a piece with all that has been said of drinking, and especially of dram-drinking, with which latter debauch, the debauch of cigar-smoking has the closest possible alliance. We never pass one of those stifling rendezvous in the metropolis-a cigar-shop, open till the latest hours without mentally classing it with the gin-shops, its only compeers!

Exclusive of the low habit of imita tion, a dulness and feebleness of understanding, an absence of intellectual resources, a vacuity of thought is the great inducement to the use of this, as of all other drugs, whether from the cigar-shop, or the snuff-shop, or the gin-shop, or the wine-cellar; a truth by no means the less certain, because it happens that men of the highest powers of mind are drawn into the vice, and made to reduce themselves, by their adoption and dependence upon it, to the lowest level of the vulgar; but, at the same time, it is not to be denied, that a great support in defence of cigarsmoking is found in the medical opinions sometimes advanced as to its salutary influence. Now, if we admit, broadly and at once, that there may be times and circumstances in which the inhaling the hot smoke of a powerful narcotic drug is useful to the human body, must it follow that the habitual resort to such a practice, and this under all circumstances, is useful also, and even free from the most serious inconveniences?

It is the admitted maxim, that if smoking is accompanied by spitting, injury results to the smoker; and the reason assigned is, that the salival fluid, which should assist digestion, is in this manner dissipated, and taken from its office. But may not the habitual application of the narcotic influence to the nervous system have its evils also? May it not weaken or deaden the nervous and

muscular action which is needful to di gestion? And may not even the excessive quantity of the matter of heat, thus artificially conveyed into the body, tend to a desiccation of the system, as injurious under general circumstances, as it may be beneficial under particular ones?

Smoking invites thirst; and there is little risk in advancing, that whatever superinduces an unnatural indulgence in the use of liquids is itself, and without farther question, injurious, even if the liquids resorted to are of the most innocent description; but, in point of fact, the cigar-smoker will usually appease his thirst by means of liquors in themselves his enemies!

It is said, however, that the use of cigars is beneficial when we find our selves in marshy situations, with a high temperature, and generally, whenever the atmosphere inclines to the introduction of putridity and fever into the system. We believe this; and perhaps a useful theory of the alternate benefit and mischief of cigar-smoking may be offered upon the basis of that proposition. When and wherever the body requires to be dried, cigar-smoking may be salutary; and when and wherever that drying, or desiccation, is injurious, then and there cigar-smoking may be to be shunned. We know that, while surrounded by an atmosphere overcharged, or even only saturated with moisture, moist bodies remain moist, or do not part with that excess of moisture from which a drier atmosphere would relieve them; and that living bodies, so circumstanced, are threatened with typhus and typhoid fever. It is highly proba ble, therefore, that narcotics, in such cases, may allay a morbid irritability of the nerves, or effect a salutary diminution of healthful sensibility; under such circumstances, the desiccating and seda tive effects of tobacco-smoking may prove beneficial; while, in all ordinary states of the system and of the atmosphere, the same desiccative and seda tive influences may produce immediate evil consequences, more or less readily perceptible, and undermine, however gradually, the strength of the constitution. United Service Journal.

THE NEW COINAGE.

WHY does not some man of public research enlighten the public on the proceedings at the Mint ? The whole system is as little comprehensible by the uninitiated as the philosopher's stone. The cost of the Mint is prodi

gious-the machinery is all that machinery can be; yet we have one of the ugliest coinages of any nation of Europe. A new issue of coin is about to be commenced.

"It appears, from the king's proclamation, that the new coinage will consist of double sovereigns, to be each of the value of 40s.; sovereigns, each of 20s.; and half-sovereigns, 10s.; silver crowns, half-crowns, shillings, and sixpences. The double-sovereigns have for the obverse the king's effigy, with the inscription, Gulielmus IIII. D. G. Britanniarum Rex. F. D.;' and for the reverse, the ensigns armorial of the United Kingdom contained in a shield, encircled by the collar of the Order of the Garter, and upon the edge of the piece the words 'Decus et Tutamen.' The crowns and half-crowns will be similar. The shilling has on the reverse the words "One Shilling,' placed in the centre of the piece, within a wreath, having an olive-branch on one side, and an oak-branch on the other; and the sixpences have the same, except the word 'Sixpence' instead of the words One Shilling.' The coppers will be nearly as at present."

Now we must observe, what the master of the Mint and the people about him ought to have observed before, that there is in the first instance a considerable expense incurred in the coinage of the double-soverigns, without any possible object, except the expense itself may be an object, which is not impossi ble. We shall have in this coin one of the most clumsy and useless matters of circulation that could be devised. The present sovereign answers every pur pose that this clumsy coin can be required for, and even the single sovereign would be a much more convenient coin for circulation if it were divided, as every one knows who knows the trouble of getting change. The half-sovereign is in fact a much more convenient coin. But on this clumsy coin we must have a Latin inscription, as if it were intended only for the society of antiqua ries, or to be laid up in cabinets, which we acknowledge would be most likely its fate, except for the notorious bad taste of the British coinage. Of much use it is to an English public to have the classical phraseology of Gulielmus Britanniarum Rex, put in place of the national language. Then too we must have the collar of the Order of the Garter to encircle the national arms, of which this Order is nonsensically pronounced "Decus et Tutamen." The Glory and Protection. The Order of

THIS is a delightful retreat for the statesman and man of letters-distinctions which its illustrious occupant enjoys with high honour to his country and himself.

Ampthill is throughout a never-tiring region of romantic beauties. These were sung in some lines of great sweetness and poetical feeling, a few years since by Mr. Luttrell, who appears to have taken his muse by the arm, and "wandered up and down," describing the natural glories and olden celebrity of Ampthill. We remember to have read his "Lines" with unmixed pleasure.

The Engraving is copied from one of a Series of Select Illustrations of Bedfordshire;" the letter-press accompaniments being neatly written by the Rev. I. D. Parry, M. A. author of the "History of Woburn." Ampthill follows.

Ampthill House, now the seat of the Right Hon. Lord Holland, is a plain but very neat edifice, built of good stone. It was erected by the first Lord Ashburnham, then the possessor of the estate, in 1694. It is situated rather be VOL. XVII.

2 A

low the summit of a hill, which rises at some little distance behind, and much less elevated than the site of the old castle, but has still a commanding situation in front, and is sufficiently elevated to possess a great share of the fine view over the vale of Bedford. It is also well. sheltered by trees, though the passing traveller would have no idea of the magnificent lime alley, which is concealed behind it. The house has a long front, abundantly furnished with windows. and has two deep and projecting wings. In the centre is a plain angular pediment, bearing the late Lord Ossory's arms, and over the door is a small circular one, pierced for an antique bust, and supported by two three-quarter Ionic pilfars. In this house is a small collection of paintings, &c., principally portraits.

At the foot of the staircase is a large painting, formerly in fresco at Houghton House, which was taken off the wall, and put on canvass by an ingenious process of the late Mr. Salmon. It represents a gamekeeper, or woodman, taking aim with a cross-bow, full front. with some curious perspective scenery,

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