(to use a rough analogy) honey contained in the cells | year is evidently connected with the welfare of the of the honeycomb: this humour and the cells which contain it are both transparent. Having thus pointed out the principal parts of the eye and their uses, we may briefly allude to a few external appendages of the same organ. The bony projection of the eyebrows forms a sort of arched abode for the eye, to shield its delicate tenant from external violence, and from too much light; and, like a projecting roof, the brow is furnished with a ridge of hairs, the eyebrows, which arrest or entangle any small substances, solid or fluid, which might otherwise fall or trickle upon the eye. The eyelids, or semioval curtains which cover the great aperture of the orbit, graduate the light falling upon the eye by the extent of their separation, or exclude it when they are closed, although to a small extent light does enter at the line of junction of the two lids. The eyelashes are hairs which border the edges of the lids, arranged in three or four rows. Their direction is curved; those from the upper lid proceeding upwards, and those from the under lid downwards. Their length and fulness varies in different individuals; their colour is generally that of the eyebrow, and their purpose is that of an additional screen to the eye. The lachrymal ducts in which tears are secreted, in their usual healthy and natural state, supply the eye with moisture, which is spread over its surface by means of the eyelids: these ducts are situated a little within the nose. REVOLUTIONS OF THE SEASONS. I solitary court The inspiring breeze, and meditate upon the book Warm from the heart, to learn the moral song. PERSONS of reflection and sensibility contemplate with interest the scenes of nature. The changes of the year impart a colour and character to their thoughts and feelings. When the seasons walk their round, when the earth buds, the corn ripens, and the leaf falls, not only are the senses impressed, but the mind is instructed; the heart is touched with sentiment, the fancy amused with visions. To a lover of nature and of wisdom, the vicissitude of seasons conveys a proof and exhibition of the wise and benevolent contrivance of the Author of all things. When suffering the inconvenience of the ruder parts of the year we may be tempted to wonder why this rotation is necessary,-why we could not be constantly gratified with vernal bloom and fragrance, or Summer beauty and profusion. We imagine that, in a world of our creation, there would always be a blessing in the air, and flowers and fruits on the earth. The chilling blast and driving snow, the desolated field, withered foliage, and naked tree, should make no part of the scenery which we would produce. A little thought, however, is sufficient to show the folly, if not impiety, of such distrust in the appointments of the great Creator. The succession and contrast of the seasons give scope to that care and foresight, diligence and industry, which are essential to the dignity and enjoyment of human beings, whose happiness is connected with the exertion of their faculties. With our present constitution and state, in which impressions on the senses enter so much into our pleasures and pains, and the vivacity of our sensations is affected by comparison, the uniformity and continuance of a perpetual Spring would greatly impair its pleasing effect upon our feelings. The present distribution of the several parts of the whole, and the production of the greatest sum of being and enjoyment. That motion in the earth, and change of place in the sun, which cause one region of the globe to be consigned to cold, decay, and barrenness, impart to another heat and life, fertility and beauty. Whilst in our climate the earth is bound with frost, and the chilly smothering snows falling, the inhabitants of another behold the earth first planted with vegetation and apparelled in verdure, and those of a third are rejoicing in the appointed weeks of harvest. are Each season comes attended with its benefits, and beauties, and pleasures. All are sensible of the charms of Spring. Then the senses are delighted with the feast that is furnished on every field and on every hill. The eye is sweetly delayed on every object to which it turns. It is grateful to perceive how widely, yet chastely, nature hath mixed her colours and painted her robe; how beautifully she hath scattered her blossoms and flung her odours. We listen with joy to the melody she hath awakened in the groves, and catch health from the pure and tepid gales that blow from the mountains. When the Summer exhibits the whole force of active nature, and shines in full beauty and splendour, when the succeeding season offers its purple stores and golden grain, or displays its blended and softened tints; when the Winter puts on its sullen aspect, and brings stillness and repose, affording a respite from the labours which have occupied the preceding months, inviting us to reflection, and compensating for the want of attractions abroad by fire-side delights and home-felt joys. In all this interchange and variety we find reason to acknowledge the wise and benevolent care of the God of the seasons. We are passing from the finer to the ruder portions of the year. The sun emits a fainter beam, and the sky is frequently overcast. The garden and fields have become a waste, and the forests have shed their verdant honours. The hills are no more enlivened by the bleating of flocks, and the woodland no longer resounds with the song of birds. In these changes we see evidences of our instability, and images of our transitory state. So flourishes and fades majestic man. Our life is compared to a falling leaf. When we are disposed to count on protracted years, to defer any serious thoughts of futurity, and to extend our plans through a long succession of seasons, the spectacle of the fading, many-coloured woods, and the naked trees, affords a solitary admonition of our frailty. It should teach us to fill the short year of life, or that portion of it which may be allotted to us, with useful employments and harmless pleasures; to practise that industry, activity, and order, which the course of the natural world is constantly preaching. Let not the passions blight the intellect 'in the spring of its advancement, nor indolence nor vice canker the promise of the heart in the blossom. Then shall the summer of life be adorned with moral beauty, the autumn yield a harvest of wisdom and virtue, and the winter of age be cheered with pleasing reflections of the past, and bright hopes of the future.-Monthly Anthology THE works of nature, and the works of revelation, display religion to mankind in characters so large and visible, that those who are not quite blind may in them see and read the first principles and most necessary parts of it, and from thence penetrate (into those infinite depths filled with the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.—LOCKE, LEDGE. ON THE PLEASURE OF ACQUIRING KNOW- of the wise in every former age,-is, perhaps, of all the distinctions of human understanding, the most honourable and grateful. In every period of life, the acquisition of knowledge is one of the most pleasing employments of the human mind. But in youth, there are circumstances which make it productive of higher enjoyment. It is then that everything has the charm of novelty; that curiosity and fancy are awake; and that the heart swells with the anticipations of future eminence and utility. Even in those lower branches of instruction which we call mere accomplishments, there is something always pleasing to the young in their acquisition. They seem to become every well educated person; they adorn, if they do not dignify humanity; and, what is far more, while they give an elegant employment to the hours of leisure and relaxation, they afford a means of contributing to the purity and innocence of domestic life. But in the acquisition of knowledge of the higher kind,—in the hours when the young gradually begin the study of the laws of nature, and of the faculties of the human mind, or of the magnificent revelations of the Gospel, there is a pleasure of a sublimer nature. The cloud, which in their infant years, seemed to cover nature from their view, begins gradually to resolve. The world in which they are placed, opens with all its wonders upon their eye; their powers of attention and observation seem to expand with the scene before them; and, while they see, for the first time, the immensity of the universe of God, and mark the majestic simplicity of those laws by which its operations are conducted, they feel as if they were awakened to a higher species of being, and admitted into nearer intercourse with the Author of Nature. When we look back upon the great men who have gone before us in every part of glory, we feel our eye turn from the career of war and of ambition, and involuntarily rest upon those who have displayed the great truths of religion, who have investigated the laws of social welfare, or extended the sphere of human knowledge. These are honours, we feel, which have been gained without a crime, and which can be enjoyed without remorse. They are honours, also, which can never die,-which can shed lustre upon the humblest head,—and to which the young of every succeeding age will look up, as their brighest incentives to the pursuit of virtuous fame.--ALISON. THE FEATHER OF A PEACOCK. In its embryo the feather of a peacock is little more than a bladder containing a fluid, while every one knows the general structure of those long ones which form the train. The star is painted on a great number of small feathers, associated in a regular plane; as those have found their way from the root, through this long space of three feet, without error of arrangement or pattern, in more millions of feathers than imagination can conceive. If this is sufficiently wonderful, the examination of each fibre of this canvass (to adopt this phrase,) will much increase the wonder. Taking one-half of the star, the places and proportions of the several colours differ in each of those, as do their lengths and obliquities, yet a single picture is produced, including ten outlines, which form also many irregular yet unvarying curves. It is this period, accordingly, more than all others, And, further, the opposed half corresponds in every that determines our hopes or fears of the future fate thing; while this complicated picture is not painted of the young. To feel no joy in such pursuits; to after the texture is formed, but each fibre takes its listen carelessly to the voice which brings such mag-place ready painted, yet never failing to produce the nificent instruction; to see the veil raised which conceals the counsels of the Deity, and to show no emotion at the discovery, are symptoms of a weak and torpid spirit,-of a mind unworthy of the advantages it possesses, and fitted only for the humility of sensual and ignoble pleasure. Of those, on the contrary, who distinguish themselves by the love of knowledge, who follow with ardour the career that is open to them, we are apt to form the most honourable presages. It is the character which is natural to youth, and which, therefore, promises well of their maturity. We foresee for them, at least, a life of pure and virtuous enjoyment; and we are willing to anticipate no common share of future usefulness and splendour. pattern. If this is chance, the coloured threads of a tapestry might as well unite by chance to produce a picture; while every annual renewal is equally accurate, as it has been in every such animal since the creation. And whatever the other chances may be, enormous as they are against the hypothesis, this further number cannot be evaded, because it would be to abandon the very principle of chance, to say that renewal, or perpetuation, were governed by laws. If the system is to mean what it pretends to do, every feather that ever existed must have been the result of fortunate chances. This would be enough, had this object not demanded the arithmetical calculation; for, omitting all else, who would even hope to reproduce the star from the same separated materials, under any number of chances? In the second place, the pursuits of knowledge lead not only to happiness but to honour. "Length But the entire analysis I need not make in words; of days is in her right hand, and in her left are riches it can be done by any one on the subject itself, and and honour." It is honourable to excel even in the with a more satisfactory effect. Let him take each most trifling species of knowledge, in those which fibre separately, note the number of the colours, can amuse only the passing hour. It is more honour- their gradations, the very different modes of those on able to excel in those different branches of science the different fibres, and the very different places of which are connected with the liberal professions of those colours on them, with the still more remarklife, and which tend so much to the dignity and well-able differences in those fragments of the many outbeing of humanity. It is the means of raising the lines included in the star. The painter, who best most obscure to esteem and attention; it opens to the knows the difficulty of producing gradations on even just ambition of youth, some of the most distin- a fixed plane, will best also conceive the impossiguished and respected situations in society; and it bility of producing, under any number of chances, places them there, with the consoling reflection, that it such a coloured plane, from a hundred separated is to their own industry and labour, in the providence fibres previously painted, or even of thus producing of God, that they are alone indebted for them. But, the much easier outlines. to excel in the higher attainments of knowledge,-to be distinguished in those greater pursuits which have commanded the attention, and exhausted the abilities But who will compute this unwieldy sum? The result alone, the figures expressing the chances against one, that this little object was not the pro duce of chance, would fill a page; it is equivalent | the edges of the great planes produced by the first to infinitude against one. Suffice it here, that I breaking, by which means the white coating of the inquire of the probability of simply replacing, by flint is removed in the form of small scales, and the chance, the disarranged and intermixed fibres of the mass of flint itself laid bare, as shown in fig. 5; after star in their original places or order; while, even then, I need not take more than the half, as the result of the total is equally unnecessary and unwieldy. It would be a purposeless parade of arithmetic to detail those figures; if the reader will place a unit before sixty-four zeros, he will have a sufficient conception of these chances for the present purpose. And chances far short of this have ever been held competent to any proof. [MACCULLOCH on the Attributes of God.] THE MANUFACTURE OF GUN-FLINTS. THE art of forming Gun-flints was formerly kept a profound secret, at least in France and Germany. The kind of stone employed, is that species of silex, or flint, which is found in irregularly shaped lumps in the chalk formations of the earth. The masses of flint which are best fitted for the purpose, consist of those of a convex surface, approaching to globular, the knobbed and branched flints being generally full of imperfections. The best flint nodules are in general from two to twenty pounds in weight; they should be unctuous, or rather shining, internally, with a grain so fine as to be imperceptible The colour should be uniform in the same nodule, and may vary from honey-yellow to a blackish-brown; it is necessary that the fracture should be smooth and equal, and somewhat conchoidal, hollowed like a shell, and should be partially transparent at the thin edges. to the eye. Four tools are necessary in the manufacture of Fig. 5. Fig. 6. this he continues to chip off similar scaly portions from the pure mass of flints as A A A, fig. 6, which is a cross section or plan of fig. 5, the shaded portions showing the points removed at each blow. These portions are nearly an inch and a half wide, two inches and a half long, and their thickness in the middle is about one-sixth of an inch: they are slightly convex below, and consequently leave in the part of the flint from which they are separated, a space slightly concave, longitudinally bordered by two rather projecting straight lines or ridges. These ridges produced by the separation of the two scales, must naturally constitute nearly the middle of the subsequent piece; and such scales alone as have their ridges thus placed in the middle are fit for gun-flints. In this manner the workman continues to split or chip the mass of flint in various directions, until the defects usually found in the interior, render it impossible to make the frac ture required, or until the piece is reduced too much to be easily broken. To shape the gun-flint out of these scales, he selects such only as possess the requisite form; to ascertain this, it is necessary to understand the parts to be distinguished in a gun-flint. These are five in number; A the sloping facet, B B the sides, c the back, D the under surface, which should be rather convex, and F the upper facet, between the tapering edge and the back. B C B D In order to fashion the flint, those scales are selected which contain at least one of the ridges For A; he fixes on any tapering border of the scale to form the striking edge; he then divides the scale into pieces, of the proper width of the flint, by means of his chisel; this tool is driven into a solid block of wood, with one of its edges upwards; that part of the flint is placed across this edge where the separation is intended to take place, and a blow from the roulette, or round hammer, on the upper surface, divides it as cleanly as if it were cut; the back of the flint is then made square by the same means. The last operation is to trim or give the flint a smooth and equal edge; this is done by turning the stone and placing the edge of its tapering edge on the chisel, and striking it a few blows with the round hammer. THE VERNAL AND AUTUMNAL CROCUS. LONDON: JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, WEST STRAND. PUBLISHED IN WEEKLY NUMBERS, PRICE ONE PENNY, AND INMONTHLY PARIS PRICE SIXPENCE, QUEEN ELIZABETH; HER PROGRESSES AND PUBLIC PROCESSIONS. No. IV. CONDITION ASHRIDGE ABBEY, IN THE TIME OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. OF THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH IN THE REIGN OF MARY-HER ARREST AT ASHRIDGE, AND REMOVAL TO LONDON. THE death of King Edward the Sixth, which occurred on the 6th of July, 1553, was concealed for two days by the Protector, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who was desirous of taking measures to secure the succession of his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, in conformity with the will which Edward had been induced to make, upon his deathbed, setting aside his sisters Mary and Elizabeth. It was important for the protector's object, that he should have the persons of the two sisters in his hands; and with this view he wrote letters in the king's name requiring their immediate attendance. Mary had nearly fallen into the snare; she was journeying to town when a secret messenger met her with a private communication of Edward's death and the machinations of Northumberland. She immediately turned her horse towards the eastern counties, and never rested till she had reached her castellated mansion of Kenninghall, in Norfolk, which lay at too great a distance from the metropolis to be suddenly surprised. Elizabeth remained tranquil at her residence in Hertfordshire, where she was waited on by Northumberland, who apprized her of Edward's death and the accession of the Lady Jane, and proposed to her that she should resign her own title to the crown in consideration of a sum of money and certain lands which should be assigned to her. With characteristic prudence Elizabeth replied, "that her VOL. XII. elder sister, the Lady Mary, was first to be agreed withal; for as long as the said Lady Mary lived, she for her part could challenge no right at all." The brief reign of Lady Jane Grey ended on the 20th of July; and towards the close of that month, as Queen Mary advanced at the head of her army towards London, the Princess Elizabeth went into Essex to meet her, with a large cavalcade of knights and ladies; Stow says that she was "accompanied by one thousand horse, of knights, ladies, gentlemen, and their servants." Four days afterwards she rode with the Queen to the Tower, through the richly decked streets of the city, amid the discharges of ordnance and the acclamations of the people; seven hundred and forty velvet-coated nobles and gentlemen preceded them, and one hundred and eighty ladies followed them. As an illustration, indeed, of the intimacy which at this period subsisted between the two sisters, it is related by Fox the martyrologist, that "Queen Mary when she was first queen, before she was crowned, would go no whither but would have her [the Princess Elizabeth] by the hand, and send for her to dinner and supper." According to Holinshed, when Queen Mary rode through the city towards Westminster, upon the occasion of her coronation in October 1553, the chariot in which she sat was followed by another" having a covering of cloth of silver all white, and six horses trapped with the like, wherein sat the Lady Elizabeth and the Lady Anne of Cleve." According to the Spanish ambassador then in England, Elizabeth carried the crown 366 which was used on that occasion; and that functionary reported to his court, that the princess whispered to Noailles, the French ambassador, that it was very heavy, and that she was tired with carrying it; and that the Frechman was heard to answer that she must be patient, and when soon placed on her own head it would seem lighter. "As the Spaniards," says Mr. Sharon Turner, were at some distance, and could not have heard a private whisper very perfectly, we may assume that the actual speech was, 'if it were on your own head it would not seem so.' But the situation of Elizabeth was soon altered. When the design of Queen Mary to restore the Roman Catholic religion became apparent, the eyes of the whole Protestant party were anxiously turned towards the princess, who was well known to be attached to the reformed faith. This circumstance rendered her an object of jealousy and even of fear to the queen. The Venetian ambassador de scribes Mary as being "a prey to the hatred which she bears my Lady Elizabeth, and which has its source in the recollection of the wrongs she experienced on account of her mother, and in the fact that all eyes and hearts are turned towards my Lady Elizabeth as successor to the throne." Towards the close of 1553, Queen Mary was very earnest in her endeavours to induce her sister to practise the observances of the Roman Catholic religion. Elizabeth refused to comply; and her enemies then suggested that she should be imprisoned. "I do not doubt," wrote the French ambassador to his court," that her obstinacy will conduct her to the Tower soon after parliament meets, if things be resolved on as I think they will be." But Mary preferred endeavouring to compel her sister to conform. Elizabeth persisted in her refusal; and her conscientious preference of her own faith was imputed to seditious exhortations. The French ambassador, after relating that the princess would not hear mass nor accompany her sister to the chapel, in spite of all the remonstrances of the queen and her lords, adds, "It is feared that she is counselled and fortified in this opinion by some of the great, and that by these means some new troubles may be preparing." Again shortly afterwards he thus writes:-" The obstacle of Madame Elizabeth is not a little to be feared as up to this time she has been not at all willing to go to the mass. Last Saturday and Sunday the queen caused her to be preached to and entreated by all the great men of her council, who only drew from her at last a very rough answer." Again was her refusal imputed to disloyal machinations; and it was expected that the queen would change her household and even confine her in prison. In the beginning of the month of December, Elizabeth obtained permission to leave the court and retire to her house at Ashridge, in Buckinghamshire. Suspicion, however, still attached to her, and she was living every hour surrounded with peril. But As the intentions of Mary (says Mr. Sharon Turner,) to bring back popery became visible, the greatest discontents began to arise, with an idea in some naturally arising from Henry's statutes against his daughter, that the young queen of Scots was the rightful heiress of the crown, the danger to Elizabeth arose from the larger portion of the dissatisfied forming conspiracies to dispossess her sister, and to place her as a Protestant princess on the throne. Early in the year 1554 the rash and unfortunate insurrection of Sir Thomas Wyatt broke out. Although Elizabeth had no concern in this conspiracy, it involved her in much trouble, and caused her much personal suffering. On the 5th of February, immediately after the insurrection had been suppressed, certain members of the council were sent to Ashridge with a party of horse, with orders to bring the princess to London, either quicke or dead." The messengers "at their sodaine and unprovided commyng," to use the expressions of John Fox, the martyrologist, found her sore sicke in | her bed, and very feeble and weak of body," Whither when they came (continues the same historian,) ascending up to her grace's privie chamber, they wylled one of her ladyes whom they met, to declare unto her grace, that there were certaine come from the court which had a message from the queene. Her grace havyng knowledge thereof, was right glad of their commyng; howbeit, being then very sicke, and the night farre spent, (which was at ten of the clocke,) she requested them by the messenger, that they woulde resort thyther in the mornyng. To this they answered, and by the said messenger sent worde againe, that they must needes see her, and would so doo, in what case soever she were. Whereat the lady being agast, went to shewe her grace their wordes; but they hastily folowing her, came rushyng as soone as she unto her grace's chamber unbydden. At whose sodaine.commyng into her bed-chamber, her grace being not a little amased, said unto them. Is the hast such that it might not have pleased you to come to-morrow in the mornyng? They made answere, that they were right sory to see her in that case. And I (quoth shee,) am not glad to see you here at this tyme of the night. Whereunto they answered, that they came from the queene to doo their message and duetie, which was to this effect, that the queene's pleasure was, that shee should be at London the seventh day of that present moneth. Whereunto shoe saide,-Certes, no creature more glad then I to come to hor majestie, beyng right sorye that I am not in case at this tyme to wayte on her, as you yourselves doo see and can wel testifie. Indeede we see it true (quoth they), that you doo say to which we are very sorye. Albeit, we let you to understande, that our commission is such, and so strayneth us, that we must needes bryng you with us either quicke or dead. Whereat, shee beyng amased, sorowfully said, that shoe hoped it to be otherwise and not so strayt.-Yes, their commission was very sore; but yet, notwithstanding verily, sayd they, In conclusion, they wylled her to prepare agaynst the mornyng at nyne of the clocke to goe with them, declaring that they had brought with them the queene's lytter for her. After much talke, the messengers declaring there their chamber, being enterteyned and cheered as apperwas no prolongyng of tymes and dayes, so departed to teyned to their worships. On the following morning, at the hour prescribed, Elizabeth was led forth for her journey, very faint and feeble, and "in suche case that shee was redy to swound three or foure tymes" between them. "What should I speake here," exclaims John Fox, "that cannot well be expressed; what a heavy house there was to beholde the unreverend and doulefull dealyng of these men, but especially the carefull feare and captivitie of their innocent lady and maistresse." yet her illness was so severe, that it was not until Although Elizabeth was able to travel "with lyfe," the fourth night of her journey that she reached Highgate. Here being very sick, she tarried that night and the next day; during which time of her abode," says Fox, "there came many pursuivants and messengers from the court, but for what purpose I cannot tell." When the princess entered London, great multitudes of people came flocking about her litter which she ordered to be opened for the purpose of showing herself. The remainder of her coming into London on this occasion is thus described in an old manuscript chronicle. clocke at night, my lady Elizabeth's grace came to London The same tyme and daye, between four and fyve of the through Smithfielde untoo Westminster, with C velvett cotts after her grace. And her grace rod in a charytt, opyn on both sydes, and her grace [had] ryding after her a |