stands the ox,-a patient and powerful labourer, remotely domesticated, comparatively gentle and docile, though with ample means of rebellion and offence, when "unaccustomed to the yoke," or disinclined to bear it. The buffalo demands more attention and more compulsion, and is with more difficulty brought to acknowledge the legitimate and powerful dominion of his feudal lord. The reindeer is to the Laplander what the camel is to the inhabitant of the sandy desert, enabling man to occupy large territories that else had been untenantable by our race. The llama, distinguished for its gentleness; the elephant, almost, at least in some instances, approaching the intelligence of man himself; and poor puss," defending our cupboards and larders from the intrusion and spoliation of mice, are instances in point.

Generally speaking, when man presses a wild animal into his service, on the death of that animal, he replaces it by seizing another from the forest or the thicket, making no attempt, as in the case of the dog, to procure a domestic progeny by a succession of cares bestowed upon the animal. The felis jubata, or chetah, is a perfect example of a wild, compelled servant, whose further domestication has been neglected; and thus man is ignorant of the extent of service which this hunting tiger, so elegant in its form, and so lively in its motions, and sumptuous in its skin, is capable of rendering to the sportsman. Otters, it is presumed, may be rendered more semi-domesticated than they are. China has for ages shown how docile the cormorant becomes in the hands of man. though other nations have not employed the bird to make up the deficiencies of the angler and the fisherman. Barons bold, and their ladies, once did in this country, and Orientals still show, that the fierce and savage falcon, with its piercing eyes, and fearful talons, will sit on the wrist of the fair, and then hurry into the air to fetch its quarry to the hand of its mistress. The decoy-duck yields man its instinctive and voluntary services. And when the necessities or interests of man shall urge him to train and domesticate other analogous animals, the catalogue of the brute creation, whose instincts, and powers, and qualities are brought into requisition by man, will doubtless be much enlarged, and the naturalist will be able to show a longer and still more glorious array of animal labourers employed in the service of man, and proving themselves literally, "the workingclasses" of society.

Among the domesticated animals which, not being capable of laborious employment

in man's service, supply our race abundantly with food and clothing, are preeminently the sheep, the goat, and the hog. Of the value to man of the first of these, our butchers' shambles, and our woollen manufactories are an obvious evidence; and make us, amid all the feverish anxiety awakened by the numbers hurrying to the gold diggings, feel that the Australian sheep-walks will be a source of truer wealth to Britain than the most abundant discovery of the "precious metals."

The number of birds domesticated for

the purpose of supplying us with food is as yet but small. All of them are naturally wild. Possessing, however, their peculiar facilities of motion and escape, it is difficult to conceive how they should be made to remain about the habitations of man, had not the Creator implanted in them a law that renders them subservient to our use. The fowl, the goose, the duck, the peacock, the turkey, the dove, are familiar to every frequenter of the farm-yard. Like the rabbit among quadrupeds, the pheasant holds a sort of intermediate state between wildness and domesticity; yet there seems to be nothing to prevent its entire domestication but want of desire or of industry on man's part to effect it. The pigeon, derived from a wild species, still abounds in our woods, and offers a remarkable instance of domestication, since practically it enjoys absolute liberty. The rare Muscovy duck and the Canadian goose indicate that among the feathered races are kinds sufficiently tractable to render man a truer submission than is paid to the autocrat of all the Russias by the barbarous tribes that wander along the course of the Obe, the Ynsei, the Lena, and the innumerable streams and rivers that intersect the eastern portion of the domain of the Czar. The vivacious and wandering teal is already domesticated, and the common shieldrake-tadorna bellonii-one of the most beautiful of the duck kind, occurring in the northern and western parts of Europe, and not uncommon in some parts of Britain, might be made a domestic, which, though fully able to quit us, voluntarily chooses to remain with us; free as the pigeon, but more powerful, and not less attached to our habitations, though its powers of flight remain uninjured. Accustomed as the female is to nestle in a rabbit-burrow, or some hole in the sandy pastures of the seashore, all that it seems to want to induce a condition of domesticity is, that it be provided with ready access to a pond.

Rooks and herons seem to have a local attachment unconnected with anything of domestication. Pheasants and partridges, in preserves, seem, like the rabbit in its

warren, voluntary prisoners, as are also the grouse and the stag, though demanding a wide extent of range.

Among insects the value of the bee, the silkworm, and the cochineal is very familiar, though we cannot instance these as cases approaching to a state of domesticity.

If personal attachment to man be an implanted instinct in any animals, the dog is undoubtedly the most perfect example of this constitution. The stupidity of the ox appears to be the provision of the Creator, whereby man may derive aid from the strength of this animal. The cow apparently has no thought but to eat and ruminate; and this with as little exertion as possible.

The common fowl is made a bird of weak flight, evidently for the purpose of its easy domestication; and even birds of stronger pectoral muscles, as pheasant, partridge, and grouse, though they fly powerfully, are constructed only to take short flights; and this circumstance, added to local attachments, probably prevents them from wandering from their ordinary settlements. It is, in fact, highly probable that man might render all gallinaceous birds as domestic as the common fowl. The personal courage of some animals is another source of their association with man. This is remarkable in the game cock, in the pugnacious and tyrannical robin, and in the falcon.

Actual domesticity to animals does not often depend on a single cause. Home, indolence, stupidity, courage, sufferance, unite, in different degrees and modes to produce this effect; while the presence of food and the force of habit aid them all.

The far greater number of our domesticated animals have belonged to man from the remotest times. It is to ancient Rome that we owe the common fowl, the peacock, and the pheasant. With a command of the world, with a knowledge of its territories more than doubling what was known to Roman citizens, with an acquaintance with animals a thousand times more extensive and deep, and with a commerce, to which hers bears no comparison, we have not, in this respect, advanced much upon their advance. Increased domestication will be attended with more service rendered from animal labour, and more food and clothing derived from animal supplies. Had the Thibet goat been only hunted for its hair, as the beaver has been for its skin, it probably had been by this time exterminated. Why not domesticate the beaver as well as the sheep? Man feeds on grass through the intervention of the cow-a chemical laboratory converting that vegetable into milk. But for the reindeer the lichen of Lapland would have been but a useless vegetable, though now

it becomes thus indirectly the food of man. Hogs, ducks, and other animals, as bustards, the vulture, the ibis, and hyænas become our servants; in some instances acting as public scavengers, and in others, returning to us with advantage the waste of nature, and matter prejudicial and poisonous to the human constitution. Man cannot work miracles, and cause "the barrel of meal to waste not," but he can, by means of animal life, convert his own waste into food.

We will not look at this interesting subject from a selfish point of view alone. The good that we receive from the animal world is not a tax upon their enjoyments. The amount of animal happiness is hereby increased. If by domestication we increase the number, we also multiply the individuals enjoying life. They are thus better protected from famine, from accident, from enemies. Evil endured is more than com pensated by good received. If the animal servant is sometimes overtasked, the "merciful man is merciful to his beast," and provides stable and provender that never fail. Barn-door fowls have not much care. Sheep graze on our pastures in the luxury of servants in a baronial hall. Cattle chewing the cud are an inimitable picture of animal enjoyment and repose. Death, when unavoidably inflicted, produces new life and fresher enjoyments, and is in itself far less grievous than that which the beast of prey, or the gradual extinction of the vital powers, would cause. And what is death where there is neither retrospect, anticipation, or apprehension ?

THE VALUE OF A SPRING. THE influence of springs on the surrounding vegetation is great, especially in the tropics. In deserts, the smallest spring forms in those climates an oasis, in which grasses, juicy cyperi, and bushes grow, and even here and there a palm rises. In the barren, sandy, and parched-up deserts of the south of Peru, between the Cordilleras and the coast, a spring, however small, which rises often at wide intervals, is the cause of a little settlement. Often it supports only a field of Lucerne, a little maize field, and a few olive-trees: and yet, for the sake of this scanty produce, the great roads must pass by such places, that the beasts of burden may get the refreshment necessary for them. Nothing can equal

the dreariness and deathlike stillness in such regions of South Peru. Sometimes, for twenty or thirty miles, not a bird, not an insect, nor a plant is seen; but the smallest spring calls from this dead, dusty soil, a green oasis; and, when rich mines are near, is the source of great wealth, which could not be obtained without it.

Palissy, the Potter. By HENRY MORLEY. 2 vols.

ONE of the first paragraphs in these volumes puts us in good humour with the author. It may be entitled

"Glass, Glory, and Calf-skin.-There were two or three noble trades, and there was need of them. Penny needing nobles swarmed formerly in France, as they do now in Spain or Austria. They were born to the right of talking big and eating little. They received a birthright, and paid for it with their pottage. For the benefit of such men, or rather for the benefit of the order to which they belonged, and to prevent these ragged nobles from breaking down the platform which elevates men noble by their birth above men noble by their honesty, it was from early times thought prudent to honour one or two trades, by allowing noblemen to get their bread in them without a loss of dignity. Thus, glass and glory came to be akin. I mean, of course, the glory which consists in a nobility by right of calf-skin, as separated from, and lifted over, a nobility by right of soul. Some satirist, no doubt, suggested glass as a fit substance to be paired with glory of this kind, since both were blown after the fashion of a bubble, both could be seen through by a man with healthy eyes, and both required forbearance in the handling."

'by

This is an appropriate introduction to the "Life, Labours, Discoveries, and Philosophical Doctrines" of a man entirely destitute of nobility "by right of calf-skin," but who justly is regarded as noble " right of soul." Of the birth of Bernard Palissy no more precise date can be given than the year 1509, "with a concession that this may be wrong within a limit of six years on either side." As to his birthplace all that is known with certainty is, that he was born in France, in the diocese of Agen. Similar uncertainty attends his parentage. The business to which he was brought up was that of a glass-painter, and worker generally in painted glass-an occupation that left most engaged in it wretchedly poor.

Their furnaces and hamlets were generally in the recesses of a forest. It would have been too great a risk to have allowed the former to be built in towns at a period when domestic dwellings were usually made of wood. To this is to be added the consideration that wood was their fuel, and that they used in their manufacture of glass the ashes of certain twigs, and of fern. "Either scattered or singly, or collected with the dwellings of their owners into little woodland hamlets, the fires of the French glass-workers were lighted, in the days of Palissy, most frequently in the recesses of a forest." In such a hamlet our hero-for hero he was-appears to have been born, rolling as a child on the

moss,

and early pondering over the structure of a chestnut, but receiving no edu cation beyond learning to read and write. In after years, "Conscious of his innate strength, he a little gloried in his want of Greek and Latin." Thoughtful, and yet lively and laughter-loving, throughout to the last, and at a time when others often sink into mechanical existence, Bernard Palissy retained a quick eye, a clear head, and a clean heart, keen to detect truth, and fearless to maintain it, simple as a child, and playful as a child, for fourscore years;" so that it is easy to imagine how "in his boyhood he could romp with vigour, when he was not in the mood for reverie."

Bernard was a self-taught man, and his discoveries entitle the poor potter to a distinguished place in the gallery devoted to men pre-eminent in art and science.

"The minerals employed in staining glass, and some few of their properties, had to be learned, and they made up the child's first lesson in chemistry, a science which he afterwards-in Nature, not in books-pursued with ardour. An unconquerable spirit of inquiry, and a determined freedom in obeying its dictates, were inborn elements, which would display their rule over the child's mind as clearly as they asserted afterwards their sway over the man. We use our fancies very little, if we picture the boy Bernard fingering his father's drugs, and asking questions concerning them; which, since his father cannot give sufficient answers, he walks out into the wood to think over, or to ask again of Nature, in whose language (richer than the Greek or Latin) he was then beginning to be versed. Palissy was not content to copy plans and drawings without labouring on, so that he might become himself an artist. The diligence with which he practised drawing during these first years, had a marked influence over his career in after life. Nature supplied him with his copies; the trees of his own wood, adjacent rocks, the birds, the lizards, or his mother's face, were the most convenient and the most welcome objects to a draughtsman whose appointed volumes were the works of Nature, and whose chief delight was a minute observation of her ways."

At the age of eighteen, this child of thought and vivacity, finding the trade of glass-painting falling rapidly into decay, shouldered a scanty wallet, scattered his farewells through his native hamlet, and marched out to find his own position in this world of change and of uncertainty. He set his face towards the Pyrenees, and, by the travel of a few days, entered Gascony, at a time when Francis I., of France, and Charles V., of Spain, had involved one half of Europe in worse than idle conflict. Testing, according to "the humour born in him," this strife by the principles of reason, Palissy would find little to interest

Ecclesiastically the period was one of intense interest. Luther, Calvin, Melancthon, and Zuinglius were working on the European mind. France, not less than Germany, needed bold reformers. In the year 1515, Leo X. and Francis I. had drawn up their infamous concordat, by which the king conceded to the pope an absolute supremacy, while priestcraft played into the hands of kingeraft in return, by transferring to the king the power of nominating to bishoprics and abbeys. The result may be told in the words of the Venetian ambassador, then at the court of Paris :

"The king gave away bishoprics at the solicitation of the ladies of his court, and employed his patronage of abbey lands to reward his soldiers; so that the bishoprics and abbeys of France were reckoned as much merchandise by the court, as the trade in pepper and cinnamon is among the Venetians."

Ecclesiastical dignities and emoluments were bestowed upon polite little children at Paris, or grisly men-at-arms, fighting in Italy. The king's mother, Louisa of Savoy, was a rigid Catholic; his clever sister, Margaret of Valois, Duchess of Alencon, favoured the Reformers. Bernard s too thoughtful a man, and too ardent a lover of truth, not to appreciate the new doctrine. He took part with them who had "to suffer the loss of all things" for Christ's sake. But we must pass over his early history.

About 1538, Palissy married, settling in the town of Saintes, the capital of Saintonge (corresponding to the department of Charente Inferieur), and undertaking whatever occupation he could get-surveyor, painter, glass-painter and portrait-painter. dwelt on the outskirts of the town.

He

A wife, a child, and poverty were here poor Bernard's lot. But here, too, was laid the foundation of his after fame. He here saw an elegant cup, of Italian manufacture, turned and enamelled with much beauty.

"From that time I entered into controversy with my own thoughts, recalling to mind several suggestions that some people had made to me in fun, when I was painting portraits I began to think, that if I should discover how to make enamels, I could make earthen vessels and other things very prettily; because God had gifted me with some knowledge of drawing. Thereafter, regardless of the fact that I had no knowledge of clays, I began to seek for the enamels as a man gropes in the dark."

To be the only man in France to make enamelled vases would be to provide handsome support for his wife and children;

His

and to work at the solution of so hard a riddle would be to provide full occupation for his intellect. To work he went. history of industrious and inexhaustible perseverance is the great moral of the book. Young men should read it. Few ever had greater difficulties in his way of success than Palissy. Few ever had such repeated, successive, long-continued series of disappointments. But his energy triumphed over all, and demonstrated to aspiring minds, that what is possible is sure to him who wills it, if he can use "a little skill, and a great deal of patience."

Correct is the description which the author gives of the energy of Palissy during the next fifteen or sixteen years. We transcribe it, in hopes that youth may take lessons in this style of labour:

"Bent upon intellectual conquest, Bernard set forward with energy upon his new career. The man is to be envied who has intellect enough to strike out boldly, with a reasonable purpose, through the brushwood from the beaten track. With courage to endure all falls and bruises incidental to a traveller on rough and unseen ground, not too particular about that ounce of wool which makes the difference between a whole coat and a ragged one, not angered by the wise men on the highway, who shrug up their shoulders, or the ignorant, who laugh and hoot at him, the man who makes his own road will enjoy sharp exercise, and have a pleasant journey. No bodily discomfort can press down as pain upon the buoyant sense of spiritual freedom.

Ignorant of the materials composing enamel, and having none to teach him, he became his own instructor. Grinding perpetually all that he deemed likely substances; purchasing, often with his last penny, earthen pots, to destroy them, if thereby he might discover the secret mysteries of pottery; building furnaces as his own not always sufficient sagacity suggested; knowing nothing of the properties of clay, and having "never seen earth baked;" unable to make further purchases because his purse was long since exhausted, and his credit with tradesmen gone, chairs, tables, and other household furniture went for fuel to the dismay of his faithful but unbelieving wife, who could only see utter ruin from his persevering energy. His children's bread was lessened in quantity; his own trade could not be pursued while he was seeking the secret from his teacher -Nature. But nobly did he persevere, and gloriously did he triumph. Our space forbids, or with pleasure should we transcribe the evidence of his indomitable energy, and his almost superhuman perseverance, in hopes that the record night stimulate youth to a vigorous course of untiring effort in the path of honourable ambition. Failure after failure attended him, but every defeat made him rise more powerful in resolution. His only course

was that of "beginning afresh," and this he did until the reader fears that the next mishap will drive poor Bernard to despair. But we must resist the temptation of drawing up an epitome of this part of the noble potter's history, earnestly hoping that our readers will peruse the wonderful record for themselves. It will repay them a thousand times over. But after, he succeeded; and his fame remains to this day, from the exquisite specimens still in existence of his art, under the name of Palissy ware, demonstrating his skill both as a naturalist and a potter, the figures with which he ornamented his vessels being taken from nature, and being accurate models, as to form and colour, of animal and vegetable life.

But Palissy the potter was a Christian and a Protestant, and that at a time when "the people of Saintes had been enlightened by the fire in which a heretic had been burnt alive." Bernard's interest in the religious struggles of that period was not less vividly manifested than his interest as a philosopher in nature, or his almost unexampled patience as an artisan. He was undaunted by what he saw his fellow-townsman called to suffer for Christ's sake:

"These poor folks," he says, in a work which he some years after published, "were condemned to be degraded and caparisoned in green, in order that the people might esteem them fools or madmen; and what is more, because they maintained manfully the cause of God, they were bridled like horses by the said Collardeau before being led upon the scaffold, which bridles had to each an apple of iron, which filled all the inside of the mouth-a very hideous thing to see."

Modestly and quaintly does he speak of himself, and his first efforts to understand and diffuse a knowledge of the Gospel:

"There was in this town (Saintes) a certain artisan, marvellously poor and indigent, who had so great a desire for the advancement of the Gospel, that he demonstrated it every day to another as poor as himself, and with as little learning, for they both scarcely knew anything; nevertheless, the first urged upon the other, that if he would employ himself in making some form of exhortation, that would be productive of great fruit."

The grave, uncompromising piety of the Huguenot, who knew that he might be called upon to die for his faith, formed a large feature in the character of Palissy. Earnest in the pursuit of religious truth, he was fearless in its enunciation. It was no part of the potter's character to flinch, where principle and conscience urged to duty. "I am sure there was, at the beginning, such a congregation, that the number was of five alone," says this hero, when speaking of all who had the boldness to form themselves into a church in a town where not a few were infected with the taint of heresy, but were startled at one of their number so recently devoted to the

flames. It would delight us to fill pages with the quaint, simple, but nervous sentiments of this "worker in clay," on the state of religion, and on the habits of these worthies of the Christian Church. Our readers must get the work for themselves, and enjoy the treat we have had in devouring its contents, and learn to feel interest in the condition of one of the Protestant ministers of that period, as he is often

seen to

"Eat apples and drink water for his dinner, and for want of tablecloth laying his dinner on a shirt, because there were very few rich people who joined our congregation, and so we had not the means of paying him his salary."

Nor less earnestly should we look upon scenes, when

"A child of fifteen was not too young for the stake, when the daughters and virgins might be stabbed for their singing, and fellow-tradesmen broken on the wheel for exercising liberty of conscience. It was fit, then, that people should 'change their old manners, even to their very countenances;' and that they should sternly sing their hymns in the free air of heaven, and defy, when they could, the law that made itself a god over the soul."

We must make room for one extract more. Bordering upon fourscore years of age, there were those anxious for the blood of the Protestant potter. Henry III. called him into his presence:

"I am so pressed,' said the king, by the Guise party and my people, that I have been compelled, in spite of myself, to imprison these two poor women and you; they are to be burnt to-morrow, and you also, if you will not be converted.'

"Sire,' answered the old man, the Count de Maulevrier came yesterday, on your part, promising life to these two sisters, if they would each give you a night. They replied, that they would now be martyrs for their own honour, as well as for the honour of God. You have said several times that you feel pity for me; but it is I who pity you, who have said, "I am compelled." That is not speaking like a king. These girls and I, who have part in the kingdom of heaven, will teach you to talk royally. The Guisarts, all your people, and yourself, cannot compel a potter to bɔw down to images of clay."'

This potter of "nobility by right of soul,” was also an illustrious philosopher, who, three centuries ago, made discoveries that were unnoticed by his contemporaries, and that have only recently been made applicable to purposes of civilization and social progress.

When the second edition comes out, we would recommend the author to omit the lengthy and superfluous episodes of Montluc and Calvin, pp. 16-28, 87-100 of the first volume, and very greatly to curtail the account of the garden and fortress, pp. 41-46, of the second volume. This will make the work more interesting, and, it is to be hoped, cheaper.

In the year in which Henry was stabbed to death by the monk Clement, Palissy, the potter, died in the Bastile.