defeated and slain by an auxiliary band of Scots; while destruction still swept over the plains of France in desultory warfare. The contest was continued to 1422, when Henry, then on a march to the Loire, was attacked by dysentery. About an hour before his death, he desired to know his real state, and on being informed, directed his chaplain to read the seven psalms called penitential. On hearing the name of Jerusalem, he declared his intention to have rebuilt that city, and soon after he expired, at the age of thirtyfour, after a short career, but one which the world esteems brilliant; yet when tried by the unerring rule of Scripture, it only tends to show that "the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead," Eccl.

ix. 3.

The consideration of such a character presents, however, a salutary test: for as Foster well observes in his Essays, "Let the young and animated spirit, after having mingled and burned in imagination among heroes, whose valour and anger flame like Vesuvius, who wade in blood, trample on dying foes, and hurl defiance against earth and heaven; let him be led into the company of Jesus Christ and his disciples, as displayed by the evangelists: what must he, what can he do with his feelings in this transition? He will find himself flung as far as 'from the centre to the utmost pole;' and one of these two opposite exhibitions of character will inevitably excite his aversion." We need not say which is consistent with the

word of God.

The remains of Henry v. were carried to England with much funereal pomp, his effigy, appareled in royal robes, was laid above the coffin, and thus

the long procession passed Slowly from town to town; but those who heard The deep-toned dirge, and saw the banners wave, A pompous shade, and the high torches glare In the mid-day sun a dim and gloomy light, Then thought what he had been on earth, who now Was gone to his account."-SOUTHEY.

This mighty prince left his country nominally possessed of increased power, but impoverished, and its best inhabitants suffering under persecution. His ambition had weakened the nation, and sowed the seeds which produced the events of the following reign.

THE SIMPLICITY OF THE BIBLE.

happy adaptation to the circumstances of THE simplicity of the Bible, or its mankind, is one of the most striking proofs of its Divine original. That the blind should receive their sight, and the lame walk; that the lepers should be dead should be raised up, form an irrecleansed, and the deaf hear, and that the sistible demonstration in favour of any thing they can be brought to prove. But when the Redeemer stated all these be the Messiah, he did not think the things in testimony of his own claims to train of evidence complete until he had added, preached unto them." "The poor have the gospel The heavenly visions which he had seen with his Father, and the particulars of which he

came down from heaven to reveal on earth, are made plain and distinct to the human mind; level to the comprehension, not only of the divine, the philosopher, and the scholar, but to the poor. They are like Habakkuk's message, made plain upon tables, so that he who runs reveals the author of the Bible with pemay read. It is this very thing which culiar glory; for infinite wisdom is ever displayed by the perfect adaptation of means to an end. The Bible, by its own plainness, evinces its own perfection, and recommends itself to the most uninformed, as a sure guide to everlasting life. If in it there are depths in which an shoals where a lamb might wade. If it elephant might swim, there are also administers strong meat to those who milk. If it prescribes perfection to its are of full age, it serves the babe with reader, it begins by communicating first rightly to divide it, has learned how to principles; and he who has learned give to each his portion of meat in due

season.

J.

UNSCRIPTURAL NAMES, PHRASES, AND

FORMS.

WOULD to God that all party names, and unscriptural phrases and forms, which have divided the Christian world, were forgotten; and that we might all agree to sit down together, as humble, loving disciples, at the feet of our common Master, to hear his word, to imbibe his Spirit, and to transcribe his life in our own!-Wesley.

THE INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS OF
GREAT BRITAIN.
CANALS, No. II.

On the state of our common roads in former times, we have said enough in our last paper: their condition at the present time is too well known by our readers, to require comment; suffice it to say, that their present state of perfection has been gradually acquired since the year 1760. We shall now proceed to our next step, and describe the progress of Canal navigation; for the particulars of which 66 we are indebted to Phillips' General History of Inland Navigation." England, in which all the arts and sciences, commerce and agriculture, especially flourish, is an island containing numerous rivers, rendered navigable by art, where not so by nature. The rivers Thames, Trent, Severn, and Mersey, extend far into the country; and almost divide the island into four parts; yet, though four of the principal parts of the kingdom, London, Bristol, Liverpool, and Hull, are commodiously situated on these great rivers, and incessantly crowded with innumerable vessels, laden with the richest productions of the different countries of the world, none of these great commercial ports had, for a long time, any communication with each other, except by a tedious

and circuitous navigation, or a tiresome and expensive land carriage. And though we had for example Holland and France so near us, well furnished with canals for inland navigation, yet neither government, nor any public-spirited individual, attempted any works of that nature in England.

The canal for supplying London with water, commonly called the New River, first claims our attention. This was projected and begun by Mr. (afterwards Sir Hugh) Middleton, in the year 1608, and finished in five years. This canal begins near Ware, in Hertfordshire, and takes a course of sixty miles before it reaches the grand cistern or reservoir at Islington, which supplies the multitude of pipes that convey the water into the City and parts adjacent. Near Hornsey, it was formerly conveyed over a valley between two hills, by means of a wooden trough, supported by props, and twentythree feet in height; but of late years the course of the river has been changed and embanked. In other places, meandering round hillocks and rising grounds, it is confined on one side by the solid hill, and on the other by banks very large and thick, or large mounds of earth.

The different rivers which have been made navigable by art, above the

tideways, do not come within our plan. The first modern canal, therefore, that claims attention, as being the first public work of the kind executed in England, although completed at the expense of a private individual, is that made by the Duke of Bridgewater, in whose praise it would be unpardonable to be silent. At an age too often spent in dissipation by our young nobility, he applied his attention to useful objects, and had the spirit to hazard a great part of his fortune, in an undertaking worthy the pursuits of a prince; which, however, has ultimately proved highly profitable to his family, and beneficial to his country. When the influence of exalted rank, and large possessions, are thus nobly and usefully exerted, they confer additional lustre on the possessors.

In the year 1758 and 1759, the Duke of Bridgewater, after obtaining two acts of parliament for that purpose, projected, began, and executed, under the direction of his engineer, Mr. Brindly, his first canal, which was designed for conveying coals from a mine, or more properly a mountain, on his estate, to Manchester; but it has since been applied to many other useful purposes of inland navigation. This canal began at a place called Worsley Mill, seven miles from Manchester, where a basin was cut, capable of holding not only all the boats required to carry the coals, but a great body of water, which serves as a reservoir or head of the navigation. The canal runs through a hill by a subterraneous passage, large enough for the admission of long flat-bottomed boats, which are towed by hand-rails on each side, near three quarters of a mile under ground, to the coal works. There the passage divides into two channels, one of which goes five hundred yards to the right, and the other as many to the left; and both may be continued at pleasure.

The ingenuity and contrivance displayed by Mr. Brindly throughout the execution of this great work was wonderful; an account of which may not be uninteresting to the reader. The smiths' forges, and carpenters' and masons' workshops, were covered barges, which floated on the canal, and followed the work as it went on, by which means there was no hinderance of business, and as the Duke had all the materials in his own possession, timber, stone, and lime for mortar, and coals from his own

estate, all close by, he was at little expense besides labour. It must be observed, that the Duke also made the refuse of one work serve for the construction of another; thus the stones that were dug up to make the basin for the boats, at the foot of the mountain, as well as others taken out of the rock to make the tunnel, were hewn into the proper forms to build bridges over rivers, brooks, and highways, etc. The clay, gravel, and earth, taken up to preserve the level of one place, were carried down the canal, to raise the land in another, or reserved to make bricks for other uses. Thus grandeur, elegance, and economy, were successfully united.

Before the Duke began his canal, the price of water-carriage, by the old navigation, on the rivers Mersey and Irwell, from Liverpool to Manchester, was twelve shillings per ton; landcarriage was forty shillings per ton, and not less than two thousand tons were yearly carried on an average. Coals were retailed to the poor at Manchester, at seven pence per hundred weight, and often dearer. The cost of carriage by the Duke's canal was six shillings per ton, a much quicker conveyance, and the poor had their coals served to them at three pence half-penny for a hundred weight of seven score.

Such was the commencement of that great system of canal navigation which now intersects our country in every part, and from which the nation has derived many advantages. It has not only been the means of enlarging our foreign commerce, but of giving birth to an internal trade, which, with all the advantages attendant on foreign commerce, has perhaps far exceeded it in extent, value, and importance. So great has been the effect which these canals, and the trade to which they have given birth, have had on our industry, population, and resources, that in many instances they have entirely changed the appearance of the counties through which they pass.

The reasons of this change are sufficiently obvious. As consumers, we are enabled by means of canals to import more cheaply; as producers, we export with greater facility. Do the materials of a manufacture lie dispersed, canals bring them together, and supply the persons employed in it with every ne cessary at the cheapest rate. And the

land-owner, whether we consider the surface of the soil, or the mines in its bowels, necessarily finds his advantage from new markets, and from having a cheaper carriage both for his productions and his manure.

The great apparent objection to canals, as a means of personal travelling, is their slow progress. The heavy boats which carry goods from London to Birmingham, etc., travel upon an average at the rate of three miles and a half per hour. But light passage boats have been lately introduced on the canals in Scotland, which, by means of relays of horses, are enabled to travel at the rate of ten miles an hour, with about eighty passengers. The Paisley, or Ardrossan canal commences in the immediate neighbourhood of Glasgow; from which place the flyboats start at stated periods of the day. The distance to Paisley is eight miles, which is generally gone over in fifty-five minutes, the boats going at their ordinary speed. The boats are constructed of plate-iron, neatly fitted up in every way, and provided with a handsome awning to protect the passengers from the weather: they measure about seventy-five feet in length, and five and a half in breadth; the full complement of passengers is about eighty, but they have carried, when necessary, one hundred. Two horses are found sufficient, with relays, for tracking at the speed above stated, and they canter along the towing path with the greatest apparent ease. Our engraving at the head of this article represents the light passage boat, as above described.

In our next communication we shall discuss the subject of railroads and steam carriages.

ON THE CAUSES OF MELANCHOLY IN COMIC AUTHORS AND ACTORS.

[Translated from "Le Semeur."]

AN article has lately appeared in a periodical called La Paix, which contains many curious facts; but the writer has not investigated the causes of that melancholy which is constantly to be observed in comic authors, nor has he deduced any of those grand moral lessons that may be learned from such a subject. It is one, however, which deserved the most serious attention, if any higher purpose were in view than the satisfying of a vain curiosity. We

shall, therefore, 1. State briefly the facts; and, 2. Follow them up with a few reflections.

Few romances are more seductive to readers than Don Quixote. One day, Philip 111., king of Spain, was standing in one of the balconies of the Escurial, observing a young Spanish student, who was sitting in the sun and reading a book, while he was bursting out into loud fits of laughter. The farther the student read, the more his gaiety increased, until at last he was so violently excited, that he let the book fall from his hands, and rolled on the ground in a state of hilarity that partook of the nature of delirium. The king returned to his courtiers, and said, Surely this young man is a fool, or he is reading Don Quixote." One of the guards of the palace went to pick up the book, and found that his majesty had guessed rightly. Yet, Miguel Cervantes, the author of this book which is so amusing, had dragged on the most wretched existence; his soul was overwhelmed. with the deepest cloud of melancholy. He was groaning and weeping, while all Spain was laughing at the humorous adventures of the knight of La Mancha, and the wise sayings of Sancho Panza.

66

It is well known that the first comic author in France, the man who wrote the ludicrous scenes of The Physician against his Will, The Country Gentleman, M. de Porceaugnac, and The Hypochondriac, was a prey to invincible melancholy. Molière was seldom cheerful, and never without great effort. After having diverted Louis XIV., the court, and the whole city, he carried into his domestic circle, and even into his intercourse with men of letters, a sadness, which the greatest worldly prosperity could never dispel.

Sterne, that wit so full of raillery, possessed an exterior the least humorous that could be imagined. On first seeing this little man in a black coat, a white wig, and a sallow countenance, no one would ever have supposed that he was a jester full of levity.

We could mention few authors who had the reputation of being such entertaining companions as Desaugiers; no one could enliven a company of friends, or set the table in a roar like him. There is not one of his songs which does not breathe the most lively and most unfettered gaiety; and as to the figure of Desaugiers, was it not the most complete type of the

happiest man upon the face of the earth? Always singing, always laughing, the countenance of Desaugiers seemed to defy the attacks of sorrow; his whole life appeared to be spent in the midst of a continual feast. And yet Desaugiers was sad! melancholy overwhelmed his heart in his most joyous festivals, and amidst his most mirthful songs; if he celebrated so much the pleasures of wine, it was because he sought in it the forgetfulness of that gnawing grief which he concealed from every eye, and would have wished to conceal even from himself.

Comic actors, too, like authors of the same stamp, have been subjected to this secret influence of melancholy, nor have they shared in the gaiety which their appearance merely has excited in others. "Observe Bouffe," says the editor of La Paix, " a smile appears but seldom to animate his countenance, emaciated by a state of almost constant disease. Fereol, weary of amusing the pit of the comic opera, without being able to amuse himself, has retired to a country house near Orleans, and is seeking relief from the recollections of the theatre in the midst of his paintings. Probably you may have met a man in the streets of Paris, with blue spectacles and a very miserable air, without ever thinking that you had before your eyes Arnal, one of the most entertaining comedians of the ballad. Samson and Ambrose, those famous comedians of the French theatre, are only comic after seven o'clock in the evening. As to Debureau, the celebrated prince of the rope-dancers, the moment he puts off the coating of flour, with which he has whitened his countenance, he becomes the saddest man in the whole neighbourhood in which he lives."

There is a well-known anecdote of Biancolelli, the celebrated harlequin, whose gambols and drolleries have been the amusement of all Paris, at the theatre of the fair of St. Germain. One day a physician of great eminence in that city, beheld a man entering his study, who came, as he said, to seek the assistance of his skill against a disease which nothing could cure. Having made some inquiries into the causes of his sufferings, the unknown patient replied, that he was afflicted with a deep melancholy, which rendered life an insupportable burden.

"You must drink good wine," said the physician to his patient.

"I have in my cellar the best wine in the world," replied the unknown, "but it cannot make me forget my sadness.” "You must travel, then."

"I have made the tour of Europe, and still my wretchedness has travelled with me."

"Oh! oh! the case is sad indeed, but still there is a remedy; go every evening to the Italian comedy; you will see the celebrated Harlequin Biancolelli play; his gaiety is catching; that will make cheerful."

you

"Alas, Sir," said the poor patient, "I see my malady is incurable, I am Biancolelli."

To these examples, quoted by La Paix, we might add others every where to be met with, and occurring almost every day. Who are the men most ill tempered in their own houses, men of the most morose and captious dispositions, who quarrel with their wives, and children, and servants, who know not what to do with themselves, or how to get rid of their weariness? They are commonly such as exhibit in society the most jovial character, the utterers of witty expressions, the drolls, who are saluted on their entry into a place with bursts of laughter, and whose inventive powers in buffoonery are inexhaustible. When they have thus for hours been amusing the frequenters of the saloons, they have returned to their own homes with heavy hearts and empty heads, weary of themselves, and distressing others with their ill humours. Their gaiety is a mask, which they put on for a night, and take off when they enter their own houses. Who has not met with persons of this double character? professed jesters amongst others, intolerable in their own domestic circle, as full of discontent in their own families, as they are of boisterous merriment in the face of the world.

There is not, perhaps, one of our readers, who has not experienced the same sensations in himself. At what time are men most exposed to the approaches of melancholy and sadness? on what day and in what hour are they in their saddest mood, when all objects around them appear most discouraging? Is it not after such assemblies of pleasure, after they have been giving way to a foolish and intoxicating mirth, after they have been partaking of these frivolous amusements, the "laughter of fools," as they are called in the Holy Scriptures? They have left these houses of feasting,