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spirits occasioned such an effervescence of blood, as threw her into so violent a fever, that her life was despaired of, till a letter came from Mr. Dryden, assuring her that her son Charles was well, which recovered her spirits; and in six months after she received an eclaircissement of the whole affair. Mr. Dryden, perhaps, through fear of being reckoned superstitious, was extremely cautious of letting any one know that he was a dealer in astrology; therefore could not excuse his absence on his son's anniversary, from a hunting-match Lord Berkshire had made, and to which the adjacent gentlemen were invited. When he went out, however, he took care to set the boy a double exercise in the Latin tongue, which he taught his children himself, with a very strict charge not to stir out of the room till his return; well knowing the task he had set him would take up a longer time. Charles was carefully performing his duty, in obedience to his father's command, when, as ill fate would have it, the stag made towards the house; and the noise alarming the servants, they all hasted out to see the sport; one of them took young Dryden by the hand, and led him out to see it also; when just as they came to the gate, the stag being at bay with the dogs, made a bold push and leaped over the court-wall, which was very low, and also very old; and the dogs following, threw down part of the wall, ten yards in length, under which Charles Dryden lay buried; he was immediately dug out, and after six weeks languishing in a dangerous way, he recovered. So far Dryden's prediction was fulfilled. In the 23d year of his age Charles fell from the top of an old tower belonging to the Vatican at Rome, occasioned by a sudden swimming in his head, with which he was seized, the heat of the day being excessive.

He again partially recovered, but was ever after in a languishing sickly state. In the 33d year of his age, being returned to England, he was unhappily drowned at Windsor. He had, with another gentleman it seems, swam twice over the Thames; but returning a third time, it was supposed he was taken with the cramp violently, because he called loudly out for help, but unhappily too late. Thus the father's calculation proved but too prophetical.

INTERESTING ACCOUNT OF THE MAGNET.

MAGNES, the Loadstone; is a kind of feruginous stone, resembling iron-ore in weight and colour, though rather harder and heavier; and is endued with divers extraordinary properties, attractive, directive, inclinatory, &c.

The magnet is also called Lapis Heraclaus, from Heraclea, a city of Magnesia, a port of the ancient Lydia, where, it was said, it was first found, and from whence it is usually supposed that it took its name; though some derive the word from a shepherd, named Magnus, who first discovered it on Mount Ida, with the iron of his crook. It is also called Lapis Nauticus, from its use in navigation.

The Magnet is usually found in iron mines, and sometimes in very large pieces, half magnet, half iron. Its colour is different, as found in different countries. Norman observes, that the best are those brought from China and Bengal, which are of an irony or sanguine colour; those of Arabia are reddish; those of Macedonia, blackish, and those of Hungary, Germany, England, &c. the colour of unwrought iron. Neither its figure nor

bulk are constant or determined, being found of all shapes and sizes.

The ancients reckoned five kinds of magnets, different in colour and in virtue: the Ethiopie, Magnesian, Bæotic, Alexandrian, and Natolean. They also took it to be male and female: but the chief use they made of it was in medicine, especially for the cure of burns and defluxions of the eyes. The moderns, more happy, take it to conduct them in their voyages.

The most distinguishing properties of the magnet are, that it attracts iron, and that it points towards the poles of the world; and in other circumstances also dips or inclines to a point beneath the horizon directly under the pole; it also communicates these properties, by touch, to iron. By means of which are obtained the mariners* needles, both horizontal, and inclinatory or dipping needles.

The attractive power of the magnet was known to the ancients, and is mentioned even by Plato and Euripedes, who call it the Herculean stone, because it commands iron, which subdues every thing else: but the knowledge of its directive power, by which it disposes its poles along the meridian of every place, or nearly so, and causes needles, pieces of iron, &c, touched with it, to point nearly north and south, is of a much later date; though the discoverer himself, and the exact time of the discovery, be not now known. The first mention of it is about 1260, when it has been said that Marco Pole, a Venetian, introduced the mariner's compass, though not as an invention of his own, but as derived from the Chinese, who it seems had the use of it long before; though some imagine that the Chinese rather borrowed it from the Europeans.

But Flavio de Gira, a Neapolitan, who lived in the 13th century, is the person usually supposed to have the best title to the discovery; and yet Sir G. Wheeler mentions, that he had seen a book of astronomy much older, which supposed the use of the needle, though not as applied to the purposes of navigation, but of astronomy. And in Guiot de Proins, an old French poet, who wrote about the year 1180, there is an express mention made of the loadstone and the compass; and their use in navigation obliquely hinted at.

The variation of the magnet, or needle, or its deviation from the pole, was first discovered by Sebastian Cabot, a Venetian, in 1500, and the variation of that variation, or change in its direction, by Mr. Henry Gellibrand, professor of Astronomy in Gresham college, about the year 1625.

Lastly, the dip or inclination of the needle, when at liberty to play vertically, to a point beneath the horizon, was first discovered by another of our countrymen, Mr. Robert Norman about the year 1576.

(To be continued.)

LINES ON THE INFLUENCE OF JUPITER.

Oh, Jove, much honor'd Jove, supremely great, "To thee, our holy rites we consecrate,

"Our prayers, and expiations, King Divine:

For all things round thy head exalted shine."

ORPHIC HYMN TO JUPITER.

VIEW yon bright path, the gracious round of Jove,
The star of peace, beneficence, and love;
Parent of virtue, good he showers still,
And heavenly sympathies his aspects fill;
The heart's sole lord, if he the east ascends,
His ray to noble thoughts and virtue tends;
Gives prudence, courage, sentiments refin'd,
Compassion, with an elevated mind;
Unites with dignity the mildest grace,
A mien divine, sublime the human face.
To noble forms he joins the lib'ral soul,
Fit for command and sovereign controul;
Whose wide empire embraces varied climes,
And lives immortal in succeeding times.
Happy the hour his bounteous rays illume,
From life he dissipates Saturnian gloom;
And Mavor's rule, and Herschel's sullen rays,
He mildly tempers with his radiant blaze.
Onward through space the Fabricator * rolls,
Confiding goodness to superior souls;
With tranquil motion as he glides along,
The spheres resound his praise in sacred song;
The god-like strains in full-ton'd chorus rise,
And fill with harmony surrounding skies;

LL

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