a knowledge as astronomy affords will tend to enlarge and expand the mind of the theological student, and should therefore form no mean or secondary part of his studies. Physiology develops God's goodness as well as power in the fearful and wonderful creation of man. The singular adaptation of every part of man's physical system to the end designed bears evidence more than any other part of creation to the existence of a Designer. The physiology, not of the animal only, but of the vegetable creation also, as evidences of God's existence, must form an important part of the theologian's studies. Then, from the material the student will rise to the mental will map out for himself, by the aid of Isaac Taylor, in his admirable elementary works on "The World of Mind," or "Elements of Thought;" or in J. D. Morell's "Blements of Psychology" or Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Aids to Reflection;" or in James Douglas', Esq., of Cavers, excellent work "On the Philosophy of Mind;" or in any other approved philosophical work, a system which will in his ministrations enable him to deal with the idiosyncrasies of those to whom he may minister. In short, it would be difficult to point to any class or order of knowledge that deals especially with man that can be useless to the Christian minister. That, however, which is demanded of him is thoroughness the perfect study or complete understanding of the things studied. He who takes upon himself to instruct others should be a full man, an earnest man, and a serious man. If he is troubled, as this inquirer seems to be, with "wandering thoughts," and "idle speculations," then let him not imagine that he is in a fit frame of mind for the commencement of a suitable preparation for the Christian ministry until his speculation has risen to certainty, until his doubts are resolved, and he can say, "I know in whom I have believed." Without this selfknowledge, what shall all other knowledge avail? It may make a man

"

tinkling cymbal," but will not avail him in speaking to the souls and consciences of his fellow-men Let him have faith as "the anchor of the soul, sure and stedfast," and wandering thoughts and "idle speculations" will cease from troubling him; and he will have the best foundation laid for a successful career as a theological student and a minister of Christ.-J. J.

350. Cryophorus.-The following description of the instrument will supply the information required by your correspondent as far as it is possible without the aid of a diagram:-"The cryophorus is a very simple instrument, invented by Dr. Wollaston, for freezing water by its own evaporation. It consists of a glass tube, from 12 to 24 inches in length, and about one-third of an inch in width; its two ends are bent one way at right angles to the main part of the tube, and are widened at the extremities into bulbs of 1 or 2: inches in diameter. One of these balls is half filled with water; the remaining space is a vacuum." To perform the experiment for which this instrument is used, proceed as follows:-"Plunge the empty ball into a freezing mixture, and the water in the other will be turned into ice. The bulb in the freezing mixture is filled with aqueous vapour, which is rapidly condensed; and as there is no air in the tube, more vapour is rapidly formed, and so much heat is abstracted from the water, that it freezes." See Peschel's "Elements of Physics," 3 vols., fcap. 8vo., £1 18, translated by E. West (London: Longmans), vol. ii., pp. 214, 215.-AMER

SHAMENSIS.

353. The lines referred to on page 154, by W. S., are by Dr. Johnson, and may be found in his now almostforgotten poem of "London," written in

1738.-R. P.

355. Currer Bell was the nom de plume of Charlotte Bronte, whose biography has been so finely written by Mrs. Gaskell.-TOUCHSTONE.

362. John Donald Carrick was a Glasgow character in the days when

the men of that city could halt in their race for riches to have such a distinction. He was born in that city in 1787, and was apprenticed to an architect, but quitted his obscure vocation to seek fame and fortune in Londonto which he walked on foot, in 1807, with an exceedingly scanty purse. Here he got employment in a pottery warehouse, and having carefully garnered his small salary, he was able to return to his native place, and start in business there in the same line. He had literary longings and aspirations, and these resulted, in 1825, in the issue of the "Life of Wallace," which gives rise to this query. The book is a great favourite with the youths of Scotland. He afterwards became a commercial traveller- having been involved in business losses-and subsequently the editor of the Scots Times, and a contributor to the Day. In 1832, "Whistle Binkie," a set of new Scotch songs, was edited by him. He subsequently edited papers in Perth and Kilmarnock, edited a book of anecdotes, entitled "The Laird of Logan," and wrote in the Scottish Magazine "Nights at Kilcomrie Castle; or, the Days of Queen Mary." He died of bronchial inflammation, 17th August, 1835. The writer remembers him as a visitor at his father's, where he was esteemed a rare wit-as, indeed, his works prove him to have been.-N. L.

363. Horace and Greek Literature. -I happen to have a work, published 1805, of which two previous editions, however, appear to have been issued, which quotes on its title-page this very strong affirmation on the subject by the renowned critic, Richard Bentley :"Horatius de Græcis pendet, et totus est in illis." The book is written to prove the motto, and contains a collation of the parallel passages in the ancient Greek writers with those in the works of Horace. The author of this compilation was the Rev. Stephen Weston, Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, Rector of Mamhead, Devonshire, the earliest reputed biographer of Porson. Weston edited the "Elegiac Fragments of

แ

Hermesianax," which Porson reviewed in Maty's Review, 1784. He wrote Conjectures on the Old and New Testaments," in 1782; and 1795, translated the "Song of Deborah," wrote some satirical poems, and published a few sermons. He was not only conversant with Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, but also with Persian, Arabic, and Chinese -of which latter he compiled a dictionary. He resigned his living in his devotion to literature, and yet his name is seldom mentioned among men. While speaking on this subject, let me recommend Dean Milman's exquisite "Biography of Horace," James Hannay's excellent "Essay," and Mr. Joseph Currie's "Selected Notes on Horace," to all readers of the Augustan bard.— S. N.

367. Quadrivium.-The following quotations may perhaps supply S.S. with as much information as he requires :— The trivium contained grammar, logic, and rhetoric; the quadrivium, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, as in these two lines to assist the memory:

"Gramm. loquitur, Dia. vera docet, Rhet. verba colorat,

Mus. canit, Ar. numerat, Geo. ponderat, Ast. colit astra."

But most of these sciences, as such, were hardly taught at all. The arithmetic, for instance, of Cassiodorus or Capella, is nothing but a few definitions mingled with superstitious absurdities about the virtues of certain numbers and figures. The arithmetic of Cassiodorus occupies little more than two folio pages, and does not contain one word of the common rules. The geometry is much the same; in two pages we have some definitions and axioms, but nothing farther. His logic is longer and better, extending to sixteen pages. The grammar is very short and trifling; the rhetoire the same.* The quadrivials-I mean arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy-are now little

Hallam's "Lit. of Middle Ages," vol. i., p. 3.

which beset the efforts of riper years. Care sits lightly on the brow of oneand-twenty. The aspirations regarding the dim uncertainty of the future throw a glow over the fresh and radiant present; and the undefined but sustaining hope of what may be, gives life and energy to what is. Probably it is well that the actors in these scenes do not altogether realize their ultimate importance. Like that of actors on another stage, success depends on excluding all but the present from their thoughts, clothing with a fancied reality, 'as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unseen,' the phantoms of which their deliberations and debates are compact. Still, while around these, as around life's graver scenes, circle all human emotions and passions, the object should be to secure that the nofavouring spirit should never be absent which ought to rule in your discussions. Some of these I propose to pass in array before you, and consider the influence due to each. First, in the front, stands Labour, a stern taskmistress, keeping guard on the gates of knowledge, and repelling the faint-hearted and slothful. She is not, it is true, as "harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose," but still she does keep guard at the gate, and no one needs imagine that without sacrificing to her, admittance to the shrine will ever be accomplished. Labour, indeed, in the mysterious economy of this passing and changing world, is a singular task allotted to man; not that it is singular that he should need the things for which he labours, but strange that he should not have them without labour, or should not be able to acquire but by means of it. Yet so completely are labour and the fruits of labour identified in our minds, that we can hardly dissociate them; and with difficulty form a conception of a state of existence from which she should be excluded. The vision of complete repose, lapped in Elysian contemplation, has a soothing effect on many an overworked body and brain; and for that reason, probably, has been selected by

the poets as the type of superlative and perfect being. But if we try to individualize the thought, it eludes our grasp, or at the most commends itself coldly to us. An existence in which we should possess everything and do nothing, ecstatic as it looks in the distance, and placed as it usually is at the extremity of the ideal vista of life, bewilders and baffles us when we try to make it real. It is very pleasant, for instance, for any of us sons of toil, physical, intellectual, or routinarianwhich is neither or both, to lie on a heather bank, with our hat over our eyes, and with the fresh hill breeze fanning us in the temperate sunshine, to hear the hum of insect life around us, and scent the fragrance of the plants, and thank our stars that we have nothing to do. But even then, in the very moment of enjoyment, steals over us the thought that we should not wish it to last for ever. It would be a question with the most weary of us how long we should wish it to last. Even Virgil-who places Labour as one of the fiends, who, along with Care, and Disease, and Old Age, and Death, guard the entrance to the Shades-cannot exclude her from the Elysian fields, but represents the inhabitants of that favoured region as hard at work. The truth is, the primeval curse of toil has become a pleasure-within limits, perhaps, the chief pleasure of life; at any rate, it is very much so with our Anglo-Saxon race. We make toil when we have it not forced on us. Our very sports are toil-the more the exertion, the greater the sport. Wearied muscles and aching bones seem to be essential to perfect enjoyment; and even the solitary student, in his quiet converse or controversy with his books, draws a long sigh at night, and, thoroughly exhausted, feels he has spent a happy day. The muscles and the intellect are alike evoked by strenuous and painful exertion, and the effort and the pain become themselves the sources of pleasure. A very kind provision this for the toiling human race. Nor is the

cause difficult to find. Without labour, neither our physical nor our intellectual faculties are capable of receiving their full development; and that which pleases is the consciousness of their successful exercise. But the reason for it would be inscrutable could we adopt any theory of a completed system of ethics in this life. Nothing shows more clearly that we are only in a state of discipline, than the fact that there is pleasure in labour. In a perfect state, the complete exercise of our intellectual faculties should require no alliance with mere sordid excitements. Our mental strength and moral energies should well up within us, and find their full development, without awaiting the call of the hard-featured overseer who in this world stands perpetually by our side. So let us pay our vows to her here, and be grateful for the good she brings us. We shall leave her on this side the river. But the pleasures of labour are not to be lightly won. She requires the strong will and the resolute heart, and no one ever rose to success without them. Cares crowd on man, and the anxieties incident to the lot of every one on whom the world lays a portion of her burden. Clouds gather on the future-the welfare of others hangs on our exertions; the spirits vary, and the health, it may be, trembles for its balance. It is sometimes difficult, amid doubt and forebodings, to command the strong will and the resolute heart which labour imperiously requires. But from these clogs and fetters your exertions are for the most part free. The light heart and unpreoccupied brain are, it is true, advantages never thoroughly prized until they are lost; and the instability and procrastination of youth too often counterbalance them. But you may rest assured that not one sheaf of the harvest which you may now sow and reap will be lost to you in your pursuits hereafter. Its value becomes wonderfully enhanced the longer it is preserved; and round that little nucleus which your nights of study have en

abled you to garner, may accumulate year after year enlarging circles of knowledge, which in the end may ripen to the most consummate fruit.' Neither is the favour of the grim porteress of knowledge always given to the most brilliant of her votaries. Her prizes

are not always to the swift. Like Fortune, transmutat incertos honores," she makes a lottery of life,' benignant now to one, and now to another. But she so distributes her rewards as in a great measure to equalize the intellectual gifts which we enjoy. Slow, constant, indefatigable labour in the end will outrun the quickest natural parts, and will excel them not only in solid acquirement, but in rapidity of conception, and even brilliancy of fancy. For no one knows in what corners of his brain his power may lurk; and the thoroughly disciplined intellect will discover, to its own surprise, qualities unsuspected before. Few students have failed to find this in their own experience. How often, in the front of difficulty, does the heart fail! How intricate the path-how bewildering the details-how hopeless the confusion which is jostling in our brain! But let labour be honestly invoked, and how I certainly, if not soon, the obstacles vanish! At her command order springs out of entanglement, method and unity out of chaos; the mind receives a fresh impulse from the coherence of ideas which never were rightly comprehended or appreciated before; the difficult and hopeless problems become common and familiar tools, with which it costs no thought to work; and the intellect, stimulated by the sense of exertion past, calls on faculties hitherto dormant to play their appropriate part. It is of course not be expected, in the labours of such societies as those over which I have the honour to preside, that they can be the theatres of large or minute investigation. At the best they are but indices to future study; but as such their importance, when their advantages are rightly used, can hardly be too highly estimated. But side by