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ENGLISH LITERATURE.

Here it will be seen that the squares of each file are numbered in regular order, and named after the piece which stands at the head of that file. Thus, the second file from the right-hand corner is the King's Knight's, the third is the King's Bishop's, and so on. As the pieces both of Black and White stand opposite each other at the outset, the same designation applies to the files on each side of the board; but the numerical order of the squares is altered, the White King's second square being the Black King's seventh, etc. With this explanation, and that of the initial letters which has before been given, the diagram will be found perfectly easy of comprehension, and the names of the squares should be carefully impressed upon the memory, as there is no other way of describing Chess movements than by constant reference to them.

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he had entertained the thought of writing a great epic or heroic poem. We know, too, that, probably under the influence of his favourite master, Spenser, he had at one time chosen the story of King Arthur for his theme, though there is no reason to suppose that he ever actually commenced any poem on this subject. "Long choosing, and beginning late," as he himself tells us, it is probable that many other themes may have passed through his mind before he finally determined upon the sublime history which he has embodied in "Paradise Lost." Even when his subject was chosen, the form and character was not at once determined upon. We know that Milton at one time intended to represent the fall of man in the form of a sacred drama; and it is related upon authority which we can scarcely question, that some of the noblest passages in "Paradise Lost," and notably Satan's celebrated "Address to the Sun," at the commencement of the fourth book, were written as part of the intended

LESSONS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE.-XVIII. play. But in all probability the substance and form of the

MILTON.

great work must have been selected, and probably portions of it written, before the Restoration, though it was mainly composed after that event. It was certainly completed, and, there is no reason to doubt, completed much as we now have it, in 1665; and it was published in 1667.

No English poet, no poet, indeed, of any nation has ever ventured to treat so vast, so awful a theme as that which Milton has handled in his great epic. He has painted the calm serenity of heaven before sin or discord had found entrance; the war in heaven; the rebellion and fall of the disobedient angels; the horrors of the hell to which they fell; the creation; the temptation and the fall of man; the punishment of the guilty pair, and their penitence lightened by the hope and promise of a future redemption. He has touched the most awful mysteriesthe loftiest counsels of heaven, and the lowest depths of hellno less than the history of the human race. And he has sought

NOTHING can be more complete than the change which the
Restoration wrought in the position and prospects of Milton.
Up to that time, whatever his personal calamities, and they
were heavy, Milton had lived in keen enjoyment of the triumph
of that cause for which he had fought so long and so strenu-
ously. He had himself been honoured and powerful in his own
country, and his fame and influence were known throughout
Europe. But the revulsion of feeling which accompanied, and
which, indeed, effected the Restoration, was something stronger
than it is at all easy for us to realise in the present day. With
the exception of a faithful few, the whole nation, Cavaliers and
Roundheads, Royalists and Republicans, all alike bowed the
knee to Baal. All vied with one another in servile adulation of
the new-found sovereign. All alike hastened to lay their poli-
tical principles, their personal honour, their faith, their liberties,
at the foot of the throne. A blind enthusiam of royalty, real
in some, assumed in others, was the spirit of the hour. No ill- to
will and contempt was too strong for those who had been identified
with the establishment or the conduct of the old government.
Milton's position was a singularly trying one. He was growing
old; he was totally blind; he had to see the work of his life
undone; the republic for which he had struggled overthrown;
the hated monarchy, and the still more hated prelacy, re-esta-
blished; the lofty, though austere morality of the Puritan supre-
macy giving place to the unbridled licentiousness of the new
régime. Milton himself narrowly escaped being included in
the list of those sacrificed to the royal vengeance; a proclama-
tion for his discovery was even issued; and more than one of
his works was burned by order of the House of Commons. He
was indeed

"Fallen on evil days and evil tongues;

In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,
And solitude."

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And in his works of this period we find, from time to time, very pathetic passages referring to his fate. Of his blindness he often speaks :

"Thus with the year

Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even and morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom or summer rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever during dark
Surrounds me; from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank

Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out."

But Milton's was not the spirit to sink in despondency. The
ame lofty purpose and proud self-reliance which he had shown
A the earlier days of conflict did not forsake him in this hour
of defeat. He could still

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Nor has he

"To the height of this great argument"
"Assert eternal providence,
And justify the ways of God to men."

sought in vain to rise "to the height of this great argument." For, whatever his faults, Milton has done what no other poet could ever have done; he has, throughout the whole of his long poem, maintained a sublime elevation of thought, of moral tone, and of style worthy of his subject. Some of the means by which this effect is attained we can easily perceive. Milton's genius was essentially not dramatic; that is to say, he had little power of conceiving, portraying, and giving life to individual characters. And this, which for most purposes would have been a defect, was for this poem an immense advantage. Had the awful personages by whom his heaven is peopled-the Eternal Father, the Divine Son, the great archangels, and all the hierarchy of heaven-been presented to us too vividly, with too much dramatic life, they would have been too like ourselves; the infinite would have been lost in the finite, the Divine in the human; heaven would have become earth. But one power which Milton did possess, and that in a very rare degree-as he showed in his early poems, "L' Allegro," in particular-was the power of minute, delicate, and accurate painting of scenes and incidents. This power he carefully abstains from using in "Paradise Lost." In that poem all is vast, shadowy, indefinite; and by this vagueness of outline, Milton adds grandeur to his figures, as mountains are grandest when half veiled in cloud. Even the habit which Milton so constantly indulges in "Paradise Lost," of ransacking all sources of learning, ancient and modern, sacred and profane, for his imagerya habit which has often been set down as mere pedantry-and his seeming love of long and high-sounding names of persons and places, frequently appealing more to the ear than to the mind; even these, we are convinced, are no idle freaks of vanity or love of sound, but devices of art deliberately adopted, with a view to the general effect of the poem, and with a full consciousness that he who would rise to the level of such a subject must, at any cost, avoid commonplaceness and familiarity.

Nothing can surpass the masterly art which Milton shows in the conduct of his story, especially the skill with which ho preserves a complete unity of interest throughout the whole and, in spite of the inherent difficulties of his subject, maint that movement and action which are above all things es

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firm and easy road between earth and hell. Satan in the meantime returns to relate triumphantly in hell his success on earth; and he and his associates begin to feel the first-fruits of the curse by finding themselves transformed into serpents. In the eleventh book the repentance of Adam and Eve is accepted in heaven; but the archangel Michael is sent to expel the guilty pair from Paradise. In this and the twelfth book the archangel, leading Adam to the summit of a hill, shows him in vision the history of his posterity, ending in the final redemption of mankind through Christ. The book and the poem end with the actual departure of Adam and Eve from Eden.

In a work of such magnitude it is hardly necessary to say that even Milton has been by no means uniformly successful in all parts of it. The scenes in heaven are the least satisfactory. In pursuing his purpose "to justify the ways of God

to man," Milton has sometimes placed in the mouth of the Almighty arguments and explanations which scarcely tend to exalt our idea of the Divine character. And the scenes which present to us our first parents in their state of innocence, though always full of purity and beauty, have certainly something of monotony, if not of dulness, about them. Action there could, of course, from the nature of the case, be none in

Satan, raising himself from the lake of fire, awakes his prostrate companions, who, at his words, start up with renewed energy and hope. The several leaders of the host, all the evil spirits and false gods whose names are known in history or legend, sacred or profane, are brought before us in passages of wonderful power. They set themselves to make the best of their new and dismal abode. The great city and palace of Pan-such scenes, and the unchanging round of life seems tedious to demonium under their hands "rises like an exhalation;" and | fallen humanity. It is in the other world that Milton's success an assembly is summoned to decide upon their future course. has been supreme. The true action of this epic is with the

In the second book the infernal council is described, and its proceedings related. At last it is decided, in accordance with the advice of Satan, that the new-created world, with its inhabitant man, of which rumours had been rife in heaven before the fall, should be the point at which they should seek revenge upon their Almighty Victor, by counteracting his beneficent designs, and marring his creation pursuance of this purpose, Satan

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and he starts upon this errand. Reaching the gates of hell, he
finds them guarded by two awful shapes, Sin and Death. And
here we meet, in the allegorical conception of these two beings,
one of the most sublime passages in all Milton's works. Satan
having passed hell-gates, and made his way through the vast
expanse of chaos, comes at last within view of "the opal
towers and battlements" of heaven:-

"And hard by, hanging in a golden chain,
This pendant world, in bigness as a star
Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon."

And so the second book closes. It must be observed that by the world, in this and other passages, Milton means, not the earth, but the globe which he supposed to embrace the whole solar and stellar systems, for his astronomy was that of Ptolemy, not of Copernicus. In the third book the scene changes to heaven. God the Father and the Son, in a marvellous dialogue, discourse of the state of man and the enterprise of Satan; the approaching fall of man, and the Divine purposes of mercy to be fulfilled in his ultimate redemption, are disclosed to us. The poet then again returns to Satan, and traces his wanderings till he lands at last on this earth upon the top of Mount Niphates. In the fourth book Satan, wandering over our globe,

fallen spirits; the real interest of the poem centres in the
character and achievements of Satan. It is a trite remark that
poets whose genius is not of a dramatic character are apt in
portraying their heroes to show us themselves under various
disguises; and in the majestic portrait of the rebel Satan it is
not difficult to trace some of the features of the rebel Milton.
For Satan is no devil of the vulgar, no mere spirit of
evil, com-
pounded of baseness and malignity. He is an "archang!
ruined;" a form and countenance of celestial beauty, thouga
marred by sin and deformed by wounds and flame; a character
of which the basis is a lofty courage which no adversity can
shake, a "courage never to submit or yield;" a stern deter-
mination and fixity of purpose, though these noble qualities
are perverted by "pride and worse ambition." He is still
capable of a magnanimous devotion, and a tender pity for those
whom his example has brought to ruin. Even for his victims.
Adam and Eve, when he first sees them, he is not without com-
punctious visitings. He can still "feel how awful goodness is,"
and stand silent and abashed in its presence. Upon this stupen-
dous figure, one of the greatest that any poet has ever painted,
and upon his exploits, Milton has exercised all the highest
quality of his genius, and with a result entirely successful.

The metre of "Paradise Lost" deserves careful attention. Blank verse, as we have already seen, had been known in England from the time of Lord Surrey, and had been habitually used by the great dramatists. But when Milton wrote, this metre had been long disused for any poetry other than dramat Milton deliberately adopted it, as being more suited to the dignity of his subject, and because he held that rhyme fettered the freedom of the poet, and was "of itself, to all judicious ears

comes upon the Garden of Eden, and sees our first parents intrivial, and of no true musical delight; which consists only

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their state of innocence and bliss. And their angelic guardians, warned of the presence of the evil spirit, discover him in the bower where Adam and Eve lie asleep, and he is for the time driven from Paradise. Of the following four books the scene is, strictly speaking, on this our earth. Raphael, "the affable archangel," sent by God to warn man of his approaching danger, relates to Adam the great events which had preceded the point of time at which the action of the poem commenced in the first book; the revolt of Satan and his fellows; the war in the heaven, with its varying fortunes; the intervention and triumph of the Messiah himself, with the rout of his foes, and their fall from the battlements of heaven to the hell prepared to receive them; the creation of the world, and of man as its inhabitant and ruler; and Adam in his turn relates the result of his short experience of life. And the eighth book ends with a solemn warning of the archangel. In the ninth book is told the temptation and fall, first of Eve, and then of Adam. In the the doom of man is pronounced, but not without an e of future redemption. Again we meet with ! shapes, Sin and Death, no longer guardians of of hell, but hurrying to this earth, there to find or them by Satan, and leaving in their track a

1

apt numbers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense various drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings." But Milton's blank verse is distinguished from all other by its infinite variety in rhythm, and in the mod of drawing out of the sense from verse to verse.

When Milton wrote "Paradise Lost" he does not seem t
have at all contemplated a companion poem.
The idea
"Paradise Regained" was suggested to him by a friend, to when
he had shown the finished manuscript of the earlier poem: ba
Milton at once adopted the suggestion, and in four years afte
the publication of "Paradise Lost," "Paradise Regained
appeared. It is a much shorter poem, consisting of only fo
books, as against the twelve of "Paradise Lost." It has alway
enjoyed much less popularity than the earlier poem, not from an
poetical inferiority, but from the nature of its subject, which
didactic rather than epic. It is essentially a companion pie
As the climax of the action of "Paradise Lost" was the tempt
tion and the fall of Adam, the subject of "Paradise Regaine
is the temptation and victory of Christ :-

"Recovered Paradise to all mankind,
By one man's firm obedience fully tried

Through all temptation, and the tempter foiled

In all his arts, defeated and repulsed,
And Eden raised in the waste wilderness."

RECREATIVE SCIENCE.

Another great work of the same period is the drama of "Samson Agonistes." This play is founded upon the classical model of the Greek tragedies. It is not only very noble and elevated in spirit and character, but contains scenes and passages of very pathetic beauty. In one respect this work has an especial and peculiar interest and attraction for every reader. In the charac ter of the great Hebrew champion in the hour of his fall, his servitude, and his blindness, and in the touching lamentations which he utters, it is impossible to doubt that we are reading to some extent the expression of Milton's own sorrow and bitterness of heart, under trials not wholly dissimilar to those

of his hero.

There still remains a class of Milton's poems, the consideration of which we have postponed until now, for they belong to no one period of the poet's life, but are scattered over very many years. The sonnet is a form of composition which had already been cultivated with much success in England, as well as in Italy, and notably by Shakespeare and Spenser. But the sonnets of Milton differ from those of all his predecessors in the peculiar concentration of thought and elevation of feeling which they express, as well as in the solemn and organ-like music of their language and versification. We can find space for but one example, Milton's nineteenth sonnet, on his blindness:

"When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide
And that one talent, which 'tis death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide.
Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?

I fondly ask; but patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."

Milton died at his home in London in the year 1674.

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In the last chapter it was shown that the eye might be affected in peculiar ways either in disease or health, and whilst showing the value of surgical aid in the former case, it is quite as well to remember that if an unusual effect on the vision is produced by a known cause, such as too great a straining of the eye and mind by over-study or special art work, such as engraving steel plates or gems, the remedy is obvious-viz., repose and rest for the eye, and change of thought for the mind.

The famous Benedetto Pistrucchi, who was one of the most celebrated engravers of gems and jewels, says, in a most interesting autobiography translated by Dr. Billing :-" At the age of twenty-four, my great application to such minute objects as the finer parts of the cameos, and having just worked upon a stone which had a stratum of a fiery-red colour, produced a weakness of the eyes so great, that whenever I worked for half an hour my sight failed, and whichever way I looked there appeared two clouds of smoke, which disappeared when I fixed my eyes on an object steadily, but returned the moment I moved the pupils. Being tormented in this manner, I applied to the principal surgeons and physicians of Rome, who dosed me with viper broth, applied blisters, bled me, and in fine martyrised me, all to no purpose. I became so melancholy that my relatives, fearing I might commit suicide, never permitted me to be alone, and did all in their power to entertain me. It happened that a certain apothecary, of the name of Ricci, supplied me with some medicines, who, coming to the house, and seeing me so depressed by my malady, invited me to accompany him on a visit to his native place, where, he said, the air was so pure as to seem to have almost the power to restore life."" Pistrucchi starts on this journey, and having encountered many adventures both pleasing and dangerous, seems to forget

127

all about his complaint, and we hear no more of the affliction of the eyes that caused him so much torment; indeed, he subsequently came to England, where he produced works at the Royal Mint which have placed his name in the front rank of engravers of jewels, and designers and executants of dies for medals and coins.

To return to the healthy affection of the optic nerve, called "persistence of vision," no one can fail to remember that at some time or other they have seen darting suddenly through the sky that which appears to be a splendid star with a train of fire behind, and then it wholly fades from the vision.

A meteor, or "shooting star," may be defined to be some kind of light, combustible matter, which moves with great velocity in the upper regions of the air, and is changed to the vaporous or rather dust-like condition before it can reach the Earth, and whilst thus changing its physical condition emits an intense light.

Such meteors sometimes fall towards the Earth in showers, emitting a remarkable amount of light; and when the Earth passes through the orbit of these little bodies in the precise part of it where they are collected, then the beautiful "star shower" becomes apparent.

The November meteors require a period of about 33 years to perform their orbit or path around the Sun, and it is found that the Earth breaks through the group once in thirty-three years, and always in the month of November. A shower of this kind was seen in November, 1799, again in November, 1831, and also in November, 1832, when it is related that multitudes of shooting stars" fell in the western part of Asia and southern part of Europe. But, Bouvier says, the most magnificent shower of meteors which has ever been known was that which fell during the night of November 12, 1833. This shower commenced at nine o'clock in the evening, and continued till the morning sun concealed them from view. It extended from Canada to the northern boundary of South America, and over a tract of nearly three thousand miles in width, its western limit extending to longitude 100° west from Greenwich.

The area covered by these groups must be very great, considering that the Earth moves at the rate of 1,000 miles per bour, and met this body of meteors moving at the same rate, which velocity increased to 1,200 miles per minute by the Earth's attraction; and yet it took many hours-from nine in the evening until the brilliancy of the Sun's light overpowered that of the meteors-before the Earth had travelled through this immense assemblage of meteoric particles, like the sand of the sea-shore in number.

Stars have shone with "trains of fire" in an immense shower within the memory of the youngest of the present generation, viz., on the 13th and 14th of November, 1866, and have again completed the cycle of 33 years from the last recorded, November 12, 1833. It is supposed that these meteoric particles do not exceed two grains in weight; they commence burning at a height of seventy-four miles above our Earth, and are all dissipated into vapour by the time they have travelled twenty miles through the upper and more rarefied parts of the air, and passed within a distance of fifty-four miles of the Earth.

All motion when arrested generates heat. It is the resistance of our atmosphere-the friction of these particles (moving at the rate of upwards of 1,000 miles per minute) against the material substance of the air surrounding the globe-that generates the heat which ultimately converts them to a vaporous condition.

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An observer at Cowes, Isle of Wight, thus tersely describes the appearance of the great shower of swift, silent, luminous shooting stars," with their trails of light, that fell in November, 1866, and surpassed anything that the present generation has witnessed:

"The predicted display of shooting stars was observed here (Cowes) on a magnificent scale during the early hours of this morning, and, as the sky may have possibly been in few places so clear as here, the notes I made may perhaps be interesting to some of your numerous readers.

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1.11 "From 1.11 1.13 "The falls now became so incessant that it was impossible to count numbers fast enough, ten to a dozen falling stars being at intervals all visible at once.

"This rapid fall continued visible for 16 minutes, when the sky, which had been clear from midnight, became obscured with heavy rains, and rain fell sharply for some ten minutes.

"At 1.50 it cleared up a little; stars were still falling, but not so rapidly.

"From 1.50 to 1.54 over 83 were observed, when the sky again became overcast, and a little rain again fell, clearing up at 2.20, when stars were still falling.

"From 2.20 to 2.35, 73 fell in 15 minutes; the sky again became cloudy, clearing up at 3.15, when very few, some two or three per minute, were falling; and after 5 o'clock none were observed.

"About 25 per cent. of the shooting stars were exceedingly brilliant, burning with an intense orange-yellow colour, the larger ones marking their track with an intense blue or greenishblue streak, which, in some instances, exceeded a length of 60° in space. These streaks were apparently always widest at the middle point of their observable course.

"With the exception of a very small number (not 2 per cent.) which appeared erratic, the radiant point was near the star <, in the constellation Leo, at about 25° north declination, and at about 9 hours 50 minutes right ascension.

"A few of the meteors appeared to burst, leaving a cloudy haze, and from one especially, that fell at 1.14, passing westward, nearly through our zenith, and disappearing at about 45° above the horizon, the smoke or vapour was visible for fully three minutes after it exploded.

"A child, who had been aroused to look at the display from a window looking westward, remarked that it was like the feathers in a display of rocket fireworks, 'only,' he said, they went the wrong way.'

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The change of something of a solid nature into the vaporous condition, or rather perhaps into the finest dust, is thus distinctly alluded to, and the production of what appeared to be smoke or vapour (like that from an ordinary firework) is recorded by this observer.

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seen, called "detonating meteors," which have exploded with a loud noise, as well as producing a magnificent emission of light. Such meteors have been called "fire-balls." Occasionally a small stony mass remains as the result of the rushing flame and explosion, which is like the loudest thunder; and it is satisfactory to know that out of ten millions of shooting stars seen from the Earth, barely one case of a fallen substance is recorded. It has been stated by Mr. Herschel that he observed the sodium line in the train of a "fire-ball meteor," which he submitted to spectrum analysis. And it will be noticed in the account given by the observer at Cowes, that the colour of the light of at least one quarter of the meteors was an intense orange-yellow colour," the larger ones marking their track with an intense blue or greenish-blue streak. This change of colour of the track from intense orange-yellow colour to an intense blue or greenish-blue is probably due to the same cause that produces the beautiful changes of colour when burning magnesium wire is moved in a circular form around the face, as described in our last paper. The meteor, like the magnesium, could not be in every part of the track at the same time, and the train of light produced a like change of colour whilst it faded away from the vision. As this subject is proceeded with, it will be found that after staring at any brilliant train of coloured light, the original colour does not remain upon the visual nerve, but

TOY FOR EXHIBITING THE EFFECT

OF METEORS.

Subsequently, Mr. Alexander Herschel delivered a lecture on the same shower before the members of the Royal Institution, and stated that the height of some of those meteors had been ascertained to be about fifty miles, and he mentioned the appearance of others which were as near the Earth as four and five miles. The periodical meteoric showers, he said, are conceived to be composed of streams of meteoric bodies moving in separate orbits, the width of such a stratum of meteors being equal to two or three times the diameter of the Earth. The meteors observed on the 14th of November last were visible at the Cape of Good Hope a quarter of an hour before they were seen in this country; the cause of which he explained to be owing to the inclination of the globe to the zodiac, and the consequent arrival of the meteors at the southern portion before they could be visible in the north. He stated that it has been observed that each periodical stream of meteors is accompanied by a comet, the orbit of which has been calculated and the times of its return estimated. With reference to the probable course of luminous meteors in the material substance of the zodiacal light, the speculations offered were of the vaguest kind. Mr. Herschel said that attempts to explain the nature of the zodiacal light have hitherto failed to present a theory that would bear investigation, and the one that he advanced was-that the light is emitted from an immense number of small solid particles surrounding the Sun in the form of an elongated spheroid, or double cone, and that the meteors are constructed from these particles. He said this theory had the advantage over others of not having been hitherto proved to be fallacious.

changes, as in the experiment of the mag. nesium wire; therefore, the meteor itself might consist of matter yielding a yellow or orange-yellow light only, and the track of blue light was probably an optical and illusory effect.

Thus, then, it is shown that a meteor is a "shooting star or fire-ball, so long as it moves in the highest regions of the air and does not fall to the Earth as a solid mass, but in the state of fine dust. If, however, the wandering matter from space, like the famous Kaaba stone at Mecca, is of larger bulk and weight, and does fall in a solid mass to the Earth, then it is called a meteorite or aerolite, of which a fine collection has been brought together by Mr. Maskelyne, at the British Museum. They are 237 in number. Of these "meteorites" 80 consist of masses of meteoric iron, called "aerosiderites;" 10 have a composition partly of stone and partly of iron, and are termed "siderolites;" 147 are stones, and to these the term "aerolites" is now exclusively applied.

All these meteorites vary in weight from ounces to tons, whilst meteors, such as those that formed the shower in Novem ber, 1866, are estimated in grains. The difference between a meteor and a meteorite is, therefore, only one of balk and weight, and in all possibility, as suggested by Mr. Sorby (who has so carefully examined some of the meteorites with the microscope), may have been produced from metals in a nebulons or gaseous state, like the vaporous condition of metallic matter in the photosphere of the Sun.

A very good imitation of the effect of a meteor may be shown by the simple toy devised by the Rev. Mr. Pilkington, in which a circular disc of cardboard, perforated with a series of holes concentric with each other, is moved by a wire attached to a handle: the wire is not fixed tightly in the centre, but so arranged as to enable the operator to give various motions. The holes are from about a quarter to an eighth of an inch in diameter: the centre hole is left colourless; the first ring of holes, green; the second, violet; and the third, crimson; and the colours are obtained by pasting coloured gelatine, such as that used in crackers and bon-bons, behind the apertures. By giving the handle various movements in a circular, perpendicular, horizontal, or diagonal direction, a variety of tracks of coloured light can be obtained. This simple contrivance is an excellent illustration of persistence of vision, and will enable our readers to understand a more complicated contrivance called the astrometroscope, an instrument for producing complicated forms on the disc with the oxy-hydrogen light, by the various movements of star-like figures, and which will be

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The November meteors were noiseless, but others have been described in our next paper.

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LESSONS IN ETHNOLOGY.-III. EUROPEAN SECTION OF THE ARYAN RACE. THE dominant races of Europe are nearly all Aryan. Those of them which are so, when arranged according to their languages, fall naturally under six subdivisions:-(1.) The Teutonic; (2.) the Celtic; (3.) the Slavonic, or Windic; (4.) the Italic; (5.) the Illyric; and (6.) the Hellenic races.

The Teutonic race is one of a very remarkable character. It has never been properly subdued. While several other European races were so thoroughly brought under the sway of Rome that they lost their native languages, and now speak tongues in which Latin words predominate, the Teutons maintained their political independence, and kept their speech virtually unmodified by their proximity to the all-conquering empire. Next, ceasing to act simply on the defensive, they began to assail the colossal Roman dominion itself; and finally, under the names of Ostrogoths (East Goths), Visigoths (West Goths), Vandals, etc., they burst in upon the effete empire and trampled it under foot. All decay and death in this world of God's are designed to be the prelude to new life, and the overthrow of the old civilisation-though its immediate result might be ages of confusion and intellectual darkness

yet was followed at last by the birth of a new and better culture than that which had perished. How closely the destroyers of the Roman empire were akin to the modern Teutonic nations-our own, for example-will be apparent from a glance at one or two of the half-English names applied to their tribes or armies: thus, the Romans spoke of the Marcomanni, that is, "the men of znark;" and the Alemanni, or "all men," showing the miscellaneous nature of the assemblage which desire of plunder had drawn

towards the north that fair hair and blue eyes become common. Hence it has been thought that the clearing away of the forests which once overspread Germany has made the climate of that country so much more genial, that the southern peculiarities of black hair and blue eyes are much more frequently met with now than of old. Latham thus describes the physical conformation of the entire Teutonic, or, as he calls it, "Gothic" family:-(a) "Blue eyes, flaxen hair, ruddy complexion, smooth skin, fleshy limbs; (b) Eyes, grey, dark, or hazel; hair, brown or black; complexion, sallow or swarthy; bulk, varied." If the classification of the several Teutonic tribes and subtribes be founded on language, then this great race will be resolved into three smaller ones-the High German, the Low German, and the Scandinavian sub-races. The locality inhabited

Fig. 3.-TYPE OF TEUTONIC VARIETY.

together. Germany was the great seat of the Teutonic tribes: their boundaries, when the Romans first came in contact with them, being the Rhine on the west, the Danube on the south, the Vistula on the east, and on the north a line running in some unknown latitude across Scandinavia.

The classical authors of antiquity describe the Germanic tribes as tall in stature and strong in body, with a fair complexion, yellow, or, more frequently, red hair, and blue eyes. But, remarkably enough, these characteristics are not now common in Germany; to find them extensively diffused one must repair to Scandinavia. In Germany the hair and eyes in a vast number of instances are dark. Unless the Romans made some strange mistake-which it is hard to think that they can have done the physical characteristics of the Germans must have altered considerably within the last two thousand years. A conjecture has been hazarded as to how this may have taken place. In all the hotter parts of the world, the hair of the several indigenous races of mankind is black, and it is accompanied by dark eyes; it is only when one goes some distance

VOL. VI.

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by the first of these is the south of Germany, and the language spoken is the one which is in general simply designated "German." To the second, or Low German sub-race, belong the English, the Dutch, and the Frieslanders. The inhabitants of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland-the Northmen or Normans of old piratical times-constitute the Scandinavians. Besides these three assemblages of Teutons speaking yet living tongues, should be ranked Я fourth, the Goths, whose language is now extinct.

The vast majority of the Teutons are Protestant in faith, and the same assertion cannot be made about any other race in the world. Of the many aspects in which the Reformation in the sixteenth century may be viewed, one is that it was a religious revolt of the Teutonic race against Italian dominancy. The only notable section of the Teutons who have remained Roman Catholic are the Germans of the Austrian empire.

In war the Teutons are remarkable not so much for romantic courage in assault, as for stubborn endurance. The amazing tenacity of life which the Austrian empire has all along shown, and its great fortitude under crushing defeats, have in large measure resulted from the prominent place held by the Teutonic element in its political system. The tenacity of endurance now spoken of is called by the French "solidity;" hence either the Emperor Napoleon or the Moniteur, referring on one occasion, during the Crimean war, to the British soldiers, used the expression, "that solidity which is peculiar to them; and in the French narrative of the battle of Inkermann, admiration was expressed for "the energetic solidity with which our allies faced the storm so long."

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The Celtic is the second of the great races now inhabiting Europe. Even before the conquests of Julius Cæsar, the Romans had become well acquainted with one great section of it, namely, the Gallie tribes, who had oftener than once burst through the Alps, and rolled an invading torrent like an avalanche down upon the plains of Italy. These aggressive Celts, too, had so well held their own in that peninsula, that there was a Cis-Alpine as well as a Trans-Alpine Gaul; that is, a

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