probably reached the streets and alleys of our cities of to-day, from the stony circles, or from the infant schools, of our old Druids, where they inculcated a profound piety, and a delicate urbanity: The stone (it was one of their maxims of the former kind) is not nearer to the ground, than GOD to him that needs him!'"

66

Mr. Hartley concluded his observations by adverting, once more, and for an instant, to what he had lately been saying of the old philosophy, partly physical, and partly fanciful, and still uniformly poetical, and even historical, concerning the elements of nature; he now added, that besides fire and ether, even water had been largely esteemed the divine or spiritual element; that water which the advocates of the fiery preeminence considered as the very destroyer of all spirit; and it is curious," continued he, "that while these latter seem to have prevailed with the whole Pagan world, not to offer fish in sacrifice to the gods, their cold and watery bodies being without the share of fire which could render them worthy; others of the ancient times insisted that there was fire in water; and that, among the moderns, this was suspected by Sir Isaac Newton, and has been proved by the French and English chemists! Aristotle objected to any theory that deduced one element from another, as was done by those who imagined fire contained in water; but elder sages than himself had fancied the proof of the assumption in the phosphorescent light which they often saw in water in the dark; a light ascribed by later naturalists to phosphorescent insects, or other bodies, not water themselves, but only swimming in the ele

ment.

Sir Isaac Newton, nevertheless, inferred the

presence of fire in water from the lustre of water; and, whether the later discovery, in any manner, assists that supposition or not, at least the chemists have now determined, that water contains hydrogen, and that hydrogen is inflammable. But the old philosophy, and our figures illustrating it*, had already inculcated that fire pervades all things, and water among the rest. In the variety of ancient preferences, however," added Mr. Hartley," (not to call them contradictions), among the respective elements, that of earth even, is not to be excluded, though we say nothing of it now; and we

In a preceding note (page 335) the connexion has been pointed out, between the objects of the figures here referred to, and those of the earlier figure, at page 200; that of the astronomical nebulæ, or nebules, among the rest; and it may be as well not to omit reminding the reader, by no means to confound the doctrine of the nebules with another topic of modern science, or rather philosophy; namely, the nebular hypothesis. In both instances, the terms nebulæ and nebular are derived from the Latin nebula, a cloud or vapour; but here the connexion (which is at least an inconvenient one) is at an end. The doctrine of the nebules concerns the actual appearance of the heavens, and the gorgeous multitude of its bodies; while the nebular hypothesis (so called) is merely a conjecture, more or less rational, as to the manner in which, as to second causes, those bodies have been formed. The astronomical nebules are groups of stars, seen, with the telescope, in numbers so countless, and in an assemblage so close, and yet so clearly distinguishable from the ground of the blue sky around them, and behind them, as to be compared with nebula, or clouds; but the nebular hypothesis is simply a conjecture, that the solid bodies of the earth and other planets were previously fluid or aëriform bodies, or nebulæ, or clouds, or vapours: a conjecture upon the merits of which no opinion is here offered.

With respect, however, to the doctrine of the nebules, as the declared fruit of actual observation, a particular, not the least curious, may be added to the account at the place referred to; namely, that these nebules, seen in such profusion as is stated, do not, for that reason, cover the whole heavens, but fill only a broad band, encompassing the heavens in a direction at right angles with the galaxy, or milky-way.

may remark, from the whole together, in what degree all these things are fancies, and only expressive of human thought and sentiment, and of men's desire to give expression to their ideas of nature, and to exalt the conception of divinity."

"The solicitude of antiquity," rejoined Mr. Paulett, "to render homage of the holiest kind, in all its ideas, to the divinity ineffable, is on record, and beyond all doubt; but none of their sacred images of elements, the one more than the other, were universally acceptable in this respect; or, as you have said, there was always a something higher than any of them in their contemplation, though less often named; and such, at the present day, is the Calyasi of the Hindoos, a name seldom occurring in all that we hear of the theology of that people, as compared with the familiar names of Brahma, Siva, and Vishnoo. In the Talmuds, we have a fine tradition concerning Abraham, or exposure of the insufficiency of a worship abused to a false understanding of the doctrine of the elements; and illustrative of the bigher doctrine, that there is a one above them all. The patriarch was commanded by his fire-worshipping prince, Nebuchadnezzar, to fall down, and worship the holy fire, as God. 'No,' said the wise and courageous son of Terah; not fire; fire cannot be God; for water will put it out! then, water,' said the king of the Chaldeans. answered Abraham, 'not water; for the winds blow the water as they choose! Worship, at least, the winds,' cried out, impatiently, the idolatrous sovereign. 'No,' returned, with resolution, the father of the faithful; 'not the winds, for God commands the winds. I will worship only GOD, who commands the winds which blow the water which extinguishes the fire!" "

Worship,

'No,'

A CONCLUDING peril came upon me before the hard season closed. The whole family, after breakfast, had quitted the room; but the window by which I had been admitted was still open, and the fire was still burning, and there were crumbs upon the cloth. I had never, till upon this very occasion, entered the house in the absence of those who were so well inclined to protect me; and I soon found reason to lament my newborn rashness. I was scarcely alighted upon the table, before the cat, whom I had not suspected to be so near me, sprung upon me like a flash of lightning, and in another instant held me firmly, though cautiously, in her mouth; my head being free at one of its corners, and my tail at the other! I was fixed as in a vice; but, for the present, the devourer took care that her teeth should only confine my feathers, and not penetrate, in the slightest degree, my skin!

At the instant, however, that she had made the seizure of me, and believed me entirely at her disposal, she rejoiced under a horrid growl, sufficient, of itself, almost to rob me of the last remains of consciousness, and even to kill me with fright, before she should tear my heart out of my bosom. Growling as she went (and her strong and burning breath tortured every nerve and muscle in my body), she approached, with large, and glaring eyes, with elevated tail, and with stately,

measured steps, the open door of the parlour, intent upon carrying me to be the sport, before my death, of a black kitten, with yellow eyes, which she was nursing in a distant closet. A second instant, notwithstanding, brought the means of my deliverance. Emily, who had forgotten her doll when she left the table, came running into the room to fetch it. At her approach, the cat, whose jaws, at the same time, and though as cautiously as ever, griped me still the closer, cowered in her gait, and would fain have passedher little mistress unobserved; for that she had done wrong, and was in the act of consummating the grossest act of felony, if not of treason, was clear from her whole deportment! She knew that I was a protected stranger; she had seen me too often, as a welcome and honoured guest, at her master's, breakfast after breakfast; nay, she had been chidden and slapped, and threatened, and held back, and two or three times turned out of the room, and obliged to sit in the cold passage, and made to go without her milk, and yet hear the aggravating jingling of the spoons and cups and saucers; all upon my account, and on purpose to conquer her almost unconquerable disposition to couch, and prepare to spring, upon my coming into the room; and to light up her eyes with fierceness, and to follow the direction of every step I hopped, with the quicker movements of her head and tail. All this she had experienced, and gradually learned to yield to, so that she had come to witness and be present at my visits with an air of the most unlimited submission; only noting my steps, at the first, with the single and most gentle motion of her eyes, such as might have been mistaken for nothing but a soft admiring interest; then, growing so resigned and conformable to orders, as to sit down when I arrived,