madi-el-aoual of the three hundred and thirty-sixth year of the Hegira, or flight of the Prophet. He informs us that the earth is a huge bird; Mecca and Medina constituting the head, Persia and India the right wing, the land of Eng the left wing, and Africa the tail. He informs us, moreover, that an earth has existed before the present (which he considers as a mere chicken of seven thousand years); that it has undergone divers deluges; and that, according to the opinion of some well-informed Brahmins of his acquaintance, it will be renovated every seventy thousandth hazarouam, each hazarouam consisting of twelve thousand years.

These are a few of the many contradictory opinions of philosophers concerning the earth; and we find that the learned have had equal perplexity as to the nature of the sun. Some of the ancient philosophers have affirmed that it is a vast wheel of brilliant fire; others, that it is merely a mirror, or sphere, of transparent crystal; and a third class, at the head of whom stands Anaxagoras, maintained that it was nothing but a huge ignited mass of iron or stone: indeed, he declared the heavens to be merely a vault of stone, and that the stars were stones whirled upward from the earth, and set on fire by the velocity of its revolutions. But I give little attention to the doctrines of this philosopher; the people of Athens having fully refuted them by banishing him from their city, - a concise mode of answering unwelcome doctrines, much resorted to in former days. Another sect of philosophers do declare that certain fiery particles exhale constantly from the earth, which, concentrating in a single point of the firmament by day, constitute the sun; but being scattered, and rambling about in the dark at night, collect in various points, and form stars. These are regularly burnt out and extinguished, not unlike to the lamps in our streets; and require a fresh supply of exhalatives for the next occasion.

It is even recorded, that at certain remote and obscure periods, in consequence of a great scarcity of fuel, the sun has been completely burnt out, and sometimes not rekindled for a month at a time, a most melancholy circumstance, the very idea of which gave vast concern to Heraclitus, that worthy weeping philosopher of antiquity. In addition to these various speculations, it was the opinion of Herschel that the sun is a magnificent habitable abode; the light it furnishes arising from certain empyreal, luminous, or phosphoric clouds swimming in its transparent atmosphere.

But we will not enter further at present into the nature of the sun; that being an inquiry not immediately necessary to the development of this history. Neither will we embroil ourselves in any more of the endless disputes of philosophers touching the

form of this globe, but content ourselves with the theory advanced in the beginning of this chapter; and will proceed to illustrate, by experiment, the complexity of motion therein ascribed to this our rotatory planet.

sun.

Prof. Von Poddingcoft (or Puddinghead, as the name may be rendered into English) was long celebrated in the University of Leyden for profound gravity of deportment, and a talent at going to sleep in the midst of examinations, to the infinite relief of his hopeful students, who thereby worked their way through college with great ease and little study. In the course of one of his lectures, the learned professor, seizing a bucket of water, swung it around his head at arm's-length; the impulse with which he threw the vessel from him being a centrifugal force, the retention of his arm operating as a centripetal power, and the bucket, which was a substitute for the earth, describing a circular orbit round about the globular head and ruby visage of Prof. Von Poddingcoft, which formed no bad representation of the All of these particulars were duly explained to the class of gaping students around him. He apprised them, moreover, that the same principle of gravitation which retained the water in the bucket restrains the ocean from flying from the earth in its rapid revolutions; and he further informed them, that, should the motion of the earth be suddenly checked, it would incontinently fall into the sun, through the centripetal force of gravitation, a most ruinous event to this planet, and one which would also obscure, though it most probably would not extinguish, the solar luminary. An unlucky stripling, one of those vagrant geniuses who seem sent into the world merely to annoy men of the Puddinghead order, desirous of ascertaining the correctness of the experiment, suddenly arrested the arm of the professor just at the moment that the bucket was in its zenith, which immediately descended with astonishing precision upon the philosophic head of the instructor of youth. A hollow sound and a red-hot hiss attended the contact: but the theory was in the amplest manner illustrated, for the unfortunate bucket perished in the conflict; but the blazing countenance of Prof. Von Poddingcoft emerged from amidst the waters, glowing fiercer than ever with unutterable indignation, whereby the students were marvelously edified, and departed considerably wiser than before.

It is a mortifying circumstance, which greatly perplexes many a painstaking philosopher, that Nature often refuses to second his most profound and elaborate efforts; so that, after having invented one of the most ingenious and natural theories imaginable, she will have the perverseness to act directly in the teeth of his system, and flatly contradict his most favorite positions. This is

a manifest and unmerited grievance, since it throws the censure of the vulgar and unlearned entirely upon the philosopher; whereas the fault is not to be ascribed to his theory, which is unquestionably correct, but to the waywardness of Dame Nature, who, with the proverbial fickleness of her sex, is continually indulging in coquetries and caprices, and seems really to take pleasure in violating all philosophic rules, and jilting the most learned and indefatigable of her adorers. Thus it happened with respect to the foregoing satisfactory explanation of the motion of our planet. It appears that the centrifugal force has long since ceased to operate, while its antagonist remains in undiminished potency: the world, therefore, according to the theory as it originally stood, ought in strict propriety to tumble into the sun. Philosophers were convinced that it would do so, and awaited in anxious impatience the fulfillment of their prognostics. But the untoward planet pertinaciously continued her course, notwithstanding that she had reason, philosophy, and a whole university of learned professors, opposed to her conduct. The philosophers took this in very ill part; and it is thought they would never have pardoned the slight and affront which they conceived put upon them by the world, had not a good-natured professor kindly officiated as a mediator between the parties, and effected a reconciliation.

Finding the world would not accommodate itself to the theory, he wisely determined to accommodate the theory to the world: he therefore informed his brother philosophers that the circular motion of the earth round the sun was no sooner engendered by the conflicting impulses above described than it became a regular revolution, independent of the causes which gave it origin. His learned brethren readily joined in the opinion, being heartily glad of any explanation that would decently extricate them from their embarrassment; and, ever since that memorable era, the world has been left to take her own course, and to revolve around the sun in such orbit as she thinks proper.

Chap. I.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

1804-1864.

A writer of singular purity and simplicity. His writings are principally denoted by their fine poetical imagery, originality of thought and expression. His pleasant fancies are philosophical, and his keen reflections not too metaphysical.

PRINCIPAL PRODUCTIONS.

"The

"Twice-told Tales;" "Our Old Home;' ""Mosses from an Old Manse;" Scarlet Letter;" "The House of the Seven Gables; " "True Stories from History and Biography;" "The Blithedale Romance;" "A Wonder-Book for Boys and Girls, in 1852;' "The Snow-Image and other Twice-told Tales; Tanglewood Tales, for Boys and Girls; ""The Marble Faun;"" Passages from the American Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne."

t

A RILL FROM THE TOWN-PUMP.

The corner of two principal streets. The TOWN-PUMP talking through its

nose.

NOON by the north clock! Noon by the east! High noon, too, by these hot sunbeams, which fall scarcely aslope upon my head, and almost make the water bubble and smoke in the trough under my nose! Truly, we public characters have a tough time of it! And, among all the town-officers chosen at March meeting, where is he that sustains for a single year the burden of such manifold duties as are imposed in perpetuity upon the Town-Pump? The title of "Town Treasurer" is rightfully mine, as guardian of the best treasure that the town has. The overseers of the poor ought to make me their chairman, since I provide bountifully for the pauper, without expense to him that pays taxes. I am at the head of the fire-department, and one of the physicians to the board of health. As a keeper of the peace, all water-drinkers will confess me equal to the constable. I perform some of the duties of the town-clerk by promulgating public notices when they are posted on my front. To speak within bounds, I am the chief person of the municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brotherofficers, by the cool, steady, upright, downright, and impartial discharge of my business, and the constancy with which I stand to my post. Summer or winter, nobody seeks me in vain: for, all day long, I am seen at the busiest corner, just above the market, stretching out my arms to rich and poor alike; and at night I hold a lantern over my head, both to show where I am, and keep people out of the gutters.

At this sultry noontide, I am cupbearer to the parched populace, for whose benefit an iron goblet is chained to my waist. Like a dramseller on the mall at muster-day, I cry aloud to all and sundry, in my plainest accents, and at the very tiptop of my voice, "Here it is, gentlemen! Here is the good liquor! Walk up, walk up, gentlemen! walk up, walk up! Here is the superior stuff! Here is the unadulterated ale of Father Adam, — better than Cognac, Hollands, Jamaica, strong beer, or wine of any price! here it is by the hogshead or the single glass, and not a cent to pay! Walk up, gentlemen, walk up, and help yourselves!"

It were a pity if all this outcry should draw no customers. Here they come! "A hot day, gentlemen! Quaff, and away again, so as to keep yourselves in a nice cool sweat. You, my friend, will need another cupful to wash the dust out of your throat, if it be as thick there as it is on your cowhide shoes. I see that you have trudged half a score of miles to-day, and, like a wise man, have passed by the taverns, and stopped at the running brooks and well-curbs. Otherwise, betwixt heat without and fire within, you would have been burnt to a cinder, or melted down to nothing at all, in the fashion of a jelly-fish. Drink, and make room for that other fellow who seeks my aid to quench the fiery fever of last night's potations, which he drained from no cup of mine. Welcome, most rubicund sir! You and I have been great strangers hitherto; nor, to confess the truth, will my nose be anxious for a closer intimacy till the fumes of your breath be a little less potent. Mercy on you, man! the water absolutely hisses down your red-hot gullet, and is converted quite to steam in the miniature Tophet which you mistake for a stomach. Fill again, and tell me, on the word of an honest toper, did you ever, in cellar, tavern, or any kind of a dram-shop, spend the price of your children's food for a swig half so delicious? Now, for the first time these ten years, you know the flavor of cold water. Good-by! and, whenever you are thirsty, remember that I keep a constant supply at the old stand. Who next? O my little friend! you are let loose from school, and come hither to scrub your blooming face, and drown the memory of certain taps of the ferule and other schoolboy troubles, in a draught from the Town-Pump. Take it, pure as the current of your young life! Take it, and may your heart and tongue never be scorched with a fiercer thirst than now! There, my dear child, put down the cup, and yield your place to this elderly gentleman, who treads so tenderly over the paving-stones, that I suspect he is afraid of breaking them. What! he limps by without so much as thanking me; as if my hospitable offers were

meant only for people who have no wine-cellars. Well, well, sir,