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THE GREEK ISLANDS
I. RHODES.

THERE are few portions of the earth so attractive, in many points of view, as those scattered fragments, which have been commonly spoken of, though with little regard to geographical precision, as the "Greek Islands." The beauty of their climate, the loveliness of their scenery, the high renown which attached to them in ancient times, and their fallen condition at the present day, unite in rendering them objects of great delight both to the senses and the imagination of men. Among them all there is no one possessing those sources of interest in a higher degree than Rhodes. During many years that little island was the seat of a republic as flourishing as any that antiquity can boast of-one which long enjoyed the empire of the sea, and often withstood the cnmity of • powerful states-which was governed by laws of such wisdom that they were proverbial for excellence, and were afterwards embodied (at least one branch of them) in the jurisprudence of the Roman empire; which, in short, occupied a station of pre-eminence alike in arms, in arts, and in sciences. Not less interesting is it in its modern history, especially in the eyes of a Christian people. Scarcely more than three centuries have elapsed, since it ceased to be the residence of those valiant warriors,-the Knights Hospitallers of St. John, who after combating so generously, but without success, in the Holy Land, betook themselves to Rhodes, and for two hundred years stoutly held the island as one of the bulwarks of Christendom against the inroads of the Mohammedans.

Geographically speaking, Rhodes is an Asiatic island, being situated about twenty miles from the south-western coast of Asia Minor, or Natolia. The ancients included it, with all the other islands lying along the western shores of that continent, under the term Sporades, or the "Scattered," in a sort of contradistinction to the Cyclades, or the " Circled," which were grouped irregularly round Delos as about a centre; and they regarded it as holding the first rank among the whole number in point of natural advantages.

of Vespasian the island was incorporated with the Roman empire, and governed as a Roman province by a Prætor.

The beauty of the ancient city is loudly celebrated; the architect who built it is the same who raised the walls of the Piræus at Athens. The geographer Strabo, who was a great traveller, and who had visited most of the large cities of the Roman world, gives the preference to Rhodes above them all; "the beauty of its ports," he says, "its streets, its walls, and the splendour of its monuments, place it so much above others, that none of them can compare with it." Aristides the sophist, who lived more than two centuries afterwards, speaks of its magnificence in glowing terms; he calls it the only city of which it could be said that it was fortified like a castle and decorated like a palace. In the days of its prosperity it is said to have been adorned with 3000 statues, and upwards of a hundred colossal figures; of the latter there was one which was regarded as among the Seven Wonders of the World, and which bore the distinguishing appellation of "the Colossus of Rhodes." It was erected upon the departure of Demetrius, when he raised the siege which he had so long carried on against the city; and the cost of it was defrayed out of the funds derived from the property which he left behind him on that occasion.

The Roman writer Pliny, after enumerating the most famous colossi of antiquity, tells us that none of them approached to that which stood at Rhodes, and was consecrated to the sun, the tutelar deity of the island. It was, according to his account, the work of Chares of Lindus (one of the cities of Rhodes), a pupil of Lysippus; its height was seventy cubits, (about 105 feet,) the cost of its erection three hundred talents, (about 70,0007.), and the time consumed in it twelve years. Fifty-six years after its completion, (224 B. C.,) this statue was thrown down by an earthquake, and in Pliny's time it was still lying on the ground, quite a wonder to behold. Few persons, he says, could embrace the thumb, and the fingers were longer than the bodies of most statues; through the fractures were seen huge cavities in the interior, in which immense stones had been placed to balance it while standing.

We have no particular account in any ancient writer of the ornaments or position of this Colossus; and it is most probably," says the Rev. Mr. Smediey, in the Encyclopædia Metropolitană, “ to the imaginations of Vigenaire and Du Choul, two antiquaries of the sixteenth century, that we may refer the stride of fifty feet from rock to rock—the vessels which passed under it in full sail-the blazing lamp in its right hand-the internal spiral staircase leading to its summit-and the glass suspended round the neck, in which ships might be discerned as far off as the coast of Egypt."

The capital of this island," the City of the Sun," as it was poetically called, was founded during the famous Peloponnesian War, rather more than four" hundred years before the Christian æra. Scarcely a century after its erection it was besieged by Demetrius, who had been surnamed, on account of his military talents and successes, Poliorcetes, or the "Town-destroyer." This celebrated general exerted all the efforts of his skill in endeavouring to make himself master of the city; yet in spite of his numerous army-his novel and powerful engines, and among them an immense helepolis, or towntaker, which required 30,000 men to put it into operation he was obliged to abandon the attempt and depart, leaving behind him as a boon to the inhabitants, property to the value of 300 attic talents, (about £70,000.) More than two centuries afterwards, the Asiatic king, Mithridates, was similarly baffled, and Rhodes enjoyed the high renown of defeating a monarch who had conquered all the other islands of Asia Minor, and even the whole of that continent itself. Less fortunate, however, was its resistance to the Roman arms; during the Civil War it was captured by Cassius (or rather traitorously yielded to him), and by him it was despoiled of treasure to the amount of nearly 2,000,0007. of our money. Its independence was restored by Antony, but retained for only a short while; in the reign

After the overthrow of the Colossus, there was a great desire on the part of all but the Rhodians themselves to restore it. All Greece, and even the king of Egypt, offered to contribute large sums towards the accomplishment of that object; but the Rhodians declined to rebuild it, alleging that they were forbidden by an oracle so to do; and the fragments lay scattered on the ground until the Saracens became masters of the island, a period of nearly nine hundred years. In the year 655, one of the officers of the Kaliph Othman collected the valuable materials, and sold them to a Jewish merchant of Edessa; and the purchaser is said to have laden nine hundred camels with the brass which they furnished him.

The decline of Rhodes is dated by the French traveller Savary, from the time of its incorporatio

with the empire as a Roman province: "from that moment," he says, " its fortune and its riches vanished, and it became simply one of the beautiful isles of the Archipelago." In the division of the empire it was assigned to the Eastern or Greek throne; and in the reign of Constans it passed for a while under the dominion of the Saracens. In the fourteenth century, while under the nominal rule of the Emperor Andronicus, it was seized by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, who had been recently expelled from the Holy Land; and for upwards of two hundred years it continued to be the residence of those renowned warriors. In 1480, it repelled the arms of Mahomet the Second, the conqueror of Constantinople; but in 1522, it yielded to the overpowering force of Sultan Solyman, after its valiant defenders had been destroyed rather than vanquished. Since that time it has remained under the Turkish crown.

Both the island and city of our days exhibit a melancholy contrast with those of ancient times. The circuit of the modern city is scarcely a fourth of that of its predecessor. "It requires," says Mr. Turner, "about one hour to walk round the walls of the city, which remain nearly entire, with a trench about seventy feet wide, now dry. I was astonished to see the walls generally not more than two bricks thick: a hole for musketry in the shape of the kuights' cross, is very frequent in them. The city is surrounded by a burying-ground, about an hour and a half in circuit; and on the border of this are the suburbs, which are truly beautiful, being built on the rise of mountains that surround the city, and consisting of good stone houses, of which every one has its garden in a flourishing state of vegetation, abounding in orange, lemon, apricot, mulberry, olive, and fig trees, vines, &c." At the time of this gentleman's visit, one-half of the houses were in ruins, or uninhabited; the rapacity of the government compelled the people to fly to the neighbouring continent, in the hope of finding a milder one.

The building represented in our engraving is the Tower of St. Nicholas, which stands at the end of a mole on one side of the great harbour. It was built in 1461, in anticipation of the attacks of the Turkish Sultan, Mahomet the Second; and Philip Duke of Burgundy contributed 12,000 golden crowns towards the cost of its erection. Like the rest of the fortifications of the city, it was in a state of ruin when it fell into the hands of the Turks; but the conquerors soon rebuilt it, giving to it the name of St. John, by which they still call it. The events of the two sieges which the knights were called upon to sustain against the Turks, showed the wisdom of those who had added this tower to the fortifications of the city.

In the siege of 1480, the Turkish commandant at first directed his principal efforts against it, being assured by a renegade German, who was the chief counsellor of his operations, that if he could once carry that point, he might fairly hope to secure possession of the harbour, and of the city. Three tremendous cannons-not ordinary pieces of artillery, but engines eighteen feet in length, and carrying stone bullets of from two to three feet in diameter were turned against its walls; and though more than 300 terrible discharges were insufficient to make an impression on the ramparts facing the sea, they succeeded in reducing to ruins those which looked towards the land. The Grand Master, whose name was Pierre D'Aubusson, knowing full well that the safety of the city depended upon the preservation of this tower, caused a chosen band of the knights to pass into it, and set themselves vigorously to work to

repair its weaknesses as far as possible, and to make preparations, as well for preventing the approach of the enemy, as for receiving them when they had come. When the Turkish commandant saw the effect of his batteries upon the tower, he resolved to assault it by the breach which they had made. Early on the morning of the day appointed, his troops advanced in their galleys towards the mole on which the fort stood; after the Turkish fashion they began to raise a tremendous uproar, "crying out, and invoking their Mahomet," as is recorded by an eye-witness, one Merri Dupui, "and making a great noise, and horrible and frightful sounds, with large drums, gitterns, and rude viols, and other instruments, often shouting all together in such a manner, that it seemed as if the heavens were falling amidst the firing of cannons and bombards." Thus they approached the tower and mole in such a manner that "it was a thing horrible, marvellous, and frightful, to hear their approach." But the knights were nothing daunted by this display; and they received the enemy well and so valiantly, and with such good courage, and served them so very well, and so very closely, and so effectively, with bombards, and serpentines, and stones, and blows, that they made them in truth hastily recoil and return, forcing them and driving them backwards well and valiantly." This vigorous reception was decisive, so that in the words of our chronicler, "these accursed Turks and Infidels took themselves off and went back again for this time, all affrighted and disheartened."

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The Turkish leader then attacked the body of the city, but meeting with no better success, he returned to the prosecution of his original plan, and renewed his attempts upon the Tower of St. Nicholas. obstacle to his success was the narrow channel which intervened between the mole and the Turkish position; and the consequent inconvenience of conveying the troops across it in boats. To obviate this, a sort of moveable bridge was constructed; and in order to bring the one end of it up to the mole, a Turkish engineer, under cover of the night, conveyed an anchor across and fixed it to a rock beneath the surface of the water. He carried with him also a stout cable, which had one of its ends fixed to the bridge; and passing the other end through the ring of the anchor, he brought it back to be fastened to a capstan which the Turks had provided on their side of the channel, and by the aid of which they expected to haul their machine up to the point where the anchor was fixed.

It happened, however, that an English sailor, whose name was Gervase Roger, for "history" says the Abbé de Vertot, "has not disdained to preserve to us his name," was by chance upon the spot at the time, and unseen himself, was enabled to observe the operations of the ingenious Turk. Having allowed him to depart, the seaman plunged at once into the water, detached the cable and laid it quietly upon the bank, then took up the anchor, and carried it to the Grand Master, who of course suitably rewarded him. The unconscious Turks, having got their bridge quite ready, began hauling with their capstan, but to their great surprise hauled nothing but their own rope back to themselves; they perceived, of course, that their scheme had been discovered and frustrated.

The Turks then ceased their efforts against the Tower of St. Nicholas, and were soon afterwards compelled to desist from all attempts upon the body of the city.

In the subsequent siege undertaken by Sultan Solyman, in the year 1522, the Tower of St. Nicholas

was still deemed the most important point of the fortifications—as the key, indeed, of Rhodes; and its defence was intrusted to a brave knight of Provence, Guyot de Cartellane by name, who had under him twenty brethren of the order, and three hundred infantry soldiers. The Turks, however, directed their attack chiefly upon the body of the city; only one serious attempt was made upon this fort. The Vizier Achmet turned twelve of his largest cannon against it; but he found the fire of the besieged more effective than his own, and had the mortification of seeing his guns dismounted by the artillery from the tower. He adopted the expedient of battering only in the night-time, and burying his guns in the earth during the day; five hundred of these nocturnal discharges were sufficient to destroy the western rampart, and to inspire the Sultan with the hope of capturing the place on the first assault. But the appearance of a second fortified wall behind the ruins of the first soon damped his expectations, and together with the recollection of Mahomet's failure in the former siege, deterred him from making any further attempt upon the tower. His attacks were thenceforward directed upon the body of the place, until he obtained possession of it.

FIELD FLOWERS.

FLOWERS of the field, how meet ye seem,
Man's frailty to portray;
Blooming so fair in morning's beam,

Passing at eve away;

Teach this, and, oh! though brief your reign,
Sweet flowers, ye shall not live in vain.

Go, form a monitory wreath

For youth's unthinking brow;

Go, and to busy manhood breathe

What most he fears to know;

Go, strew the path where age doth tread,
And tell him of the silent dead.

But whilst to thoughtless ones and gay

Ye breathe these truths severe,
To those who droop in pale decay,
Have ye no word of cheer?
Oh, yes, ye weave a double spell,
And death and life betoken well.

Go, then, where wrapt in fear and gloom,
Fond hearts and true are sighing,
And deck with emblematic bloom

The pillow of the dying;
And softly speak, nor speak in vain,
Of your long sleep and broken chain.
And say that He, who from the dust
Recalls the slumbering flower

Will surely visit those who trust

His mercy and His power;

Will mark where sleeps their peaceful clay,
And roll, ere long, the stone away.

Blackwood's Magazine.

SABBATH SONNET.

COMPOSED BY MRS. HEMANS A FEW DAYS BEFORE HER DEATH, AND
DEDICATED TO HER BROTHER.

How many blessed groups this hour are bending
Through England's primrose-meadow paths their way,
Toward spire and tower, 'midst shadowy elms ascending,
Whence the sweet chimes proclaim the hallowed day.
The stalls from old heroic ages gray,
Pour their fair children forth: and hamlets low,
With whose thick orchard-blooms the soft winds play,
Send out their inmates in a happy flow,
Like a freed vernal stream. I may not tread
With them those pathways,-to the feverish bed
Of sickness bound; yet, O my God! I bless
Thy mercy, that with Sabbath peace hath filled
My chastened heart, and all its throbbings stilled
To one deep calm of lowliest thankfulness,

THE CHIGGA, (Puler penetrans.) THIS annoying little insect belongs to the same tribe as the common flea, but its habits render it much more injurious. It is a great pest in our sugar colonies, particularly to the Negroes, who go bare

footed. They insinuate themselves into the legs, the soles of the feet, or toes, and pierce the skin with such subtlety, that there is no being aware of them till they have made their way into the flesh. If they are perceived at the beginning they are extracted with little pain, but if the head only has pierced through the skin, an incision must be made before it can be taken out. If they are not soon perceived, they make their way through the skin, and take up their lodging between that and the membrane that covers the muscles; and, sucking the blood, form a nidus, or nest, covered with a white and fine skin, resembling a flat pearl, and the insect is, as it were, enchased on one of its faces, with its head and feet outwards,

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for the convenience of feeding, while the hinder part of the body is within the nidus, where it deposits its eggs; and as the number of these increases, the nidus enlarges, and continues to do so for four or five days. There is now an absolute necessity for extracting it, for otherwise it would burst of itself, and by that means scatter an infinite number of germs or eggs, which would soon be hatched, and undermine, as it were, the whole foot. The extraction of these vermin causes extreme pain, as they at times penetrate even the bone; and the pain, even after the foot is cleared of them, lasts for a considerable time.

The manner of extracting this troublesome insect is both tedious and painful. The flesh near to the membrane in which the eggs of the insect are lodged, is separated with the point of a needle, and these eggs so tenaciously adhere to the flesh and this membrane, that to complete the operation without bursting the membrane, or putting the patient to acute pain, is very difficult; if, unfortunately, the little bag should burst, the greatest care must be taken to remove any of the eggs that remain in the wound, or before it is healed there will be a new brood further within the flesh, which will be much more painful and difficult of cure than the first.

This insect is a great pest to many animals, particularly the hog, on which it preys with such voracity, that when their feet are scalded after they are killed, they are found full of cavities made by this corroding insect

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Then sprinkles she the juice of rue,
With nine drops of the midnight dew
From Lunary distilling.-DRAYTON'S Nymphid.
THIS plant, which is now solely cultivated for the
beauty of its lilac corallas, and the singularity of its
seed vessels, was held in high repute among the
credulous of former ages, being considered a charming,
enchanting, and bewitching herb. It still continues to
give a charming effect to the gardens, but its mys-
terious powers are no longer known, for it has shared
the fate of numerous other magical plants, which
enabled the people of old to transform themselves
into aërial beings, and even to travel through the air
in their natural shapes. We read of numerous plants
whereby it was said that love or hatred could be
engendered, lost property recovered, men's secrets
sucked out, and by whose aid battles were won and
lost, and even the dead brought to life.

For by his mighty science he could take
As many forms and shapes in seeming wise,
As ever Proteus to himself could make:

Sometimes a fowl, sometimes a fish in lake!

Now like a fox, now like a dragon fell;

That of himself he oft for fear would quake, And oft would fly away. O who can tell

The hidden power of herbs, and might of magic spell! We learn from Chaucer that the Lunaria was one of the plants used in incantations, but it is not mentioned under the name of Honesty, but "Lunarie."

Spenser, quoted above, tells us that even the witches themselves could not escape penance:

When witches wont do penance for their crime,
I chanc'd to see her in her proper hue,
Bathing herself in origane and thyme:

As we prefer relating the wonders of magic in verse,
we shall further quote the same author:-

The dev'lish hag, by changes of my chear,

Perceiv'd my thoughts; and drown'd in sleepy night,
With wicked herbs and ointments did besmear
My body, all through charms and magic might,
That all my senses were bereaved quite.

The same poet shows us that, in superstitious times,
the magician was called in as well as the physician :—
Beseeching him with prayer, and with praise,
If either salves, or oils, or herbs, or charms,
A foredone wight from door of death mote raise,
He would at her request prolong her nephew's days.
That such ideas actually occupied the minds of men
in unenlightened days, we have numerous authentic
accounts related in history; and that what is strongly
impressed upon the minds of the ignorant, should, in
some degree affect the learned, is not so wonderful,
as it is difficult to shake off the prejudices of the age
we live in of this we have a striking example in the
capacious mind of the great Bacon*, who in his
Natural History acknowledges his belief in witches.
Yet we do not consider him capable of consulting
magicians or wizards; but it would have been scarcely
possible to have escaped the prevailing opinion, in an
age when numerous persons openly professed the art
of magic, and almost every deformed and ugly old
woman was persecuted as a witch. Even in later
times than those of the celebrated Chancellor, a firm
belief in witchcraft seems to have possessed the minds
of the nation; for Butler relates that a fellow in the
reign of Charles the First, obtained a celebrity by de-
tecting witches, and actually caused the death of nearly
sixty poor old creatures on charges of witchcraft †.

The fear of evil spirits, and the power of magic,
seem to have prevailed over all nations before man-
kind was blessed by the light of revelation. The
Scriptures inform us of its existence in eastern
See Saturday Magazine, Vol. Vl., p. 247.
+ See Saturday Magazine, Vol. VI.,
p. 131.

countries; and from the numerous ceremonies of the
Romans performed to prevent the effects of enchant-
ment, we learn how much it occupied their attention.
The prince of the Latin poets says in the Æneid—
For Circe had long loved the youth in vain
Till love, refused, converted to disdain:
Then mixing pow'rful herbs, with magic art,
She changed his form, who could not change his heart;
Constrain'd him in a bird, and made him fly,
With party-colour'd plumes, a chatt'ring pie.

We

The art of magic was for many ages publicly professed in the universities of Salamanca in Spain, Cracow in Poland, and several other places. read of some sovereigns who have entered into this cheat. Erricus, King of Sweden, had his enchanted cap, and pretended by the additional assistance of some magical jargon, to be able to command spirits, to trouble the air, and to turn the winds themselves, so that when a great storm arose, his ignorant subjects believed that the king had got his conjuring-cap on; and from this fact originated the custom of our mountebanks and legerdemain-men playing their tricks in a conjuring-cap.

In the year 1318, we find the Chancellor and University of Paris had both wisdom and spirit enough, not only to condemn these cheats, but as far as their influence extended to put a stop to the practice; and the University of Oxford disavowed all faith in these pretended divinations about the same time.

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His

That there should exist in this enlightened age, persons who profess to believe in the power of magic, is a convincing proof how much the marvellous is preferred by the ignorant to true philosophy. The persons who now pretend to the art of magic, are knaves, who cheat the credulous for the sake of gain, and impose upon others what they do not believe themselves. Private astrologers, who do not make a trade of their art, are, if not fools, persons whose weak minds are so susceptible as to mistake the phantoms of their imaginations for realities. We lately knew an instance of this in a person not only considered sane on other subjects, but who actually held a respectable rank in his profession. became bent upon raising a spirit, and with this view he procured the herbs and drugs recommended for magical purposes, and shut himself up in a room in the dead of the night. Here he began to burn his herbs, and to make the mysterious figures directed by his book, until his imagination was worked up to such a pitch that one object was easily transformed into the appearance of another, to which the fumes of aromatic smoke no doubt greatly contributed. servant, knowing that his master studied magic, and finding great preparations for some secret performance, had, with a very natural curiosity, contrived to secrete himself in the room, instead of retiring to bed; but when the lights were extinguished, and the coloured flame of burning drugs threw a ghastly hue over the apartment and the countenance of his master, he became so possessed by fear, and influenced by the fumes of the drugs, that at the moment when his master expected to see a spectre, he being no longer able to contain himself, rose up slowly, and forgetting he was under a table, threw it over. In this confusion, his eyes caught the reflection of his own face in a glass, to which the burning salts had given such a cadaverous appearance, that mistaking his own reflection for a supernatural agent, he leaped upon a grand piano-forte, and broke it in with a tremendous crash. This heightened the fears of both master and man. The master, believing he had raised a spirit which he could not lay, rushed out of the room, which gave the man an opportunity to escape to his bed, where he became fevered and

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delirious, and in this state left his service, a firm believer in magic. His master was convinced that he actually did raise a spirit, and to his want of knowledge how to appease the spirit he had raised, he persisted in attributing the broken piano-forte, and the overthrow of some bronze figures.

The plant which led to these remarks was named Lunaria, from the circular shape of its pod, which is thought to resemble the moon, (Luna,) not only in shape, but in its silvery brightness. The title of Honesty appears to have been bestowed on this plant, from the transparent nature of the pod, which discovers those seed-vessels that contain seed from such as are barren, or have shed their fruit.

These plants frequently grow to the height of from three to five feet, and are therefore better adapted to fill vacant spaces amongst shrubs, than in the spots allotted to more delicate flowers. If the seeds be thrown on the ground soon after they are ripe, the young plants will appear early the following spring, whilst those that are carefully covered with earth frequently disappoint us by not appearing. The Lunaria will not bear transplanting; and although we recommend several plants to stand near enough to form but one head when in flower, yet they ought to be from two to three feet distant from each other. The only attention they require is to be kept free from weeds, as they will grow in almost any soil and situation, but thrive best in a partial shade.

As the farce of witchcraft is no longer played by the assistance of the Lunaria, and as the plant does not fill a place in the floral vocabulary, we will, by permission, place it there to represent the necessary and honourable virtue of Honesty, which title was, according to Gerard, bestowed upon this flower by an English gentlewoman, whom our great bard makes

to say,

... mine Honesty shall be my dower.

[Abridged from PHILLIPS's Flora Historica.]

USES OF VEGETABLES.

TREES.

THESE stupendous specimens of creative power spread not their wide-extended roots, nor lift their lofty heads, in vain. Beneath their cooling shades our flocks and herds find a comfortable asylum from the scorching rays of the summer sun: the wild stragglers of the forest have a place of refuge among their woods and thickets; whilst the feathery songsters of the grove build their little dwellings in security, and sing among their branches. But in what a variety of respects, besides affording the inhabitants of warm climates an agreeable shelter from the mid-day heat, are they made subservient to the use of man! Some, as the bread-fruit tree of the Pacific Ocean, the cabbage-tree of East Florida, the tea-tree of China, the sugar-maple-tree of America, the coffee-tree and sugar-cane of the West Indies, and the numerous fruit-bearing trees scattered over the face of the globe, contribute to our wants in the form of food.

The fountain-tree on one of the Canary Islands is said by voyagers to furnish the inhabitants with water; while the paper-mulberry-tree of the Southern Ocean, and the cotton-shrub of America, provide us with materials for clothing. The candleberry-myrtle presents the inhabitants of Nankin with a substitute for animal tallow. The salt-tree of Chili yields a daily supply of fine salt. The cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and pimento, furnish us with spices. The Jesuits'bark, manna, senna, and others, produce a variety of simple but useful medicines. Some trees yield a precious balsam for the healing of wounds; some a

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quantity of turpentine and resin; and others give out Nor are trees serviceable valuable oils and gums. only in a natural state. By the assistance of art some are converted into houses to protect man from the inclemency of the weather, or are moulded into a variety of forms for the purposes of building and domestic comfort; others raise the huge fabric of the floating castle or bulky merchant-ship, by which our shores are protected from foreign invasion, and articles of industry and commerce transported to the remotest regions. SHRUBS.

MUCH that has already been said respecting the utility of trees, may also be applied to shrubs; but there are three particulars in which the latter may be said to differ from the former, and on which depends much of their usefulness to man. The first of these is their stature, the second their greater pliability, and the third the prickly armour by which many of them are covered. Some shrubs, as the gooseberry, the rasp, and the currant bushes, so common in our gardens, gratify the palate, and temper the blood, during the summer months, with agreeable and cooling fruit; others, as the rose, delight and please the eye by the beauty of their flowers, or, as the sweetscented brier, regale the olfactory nerves with the fragrance of their perfumes. But how could these several ends have been accomplished, if, by a more exalted exposure, the fruit-bearing bushes had placed their treasures beyond our reach, the rose, with its back turned to us, had been "born to blush unseen," and each aromatic shrub, removed far above the sense of smelling, had literally been left

To waste its sweetness on the desert air. With regard to that considerable share of pliant elasticity possessed by some, how easily does it admit the branches to be turned aside, and to resume their former position, in gathering the fruit or flowers! And how serviceable does this property enable us to make some of them in the form of hoops, baskets, or wicker-work of any description! while the sharppointed prickles with which they are armed, not only nish us with cheap and secure fences against the inserve as weapons of defence to themselves, but furroads of straggling cattle, and the unwelcome intrusion of the unprincipled vagrant.

HERBS.

THESE, in an especial manner, may be said to constitute the food of man and beast, as well as to yield their assistance in an infinity of ways; and behold in what profusion they spring forth! In what numerous bands they appear! Yonder a field of golden-eared wheat presents to the view a most prolific crop of what forms the chief part of the staff of life. Here a few acres of long-bearded barley ripen, to provide us with our favourite beverage. On the right hand, stand the tall-growing and slender oats, and the flowering potatoes, to revive and nourish the hopes of the poor; while, on the left, the heavy-laden bean, and the low-creeping pea, in lengthened files, vegetate to furnish provender for our horses; or the globular turnip increases its swelling bulk, to lay up for our herds a supply of food, when the softer herbage of the field is locked up by the congealing powers of winter. What a spontaneous crop of luxuriant herbage do our meadows present in the appointed season! and in what a profusion of wholesome pasture do the numerous flocks of sheep and cattle roam! Whether they frequent the solitary holm, beside the still waters, or range the pathless steep, still they are followed by the goodness of the Lord. Myriads of grassy tufts spring up on every

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