love of learning, it would have been well for his peace if he had remained. But having now taken Holy Orders, he was summoned from Oxford to preach at Paul's Cross. Of this place we gave a view in our thirtieth number; and we there explained that it was customary, down to the reign of James the First, to call the most learned divines, from various parts of the country, to take their turn of instructing the people from that pulpit. A new preacher always excited much curiosity and interest, and Hooker was far too modest and humble not to feel considerable perturbation at the thought of this public exhibition. Moreover, he arrived in London, wet and wearied from his journey, and he would scarcely have had strength to perform his task, had it not been for the cares and attentions of his hostess, Mrs. Churchman. This good dame, however, proved herself not quite disinterested in her kindness; for she contrived to persuade Hooker, first, that he wanted a wife to take care of him, and, next, that he could not do better than promote to that station her own daughter, Joan, "who," his biographer says, "brought him neither beauty nor portion, and, for her conditions, they were like that wife's which is by Solomon compared with a dripping house." By this marriage Hooker lost his fellowship at Corpus; but was soon afterwards presented to the living of Drayton Beauchamp, near Aylesbury;and of his life in this place, we have a singular picture preserved by Walton. His former pupils, Edwin Sandys and George Cranmer, came to pay him a visit, and found him, with a Horace in his hand, tending his few sheep in the common field, in the necessary absence of his only servant. After their return to the house, Richard was called away from his friends to rock the cradle. And his whole situation appeared so comfortless, that Sandys, on his return to London, prevailed on his father to procure for Hooker, 1585, the appointment of the mastership of the Temple. This was a situation much more suitable to his talents and attainments; but it brought him into a controversy with Walter Travers, and some other of the divines, who were then commencing that vexatious opposition, to the discipline and rites of the Church of England, which gradually increased in violence and strength, till it subverted both the throne and the altar, more than fifty years afterwards, in the reign of Charles the First. Besides his general dislike to controversy, Hooker moreover was now seriously employed in his great work of the Ecclesiastical Polity; and feeling himself, in London, to be out of his proper element, he entreated to be removed from the Temple to some country living, where, as he expresses himself, "I may study, and pray for God's blessing on my endeavours, and keep myself in peace and privacy, and behold God's blessing spring out of my mother earth, and eat my own bread without oppositions." the genuine copies of those three were destroyed by He was accustomed to preach every Sunday, and he or his Curate to catechize after the second lesson in the evening prayer. His sermons were uttered with a grave zeal, and an humble voice; his eyes always fixed on one place, to prevent his imagination from wandering, insomuch that he seemed to study as he spake; and it was his design rather to convince and to persuade, than to terrify, men into picty. He was very assiduous in the now-forgotten duty of fasting; nor less so to inquire who of his parishioners were sick, or in any ways distressed, suiting his admonitions to their state. He was also diligent to prevent lawsuits, still urging his parishioners and neighbours to bear with each other's infirmities, and to live in love. His advice to them was to watch and pray, and always to keep themselves fit to receive the Communion, and then to receive it often, for it was a comforting and strengthening of their graces. On his entrance into any house, or departure from it, he would usually speak to the whole family, and bless them by name. We wish that we had room to give a delightful story of Hooker's flock, told by Isaac Walton in his best style of quaint simplicity; but our limits will not admit it, and we the less regret the omission, as our readers may see it at length in the thirteenth number of the British Magazine, together with a view of the church and rectory of Bishops' Bourne. Hooker once said, in the course of his controversial writings, "Your next argument consists of railing and of reasons; to your railing, I say nothing; to your reasons, I say what follows."-It was also a favourite maxim with him, "There will come a time when three words uttered with charity and meekness shall receive a far more blessed reward than three thousand volumes written with disdainful sharpness of wit." And we cannot better conclude our brief memoir of this meek and saint-like man, than by mentioning that one of the most petulant and pragIn 1591, Hooker was gratified in this wish, by matical of the party opposed to him lived to come to being appointed to the living of Boscomb, in Wilta temper of mind not very different: Thomas Cartshire; and in 1595, he was removed to the more wright, in his old age, became the master of a hosvaluable benefice of Bishops' Bourne, near Canter-pital in Warwick, and Sir Henry Yelverton says, his bury, where he continued till his death; an event, which occurred in the year 1600, in his forty-seventh year, in consequence of a cold which he caught in his passage by water, between London and Gravesend. During his residence at his two last-mentioned benefices, Hooker completed his immortal work. The four first books of the Ecclesiastical Polity were published in the year 1594; the fifth in 1597; and the three last were left finished, but unpublished, at his death. There is, however, reason to believe that last words on his death-bed were that he sorely lamented the unnecessary trouble he had caused the Church, by the scorn of which he had been the fomenter; and that he wished he was to begin his life again, that he might testify to the world his dislike of his former doings. EDWARD, Earl of Rutland, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, left behind him these four pieces of advice:-1. Be always employed.-2 Look to the issue.—3. Be furnishea with a friend.-4. Reflect upon thyself. ANNIVERSARIES IN MAY. MONDAY, 6th. To this day is still affixed in our Almanacks the appellation of ST. JOHN, ante Portam Latinam, though the reformed church never admitted it among its festivals. Anciently it was kept in memory of St. John the Evangelist's having escaped unhurt from a caldron of burning oil, into which he is said to have been plunged by order of the Emperor Domitian. This miraculous preservation happening near the gate of Rome called the Porta Latina, the day was named therefrom. 1527 The City of Rome stormed and plundered by the troops of the Emperor Charles V., led by the Constable of Bourbon, who was slain in the assault. This was the sixth time Rome had been taken by hostile armies since its foundation, the other five being, first, by the Gauls, A. U. C. 364; second, by Alaric, King of the Goths, A. D. 410; third, by Genseric, King of the Vandals, 455; fourth, by Odoacer, King of the Heruli; fifth, by Totila, King of the Goths, 546. 1631 Died Sir Robert Cotton, the great English Antiquary, whose valuable collection of manuscripts forms that part of the national collection in the British Museum called the "Cottonian Library." The site of his house, at the back of the House of Lords, is still called the “ Cotton Garden.” He was born at Denton, in Huntingdonshire, 1570. 1678 Died Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres, founder of the sect called Jansenists in the French Church. 1757 The Battle of Prague, in which Frederick, second King of Prussia. entirely defeated the Austrians. TUESDAY, 7th. On this day, in the year before Christ 399, Socrates was put to death by poison at Athens. 1177 Sebastian Ziani, Doge of Venice, totally defeated the fleet of the Emperor Barbarossa, and restored Italy to tranquillity. 716 The Act for prolonging the duration of Parliament from three years to seven passed. 1717 Peter the Great. Emperor of Russia, while on his travels, incognito, throughout Europe, visited Paris. WEDNESDAY, 8th. 1429 The English army obliged to raise the siege of Orleans. The French troops were led by an impostor, pretending to a divine mission: before this event she was called Joan of Arc, and subsequently the Maid of Orleans. She was afterwards taken prisoner by the English, and cruelly burnt alive as a witch. 1743 The pious and learned Dr. John Hough, called the "GOOD Bishop of Worcester," died, in the ninety-third year of his age, and fifty-third of his episcopate. 1814 Napoleon Buonaparte landed in Elba, after his first abdication. 1821 Captain Parry sailed from the River on his second voyage, in quest of a North-west Passage; and on the same day, in 1824, he sailed again on his third voyage of discovery. THURSDAY, 9th. 1502 Columbus sailed from Cadiz, on his fourth voyage to America. 1828 The Test and Corporation Acts repealed. FRIDAY, 10th. 1774 Louis XV., King of France, died of a second attack of the small-pox, in the 65th year of his age, and the 60th of his reign. SATURDAY, 11th. This is calculated to be the Anniversary of the day on which, in the year before Christ, 1491, the Israelites passed the Red Sea, and Pharaoh and his host were drowned, in endeavouring to follow them. A. D. 330, the Emperor, Constantine the Great, dedicated the City of Constantinople, of which he had, the year before, laid the foundations. 1778 William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham, died. He was buried at the public charge in Westminster Abbey. 1782 Richard Wilson, an eminent landscape-painter, who has even been designated the "English Claude," died, aged sixty-eight. In his lifetime he was not regarded at all according to his merits, but now his pictures fetch large sums. 1800 King George III. was shot at in the theatre, but happily without effect, by a maniac named Hatfield. At a review in the morning of the same day, a young gentleman, standing near the king, had been wounded by an accidental shot from the troops while exercising. 1812 The Right Hon. Spencer Perceval, Prime Minister, was shot in the lobby of the House of Commons by an assassin named Bellingham, who suffered death for the act soon after. SUNDAY, 12th. ROGATION SUNDAY received, and retains, its title from the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, which follow it, and which are called rogation days, from the latin word rogare, to beseech, the earliest Christians having appropriated extraordinary prayers and supplications for these three days, as a preparation for the devout observance of our Saviour's Ascension on the day next succeeding them; namely, Holy Thursday, or Ascension Day. In the reformed ritual, however, this day is simply called the Fifth Sunday after Easter," and the rogation days very little observed. On this day, in the year B. C. 48, was fought the battle of Pharsalia, which confirmed the power of Julius Cæsar, and put an end to that of his rival Pompey. 1641 The Earl of Strafford, Prime Minister of King Charles I., was beheaded on Tower Hill. 1706 A total Eclipse of the Sun occurred at nine A. M. 1791 Died, aged fifty-two, Francis Grose, the celebrated illustrator of the Antiquities of England, Wales, and Scotland. 1794 Madame Elizabeth, the sister of Louis XVI., was guillotined at Paris, after a long and cruel confinement, being the third member of the Royal Family of France who perished by the same instrument in the space of less than sixteen months. 919 The new Custom House, London, opened for the transaction of business A JEWISH TALE.-When Abraham sat at his tent-door. according to his custom, waiting to entertain strangers, he espied an old man stooping and leaning on his staff, weary with age and travail, coming towards him, who was 100 years of age: he received him kindly, washed his feet, provided supper, caused him to sit down: but observing that the old man ate and prayed not, nor begged for a blessing of his meat, he asked him why he did not worship the God of Heaven. The old man told him that he worshipped the fire only, and acknowledged no other God. At which answer Abraham grew so zealously angry, that he thrust the old man out of his tent, and exposed him to all the evils of the night and an unguarded condition. When the old man was gone, God called to Abraham, and asked him where the stranger was: he replied, I thrust him away, because he did not worship Thee. God answered him, I have suffered him these hundred years, although he dishonoured me; and couldst not thou endure him one night, when he gave thee no trouble ? Upon this, saith the story, Abraham fetched him back again, and gave him hospitable entertainment, and wise instruction.JER. TAYLOR. WHAT toil and perseverance, in cultivating the bodily pow ers, must it require, to qualify the Tumbler for those feats of activity with which he astonishes mankind! When we first see them, we can hardly believe our eyes: he seems to perform what, till now, we thought impossible. Were we to take equal pains in the improvement of our intellectual and moral nature, which are surely not less susceptible of cultivation, who can tell to what heights of excellence and happiness we might at length arise!-BEATTIE. SATURDAY NIGHT. AGAIN the week's dull labours close, Oh, when to-morrow's sun shall rise, The beautiful little poem ON PRAYER, in page 135, was incorrectly ascribed to Crabbe; it is from the pen of Dr. Richard Mant, the present Bishop of Down and Connor. LONDON: PUBLISHED IN WEEKLY NUMBERS, PRICE ONE PENNY, AND IN MONTHLY Parts, JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, WEST STRAND. UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION, APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. By the kind permission of Mr. LANDSEER, we are | and sixty monasteries and convents, and this has enabled this week to present a wood-cut, taken from his very interesting print of the "Alpine Mastiffs," or Dogs of St. Bernard. One of these sagacious and well-trained animals is represented clearing away the snow from an unfortunate traveller, who has been overtaken by one of the sudden avalanches so common in these mountains; the other, with his loud voice, giving the alarm to the monks at the convent, who are seen hastening with the pious intention of conveying the sufferer to their hospitable shelter, and restoring, if possible, suspended animation. The Hospital, or Convent of St. Bernard, is situated on the elevated ridge which runs between Mont St. Velan to the east, and Point de Dronay to the west, and is computed to be 8200 feet above the level of the sea. It is a massive and substantial building, and contains a small museum of mineralogical specimens and various antiquities found on the site of the Roman temple of Jupiter on this mountain. There are also specimens of a singular sort of ptarmigan, called Herbene. This bird in winter is perfectly white; in spring and summer, black and white mixed; and, in autumn, nearly black: they are found in abundance in the neighbourhood of the convent. The chapel is large and lofty: the congregation consists entirely of peasants, partly Piedmontese and partly Valaisans. survived most of them. The number of monks varies from time to time, but usually consists of twenty or twenty-five, all natives of the countries north of the Alps. They are enjoined to board and lodge all strangers and passengers, at all seasons, and assist them with guides in traversing the mountains, without charge or cost. In winter, their rules command them to send every day, whatever may be the weather, two able and powerful men, called Maroniers, who are accustomed to the mountains, one towards the Italian side, the other towards Valais. These traverse the pass the whole day, attended by one of the great dogs, keeping a path open in the snow, and watching for passengers. If the Maronier meets with any person bewildered or exhausted, or if his sagacious companion indicates by his movements that any unfortunate being is under the snow, he returns with all speed to the Hospital to give the alarm. Several of the monks then instantly set out with restoratives, to be used, if the object of their care is not too far gone. Four carry the body, while the rest go forward to trample the snow, which is often more than twenty feet in depth, and give facility to the advance of their brethren. Cold water, with ice immersed in it, is prepared as the most efficacious remedy, and the body placed in The order of Bernardines was properly Augustine, it: if this fails in restoring animation, all hope is at till moulded into its present form by St. Bernard, | an end. A.D. 962. He is said to have founded one hundred The dogs are of a large, and, it need not be added, VOL. II. 55 a sagacions breed, originally from Spain. The largest of the race, called Jupiter, was in high esteem about four years ago, from the number of lives he had saved, and was considered more than usually saga. cious. In the year 1827, he rescued a woman and child from death under the following circumstances: It appears, he knew some one had passed near the Hospital, and set off alone immediately to follow them. After some time his absence was remarked; and one of the Maroniers, by pursuing his track, found him posted over the drift where the poor woman and her child were about to perish. STRAW PLATTINĠ. II. THE manufacture of STRAW PLAT is an employment at once healthful and domestic, and particularly valuable, as accustoming female children in our agricultural districts to habits of industry, without the imposition of that hurtful degree of bodily labour, which has for some time engaged the attention of the friends of humanity and the legislature. The Manufacture of Straw Plat and Straw Bonnets in Italy is a considerable employment in the duchy of Tuscany (which is bounded on the one side by the Apennines, and on the other by the Mediterranean Sea, and contains an area of 8500 square miles, and a population of 1,200,000.) The platting is chiefly carried on in the neighbourhood of Florence, Pisa, the district of Sienna, and in the upper part of the vale of the Arno, where the best flats are made for straw-hats. Part of this country is powerfully described by Mr. Addison (Travels, 3.) Several of the dogs have been brought to England; one now in the possession of a gentleman in Gloucestershire, has fallen under our observation; his disposition, however, from change of living and want of his accustomed air and exercise, must have been much altered, for he had grown so cowardly, as to run away in terror from the smallest dog. His length from head to tail was above six feet, his size and height in proportion, and his colour a yellowish-transition from the green mountains and beautiful brown. He had become heavy and dull, owing to the total change in his habits; but was perfectly good-tempered, and a general favourite. The monks of St. Bernard are, for the most part, hale, strong men; yet few of them live to an advanced age: this may well be attributed to the personal deprivations and hardships they must suffer. They are simple-minded, and sincerely devoted to the good work in which they are engaged; and they claim our respect for that charity towards their fellowcreatures, which induces them to persevere in a course of patient endurance, and of exertion and difficulty quite sufficient to account for their generally premature old age. "The valleys of the papal dominions, to the wild and naked rocks and hills of the Siennese, is very striking; the savage prospect put me in mind of the Italian proverb, that the Grand Duke had the bones of Italy;' and yet on these hills grows the straw of the Leghorn bonnets." The straw used in working those flats,-which is the term for large, flat, circular plat,-is grown in districts mountainous and barren: it is produced from a kind of wheat, said to be like Cape-wheat, of which the grain is very small; (other straws are mixed up with the wheat-straw imported here.) This straw, though slender, has much consistency; the upper part of the stalk being perfectly hollow, is easily dried. THERE is not a more effectual way to revive the true spirit It is pulled out of the earth before the grain begins of Christianity in the world, than seriously to meditate on to form. After being freed from the soil which adwhat we commonly call the four last things: Death, Judg-heres to the root, it is formed into small sheaves for ment, Heaven, and Hell; for it is morally impossible men should live such careless lives, should so wholly devote themselves to this world and the service of their lusts, should either cast off the fear of God and all reverence for his laws, or satisfy themselves with some cold and desk: "KEEP me, O Lord, from silly and unguarded friends, and from secret and designing enemies, and give me those things that are best for me, through Jesus Christ our Lord." FROM FOES THAT WOULD THE LAND DEVOUR. From blinded zeal by faction led; The Spirit's help of Thee we crave, A flock to welcome Thee !-HEBER. winnowing. The part above the last joint of the stem is then plucked off, the ear remaining attached to it; this being done, it is bleached alternately by the dew and the sunshine: rain is very injurious, and destroys much of its proper colour. When a sudden shower comes on, every one is in motion to prevent damage, by gathering up the straw. The lower parts of the straw are treated in the same manner, and employed in forming flats of an inferior quality. The upper parts, torn off just to the knot, are sorted according to their degrees of fineness. This stapling is made with much care, and usually affords straw of three different prices. A quantity of straw worth three-quarters of a paolo (44d.), after having undergone this process, is sold for ten paoli (4s. 7d.) The tress is formed, according to one account, of seven or nine straws, which are begun at the lower end, and are consumed in platting to within an inch and a half of the upper extremity, including the ear. All the ends of the straws that have been consumed are left out, so that the ears shall be on the other side of the tress. The According to another account, the platter is to take thirteen straws, and tie them together at one end; then to divide them into a right-angle, placing six straws on the left side, and seven on the right. seventh, or outermost on the right, is to be turned down by the finger and thumb of the right hand, and brought up under two straws, over two, and under two, and seven straws will then be placed on the left side of the angle; then the finger and thumb of the left hand is to turn down the seventh or outermost straw on the left side, and to bring it up under two straws, over two, and under two,-and seven straws will again be placed on the right side of the angle; and so on, alternately doubling and platting the outermost seventh straw from side to side, until it becomes too short to cross over so as to double on the other side of the angle; then to take another straw, and put it under the short end at the point of the angle (the middle of the plat), and by another straw coming under and over the joined one from both sides of the angle in the operation of platting, it will become fastened; the short end being then left out underneath the plat, and the newly-fastened straw taking its place on that side of the angle to which the short one was directed; and so continue repeating the joining, doubling, and platting, until a piece of twenty yards long, more or less, is completed. -Trans. Soc. Arts, xxiv. As fast as it is worked, it is rolled on a cylinder of wood. When it is finished, the projecting ends and ears are cut off; it is then passed with force between the hand and a piece of wood, cut with a sharp edge, to press and polish it. The tresses thus prepared are used so that a complete hat shall be made of one piece. They are sewed together with raw silk. The diameter of the various kinds of hat is, in general, the same; the only difference being in the degree of fineness, and, consequently, the number of turns which the tress has made in completing the hat. These hats have from twenty to eighty such turns, the number regulating the price, which varies from twenty paoli (9s. 2d.) to one hundred piastres (201.) Those of the first quality have no fixed price. A hat which sells for one hundred piastres affords a profit to the manufacturer, and a profit of forty to the merchant, the straw and silk costing twenty, and the labour forty. The workers gain from three to five paoli (1s. 4d. to 2s. 3d.) daily. Straw hats are little used in Tuscany, or even in Italy, except by the Siennese females, who, with good taste, and as an encouragement to their national manufactures (an example to the ladies of England), have for their head-dress an elegant straw-hat with a few flowers, under which the hair is secured by an antique silver brooch.—(SISMONDI'S Italy, 571.) French specu Several mercantile houses in Florence and Leghorn buy these hats on the spot where they are worked. One of these houses annually exports them, to the value of 400,000 florins (35007.) lators have tried to cultivate this sort of straw; but they have not been able to obtain so fine a quality as that of Tuscany. (Would it grow in the south of England?) Previously to 1822, an attempt was made to manufacture bonnets of Tuscan straw in England. A Mr. Bigg, a straw manufacturer, imported a considerable quantity of prepared straw from Leghorn, with a view of attempting its manufacture in this country; but not succeeding in his wish, he placed the straw in the hands of Mr. Parry, who wisely began by acquiring the art of platting according to the Leghorn method above described. He then taught it to other persons, with such success, that he had above seventy women and children constantly employed in the manufacture. For these spirited and successful exertions, the Society of Arts in London, in 1822, conferred on Mr. Parry the large silver medal, on condition of his disclosing to the Society the particulars of the mode of platting according to the Italian method, and his account was published in their Transactions. The Tuscan plat made from Italian straw, and Tuscan bonnets, have since become a considerable manufacture in this country. 55-2 These accounts, it is hoped, will be read with interest by platters in England, and those who are anxious to encourage and improve the English mode of working. This branch of industry, in Italy, brings in a very large sum annually to the inhabitants of Tuscany. The straw is grown in mountainous and sterile places in Italy; but, in England, the platting straw is from our best wheats; the kind of wheat in Italy is said to be a species like the Cape-wheat; but that wheat, in England, is too much subject to the rust to be useful. In Italy, the wheat is pulled up by the roots before the grain begins to form, which must be just after it has done blossoming, and thus the corn is sacrificed; in England, the corn whose straw is intended for platting, is cut when it is ripe, and the ear is cut off and preserved. The mode of drying is very different from the English mode in the straw-plat districts. The upper part of the straw is chiefly used in Italy; but, in England, two or three lengths are gained from one straw, seldom from the top. The Italians work with seven straws, as we do; but also with nine and thirteen straws, which are not commonly used in England. The plat, when worked, is rolled on a cylinder of wood in Italy, and afterwards passed with force between the hand and a sharp piece of wood, to dress and polish it; but, in England, it is frequently rolled on a broad piece of deal after the plat is worked; the subsequent rolling in Italy seems to answer in some degree the purpose of the plat-mill. Temple. HUMAN IMPROVEMENT. W. WHILST any good can be done by us, we should not fail to do it; but even when our active powers of usefulness fail, which not seldom happens, there still remains that last, that highest, that most difficult, and perhaps that most acceptable, duty to our Creator,-resignation to His blessed will, in the privations, and pains, and afflictions, with which we are visited; thankfulness to Him for all that is spared to us, amidst much that is gone; for any mitigation of our sufferings, any degree of ease and comfort, and support and assistance, which we experience. Every advanced life, every life of sickness or misfortune, affords materials for virtuous feelings. In a word, I am persuaded, that there is no state whatever of Christian trial, varied and various as it is, in which there will not be found both matter and room for improvement; in which a true Christian will not be incessantly striving, month by month, and year by year, through divine help, to grow sensibly better and better; and in which his endeavours, if sincere, and assisted as, if sincere, they may hope to be assisted, by God's grace, will not be rewarded with success. -PALEY. A MAN who gives his children habits of truth, industry and frugality, provides for them better than by giving them a stock of money. Ir a man would look back upon his past life, and consider what has brought him into the greatest troubles and the deepest distresses, and what has drawn his mind furthest from that which is right, he will generally be able to see that it was bad company, or the company of those who had no religious principles. SINCE trifles make the sum of human things, |