ward, threading his way through the narrow openings which occurred among the masses of ice. His own ship took the lead, in order that his men might see that he was willing to bear the brunt of danger and difficulty. After immense exertion, most of the vessels arrived at the harbour in Frobisher's Straits; and the admiral called to his council Captains Fenton, Yorke, Best, Carew, and Philpot, to consider the best means of obtaining the ore for which so many perils had been undergone, and of planting the proposed colony. All the miners, excepting those in five ships which had not yet arrived, were sent on shore, and immediately began to dig ore, in which they were assisted by some of the gentlemen and soldiers belonging to the expedition. The next thing was, to bring on shore all the wood-work for the proposed erection; but here it was found, that not only had a portion of it been lost in the ship which had sunk, but other portions had been used in repairing and strengthening the ships during the various storms. It was also found, on examining the provisions, that the proposed quota for the colonists, viz., one year's provisions for one hundred men, could not be spared from the fleet. Captain Fenton then offered to remain there for a year with sixty men; and the carpenters were thereupon asked how long it would take them to build the requisite habitations for sixty men. Their answer was eight or nine weeks. It was thence found, that as the fleet could not venture to remain in those parts more than four weeks, the proposed colony must be abandoned altogether for that year; and all the captains signed a declaration to that effect, which was to be presented to Queen Elizabeth on their return, as an explanation of the reasons why the colonization had not been effected.

In the meantime, the ships which had been missing were struggling against the ice, in vain attempts to pass up the straits. The crews suffered so many hardships, that the captains and masters met together, and had a conference as to what was to be done. It was evident that many of the seamen wished to return to England at once; and though an agreement was made to assist each other in further endeavours, one of the pilots turned his vessel homewards, and left the others. Captain Best, of the ship "Anne Frances," caused a pinnace to be prepared, and manfully resolved to adventure in it up the straits, with a hope of reaching the harbour where Frobisher and the greater part of the fleet were supposed to be. With a crew of twenty persons, he set sail in the pinnace; of which the carpenter who constructed it said, that "hee would not adventure himself therein for five hundred pounds, for that the boate hung together but onely by the strength of the nayles, and lacked some of her principall knees and tymbers." The frail pinnace was, however, safely guided through the ice to the harbour where the fleet lay; and when Best and his companions were recognised by the others, "there was a sudden and joyful outshoote, with great flinging up of caps, and a brave volly of shotte to welcome one another." A few days after this, Best's ship was sent for, and succeeded in joining the others in the harbour.

They had abandoned the idea of colonizing that year; but the carpenters erected a small house on shore, to ascertain whether, by the next following year, it had surmounted the rough wintry climate. Frobisher deposited near it, a few bells, knives, looking-glasses, pictures, whistles, and other trinkets for the natives, with a view to win those "brutish and uncivill people" to welcome them on any subsequent visit. He also caused corn, pease, and other grain, to be sown, as a resource for the next year.

The season was now rapidly advancing; the dark, foggy mists, the snow, and the stormy weather, gave indication of the approach of winter; the drink, too, for the ships' companies, had been so lessened by the leakage of the barrels, that it was evident a speedy return to

England was necessary. Frobisher therefore with great reluctance bent his course homeward. He loaded such of the ships as were conveniently at hand with ore resembling, or apparently resembling, that by which such high hopes had been excited; and then set sail. The difficulties encountered by the crews in extricating their vessels from the masses of ice, were incessant and perilous; but all the ships, excepting the one which had sunk, succeeded in reaching England during the month of September, with a loss in all of about forty persons.

Thus ended Frobisher's third voyage, and thus ended the attempts to send such expensive expeditions to this new-found country. The ore was found, on more careful and steady examination, to be scarcely worth the trouble of bringing home, and altogether inadequate to defray the expenses of the expedition. It seems probable that the first specimens really did contain a small portion of gold, but that afterwards too little sagacity was shown in the collecting of specimens. Although no one could doubt the energy and skill of Frobisher, yet his last voyage was looked upon as a total failure; and he appears himself, for a time, to have fallen into unmerited neglect. But in 1585, he served with Sir Francis Drake in the West Indies; three years later, he com manded one of the largest ships of the fleet which defeated the Spanish Armada; and his gallant conduct on that trying occasion procured him the honour of knighthood. He was killed in battle in the year 1594.

REASON AND FAITH.

REASON as contradistinguished from Faith, I take to be the discovery of the certainty or probability of such propositions from such ideas as it has got by the use of its natural or truths which the mind arrives at by deductions made faculties, namely, by sensation or reflection. FAITH, on the other side, is the assent to any proposition not thus made out by the deductions of reason, but upon the credit of the proposer, as coming from GoD, in some extraordinary way of communication. This way of discovering truths to men we call Revelation.-LOCKE.

THERE is no evil that we cannot either face or fly from, but the consciousness of duty disregarded. A sense of duty pursues ever. It is omnipresent like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the ut most parts of the seas, duty performed, or duty violated, is If we say still with us, for our happiness or our misery. the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light, our obligations are yet with us. We cannot escape their power, nor fly from their presence. They are with us in this life, will be with us at its close; and in that scene of inconceivable solemnity which lies yet further onward, we shall still find ourselves surrounded by the consciousness of duty, to pain us wherever it has been violated, and to console us so far as God may have given us grace to perform it.-Webster.

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THE town of Margate, as we detailed in a recent article, Owes nearly all its importance to its attractions as a bathing-place; but the town of Ramsgate, now to be noticed, presents features of a more commercial character. This sea-port, which is distant about seventeen miles from Canterbury, and seventy-three from London, is beautifully situate on the declivity of a hill, opening southward to the sea; commanding at different positions very delightful landscapes, and extensive marine views the latter, in favourable weather, embracing a portion of the French coast between Calais and Boulogne. Ramsgate is one of the subordinate members of the Cinque Ports, a denomination which needs some explanatory remark. During the reign of King Edward the Confessor, five sea-port towns on the south-eastern coast of England, nearest to the French coast, were incorporated by a peculiar charter, under the common. designation of the Cinque Ports, or "Five Ports." These ports were Sandwich, Dover, Hythe, Romney, and Hastings, the burghers of which, on consideration of certain services to be performed by their shipping at sea, &c., were exonerated from such contributions and burdens as other towns had generally to bear; and this appears to have been the origin of the privileges of the Cinque Ports, now no longer of much practical value to the nation, whatever they may be to the townsmen themselves. In or about the reign of Henry III., two other towns were added to the list, viz., Winchelsea and Rye; and also a number of other towns, considered as "members" or dependents of the other seven. When therefore we state that Ramsgate is a "member" of the cinque port of Sandwich, the meaning of the term will be at once understood.

Ramsgate was in former times an obscure fishingVOL. XXI.

The

village; but circumstances occurred about the end of the seventeenth century to originate an extensive trade with Russia and the Baltic provinces. But the most important step in the improvement of the town was the construction of the magnificent harbour, planned about ninety years ago. This harbour though intended originally only for ships of three hundred tons burden, has been since so much improved as to be now capable of receiving ships of five hundred tons. pier, which forms the boundary to the harbour, is chiefly built of Portland and Purbeck stone. It extends about eight hundred feet into the sea in a straight line, with a width of twenty-six feet; and then turns at an angle, forming another face, four hundred and fifty feet in length, with an octagon of sixty feet diameter at the extremity. The same arrangements exist on the other side; and between the two is the entrance into the harbour, two hundred feet in width.

acres.

The harbour contains an area of nearly fifty After the construction of the harbour, Smeaton was employed to devise certain improvements in it on account of a great accumulation of mud having been formed in its bed. A cross wall was erected in the upper part of the harbour, with sluices; and the pier was extended three hundred feet beyond the former termination, as a means of facilitating the entrance of ships during hard gales of wind. The harbour is also provided with a good dry dock, with convenient storehouses. Early in the present century, a stone lighthouse, provided with argand lamps and reflectors, was constructed on the head of the western pier, while a small battery is fixed at the head of the east pier. The public advantages which have been derived from this capacious harbour are very great, but the improvements

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1842.]

THE WOODLANDS.

BY JOHN GIBSON, A SHERWOOD FOREST YOUTH.

COME to the woodlands! Summer hath unfurled
His broad green banner to the breathing wind.
Come to the woodlands ! leave the ungentle world,
Where foes are numerous-friends are seldom kind:
Where care's dim arrows ever round are hurled,

Till unto death the wounded heart hath pined.
Come, where wild blossoms shun the sultry heat,
And twining boughs in graceful arches meet;
Where twilight streams o'er nature's shady face,
We'll smile and hearken on through many a sylvan place.
Pleasant a woodland ramble, through dim alleys

Winding most strangely to some secret glade,
Where the clear brook, with murmuring music, sallies
From shade to sunlight, and again to shade,
Luring our footsteps to sweet quiet valleys,
Down slopes of fern, with starry blooms inlaid;
Reaching at times the woodverge, where the light
Shows far-receding many a rural height,
Forest, and wold, and flowery pasture-ground,

Silvered with winding streams-with grey hills belted round.

Here the wild honeysuckles climb, and fold

The gnarled boughs with spires and leafy knots,
And clustered blossoms, striped with red and gold,
Bowering the sunshine from the loveliest spots-
Sweet trysting-places for young Love-which hold,
Three seasons through, their rich and dewy plots
Of wild wood-flowers, wooing the loitering air
To steal amongst the mossy roots, and bear
The upbreathing incense as it sails away
Between the rustling trees to golden-lighted day.
Unwares we come to some delightful nook

In the close by-paths, where the trees thrust down
Their knotted roots into the humming brook,

And with their leafy helms, and branches brown,
Darken from daylight and night's starry look

(Till rugged winds crush Autumn's golden crown)
The waters rippling through the swaling weeds,
Tall-bladed sedge, and clumps of dark-plumed reeds-
Swaying the white-belled lilies to and fro;

Like fairy-shallops moored from noontide's burning glow.

The sylvan dwellers here lead gentle lives—

Hark! the merle's voice, in a melodious breeze,
Blends with the woodspite's clamour, as he rives
The withering bark; and golden-armoured bees,
With murmuring trumpets, sail from woody hives

To the blue arch of heaven through yielding trees;
The lonely pigeon, cooing from her nest

On the dark pine, up-bows her trembling breast,
And broadening throat, emblazed with rich-dyed rings-
Bending her head the while between her fluttering wings.
The spotted deer, frayed at approaching sound,
Ceasing to browze the dewy vert, upturn
Their antlered foreheads suddenly around-

Leap the wild thorns, and 'mongst the towering fern
Dash from the sight. Along the nut-strewn ground
Sports the brown squirrel, or you now discern
The shrill-voiced vagrant leap from bough to bough.
And in near meadows, hark! the lowing cow,
The sheep's hoarse bleating, its sharp-jangling bell,
And children's joyous whoops, ringing o'er hill and dell.
Soon might the woods seem haunted as of old,
With half-veiled nymphs and mystic deities→→
Such spots of awful beauty we behold,

Where light and shadow battle in the trees,
Whose skyward openings shape noon's streaming gold
To wondrous semblance (as the eye may please)
Of wreathed staff, and cup, and broad-mouthed horn,
In ancient pageants by wild Sylvans borne,
When goat-limbed Pan, and all his lusty band,
Trampled with horned heels the echoing forest-land.

A sleight of Fancy !-in a moment, lo!

The back-kneed Fauns their wildering dances trace-
Sound the shrill pipe-the trumpet, loudening, blow,
Starting the brown deer with a sound of chase.
Down the dark aisles the noisy revellers go,

By whispering founts, whence peeps the Naiad's face

Why do we contend, and vex one another!-behold! death is over our heads, and we must shortly give an account of all our uncharitable words and actions. Think upon it, and be wise!-BURTON.

ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD DUNCE. DUNCE is said by Johnson to be a word of unknown etymology. Stanihurst explains it. The term Duns, from Scotus", "so famous for his subtill quiddities," he says, “is so trivial and common in all schools, that whoso surpasseth others either in cavilling sophistrie, or subtill philosophie, is forthwith nicknamed a Duns." This, he tells us in the margin, is the reason why schoolmen are called Dunses." (Description of Ireland, p. 2.) The word easily passed into a term of scorn, just as a blockhead is called Solomon; a bully, a Hector; and as Moses is the vulgar name of contempt for a Jew.

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*For a portrait and notice of Duns Scotus, see Saturday Magazine Vol. I, p. 97.

THE ADVANTAGES AND ABUSES OF TRAVELLING.

Or all the pleasures and luxuries which the blessings of modern peace have brought in their train, none are more universally desired, pursued, attained, and abused, than those of travelling. Of all the varying motives which impel the actions of mankind, at this or any time, none are so multifarious, so relative, so contradictory, and so specious as those of travelling. The young and ardent, borne on the wings of hope, the listless and vapid, pushed forward on the mere dancing-wire of fashion,-the restless and disappointed, urged onward by the perpetual spur of excitement, all bring a different worship to the same idol. If there be good angels watching our movements from above, gazing, as the deaf, on the busy dance of life, and insensible to the jarring tuues which impel it, how utterly incomprehensible must those inducements appear to them which drive tens of thousands annually from their native shores, to seek enjoyments which at home they would not have extended a hand to grasp, to encounter discomforts which at home would have been shunned as positive misfortunes, to withhold their substance where it ill can be spared, to spend it where it were better away,-which leads individuals voluntarily to forsake all they can best love and trust, to follow a phantom, to double the chances of misfortune, or at best but to create to themselves a new home-to leave it again, in sorrow and heaviness of heart, like the old one. But such is human nature;-seldom enjoying a good thing but in anticipation, seldom prizing happiness till it is gone; and such the reflections, inconsistent if true, of one who, self-condemned, is following in the motley herd of emigrants, and who has now outwardly quitted all of England, save a narrow blue strip on the horizon which a finger may cover.-Letters from the Baltic.

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OUR sketch of the Danube and its most striking features may fitly re-commence at Passau, the first town of any note arrived at after leaving Donaustauf, described in our last article.

Passau is situated at the angle where the river Inn pours its waters into the Danube, and derives much of its beauty and importance from the size of the firstnamed stream; indeed the Inn is at this point larger in diameter and volume, and has had a longer course than the Danube, although the latter is the name by which the remaining course of the united rivers is known. Passau is one of those places which, by the operation of various circumstances, have diminished in importance. It was once the capital of an ecclesiastical principality, but is now a frontier town of Bavaria, with a population of about nine thousand inhabitants. Passau proper occupies the tongue of land at the junction of the two rivers; but there are suburbs separated from it by both streams. The town is more remarkable for its situation than for the buildings contained within it: which consists of a Dom or cathedral, a modern building in the Italian style; a church dedicated to St. Michael; a school, once occupied as a Jesuits' college; the Government house, once the Bishop's palace; and a few others. The situation of Passau has been described as one of the most striking in the whole course of the Danube: being shut in by high mountains and beetling precipices. The beauty of its position can be best seen from the fortress of Oberhaus, built by the bishops of Passau on the northern shore of the Danube. This fortress was intended to overawe the citizens, and to serve as a place of refuge for the bishops in time of danger. In turbulent times the guns of the fortress have fired down upon the town; but at present it is only occupied by a small garrison belonging to the crown. Roadways have been cut under and around the fortress, bv whica its

grandeur of appearance is brought more within the cognizance of visitors.

From Passau to the town of Linz, the next place of importance on the route to Vienna, the distance is such as can easily be travelled in one day by a private boat a scene presented more beautiful than that which meets on the mighty river. In no part of the Danube is there the eye of the voyager just after leaving Passau. An English traveller who made this passage a few years ago thus speaks of the scene presented:

from behind the dark heights which close in the river to the As we pushed off from the bank, the sun rose gloriously east, and lighted up the towers and domes of Passau; first tipping their spires and summits, and then gradually descending upon the white walls and glittering windows of the houses. The two noble vistas formed by the Inn and Danube, up which the view extends to a considerable distance, divide the town itself into three clusters of buildings. On the left rises the double-towered church of Mariahelf, and on the right the feudal towers and straggling battlements of the Fortress Oberhaus sweep down the rock to the junction of Danube and Black Ilz. For nearly two miles the left bank is lined with piles of trunks of trees, which have been floated down the Ilz from the Bohemian mountains, and are collected here in readiness to be transported to Vienna. The first bend of the river that hides Passau from view, presents an extraordinary change of scene; in an far removed to all appearance from the city's busy hum, and instant you are transported into the midst of a silent solitude surrounded on all sides by steep mountains, clad with dark woods. The river spreads itself out into the dimensions of a lake, within a well-wooded amphitheatre of hills, which so close it in on all sides that for some time it appears uncertain in which direction it is destined to find exit. Here and there sequestered ravines, with cottages or small villages nestling in the mouth of them, are disclosed to view.

On the banks of the Danube between Passau and Linz is situated the Bavarian village of Haffnerzell,