NESTLING OF THE REDBREAST. A PAIR of robins chose for their abode a small cottage, which, though not actually inhabited, was constantly used as a depository for potatoes, harness, &c., and repeatedly visited by its owners. It closely adjoined a large blacksmith's shop, in which it may be truly said, That all day long with click and bang, Close to their couch did hammer clang. and in which the usual din of such places, is considerably increased by the strokes of a hammer, which would have baffled the strength even of "Hal of the Wynd," himself to wield, and is worked by water. But neither the noise of the adjacent forge, nor the frequent visits of the owners of the cottage, deterred these fearless settlers. They entered through a window-frame, the lattice of which had been removed; and in a child's covered cart, which, with its horse attached to it, was hanging on a peg over the fireplace, and just afforded space for the purpose, they built their first nest early in the spring. The circumstance was observed, and soon became an object of curiosity to the neighbours, many of whom came to look at the nest; these inquisitive visits, however, had not the effect of alarming the birds, who here reared, without accident, their first brood. When the attention of the parents was no longer needed by their full-fledged offspring, they set about providing for another family, and built their second nest on a shelf, on the opposite side of the room, close to an old mouse-trap. Here, again, they received visits of inquiry from bipeds of a larger growth, and reared and dismissed their progeny. This second brood had no sooner left them, than, as if mindful of their Creator's mandate, "increase and multiply," they again betook themselves to the task of building a third nest, under the same sheltering roof; and for this purpose, chose another shelf, in a different corner of the same room, and there, in their mossy bed, on a bundle of papers, on the 21st of June, I saw four half-fledged nestlings, which the parent birds were feeding, while a party of us were watching their proceedings. I am wrong, perhaps, in saying the parent birds, for the hen alone entered the room while we were there, the cock-bird contenting himself with observing us from the outside. There can be no doubt, that the same pair of birds belonged to each successive nest, as the loss of her tail rendered the hen conspicuous amongst her kindred in the neighbourhood. -J. R. ideas, which would not be expressed by common words, in such a manner as to be clearly understood. Thus, when an astronomer speaks of the altitude of a star, to indicate its height, or an optician of the refraction of a ray of light, to denote its bending from its straight course, as it passes from one medium, or substance, into another, they do no more than a carpenter, or a blacksmith, or a weaver is obliged to do, in speaking of bevilling, and rabbeting; of welding, and fine-boring; of throwing his silk, and building the monture of his draw-looms. They are obliged either to use new words, or to employ old words in a peculiar and restricted sense, in order that there may be no mistake in their meaning. Still, the difficulty of terms is very soon overcome: and the shortest, as well as the best, way, is to learn them thoroughly at once; just as an apprentice to a turner learns first and mandrils, which he is to use; or a druggist to to distinguish by name the various chisels, chucks, decipher the inscriptions on the drawers and bottles in his master's shop. In treating, however, of a substance so common as water, it may be expected that we shall not have to use many uncommon words. Wherever this is necessary, we shall endeavour to explain them as they occur, in such a way as to remove any difficulty which they might occasion. Water is not a simple substance. It is composed of two gases, or airs, oxygen and hydrogen, united in the proportion of eight to one in weight; so that and one pound of hydrogen chemically combined. nine pounds of water contain eight pounds of oxygen All matter, with which we are acquainted, is capable of existing in three forms, solid, fluid, or aëriform: and water is found under each of these forms. It is either solid, as in ice, hail, or snow: or liquid, as it is generally found in temperate or warm climates: or gaseous, that is, in the form of an invisible vapour, as in steam. Without entering into the question as to the cause of this change in the form of bodies, we THE quantity of silk material used in England alone, may consider, that the very small particles of which amounts in each year to more than four millions of pounds bodies are composed, are capable of being acted upon weight, for the production of which, myriads upon myriads by two opposite forces. By one of these, which is of silk-worms are required. Fourteen thousand millions called the attraction of cohesion, the particles of a of animated creatures annually live and die to supply this little corner of the world with an article of luxury! If body are drawn together; by the other, which is astonishment be excited at this fact, let us extend our view called the force of repulsion, they have a tendency to into China, and survey the dense population of its widely- separate from one another. If the attractive force is spread region, whose inhabitants, from the emperor on his the stronger, the body requires force to separate its throne, to the peasant in the lonely hut, are indebted for parts, or it is a solid: if the attractive and repulsive their clothing to the labours of the silk-worm. The ima- forces are exactly equal, the parts of the body can gination, fatigued with the flight, is lost and bewildered in be separated by the least force, or the body is a fluid: contemplating the countless numbers, which every successive if the repulsive force is the stronger, the particles year spin their slender threads for the service of man.LARDNER'S Cyclopædia. require some force to keep them near one another, the body resists compression, or it is an air, or vapour. FAMILIAR ILLUSTRATIONS OF NATURAL Heat has the property of increasing the repulsive or expansive powers of the particles of bodies; and a very simple experiment will show the manner in which water may assume the form of a solid, or fluid, or a vapour by the influence of heat. Suppose A, B, C, D, is a closed glass vessel, containing at the bottom a small quantity of pounded ice or frozen snow, s; and that a thermometer, T, has No. XII. WATER. THERE are many natural substances very familiar to us, yet possessed of properties of which we are contented to be ignorant, for want of taking the necessary trouble. We are apt to think that the knowledge of things cannot be attained without the previous know-its bulb immersed in the ice, which will, of course, ledge of technical words; and, when we open a book upon any subject of natural philosophy, we are, perhaps, diverted from our first attempts, by meeting with some terms of art, or some reference to branches of science of which we are ignorant. Now it cannot be denied, that, in the study of some natural phenomena, we must have recourse to scientific terms. These are not mere hard words, intended to conceal knowledge from all except the well-instructed. They are necessary, in order to express, with accuracy, mark a temperature at least as low as 32° of Fahrenheit. Suppose, also, that the cubical contents of the vessel are full 1700 or 1800 times as great as those of the part occupied by the ice s. Now let heat be applied at the bottom, as, for instance, by a lamp, or by setting the vessel on a heated plate; and observe what takes place. If the temperature of the ice is below the freezing point, or 320, the mercury in the thermometer first rises to that point, and then the ice begins to melt, During the time of melting, the temperature, as indicated by the thermometer, does not rise at all. The mercury still stands at the freezing point, till every particle of the ice is melted. The mercury in the thermometer then begins to rise, until it reaches 2120, the boiling point of water. Before that time, bubbles will be observed rising in the water, and as soon as the water boils, and begins to be converted into steam, the temperature, as indicated by the thermometer, again ceases to increase: the mercury is stationary at the boiling point, until the whole of the water has disappeared. Thus the addition of heat to the solid body, ice, has changed it into a fluid: and the addition of more heat has changed the fluid into a vapour: so that we may say, without much impropriety, that heat and ice together produce water, and water and heat produce steam. If the vessel be suspended, during the experiment, and balanced by a weight, it will be found to have neither gained nor lost any weight, which shows that the very same matter, which was first in the form of ice, and then of water, is still contained in the vessel, only it is converted into steam. The same fact may be proved by exposing the vessel again to cold, when the very same weight of ice will again be obtained as was originally placed in the vessel. Hence it is very far from being a matter of course that water should be found in a fluid state. The limits of temperature, between which that condition is fulfilled, are very small. Had the heat of the earth been comparatively but little less than it is, water would have existed, naturally, only as a solid substance: the ocean would have been a mass of ice. Had the heat of the earth been much greater, every drop of water would have been dissipated into vapour. The precise adaptation of temperature to the comfort and existence of animated beings, cannot be contemplated without feelings of gratitude and admiration towards the Creator of all things. There is another very remarkable circumstance connected with the communication of heat to water. All fluids are expanded by the addition of heat; and we have already seen that this property, in mercury, enables us to measure the quantity of sensible heat by the degree of expansion. If mercury be gradually heated, it continues to expand very nearly equably, till it reaches a temperature of 660° of Fahrenheit, See the Saturday Magazine, Vol. IV., p. 11. A 32 45 25 50 and boils. Other fluids expand also, although not so equably, by the addition of heat, and contract by being cooled; but in water there is a striking deviation from this otherwise general law. Suppose a large thermometer-tube, A T, to have been filled with boiling distilled water, and then hermetically sealed, or closed by means of the blow-pipe, at A; and that, at the temperature of 60°, the water stands at the point marked in the figure. If the bulb be now plunged into a freezing mixture, the fluid will be observed to contract until it has attained a temperature of about 40°; after that degree of coolness has been reached, the water will be observed to rise again in the tube, indicating an expansion in the fluid, until, just before it is cooled down to the freezing point, 32°, it stands at the same height as it did at the temperature of 48°. In the act of freezing, water expands with great rapidity, and, if confined, with irresistible force. Every one must have had experience of the breaking of a bottle, or other vessel, by the freezing of water in it; and an iron bomb-shell has been burst by the same means. The Florentine academicians succeeded in bursting a brass globe, the cavity of which was an inch in diameter, by filling it with water and freezing it. The force necessary to produce this effect was calculated at 27,720 lbs. The quantity of expansion is such, that eight cubic inches of water form about nine cubic inches of ice. T in the case of water, is a fact of immense importThe deviation from the ordinary law of expansion, ance. If water continued to be compressed until it froze, as is the case with other liquids, large bodies of water, instead of being covered with a coating of ice, would be converted into solid masses; a state which would destroy the existence of almost all living ereatures which now pass the winter under water in The cold, which congeals security and comfort. water, is usually applied at the top; as soon as a small quantity of the water is cooled, it becomes specifically heavier than the rest, and sinks, thereby exposing a fresh surface to the action of the atmosphere. Thus a constant current is kept up, the cooler water descending, and the warmer ascending, until the whole reaches the temperature of 40°, or 8° less than freezing. After this point, the colder stratum of water, at the surface, expands, and becomes specifically lighter than that below; it, therefore, floats, and so continues until a sheet of ice is formed at the top, while the temperature of the water below may be seven or eight degrees warmer, a degree of heat quite sufficient for fish and other aqueous animals. The mere philosopher may view, in this beautiful deviation from the ordinary laws which regulate the expansion of fluids, little more than a singular fact; a religious mind will scarcely fail to regard it as an adaptation of wise means to an useful end, as one of the numberless instances in which, as we contemplate the natural world, we recognise the traces of a bene ficent and designing Mind. LONDON: C. UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. It was in the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, according to a French historian, that an unknown prisoner, young, and of noble appearance, of distinguished height, and great beauty of person, was sent in profound secrecy to an island on the coast of Provence. The captive wore, while travelling, a mask so contrived by steel springs, that he could take his meals without uncovering his face, a strict order having been given that if he disclosed his features he should instantly be put to death. The king's minister, Louvois, paid him a visit, and spoke to him standing, treating him with the greatest respect. It was said that during this period of his confinement he one day traced some words with a knife on a silver plate, and threw VOL. V. it from a window facing the sea. A fisherman brought it to the governor of the island, who, when he found that the man could not read, dismissed him with the remark, that he was lucky in his ignorance. The governor of the place where the stranger was confined was afterwards appointed to command the Bastille; and under his care the man in the iron mask was taken secretly to Paris. In the Bastille, he was lodged as conveniently as the nature of the place allowed: his table was excellent; all his requests were complied with; and the governor seldom sat down in his presence. He played the guitar. and had a liking for lace and fine linen. The physician who frequently attended him was in the habit 142 of looking at his tongue, but never saw his face. The very tone of his voice was said to inspire interest: no complaint ever escaped him, nor did he attempt, even by a hint, to make himself known. He died in 1703, and was buried at night in the cemetery of St. Paul. So great was the importance ascribed to this dark event, that M. de Chamillart, the warminister, successor of Louvois, was entreated, even on his death-bed, by his son-in-law, to explain the mystery; but he replied, It was a solemn secret of state, which he had sworn never to reveal. This is the romance of the history; and it is no wonder, considering the real state of the case, which, was extraordinary enough, though differing in some points from the above, that men's heads should be busy in imagining, and their tongues in circulating, various surmises respecting the name and station of the masked prisoner. At one time he was Fouquet, the disgraced minister of finance; at another, an Armenian patriarch. Some people were sure it was Louis Comte de Vermandois, son of Louis the Fourteenth and Mademoiselle de la Vallière, though he was said to have died and been buried in 1683. Others declared the person to be the Duc de Beaufort, who, however, had to all appearance been slain and beheaded by the Turks, at the siege of Candia. On grounds about as solid, he was imagined to be the Duke of Monmouth, whom the Londoners, if their eyes had not deceived them, saw executed on Tower-hill, in 1685. But the favourite, and for some time generally-received opinion, was that which represented him as a son of Anne, mother of Louis the Fourteenth. It was at one time boldly asserted that he was a twin-brother of that monarch; though another version of the time and circumstances of his birth reflected great disgrace on the queen. Amidst these various notions the following existed, but obtained, till lately, little credit; that the object of curiosity was a private agent of Ferdinand Charles, Duke of Mantua, and that he suffered this strange and long imprisonment for having deceived and disappointed Louis, King of France, in a secret affair of state, the particulars of which could not come to light without exposing the shame of both the principals concerned. The truth of this statement has since been established beyond any reasonable doubt*; and we will briefly furnish the facts, which are worthy of historical remembrance, as features of the time and country to which they belong. But another and a better purpose may be answered by the following narrative: let it serve to show the folly of deceit, even with reference to the present life. "He" and he only "that walketh uprightly, walketh surely:" and the cunning man who "trusts in wrong and robbery," will often find himself thence deprived, if not of liberty and fortune, of good character, which should be more precious than either. In 1677, when the grandeur of Louis the Fourteenth was at its height, and he was served by men of courage, genius, and industry, whose ambition was to gratify that of their master, the Abbé d'Estrades, ambassador of France to the Venetian state, conceived the idea of obtaining for his Sovereign the town of Casal, a fortress in the territory of the abovementioned Duke of Mantua, and capital of the Montferrat. A dissipated and uneducated prince, such as the Duke, once in the hands of the wily French ambassador, was likely to be prevailed upon by means of a shrewd address, and the offer of money, to resign Casal, though it was the key of Italy. The agent selected for playing this double part See the History of the Iron Mask, extracted from documents in the French archives, by the late Lord Dover was Count Ercolo Antonio MATTHIOLI, a native of Bologna, Bachelor of Laws in the University of that place, and a senator of Mantua. He had been a minister high in favour with Ferdinand's father, and still busied himself in watching the aspect of public affairs, which, with regard to Ferdinand's interests, were somewhat precarious, owing to the power of the Spanish government at Milan, and the growing influence of the house of Austria in his dominions, his mother being a lady of that family. This man, a designing politician, readily submitted to become the tool of one more designing. The instructions he received from D'Estrades, were to point out to Ferdinand the dangerous power of Austria and Spain, and their ambitious designs upon Casal and the Montferrat, urging that the only course to which he could safely resort, was to seek protection from the King of France. Into this project the young prince at once entered; understanding that Louis, on paying him a sum of money, was to send French troops into Italy, and place him at their head. So far all went on well. D'Estrades chuckled at the probable success of his scheme, and expressed, by a letter to Louis, his delight at Casal being about to be annexed to the crown of France, blessing his fortune for having procured him the honour of serving a monarch whom he revered as a demigod! Such was the gross flattery addressed to one, who, whether we regard him as a man or a sovereign, was a most hardened and tyrannical person. But difficulties gathered in the way of this shameful scheme. The course of guile seldom runs smooth. The Duke, closely watched by his mother and the Austrians, could not openly have an interview that was necessary with D'Estrades, but promised to give him audience in Venice, at the ensuing carnival, when they were to meet in disguise. Louis, in the mean time, by letters to D'Estrades, kept up Ferdinand's hopes of commanding an army, though delay was evidently sought for, each party proceeding with the utmost caution, and endeavouring to make the best bargain for themselves. Matthioli insisted on a hundred thousand pistoles as the present which Ferdinand was to receive for admitting a French force into Casal; but the Abbé thought the bribe too high, and brought down the pistoles to crowns. At length the conference between the Duke and D'Estrades was obtained: and they met at Venice by midnight. The former, being now actually in want of French protection, showed his impatience for the conclusion of the treaty. The result was, that Matthioli was despatched to Paris, where the scandalous compact was drawn up, he receiving a handsome reward, and promises of preferment for his relations. To account for what took place afterwards, we now come to the fact, that this Italian intriguer was tampered with by the agents of Spain and Austria, who probably offered a higher bribe; for, instead of returning to France, as it had been settled, he invented a variety of excuses, and, lastly, declared that the Duke, his master, had been obliged to execute a treaty which disabled him from keeping his engagement with France. It was now too late for remonstrance; and at length the mortifying truth was plain, that the great Louis had been duped by the obscure minion of a petty Italian prince*! crime could only be visited by the ruin of the offender. By order of the king, Louvois instructed D'Estrades to seize and imprison Matthioli, allowing him no intercourse with any one. Soon after the breach of the treaty, the unfortunate man met The Casal did not come into the possession of the French till 1681. It was afterwards taken by the allies, and its fortifications demolished; but was subsequently re-taken by the French. D'Estrades at Turin, and had the boldness to press | neighbourhood. The peasants observed that his teeth for payment of expenses incurred by him during the late affair. Here he fell into his own trap: the application was craftily answered, and the parties proceeded together to a place within the French territory, where Matthioli was instantly arrested. Though armed, he offered no resistance, but was carried that night to Pignerol; the leader of the party alone (Catinat) knowing the prisoner, whom, for better concealment, he named L'Estang. From that period to the day of his death, a space of more than twenty-four years, Matthioli remained under the close and watchful custody of St. Mars, first at Pignerol, next at Exiles, then at the Isle of St. Marguerite, and lastly in the Bastille. It is needless to follow the poor sufferer through all his mean prevarications: his treason was clearly proved; and certainly a more ingenious plan of revenge was never resorted to, than that adopted by the capricious monarch in this remarkable case. After a confinement of nearly ten months at Pignerol, the prisoner began to show symptoms of a wandering of mind: he talked incoherently of unearthly visits and apparitions. This afforded an excuse for increasing his punishment, by placing him in the same. room with a Jacobin monk, who was actually mad, perhaps from ill-usage, and who annoyed him by some outrageous attempts at preaching. A painful part of the story is, that Matthioli, on showing some obstinate resistance, was threatened with the cudgel; a treatment which he received meekly, as it appears he presented a valuable ring to the officer who had threatened him. In 1681, St. Mars was removed to the command of Exiles, a few leagues from Pignerol; and the Count and his companion were carried with him in a litter, and under military escort. Owing, it is supposed, to the unwholesome air of this place, the monk died; and in 1687, St. Mars, who had become governor of St. Marguerite, reported of one prisoner only. This we are warranted in concluding was Matthioli, the man in the iron mask. He passed eleven years of his existence in the Isle of St. Marguerite. His chamber is described as lighted by a single grated window on the north side, in a wall nearly four feet thick, facing the sea. It is here that he is described by Voltaire as richly dressed, supplied with laces from Paris, served at table with silver plate, wearing a mask of iron, and occasionally amusing himself in solitude by plucking out the hairs of his beard with steel pincers. Here, too, it is said, Louvois visited him, and remained respectfully standing in his presence. After the particulars we have given, it is hardly necessary to point out the exaggerations which appear in these and other highly-coloured statements respecting him: and our readers will not be surprised to learn that the mysterious writing picked up by the fisherman was scribbled with "sorry stuff" by another person, not on a silver, but in reality a pewter, dish; that the interesting "young" prisoner, though tall and dignified, was in the downhill of life; and that his clothes, however rich and handsome they may have been at the commencement of his captivity, were ordered to last him three or four years together. But we approach the end of this strange eventful history, by tracing the governor, attended by his helpless burden, on his way to that memorable prison in Paris, the Bastille, which they entered in September, 1698. Matthioli travelled in a litter; and it is reported that on one occasion, when St. Mars halted in the neighbourhood of his own estate of Palteau, the unknown was seen coming out of his vehicle in a black mask; a circumstance still talked of in the 142-2 and lips were seen, that he was tall, and had gray hair. The mask, to which he owed much of his fame, seems to have been of black velvet, fitted to his face with strong whalebones, fastened by a padlock behind his head, and further secured by a seal. That his features were ever actually cased in iron is a tale not to be believed. Still, it is painful to reflect on the sufferings a dishonest man, of an active mind, must have undergone in his tedious confinement, during which the horrible order issued by Louis was, "That he should have nothing which could make life agreeable." After an imprisonment of twenty-four years and a half, Matthioli's deliverance came upon him almost as suddenly as his loss of freedom. On a Sunday in November, 1703, he felt a slight illness on going from mass, and died the next morning, without any apparently serious attack of disease, being then sixtythree years of age. He was buried the following day, in the neighbouring church-yard of St. Paul, and is registered in the books of that parish, as "Marchiali, aged about forty-five years.” Persons who died in the Bastille were frequently interred under false names and ages; and it is by no means surprising, in the case of such a notable state-prisoner, that his persecutors, who had adopted during his life every expedient to conceal his real name and history, should have resorted to this method of preventing discovery after death, especially as this happened while Louis and the Duke were still alive. On the decease of the pretended Marchiali, his keepers scraped and whitewashed his prison-walls; and not content with reducing to ashes even the doors and window-frames of his apartment, they melted down all the metal vessels, whether of copper, pewter, or silver, which had been used in his service. When the records of the prison were made public, in 1789, the register was searched in vain for any thing that could throw light on this affair: the leaf which contained it had been carefully removed. If it may appear strange, that a person of no greater consequence than the Duke of Mantua's agent should have been the object of these anxious precautions, it must be again observed, that fiction has thrown false lights on the history of his fate. That Louis the Fourteenth should doom Matthioli to captivity for life, and desire that no man should hear his story, or even look upon his face, is, under the circumstances, not surprising. His crime was peculiar; he had broken faith with the government of the great monarch, and exposed his baffled scheme to the courts of Italy. Pride and rage called aloud for vengeance, and that in a way not uncommon in France at the period in question. Matthioli was to be as one dead: and though the king's hand was kept from his blood, the whole transaction fixes a dreadful stain on the character of Louis. To invent means of effecting his design was the business of inferior agents: and the walls of old state-prisons, if they could speak, would, doubtless, record various instances of fantastic and curious persecution, harassing alike to captive and to keeper, displaying the very excess and refinement of cruelty; as if men aimed at perfection in the practice of oppression, as of nobler arts. Such is the true story of the Iron Mask. It will not now be the astonishment of future ages: but it may still continue to instruct them, although its hero has descended from the rank of princes, patriarchs, and admirals, to that of a mean Italian adventurer, whose memoir may he concluded in the words of the poet ;— Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell, M. |