indeed with those things which are grievous, our Saviour's lesson is, touching the one, be not troubled : nor over-troubled for the other. For though to have no feeling of that which meerly concerneth us, were stupidity; nevertheless, seeing that the Author of our Salvation was himself consecrated by suffering, so the way which we are to follow him by is not strewed with rushes, but set with thorns. Be it never so hard to learn, we must learn to suffer with patience even that which seemeth almost impossible to be suffered : that in the hour when God shall call us unto our trial, and turn his honey of peace and pleasure wherewith we swell, into that gall and bitterness which flesh doth shrink to taste of, nothing may cause us in the trouble of our souls to storm, and grudge, and repine at God; but every heart be enabled with divine inspired courage to inculcate unto itself, Be not troubled; and in those last and greatest conflicts to remember, that nothing may be so sharp and bitter to be suffered, but that still we ourselves may give ourselves this encouragement, even learn also patience, O my Soul."

"Concerning Faith, the principal object whereof is that eternal verity which hath discovered the treasures of hidden wisdom in Christ; concerning Hope, the highest object whereof is that everlasting goodness, which in Christ doth quicken the dead; concerning Charity, the first object whereof is that incomprehensible beauty which shineth in the countenance of Christ, the son of the living God; concerning these virtues, the first of which beginning here with a weak apprehension of things not seen, endeth with the intuitive vision of God in the world to come; the second, beginning here with a trembling expectation of things far removed, and as yet only heard of, endeth with actual fruition of that which no tongue can express; the third, beginning here with a weak inclination of heart towards him, unto whom we are not able to approach, endeth with endless union-was there ever any mention made, saving only in that law which God himself hath

from heaven revealed?"

"Whatsoever is spoken of God, or things appertaining to God, otherwise than as the truth is, though it seem an honour it is an injury."

"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." T. K. A.

MILTON AND TOWNSON.

THE following beautiful passage from TOWNSON, with the fine specimen of MILTON's genius from which the allusion is made, are worth comparing together.

We read, that, in certain climates of the world, the gales that spring from the land, carry a refreshing smell out to sea; and assure the watchful pilot, that he is approaching to a desirable and fruitful coast, when as yet he cannot discern it with his eyes. And, to take up once more the comparison of life to a voyage, in like manner it fares with those, who have steadily and religiously pursued the course which Heaven pointed out to them. We shall sometimes find by their conversation towards the end of their days, that they are filled with peace, and hope, and joy: which, like those refreshing gales and reviving odours to the seaman, are breathed forth from Paradise upon their souls; and give them to understand with certainty, that God is bringing them unto their desired haven.-ToWNSON. And of pure, now purer air Meets his approach: and to the heart inspires Vernal delight and joy :

Now gentle gales,
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils. As when to them who sail

Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow Sabean odours, from the spicy shore Of Araby the bless'd; with such delay Well pleased, they slack their course; and many a league Cheer'd with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles: So entertain'd those odorous sweets.-MILTON, Par. Lost. Another passage, scarcely less poetical, and, in moral beauty far superior, affords a still more striking coincidence The merchant, who towards spicy regions sails, Smells their perfume far off, in adverse gales ; With blasts which thus against the faithful blow, Fresh odorous breathings of God's goodness flow. BISHOP KEN'S Works.

THE MINERAL KINGDOM.

No. II. SILVER.

HAVING, in a former paper, given an account of the purest and most precious of metals, Gold, we now proceed to the description of that which most nearly resembles it in perfection and purity.

Masses of native silver have no determinate form, being found sometimes in small branches, occasionally in hair-like threads, and very frequently in leaves; in which form it is usually met with in the mines of Siberia, where it is said never to have been discovered in a state of crystallization. In the Peruvian mines, it is found in a form somewhat resembling fern-leaves; this figure is caused by a number of eight-sided crystals, so placed over each other as to give it a vegetable appearance. It sometimes assumes the form of round, rather crooked threads, varying from the thickness of a finger to that of a hair. It is rarely found in a state of purity, being frequently mixed with gold, mercury, copper, tin, iron, and lead.

Silver is sometimes found in combination with sulphur, arsenic, and other substances: when mineralized by sulphur alone, it forms the vitreous silver ore, which assumes a great variety of colours; when united to sulphur and arsenic, the mass becomes the ruby-like ore, varying in colour from deep red to dark gray, in proportion to the prevalence of either of these substances.

Silver is found both in the primitive and secondary earths, and is frequently imbedded in quartz, Jasper, hornstone and chalk. It is chiefly met with in Sweden, Norway, and the polar latitudes: when it occurs in hot climates, it is generally amidst mountains covered with perpetual snows.

The richest and most important silver-mines in Europe are those of Königsberg in Norway;. they are situated in a mountainous district, and divided into superior and inferior, according to their relative position; the beds in which the silver is found run from north to south. These mines are of considerable depth, and enormous masses of native silver are said to have been found in them.

The French mines are not so remarkable for the richness of their silver-ore as for the other minerals

they contain. That of Allemont, ten leagues from Grenoble, is one of the principal; it is situated at the height of nearly three thousand yards above the level of the sea: the veins near the surface were the richest in silver. This mine is now abandoned.

The most celebrated of the Spanish silver-mines is that of Guadalcanal in Andalusia, situated in the Sierra Morena, a few miles to the north-east of the quicksilver-mine of Almaden it was well known to the Romans, and formerly very productive. This mine furnishes the ruby-ore.

:

Silver, however, is most abundant in the centre of the Andes; for here we find the celebrated mountain of Potosi: it is of immense height, and said to be

penetrated with veins in every direction: when first discovered in 1545, the veins were nearly all of pure silver; latterly, however, little more than five drachms In were obtained from one hundred-weight of ore. the space of ninety-three years from its discovery, the number of ounces of silver extracted from this mountain is calculated to have been no less than four hundred millions.

SOUTH AMERICAN SILVER MINE.

Among the American mines those of Mexico must not be forgotten; that of Valenciana, in the district of Guanaxuato, is one of the richest: the vein traverses a slaty mountain, and abounds with silver, both native and mineralized. The mine is of great depth, and is supposed to contain a greater quantity of silver than all the other mines of that country.

Silver possesses all the properties of other perfect metals it is fixed and unalterable in the fire of an ordinary furnace, but may be volatilized, being sometimes found in the soot of chimneys where large quantities are melted. When exposed to the focus of a large burning-glass, it evaporates in a fume, which rises to the height of five or six inches, and will completely silver a plate of metal.

With the exception of gold, silver is the most ductile of all metals; a single grain may be extended into a plate of one hundred and twenty-six inches long, and half an inch broad: if reduced into leaves under the gold-beater's hammer, it is capable of still further extension: its tenacity, however, bears no proportion to its ductility, being less than even that of iron or copper. A silver-wire, one tenth of an inch thick, will scarcely bear a weight of two hundred and seventy pounds, while a gold-wire of the same thickness will support nearly double that weight.

A FABLE: by one of the Fathers.-A nightingale being taken in a snare, would redeem herself by three good words, she spoke in the ear of him who had captivated her precious liberty. The first was, not to be light of belief, nor to be transported inconsiderately by the first appearance of objects. 2nd.-Not to pursue that one cannot attain. 3.-To put out of the memory those evils, the remedy whereof is not in your power. Upon these instructions, the bird is delivered; but, desirous of making an experiment of the fowler's docility, she told him he was very simple to dismiss her so easily, for if he had opened her he would have found precious stones, which had made him rich for ever. The fowler, vexed at his loss, began to pur sue the bird through woods and forests, till, seeing she was out of his reach, he bemoaned his folly. "Art thou not a miserable man, says the nightingale, to have observed with so little constancy the precepts which concerned thy hap piness? Thou didst hope to find diamonds in the bowels of a nightingale-what but thine own credulity misled thee? Thou hast followed me-thou, an inhabitant of the earth, I, of the air-and hast pursued an impossibility. And lastly, thou art out of all hope to be able to catch mewhy trouble thyself for that which thou canst not remedy?"

If happiness has not her seat,

And centre in the breast, We may be wise, or rich, or great, But never can be blest.

ANNIVERSARIES IN JULY.
MONDAY, 22nd.

1298 Battle of Falkirk, in which the Scots under Wallace were defeated. Edward I. commanded the English in person. 1812 Battle of Salamanca, in which the French, under Marmont, were defeated by the Duke of Wellington.

TUESDAY, 23rd.

1451 Martin V. convoked a general council, to consider of the reformation of the Church.

1583 The earliest specimen of a Newspaper published in London, bears the date of the 23rd of July, and is still preserved in the British Museum; it was called the English Mercurie. WEDNESDAY, 24th.

1568 Don Carlos, son of Philip II., King of Spain, died by poison. 1797 Lord Nelson attempted to take Santa Cruz, in the Island of Teneriffe; in this action he lost his right arm. THURSDAY, 25th.

ST. JAMES'S DAY.-In the Catalogue of the Apostles given by the Evangelists, we find two persons of this name; one of whom is styled the "brother of the Lord," the other, whose martyrdom our church this day commemorates, was the brother of John, and was with him and St. Peter chosen by our blessed Saviour, to witness those more than ordinary manifestations of his power and glory that the other Apostles were not allowed to participate in. He was beheaded at Jerusalem about the year 44.

1554 Mary, Queen of England, married to Philip II. of Spain. 1666 Naval engagement between the Dutch and English fleets, in which De Ruyter and Van Tromp were defeated, and England became undisputed mistress of the seas.

OFGENER

TERATURE

THE ancient town of Whitby, in Yorkshire, owes its origin to the Abbey founded by Oswy, king of Northumberland, in 657, to discharge a vow he had made, that if God would grant him a victory over the pagan king of Mercia, he would found a monastery, and devote his daughter Elfleda, then scarcely a year old, to a life of celibacy within its walls. The building was appropriated to monks and nuns of the Benedictine order. Lady Hilda, the first abbess, was renowned for her sanctity, and various miracles have been attributed to her. Among other traditions, it is related that those curious fossils, the ammonites, which abound in this district, and which bear a strong resemblance to a coiled-up serpent, but without the head, were originally living snakes, which infested the precincts of the Abbey, but by the prayers of the holy Abbess were driven over the cliff into the sea, their heads being broken off by the fall. Another tradition is that sea-fowl, flying over a certain tract of land in the neighbourhood, had not power to proceed further, but fell to the ground, drawn down by some attractive quality communicated to the soil through the influence of Lady Hilda's prayers. Sir Walter Scott, in his poem of Marmion, introduces a party of Whitby nuns, relating their tales in a fireside conversation with the sisterhood of Lindisfarne

They told me how, in their convent cell,
A Saxon princess once did dwell,
The lovely Edelfled;

VOL. III.

And how, of thousand snakes, each one
Was changed into a coil of stone,

When holy Hilda prayed;
Themselves, within their holy bound,
Their stony folds had often found.
They told, how seafowls' pinions fail,
As over Whitby's towers they sail,

And, sinking down, with flutterings faint, They do their homage to the saint.-Canto II The Abbey was destroyed by the Danes, but rebuilt after the Conquest. In the reign of Henry the Eighth, it shared the fate of other monastic institutions of England. The ruins of its magnificent church still remain, but their beauty was much impaired, about three years ago, by the fall of the great tower, which was one hundred and four feet high. This venerable ruin stands upon a high cliff, on the east side of the town, and commands an extensive and beautiful prospect; including the town, the river Esk, the adjacent country, and the German Ocean.

Whitby is situated on the steep banks of the Esk, and is, in consequence, irregularly built. It was, at the time of the Dissolution, only a fishing village, but the erection of alum-manufactories in the vicinity, and, afterwards, the introduction of ship-building and the whale-fishery, caused a great influx of inhabitants. At the last census the population amounted to 10,429.

The manufacture of alum was brought into this 68

country in 1595, by Sir Thomas Chaloner, who erected the first alum-work near Guisborough, twentyone miles from Whitby. It had been, for several ages before, a monopoly in the hands of the court of Rome, but Sir Thomas, having, during his travels in Italy, discovered that the mineral from which it was made, was the same as one which abounded on his own estate, engaged a number of the pope's workmen to accompany him to England. It is said that, to avoid the discovery of his purpose, he was obliged to convey them on ship-board concealed in large casks. The country adjacent to Whitby, throughout an extent of nearly thirty miles along the coast, and from eight to twelve in breadth within land, is an almost uninterrupted alum rock, lying at different depths.

The ship-builders of Whitby, have long been noted for building excellent vessels, and during the last war, this trade was carried on to a great extent. It is now, however, in a very depressed state. About two hundred and sixty vessels, admeasuring 42,000 tons, belong to the port.

The northern whale-fishery was begun here eighty years ago. It has fluctuated greatly, as far as twenty vessels having occasionally been engaged in it: at present there are only two. Mr. William Scoresby, father of the Rev. Wm. Scoresby, of Exeter, sailed from this port, from time to time, during a great number of years, and was, perhaps, the most successful whale-fisher ever known; having brought home, in twenty-eight voyages, five hundred and forty whales. The Rev. Wm. Scoresby himself, before he entered his present profession, commanded a vessel in the same trade; and his well-known work on the Arctic Regions, was the result of observations made during several voyages to these seas.

The Harbour of Whitby is very much protected by several substantial stone piers, which have, within the last few years, been greatly improved, particularly the principal pier, on which a handsome lighthouse, eighty feet high, in the form of a Grecian Doric column, was built in 1831, within the short space of eleven weeks, under the superintendence of the present ingenious engineer of the piers. This pier is about six hundred yards long, and forms a beautiful marine promenade.

The cliffs on the coast are generally very lofty and abrupt, and as the sea is continually encroaching on the land, large masses of rock frequently fall, and sometimes occasion fatal accidents*.

These cliffs, especially the beds of alum shale, abound in a great variety of fossil remains. Besides the different species of ammonite, and various other petrified shell-fish, some animals of the crocodile kind have been discovered. One of the most perfect specimens of these is preserved in the Museum of the Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society, which contains an extensive collection of the natural curiosities of the district. A large quantity of jet, A large quantity of jet, likewise, is dug out of the rocks. It is found in compressed masses of from half an inch, to two inches thick. The manufacture of it into beads, rings, snuff-boxes, and other fancy ornaments, which was begun here nearly thirty years ago, has now become an important branch of business, about one hundred and fifty persons being employed in it.

A singular service is annually performed here by the owners or tenants of certain lands in the neighbourhood. On the morning of Ascension Eve, they

A singularly melancholy occurrence of this kind happened, nearly twenty-five years ago, about ten miles north of Whitby. Whilst two girls, sisters, were sitting on the beach, a stone, which, by striking against a ledge, had acquired a rotary motion, fell from the cliff, and hitting one of the girls on the hinder part of the neck, severed her head from her body, in a moment. The head was thrown to a considerable distance along the shore.

erect, in a particular part of the harbour, a small
hedge or fence, of stake and yether (that is, slender
upright posts driven into the ground, and secured by
hazels intertwined horizontally, after the manner of
wicker-work). The bailiff to the lord of the manor
attends, and a man with a horn calls, " out on you!
out on you!" whilst the hedge is setting. The origin
of this custom has been ascribed in an ancient
legend, which has been often reprinted at Whitby, to
the murder of an old hermit at Eskdaleside, about
five miles from the town, in the reign of Henry the
Second. But the authenticity of this legend has
been disputed, and the custom is believed rather to
have arisen from the ancient practice of the tenants
of the Abbey lands, meeting annually to repair the
fence of a store-yard belonging to the convent, which
adjoined the river. The legend itself, with some par-
ticulars relative to the Abbey, may be found in the
notes to Marmion, in which poem the story is thus
introduced, in the conversation previously quoted.
Then Whitby's nuns exulting told,
How to their house three barons bold
Must menial service do;

While horns blow out a note of shame,
And monks cry "Fie upon your name!
In wrath for loss of sylvan game,

Saint Hilda's priest ye slew."
"This on ascension-day, each year,
While labouring on our harbour-pier,

Must Herbert, Bruce, and Percy hear."-Canto 11.

THE PARISH MINISTER. THERE is a charm in the week-day services of a parish minister, which has not been duly estimated either by philanthropists or patriots. He, in the first instance, meets with general, and I had almost said universal, welcome from the families-at least from those in the humbler classes of society. His official and recognised character furnishes him with a ready passport to every habitation; and he will soon find that a visit to the house of a parishioner is the surest way of finding an access to his heart. Even the hardiest and most hopeless in vice cannot altogether withstand this influence; and at times, in their own domestic history, there are opportunities, whether by sickness, or disaster, or death, which afford a mighty advantage to the Christian kindness that is brought to bear upon them. It is thus that nature and Providence may be said to act as the handmaids of Christianity, by the frequent openings which they afford to its officiating ministers; and of which, if he do avail himself, he is sure to obtain a vast moral ascendancy over the people. Even his courtesies on the way-side are not thrown away upon them; and little do they know of humanity, who would undervalue the most passing smiles and salutations which reciprocate between a clergyman and his people, whether as the symptoms or as the efficients of a cordiality the best fitted to soften the asperities of our nature, and so to cement and harmonize the jarring elements of a commonwealth. And his weekday attentions, and their Sabbath attendance, go hand in hand. A house-going minister wins for himself a church-going people. The bland and benignant influences of his friendly converse, of his private and particular affection, are enlisted on the side of their piety; nor can we imagine a position of greater effectiveness than his, whence to bear on the hearts and habits of a surrounding population.CHALMERS.

Ir is an unaccountable boldness to reason against Him, who hath given us our reason, and to undermine His authority by those very powers, which were designed to promote His glory.

ANCIENT CASTLES.

As we intend to furnish accounts and engravings of various ancient Castles, a short memoir relating to English Castles in general, and to the manner in which they were built, may tend to give additional interest to the particular accounts.

Few castles, it is supposed, which are met with in our country, are of older date than the Conquest, (1066); for, although some such structures existed in the periods of the Saxons, the Romans, and possibly even the early Britons, they had by that time, owing to neglect or invasion, been reduced to such a state of decay, as to be but of little use for the purposes of defence. "In those days" (that is, of the Saxons), says Dugdale, were very few such defensible places, as we now call CASTLES; so that, though the English were a bold and warlike people, yet, for want of the like strong-holds, they were much the less able to resist their enemies."

As soon as William the First had established his authority, he lost no time in building castles throughout England, and in repairing and enlarging such as he found here; for this, he had two reasons, -to guard against foreign invasions, and to protect his Norman followers, to whom he had allotted estates, from the resentment of the former possessors. The number of castles increased, as the feudal law, which William had introduced from France, gathered strength. The castles became the heads of baronies; each castle was a manor, and its governor the lord of that manor. The great Norman barons who held their lands from the crown had their vassals, many of them English, under them; and to tyrannize with impunity, it was necessary that they should fortify themselves by means of stone walls. In the troublesome reigns which succeeded, the barons and leaders of parties resorted still more frequently to this practice, and the number of castles, towards the end of Stephen's reign, amounted to eleven hundred

and fifteen!

The lords of castles had, in process of time assumed such a dangerous degree of power, not only oppressing and despoiling their weaker neighbours, but exercising even royal privileges, that Henry the Second stipulated for the destruction of many of the castles, and prevented the erection of others, except by the King's special license. Royal castles, for the defence of the country, were, however, erected, when judged necessary, at the public expense. These, as well as such as fell to the crown by forfeiture, were usually placed in the custody of some trusty persons who were called governors, or constables. They were also occasionally confided to the care of the sheriff of the county, who used them as prisons.

1

But although a view of the generality of these rugged fortresses, destined chiefly for the purposes of war or defence, suggests to the imagination, dungeons, chains, and a painful assemblage of horrors, yet some of them were often the scenes of magnificence and hospitality,

Where throngs of knights and barons bold In weeds of peace high triumph hold; or where, in the days of chivalry, the wandering knight, or distressed princess, found honourable reception; the holy palmer repose for his wearied limbs; and the poor and helpless their daily bread.

The materials of which castles were built, varied according to the places of their erection; but the manner of building seems to have been pretty uniform. The outsides of the walls generally consisted of stones nearest at hand; the insides were filled up with fragments of stone, or sometimes, chalk, and a

large supply of fluid. mortar. When the Normans found the remains of an ancient building on a site which suited them, they often added their own work, thus leaving a mixed piece of architecture of Norman and Saxon parts, with, not unfrequently, a quantity of Roman bricks.

The general shape and plan of a castle, depended on the form of the ground occupied: the favourite situation was, for the sake of security, an eminence, or the bank of a river. The names and uses of the different parts remain to be described, for a better illustration of which we have given the annexed engraving.

The first outwork of an ancient castle was the barbican, (a word supposed to be of Arabic origin). This was a watch-tower, for the purpose of noticing any approach from a distance, and was usually advanced beyond the ditch, at the edge of which it joined the draw-bridge. The next work was the castle-ditch or moat, which was wet or dry according to the circumstances of the place: the former being preferred. When it was dry, there were sometimes underground passages, through which the cavalry could sally. Över the moat, by means of the drawbridge, you passed to the ballium or bayley, a space immediately within the outer wall. This latter was called the wall of the ballium, and was generally flanked with towers, and had an embattled parapet. The entrance into the ballium, was by a strong gate between two towers, secured by a portcullis, or falling door, armed with iron spikes like a harrow, which could be let fall at pleasure. Over the gate were rooms for the porter of the castle; the towers served for soldiers on guard. When there was a double line of walls, as in the annexed cut, the spaces next each wall, were called the outer and inner ballia. Within the ballium were the lodgings and barracks for the garrison and workmen, wells, chapels, and sometimes even a monastery: large mounts were often thrown up in this place to command the neighbouring country.

On a height, and generally in the centre, stood the keep, or donjon, sometimes called the tower. This was the citadel or last retreat of the garrison, and was often surrounded by a ditch with a drawbridge &c., similar to those at the outworks, and with additional walls and towers. In large castles, it was usually a high square tower, of four or five stories, having turrets at each corner; in these turrets were the staircases, and frequently, as in Dover and Rochester castles, a well. The walls of the keep were always of great thickness, which has enabled them to withstand the attacks of time and weather; the keep, or donjon, being the only part now surviving of many an ancient castle. Here were gloomy cells, appropriated as the governor's state-rooms; the inmates, for the sake of additional strength, denying themselves the luxury of windows. openings in the wall served the double purpose of admitting a little light, and enabling those within to discharge their arrows at the enemy. The following account of the siege of Bedford castle, by Henry the Third, given in CAMDEN's Britannia, is interesting, as containing a summary of the principal portions of the building.

Small

"The castle was taken by four assaults: in the first was taken the barbican; in the second, the outer bail (ballium); at the third attack, the wall by the old tower was thrown down by the miners, where, with great danger, they possessed themselves of the inner bail through a chink; at the fourth assault, the miners set fire to the tower, so that the smoke burst out, and the tower itself was cloven to