how splendid is the sky with its multitude of stars; and how great and good and kind is the God who made them all.

Besides the moral habitudes and refinements of feeling produced by three or four years' practice in an infant school, the whole carefully identified with religious obligation, the child's intellectual or knowing faculties are also beneficially trained. The stimulus of numbers works wonders on the child, and brings out his observing and remembering intellect in a manner that will surprise his family at home. Everything which he sees fills him with wonder, delight, and ardour. Instead of his early education being confined to words, he is made acquainted with the real tangible world, and is prepared not only for instruction in schools of an advanced kind, but for acting his part as a useful and intelligent member of society.

We are aware that objections have been made to infant education in schools, but on no proper grounds. It is unsuspected by the objectors that man is a moral as well as an intellectual being; that he has feelings which require education, and that on the right training of these depend the happiness of the individual and the welfare of society, infinitely more than on the highest attainments merely intellectual. Now, the education of the feelings has been shown to be the primary and permanent object of the infant school system. It has, moreover, been distinctly laid down, that these feelings are incomparably more easily bent and moulded to good in infancy than in after-years; that after six years of age, their effectual culture is, in many cases, nearly hopeless; hence to delay it till this age (two to six being the proper period of infant schooling) would be to leave it out of education altogether; and this, to the heavy cost of society, has been hitherto the ignorantly adopted alternative.

The advantages of training in infant schools are now so generally recognised, that these institutions may be considered to rank among the accredited means of national instruction. We therefore conclude by earnestly recommending their universal establishment; and shall rejoice to know that parents, not possessing approved means of home-training, send their children to them.

As in a succeeding paper we shall treat of the management of children of an advanced age, or what may be termed the Fireside Education of a Family, we need not here extend our observations on infant management. With regard to the directions already given, we feel assured that, if followed out by a nurse or mother capable of realising them in their letter and their spirit, they would have the best effects on children, and be productive of the greatest benefit to society.*

*For a full exposition of infant management, we refer to the works entitled "Infant Treatment, under Two Years of Age," and "Infant Education, from Two to Six Years of Age," both issued in connexion with CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE.

PICCIOLA, OR THE PRISON-FLOWER.*

Ar the beginning of the present century, and during the consulate of Bonaparte, few young men of fortune made so brilliant an appearance amidst the learned and accomplished society of Paris as Charles Veramont Count de Charney. This gentleman, a type of many of his class, possessed natural powers of mind of no mean order; he spoke and wrote various languages, and was acquainted with most of the ordinary branches of knowledge. So far, his talents might be called enviable; while his fortune and station afforded him the most favourable opportunity of surrounding himself with all that could gratify his taste or desires. What, then, was wanting to render Charney happy in himself and with the world? His moral perceptions had been deadened. To a coarse mind, forgetful of everything but transitory indulgences, this would perhaps have been no source of immediate disquietude; but Charney's was not a coarse mind. He was fond of reasoning with the subtlety of a scholar on subjects of an aspiring kind-on the meaning of the universe of which he formed an atom-on creation and providence; and, blinded by prejudice, all his reasonings ended in difficulty, doubt, scepticism. He saw not, because his heart was untouched, that, reason as we will, all things-all design, order, beauty, wisdom, goodness-must ultimately be traced to one great First

This simple narrative is an abridgment and adaptation from the French of X. B. Saintine. The original, in the compass of a volume, has been exceedingly popular in France, where it is considered by the well-disposed as a valuable auxiliary in the cause of religion and morals, and, from its style, likely to influence minds who would turn away from formal treatises of natural theology. In adapting it to English readers, we have taken the liberty of modifying various sentiments, and bringing out more distinctly the facts on which the line of reasoning is founded.

Cause that all moral attributes and excellences are dependent from the throne of God.

With a mind groping in the wrong direction for something whereon to repose, it is not wonderful that Charney was dissatisfied. There was nothing on which his affections could be satisfactorily placed. The world was to him a sort of wilderness, in which he discovered nothing to love, admire, or venerate. Wrapped up in his own self-sufficiency, he esteemed no one. Heaven spread her bounties around: they were enjoyed, but not with a thankful heart.

Incapable of making private friends, Charney affected to take an interest in the welfare of an entire people—so much easier is it for a man to be a patriot_than a philanthropist. Under the impression that the system of government at the time was detrimental to public welfare, he enrolled himself as a member of a secret society, whose object was to subvert the existing order of things. The particulars of the conspiracy are of little consequence; it is enough that the projects of the association occupied Charney during the greater part of the years 1803 and 1804, and were finally discovered by the police, who extinguished them with little difficulty. These were times when no great ceremony was employed in seizing and confining persons accused of political offences. Bonaparte was not a man to be trifled with. The leaders of the conspiracy were quietly removed from their homes, condemned almost without a trial, and separated from each other. In the eighty-six departments of France there were many prisons.

It was in the fortress of Fénestrelle that Charles Veramont Count de Charney was incarcerated, being accused of an attempt to overthrow the government, and substitute anarchy and disorder. Let us behold him the tenant of one rude chamber, with no attendant but his jailer, instead of the luxurious master of a princely mansion! Yet he was supplied with all necessaries. It was the weight of his own thoughts which appeared insupportable. However, there was no escape from them, for all correspondence with the world was forbidden; and he was not allowed to retain books, pens, or paper. The ́ chamber which he occupied was situated at the back of the citadel, in a little building raised upon the ruins of the old fortifications, now rendered useless by modern inventions. The four walls, newly whitewashed, left not even a trace of any former occupant; a table of just sufficient size for him to eat from; one chair, which, standing singly, seemed to warn him that he must not hope for a companion; a chest, which contained his linen and clothes; a little cupboard of worm-eaten wood, painted white, with which contrasted strangely a costly mahogany dressing-case inlaid with silver, and which was the only remnant of his past splendour; a narrow but clean bed; and a pair of blue linen curtains, which seemed hung at his window in mockery, for through its thick bars, or

from the high wall which rose about ten feet beyond it, he neither feared the impertinence of curious eyes, nor the overpowering rays of the sun. Such was the furniture of his prisonchamber. The rest of his world was confined to a short stone staircase, which, turning sharply round, led to a little paved yard, that had formerly been one of the outworks of the citadel. And here it was that for two hours a-day he was permitted to walk. This even was a privilege; for, from this little enclosure, he could behold the summits of the Alps, which lay behind his prison, though not the rocks and forests with which they were studded. Alas! once returned to his chamber, his horizon was bounded by the dull wall of masonry that separated him from the sublime and picturesque scenery which might have relieved the tedium of the day. At the extremity of the wall was a little window, breaking alone its uniformity; and here, from time to time, Charney fancied that he recognised a melancholy figure. This was his world-where his demon of THOUGHT still possessed him; and here, by ITS dictation, he wrote the most terrible sentences on the wall, near to the sacred keepsakes of his mother and sister! By turns he directed his mind to the merest trifles -manufactured whistles, boxes, and little open baskets of fruit stones-made miniature ships of walnut shells, and plaited straw for amusement. To vary his occupations, he engraved a thousand fantastic designs upon his table; houses upon houses, fish upon the trees, men taller than the steeples, boats upon the roofs, carriages in the middle of the water, and dwarf pyramids by the side of gigantic flies! Perhaps, however, the greatest interest this victim of ennui experienced, was the curiosity he felt concerning the figure he sometimes saw at the little window to which we before alluded. At first he took the stranger for a spy, placed there to watch his movements; and then he fancied he was one of his enemies enjoying the sight of his degradation -for Charney was the most suspicious of mortals. When at last he questioned the jailer, the poor man only deceived him, though unintentionally.

"He is one of my own countrymen, an Italian," said he; a good Christian, for I find him often at prayers."

Charney asked, "Why is he imprisoned?"

"Because he tried to assassinate General Bonaparte,” returned the jailer.

"Is he, then, a patriot?"

"Oh no; but he lost his son in the war in Germany, and that maddened him. He has but one child left-his daughter."

66

Oh, then it was in a transport of passion and selfishness?" replied Charney. And then he continued, "Pray, how does this bold conspirator amuse himself here?"

"He catches insects," said Ludovic the jailer with a smile. Charney could no longer detest, he only despised him, as he answered, "What a fool he must be!"

"Why, count, is he a fool? He has been longer a prisoner than you have, yet already you have become a master in the art of carving on wood."

Notwithstanding the irony of this expression, Charney betook himself to his old occupations; and in such wearying puerilities passed an entire winter. Happily for him a new source of interest was opening.

It was a beautiful morning in spring, when Charney, as usual, paced the little courtyard. He walked slowly, as if thus he could increase the actual space which lay before him. He counted the paving stones one by one, doubtless to prove if his former calculations of this important matter were correct. With eyes bent to the ground, he perceived an unusual appearance between two of the stones. It was but a very little hillock of earth open at the top. Stooping down, he lightly raised some of the particles of soil, and now saw a little blade of vegetation which had scarcely yet escaped from a seed, which had been dropped probably by a bird, or wafted thither by the wind. He would have crushed it with his foot, but at that instant a soft breeze brought to him the odour of honeysuckle and seringa, as if to ask pity for the poor plant, and whisper that it also would perhaps some day have fragrance to bestow! Another idea also stayed his movement. How had this tender blade, so fragile that a touch would break it-how had this tender blade been able to raise itself, and throw from it the hard dry earth almost cemented to the stones by the pressure of his own feet? Interested by the circumstance, again he stooped to examine the infant plant.

He perceived a sort of soft coating, which, folding itself over the young leaves, preserved them from injury, while they pierced the crust of earth and burst into the air and sunshine. Ah! said he to himself, this is the secret. It derives from nature this principle of strength, just as birds, before they are hatched, are provided with beaks to break the egg-shell. Poor prisoner! thou at least in thy captivity dost possess an instrument for thine own liberation. He looked at it for a few moments, but thought no more of crushing it.

The next afternoon, while walking, again, from sheer absence of mind, he nearly stepped upon the little plant. Yet he paused instinctively, surprised himself at the interest it awakened. He found that it had grown in the four-and-twenty hours, and that, having basked in the sunshine, it had lost the sickly paleness he had noticed the previous day. He reflected on the strange power this feeble stem possessed of nourishing itself, and acquiring the various colours assigned to its different parts. "Yes," thought he, "its leaves will of course be of a different shade from the stem; and its flowers, I wonder what colour they will be? How is it that, fed from the same source, one imbibes blue, and another scarlet? They will so show themselves, however; for,