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fullest meaning were not inharmonious with the truth. It was President Gilbert, of the Institution, who himself said to Davy, "The greatest discovery you ever made, Sir Humphrey, was the discovery of Faraday."

For once in his right place, which was the Royal Institution, the blacksmith's son and ex-bookbinder entered earnestly on the work he was made to do. No more hankering after something else beside the thing in hand; a little child that has got back from ugly strangers to his mother's knee, was not more happy and contented than Faraday when he had escaped from trade, and found himself safe among the apparatus, diagrams, experiments, books, and lectures of the Royal Laboratory. In truth, it was his mother's knee; for that bookbinding business was really a great horrid stranger who had wanted to keep him away, when Nature smiled him to her side; and then all his life long she kept on showing him wonderful secrets, which he told to those who cannot come so close to her as did this boy of the Yorkshire blacksmith.

But he had much to learn first himself; and all that while he kept silence. It was in 1813 that he entered the Institution, and not till 1827 that he published his book on "Chemical Manipulation." After this he worked hard at the manufacture of a perfect glass for optical purposes; then he told us new truths about "Acoustical Figures;" and then he made his good old friend, Sir Humphrey Davy, terribly jealous by discovering the mode of liquefying chlorine gas; a striking discovery, which did away with the old erroneous distinction between "gases and vapours." Finally he arrived at his chief and destined ground of action, the almost infinite field of electrical science. His admirable papers in the " Philosophical Transactions" largely extended our knowledge of that force which, under the various name of

electricity, galvanism, and magnetism, Faraday proved to be one and the same wide-spread influence the life, as it were, of inorganic matter, involved in marvellous complicities with light, heat, and all the cosmic agencies.

It were vain so much as to attempt the merest catalogue of the victories achieved by Faraday's strong thought in this new region. No one can appreciate his work who does not know two things-the ignorance which prevailed on the subject of electrical science when Faraday began to labour, and the splendid, the aspiring generalizations which the lips of science are beginning to murmur, as the result, in a large degree, of what Faraday found out in regard to magnetism, diamagnetism, and the kindred laws that link light, heat, sound, and all the impalpable agencies which impress our nerves with the consciousness of sense.

Nor let anybody think that, as he thus unlocked for us chamber after chamber of the palace of science, he took upon him the airs of a major-domo in the golden entrances. Simple and modest to the last, as when he himself knocked at the outermost door, he was like Chaucer's gentle Clerke of Oxenforde, for "gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche." His lectures were chiefly famous for three characteristics: first, that nobody took more supreme pleasure in hearing the new and beautiful things he had discovered than he evidently did in telling them; secondly, that sooner than go one foot beyond the visible footmarks of truth, he would, though a theory were ever so tempting, wait for days, months, years-all his life long, in fact; and, thirdly, that he could talk and experiment together in such a perfect and natural way as to make the subtle elements slaves under his hands; as if they were looking up, like his audience, into his broad, strengthful, veracious British face, and listening and obeying.

CONVERSATIONAL

VERY child is early admonished of the rudeness of interrupting a person while speaking. But why this caution should be confined to children we cannot imagine. Their rudeness is the least provoking of any. It is the exhibitions that we meet in genteel society that mar our comfort most and excite our surprise. Even

FAULTS.

among adults we learn to be patient with im petuous natures, whose strong and ungoverned feelings, touched by some spark in your words, go off like bombs, past all power of restraint.

But the aggravated offenders are those who interject your conversation with comments and hints, or vexatious corrections, or meddling smartness, and so take from you all pleasure

of fluency. Just as you are coming to the nut of a story, they quietly drop a sentence which tells the whole, and leave you with only the mortifying remnants. Is it a jest that is loaded and in your hand? They slily step behind you and pull the trigger, leaving you empty as an exploded gun-barrel.

Sometimes a single word, like a drop of ink in a tumbler of water, will change the colour of a whole statement. You cannot repel it, nor answer it, for it attacks nothing, says nothing positively, but only fixes in the mind certain suggestions.

There is an infliction of this evil, equally vexatious. It is when a shrewd lip comments in your ear, whisperingly or aside, upon the remarks or address to which you are listening. It may be that you are not of a retentive countenance. A ludicrous word, dropped just right, sets you into a laugh, irresistible just in proportion to its unpoliteness. You seem to mock the person speaking, while the archwhisperer sits demurely, without blame, as innocent as a dove.

Yet less bearable are the comments of conceited persons upon some performance to which you wish to give your attention. While a symphony is performing, they interpolate it: "Sublime," "Fine, very fine, don't you think so?" "Rather dull, that." During a discourse they are perpetually setting their remarks upon your ears, bringing you back to consciousness, and to contempt. They sing in your ears like mosquitos, they alight upon you as flies in summer-days, only you are debarred the pleasure of aiming a good slap at them. It is seriously to be considered whether this is not a case where a hearty box on the ear

would not be entirely proper, moral, and reformatory?

But there is another rudeness which, if less frequent, is equally annoying. It is the rudeness of the talker, and not of the interrupter. Many will ask you a question and answer it themselves; they will find fault with you, and race forward with remarks so as to prevent any explanation; nay, they will aggravate the matter by putting stupid replies into your mouth, and then answering them. "Don't speak,-I know what you are going to say,but it is not so, for,"-&c., &c.

Many persons have a very cool way of seeing what you think, and insisting upon it;they saw it in your eyes, or in your face, and will permit no denial. Sometimes you are caught upon a turbulent stream of talk which sweeps you down in the most ludicrous way. You are whirled around, and overwhelmed with the rushing talk, which you cannot answer or get rid of or modify. A man of opposite politics pours at you for a half-hour, misstating your position, charging you with all manner of absurdities, exaggerating facts, and abusing you and your friends and your party, and all the world generally, while you are like a man being played on by a fire-engine, dishevelled, soused, half-smothered, and rolled up into a ridiculous heap.

Ought not some mark to be put upon such men, to warn every one of their danger? We mark dangerous places on the highway; we put up a sign on a broken bridge; we warn people from a dangerous ford. And yet these are lesser dangers! Why should not men wear some badge significant of their propensities? Why not put signs upon dangerous people?

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annoyed at a check I had received from an old friend of my aunt's, an aged and retired captain in the merchant service, who, hearing that I had walked home once or twice from church with his orphan granddaughter, had sent her away to some of his relations, a hundred miles off, and notified to me, in a blustering style, which savoured more of the quarter-deck than the drawing-room-" That he did not approve of 'calf-love."" I was so provoked at this tyrannical and insulting mode of procedure, that I determined to let Captain Stiff know that my attentions were not considered calf-love; for my landlady's sister, a young widow, who certainly did not look anything like ten years older than myself, and who had only three children-this lady honoured me by taking my arm on many occasions, until my Aunt Debby, coming somewhat suddenly to London, took lodgings opposite to mine, and made herself rather conspicuously cool, both to my obliging landlady and her really very superior sister.

I know it is a weakness of the female sex always to be suspecting entanglements that are to end in a church and ring; and Aunt Debby, being a maiden lady, was not without that suspicion. She was reputed to be a very sensible woman-as women go; and I certainly liked to hear her talk, for she had read and seen a great deal, and really had generally something at her tongue's end worth the saying. And I must say I had reason to love her; for she had been as a mother to me from the time of her sister's-my own mother's-death. Yes, I have a feeling, that some fellows of my acquaintance would, no doubt, call "a weakness,” for Aunt Debby; though I recollect Laura, that's Captain Stiff's granddaughter, always said, in her sweet way, "John, I respect you for your affection to your good aunt.”

But to return to the conversation over the tea-table in my room, about experience making fools wise; I was inclined, as I said, to be perverse, and to banter my aunt. I was a man now, and surely past her schooling. But when I talked about "chance," and the "lottery of marriage," I saw that she took it far more seriously than I meant it.

"Such sentiments have been the life-long ruin of multitudes," she said, putting down her cup, and looking me earnestly in the face.

"The fools, I suppose, that you spoke of?" "No, John, not always fools; for it is very strange what follies in this matter the wise commit."

“Well, you, aunt, have never committed that folly."

I had scarcely said the words, when I was angry with myself; for it came like a flash to my recollection, that Aunt Debby had been engaged in her youth to a young man of great talent and worth, who had lost his life in attempting to save a child from a burning house. I looked down and coughed, to hide my confusion, but my aunt made no comment. After a little pause, I think to steady her voice, she said,

"I was reading the life of a very great man lately, one as good as he was great; a man whose writings are valued as classics in the English language, and who was both loved and honoured by distinguished men in a learnedage; and yet he contrived to bring down ruin on his personal happiness by a foolish marriage."

I saw my aunt was now in the full current of her narrative; and I listened, I own, with interest; for a wise man's folly has ever something of tragic in it.

"Yes," she continued; "I will for the present call him only by his Christian name, Richard. He was born of humble, honest parentage in Exeter; but, being a lad of wonderful talent and application, he was the chief scholar in the grammar-school of his native place; and his diligence and attainments won him patronage, so that he entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford; and, when he was but twenty years of age, he became the tutor of two youths nearly as old as himself; one of them the grand-nephew of Archbishop Cranmer. I mention this to show you the admira. tion in which he was held for learning; and yet the esteem for his piety was even greater. When Richard was twenty-eight he entered into holy orders. He was at that time fellow of his college, and professor of Hebrew. You have read of the sermons that in ancient times used to be preached at St. Paul's Cross, London. A pulpit outside the cathedral was so placed that a great concourse of people in the open air could gather round and listen, the weathershelter over the pulpit acting as a soundingboard to concentrate and convey the voice. Some of the greatest preachers, and some of the most memorable sermons, in old and troubled times, are associated with the records of St. Paul's Cross. It seems that, near to St. Paul's, there was a certain house, at which the appointed preachers were received. It was called very appropriately, 'The Shunamite's House.' In passing now through the crowded

streets of the heart of the city, it is strange to think of the quaint edifices of old London, and to recall the tradition of the 6 Shunamite's House.' A certain Master John Churchman, a trader who had come to poverty, being a worthy man, was appointed to keep the 'Shunamite's House;' and his wife was to attend on holy men entertained there. She was certainly no Shunamite; for, instead of thinking to promote the welfare of the men of God, she thought only of her own interests. One rainy Saturday Master Richard came to this abode, having made the journey from Oxford, on a wretched horse, through dreadful roads; and so cold, wet, and weary, that never was poor traveller in a worse plight for fulfilling a preaching engagement next day. Mrs. Churchman manifested all attention, but seasoned her nursing with remarks on the great care which so infirm a constitution as Master Richard's needed. Indeed, that it was best for him to have a wife, that might prove a nurse to him.' From this-the scholar's abstraction, or his gentleness, not reproving her impertinence she proceeded to say, 'such a wife she could and would provide for him.' The noble nature that was so above all deceit, that it never understood or feared it in others, was won to gratitude by the apparent motherly kindness of this false woman, and he began to listen." "Well, but, aunt," I interposed, "to choose a wife as a nurse; that was unworthy!"

"It was indeed a great error. A man should select a companion; one, who if she were not his wife, he would like to have as his friend. However, the guileless scholar was an easy prey. He had hitherto lived in a world of his own, and so became the dupe of a sordid woman and her shrewish daughter; for it was Joan Churchman whom her crafty mother had planned should be the wife of the learned writer."

"Yes, Aunt Debby, but as she had been commended as a nurse, and so accepted, was she one ?"

"No. Had she fulfilled the promise of Mrs. Churchman, and had a reasonable care for her husband's comforts, it might have been some compensation; and yet I hold that a wife can never be merely the upper servant of her husband, without, in a certain sense, degrading him. She must, I repeat and abide by it, be his companion, if she is to uphold the dignity and honour of wifehood. Master Richard had to give up his fellowship, on marrying a woman described by one of his friends as

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'clownish, silly, and, withal, a shrew.' Soon after, a Rectory in Buckinghamshire was given him, and thither he retired with his wife. He had so many ways of filling up his time, and his temper was so perfectly gentle, that all the misery of his condition was not, for a time, felt. What that condition really was ought to be a caution to all generations. His two former pupils, who remained his dear friends, Sandys and Cranmer, paid him a visit at his parish. They found him with a book in his hand, tending sheep in the field. His joy was great at seeing them, and with all hospitality he begged them to stay the night with him; and, as he entered the house, they promised themselves the refreshment of his company; but this was not to be, for the clownish wife soon broke in on the conversation with the call, Richard, come and rock the cradle." So obvious were his discomforts, that his friends could not but observe them; and, at parting, were constrained to express their sorrow, to which Master Richard replied, If saints have usually a double share of the miseries of this life, I, that am none, ought not to repine.' Preferment soon after came. was made Master of the Temple, a post he accepted with reluctance; for in London his wife would have her unpolished relatives-and though it is true that a man does not marry his wife's family, he can be both so annoyed and degraded by them, that it becomes a prud nt man to weigh well the consequences of having new kindred. Soon after, he retired again into the country, preaching and living the Gospel in all earnestness and simplicity, but hindered, necessarily, in his usefulness; for those who could not estimate his merits, could see his mistake plainly enough; and the faults or blunders of superior people are not allowed to pass into oblivion. Great mental and spiritual consolations were granted him. His ecclesiastical writings were the admiration of the age, and a monument of diligence. Even those who differ from him have ever esteemed his talents and worth. But his domestic sorrows embittered his life. He died at the age of forty-seven; and, injudicious as he was, in one particular, he had the epithet bestowed on him of Judicious.""

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He

Oh, you have been telling me of the ‘judicious Hooker,' the author of Ecclesiastical Polity,'" said I.

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"Thank you. I think I must prove my perversity by showing that I am not so simple as you suppose. I agree with you, a wife should be a companion; and, as really valuable companions are not to be met with very easily, I can wait."

As I said this, I recollected that Laura was only eighteen. My aunt smiled, as if she was reading my thoughts; and, I added hastily, "What became of the widow of the great Richard Hooker?"

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I was going to say, "Serve her right; I am glad of it;" but my aunt added, "It will be very sad, for the best of us, if we get our just recompense." And in that I am sure she was right. I thought so then, and I know it now, as I recall, after an interval of years, the conversation of that night; and look, at the other side of my cosy fire-place, at the face of my sweet bride, Laura-an undeserved blessinga joy and a crown! All the more dear and precious, that I had to work and wait seven years before I won her.

C. L. B.

Science, Art, and History.

THE BEDOUINS.

(Continued from p. 447: See Frontispiece, p. 509).

HE diet of the Bedouins consists of various kinds of paste, made sometimes of flour and water unleavened, or of flour and sour camels' milk, or of rice and flour boiled with sweet camels' milk, or of bread, butter, and dates. Their bread is of two sorts, both unleavened; it is baked in round cakes upon a plate of iron, or by spreading out in a circle a great number of small stones, over which a brisk fire is kindled. When the stones are sufficiently heated and swept clean, the paste is spread over them and covered with hot ashes until baked. Wheat boiled with leaven and dried, and then, after a year's keeping, boiled with butter and oil, is a common dish throughout Syria. This is called burgoul.

For a common guest, bread is baked, and served up; if the guest is of some consideration, coffee is prepared for him, and behatta, or ftita, or bread with melted butter. For a man of rank, a kid or lamb is killed. When this occurs, they boil the lamb with burgoul and camels' milk, and serve it up in a large wooden dish, round the edge of which the meat is placed. A

wooden bowl, containing the melted grease of the animal, is put and pressed down in the midst of the burgoul, and every morsel is dipped into the grease before it is swallowed. If a camel should be killed (which rarely hap pens), it is cut into large pieces; some part is boiled, and its grease mixed with burgoul; part is roasted, and, like the boiled, put upon the dish of burgoul. The whole tribe then partakes of the delicious feast. Camels' flesh is more esteemed in winter than in summer, and the she-camel more than the male. The grease of the camel is kept in goat-skins, and used like butter.

The Arabs are rather slovenly in their manner of eating; they thrust the whole hand into the dish before them, shape the burgoul into balls as large as a hen's egg, and thus swallow it. They wash their hands just before dinner, but seldom after, being content to lick the grease off their fingers, and rub their hands upon the leather scabbards of their swords, or clean them with the roffe of the tent. The common hour of breakfast is about ten o'clock; dinner

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