WE have reached November, the eleventh month in the year. Our Saxon ancestors called October wyn-monat, or wine month, and this wynt-monat, or wind month. It is indeed a blustering season; and it seems as if winter and summer were in a furious contest for mastery. The cold winds come down from the north, loaded with sleet and hail, and for a time seem to exercise dominion over the land.

The tempest roars in the forest; nuts are shaken down from the trees; the leaves are scattered in the valley; the ocean is lashed into foam; all nature appears to be shadowed with gloom; and every living thing seems to shrink from the scene. The birds have already departed, or if any linger, they hurry away on a swift and busy wing. The woodchuck, the dormouse, and the chip-squir9

VOL. VI.

rel creep into their holes, and prepare for their long winter repose.

Occasionally, the black clouds are driven back, and gleams of sunshine creep over the land. A southerly wind, too, occasionally breathes upon us, and it seems as if the genial warmth of au tumn would triumph in the great contest of nature. But, as the days advance, the strength of winter increases, and we slide into December, when its dominion becomes complete. Like an unrelenting despot, it then binds the river and the lake in icy chains; it sweeps away the last vestige of summer, and marks the boundaries of its realm with a dazzling mantle of snow.

Such is November in New England. In Old England, it is still more gloomy. The thick fogs, mingling with the smoke, hang like a dark curtain over the coun

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try; the day is dwindled to the length of seven or eight hours, and the sun rises but a few degrees in the horizon. It is quite common for it to be so dark that lamps and candles are burnt in the houses during the whole day, and frequently the stage-coaches have been obliged at the same time to travel with their lamps lighted.

This gloom of nature is, however, not without its advantages. The necessity of providing for winter is taught by it to every one. The farmer lays in his stock of fuel; the house is made tight; the cattle are gathered to the barn-yard, and thus the necessities of life enforce upon the people industry, prudence, and frugality; and these virtues become established in society. Thus it is that in cold countries the people, benefitted by the rigors of their climate, become more hardy, energetic, and virtuous. Thus it is, if you travel over the world, you will find in northern countries the finest houses, the best roads, the handsomest edifices, and, indeed, the greatest comforts and luxuries of life. On the contrary, if you travel in southern countries, where winter brings no snow, and where even November is a month of flowers, you will find most of the people idle, careless, and vicious. Their houses are generally frail and poor; their clothing slight, filthy, and ragged. Everything seems marked with poverty and neglect. So it is that Providence balances the account with the different portions of the globe. Those who endure a harsh climate are compensated by the comforts and refinements which spring up in the soil of necessity. Those who enjoy a bland and smiling climate pay for it in various evils, social, mental, and moral.

There is one advantage which the cold season brings, and which we of New England enjoy in a peculiar manner. As winter approaches, we are driven into the house, and are taught to find our

pleasures there. The family circle is thus drawn closer together, and hence acquires a deeper and more lasting interest.

If children could always wander abroad, chasing butterflies, plucking flowers, and feasting upon fruits, they would feel little of that dependence upon parents, which is the source of many virtues. Brothers and sisters would experience little of that interchange of kindly offices and friendly feelings, which weave their hearts together with an enduring web of affection. Home would lose more than half its charms, nearly all its thousand streams of virtue and of bliss.

As I am quite aware that some of my black-eyed, blue-eyed, and gray-eyed readers are pretty sharp critics, and understand geography, I must qualify these remarks. In speaking of cold countries here, I have alluded particularly to those which belong to what is called the Temperate Zone; those which lie between the burning tropics and the frigid regions toward the poles. I know that the latter are occupied by short and squalid races of Laplanders, Esquimaux, and Samoides. The extreme winter in these regions seems to stint and degrade the human species.

Yet these polar people believe they are the happiest in the world. Sheltered in their icy dwellings, feasting upon blubber oil, and skimming over the vast snowy plains upon sledges drawn by dogs or reindeer, they deem themselves blessed above the rest of mankind. They probably enjoy their existence quite as much as do the languid and voluptuous inhabitants of the tropics.

A DRUNKEN fellow, being reproved by some of his friends for having sold his feather bed, replied, "As I am very well, thank God, why should I keep my bed?”

Pierre Ramus.

PIERRE DE LA RAMÉE, more generally known by the name of Ramus, was born in 1515, in a village in Normandy. His parents were of the poorest rank; his grandfather being a charbonnier, a calling similar to that of our coalheaver, and his father a laborer. Poverty being his consequent inheritance, Ramus was early left to his own resources; no sooner, therefore, had he attained the age of eight years, than he repaired to Paris. The difficulty he found there of obtaining common subsistence soon obliged him to return home: another attempt, which he afterwards made, met with no better

success.

Early imbued with a strong love and desire for learning, he suffered every misery and privation, in order to obtain the means necessary for its acquirement. Having received a limited aid from one of his uncles, he, for a third time, set out for Paris, where, immediately on his arrival, he entered the college of Navarre in the capacity of valet; during the day fulfilling every menial task, but devoting his nights to his dear and absorbing study.

This extreme perseverance and application, regardless of difficulties, obtained its consequent reward. Being admitted to the degree of master of arts, which he received with all its accompanying scholastic honors, he was enabled to devote himself with more intensity to study. By the opinions which he promulgated, in the form of a thesis, respecting the philosophy of Aristotle,-a doubt of whose sovereign authority at that time was considered a profane and audacious sacrilege, he attracted the attention of the scholars of the time, and ultimately their enmity. With the uncompromising hardihood of his character, he continued to deny the infallibility of the favorite code of philosophy, and published, in support

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of his opinions, two volumes of criticisms upon Aristotle's works.

Ramus was at first persecuted merely with scholastic virulence, but, on his further irritating his opponents, a serious accusation was brought against him, before the Parliament of Paris; and to such lengths had the matter gone as to call for the mediation of Francis the First.

Ramus was found guilty, and sentenced, in 1543, to vacate his professorship, and his works were_interdicted throughout the kingdom. This severe sentence, however, did not produce the effect desired by the Sorbonne; for, in the following year, he was appointed to

professorship in the college of Presles, and, in 1551, received the further appointment of royal professor of philoso phy and rhetoric. His opinions had, however, attracted the attention and enmity of a more powerful body than that of the Sorbonne. To contest the infallibility of Aristotle, at the same time that it attacked scholastic prejudices, was sufficient to provoke a revolution even in theology. The consequence to Ramus was implacable hatred from the ecclesiastical body, who seemed intent upon his destruction.

One of the great subjects of reform attempted by Ramus, and which created the greatest animosity against him, was that which had for its object the introduction of a democratical government into the church. He pretended that the consistories alone ought to prepare all questions of doctrine, and submit them to the judgment of the faithful. The people, according to his tenets, possessed in themselves the right of choosing their ministers, of excommunication, and absolution.

The persecution of Ramus was carried to such an extent, that, according to Bayle, he was obliged to conceal himself. At the king's instigation, he for some time

secreted himself at Fontainbleau, where, by the aid of the works he found in the royal library, he was enabled to prosecute his geometrical and astronomical studies. On his residence there being discovered, he successively concealed himself in different places, thinking by that means to evade his relentless persecutors. During his absence, his library at Presles was given up to public pillage. On the proclamation of peace, in the year 1563, between Charles the Ninth and the Protestants, Ramus returned to his professorship, devoting himself principally to the teaching of mathematics. On the breaking out of the second civil war, in 1567, he was again obliged to quit Paris, and seek protection in the Huguenot camp, where he remained until the battle of St. Denis. A few months after this, on peace being again proclaimed, he once more returned to his professorial duties; but, foreseeing the inevitable approach of another war, and fearing the consequent result, he sued for the king's permission of absence, under the plea of visiting the German academies, which being granted, he retired to Germany, in 1568, where he was received with every demonstration of honor. Ramus returned to France on the conclusion of the third war, in 1571, and perished in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, as related by Moreri in the following words :

"Ramus having concealed himself during the tumult of the massacre, he was discovered by the assassins sent by Charpentier, his competitor. After having paid a large sum of money, in the hopes of bribing his assassins to preserve his life, he was severely wounded, and thrown from the window into the court beneath. Partly in consequence of the wounds received and the effects of the fall, his bowels protruded. The scholars, encouraged by the presence of their professors, no sooner saw this, than they

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tore them from the body, and scattered them in the street, along which they dragged the body, beating it with rods, by way of contempt.'

Such was the horrid death of one of the most estimable men that ever lived. The private life of Ramus was most irreproachable. Entirely devoting himself to study and research, he refused the most lucrative preferments, choosing rather the situation of professor at the college of Presles. His temperance was exemplary: except a little bouilli, he eat little else for dinner. For twenty years he had not tasted wine, and afterwards, when he partook of it, it was by the order of his physicians. His bed was of straw; he rose early, and studied late; he was never known to foster an evil passion of any kind; he possessed the greatest firmness under misfortune. His only reproach was his obstinacy; but every man who is strongly attached to his convictions is subject to this reproach.

A Revolutionary Story.

CHAPTER III.

[Continued from page 104.]

We have related the bitter disappointment experienced by Colonel Joinly, at being deprived of the means of release from his captivity, and of even obtaining a short respite for the purpose of visiting his family; nor was his sorrow mitigated by any propitious event. Time rolled on, and the evils of his condition seemed rather to increase. The number of the prisoners had accumulated, and their miseries were aggravated by all the possible horrors of the prison-house ;-unhealthy provisions, foul apartments, and loathsome atmosphere, attended by disease and death.

His own elastic constitution was also rapidly bending beneath his various cares, his incessant labors, the impurities