the travellers proceeded on their journey, and visiting successively Shechem, or Neapolis, Mount Ebul and Gerezim, and the Well of Samaria, arrived at Nablous, from which place they returned once more to Nazareth. It is not possible, in a few desultory extracts, to do justice to this important volume. We have endeavoured, for the information of our readers, to furnish an outline of Mr. Buckingham's tour, but have been unable to record, in an abbreviated form, any of the numerous and valuable illustrations of the sacred writings with which this work abounds. If to throw a light upon the pages of the poet, historian, or philoso pher, deserve our thanks, that writer has surely a greater claim to our countenance and acknowledgments, who, by his useful and important researches, has illustrated several of the obscure texts of a book, the due knowledge of which can only enable us to become "wise" in the best and most extended sense of the term. The volume is handsomely printed, and accompanied by excellent maps and plans of the places visited by Mr. Buckingham. Each chapter is preceded by a neatly executed vignette of the most interesting portion of the description. (Blackwood's Magazine.) THE MAN IN THE BELL. IN my younger days, bell-ringing was much more in fashion among the young men of, than it is now. Nobody, I believe, practises it there at present except the servants of the church, and the melody has been much injured in consequence. Some fifty years ago, about twenty of us who dwelt in the vicinity of the Cathedral, formed a club, which used to ring every peal that was called for; and, from continual practice and a rivalry which arose between us and a club attached to another steeple, and which tended considerably to sharpen our zeal, we became very Mozarts on our favourite instruments. But my bell-ringing practice was shortened by a singular accident, which not only stopt my performance but made even the sound of a bell terrible to my ears. One Sunday, I went with another into the belfrey to ring for noon prayers, but the second stroke we had pulled shewed us that the clapper of the bell we were at was muffled. Some one had been buried that morning, and it had been prepared, of course, to ring a mournful note. We did not know of this, but the remedy was easy. "Jack," said my companion, " step up to the loft and cut off the hat;" for the way we had of muffling was by tying a piece of an old hat, or of cloth (the former was preferred) to one side of the clapper, which deadened every second toll. I complied, and mounting into the belfrey, crept as usual into the bell, where I began to cut away. The hat had been tied in some more complicated manner than usual, and I was perhaps three or four minutes in getting it off; during which time my companion below was hastily called away, by a message from his sweetheart I believe, but that is not material to my story. The person who called him was a brother of the club, who, knowing that the time had come for ringing for service, and not thinking that any one was above, began to pull. At this moment I was just getting out, when I felt the bell moving; I guessed the reason at once-i e-it was a moment of terror; but by a hasty, and almost convulsive effort, I succeeded in jumping down, and throwing myself flat on my back under the bell. The room in which it was, was little more than sufficient to contain it, the bottom of the bell coming within a couple of feet of the floor of lath. At that time I certainly was not so bulky as I am now, but as I lay it was within an inch of my face. I had not laid myself down a second, when the ringing began.-It was a dreadful situation. Over me swung an immense mass of metal, one touch of which would have crushed me to peices; the floor under : me was principally composed of crazy laths, and if they gave way, I was precipitated to the distance of about fifty feet upon a loft, which would, in all probability, have sunk under the impulse of my fall, and sent me to be dashed to atoms upon the marble floor of the chancel, an hundred feet below. I remembered for fear is quick in recollection-how a common clockwright, about a month before, had fallen, and bursting through the floors of the steeple, driven in the ceilings of the porch, and even broken into the marble tombstone of a bishop who slept beneath. This was my first terror, but the ringing had not continued a minute, before a more awful and immediate dread came on me. The deafening sound of the bell smote into my ears with a thunder which made me fear their drums would crack.-There was not a fibre of my body it did not thrill through It entered my very soul; thought and reflection were almost utterly banished; I only retained the sensation of agonizing terror. Every moment I saw the bell sweep within an inch of my face; and my eyes I could not close them, though to look at the object was bitter as death-followed it instinctively in its oscillating progress until it came back again. It was in vain I said to myself that it could come no nearer at any future swing than at first; every time it descended, I endeavoured to shrink into the very floor to avoid being buried under the down-sweeping mass; and then reflecting on the danger of presing too weightily on my frail support, would cower up again as far as I dared. At first my fears were mere matter of fact. I was afraid the pullies above would give way, and let the bell plunge on me. At another time the possibility of the clapper being shot out in some sweep and dashing through my body, as I had seen a ram-rod glide through a door, flitted across my mind. The dread, as I have already mentioned, of the crazy floor, tormented me, but these soon gave way to fears not more unfounded, but more visionary, and of course more tremendous. The roaring of the bell confused my intellect, and my fancy soon began to teem with all sorts of strange and terrifying ideas. The bell pealing above, and opening its jaws with a hideous clamour, seemed to me at one time a ravening monster, raging to devour me; at another, a whirlpool ready to suck me into its bellowing abyss. As I gazed on it, it assumed all shapes; it was a flying eagle, or rather a roc of the Arabian story-tellers, clapping its wings and screaming over me. As I looked upward into it, it would appear sometimes to lengthen into indefinite extent, or to be twisted at the end into the spiral folds of the tail of a flying-dragon. Nor was the flaming breath, or fiery glance of that fabled animal, wanting to complete the picture. My eyes inflamed, bloodshot, and glaring, invested the supposed monster with a full proportion of unholy light. It would be endless were I to merely hint at all the fancies that possessed my mind. Every object that was hideous and roaring presented itself to my imagination. I often thought that I was in a hurricane at sea, and that the vessel in which I was embarked tossed under me with the most furious vehemence. The air, set in motion by the swinging of the bell, blew over me, nearly with the violence, and more than the thunder of a tempest; and the floor seemed to reel under me, as under a drunken man. But the most awful of all the ideas that seized on me were drawn from the supernatural. In the vast cavern of the bell hideous faces appeared, and glared down on me with terrifying frowns, or with grinning mockery, still more appalling. At last, the devil himself, accoutred, as in the common description of the evil spirit, with hoof, horn, and tail, and eyes of infernal lustre, made his appearance, and called on me to curse God and worship him, who was powerful to save me. This dread suggestion he uttered with the full-toned clangour of the bell. I had him within an inch of me, and I thought on the fate of the Santon Barsisa. Strenuously and desperately I defied him, and bade him be gone. Reason, then, for a moment, resumed her sway, but it was only to fill me with fresh terror, just as the lightning dispels the gloom that surrounds the benighted mariner, but to shew him that his vessel is driving on but, at the end of that short time, the bell would be rung a second time, for five minutes more. I could not calculate the time. A minute and an hour were of equal duration. I feared to rise, lest the five minutes should have elapsed, and the ringing be again commenced, in which case I should be crushed, before I could escape, against the walls or frame-work of the bell. I therefore still continued to lie down, cautiously shifting myself, however, with a careful gliding, so that my eye no longer looked into the hollow. This was of itself a considerable relief. The cessation of the noise had, in a great measure, the effect of stupifying me, for my attention, being no longer occupied by the chimeras I had conjured up, began to flag. All that now distressed me was the constant expectation of the second ringing, for which, however, I settled myself with a kind of stupid resolution. I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth as firmly as if they were screwed in a vice. At last the dreaded moment came, and the first swing of the bell extorted a groan from me, as they say the most resolute victim screams at the sight of the rack, to which he is for a second time destined. After this, however, I lay silent and lethargic, without a thought. Wrapt in the defensive armour of stupidity, I defied the bell and its intonations. When it ceased, I was roused a little by the hope of escape. I did not, however, decide on this step hastily, but, putting up my hand with the utmost caution, I touched the rim. Though the ringing had ceased, it still was tremulous from the sound, and shook under my hand, which instantly recoil You may accuse me of exaggerating my feelings; but I am not. Many a scene of dread have I since passed through, but they are nothing to the self-inflicted terrors of this half-hour. The ancients have doomed one of the damned, in their Tartarus, to lie under a rock, which every moment seems to be descending to annihilate him, and an awful punishment it would be. But if to this you add a clamour as loud as if ten thousand furies were howling about you—a deafening uproar banish-ed as from an electric jar. A quarter ing reason, and driving you to madness, you must allow that the bitterness of the pang was rendered more terrible. There is no man, firm as his nerves may be, who could retain his courage in this situation. In twenty minutes the ringing was done. Half of that time past over me without computation,-the other half appeared an age. When it ceased, I became gradually more quiet,but a new fear retained me. I knew that five minutes would elapse without ringing, of an hour probably elapsed before I again dared to make the experiment, and then I found it at rest. I determined to lose no time, fearing that I might have lain then already too long, and that the bell for evening service would catch me. This dread stimulated me, and I slipped out with the utmost rapidity, and arose. I stood, I suppose, for a minute, looking with silly wonder on the place of my imprisonment, penetrated with joy at escaping, but then rushed down the stony and irregular 422 Biography of Remarkable Characters lately deceased. stair with the velocity of lightning, and arrived in the bell-ringer's room. This was the last act I had power to accomplish. I leant against the wall, motionless and deprived of thought, in which posture my companions found me, when, in the course of a couple of hours,they returned to their occupation. They were shocked, as well they might, at the figure before them. The wind of the bell had excoriated my face, and my dim and stupified eyes were fixed with a lack-lustre gaze in my raw eye-lids. My hands were torn and bleeding my hair dishevelled; and my clothes tattered. They spoke to me, but I gave no answer. They shook me, but I remained insensible. They then became alarmed, and hastened to remove me. He who had first gone up with me in the forenoon, met them as they carried me through the churchyard, and through him who was shocked at having, in some measure, occasioned the accident, the cause of my misfortune was discovered. I was put to bed at home, and remained for three days delirious, but gradually recovered my senses. You may be sure the bell [VOL. 10 formed a prominent topic of my ravings, and if I heard a peal, they were instantly increased to the utmost violence. Even when the delirium abated, my sleep was continually disturbed by imagined ringings, and my dreams were haunted by the fancies which almost maddened me while in the steeple. My friends removed me to a house in the country, which was sufficiently distant from any place of worship, to save me from the apprehensions of hearing the church-going bell; for what Alexander Selkirk, in Cowper's poem,complained of as a misfortune, was then to me as a blessing. Here I recovered; but, even long after recovery, if a gale wafted the notes of a peal towards me, I started with nervous apprehension. I felt a Mahometan hatred to all the bell tribe, and envied the subjects of the Commander of the Faithful the sonorous voice of their Mnezzin. Time cured this, as it does the most of our follies; but, even at the present day, if, by chance, my nerves be unstrung, some particular tones of the cathedral bell have power to surprise me into a momentary start. JOHN BENNIE, THE GREAT CIVIL ENGINEER. AMONGST those numerous distin- JOHN BENNIE, Esq. was born June 7th, 1761, at the small village of Preston Kirk, in the county of East Lothian, Scotland; and was the youngest of a family of nine children. He had the misfortune to lose his father, a most respectable and extensive farmer, at the early age of five years, and subsequently acquired a taste for mechanical pursuits by the mere accident of becoming acquainted with the sons of Mr. Andrew Mickle, the inventor of the thrashing machine, who tenanted a mill upon the estate, and whose talents were brought into action by Mr. George Bennie, of Phantassie, the elder brother of John, and much celebrated as an agriculturist. Young Bennie's whole delight consisted in watching the labours of Mr. Mickle, but he never neglected his studies in consequence: on the contrary, his ardour for the sciences encreased to such an extent, that he did not forsake his schools until he could acquire no more instruction; and such was the rapidity of his progress, that he far outstripped the whole of his companions. At the age of eighteen he went to Edinburgh, and there acquired fresh knowledge under Professors Black were before dangerous or inaccessible; and Robison, of that university; with the latter of whom he formed an intimacy which led to his introduction to Messrs. Boulton and Watt, into whose service he entered about the year 1784; having, however, previously erected several mills with great credit to his abilities. Messrs. Boulton and Watt were not long in discovering his extra ordinary merit, and employed him, in conjunction with themselves, to erect the Albion Mills, at Blackfriars, planning and executing the machinery, which was driven by two steam engines of considerable power, and then considered the finest mill work in existence. The whole were, however, destroyed by fire in the year 1791, when Mr. Bennie commenced business on his own account, and soon afterwards commenced his career as Civil Engineer to the Crinan Canal, so remarkable for the very extraordinary labour and difficulty required in its erection; and the Lancaster Canal, famous for its aqueduct over the River Lune; every particular of which is given in Rees's Encyclopedia, article Canal. Mr. Bennie married, early in life, Miss Mackintosh, a beautiful young lady, whom he had the misfortune to lose some years since, but who left him an interesting and accomplished family. They have now to lament the loss of a second parent, who, though possessed of a constitution and frame so robust as to give the promise of a long life, sunk under an unexpected attack at the early age of sixty. The death of Mr. Bennie is, indeed, a national calamity; and his loss cannot be adequately supplied by any living artist with whom we are acquainted; for, though we have many able engineers, we know of none who so eminently possess solidity of judgment with profound knowledge; and who are gifted with the happy tact of applying to every situation, where he was called upon to exert his faculties, the precise form of remedy that was wanting to the existing evil. Whether it was to stem the torrent and violence of the most boisterous sea;-to make new harbours, or to render those safe which to redeem districts of fruitful land from the encroachments of the ocean, or to deliver them from the pestilence of the stagnant marsh ;-to level hills, and to unite them by aqueducts or arches, or by embankment to raise the valley between them ;-to make bridges that for beauty surpass all others, and that for strength seem destined to endure to the latest posterity ;-Mr. Bennie had no rival. Every part of the united kingdom possesses monuments of his glory, and they are as stupendous as they are useful. They will present to our children's children objects of admiration for their grandeur, and of gratitude for their utility. Compare the works of Mr. Bennie with the most boasted exploits of the French Engineers, and mark how they tower above them all. Compare the Breakwater at Plymouth with the Cassoons at Cherbourg-any one of his Canals with that of Ourke; and his Waterloobridge with that of Nuilly; and our country may justly glory in the comparison. Their superiority is acknowledged by every liberal Frenchman; and M. Dupin, who is so well qualified to do justice to his merits, has, in a Notice Necrologique respecting him, addressed to the Royal Institute of France, paid a tribute to the virtues and amiable qualities of Mr. Bennie, and given a brief, but masterly, account of his principal works. "Mr. Bennie," says M. Dupin, "raised himself by his merit alone. In a country in which education is general, he received from his infancy the benefit of instruction, which he afterwards knew how to appreciate. "Scotland has the glory of having produced the most of the civil engi neers, who, for nearly a century, have executed the finest monuments of the three kingdoms, and the most ingenious machines; James Watt, John Bennie, Thomas Telford, &c. seconded with so much ability by the Nimmos, the Jardines, and the Stevensons." After enumerating the works executed by Mr. Bennie, for Messrs. Watt and Boulton, and his application of steam to machinery for clearing canals, he observes |