Bay Company would be a little diminished. But as | body. Self-love and social are the same, says the that monopoly is injurious to the English people, poet; but the world will not find it out, till they we should not bitterly grieve at an event which have found out that in all the relations of life juswould reduce the value of the Company's stock tice is an easier and pleasanter thing than its opone per cent. posite. Mrs. Norton wants something like an agreement on this point, and thinks a vast many wise results will follow it. She thinks in short with the most reflective gaoler on record, (him in Cymbeline,) who spoke against his present profit, but with a view to higher preferment. "I would we were all of one mind, and our mind good. O! there were desolation of gaolers and gallowses." If arbitration be unobtainable, the only mode of accommodation is mutual concession; and the terms which we suggest for that mutual concession are those which, if we were arbitrators, we should award; namely, that the boundary should be the 49th parallel, until it meets the Pacific, and then the sea. Our only real claim rests on contiguity, and this would give us more than mere contiguity entitles us to. This would give us the whole of Vancouver's Island, and it would give us an abundance of good harbors. It would also give us the country which is best for the purposes for which we use it, the fur trade. The furs to the north of the 49th parallel are better and more abundant than those to the south. All balancing, however, of the positive advantages to be obtained, by the one nation or by the other on a partition, is mere childishness. The interruption of confidence for a single week costs more than the whole country is worth. A mere armament, though followed by accommodation, would cost more than a thousand times its value. What proportion therefore does it bear to a war? The poem appears to have been suggested by the birth of the Prince of Wales, (The Child of the Islands,) and was originally meant, though the date is of no importance to the subject, to have been published on the first anniversary of the prince's birth. "I designed," says Mrs. Norton, to contrast the brightness with the shadow that lies beyond and around." She proceeds to say, in words that leave no doubt of the spirit in which she has written, that if she had intended merely to illustrate Difference of Condition, she might have chosen from among those who have heaped up riches or climbed to power. “I selected the Prince of Wales as my illustration, because the innocence of his age, the hopes that hallow his birth, and the hereditary loyalty which clings to Whatever be Lord Aberdeen's policy, the op- the throne, concur in enabling men of all parties, position will, we trust, not add to its difficulties. and of every grade in society, to contemplate such The American negotiators will employ against a type, not only without envy or bitterness, but him every sort of misrepresentation of principle with one common feeling of earnest and good and facts; for though the national law of the Amer- will." ican courts and legal writers is admirable, that of their diplomatists, and indeed of diplomatists in general, is usually a tissue of sophistry and falsehood. We trust that the English negotiators will not follow their example. We trust that they will not deny every principle of law, however sacred, which they find opposed to them, and every fact, however notorious, that makes against them. From the Examiner. The Child of the Islands. A Poem. By the Hon. Post The machinery of the poem is very simple. The four seasons of the year are taken to show the features incident to each acts in the tragedy of poverty, new resources to the luxury of wealth. The baby-hero is reminded at every change of his supreme advantages, and counselled to remember the duties they impose. The sufferings and temptations of the poor pass within his view; the overwrought sempstress, the weaver at his loom, the little trapper in the mines, the homeless wanderer, the despairing suicide; and, worse than all, the cold indifference that would pass these by unmoved, as necessary evils. "A life of self-indulgence is for Us, A life of self-denial is for them; Not doomed by Us to this appointed pain- She who is supposed to speak thus, is drawn tersely and closely-from the life. THE subject of this poem is the condition of the laboring poor in England. We observe impatience in some of our contemporaries, that such subjects should be dragged into works of imagination. The objection would hold, if amusement were the only drift of fiction, or if "such stuff as dreams are made of" were not the stuff and substance of life itself. "Be what it is," says humus, "the action of my life is like it." Berkeley has said in one of his admirable books (the Minute Philosopher) that events are not always in our power, but it always is, to make the best use of the very worst. We take this to be the philosophy of Mrs. Norton's poem, and to be neither dangerous nor jacobinical. She speaks very boldly, but she speaks without offence. She desires to bring rich and poor into closer communication, by kindlier sympathies, and a larger admission of the claims of poverty. She would remind them that, whether through Eden or the Desert, the home to which they travel is the same; and it would be better for both if occasional cordial intercourse took place by the way. In this there is not much to alarm anybody; and not a She little perhaps, if they knew it, to do good to every Onward she moves, in Fashion's magic glass, zone, Scorn lighting up her else most vacant eye, Careless of all conditions but her own, sweeps that stuff along, to curtsey to the throne. "That stuff" is the silk handiwork of the miserable overtasked weaver, whom it has tempted, in his under-paid wretchedness, to crime. The incident is affectingly employed. And let those who would draw from it any false apology for sin, impute no such intention to the writer. Her views are healthy and earnest, and have no sickly sensibility of that kind. But with an honest repugnance to crime and shame, she knows what connexion there is between the wants of the body and of the soul; and is not afraid, even in the persons of the felon and the outcast, to vindicate the humanity which cleaves to all. What a striking stanza is this which follows a description of a Tyburn crowd, and the shout that arose at the punishment of the miserable felon : Not always thus. At times a Mother knelt, And blest the wretch who perished for his Or a young wife bowed down her head, and felt Her heart's ideal, heard Death's sullen chime Shivering and weeping on her fainting knee, And mourned for him who hung high on the gal lows-tree. Through the salt drops of many a bitter tear, The rainbow of your hopes shines out of all your fear! Or deny the wisdom that would suggest to the baby representative of the power and authority of England, that these things involve the question of Education also, and proclaim the timely truth that a word in the ear is better than a halter under it? Wilt thou not help to educate the poor? They will learn something, whether taught or no; The Mind's low dwelling hath an open door, Whence, wandering still uneasy, to and fro, It gathers that it should, or should not, know. Oh, train the fluttering of that restless wing! Guide the intelligence that worketh woe! So shall the Summer answer to the Spring, And a well-guided youth an age of duty bring. We think what we have quoted excellent writing; and a mark of advance in the writer. Mrs. Norton had always great fluency and warmth of verse; but in such passages as these there are the higher requisites which satisfy the judgment and imagination. The poem has its superfluous passages, and we think the Spenser stanza ill adapted to the subject, on the whole. It is a temptation to that indulgence of splendid verbiage, for which the first great writer who made it famous was quite as distinguished as its celebrated modern follower. But, all difficulties and drawbacks allowed, there is a genuine outpouring of mind and heart in this poem, which leaves us no desire to views of human life, it combines a series of scenes dwell on its defects. With large and tolerant of homely truth and deep tenderness. There is no false delicacy in its refinement of manner; never insipid, it is correct and graceful always; and there is here and there a description of nature, or a thought involving a natural picture, in just the right number of words, and most sharply and brilliantly defined. Task-work goes through the world! the fluent Turneth the mill-wheels with a beating sound, vation to such a misery as of those seven simple lines.) Mrs. Norton has no respect for scientifical objec tions to almsgiving; (it was she who wrote a series Add to all this, that the poem is interesting. It of letters on that subject in the Times which exis so, both in spirit and execution. There is ac- cited some attention four years ago;) and putting tion in it, feeling and reflection; and its aim, we aside discussions of benevolence or justice, perfect must repeat, is excellent. One of Johnson's or imperfect obligation, she asks with fervent elotoadies praised him for his fortitude in being un-quence of every class if such things should conmoved when a strong appeal had been made to tinue. his sensibility. "Fortitude, sir!" exclaimed honest old Samuel. "No sir! It was not fortitude, sir! It was stark insensibility." This is the compliment the reader will have merited, who has read Mrs. Norton's book without emotion. For example, let him turn to the death of the agricultural laborer. We can but quote a few imperfect passages. And first, what an exquisite stanza is this (at once relieving and deepening the misery) which describes him dragging his weary feet to the scene of his death Past the Park gate-along the market-roadAnd where green water-meadows freshly shine, By many a Squire and Peer's unseen abode— And where the village Alehouse swings its sign, Betokening rest, and food, and strengthening wine By the rich dairy, where, at even-tide, Glad Maidens, singing, milk the lowing kine Under blank shadowing garden-walls, that hide The espaliered fruit well trained upon their sunnier side. He is found dead, and an inquest is held, with the old result To hear, and acquiesce in, shallow words, Which make it seem the sickly laborer's fault, That he hath no accumulated hoards Of untouched wages; wine, and corn, and malt ; To use when eyesight fails, or limbs grow To hear his character at random slurred- For whom his clay-cold heart with living love was stirred : His Wife, a shrew and slattern, knowing not (What all her betters understand so well) How to bring comfort to a poor man's lot, How to keep house-and how to buy and sell; His Daughter, a degraded minx, who fell At sixteen years-and bore a child of shame, Permitted with th' immortal set to dwell! His eldest son, an idiot boy, and lameIn short the man was starved-but no one was to blame, No one:-Oh! "Merry England," hearest thou? While funeral chimes Toll for the rich, whose graven paragraph Of vanished virtues, (too complete by half,) The heirs of their importance soothe and please. The poor man dies-and hath no EPITAPH! What if your churchyards held such lines as The listless eye to strike-the careless heart to these, freeze? "Here rests in Death, (who rested not in Life!) The worn-out Mother of a starving brood: By night and day, with most courageous strife, She fought hard Fortune to procure them food: (A desert-pelican, whose heart's best blood Oozed in slow drops of failing strength away!) Much she endured: much misery withstood; At length weak nature yielded to decay, And baffled Famine seized his long-resisting prey." Oh! the green mounds, that have no head-stones o'er them, To tell who lies beneath, in slumber cold; Oh! the green mounds, that saw no Mutes deplore them, The Pauper-Graves, for whom no church-bells tolled; What if our startled senses could behold, (As we to Sabbath-prayer walk calmly by,) Their visionary epitaphs enrolled; Upstanding grimly 'neath God's equal sky, Near the white sculptured tombs where wealthier Christians lie? We reluctantly close without further extract a poem which has greatly increased our respect and esteem for the writer. Should it reach a second edition, which we will not doubt, it might be well to remove, as irrelevant and in questionable taste, the stanzas that have reference to the Free Church party in Scotland. The illustration by Mr. Maclise is extremely beautiful. SOFTENING STONE.-Whilst Sir William Burnett has been converting wood into stone, another ingenious philosopher has been turning stone into a state of almost fluidity. Mr. Ransome, an engineer at Ipswich, has brought stone almost to the consistence of paste, so that it can be moulded into any shape; it afterwards becomes hard and resumes its original character; it will receive a polish, and can so varnish wood as to render it fireproof. From the Polytechnic Review. A CHAPTER ON EYES. Of all the various organs of sense, none have so frequently been the theme of a poet's laudations as the eye. Thus consecrated, by time and precedent, as the soft expressions have become, it would be difficult to select a page of rhyme, or rhythm, epic, didactic, lyrical, or dramatic, without finding some allusion to "burning glances," "gentle beamings," or some other poetical attribute of those highly prized and certainly very beautiful little ministers to our noblest sense. Well surely they are worthy enough of all this praise; but if repetition be detractive of the beauty of a poetical sentiment, (and but few will doubt it,) then we cannot but admit that the eyes, as regards their poetic attributes, are a somewhat hackneyed theme. It has recently occurred to us, however, when musing in a kind of poetico-philosophical vein, that the subject of eyes is not yet threadbare; it has occurred to us that, without yielding ourselves up to that species of mental aberration which is usually termed poetical, without wandering in the world of dreams and spectres, and giving our imagination carte blanche over veracity, we might yet write a little about the eyes that is at once philosophical and poetical, and, strange enough to say, true withal. To be serious! How beautiful is it to speculate on the nature of light! How delightful to trace the various forms of the visual organs as they appear in different animals, variously modified as they are to suit their various exigencies! How instructive to regard the clumsy means by which, in our optical instruments, we copy the effective, though simple handicraft of nature! Understand our purpose well, then, reader. We do not intend to offer you anything like a treatise on the eye, either anatomical, optical, phycological, or physiological; no, nothing of the sort. We are now in that kind of mood to which most of us are not strangers; too indolent to study, too fatigued to keep wide awake, yet too excited with philosophical musings to sleep, although ever and anon we sink into a kind of reverie. We could not for the life of us expound the rigid principles of a system-we are disinclined, in short, at the present moment, to direct our deepest, our most serious attention, to a philosophical subject; but we would fain amuse ourselves with it a little, and if possible we would also amuse you. Very crude, indeed, were the opinions of the ancients with regard to the principle of light. Plato imagined it to consist of emanations from the eye itself, which by impinging on objects rendered them luminous; an idea poetical enough in itself, to be sure, but yet not very rational. It would serve, however, to render intelligible the expression of "burning glances," which, according to this Platonic theory, might be darted out from young ladies' eyes. Far more rational was the Pythagorean theory, that light, instead of being an emanation from the eyes themselves, was given off from luminous bodies, and impinged upon the eyes this explanation is indeed the one now usually received, including as it does two rival theories, one that light consists of actual particles, the other that it consists of waves. Whatever may be the intimate nature of light, whether it be really matter, or a motion amongst the particles of matter, or whether it be, according to Professor Oersted, merely a succession of elec In tracing the gradual development of organs throughout the animal kingdom, we shall be frequently struck with this fact, that as we proceed low in the scale of creation, functions which in ourselves require localized and complex organs, are discharged in a much more simple way. Thus, for instance, in all mammalia there is a localized respiratory system consisting of organs called lungs, for the purpose of purifying blood by means of atmospheric air-indeed, all vertebrated animals possess localized organs for this purpose, of one construction or another; but on descending the scale, we find that the respiratory organs, although still specific, become disseminated throughout the body; in the insect tribe of invertebrate animals, for example, breathing is carried on by various tubes on either side of the body: the air is no longer inspired through the mouth, but penetrates the sides; neither does it proceed to localized organs or lungs, but is diffused through the various breathing tubes. Hence the agony and ultimate death of a wasp, when its sides are smeared with oil or syrup, an operation which occludes its breathing pores, and it becomes suffocated. Here we observe one step towards the dissemination of organs for the performance of a specific function: let us descend lower still in the scale of creation until we arrive at the polyp, where there are absolutely no specific organs, either diffused or localized, for the performance of this specific function, and hence respiration can only take place by mere general absorption from the surface or the cavities of these animal bodies. Now one of the senses, namely, that of touch, is remarkable for its known diffusion. Every part of our bodies is subject to this sensation-we have no specific member for touch, although some parts of our body are more delicate in this respect than others. In some animals, however, this sensation is localized in a remarkable degree-a fact which naturally leads us to inquire whether in certain beings it may not be limited to some specific organ. Next comes the question whether or not other senses may not be subject to the same variation also-whether, in short, referring to the sense now most specially under our notice, namely, the sense of sight, it may not be in some animals diffused, and require no specific apparatus for its appreciation? It is not doubted that many animals not possessing specific visual organs, without eyes in point of fact, are nevertheless sensible of the influence of the principle of light the veretillum cynomorium, for instance, one of the polypiferæ, avoids the light, and prefers shaded situations, and yet has no eyes. Other instances might be adduced. It is imagined, therefore, that such animals see with their skin, a condition which, if true, in one particular animal or class of animals, may be supposed by some lusus or freak of nature to be occasionally present in higher creatures, for instance man; this granted, we may, if charitably inclined, offer this as a rational hint to the advocate of clairvoyance and mesmerism. Leaving these beings, which, at the remotest confines of animated nature, derive their scanty | enable us to see the facets of these compound insense of luminosity from impressions so vague that they defy our attempts at explanation, let us rise upwards in the scale of creation, and remark how variously the organs of vision are formed, how modified, how elaborated! until in vertebrata they attain their very acme of perfection. Those persons who have not been accustomed to view the wonderful disclosures of microscopic life, are but little competent to form even an idea of the myriads of living beings existing in a mere drop of water!-Nay, even vegetable infusions, and most animal and vegetable liquids, teem with life! with minute beings, often highly organized, which have not been merely observed, but actually classified, and their characters and habits-nay, even their anatomy-minutely studied! We do not purpose classifying these minute creatures, but will content ourselves with the casual remark, that most of them, if we are to believe the united testimony of numerous microscopical observers, are possessed of actual organs of specific vision; simple, it is true, and limited as regards power, but nevertheless as localized and as distinct as our own. The eyes of these living beings are little red or darkish spots, adapted to absorb luminous rays, and therefore capable of enabling the animal to distinguish light from darkness, but nothing more; the perception of various tinted hues, and of form and outline, must be to these little beings totally unknown. Eyes scarcely more elaborate than these are found in the leech and snail, animals which, although so much superior to those just described in point of dimensions, are nevertheless but little better provided for in regard to their power of vision. sect eyes; most persons have looked upon the eye of a common dragon-fly, and seen that their own face was multiplied into a number of little images: the house-fly's eye presents the same appearance, but not so distinctly. This optical appearance depends upon the existence of several facets, each presenting itself under a different angle. By the aid of a microscope these facets have been counted, and then their number may well excite our admiration. In the ant there are fifty of these facets, or eyes; in the house-fly four thousand; in the dragon-fly upwards of twelve thousand; in butterflies upwards of seventeen thousand three hundred and fifty-five have been counted; nay, in some coleopterous or scaly-winged insects there have been numbered no less than twenty-eight thousand and eighty-eight! How wonderfully constructed is this beautiful organ of insect vision! how admirably adapted to the necessities of insect life! The gaudy dragonfly, presenting, as he does, such conspicuous and tempting show of colors to the active swallow, eludes the feathered enemy by superior agility of flight. Mere agility, however, would avail nothing without the aid of powerful eyes; accordingly nature has given him somewhat more than twelve thousand bright and piercing ones-some looking upwards, some downwards, more backwards, and some on either side. Beautiful though they be, and admirable in their contrivance, we must leave the compound eyes of insects, and ascend the animated scale. One step upwards brings us to the arachnidans, including spiders, and cheese mites, and scorpions, none of which little beings are insects, although frequently considered as such-they belong, as we have inti in several important particulars: firstly, their head and thorax are joined together; secondly, they possess eight legs, whereas insects have only six; thirdly, instead of antennæ, like insects, they possess terrific weapons of attack and defence-fangs like the spider, or pincers like the scorpion; fourthly, the greater number of them respire by lungs; and last, though not least, their eyes are formed on a different plan, being invariably simple, and made up of parts almost similar to our own. Amongst the molluscous divisions of animals we have already alluded to the eyes of snails; in some other beings of this tribe, however, the visual organs present remarkable peculiarities. The cuttle-fish is an extraordinary instance of thisits eyes being entirely covered by the external integument or skin, which is transparent, it is true, and thus serves the purpose of cornea in the higher animals. The eyes of insects are far more elaborate, and present two perfectly distinct varieties or type-mated, to the arachnidans, and differ from insects they are either simple or compound. Nature, ever bountiful, though never lavish to prodigality of her endowments, gives organs only in proportion as they may minister to the exigencies of an animal: the red eyes of polygastric animalculæ, merely capable of distinguishing light from darkness, are abundantly sufficient for all the necessities of those little creatures; but for the denizens of the insect world-beings whose strength and agility are, in proportion to their size, superior to all other beings who wing their rapid flight, encompassed on all sides by ever-vigilant enemies of larger growthanother and more elaborate ocular apparatus is absolutely necessary. Their simplest eyes (for they have two kinds) are nearly as perfect as our own, consisting of cornea, lens, vitreous humor, and black pigment, which surround the other parts of the visual apparatus, except a minute portion in front, thus forming a pupil and iris-such is the simple insect eye with which some insects-for instance, the cockroach-are alone supplied. Now this eye, perfect though its optical arrangements be, is not imbedded in a movable socket like our own; therefore nature compensates for this defect by giving several of them, placed on various parts of the head. But the most wonderful arrangement consists in aggregating many of these simple eyes into one mass, thus forming a compound eye of many distinct facets, each of which takes in a separate field of vision. Some insects are entirely supplied with these compound eyes-of which the beetle is an example-whilst others possess eyes both simple and compound, for instance, the sirex gigas. A microscope is not absolutely essential to We next come to the eyes of vertebrate animals, which present all the excellent qualities that the most acute optician could desire, and which are as infinitely superior to the clumsy devices of his art as the pure light of heaven is superior to all other. One thing is particularly interesting in studying the optical devices of the eye-our most perfect optical instruments are formed after the exact principles on which have been constructed those organs: every step towards the improvement of such instruments has been the result of our copying Nature-or rather on our having followed Nature's steps-for although often plagia rists, we were not always conscious of plagiarism. In the days of Sir Isaac Newton, it was thought |