also, in his younger days, the late Dr. JOSEPH White, Professor of Arabic at Oxford. CASSERIO, a well-known Italian anatomist, was initiated in the elements of Medical Science by a surgeon of Padua, with whom he had lived originally as a domestic servant. JOHN CHRISTIAN THEDEN, who rose to be chief surgeon to the Prussian army under Frederick II., had in his youth been apprenticed to a tailor.

The celebrated JOHN HUNTER, one of the greatest anatomists that ever lived, scarcely received any education whatever until he was twenty years old. He was born in the year 1728, in Lanarkshire; and being the youngest of a family of ten, and the child of his father's old age, would seem to have been brought up with the most foolish and unfortunate indulgence. When he was only ten years old his father died; and under the charge of his mother it is probable that he was left to act as he chose, with still less restraint than ever. Such was his aversion at this time to anything like regular application, that it was with no small difficulty, we are told, he had been taught even the elements of reading and writing; while an attempt that was made to give him some knowledge of Latin, (according to the plan of education then almost universally followed in regard to the sons of even the smallest landed proprietors in Scotland,) was, after a short space, abandoned altogether. Thus he grew up, spending his time merely in country amusements, and for many years without even thinking, as it would appear, of any profession by which he might earn a livelihood.

His elder brother, William, afterwards the celebrated Dr. Hunter, had very recently settled as a medical practitioner in London; but had already begun to distinguish himself as a lecturer and anatomical demonstrator. To him John determined to address himself. The rumor of the one brother's success and growing reputation had probably, even before this time, awakened something of ambition in the other, with a wish to escape from the obscure fortune to which he seemed destined. John now wrote to his brother, offering him his services as an assistant in his dissecting room, and intimating, that if this proposal should not be accepted, he meant to enlist in the army. Fortunately for science, his

On his

He

letter was answered in the way he wished. brother's invitation he set out for the metropolis. was now put to work in the manner in which he had requested to be employed. His brother, we are informed by Sir Everard Home, his first and best biographer; gave him an arm to dissect, so as to display the muscles, with directions how it should be done; and the performance of the pupil, even in this his commencing essay, greatly exceeded the expectations of his instructor. The doctor then put into his hands another arm, in which all the arteries were injected, and these, as well as the muscles, were to be exposed and preserved. So satisfied was Dr. Hunter with his brother's performance of this task, that he assured him he would in time become an excellent anatomist, and would not want employment.

So rapid, at all events, was the progress which he made in the study of anatomy, that he had not been a year in London when he was considered by his brother as qualified to teach others, and was attended accordingly by a class of his own. His talents, and the patronage of his brother together, brought him now every day more and more into notice. It does not belong to our purpose to trace the progress of his success after this point. We may merely remark, that long before his death he had placed himself, by universal acknowledgment, at the head of living anatomists; and was regarded, indeed, as having done more for surgery and physiology than any other investigator of these branches of science that had ever existed.

The important discoveries, and peculiar and most original views, by which John Hunter succeeded in throwing so much new light upon the subject of the functions of animal life, were derived, as is well known, principally from the extraordinary zeal, patience, and ingenuity, with which he pursued the study of comparative anatomy, or the examination of the structure of the inferior animals as compared with that of man. study he devoted his time, his labour, and, it may be said, his fortune; for nearly every shilling that he could save from his professional gains was expended in collecting those foreign animals, and other rare specimens, by means of which he prosecuted his inquiries.

To this

In order to procure subjects for his researches in comparative anatomy, his practice was to apply to the keeper of the wild beasts in the Tower, and the proprietors of the other menageries in town, for the bodies of such of their animals as died, in consideration of which he used to give them other rare animals to exhibit, on condition of also receiving their remains at their death. His friends and former pupils, too, were wont to send him, from every part of the world, subjects for his favourite investigations. "In this retreat (at Brompton,) he had collected," says Sir Everard Home," many kinds of animals and birds; and it was to him a favourite amusement in his walks to attend to their actions and their habits, and to make them familiar with him. The fiercer animals were those to which he was most partial, and he had several of the bull kind from different parts of the world. Among these was a beautiful small bull he had received from the Queen, with which he used to wrestle in play, and entertain himself with its exertions in its own defence. In one of these conflicts, the bull overpowered him and got him down; and had not one of the servants accidentally come by, and frightened the animal away, this frolic would probably have cost him his life." On another occasion, "two leopards," says the same biographer, "that were kept chained in an outhouse, had broken from their confinement, and got into the yard among some dogs, which they immediately attacked. The howling this produced alarmed the whole neighborhood. Mr. Hunter ran into the yard to see what was the matter, and found one of them getting up the wall to make his escape, the other surrounded by the dogs. He immediately laid hold of them both, and carried them back to their den; but as soon as they were secured, and he had time to reflect upon the risk of his own situation, he was so much affected that he was in danger of fainting." Mr. Hunter died in the sixty-sixth year of his age, in 1793.

It is important to remark, that, with all his powers, this wonderful man never entirely overcame the disadvantages entailed upon him by the neglect in which he had been allowed to spend his early years.

7. says,

In Egypt the rice grounds are inundated from the time of sowing nearly to harvest: the seed is commonly cast upon the water, a practice twice alluded to in scripture. Balaam, prophesying of Israel, Num. xxiv. "His seed shall be in many waters;" and Solomon, when speaking of acts of charity in his beautiful exhortations, Eccl. xi. 1. "Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days," finely intimates, that as he who commits the seed to the waters, which is the mode of sowing in that country, always reaps after a certain interval the abundant recompense of his labor, so they that regard the sufferings of the distressed, and cast their bread upon the waters by feeding the hungry or clothing the naked, shall in no wise lose their reward, but find it after many days. This custom completely elucidates the meaning of the preacher, which has been greatly mistaken by many, who suppose that his allusion was to bread cast into the rivers or upon the waters of the ocean, which it is obvious could seldom, if ever, be found again, for substances of that kind are very soon disposed of by both birds and fishes.

In order to cover the lands with the water upon which they cast their seed, various methods are employed by the Egyptians. To raise the waters of the Nile into the high ground near the river, they use buckets fastened to a wheel, something like those used to some of our deep wells; but where the land is not much elevated above the surface of the river, they employ the simple and probably very ancient contrivance of lifting it in a basket apparently lined with close matting or leather. This is the mode represented: two men holding the basket between them by a cord in each hand fastened to the edge of it, lower it into the Nile, and then swing it between them, until it acquires a velocity sufficient to enable them to throw the water over a bank into a canal near the river. The regular continuance of their motion, gives them at a distance the appearance of automaton figures rather than of living beings. They work with only a coarse sort of cotton shirt girded round their loins, and sometimes entirely naked, exposed to the sun's most powerful rays during the whole day, repeating one of the Arabian songs; for they seem to have a peculiar air adapted to every kind of labor.

YOUNG GENTLEMEN'S DEPARTMENT.

FORMATION OF CHARACTER.

Extracts from an Address of President How, to the graduates of Dickinson College.

The great end of education, as you have often been reminded, is the formation of character; of a character marked by lofty, intellectual and moral excellence. On the formation of such a character greatly depends your usefulness and honor through life, and the reward for well doing which in the world to come you will receive from your righteous Judge. A mind richly fraught with 'knowledge, and a heart deeply imbued with the fear of God and the love of virtue, bestow on character a loveliness, an elevation and grandeur that can be derived from no other sources: and happy indeed shall we esteem ourselves, if our instructions and counsels have awakened in your bosoms a fixed determination to seek such high endowments.