completely these and their broods would have eaten all the early vegetables as they got above ground, and the strawberries and peaches as soon as they began to ripen, it is at least an undetermined question, whether the good done by the thrush may not far more than counterbalance the evil. When kept in confinement, a very large cage is necessary for the health and comfort of the thrush, that it may be able to take exercise without injuring its feathers. If possible, the cage should be three feet and a-half long, and nearly as many high. Oatmeal, moistened with milk, is very suitable food for this bird: it may also be fed with a paste made with crumb of bread, rape-seed, or hemp-seed, bruised, and meat cut small. Grapes and other fruits are given by way of variety. A plentiful supply of water is required both for bathing. and drinking. When these birds are taken old, it is very difficult to make them take their food, and many die in consequence. Their fondness for bathing in companies is thus noticed by Bechstein. "They like to bathe in company, and assemble sometimes to the number of ten or twelve at once, by a particular call. The first which finds a convenient stream, and wishes to go to it, cries in a tone of surprise or joy, sik, sik, sik, siki, tsac, tsac, tsac; immediately all in the neighbourhood reply together, and repair to the place; they enter the bath, however, with much circumspection, and seldom venture till they have seen a redbreast bathe without danger; but the first which ventures is soon followed by the others, which begin to quarrel if there is not room enough for all the bathers." Water-traps are sometimes employed to take these birds, and this explains their circumspection, as noticed by our author. With care and attention the thrush may be preserved in captivity for seven or eight years; it may even be taught to whistle many airs of the bird-organ; but few persons of taste would wish to substitute other strains for those with which it delights our ears in a state of I LOVE to gaze on a breaking wave. It is the only thing in nature which is most beautiful in the moment of dissolution. To talk without effort, is the great charm of talking.— Guesses at Truth. "LOVE your neighbour as yourself," and, "Do unto others as you would they should do unto you," are Scripture commands, to be no more forgotton in language than in action. How often and how much is truth sacrificed to a good jest against another, and how many a sharp remark, which began in idle mirth, has passed from lip to lip, till it kindled an unkind feeling, and has irretrievably wounded the unlucky cause of it! It must, indeed, he a very strong love of truth, which will prevent a man's overstepping the exact fact with regard to the conduct of another, when by some exaggeration he could make a witty speech which is burning on his tongue. Yet "false witness" is more often exaggeration than a direct lie.-Truth without Prejudice. Ir is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof below; but no pleasure is comparable to standing upon the vantage ground of truth, (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene,) and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below; so always that this prospect be viewed with pity, and not with swelling or pride.-BACON. THE CONSTANCY OF NATURE CONTRASTED To life of man,-that short and fitful dream. The breeze that cooled my warm and youthful brow THE SINNER. LORD! how I am all ague, when I seek What I have treasured in my memory! Since, if my soul make even with the week, Each seventh note by right is due to Thee. I find there quarries of piled vanities; But shreds of holiness, that dare not venture To show their face; since, cross to Thy decrees, There the circumference earth is-heav'n the centre. In so much dregs, the quintessence is small; The spirit and good extract of my heart Comes to about the many hundredth part; Yet, Lord, restore Thine image,-hear my call. And, though my hard heart scarce to Thee can groan, Remember that Thou once didst write in stone. HERBERT. A COMPARISON. THE lapse of time and rivers is the same, HAPPY is he who lives to understand, WORDSWORTH. REMARKABLE SOUNDS IN NATURE. it could only be compared with a distant cannonade. As the sand gradually settled again, the noise also gradually ceased. It is also stated by Seetzen, that the noise is often heard when animals run across the sand; also, when the wind blows violently, or when loose masses of rock set the sand in motion. On the east coast of the bay of Suez, about three hours' journey from Tor, in Arabia Petræa, is a low sandstone hill, where at a particular spot is an insulated peaked rock named Nakuh, facing the coast, and rising to the height of about one hundred and fifty feet. Travellers It has been surmised, that the murmurings of El report that a remarkable and penetrating noise proceeds Nakuh are by no means confined to the bosom of that from this place. The Arabians believe it to resemble the mount; that not only all elevated regions, but other tones of the Nakuh, i. e., a long narrów metallic ruler, tracts of land under favourably exciting circumstances, suspended horizontally in the Greek monasteries, and become, more frequently than our philosophy dreameth struck with a hammer for the purpose of assembling of, instruments on which nature delights to play "sounds the monks to prayer, a method which is now nearly ob- and sweet airs;" that hills and plains, the wilderness solete hence also the tradition that a monastery is and the waters, are in her hands but as "harps whose miraculously preserved within the bosom of the hill. A chords elude the sight;" though whether this melody Greek was said to have seen the mountain open, and to be of "the air or the earth," must remain a matter of have descended into the convent, where he found luxu- mystery, whereupon wisdom yet may ponder. rious gardens and delicious water; and in order to afford proof of his descent, he produced some fragments of consecrated bread which he pretended to have obtained in the subterranean convent. The inhabitants of Tor likewise state that the camels are rendered furious when they hear the sounds proceeding from this hill. M. Seetzen was the first European traveller who visited this remarkable spot. On the 17th of June, 1810, he proceeded thither, accompanied by a Greek Christian, and a few Bedouin Arabs. About noon the party reached the Nakuh Mountain. It presented upon two of its sides two sandy declivities, so much inclined, that the white and slightly-adhering sand on its surface was scarcely able to support itself; and when the scorching heat of the sun, or the smallest agitation, disturbed the slight cohesion, it was seen to slide down the two slopes. With great difficulty the travellers climbed up the sandy declivity to a height of between seventy and eighty feet, and rested beneath the rocks where persons are accustomed to listen to the sounds. But in the very act of climbing, M. Seetzen heard a sound from beneath his knees, and was hence led to think that the sliding of the sand was the cause of the sound, and not the effect produced by the sound. He compares the sound to that of a humming-top, rising and falling like that of an Eolian harp. Thinking that he had discovered the true cause of the sound, he climbed to the highest rocks, and sliding down as fast as possible, endeavoured with the aid of his hands and feet to set the sand in motion. The effect answered to his expectations, and the noise produced was so loud that the earth seemed to tremble. In the year 1818, Mr. Gray, of University College, Oxford, visited the Nakuh, but has not added much to the information furnished by M. Seetzen. He describes the sound as being first a low murmur beneath his feet, which, as it became gradually louder, changed into pulsations so as to resemble the striking of a clock, and at the end of five minutes, the vibrations were of sufficient energy to detach the sand. He considers the grating of the sand not as the cause, but as an effect of the sound, and from the existence of hot springs in the neighbourhood, he maintains that the sound must be of volcanic origin. Those who are conversant with Alpine scenery, and ́ in the habit of strolling amidst the recesses of these mountainous regions, will readily bear their testimony to the power of avalanches for the production of those awful concussions which so often rouse attention, reechoing from every pinnacle and precipice; while, to the more gradual and gentle lapses of sheets of pulverized snow down the smooth inclined plains of lengthened acclivities, may be referred the minor moanings which rise and fall upon the ear, much resembling in character the tones of El Nakuh. Some of the most respectable authorities of antiquity agree in assigning vocal powers to the statue of Memnon, at Thebes. Strabo asserts that he heard sounds emitted; but without being able, as he says, to state whether they proceeded from the statue or the base, and that, although they certainly did appear to him to issue from the one or the other, yet he would rather believe they came from the bystanders, and was altogether an imposture, than conclude that stones ranged in such and such a manner were capable of yielding sound. Pausanias, who saw the mutilated remains of the statue when the lower part alone remained on the pedestal, speaks of it as a fact of which there could be no doubt, and compares the sound to the breaking of the strings of a lyre. Pliny, in enumerating the various Egyptian marbles, mentions this Memnonian rock as possessing the singular quality of cleaving or cracking under the influence of the morning sun. Juvenal alludes to it in his Fifteenth Satire: Where broken Memnon sounds his magic strings; and Tacitus states that Germanicus, in his progress up the river Nile, was witness to the circumstance. Notwithstanding all this evidence, the sounding statue of Memnon might have been an imposture, originating, however, partly in a natural cause. The imposture consisted in magnifying simple sounds, produced by natural causes from a stone, into intelligible words, and even into an oracle of seven verses. That sounds were produced from this identical statue, has been confirmed in modern times by Sir A. Smith and others. That gentleman visited the statue before sunrise, and at six o'clock heard very distinctly the sounds in question. He states that the sound does not proceed from the staIn the year 1823 Professor Ehrenberg visited this tue, but from the pedestal, and expresses his belief that remarkable place. He ascended from the base of the it arises from the impulse of the air upon the stones of hill over its sandy cover, to the summit, where he ob- the pedestal, which are arranged so as to produce this served the sand continually renewed by the weathering surprising effect. That some similar phenomenon had of the rock; and satisfied himself that the motion of been detected in masses of insulated stones, is a supposithe sand was the cause of the sound. Every step taken tion greatly strengthened by the testimony of Humboldt, by him and his companion produced a partial sound, whose attention was drawn to some remarkable granite occasioned by the sand thus set in motion, and differing rocks in South America, which at certain times spontaonly in duration and intensity from that heard after-neously emitted sounds much resembling those attributed wards, when the continued ascent had set loose a greater quantity of sand. Beginning with a soft rustling, it passed gradually into a murmuring, then into a humming noise, and at length into a threatening of such violence, that had it been more continued and uniform, to the colossal statue of Memnon, a circumstance well known to the natives, who, however, were at a loss for an explanation of the cause. "The granitic rock on which we lay," says the illustrious traveller, "is one of those where travellers on the Orinoco have heard from time to time, towards sunrise, subterraneous sounds resembling those of the organ. The missionaries call these stones loxas de musica. It is witchcraft,' said our young Indian pilot. We never ourselves heard these mysterious sounds, either at Carichana Vieja, or in the Upper Orinoco; but, from information given us by witnesses worthy of belief, the existence of a phenomenon that seems to depend on a certain state of the atmosphere, cannot be denied. The shelves of rock are full of very narrow and deep crevices. They are heated during the day to about 50°. I often found their temperature at the surface, during the night, at 39°, the surrounding atmosphere being at 28°. It may easily be conceived that the difference of temperature between the subterraneous and the external air attains its maximum about sun-rise, or at that moment which is at the same time farther from the period of the maximum of the heat of the preceding day. May not these sounds of an organ, then, which are heard when a person sleeps upon the rock, his ear in contact with the stone, be the effect of a current of air that issues out through the crevices? Does not the impulse of the air against the elastic spangles of mica that intercept the crevices contribute to modify the sounds? May we not admit that the ancient inhabitants of Egypt, in passing incessantly up and down the Nile, had made the same observation on some rocks of the Thebaid, and that the music of the rocks there led to the jugglery of the priests in the statue of Memnon." By a curious coincidence it happened, that Messrs. Jomard, Jollois, and Devilliers, who were travelling in Egypt nearly about the same time that Baron Humboldt was exploring the South American wilds, heard at sunrise in a monument of granite, situated near the centre of the spot on which the Palace of Carnac stands, a noise resembling that of a breaking string, the very terms which Pausanias applies to the sound in the statue of Memnon. An interesting example of sound from granite rocks, is recorded by an anonymous writer in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal. In the autumn of 1828, this gentleman, when on a tour through Les Hautes Pyrenées, formed one of a party quitting Bagnères de Luchon at midnight with an intention of reaching the heights of the Porte de Venasque, one of the wildest and most romantic boundaries between the French and Spanish frontier, from the summit of which the spectator looks at once upon the inaccessible ridges of the Maladetta the most lofty point of the Pyrenean range. After winding through the deep woods and ravines constantly ascending above the valley of Luchon, the party gained the Hospice about two o'clock in the morning, and after remaining there a short time, proceeded with the first blush of dawn to encounter the very steep gorge, terminating in the pass itself, a narrow vertical fissure through a massive wall of perpendicular rock. It is not my intention to detail the features of the magnificent scene which burst upon our view as we emerged from this splendid portal, and stood upon Spanish ground, -neither to describe the feelings of awe which rivetted us to the spot, as we gazed in speechless admiration on the lone, desolate, and (if the term may be applied to a mountain) the ghastly form of the appropriately-named Maladetta. I allude to it solely for the purpose of observing that we were most forcibly struck with a dull, low, moaning, Eolian sound, which alone broke upon the deadly silence, evidently proceeding from the body of this mighty mass, though we in vain attempted to connect it with any particular spot, or assign an adequate cause for the solemn strains. The air was perfectly calm. The sky was cloudless, and the atmosphere clear to that extraordinary degree conceivable only by those who are familiar with the elevated regions of southern climates: so clear and pure, indeed, that at noon a bright star, which had attracted our notice throughout the grey of the morning, still remained visible in the zenith. By the naked eye, therefore, and still more with the assistance of a telescope, any water-falls of sufficient magnitude would have been distinguishable on a front base, and exposed before us; but not a stream was to be detected, and the bed of what gave evident tokens of being occasionally a strong torrent, intersecting the valley at its foot, as then nearly dry. I will not presume to assert, that the sun's rays, though at the moment impinging in all their glory on every point and peak of the snowy heights, had any share in vibrating these mountain chords; but on a subsequent visit, a few days afterwards, when I went alone to explore this wild scenery, and at the same hour stood on the same spot, I listened in vain for the moaning sounds; the air was equally calm, but the sun was hidden by clouds, and a cap of dense mist hung over the greater portion of the mountain. OMNIPRESENCE. THERE is an unseen Power around, Where treadeth man-where space is found- Is round us with its crowds and cares; He writhes with pain's deep long-drawn groan; From crouching slave to royalty ON THE MORAL VALUE OF OBJECT-LESSONS. signified may not be discerned through the sign. A child IN book learning there is always a danger that the thing may acquire words instead of thoughts. To the young, the truth (bare before the sight, palpable to the touch, embodied in forms which the senses realize,) has a charm which no mere words can convey, until they are recognised as the sign of the truth, which the mind comprehends. The natural features of the country, its drainage, soils, agriculture, the causes which have affected the settlement of its have assisted in the formation of the national character, and inhabitants and its institutions, the circumstances which have thus made the history of the country, are more clearly apprehended by lessons gathered in the presence of facts scattered over hill and valley. England is so rich in historical recollections, and in the monuments by which the time, that it would seem to be a not unimportant duty of former periods of her history are linked with the present range of his observation, in order that the historical knowthe educator to avail himself of such facts as lie within the ledge of his scholars may be associated with these records, marking the progress of civilization in his native country. In all that relates to the external phenomena of the world, the best book is nature, with an intelligent interpreter; and what concerns the social state of man may be best apprehended after lessons in the fields, the ruins, the mansions, and the streets within the range of the school. Lessons on the individual objects prepare the mind for generalizations, and for the exercise of faith in its proper province. Elementary schools in which word-teaching only exists, do not produce earnest and truthful men. He who neglects opportunities of satisfying the intelligence of children on anything that can be made obvious to the sense, must be content to find, that when his lessons rise to abstractions he will be gazed upon by vacant faces. The mind will refuse a lively confidence in general truths, when it has not been convinced of the existence of the particular facts from which they are derived. It is important to a right moral state of the intelligence, that the child should have a clear perception and vivid conviction of every fact presented to its mind. To extend the province of faith and implicit unreasoning obedience to those subjects which are the proper objects on which the perceptive faculties ought to be exercised, and on which the reason should be employed, is to undermine the basis of an unwavering faith in revelation, by provoking the rebellion of the human spirit against authority in matters in which reason is free. [First Report on the Training School at Battersea.] JOHN W. PARKER, PUBLISHER, WEST STRAND, LONDON. ROTHERHAM CHURCH, in the deanery of Doncaster, Yorkshire, is a building of far higher character than might be expected to be seen in a small town. From whatever point it is viewed, it dignifies the landscape, and gives an additional charm to the scenery of an interesting neighbourhood. The town of Rotherham is situated near the junction of the little river Rother with the Don. Baxter has given the etymology of the name of the former stream: the Celtic name signifies a limit or boundary, and of the three streams named Rother, in England, one divides the counties of Sussex and Kent; another separates Yorkshire from Westmoreland; and the South Yorkshire Rother, in a small part of its course, marks the boundary of Yorkshire on the side towards Derbyshire. A Roman origin is claimed for Rotherham, and there indeed appear to be indisputable traces of the works of that people in the immediate vicinity. About half a mile from the town is a rectangular encampment, which has long been known as Templeborough (in the earliest notice it is called Temple-barrow). The intrenchments thrown around this military station have been gradually filling up, but they may still be distinctly traced round nearly the whole area originally occupied by them. This encampment is on the banks of the Don, and from VOL. XXIV the eminence it occupies, a lovely view is obtained of the surrounding country. Rotherham itself, is an old and irregularly-built town. In some of the principal streets a few modern houses are observable; but, generally speaking, the buildings are low and inconvenient. In the neighbourhood of the church, some superior houses have been erected; yet little else than that noble structure will attract the attention of a visitor at this place. The situation of the church adds to its majestic appearance; it occupies an elevated knoll, below and around which the principal parts of the town are built, so that the very foundation stones are, for the most part, higher than the adjacent houses. From a bridge over the Rother, a fine view of the western end of this edifice is obtained; but it is from an old bridge over the Don, that the most complete landscape is seen, with the church not rising from among the dwellings, but placed in majesty above them, Rhodes, in his Yorkshire Scenery, says of this spot, I well recollect this view of Rotherham Church, when it was even more beautiful, and more picturesque than it now is. The space occupied by the stream of the Don is here of magnificent dimensions, and it is often filled even to its utmost limits. At the time to which I particularly allude, from the weir nearly half-way downward to the bridge, a 766 row of lofty elms interposed a thick screen of foliage. A jutting roof, and here and there a chimney-top, were seen through openings amongst the branches: over these, wreaths of light and almost transparent smoke, rising from the dwellings below, united and harmonized the various masses; and on an elevated knoll beyond, the north and west fronts of the church, thrown into perspective, displayed the whole of their architectural grandeur. The humbler dwellings that intervened between the river and the higher parts of the town, were excluded from the picture, and all that was beheld was full of beauty. A little on the right, a weir thrown obliquely across the river, is a good feature in this part of the landscape. The water, dashed into foam, rushes impetuously over it, and circles into a thousand eddies in the capacious basin below, from whence it flows along the ample space that forms its channel in limpid shoals, and sparkling rapids. Above the weir, the eye follows the stream along the line of the Don, to where the Rother pursues its loitering course through the flat meadows of Bradmarsh, and falls into the Don at Bow-bridge. The plantations at Moorgate, and the bold eminence on which Boston Castle stands, occupy the left side of this rich landscape, and the woods of Canklow cover the remoter part of the hills, and fill up the distance. The edifice, which forms the principal attraction in this landscape, is one of the most beautiful in the diocese, and is commonly known as the church of All Saints or All-hallows. It was erected in the reign of Edward the Fourth, and a principal contributor to the work, if not the sole founder, was Archbishop Rotherham, whose heraldic insignia still appear upon it. The church is built of the red stone of the neighbourhood. It presents a complete model of the ecclesiastical architecture of the sixteenth century, when a more adorned style was taking the place of the simplicity of early Gothic architecture, but had not yet reached all that minuteness of ornament, which subsequently characterized it. Entering by a noble porch on the south side, the visitor arrives at a lofty and spacious nave with side aisles. At the intersection of the nave with the chancel and transepts, rises a tall and graceful spire, with pinnacles rising from its base, and accompanying it about one-third of its height, and crockets to the top. The head of the cross is so constructed, as to afford private recesses for the chantries, which were founded in this church, and opportunities for processions to the high altar, by having two chapels. The chapels are of the same height with the side aisles, and the clerestory windows of the nave have others correspondent with them, through which light is admitted into the chancel. The precise date of this building has not been ascertained. Its founder, Thomas Scott, otherwise Thomas of Rotherham, (from being born there,) was made Archbishop of York in 1480, and lived to enjoy his see for a period of twenty years. Anxious to promote the interests of his native place, the prelate founded a college at Rotherham, which was called Jesus College. A provost, five priests, six choristers, and three schoolmasters, were there maintained, and the parish of Rotherham is still entitled to a fellowship at Oxford, secured to it by the Archbishop. This college at Rotherham rose, flourished, and decayed, within a century. Camden, in his Britannica, praises Archbishop Rotherham, "who founded a college with three schools in it, to teach children writing, grammar, and music, which the greedy iniquity of these times," says he, "hath already banished." Part of the college buildings are now employed as an inn, and stables connected therewith. Rotherham is a place of little note in history; the only public event being the siege of the town during the contentions between the royal and parliamentary forces, in the reign of Charles the First. Rotherham espoused the cause of the popular party, and being regarded as the nucleus of the insurgent feeling in that part of Yorkshire, the royal forces were sent to besiege the town, in the month of May, 1643. Their ammu nition being intercepted by the enemy, the citizens were Their soon reduced to ask a parley, and to capitulate. estates, lives, and liberties, were guaranteed; but an exception was made in the case of the vicar of the parish, named Shaw, who had made himself so obnoxious to the royal party, that they searched for him with great perseverance, and placed their soldiery in his dwelling. By a succession of hair-breadth escapes, the vicar eluded the vigilance of his enemies, and at length fled to Manchester. At one time he lay hidden for three days without food, in the top loft of a house, a part of which was taken possession of by the soldiers, who were overheard uttering threats against the fugitive, and thrusting their swords and bayonets through every aperture where they supposed he might be. Sometimes they were so near him that his remaining hidden was little less than miraculous. This minister afterwards wrote a short account of the siege of Rotherham, which he prefixed to a sermon. In it he declares his mental and bodily anguish to have been at this time extreme, so that he determined, rather than suffer starvation, he would leave his hiding-place, and throw himself upon the malice of his enemies. While he was thus meditating, the soldiers having given up all hope of finding him there, suddenly left the building for the night, locking the doors after them. Thus a prospect of escape was given, and the vicar contrived to avail himself of it, by letting himself down into a vault below the house through a hole in the floor, (made by the soldiers themselves in searching for him,) and thence flecing to the town. Finding no safety at the vicarage, he secreted himself in another vault, where he lay upon an earthen floor, in a damp dark place, for three weeks. This noted person was one of the principal preachers of the period, holding the views of the puritans. He was chaplain to Philip, earl of Pembroke, who bestowed upon him the living of Rotherham. After the battle of Marston Moor, a committee of gentlemen of the county was appointed to assist Lord Fairfax in the management of public affairs. To this committee Mr. Shaw was made chaplain. He also formed one of an assembly of ministers, who sat in the chapter house of the cathedral to decide upon the cases of those ministers who were charged as being ignorant or scandalous, and to eject if necessary. Lord Fairfax gave him the living of Skerringham, near York, and he appears to have been a popular preacher throughout the county for the next seventeen years of his life. On the death of his first wife, December, 1657, he wrote a little volume, now very rare, called The Saint's Tombstone. A second marriage, contracted two years afterwards, connected him with some of the principal families of the county. He preached once at Whitehall before Richard Cromwell, during his short protectorate, and, strange to say, on the return of Charles the Second, he was named one of his majesty's chaplains. Hunter justly remarks that this was 66 hardly decent," and indeed, however strongly his pulpit eloquence might dispose all parties to conciliate his favour, yet it soon appeared that his style of preaching was not favourable to the change the court wished to produce, and he was ordered to confine himself to his own little church at Hull. But there also the feeling ran strongly against him, so that in June, 1662, he once more became an inhabitant of Rotherham, where, with Mr. Clayton, he continued to preach in the church until the Act of Uniformity compelled them to leave it. Mr. Shaw still continued to preach in private, and was once apprehended for so doing, but escaped without punishment. This individual, so noted in the stormy scenes of the civil war, died in peace, and was buried in the church at Rotherham, April, 1672. A Latin inscription, engraven on brass, covered his tomb, but was torn off, with many others in this church, and sold to one Andrews, a clock-maker at Sheffield. Among the numerous quaint inscriptions once existing in this church, but |