ings of all religious houses north of the Trent were also deposited there at the general dissolution. It was likewise the deposit for some of the royal records of chancery: A place of safety it had been considered, and such it certainly proved, till the siege of York in 1644, when the tower was blown up, and the old records were partly destroyed and partly buried in the ruins. Mr. Dodsworth had previously made transcripts from many of them, which were afterwards presented to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, by Thomas Lord Fairfax. Such of the original manuscripts as could be rescued from this unfortunate event, passed through various hands, till they at length came into the possession of the steward of St. Mary's after the Restoration.

In this outer wall were only two gateways, one of them opening into Bootham near the bar, as the present entrance to the Manor; the other opened into Marygate, and was the principal entrance. The gaol for debtors m the liberties of St. Mary's Abbey, was erected adjoining it, whence was a communication with a large room over the gateway, in which the court of the said liberties was always held by the steward. A flight of stone steps from the outside also led up to the court room, and the floor of it was neatly executed in chequered marble; but it was torn down about sixty years ago, and there is now only the outer arch of the gateway left. The prison itself has been converted into a public house, and in the walls of the cellars yet remain several iron staples, apparently designed for chaining the prisoners.

The

At the time of the Dissolution, there were in the house fifty monks, including the abbot, the prior, the sub-prior, and one novice. All these received pensions from the king according to their rank or merits. number of servants belonging to the monastery and the abbot was probably not less than one hundred and fifty. The revenue was, according to Dugdale, 1550l. 7s. 04d.; according to Speed, 20857. 1s. 5 d. The value, as taken in the twenty-sixth year of Henry the Eighth, was total yearly income, 20911. 4s. 74d. Taking the lowest of these sums, and reckoning the value of money at that period as ten times greater than at present, the revenue will appear to have been very considerable, though much less than that of Glastonbury, and a few others.

The mitred abbeys at their dissolution were for the most part granted by the king to noble or wealthy families, in consideration of service, of exchange of lands, or of the payment of a sum of money; and it was not unnatural for the new owners, under the apprehensions excited by the unsettled state of the Reformation, to hasten and complete the work of demolition which religious zeal had begun. The monastery of St. Mary was retained by the Crown; yet it shared in the fate which befel the greater part of the religious houses in England at that period. When the monks were dispersed, the church as well as the noble offices attached to it became useless. The city of York had its magnificent cathedral; and the parish of St. Olave possessed a church adjoining the monastery, fully adequate to its wants. There was, therefore, no sacred purpose to which the conventual church of St. Mary could be applied. Soon after the dissolution an order was issued by the Crown to level the church and offices of the monastery, and erect, on their site, a palace for the residence of the Lords President of the 'North. The monastic buildings furnished abundant materials for this stately edifice; and the plain as well as the beautifully sculptured stones were either chiselled to suit the purposes of the workmen, or were wrought unaltered into the walls, or buried in the foundations. had ceased to be used as a palace, a large portion of its materials was granted by the Crown, in 1701, to the magistrates of the county, to be employed in building the county gaol. In 1705, another portion was granted to the parish of St. Olave for the repairs of the church; and, in 1817, the corporation of Beverley was allowed

When it

to carry away, during the space of three years, as much stone as might be required for the repair of Beverley Minster. In the supply of materials for these and some minor works, the decayed part of the palace, the wall by the river, with those offices of the monastery which had not before been destroyed, almost totally disappeared; and so little care was taken to preserve the remains of the fine conventual church itself, that a person was suffered to erect a kiln near the venerable pile, and to burn its stones into lime.

After such repeated and extensive spoliations, it is a matter of pleasing astonishment that one stone should be left standing upon another, to mark the spot on which this once splendid establishment flourished. Many beautiful remains, which had long been buried beneath piles of rubbish, were revealed by a fortunate concurrence of circumstances.

In the year 1822, a Philosophical Society was formed in York, with so much success, that in a short time a building was required on a somewhat extensive scale. The close of the abbey of St. Mary, commonly called the Manor Shore, was suggested as a plot of ground, not very profitably occupied, at no inconvenient distance from the city, and offering a space amply sufficient for the erection of a handsome building, and the formation of an English botanical garden. It was further hoped, that if this situation could be obtained, the remains of the abbey church might be preserved from total destruction. Lord Grantham, whose family has long held the whole of the manor, or ancient close of the abbey, under the Crown, kindly consented to relinquish the portion which the Society wished to possess, and the Crown readily and graciously transferred it to the Society.

The site determined on for the new building was that on which the front part of the palace had formerly stood; and which had previously been occupied by the range of the buildings and apartments of the monastery, that usually extended in a direct line from the south transept of the church. From the appearance of the surface, it was conjectured that the ground would be found full of the ruins, perhaps of both edifices; but the first opening of the ground discovered what no one had ventured to expect; not mere heaps of mutilated stones, but considerable portions of the walls of the monastery, of spacious and elegant doorways, of columns of varied forms, rising to the height of five or six feet, standing as they had been before the dissolution of the abbey, intersected by the massive foundations of the palace; while in the intervening spaces, were scattered numberless fragments of capitals, mouldings, and rich tracery work. Of similar materials the foundation walls of the palace, upon being broken up, were found to consist. Not an hour passed without bringing to light some long buried beautiful specimens of the art and fancy of the monastic sculptor; some memorial of departed splendour to gratify the eye, to exercise the imagination, to send back the thoughts to times, and persons, and manners, long past away. Subscriptions were raised for the purpose of extending the excavations beyond what was necessary for the foundations of the museum; and the work was continued till nearly every part had been carefully examined; and if the result was not altogether such as the antiquary could have wished,-if, in many places, nothing more than the bases, or even the rough foundations of pillars, or the mere rudiments of walls, were traced,―if, in other places, nothing was found to mark the connection of various offices, or to afford the slightest indication of apartments that must formerly have existed; yet the situation and extent of the chief buildings that composed this splendid establishment were satisfactorily ascertained; and thus the ichnography of another great abbey has been obtained for the gratification and instruction of those to whom the economy of church and monastic architecture is a subject of interesting inquiry.

EARLY ENGLISH BANNERS.
II.

THE banner borne by Edward the First, as described in the heraldic poem referred to in our former article on this subject, seems to have exhibited a metaphorical

allusion to Edward's character. "In his banner were

three leopards courant, of fine gold set on, red, fierce, haughty, and cruel; thus placed to signify that, like them, the king is dreadful, fierce, and proud to his enemies, for his bite is slight to none who inflame his anger." But three other banners were carried in the English army at the siege which this poem celebrates. These were connected with the religious feelings of the populace, and one of them afterwards became the national banner of this country. They were the banners of St. George, the tutelar saint of England; St. Edmund, king of the West Saxons; and St. Edward the Confessor.

The banner of St. George (fig. 15) is still borne as part of the English flag, but from the manner in which it has been amalgamated with the crosses of St. Andrew and St. Patrick, it has lost all its purity. Two banners seem to have been appropriated to St. Edmund, (figs. 16

and 17,) the first bearing three crowns, the second representing the temptation of our first parents, and above the tree a figure of a lamb, to which the following allusion is made in the poem:

Off Adamys synne was wasshe a way the rust Be vertu only off this lambys blood, The serpentys venym and al flesshly lust Sathan outraied, ageyn man most wood. Tyme when this lamb was offred on the rood, For our redemption, to which havyng reward This hooly martir, this blyssyd king so good Bar this lamb hiest a loffte in his standard. The banner of Edward the Confessor is represented at fig. 18. It also appears that the banner of St. John 17

18

tened to a staff five yards in length. All the pipes of it were of silver, to be slipped on along the banner staff, and at the top was a little silver cross, and a goodly banner cloth pertaining to it. The middle of the banner cloth was of white velvet, half a yard square, with a cross of silver velvet over it; and within the said white velvet was the relic wherewith St. Cuthbert covered the chalice when he said mass; and the residue of the banner cloth was of crimson velvet, embroidered all over with gold and green silk most sumptuously. It was not carried out but on his anniversary, and some other principal festivals, in procession. It was the clerk's office to wait on it in his surplice with a fair red painted staff, having a fork or cleft in the upper end, which cleft was lined with soft silk, having a down under the silk to prevent hurting or bruising the pipes of the banner, to take it down and raise it up again, by reason of the weightiness thereof. There were always four men to wait on it, besides the clerk and divers who carried it. The last wore a strong girdle of white leather, to which the banner was fastened by two pieces of the same, having at each of them a socket of horn to put the end of the banner staff into.

The use of ecclesiastical banners was very common at public ceremonies, though instances of the employment of other than those of St. George, St. Edmund, and St. Edward, are comparatively rare. Yet those of St. Cuthbert and others were occasionally called for. Thus, when the Earl of Surrey was adopting measures for the defence of the northern parts of the kingdom, in 1513, it is said, "The erle harde masse, and appoynted with the prior for Saincte Culberd's banner." From the Siege of Carlaverock we also learn that a pennon hung out by the besieged, was the signal for a parley. "And when they saw that they could not hold out any longer, the companions requested a parley, and put out a pennon." On the surrender of a castle, it was usual to place on its battlements the banners of the king, St. George, St. Edmund, and St. Edward, together with those of the marshal and constable of the army, and of the individual to whose custody it was committed. Le Fevre, Seigneur de St. Remy, in his account of the battle of Agincourt, speaks of another religious banner, that of the Trinity, as being borne by the English army on that occasion. This banner of the Trinity is inferred from the painting of the arms of the Trinity in Canterbury Cathedral, and is represented at fig. 19.

of Beverley was borne by one of the vicars of Beverley College, in the twenty-fourth of Edward the First; and that this vicar received eightpence-halfpenny a day as his wages, to carry it after the king, and one penny a day to carry it back. The banner of St. Cuthbert was likewise carried in the English army in the Scottish wars, and was borne by a monk. Of this banner we have the following description. The banner was fas

At fig. 20 is represented the triangular pennon of Ralph, lord Neville, which was affixed to his lance, and charged with his arms.

In the illuminated copies of FROISSART's Chronicle is a drawing of a fleet, with French and English knights under the Duke of Bourbon, proceeding against Barbary. On the top of the largest vessel is a man-at-arms, holding a banner of France, modern; and the top itself is painted with the arms of France. Two trumpeters sit in the stern, and a banner of the same arms is suspended from each instrument. This custom was a universal one in the picture of the proclamation of a truce between England and France, the person reading it is seated on horseback; he is supported on each side by a

man who is also mounted; the one on the right hand holds a trumpet erect over his shoulder, from which flows a banner of the arms of France, modern; whilst to the trumpet of the person on the left hand a similar banner of the arms of England is affixed.

At the battle of Agincourt, the Duke of Brabant, who arrived on the field towards the close of the conflict, is said by St. Remy to have taken one of the banners from his trumpeters, and cutting a hole in the middle, made a surcoat of arms of it; to which circumstance Shakspeare alludes:

I will a banner from a trumpet take,

And use it for my haste.

Chaucer also says:

On every trump hanging a brode bannere
Of fine tartarium, full richly bete,
Every trumpet his lordis armes bere.

In the painting, in the meeting-room of the Society of Antiquaries, of the voyage of Henry the Eighth from Dover to Calais, in 1520, the only banners or pennons which appear are those of St. George, with the exception of one or two of the royal arms. The pennon is swallow-tailed, which still continues to be the form of the regular pendant supplied to Her Majesty's ships, though it is now formed of three stripes, blue, white, and red, with the ensign of St. George in the part nearest the staff; but which, however, is seldom used. A very long narrow streamer is borne instead, with St. George's cross in the upper part, and the remainder either red, blue, or white, as the colour of the ensign may be, which depends upon the squadron to which the admiral, under whose orders she is placed, belongs.

Heralds when despatched on missions, appear, in the fifteenth century, to have carried a banner of their sovereign's arms. Banners were likewise placed on tents, or the tents were themselves embroidered with heraldic devices.

And there they pyght there tentys a down,
That were embroudyd with armys gay:
First, the kynges tente with the crown

And all othere lordes in good aray.

Besides national and personal banners, the banners of trade companies were borne in battle at the period now referred to. Several different banners were some

times appropriated by the same person. Thus Henry the Seventh at Bosworth Field used the standards thus described: "With great pompe and triomphe he roade through the cytie to the cathedral church of St. Paul, wher he offred his three standardes. In the one was the image of St. George; in the second was a red firye dragon beaten upon white and green sarcenet; the third was of yelowe tarterne, in the which was peinted a donne kowe."

In

The office of banner-bearer or bannerer was always one of great honour. In 1361, Edward the Third granted Sir Guy de Bryan two hundred marks a year for life, for having discreetly borne the king's banner at the siege of Calais, in 1347; and at the battle of Agincourt, Thomas Strickland, who bore the banner of St. George, subsequently urged the fact of his having done so as grounds for remuneration from Henry the Sixth. On the disembarkment of the army before Harfleur, in 1415, it is said that "the standards and banners, and other ensigns," were intrusted to such men as the king knew to be "of great prowess and strength." France the office of bearer of the Oriflamme was hereditary; while in other countries the right of carrying the royal standard was conferred only upon persons of distinguished valour. Henry the Eighth appointed Sir Anthony Browne, Knight of the Garter and Master of the Horse, Standard Bearer of England; and the office is still borne by one of his descendants. The length of banners, standards, pennons, &c., was regulated according to fixed rules, the king's being eight or nine yards long, the dukes' seven, the earls' six, the barons' five, &c. Previous to the Revolution, it was a matter of great care and study to observe that the proper banners

should be borne at funerals, it being customary for an officer-at-arms to superintend the arrangements on such occasions. The subject is now generally neglected, and it has been remarked, that where an attempt is made to exhibit armorial ensigns on public occasions, the result is generally a display of ignorance of the laws of arms.

DECAY AND RENOVATION.

THE myriads of generations of plants and animals that have lived and died, and added their substance to the soil, would be sad incumbrances on the face of this fair world, were there not means devised for rendering the matter they contain, and which is no longer useful to themselves, useful to their survivors. This is done by those plants especially which require rich soil and much manure for their support, and which thus, living on the dead, bring back to us again, in the form of fairest fruits and flowers, the refuse filth and offal that are cast upon the dung-heap.

See dying vegetables life sustain,

See life dissolving vegetate again:

All forms that perish other forms supply,

(By turns we catch the vital breath, and die,)
Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne,

They rise, they break, and to that sea return.-POPE.

Were it not for such natural transmutators; were matter once eaten, uneatable again; were it not that the present generation lives upon the past, as succeeding generations will live upon the present; were it not that the same atoms are digested over and over again, the whole earth might be in time devoured, and its inhabitants starve amidst the wreck they had made.

Putrefaction and decay are naturally regarded with disgust; and the admirable process of corruption too often

turned from with horror. But dissolution is not destruction, and few secrets are more wonderful than those which such a change reveals: for it shows the first and the last of a series of extraordinary events, the earliest and the latest of those mysterious transformations that all organic beings undergo; and by which creatures, old, decrepid, and worn out, are, as it were by natural magic, converted into others young, vigorous, and strong. Thus nature is renewed, and death, so much dreaded as a destroyer, should rather be looked on as the renovator of the world.-BURNETT's Outlines of Botany.

IF you are handsome, do handsome things; if deformed, supply the defects of nature by your virtues.

LAY in wisdom as the store for your journey from youth to old age, for it is the most certain possession.

ABSOLUTE disbelief implies knowledge: it is the knowledge that such or such a thing is not true. If the mind adinit a proposition without any desire for knowledge concerning it, this is credulity. If it is open to receive the proposition, but feels ignorance concerning it, this is doubt. In proportion as knowledge increases, doubt diminishes, and belief, or disbelief, strengthens. No one ought to profess to disbelieve any proposition, unless he is sure that he perfectly understands the subject to which it relates. To do so is the most absurd presumption. Those who profess to doubt the truth of important propositions, thereby acknowledge their ignorance; they ought, therefore, not to rest till they have sought information by every possible means.- Elements of Thought.

PLATO says, that though knowledge and truth be both of them excellent things, yet he that shall conclude the chief good to be something that transcends them both, will not be mistaken. For as light, and sight, or the seeing faculty, may both of them rightly be said to be soliform things, or of kin to the sun, but neither of them to be the sun itself; so knowledge and truth may likewise, both of them, be said to be of kin to the chief good, but neither of them to be that chief good itself; but this is still to be looked upon as a thing more august and honourable. In all which of Plato's, there seems to be little more than what may be is a certain life, or vital and moral disposition of the soul, experimentally found within ourselves; namely, that there which is much more inwardly and thoroughly satisfactory, not only than sensual pleasures, but also, than all knowledge and speculation whatever.-CUDWORTH.

EARLY ENGLISH BANNERS.
II.

THE banner borne by Edward the First, as described in the heraldic poem referred to in our former article on this subject, seems to have exhibited a metaphorical allusion to Edward's character. "In his banner were three leopards courant, of fine gold set on, red, fierce, haughty, and cruel; thus placed to signify that, like them, the king is dreadful, fierce, and proud to his enemies, for his bite is slight to none who inflame his anger." But three other banners were carried in the English army at the siege which this poem celebrates. These were connected with the religious feelings of the populace, and one of them afterwards became the national banner of this country. They were the banners of St. George, the tutelar saint of England; St. Edmund, king of the West Saxons; and St. Edward the Confessor.

tened to a staff five yards in length. All the pipes of it were of silver, to be slipped on along the banner staff, and at the top was a little silver cross, and a goodly banner cloth pertaining to it. The middle of the banner cloth was of white velvet, half a yard square, with a cross of silver velvet over it; and within the said white velvet was the relic wherewith St. Cuthbert covered the chalice when he said mass; and the residue of the banner cloth was of crimson velvet, embroidered all over with gold and green silk most sumptuously. It was not carried out but on his anniversary, and some other principal festivals, in procession. It was the clerk's office to wait on it in his surplice with a fair red painted staff, having a fork or cleft in the upper end, which cleft was lined with soft silk, having a down under the silk to prevent hurting or bruising the pipes of the banner, to take it down and raise it up again, by reason of the weightiness thereof. There were always four men to wait on it, besides the clerk and divers who carried it. The last wore a strong girdle of white leather, to which the banner was fastened by two pieces of the same, having at each of them a socket of horn to put the end of the banner staff into.

The use of ecclesiastical banners was very common at public ceremonies, though instances of the employment of other than those of St. George, St. Edmund, and St. Edward, are comparatively rare. Yet those of St. Cuthbert and others were occasionally called for. Thus, when the Earl of Surrey was adopting measures for the defence of the northern parts of the kingdom, in 1513, it is said, "The erle harde masse, and appoynted with the prior for Saincte Culberd's banner." From the Siege of Carlaverock we also learn that a pennon hung out by the besieged, was the signal for a parley. "And when they saw that they could not hold out any longer, the companions requested a parley, and put out a pennon." On the surrender of a castle, it was usual to place on its battlements the banners of the king, St. George, St. Edmund, and St. Edward, together with those of the marshal and constable of the army, and of the individual to whose custody it was committed. Le Fevre, Seigneur de St. Remy, in his account of the battle of Agincourt, speaks of another religious banner, that of the Trinity, as being borne by the English army on that occasion. This banner of the Trinity is inferred from the painting of the arms of the Trinity in Canterbury Cathedral, and is represented at fig. 19.

Off Adamys synne was wasshe a way the rust Be vertu only off this lambys blood, The serpentys venym and al flesshly lust Sathan outraied, ageyn man most wood. Tyme when this lamb was offred on the rood, For our redemption, to which havyng reward This hooly martir, this blyssyd king so good Bar this lamb hiest a loffte in his standard. The banner of Edward the Confessor is represented at fig. 18. It also appears that the banner of St. John 17

18

নাক

I

of Beverley was borne by one of the vicars of Beverley College, in the twenty-fourth of Edward the First; and that this vicar received eightpence-halfpenny a day as his wages, to carry it after the king, and one penny a day to carry it back. The banner of St. Cuthbert was likewise carried in the English army in the Scottish wars, and was borne by a monk. Of this banner we have the following description. The banner was fas

At fig. 20 is represented the triangular pennon of Ralph, lord Neville, which was affixed to his lance, and charged with his arms.

In the illuminated copies of FROISSART'S Chronicle is a drawing of a fleet, with French and English knights under the Duke of Bourbon, proceeding against Barbary. On the top of the largest vessel is a man-at-arms, holding a banner of France, modern; and the top itself is painted with the arms of France. Two trumpeters sit in the stern, and a banner of the same arms is suspended from each instrument. This custom was a universal one in the picture of the proclamation of a truce between England and France, the person reading it is seated on horseback; he is supported on each side by a

man who is also mounted; the one on the right hand holds a trumpet erect over his shoulder, from which flows a banner of the arms of France, modern; whilst to the trumpet of the person on the left hand a similar banner of the arms of England is affixed.

At the battle of Agincourt, the Duke of Brabant, who arrived on the field towards the close of the conflict, is said by St. Remy to have taken one of the banners from his trumpeters, and cutting a hole in the middle, made a surcoat of arms of it; to which circumstance Shakspeare alludes:

I will a banner from a trumpet take,
And use it for my haste.

Chaucer also

says:

On every trump hanging a brode bannere
Of fine tartarium, full richly bete,
Every trumpet his lordis armes bere.

In the painting, in the meeting-room of the Society of Antiquaries, of the voyage of Henry the Eighth from Dover to Calais, in 1520, the only banners or pennons which appear are those of St. George, with the exception of one or two of the royal arms. The pennon is swallow-tailed, which still continues to be the form of the regular pendant supplied to Her Majesty's ships, though it is now formed of three stripes, blue, white, and red, with the ensign of St. George in the part nearest the staff; but which, however, is seldom used. A very long narrow streamer is borne instead, with St. George's cross in the upper part, and the remainder either red, blue, or white, as the colour of the ensign may be, which depends upon the squadron to which the admiral, under whose orders she is placed, belongs.

Heralds when despatched on missions, appear, in the fifteenth century, to have carried a banner of their sovereign's arms. Banners were likewise placed on tents, or the tents were themselves embroidered with heraldic devices.

And there they pyght there tentys a down, That were embroudyd with armys gay: First, the kynges tente with the crown And all othere lordes in good aray. Besides national and personal banners, the banners of trade companies were borne in battle at the period now referred to. Several different banners were sometimes appropriated by the same person. Thus Henry the Seventh at Bosworth Field used the standards thus

described: "With great pompe and triomphe he roade through the cytie to the cathedral church of St. Paul, wher he offred his three standardes. In the one was the image of St. George; in the second was a red firye dragon beaten upon white and green sarcenet; the third was of yelowe tarterne, in the which was peinted a donne kowe."

The office of banner-bearer or bannerer was always one of great honour. In 1361, Edward the Third granted Sir Guy de Bryan two hundred marks a year for life, for having discreetly borne the king's banner at the siege of Calais, in 1347; and at the battle of Agin

court, Thomas Strickland, who bore the banner of St. George, subsequently urged the fact of his having done so as grounds for remuneration from Henry the Sixth. On the disembarkment of the army before Harfleur, in 1415, it is said that "the standards and banners, and

other ensigns," were intrusted to such men as the king knew to be "of great prowess and strength." In France the office of bearer of the Oriflamme was hereditary; while in other countries the right of carrying the royal standard was conferred only upon persons of distinguished valour. Henry the Eighth appointed Sir Anthony Browne, Knight of the Garter and Master of the Horse, Standard Bearer of England; and the office is still borne by one of his descendants. The length of banners, standards, pennons, &c., was regulated according to fixed rules, the king's being eight or nine yards long, the dukes' seven, the earls' six, the barons' five, &c. Previous to the Revolution, it was a matter of great care and study to observe that the proper banners

should be borne at funerals, it being customary for an officer-at-arms to superintend the arrangements on such occasions. The subject is now generally neglected, and it has been remarked, that where an attempt is made to exhibit armorial ensigns on public occasions, the result is generally a display of ignorance of the laws of arms.

DECAY AND RENOVATION.

THE myriads of generations of plants and animals that have lived and died, and added their substance to the soil, would be sad incumbrances on the face of this fair world, were there not means devised for rendering the matter they contain, and which is no longer useful to themselves, useful to their survivors. This is done by those plants especially which require rich soil and much manure for their support, and which thus, living on the dead, bring back to us again, in the form of fairest fruits and flowers, the refuse filth and offal that are cast upon the dung-heap.

See dying vegetables life sustain,

See life dissolving vegetate again :

All forms that perish other forms supply,

(By turns we catch the vital breath, and die,)
Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne,

They rise, they break, and to that sea return.-POPE.

Were it not for such natural transmutators; were matter once eaten, uneatable again; were it not that the present generation lives upon the past, as succeeding generations will live upon the present; were it not that the same atoms are digested over and over again, the whole earth might be in time devoured, and its inhabitants starve amidst the wreck they had made.

Putrefaction and decay are naturally regarded with disgust; and the admirable process of corruption too often turned from with horror. But dissolution is not destruction, and few secrets are more wonderful than those which such a change reveals: for it shows the first and the last of a series of extraordinary events, the earliest and the latest of those mysterious transformations that all organic beings undergo; and by which creatures, old, decrepid, and worn out, are, as it were by natural magic, converted into others young, vigorous, and strong. Thus nature is renewed, and death, so much dreaded as a destroyer, should rather be looked on as the renovator of the world.-BURNETT's Outlines of Botany.

IF you are handsome, do handsome things; if deformed, supply the defects of nature by your virtues.

LAY in wisdom as the store for your journey from youth to old age, for it is the most certain possession.

ABSOLUTE disbelief implies knowledge: it is the knowledge that such or such a thing is not true. If the mind adinit a proposition without any desire for knowledge concerning it, this is credulity. If it is open to receive the proposition, but feels ignorance concerning it, this is doubt. In propor tion as knowledge increases, doubt diminishes, and belief, or disbelief, strengthens. No one ought to profess to disbelieve any proposition, unless he is sure that he perfectly understands the subject to which it relates. To do so is the most absurd presumption. Those who profess to doubt the truth of important propositions, thereby acknowledge their ignorance; they ought, therefore, not to rest till they have sought information by every possible means.- Elements of Thought.

them excellent things, yet he that shall conclude the chief PLATO says, that though knowledge and truth be both of good to be something that transcends them both, will not be mistaken. For as light, and sight, or the seeing faculty, may both of them rightly be said to be soliform things, or of kin to the sun, but neither of them to be the sun itself; so knowledge and truth may likewise, both of them, be said to be of kin to the chief good, but neither of them to be that chief good itself; but this is still to be looked a thing more august and honourable. Plato's, there seems to be little more than what may be is a certain life, or vital and moral disposition of the soul, experimentally found within ourselves; namely, that there which is much more inwardly and thoroughly satisfactory, not only than sensual pleasures, but also, than all knowledge and speculation whatever.-CUDWORTH.

as

upon In all which of