Calcined magnesia, which is magnesia in its purest form, is obtained by exposing the carbonate for several hours to a strong red-heat, whereby its carbonic acid and a portion of the moisture combined with it is driven off. This process is like that employed in making lime, in which chalk and limestone, which are varieties of the same substance, (carbonate of lime,) being subjected to the action of fire, are rendered caustic. Properly speaking, therefore, calcined magnesia is caustic magnesia. When properly prepared, it is almost tasteless and without odour. It is an exceedingly refractory substance, that is, it resists a great degree of heat; but when combined with other substances, it assists their fusibility. Magnesia possesses most, if not all, the characteristics common to alkaline bodies; especially that of forming with acids neutral salts. These are distinguished by their peculiarly bitter flavour, of which we have an instance in one already mentioned, namely, sulphate of magnesia. When exposed to the atmosphere, magnesia absorbs both moisture and carbonic acid, thus returning again to its former condition of a carbonate; hence the necessity for keeping it in closely-stopped bottles. Its affinity for water is not, however, very energeticnot to be compared, for instance, with that of lime. On being moistened, the former exhibits scarcely any increase of temperature. The effect of water on caustic, or, as it is commonly called, quick, lime, is so well known as to require no description. To dissolve calcined magnesia requires rather more than 5000 times its weight of cold, or 36,000 times its weight of boiling, water. Magnesia is eminently useful as a medicine, correcting acidity and operating as a mild aperient. It may be safely given to children even when very young. It often happens, however, that magnesia, like some other family medicines, as they are termed, is taken in considerable quantities without the exercise of that discrimination on which both its usefulness and its efficacy depend. For correcting acidity, for heartburn, and symptoms of a similar kind, calcined magnesia is most proper. As an aperient, the carbonate may be beneficially employed. We believe, as a general rule, it will be found that double the quantity of the latter is required to produce the same effect as the calcined. Some persons are in the habit of taking magnesia on almost every occasion when they experience unpleasant sensations. This is a practice which ought not to be persevered in, as cases have occurred in which its long-continued use has been attended by the formation of large concrete masses of magnesia in the bowels of the patients. PROVIDENCE has gifted man with reason; to his reason, therefore, is left the choice of his food and drink, and not to instinct, as among the lower animals: it thus becomes his duty to apply his reason to the regulation of his diet; to shun excess in quantity, and what is noxious in quality; to adhere, in short, to the simple and the natural; among which the bounty of his Maker has afforded him an ample selection and beyond which if he deviates, sooner or later, he will suffer the penalty.-PROUT IF misery be the effect of virtue, it ought to be reverenced; if of ill-fortune, to be pitied; and if of vice, not to be in sulted; because it is, perhaps, itself a punishment adequate to the crime by which it was produced; and the humanity of that man can deserve no panegyric who is capable of reproaching a criminal in the hands of the executioner. JOHNSON. PRINTING FOR THE BLIND. A FEW years ago the only subsitute in the institution for PRINTING FOR THE BLIND, was the ingenious but inconvenient system of figuring on twine. Subsequently, books printed in relief, from angular types, were introduced by Mr. Gall of Edinburgh. Both of these systems, notwithstanding their respective difficulties, were mastered by the inmates of the institution, whose habits of attention overcome obstacles which a theorist would consider insurmountable. Mr. Gall's invention was a great step in advance in this kind of literature, and it does credit. to his ingenuity and perseverance; but it partakes of the disadvantage common, with the exception we are about to state, to all the systems hitherto proposed for the literary education of the blind-a disadvantage arising from the mistaken notion that a unique and arbitrary character was indispensable to the object in view. Mr. Alston, the Treasurer to the Glasgow Asylum, has for some time been trying the practicability of a system as remarkable for its simplicity and adaptation to the wants of the blind, as the others have been found to be complex and inoperative. Every new experiment he made was tested by the blind themselves, and the result of the whole has been most satisfactory. We may also mention here, that the Rev. Mr. Taylor of York, to whom the Society of Arts in Edinburgh submitted the specimens of the arbitrary characters sent to them by competitors for their medal, recommended to the Society just such a system as Mr. Alston was preparing, and to which Mr. Taylor has since given his unqualified recommendation. Mr. Alston's system is simply to print in relief the capitals of the ordinary Roman character, without any arbitrary marks whatever; and we are happy to announce that he has now added to the other improvements of the Glasgow Asylum for the Blind, a beautiful fount of types, and a printing-press, which will very soon supply this and kindred institutions with the Scriptures and other books, in a character which can be read by the touch of the blind, with little less fluency than by the eyes of the seeing! To afford a practical example of the entire fitness of this admirable invention to the instruction of the Blind, a meeting was recently held in the Asylum, when the children gave specimens of their reading from portions of St. MATTHEW's Gospel, and the book of RUTH, printed at the Institution Press. The ease with which the children perused the passages pointed out to them at random, and their promptness in announcing chapter and verse, called forth the warmest admiration. Still further to exemplify the extreme practicability of the system, and that the facility with which the children read was not the result of previous conning, the Chairman wrote a sentence, which was carried to the printer, put in type, and copies thrown off for the use of the com pany. This was placed in the hands of the blind children, who, unassisted, read aloud the sentence at once. It is gratifying to observe the pleasure with which the poor blind children have received Mr. A's books -one of them remarked that he would now be able to read the inscriptions on the grave-stones in the church-yard. Acting on this hint, Mr. Alston despatched a number of his children to read the epitaphs in the High Church burying-ground, in which they amply succeeded. A little blind girl pleased the company very much by playing on the fine-toned piano forte presented by the ladies to the institution, the privilege of performing upon which is reserved for the highest excellence in the Asylum POPULAR LEGENDS AND FICTIONS. IX. SUPERSTITIONS OF THE WELSH. THE Welsh peasantry are highly superstitious; living as they do, in so rude and secluded a country, and amidst scenery so wild and imposing, divers strange phantasies have been handed down from father to son, which have influenced their imagination, more or less, according to the intensity of the impression produced upon their minds. The inhabitants, indeed, of all pastoral and mountainous countries are more generally affected with superstition, than those who dwell in plains, and well-cultivated regions. That the scenery of a country has a considerable influence upon the habits of the natives, is indisputable. Hence it appears that the dispositions and general character of mountaineers are more hardy, robust, hospitable, and impetuous, than those of lowlanders; and their imaginations Darkened by their native scenes, Create wild images and phantoms dire, Strange as their hills, and gloomy as their storms. This is particularly exemplified in the mountaininhabitants of our own island; and more especially in the Scottish highlander, and the Welsh mountaineer, to both of whom certain superstitious customs and opinions are peculiar, although resembling each other very considerably in their general outline. In the retired and pastoral counties of Merioneth and Caernarvon, there is scarcely a glen, a wood, or a mountain, that has not its due quota of fairies and spirits; and every district in North Wales, can boast of no scanty number of supernatural inhabitants. But of all the popular superstitions prevalent among the Welsh, their idea of fairies is the most poetical; at all events, it is the most ancient. In Wales there appear to have been two distinct species of fairies; the one sort, of gentle manners, and well-disposed toward the whole human race; the other, maliciously inclined, and full of mischievous sportiveness. The former is denominated Tylwyth Tég, or the Fair Family; the latter, Ellyllin, Elves, or Goblins. The Tylwyth Tég are a mild and diminutive race, leading a life completely pastoral, and befriending fond and youthful lovers, pretty dairymaids, and hospitable and industrious housewives. They are the inspirers of pleasing dreams, and the assiduous encouragers of virtue and benevolence; and never fail to reward the faithful servant, or the affectionate child. But the most prominent attributes and pastimes of this gentle race are sweetly set forth in the following stanzas, the production of a gentleman, whose name has frequently been rendered subservient to the best interests of the principality : CAN Y TYLWYTH TEG; OR, THE FAIRIES' SONG. From noonday pranks and thymy banks, For our's the joy, that cannot cloy, The light-latched door, the well-swept floor, And day shall haste to tinge the east, But first I'll creep where mortals sleep, That keeps the hearth so clean : Shall bless her longing arms. No voice be mute, and each shrill flute, Shall cheer the mazy dance. When morning breaks, and man awakes, From sleep's restoring. hours, The flocks, the field, his house we yield, While clad in green, unheard, unseen, His empire of the day. Who does not admire the beautiful instruction which is so pleasingly conveyed in this credulity? In a country so completely pastoral as Wales, something more than the sage precepts of mere experience and wisdom was necessary to inculcate in the minds of the people the more homely virtues adapted to their condition; and hence even superstition was rendered subservient to the purpose, in a manner at once mild, persuasive, and impressive. Thus, it is a common opinion, in many parts of the principality, that if, on retiring to rest, the cottage-hearth is made clean, the floor swept, and the pails left full of water, the fairies will come at midnight to a spot thus prepared for their reception, continue their harmless revels till day-break, sing the well-known strain of Toriad y Dydd, or the dawn of day-leave a piece of money upon the hearth, and disappear. The suggestions of intellect and the salutary precautions of prudence are easily discernible under this fiction: a safety from fire in the neatness of the hearth,-a provision for its extinction in the replenished pails,—and a motive to perseverance and industry in the expected boon. Like the popular superstitions of Germany, there is always more or less of moral in the Fairy Tales of the Welsh, and the following curious narrative, related by Giraldus Cambrensis, was probably held forth as a warning against stealing. It affords also a good idea of the popular opinion of the manners and customs of the Tylwyth Tég of the twelfth century. A short time before our days, a circumstance worthy of note occurred in those parts, (Neath, in Glamorganshire,) which Elidorus, a priest, most strenuously affirmed, had befallen himself. When a youth about twelve years of age, in order to avoid the severity of his preceptor, he ran away, and concealed himself under the hollow bank of a river; and after fasting, in that situation, for two days, two little men, of pigmy stature, appeared to him, and said, "If you will go with us we will lead you into a country of delights and sports." Assenting, and rising up, he followed his guides, at first through a path, subterraneous and dark, into a most beautiful country, murky, however, and not illuminated with the full light of the sun. All the days were cloudy, and the nights extremely dark. The boy was brought before the king, and introduced to him in the presence of his court, when, having examined him for a long time, to the great admiration of the courtiers, he delivered him to his son, who was then a boy. These people were of the smallest stature, but very well proportioned, fair complexioned, with long hair, par ticularly the females, who wore it flowing over their shoulders. They had horses and hounds adapted to their size. They neither ate fish nor flesh, but lived, for the most part, on milk and saffron. As often as they returned from our hemisphere, they reprobated our ambition, infidelities, and inconstancies; and though they had no form of public worship, they were, it seems, strict lovers and reverers of truth, for no one was so utterly detested by them as a liar. The boy frequently returned to our world, sometimes by the way he had gone, sometimes by others; at first in company and afterwards alone, making himself known only to his mother, to whom he described what he had seen. Being desired by her to bring her a present of gold, with which that country abounds, he stole, while at play with the king's son, a golden ball, with which he used to divert himself, and brought it in haste to his mother: but not unpursued, for, as he entered the house, he stumbled at the threshold, let his ball drop, which two pigmies seized, and departed, showing the boy every mark of contempt and derision. Notwithstanding every attempt for the space of a whole year, he never again could discover the track to the subterraneous passage; but after suffering many misfortunes, he did, at length, succeed in securing his intimacy with the mysterious race. 66 THE ELLYLLIN, OR MISCHIEVOUS SPRITES. As the Tylwyth Tég usually fixed their abodes in grassy shades," and on sunny knolls, so the Ellyllin frequented the rock and the mountain; and woe betide the luckless wight who encountered those merry and mischievous sprites in a mist for they had a very inconvenient practice of seizing an unwary pilgrim, and of hurrying him through the air; first, giving him the option, however, of travelling above wind, under wind, or below wind. If he chose the former, he was borne to the region with which aëronauts are familiar; if the latter, he had the full benefit of all the brakes, briers, and bogs in his way-his reiterated contact with which, seldom failed to terminate in his discomfiture. Experienced travellers, therefore, always kept in mind the prudent advice of Apollo to Phaëton, (in medio tutissemus,) and selected the middle course, which ensured them a pleasant voyage at a moderate elevation, equally free from the brambles and the clouds. Dafydd ab Gwilym (the British Ovid,) who was contemporary with Chaucer, in a humorous description of his own abduction in one of these unlucky mists, says,— There were in every hollow, A hundred wry-mouthed elves, and proceeds to detail the mishaps which befell him, and which were all, no doubt, relative to the mischievous freaks of the Ellyllin. In addition to these propensities, they were gifted with all the attributes, whatever they may be, of other elves, and never failed to exercise their malicious powers whenever an opportunity occurred. A LETTER. EVERY incident about a letter has something connected with the past, the future, the unseen, the unknown; things the most simple and natural, that touch the tenderest, the sweetest sympathies of our common souls; and things the most awful, mysterious, and sublime, which awaken "the thoughts that travel through eternity," the "feelings that lie too deep for tears." To a letter belong,-taking it under the most usual circumstances which give birth to documents of this kind—a name, a place, an occasion, and a date. What is the name? That by which an insulated individual (the writer) was known on earth from all his contemporaries; and that by which (speaking after the manner of men) he will be summoned to appear at the bar of God, in the day of judgment, to give an account of the deeds done in the body. What is the place? The locality, where he dwelt for a season, where generations had died before, and generations will live after him, to the end of time. What is the occasion ? One of those daily occurrences, the things that happen to all, of which, in the bulk, we think almost nothing, but which, to each in turn, when the particular application falls upon himself, his family, his friends, his countrymen, or any class of persons to whom he is affectionately allied, or generously attached, may be of more pressing im portance while it lasts, than anything else in the world. What is the date? A visible memorial of one of the days of the years of man on the earth, perhaps the only existing register of that particular day, which came in its course, and went, when its errand was accomplished, whither all the days, and years, and ages of time, depart in peace, to await the arrival of that day when its account must be given in before the tribunal of the Judge of quick and dead. The date of such an undistinguished day is also a visible memorial of all that happened within the course of its twenty-four hours to every living man, including whatever he did, or said, or thought, or felt, or suffered. It is more than this; it is a memorial of all that was enjoyed in heaven, endured in hell, or transacted throughout the whole universe of God, in his providence, and in his grace, by Himself or by his creatures; and it is the memorial of a day, which has left upon every day that has succeeded, or shall follow it to the end, eternal influences, which, however unappreciably small or great to finite minds, are yet distinctly estimated by Him, to whom all things are known in their beginnings, connexions, and issues. This may be deemed revery and hallucination by "economists and calculators," who busy themselves wholly with things present and passing; but that man has within him powers and faculties unawakened and unapprehended, who cannot thus, by association, connect himself with all created beings and intelligences, especially those of his own species, of whom he can gain any knowledge by research on earth, or revelation from heaven; through all the things that are seen, discerning tokens and traces of things that are not seen, feeling, meanwhile, that the dignity and value of the former must be precisely in proportion to the relationship which they bear to the latter; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.- -J. MONTGOMERY. NOTES ON FOREST TREES. No. XV. THE CEDAR OF LEBANON, (Pinus cedrus.) Or the true Cedar there are but two kinds, that figured in our engraving, and the Cedar of India, (Pinus deodara,) but the timber of several other trees bears the name of Cedar in commerce, though improperly. The Cedar of Lebanon is famous for the frequent notice taken of it in the Scriptures; it was considered the emblem of greatness, strength, and prosperity. The righteous shall flourish like a palm-tree; and spread abroad like a cedar of Lebanon. Behold the Assyrian was a cedar of Lebanon, with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs, his boughs were multiplied, and his branches becaine long. The fir-trees were not like his boughs, nor the chestnuttrees like his branches, nor any tree in the garden of God like unto him in heart. There is an air of grandeur and strength in the Cedar, when full grown, that renders it far superior in appearance to any other of the cone-bearing tribes. Its mantling foliage or "shadowing shroud," is its greatest beauty; this, from the peculiar sweeping horizontal growth of its branches forms a graceful covering of foliage, impervious to the heat and rays of the sun, thus producing a depth of shadow that greatly increases its otherwise elegant appearance. The contrast of different tints is a contrast of surfaces only, and therefore the feeling that it produces wants the elements of duration, without which no feeling can be said to be truly sublime. The contrast of light and shade in the same tint of colour, is, on the other hand, inseparable from a feeling of solidity and duration; and it is not possible to look upon a Cedar, without having the association that it is a lasting tree. The Cedar of Lebanon has been cultivated in Great Britain for a century and a half, and many good examples of it are to be found in different parts of the country, even as far north as Scotland. It is not of quick growth during the first few years, but after the lapse of eight or ten years, its increase in size is very rapid, and it soon becomes an ornament to the spot on which it was planted. The hardy nature of the Cedar, and its power of enduring the varying weather of our variable Spring, has been proved; the Pines of Canada, and even of Labrador, have had their shoots blighted by frosts, which have not in the least affected the Cedar of Lebanon. That the Cedar likes moisture, appears from the fact of those in Chelsea Gardens showing signs of decay soon after a neighbouring pond had been filled up. Mr. Mudie, in his Botanical Annual, says that These circumstances point out the Cedar of Lebanon as peculiarly adapted for ornamental planting in Britain; and as it grows as fast to a large tree as the oak, stands as long or longer, is green all the year round, and therefore a shelter to the land, at the same time that it is the most ornamental of all large growing trees, it is somewhat singular that the planting of it has not become more general. The same author observes that the timber of the Cedar is of a good colour and most agreeable odour, works well, and is sufficiently close in the grain to enable the engraver on wood to use it instead of boxwood; to prove this, an engraving of the cone and leaf of the Cedar, brought from Lebanon itself, forms one of the illustrations to the work we have quoted. The wood, however, has several disadvantages compared with box; it is not so close-grained, and consequently could not be used for very fine engravings; and its dark colour and resinous nature render it difficult to draw on with effect, the latter quality soon causing a pencil drawing to become obliterated, and its colour preventing the lighter shades being seen, so that a pen and ink drawing is the only practical mode in which it could be used. The mountains of Lebanon, which, in the time of Solomon, were noted for their immense Cedar-forests, are at present but thinly covered with this stately tree. The timber of the Cedar appears to have received greater credit for durability than it deserves, owing, no doubt, to the frequent mention made of it in the Scriptures. Evelyn, in his Sylva, sums up its sup posed merits in the following words : It resists putrefaction, destroys noxious insects, continues a thousand or two years sound, yields an oil famous for preserving books and writings, purifies the air by its effluvia, inspires worshippers with a solemn awe when used in wainscoting churches. In the temple of Apoilo at Utica, was found timber 2000 years old. At Saguntum, in Spain, a beam, in an oratory consecrated to Diana, was brought from Zante, two centuries before the destruction of Troy; Sesostris built a vessel of cedar of 280 cubits! LEAF, FLOWER, AND CONE, OF THE CEDAR OF LEBANON. The finest Cedars in England are to be found at the following places :-the Royal Gardens at Chelsea, which contain many very picturesque specimens. these were planted in 1683, and there are still more magnificent trees of this kind at Whitto Park, Sion House, Painshill, Warwick Castle, Stowe, Blenheim, &c. The gardens at Hopetoun House in Scotland also contain some fine cedars. LONDON: Published by JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, WEST STRAND; and sold by all Booksellers. |