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that some of the "directors" were expelled the House; others taken into custody; and the estates of several confiscated by act of parliament, after a certain allowance was deducted for each, according to their conduct and circumstances.

1. In what year was the South Sea bubble?

2. From what did its projector take the hint ? 3. What did the first subscription amount to?

4. What distressing consequences did this stock-jobbing mania occasion?

LESSON CCCXXIX.

NOVEMBER THE TWENTY-FIFTH. Dr. Watts.

On this day, in 1748, died, in his seventy-fifth year, Dr. Isaac Watts, a learned and eminent dissenting minister, born at Southampton. Few authors have appeared with equal reputation on such a variety of subjects, both in prose and verse, as he did. As a philosopher, his writings are in universal esteem; and as a poet, his "Version of David's Psalms," adapted to the language of the New Testament, is elegantly and happily executed.

He occasionally preached; and in the pulpit, says Dr. Johnson, though his low stature, which very little exceeded five feet, graced him with no advantages of appearance, yet the gravity and propriety of his utterance made his discourses very efficacious. Such was his flow of thoughts, and such his promptitude of language, that in the latter part of his life he did not precompose his cursory sermons; but having adjusted the heads, and sketched out some particulars, he trusted for success to his extemporary powers.

Dr. Johnson's character of him, in that admirable life he wrote for the English poets, may be received with confidence. Few men have left such purity of character, or such monuments of laborious piety. He has provided instruction for all ages, from those who are lisping their first lessons, to the enlightened readers of Malbranche and Locke; he has left neither corporeal nor spiritual nature unexamined; he has taught the art of reasoning, and the science of the stars. His character, therefore, must be judged from the multiplicity and diversity of his attainments, rather than from any single performance, for it would not be safe to claim for him the highest rank in

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any single denomination of literary dignity; yet, perhaps,
there was nothing in which he would not have excelled,
if he had not directed his powers to different pursuits.
"Seize on Truth, where'er 'tis found,

Among your friends, among your foes,
On Christian or on Heathen ground.
The flower's divine where'er it grows;
Neglect the prickles, and assume the rose."

1. What eminent dissenting minister expired on this day, in 1748 ? 2. What is Dr. Johnson's character of him?

3. From what must his character be judged ?

LESSON CCCXXX. -NOVEMBER THE TWENTY-SIXTH. The English Tin Mines.

TIN is a metal of a silver-white colour, very ductile and malleable, and has been known from the earliest ages. It was much employed by the Egyptians in the arts, and by the Greeks as an alloy with other metals. Pliny speaks of it, under the name of white lead, as a metal well known in the arts, and even applied to the fabrication of many ornaments of luxury. Tin combines with iron, and adheres strongly to its surface, forming a thin covering, which is called tin-plate. This is one of the most useful combinations of tin, for it renders the iron fit for a great many valuable purposes, for which otherwise, on account of its strong tendency to oxydation, it would be totally inapplicable.

The English tin mines are in Cornwall and Devon ; chiefly, however, in the former county, which forms the western extremity of our island, jutting out into the sea between St. George's and the Irish Channels, somewhat in the form of a horn, whence the common name of the county, as well as the Latin name Cornubia, are supposed to be derived. At what time the trade in tin was first opened with foreigners is not known. The Phoenicians are allowed to have been among the earliest customers of the Cornubians for the valuable produce of their mines. The Greeks residing at Marseilles were the next to visit Cornwall, or the isles adjacent, to purchase tin; and after them came the Romans, whose merchants were for a long period foiled in their attempts to discover the tin market of their commercial predecessors.

In these early times tin was probably not taken from mines in the state of ore, but from the stream works, as

CHARACTER OF DIOCLETIAN.

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they are still called, in the form of what is denominated grain tin. These stream works are horizontal excavations, open to the earth's surface, whence the tin is obtained by washing; they do not require machinery to descend into them or to drain them; pickaxes of holm, boxwood, and harts' horns, the instruments of a rude people and age, have often been found in them.

Under the Saxons the tin mines appear to have been neglected; but after the coming in of the Normans, they produced very considerable revenues to the Earls of Cornwall, particularly to Richard, brother of King Henry III. Several regulations were afterwards made to encourage adventurers, a charter and various immunities being granted by Edmund, Earl Richard's brother, who also framed and ratified the stannary laws, laying a certain duty upon tin, payable to the Earls of Cornwall. Edward III. confirmed the tinners in all their privileges, and erected Cornwall into a dukedom, with which he invested his son, Edward the Black Prince, and since that time the heirs-apparent to the crown of England, if eldest sons, have enjoyed it successively.

1. Where are the English tin mines?

2. Who were among the earliest foreigners who visited England for the purchase of tin?

3. Who has the revenue arising from the duties on these tin mines?

LESSON CCCXXXI.

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NOVEMBER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH.

Character of Diocletian.

CAIUS VALERIUS DIOCLETIAN was a Roman emperor, of an obscure family in Dalmatia. He rose from being a common soldier to the rank of a general. He was a great commander, and a liberal patron of learning and genius; but his reign was stained by a bloody persecution of the Christians. He renounced the crown at Nicomedia in 304, and died in the sixty-eighth year of his age.

If education had refused him the amiable virtues of a Trajan, and the philosophy of a Marcus Aurelius, nature had lavished on him the qualities requisite for a ruler. The memory of Diocletian has been aspersed: but it is singular that he has never been accused of the only crime that can be clearly proved against him, viz. an indifference to his country, or rather a positive enmity towards it; for such, in fact, was his assignment of it to Galerius Cæsar, the vilest of men.

How much to be pitied is that man, whose eyes, during the course of a long life, are never turned, with tender emotions to the place where they first saw the light! And how criminal is that sovereign, who, when elevated to a throne, does not cause the streams of his bounty to flow towards those citizens who were the companions of his youth! Diocletian thought not about Dalmatia till old age, infirmities, and misfortunes, made him remember that he was a man before he was an emperor; and he 'came, in his distress, to seek an asylum in those regions which he had forgotten in the hour of his grandeur.

This was his crime to his native country: however, after having abdicated the empire, and resumed the situation of a private citizen, he returned to it; and then he showed himself greater than he had been on the throne. Hither he brought the same taste for building which he had so much indulged during his reign; and he who had covered Nicomedia with circusses, palaces, and templeswho had surrounded the empire with fortresses-and who had erected in Rome those celebrated baths, the very ruins of which, at the present day, excite our admiration when he had relinquished the reins of the government of the world, built the immense palace of Spalatro. In that palace, the last of his works, this man, truly great and heroical, starved himself to death, at the age of sixtyeight, to escape the poniards of. his successors, whom he himself had raised to the summit of fortune.

1. By what persecution was the reign of Diocletian stained?

2. With what crime is Diocletian here charged?

3. What ruins in Rome are those which still excite our admiration?

LESSON CCCXXXII.

-NOVEMBER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH.

Cardinal Wolsey.

On this day, in 1530, expired in Leicester-Abbey the celebrated Cardinal Wolsey.

CARDINAL WOLSEY'S SPEECH TO CROMWELL.

"Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear,

In all my miseries; but thou hast forced me,
Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman : —
Let's dry our eyes; and thus far hear me, Cromwell,
And when I am forgotten, as I shall be,

And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention
Of me must more be heard, say then I taught thee;
Say, Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory

JOHN RAY.

And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour,
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in;
A sure, and safe one, though thy master miss'd it;
Mark but my fall, and that which ruin'd me:
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition :
By that sin fell the angels; how can man then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by't?
Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee;
Corruption wins not more than honesty.

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,

To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not.

Let all the ends, thou aim'st at, be thy country's,

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Thy God's, and truth's; then, if thou fall'st, O Cromwell!
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr. Serve the king;

And pry'thee, lead me in

There, take an inventory of all I have ;

To the last penny, 'tis the king's. My robe,

An1 my integrity to heaven, is all

I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell! Cromwell!
Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.

CARDINAL WOLSEY'S DEATH.

"At last with easy roads he came to Leicester;
Lodged in the abbey: where the rev'rend abbot,
With all his convent, honourably received him;
To whom he gave these words: O father abbot,
An old man, broken with the storms of state,
Is come to lay his weary bones among you;
Give him a little earth for charity!'
So went to bed; where eagerly his sickness
Pursued him still, and three nights after this,
About the hour of eight, which he himself
Foretold should be his last, full of repentance,
Continual meditations, tears and sorrows,
He gave his honours to the world again,
His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace."

LESSON CCCXXXIII.

NOVEMBER THE TWENTY-NINTH.

John Ray.

On this day, in 1530, was born at Black Notley, near Braintree, in Essex, the Reverend John Ray, whose father pursued the humble occupation of a blacksmith; but perceiving that his son possessed a vigorous genius he sent him to school at Braintree, and thence to Cambridge, where he became distinguished for his great skill in natural history, and particularly in botany; which grew into a favourite study, and was pursued with particular avidity, from his example.

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