discovered, and the two schemes were artfully mixed up together to ensure the destruction of Russell and Sidney, who perished on the scaffold, as accomplices in a guilty design with which they had no connexion. Their sentences were reversed after the Revolution. Charles did not long survive his victims; he died of apoplexy, in 1685, avowing himself, in his last moments, a member of the Church of Rome.

LESSON XXXV.-FRIDAY.

JOHN HOWARD.

In decision of character no man ever exceeded, or ever will exceed, the late illustrious Howard. The energy of his determination was so great, that if, instead of being habitual, it had been shown only for a short time on particular occasions, it would have appeared a vehement impetuosity; but by being unintermitted, it had an equability of manner which scarcely appeared to exceed the tone of a calm constancy, it was so totally the reverse of anything like turbulence or agitation. It was the calmness of an intensity kept uniform by the nature of the human mind forbidding it to be more, and by the character of the individual forbidding it to be less. The habitual passion of his mind was a pitch of excitement and impulsion almost equal to the temporary extremes and paroxysms of common minds; as a great river, in its customary state, is equal to a small or moderate one when swollen to a torrent.

The moment of finishing his plans in deliberation, and commencing them in action, was the same. I wonder what must have been the amount of that bribe, in emolument or pleasure, that would have detained him a week inactive after their final adjustment. The law which carries water down a declivity was not more unconquerable and invariable than the determination of his feelings toward the main object. The importance of this object held his faculties in a state of determination, which was too rigid to be affected by lighter interests, and on which therefore the beauties of nature and of art had no power. He had no leisure feeling which he

could spare to be diverted among the innumerable varieties of the extensive scene which he traversed; his subordinate feelings nearly lost their separate existence and operation, by falling into the grand one. There have not been wanting trivial minds, to mark this as a fault in his character. But the mere men of taste ought to be silent respecting such a man as Howard; he is above their sphere of judgment. The invisible spirits, who fulfil their commission of philanthropy among mortals, do not care about pictures, statues, and sumptuous buildings; and no more did he, when the time in which he must have inspected and admired them, would have been taken from the work to which he had consecrated his life. The curiosity which he might feel, was reduced to wait till the hour should arrive, when its gratification should be presented by conscience (which kept a scrupulous charge of all his time) as the duty of that hour. If he was still at every hour, when it came, fated to feel the attractions of the fine arts but the second claim, they might be sure of their revenge; for no other man will ever visit Rome under such a despotic acknowledged rule of duty as to refuse himself time for surveying the magnificence of its ruins. Such a sin against taste is very far beyond the reach of common saintship to commit. It implied an inconceivable severity of conviction, that he had one thing to do, and that he who would do some great thing in this short life, must apply himself to the work with such a consecration of his forces, as, to idle spectators, who live only to amuse themselves, looks like insanity.

His attention was so strongly and tenaciously fixed on his objeet, that even at the greatest distance, as the Egyptian pyramids to travellers, it appeared to him with a luminous distinctness as if it had been nigh, and beguiled the toilsome length of labour and enterprise by which he was to reach it. So conspicuous was it before him, that not a step deviated from the direction, and every movement and every day was an approximation. As his method referred every thing he did and thought to the end, and as his exertion did not relax for a moment, he made the trial, so seldom made, what is the utmost effect which may be granted to the last possible efforts of a human agent: and therefore what he

did not accomplish, he might conclude to be placed beyond the sphere of mortal activity, and calmly leave to the imme diate disposal of Providence.-John Foster.

LESSON XXXVI.—MONDAY.

OROGRAPHY.

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Europe makes up for its want of magnitude by its diversity; as the multiplication of the coast-lines compensates for a small horizontal space, so the greatest variety of vertical dimensions prevents monotony: everything concurs favour the greatest possible development of civilization. A line drawn from the mouth of the Dniester to that of the Rhine divides continental Europe into a north-eastern lowland and a south-western highland, and we consider the district of the Alps in the latter as the lofty mountain-stem of our division of the earth, though it can by no means sustain the part of those main stems which we have followed in the other divisions. What is the surface covered by the Alps, which is only 95,300 square miles, to the areas of the mountain-systems out of Europe, with which we have already become acquainted? What is their greatest length, 700 miles, compared with that of the Himalaya, which is 5,600; of the South American Cordillera, which is 4,600; of the Thian Shan, the Altai, or even the Ural, which are 3,600, 2,700, and 1,350 miles respectively? How insignificant are their greatest elevations, when their loftiest summits end at a height at which elsewhere collections of human abodes and the culture of profitable food-plants are to be met with! But it is precisely the inferior magnitude of its proportions which gives to Europe its character of greatest possible habitability. Its extent and elevation are sufficient to unfold, in all directions, a beneficial variety of natural conditions; the peculiarities of a high range of mountains, abounding in rocky chains, contribute to prevent uniformity of climate, plants, animals, and human inhabitants; to produce a difference between the physiognomy of northern and southern Europe; and to fix a boundary between Roman, German, and Sclavonic elements. Notwithstanding, the Alps form no impassable barrier, no firmnly-closed separating region;

but as the rivers flow down their sides towards every wind, so from all sides various influences ascend their valleys for reciprocal communication. The Alps group rather than divide, and they thus heighten the refreshing charm of variety. There are no high enclosed plains, of the importance of the plateaus of the American Andes, or the elevated districts of Asia; the nations of the west and the east, of the north and the south, have each a share in the mountain stem, and come into immediate communication with one another.

The remaining space of south-western continental Europe is occupied by the French, German, and Carpathian mountain tracts, a variegated mixture of valleys running in different directions, mountain chains, plateaus, and low plains, all mutually intermingling, and none wearing a repulsive aspect; so that the vertical proportions contribute in no small degree to render central Europe an important part of the chief seat of human civilization.

Even in the great north-eastern lowland, divided by the Vistula into Germanic and Sarmatian, there are occasional risings of the ground, which further sub-divide it. One of these commences in the north, near the sources of the Petchora, reaches its greatest elevation, 1,150 feet, near the sources of the Volga and west of the delta of the Vistula, and stretches westward as far as the shores of the Baltic and the Cattegat. Another, in the south, quitting the outer slopes of the Ural mountains at the last southern bend of the river Ural, runs in a westerly direction, near the coast of the Black Sea, rests against the Carpathians, attains a height of 2,300 feet, on the left bank of the Vistula, and appears in the south of the Germanic plain in detached portions, and at last in the Heath of Luneburg, south of the mouth of the Elbe. These two risings have been distinguished, in order to mark their peculiar position, as the Ural-Baltic and the Ural-Carpathian high ground; but the learner must be expressly cautioned not to allow these somewhat far-fetched names to lead him into the erroneous notion that any very great degree of continuity exists in these two lines of high ground. Each ridge consists partly of mere groups of hills on a small scale, partly

of low plateaus of greater or less breadth, which, to some extent, coincide with the great European watershed; but for the most part (quite contrary to the theory which adorns every watershed with a range of mountains) are crossed in their whole breadth by rivers, running through low valleys, often sharply defined

LESSON XXXVII.-TUESDAY.

HEAT AND TEMPERATURE.

The term heat is employed to designate the unknown cause which produces the sensation of warmth. Formerly, the word heat was applied to the effect, the producing agent being termed caloric; but this latter term is now falling out of use. That portion of heat in a body which tends to transfer itself to surrounding substances, is termed sensible heat; and the energy with which it is transferred is called the temperature of the body.

The thermometer is an instrument for measuring temperature. It consists of a glass tube of very fine bore, having a bulb at one end, the bulb and a portion of the tube being filled with mercury; the remaining portion of the tube is a vacuum, and the instrument is hermetically sealed at both ends. The tube is graduated into a number of equal divisions, called degrees. When the thermometer is placed in contact with any substance hotter than itself, the mercury expands; if placed in contact with a colder substance, the mercury contracts. The rise or fall of the mercury in the tube is measured on the graduated scale. The number of divisions on the scale is quite arbitrary, as well as the zero of temperature. The two principal scales in use are those of the Swedish philosopher Celsius, and the Danish philosopher Fahrenheit. In the former, the range of temperature between the freezing and boiling points of water is divided into 100 degrees, and on this account it is called the centigrade thermometer. The freezing point is made the zero of this instrument, and consequently the boiling point is 100°. In Fahrenheit's thermometer, the temperature between the freezing and boiling points is divided into 180°, the former being 32° on the scale, and the latter 212°. Tem