tion of washing their hands, the work began again, and was again performed in silence, until the noise of carriages rattling through the streets, and of loud double knocks at doors, gave token that the day's work of the more fortunate members of society was proceeding in its turn. One of these double-knocks at Madame Mantalini's door announced the equipage of some great lady, or rather rich one-for there is occasionally a wide distinction between riches and greatness-who had come with her daughter to approve of some court-dresses which had been a long time preparing, and upon whom Kate was deputed to wait, accompanied by Miss Knag, and officered, of course, by Madame Mantalini. Kate's part in the pageant was humble enough, her duties being limited to holding articles of costume until Miss Knag was ready to try them on, and now and then tying a string, or fastening a hook-and-eye. She might, not unreasonably, have supposed herself beneath the reach of any arrogance, or bad humour; but it happened that the rich lady and the rich daughter were both out of temper that day, and the poor girl came in for her share of their revilings. She was awkward-her hands were cold-dirty -coarse-she could do nothing right; they wondered how Madame Mantalini could have such people about her; requested they might see some other young woman the next time they came, and so forth. So common an occurrence would be hardly deserving of mention, but for its effect. Kate shed many bitter tears when these people were gone, and felt, for the first time, humbled by her occupation. She had, it is true, quailed at the prospect of drudgery and hard service; but she had felt no degradation in working for her bread, until she found herself exposed to insolence and the coarsest pride. Philosophy would have taught her that the degradation was on the side of those who had sunk so low as to display such passions habitually, and without cause; but she was too young for such consolation, and her honest feeling was hurt. May not the complaint, that common people are above their station, often take its rise in the fact of uncommon people being below theirs? In such scenes and occupations the time wore on until nine o'clock, when Kate, jaded and dispirited with the occurrences of the day, hastened from the confinement of the work-room, to join her mother at the street corner, and walk home-the more sadly, from having to disguise her real feelings, and feign to participate in all the sanguine visions of her companion. [We think it impossible our talented author could have placed Miss Nickleby in a situation more favourable for a powerful display of his resplendent genius.] ROME. THE history of Rome will remain, to the latest age of the world, the most attractive, the most useful, and the most elevating subject of human contemplation. It must ever form the basis of a liberal and enlightened education; it must ever present the most important object to the contemplation of the statesman; it must ever exhibit the most heart-stirring record to the heart of the soldier. Modern civilization, the arts and the arms, the freedom and the institutions of Europe around us, are the bequest of the Roman legions. The roads which we travel are, in many places, those which these indomitable pioneers of civilization first cleared through the wilderness of nature; the language which we speak is more than half derived from Roman words; the laws by which we are protected have found their purest fountains in the treasures of Roman jurisprudence; the ideas in which we glory are to be found traced out in the fire of young conception in the Roman writers. In vain does the superficial acquirement, or shallow variety, of modern liberalism seek to throw off the weight of obligation to the grandeur or virtue of antiquity; in vain are we told that useful knowledge is alone worthy of cultivation, that ancient fables have gone past, and that the study of physical science should supersede that of the Greek or Roman authors. Experience, the great detector of error, is perpetually recalling to our minds the inestimable importance of Roman history. The more that our institutions become liberalized, the more rapid the strides which democracy makes amongst us, the more closely do we cling to the annals of a state which underwent exactly the same changes, and suffered the consequences of the same convulsions; and the more that we experience the insecurity, the selfishness, and the rapacity of democratic ambition, the more highly do we come to appreciate the condensed wisdom with which the great historians of antiquity, by a word or an epithet, stamped its character, or revealed its tendency.-Blackwood's Magazine. ON THE PROBABLE ORIGIN OF THE STORY OF THE MERMAID. NOTWITHSTANDING the numerous statements so often advanced, by various authors and travellers, as to the real existence of the Mermaid, we have as yet had no authentic proof-that is, no specimen, either living or dead, having as yet been publicly exhibited in England. Doubtless, this creature of the poet's brain owes its origin to the following quotation from Scripture; but, with this addition, that the poets and herald-painters added the comb and looking. glass, without giving the world the least in formation where these sea-maids could possibly, in the deep, procure such essential requisites to a lady's toilette. In the third and fourth verses of the fifth chapter of Samuel I., it says,— And when they of Ashdod arose early in the morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the Lord. And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again. "And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord; and the head of Dagon, and both the palms of his hands, were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump (or fishy part) was left to him." The essential part of the word Dagon, (Dag,) means a fish, in Hebrew. It was a tutelary deity of the Philistines; and, not withstanding the numerous discussions about the form, sex, and identity of this idol, it is the general opinion it was represented halfhuman and half-fish; that is, with a human bust, and a fish-like termination. This Dagon of the Scriptures seems to have been represented of the male sex; whereas the ancient writers, as well as on the medals of the Philistine towns, represent the idol wor shipped by the Philistines as a female of the human part. Diodorus relates, that near the city of Askelon, in Syria, there was a deep lake, abounding with fish, neur which stood a temple dedicated to a famous goddess, called by the Syrians, Decerto, (the Syriac name for this fish-idol.) She had the head und face of a woman, but the rest of the body was that of a fish. Lucian also states, that he had seen this idol represented in Phoenicia, (Philistia,) as a woman, with the lower part half-fish. In Sir William Ouseley's Miscellaneous Plates (xxi.) there is, as copied from a Babylonian cylinder, a representation of a bearded personage, fish from the waist downward. The reader will find further remarks on this Dagon among the erudite notes in the Pictorial Bible, No. 34. Arts and Sciences. NEW THEATRICAL MACHINERY. Σ To whatever department of mechanical science we direct our attention, one uniform impression is conveyed-we become continually surprised by a mass of modern contrivances which, through the ingenuity and talent of our countrymen, (especially,) are in course of increasing improvement. The subject recurs to us more forcibly from an opportunity we have lately had of examining a new and extensive series of designs for constructing, in our modern theatres, an entire system of machinery, by which the operations are rendered less complex, and the instantaneous effects produced are unlike any thing which has heretofore ap peared upon the stage of any theatre. There is, in this arrangement, one distinctive characteristic, which is rarely attendant upon an extended scheme of im. provement-namely, it appears to have provided for every contingency, and to embrace every circumstance which can be anticipated as in any way controlled by or affecting its action. In lieu of having the stage, as at present, inconveniently crowded with scene-shifters and others, to the manifest inconvenience of the performers, they are scarcely upon the stage beyond half an hour during the evening's performance. The machinery is constructing upon castiron columns, in preference to the usual practice of suspending every thing from the roof, and the entire construction being of metal, is beyond the reach or apprehension of accident by fire. All machinery which, like the present, is intended to perform a diversity of duties of considerable extent, must be, to a certain degree complicated; it is, however, so greatly simplified, that its management only requires common care and attention on the parts of those who have charge of it. The blunders to which the present methods of scene-shifting are constantly exposed have long called for revision; but the subject presented so many difficulties, so many conflicting interests, and so much to discou rage any ordinary person, who might be qualified, from undertaking such a task, that we are not surprised it has so long remained unimproved. The task is one, requiring much care, labour, and discrimi nation, to disentangle the collected heaps of useful from the superfluous materials; the result is, however, a saving of seventy per cent. in the expense of working the theatre. Great credit is due to the contriver, Mr. Macdonald Stevenson, for his undertaking, and for the ability with which he has been enabled to overcome obstacles of no ordinary description, upon which, we believe, he has been upwards of two years engaged. Mr. Stephenson, we understand, has received the encouragement he deserves from the authorities of Paris, where the circumstance of the machinery being fire-proof has other advantages which attach to its appli been considered almost as important as the cation. We do not feel ourselves at liberty to explain more minutely the construction, which would indeed be difficult without reference to the drawings and models; but we shall enter more fully on the subject when the machinery now constructing by Mr. Stephenson for Miss Kelly's theatre is completed, and before the public.—Morning Herald. The Gatherer. Trafalgar Square.-(By a Correspondent of the Architectural Magazine.)-Greatly is it to be hoped, that, whatever may be erected in the centre of Trafalgar Square, it will not be another huge column. There is already one thing too many of the kind in the metropolis; a single specimen of what excludes all variety or design, being quite sufficient to satisfy the most voracious curiosity. What reason can be argued in favour of having a column on that site I know not certainly, there are several reasons against it, independently of the one included in the above remark. In the first place, there is the York Column just by; in the second, a lofty column would hardly serve as a foil either to the National Gallery, or any of the other buildings; in the third, it would itself suffer by comparison with the steeple of St. Martin's Church, which is nearly two hundred feet high. Let it be the proposed monument to Nelson, or any thing else, which is to embellish that site, I should say it ought to be designed with reference to the existing buildings, 80 as to set them off to as much advantage as possible, instead of in any degree overpowering them. If it must, at all events, be a column, at least let it not be such a one as belongs to an entablature, but something of a rostral pillar; a professedly ornamental, and certainly most picturesque, object. Then, if a statue of Nelson is to be placed on the summit, those of other naval commanders might very suitably be put on the prows jutting out from the shaft, so as to be attached to the shaft itself. In addi tion to these, there might be zones of basrelief cincturing the shaft at intervals, while other sculpture might be introduced in the lower part of the design; namely, that which would constitute the base, or platform, supporting the pillar itself. Model of the first English Steam-Vessel. -The following notice appeared in the Oracle daily newspaper, December, 1789:"There has been lately laid before the Admiralty Board the model of a ship, worked by steam, which is so constructed, as to sail against wind and tide. This ingenuity is to be rewarded by a patent." A National Painting." That's a most beautiful thing," said the governor, "yon are a doin' of: may I presume to chatichise what it is ?" "Why," said I, "governor, that landscape on the right, with the great white, two-story house in it, havin' a washin'-tub of apple-sarce on one side, and a cart chock-full of punkin-pies on t'other, with the gold letters A. P. over it, is intended to represent this land of promise our great country, Amerika; and the gold 66 letters, A. P., initialise it Airthly Paradise." "Well," says he, "who is that he one on the left ?" "I didn't intend them lettersH and E-to indicate he at all," said I, Ithough I see now they do. I guess must alter that. That tall, graceful figur', (says I,) with wings, carryin' a long Bowie knife in his right hand, and them smail, winged figures in the rear, with little rifles, are angles emigratin' from heaven to this country. H and E means Heavenly Emigrants: it's alle-go-ry." "And a beautiful alle-go-ry it is!" said he, " and well calcu lated to give foreigners a correct notion of our young, growin', and great republic !”— It is a fine conception, that!-Sam Slick. Vertue, in one of his MSS., says, that Thomas Hinde, in 1537, was the first printseller in London. notion, that ladies' dresses never were so Notwithstanding the generally-received various or so costly as in the present day, it is stated in a manuscript deposited in the British Museum, by Dr. Birch, that the wardrobe of Queen Elizabeth, at the time of her demise, contained more than two thousand gouns, with all things answerable. Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.-Colton, Shower of Frogs.-A correspondent of the Sun, who dates from 7, Sackville-street, states, that as he was walking up Tower-street on Monday afternoon, July 30, 1838, he saw foot and carriage pavements; which he consome dozens of young frogs hopping on the jectures had been precipitated to the earth in a heavy shower that had fallen about an hour before, as they were scattered to a considerafrogs as not exceeding half an inch in length, He describes the largest of the while some were extremely minute, but all exceedingly lively. ble distance. A youth, who had been dumb from his infancy, was unfortunately drowned at Laxey, whilst bathing; and, most singular to say, when he was on the point of sinking, he spoke for the first time in his life, by calling upon his brother to save him, who was a mournful spectator of the heart-rending scene.-Isle of Man Advertiser. The writer of this article has a son, who never spoke unhappened to fall into a pond in the garden. til he was upwards of six years old, when he On his being rescued by his brother, the instant he recovered himself, he told his mother he would never go near the pond again. LONDON: Printed and published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near Somerset House); and sold by all Booksellers and Newsmen.-Agent in PAR IS, G. W. M. REYNOLDS, French, English, and American Library, 55, Rue Neuve St. Augustin, Paris.—In FRANCFORT, CHARLES JUGEL. TOMB OF HENRY VI, FORMERLY IN ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL, WINDSOR. KING HENRY VI. was buried in the south aisle of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, near the choir door: this prince, after a life of piety and reign of trouble, died in the Tower of London, May 21, Ann. Dom. 1472, or, according to the more general opinion, was there murdered by Richard, Duke of Gloucester: his corpse was next day carried to St. Paul's Church, and from thence conveyed by water to the Abbey of Chertsey, in Surrey, and buried; from hence it was removed, in the reign of Richard III., to this choir, and a second time buried. In mense Augusti VOL XXXII, effossum est Corpus Regis Henrici sexti, et usque novam Ecclesiam Collegiatam de Windzovr est translutum, ibi honorifice receptum, et cum maxime solemnitate iterum tumulatum, ad australem partem summi Altaris. Rossi Warwic. Histor. Reg. Angl. p. 217. I This author farther intimates, that the "his not commonly known what became of his body." It is notorious, from the sanctity of this Prince's life, and the circumstances of his death, that his relics were held in great estimation by the people, insomuch as Henry VII. applied to the Court of Rome for his admission into the calendar of the saints of that church, and also for a license from the Pope to remove the body from Windsor to Westminster Abbey, to be buried with great solemnity: but the exorbitant demands of the church of Rome prevented the intention of removing the body, though the Pope's ball was obtained for that purpose. From this application, and return of the Pope's bull, the notion might arise, that the royal body was actually removed; yet it is evident this purpose of Henry VII. was never put in execution, as appears by the will of that prince, in which, speaking of Westminster Abbey, he says, "That we purpose right shortly to translate into the same, the body and reliques of our uncle of blessed memorie, King Henry VI." Farther, also, King Henry VIII., by his will, speaking of his interment in this chapel, ordains, "That the tombes and aulters of King Henry VI., and also of King Edward IV., our great uncle and graunt. father, be made more princely, in the same place where they now be, at our charge;" which certainly this Prince would never have ordered, had the body of King Henry VI. been before removed; and it appears at present, though much defaced by time, that the whole arch near which this prince is buried, was, according to this direction in King Henry VIII.'s will, sumptuously decorated, and adorned with the royal ensigns, and other devices peculiar to this Prince, and the royal arins are neatly cut and blazoned on the centre stone of the arch. The burial of these two kings (Henry VI. and Edward 1V.) in this chapel, under the same roof, and the unhappy fate of King Henry, is by Pope's plaintive muse expressed in these words: "Let softest strains ill-fated Henry mourn, Henry VI. was born at Windsor, Dec. 6, 1421; ascended the throne, August 31, 1422; proclaimed king of France the same year; crowned at Westminster, Nov. 6, 1429; crowned at Paris, Dec. 17, 1430; married to Margaret, daughter of the Duke of Anjou, April 12, 1445; Jack Cade's insurrection, 1446; Henry taken prisoner at St. Alban's, 1455; but regained his liberty, 1461; and deposed March 7 following, by his fourth cousin, Edward IV.; fled into Scotland, and THE CONSOLATIONS OF RELIGION. THERE is a mourner, and her heart is broken; She is a widow-she is old and poor;Her only hope is in that sacred token Of peaceful happiness, when life is o'er. She asks nor wealth nor pleasure-begs no more Than Heaven's delightful volume, and the sight Of her Redeemer. Sceptics! would you pour Your blasting vials on her head, and blight Sharon's sweet rose, that blooms and charms her She lives in her affections; for the grave being's night? Has closed upon her husband, children: all Her hopes are with the arms she trusts will save Her treasur'd jewels. Though her views are small, And writhe in her debasement, yet the spring Though she has never mounted high, to fall Of her meek, tender feelings cannot pall Her unperverted palate, but will bring A joy without regret—a bliss that has no sting. Even as a fountain, whose unsullied wave Wells in the pathless valley, flowing o'er With silent waters, kissing, as they lave The pebbles with light rippling, and the shore Of matted grass and flowers,-so softly pour The breathings of her bosom, when she prays, Long bowed before her Maker;-then no more She muses on the grief of former days; Her full heart melts and flows in Heaven's dissolving |