yet his sentiments just, proper, and conveyed in harmonious language; or if the arrangement of his subject matter be confused and inconsequent, but his action abounding in grace. This may be explained by considering, "that the sensations of the head and heart are caused in each of them by the outward organs of the eye and the ear; that, therefore, which is conveyed to the understanding and passions by only one of them, will not affect us so much as that which is transmitted through both."* : The mere relation of a few circumstances, concerning any event, will please, when they are placed in due order, and told with unaffected simplicity but a contrary effect is produced, when they are jumbled together; and we ourselves, as the relators, feel an inward pain or pleasure, according to the manner in which we have been able to repeat the particulars; estimating the feelings we must have excited by what we, as hearers, have experienced on similar occasions. It is the same if we view an edifice of any kind; let it be agreeable to the rules of art, let it but exhibit a perfect whole, and be adapted to the purpose for which it was erected, and we give the architect his meed of praise. On the other hand, if we find a palace where we looked for a temple, or pillars of the Corintbian with doors and windows of the Saxon order, we turn from it with disgust; not that we do not like both the Grecian and the Saxon styles of architecture, but because we wish to see them separate, and not inconsistently combined together. "Yet shall (my Lord) your just, your noble rules, Fill balf the land with imitating fools; Who random drawings from your sheets shall take, And of one beauty many blunders make; Turn arcs of triumph to a garden gate: Then clap four slices of pilaster upon't, plaud his expedient, we should know both the length of his thread and his speeches; for if these were long and that but short, what a number of direct and retrograde passages must he have made! * Steele. As to the representations of things, we need only recall to mind the strictly chaste and classical costume and decorations with which a Cato has been presented before the public, at Covent garden Theatre, by the Roscius of our age; or refer to the harmony for which the chefs d'œuvres of a Rafael are so distinguished, in order to be convinced of the striking effect produced in us by consistency in this particular. The absence of this quality is immediately felt Let us and perceived by every one. hear what Addison says on the subject: -"A little skill in criticism would inform us, that shadows and realities ought not to be mixed together in the same piece; and that the scenes, which are designed as the representations of nature, should be filled with resemblances, and not with the things themselves. If one would represent a wide, champaign country, filled with herds and flocks, it would be ridiculous to draw the country only upon the scenes, and to crowd several parts of the stage with sheep and oxen. This is joining together inconsistencies, and making the decorations partly real and partly imaginary." And as illustrative of this part of our subject, we should be at a loss to find any thing more applicable or forcible than the motto we have selected from Horace, thus translated by Roscommon : "If in a picture, Piso, you should see Cover'd with feathers of all sorts of birds: There is, indeed, nothing in which this consistency presents itself to the mind, whether by observation or reflection, without claiming our admiration; nor any thing in which we perceive its contrary without an opposite feeling. And we may trace this to the ease with which things, or rather the ideas of them, that individually or collectively may be compared together, are received into the mind, and-reviewed there; and to the laborious mental operation of reconciling those which have no connexion. If, then, there is so great a beauty in consistency, and so much pleasure afforded by the observance of it in all things, how strange it is that we should not meet with more frequent exemplifications of so excellent a quality, both in action and conduct. Were we to reflect for a moment on the pain we occasion to others by the practice of the contrary, so opposite to the end of our creation, we should forbear from committing those acts, and in dulging in those pursuits which prove so many obstacles to our happiness, both here and hereafter, and which so frequently and indelibly stain the cha racter of human nature. But Amongst many other important considerations that naturally flow from what has been said, we may remark the influence which an inconsistent line of conduct has on those around us. This is more particularly evident in the master of a household; and we may say with truth, that it is to the want of consistency we may attribute those disorders and divisions which we too generally witness in families. There is a consistency to be observed in our several duties towards each other, towards our superiors, our equals, and our inferiors. And he who does not observe a conformity in his obedience, his familiarities, his friendships, and his authority, must fall into disesteem. To quote the words of an excellent writer:* "If we conceive too great an idea of the eminence of our superiors, or subordination of our inferiors, it will have an ill effect upon our behaviour to both. He who thinks no man above him but for his virtue, none below him but for his vice, can never be obsequious or assuming in a wrong place; but will frequently emulate men in rank below him, and pity those about him.” Men, however, vary in their character, as in their features; and the vane which points out the quarter whence the wind blows, is not more uncertain than Variosus. He has a handsome • Steele. competency, is married to a female who once was amiable, and is the father of several children. But he is one day to be seen squandering away his estates at the gambling-table, and at another refusing a humble pittance to the poor and distressed. The disposition of his wife is soured by his unkindness, neg lect, and extravagance; and by turns his children are chastised for trivial faults, and then indulged in petulant humours. He treats his true friends with disrespect, just as caprice actuates him; and he is the dupe of professed ones. He associates with his groom, and to the rest of his domestics he is haughty and overbearing. Thus, instead of order, peace, and comfort, of which his residence yet bears some few signs without, all within is confusion, strife, and unhappiness. The master of a family, to ensure respect, must steer clear of hauteur or familiarity in his conduct towards his domestics; and hold the reins of authority with neither too slack nor too tight a hand towards his children. Should be fall into either of those extremes, he is hated or disobeyed; but if he avoids them, he is beloved by all: his commands are executed, his admonitions receive attention. To describe such a character, who to these add other qualities equally desirable, is to anticipate our esteem and regard; to realize it is to secure them. Yet how rarely is it that we can find an original to answer our portrait, although the consequences of an opposite conduct are so severely felt, and that not only in one, but in every class of society. The same remarks may be applied to a whole people; the vices of the government are the cause of national immorality and corruption; as, on the contrary, the virtues of which it sets the example are every where reflected in the several ranks of its subjects. Such, then, being the case, as it regards our fellow men, we cannot but feel a conviction that, to fix our admiration on the Supreme Author of the Universe, we should be consistent in our conceptions of him. We should clothe him with every attribute of power, greatness, and majesty, and discard those which are mean, trifling, and undignified: our thoughts should be divested, as far as it is possible, of all that partakes of imperfection; and, as earthly things are, without exception, inore or less affected by it, we should, in our approaches to him, become as it were sublimated. Since we cannot penetrate the sacred veil which conceals him from our visual faculties, we must exalt our minds above "the visible diurnal sphere," to conceive the image of a Being who is omniscient and omnipotent. And here how poorly do we find our faculties gifted to approximate the picture to the reality; or how is it that such inconsistent ideas have been formed of him, when men have invested him with human weakness and passions, and concluded that he would listen to their curses and imprecations of vengeance on their fellow. creatures, and deal his thunders on the heads of the latter without mercy, whilst they alone should be partakers of his blessings! Agreeable to the character we have formed of the Deity, so should, and so will, be our devotion. When we abstract ourselves from the busy scenes of the world, and enter within the doors =of his house, to prostrate ourselves before him, every thing we see and hear should be fitted to uphold our thoughts, at least, until we have quitted it. The temples of religion have an air of solemnity which is adapted to the purpose, and the service and psalmody of our church are calculated to rouse our dormant feelings of reverence into ac tion, and to keep them so during the period allotted for our devotional exercises. Of the church service it has been said, "that it is as perfect as any thing of human invention, and the most capable of any form of words extant to speak our own wants, or the power of him from whom we ask relief." The version of our Psalms has often been objected to; but there is throughout them nothing but the most exalted sentiments of piety. If to these, then, be added an able minister, our thoughts ought not to wander from the object of our adoration. But whoever has observed the introduction into our churches of a species of music called voluntaries, during parts of divine service, must have felt himself incapable of reconciling them with devotion. They are any thing but incentives to pious reflections, and apparently introduced for the sole purpose of displaying musical talent in the fashionable graces of rapid execution. It cannot be urged that there is any need of them to relieve the minister, because the psalmody is sufficiently extensive to supply every necessary in terval, without occasioning monotony. Sic impar sibi. HOR. Sat. 3. 1. 1. v. 18. Made up of nought but inconsistencies. We are all fully sensible what trifles will divert our attention from the consideration of any subject, and therefore it is highly necessary to avoid the intervention of what is only calculated to amuse, when engaged in so solemn a duty. The mind is thus alternately raised to high and important objects, then attracted to light and airy sounds; again exalted, and again diverted. We might as well have a Harlequin on the stage playing antics, at the time the hero of a tragedy is about to utter a philippic against the follies of life. A celebrated dissenting minister, and the proprietor of a chapel in the county of S, is said to have declared, that he could see no reason why psalms and hymns might not be adapted to the most popular airs, and sang in the course of divine service, so that "the heart might be made merry," whilst chanting the praises of our Creator; and Rule Britannia, with some others, has since been introduced, to add, no doubt, to the devotion of the congregation. Some of the latter, it is true, may possibly, after much labour, so abstract their thoughts, as not to associate the original words with the tunes; but whoever admits the doc. trine of the association of ideas, so ably defined by Locke and others, will bave no small difficulty in believing it. So natural is it for the remembrance of one thing to be followed by that of some other, which was, when first received into the mind, associated with it, that we might as well suppose a man whose eyes were shut, would on opening them at noon-day not expect to see the light, as to doubt the fact of these airs not having an opposite tendency to what the reverend gentleman had in view. It will perhaps be said, that the custom of playing voluntaries in our churches, inconsistent as it is, has the sanction of antiquity, and even, it may be added, of authority. Neither of these, however, is a sufficient justification for continuing a practice productive of no good. The remains of the former, like the ruins of a temple, however beautiful in themselves or venerable from age, if they obstruct our steps in the path to real happiness, should be cleared away to make room for what is more useful and proper; and the latter, unless founded in tyranny, will ever give way to the voice of reason and improvement, IRISH EXTRACTS. CONTAINING A CONCISE DESCRIPTION OF BY THOMAS STRINGER, M.D. (Continued from page 215 ) A SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE GIANT'S HETHER we contemple the ad pretty good road for carriages leads to the summit of the cliffs near the Causeway, or, as they are called, the RockHeads; from which place travellers must proceed on foot, by a path which was made about twenty years ago by the direction and at the expense of that munificent nobleman, the late Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry, and intended to serve as a carriage road to the very edge of the Causeway, but which has since been suffered to get altogether out of repair. Before he descends this path, the traveller should turn to the westward, and visit the Cave of Port Coon, which has two entrances from the land, and one towards the sea, which rushes into it during storms with great violence, producing very fine echoes; but those produced by the discharge of any sort of fire-arms cannot fail to surprise any person unaccustomed to the noise of similar echoes. Further to the west is the Cave of Runkerry, which is only accessible by sea, but the sight of which will amply repay the traveller for the Where We Criotes structure of difficulty of the approach to it. Its di the Giant's Causeway itself, or the sub-mensions will convey some idea of its lime and stupendous scenery by which it magnificence; at the entrance its height is surrounded, we cannot but consider it is sixty-three feet, and its breadth twenas one of the greatest natural curiosities ty-five feet; its extent inwards four in the world; and the increased interest hundred and sixty-six feet. This cave which it is daily exciting in the minds of would be navigable for boats through. all lovers of natural beauty, is manifested out its whole leagth, were it not for in the very great increase of travellers a bar or bank of stones, which extends who now come to visit it from foreign across the middle of it, and over which countries, and the remotest parts of the the waves of the great Atlantic someBritish empire. tines roll with prodigious force and noise, reverberated in detonating peals from the sides and lofty roof of the cavern. The echoes produced here by the discharge of fire arms cannot, perhaps, be exceeded in any part of the world. Travellers, whose time will admit of it, should, previous to their visiting the Causeway by land, procure a boat, and, embarking at Black Rock, or at Port Braddon, should proceed slowly along, and follow all the windings of the shore; by which means they will have a grand and striking view of the whole extent of that lofty and precipitous coast, which extends about five miles. But as an accurate and minute examination of the singular conformation of the whole can only be effected by land, and as the stay of most visitors, and not unfrequently the state of the weather, will permit no other mode of seeing it, we shall point out, in the exact order in which they will present themselves, the different objects deserving of notice. Six miles from Coleraine, and within two miles of the Giant's Causeway, lies the village of Bush Mills, where there is a comfortable inn, and from thence a Near those caves are five of those great basaltic walls, called Whyn-Dykes, which intersect the cliffs in different places near the Giant's Causeway, runing into the sea, in a direction nearly north-north-west. Those dykes have attracted the attention of geologists, more particularly since Dr. Richardson has published his beautiful and curious observations upon them, in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, Vol. IX. page 21. Returning to the path already mentioned, the traveller descends toward the Causeway, the first view of which is obtained in passing those little, rocky, peninsulated hills, called the Stockans It is usual, in contemplating the Causeway, and the neighbouring coast, with a view to its picturesque effect, to fix upon three stations, or points of view, upon the land side; the view from the sea requires a separate consideration. Of those three stations, the first is at the eastern base of the rocks; and it was here that Mrs. Drury, under the patronage of Alexander, Earl of Antrim, drew the first of those two pictures, which were engraved, in 1743-4, by Vivares, and are still admired by every one who is capable of appreciating this kind of excellence. The eye is limited, in this prospect from the Stookans, to the Giant's Causeway, and the other objects, within a kind of amphitheatre which is bounded by the lofty headland called "The Chiney-Tops," which is here seen to great advantage in profile: and on this limitation of the view the charm of the prospect partly turns; for could the eye range over all the coast, the mind would be confused by the vast diversity of objects. Leaving this spot, we proceed to the most curious, though not the most obtrusive, feature in the, landscape, the Giant's Causeway itself. This amazing structure consists of three distinct moles running into the sea, and lying contiguous to each other; viz. the first, or Little Causeway; the second, or Middle Causeway; and the third, or Grand Causeway; the whole formed by about thirty thousand basaltic pillars, standing nearly perpendicular, and compacted together, so that their tops resemble a tesselated pavement. The extent of the Grand Causeway, from the Giant's Portal or Gateway, at the south end of it, to the point which forms its northern extremity, at ordinary nep tides, is six hundred and sixty feet; and from the Giant's Portal to the south-west extremaity of the Little Causeway is four hun. dred and five feet. The pillars composing these Causeways sink downwards to a depth which has not yet been ascertained the greatest height which any of them displays above ground, is on the eastern side of the Grand Causeway, where a remarkable range of pillars, called the Giant's Loom, will particularly attract the traveller's attention the tallest of those pillars is thirty-three feet high, and about two feet in diameter. The diameters of the : : Saw these engravings at Mr. Hunter's, Ballymagarry. Europ. Mag. Vol. LXXII. Cet. 1817. pillars throughout the three Causeways vary from fifteen to twenty-six inches. At the north point of the Middle Causeway is a mound of the same description of basaltic pillars, which, from its shape and conformation, has received the appropriate name of Honeycomb. The remarkable conformation of the pillars, considered either individually or collectively, will not fail to engage the attention of the most cursory observer; for it will soon be remarked, that in the close and compact arrangement of them, the contiguous sides of the several pillars are almost always of equal dimen sions, although two sides of the same pillar will seldom or ever be found equal. In a few instances, where the contiguous sides are unequal, one side always coincides with two opposite ones; and it appears remarkable, that there is no instance of a re-entering angle in any pillar throughout the whole causeway, nor probably in any other basaltic stratum in the world: but whether the same rule of conformation prevails universally throughout the dykes has not yet been discovered. And again it will be observed, that each pillar is formed of several distinct joints, or short prisms, closely articulated into each other, the convex end of the one being accurately fitted into the concave end of the next; sometimes the concavity, sometimes the convexity, is uppermost, and in some of the prisms both ends are concave, and in others both ends convex; but the convexity or concavity does not extend to the very extreme angles of the pillars, there being in general a flat rim running round each end. The same diversity of dimensions which will be remarked in the different sides of each pillar, also presents itself in the different joints, two of which are seldom or ever of the same length in the same pillar. The mathematician will perceive that the inequalities in the diameters of the pillars, as well as in the diniensions of their respective sides, is a necessary con sequence of the employment of prisms of a variety of geometrical figures in the structure of the Causeway, since space could not be completely filled, as it is here, by any description of equilateral prisms, except squares and hexagons. There is only one triangular pillar throughout the whole extent of the Causeways; it stands near the east side of the Grand Causeway: there are but three pillars of nine sides; one of them Tt |