"An elephant at Tinnevelly had been engaged all day in piling timber, but in the evening becoming angry at some promise his keeper had neglected to fulfill, he went of his own accord and undid every stroke of work he had completed during the day."

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LONG PREACHING." There is nothing," says Jay of Bath, in his recently published autobiography," there is nothing against which a young preacher should be more guarded than length.' Nothing," says Lamont, "can justify a long sermon. If it be a good one, it need not be long; and if it be a bad one, it ought not to be long." Luther, in the enumeration of nine qualities of a good preacher, gives as the sixth, "that he should know when to stop." Boyle has an essay on patience under long preaching. This was never more wanted since the commonwealth than now, in our own day, especially among our young divines and academies, who seem to think their performances can never be too much attended to. "I never," says Jay, "err this way myself, but my conviction always laments it; and for many years after I began preaching I never offended in this way. I never exceeded three quarters of an hour at most. I saw one excellency was within my reach-it was brevity-and I determined to attain it."

Dr. Murray, the author of the famous "Letters of Kirwan," has issued a new and fragmentary book, in which he denies any peril to our country from Irish immigration. He says, "Let the Irish and continental Papist come; we have room for them all. We would have no objection to the coming of the pope himself. Unless he can out-preach us, we have no dread of him; and when he does that in truth, he ought to succeed." He is quite as heretical on the subject as our late article.

THE HOURS MOST FATAL TO LIFE.-The Foreign Quarterly has some curious statistics on this subject. The writer says he has himself ascertained the hour of death in 2,880 instances of all ages. He remarks that the population from which the data are derived is a mixed population in every respect, and that the deaths occurred during a period of several years. If the deaths of the 2,880 persons had occurred indifferently at any hour during the twenty-four, 120 would have occurred at each hour. But this was by no means the case. There are two hours in which the proportion was remarkably below this, two minima in fact, namely, from midnight to one o'clock, when the deaths were 53 per cent. below the average, and from noon to one o'clock, when they were 20 per cent. below. From three to six o'clock, A. M., inclusive, and from three to seven o'clock, P. M., there is a gradual increase; in the former of 23 per cent. above the average, in the latter of 54 per cent. The maximum of deaths is from five to six o'clock, A. M., when it is 40 per cent. above the average; the next during the hour before midnight, when it is 25 per cent. in excess; a third hour of excess is that from nine to ten o'clock in the morning, being 17 per cent. above the average. From ten, A. M., to three o'clock, P. M., the deaths are less nu

merous, being 16 per cent. below the average, the hour before noon being the most fatal. From three o'clock, P. M., to seven, P. M., the deaths rise to 5 per cent. above the average, and then fall from that hour to eleven, P. M., averaging 6 per cent. below the mean. During the hours from nine to eleven in the evening there is a minimum of 6 per cent. below the average. Thus, the least mortality is during the mid-day hours, namely, from ten to three o'clock; the greatest during early morning hours, from three to six o'clock. About onethird of the total deaths noted were children under five years of age, and they show the influence of the latter still more strikingly. At all the hours from ten in the morning until midnight, the deaths are at or below the mean; the hours from ten to eleven, A. M., four to five, P. M., and nine to ten, P. M., being minima, but the hour after midnight being the lowest maxiimum: at all the hours from two to ten, A. M., the deaths are above the mean, attaining their maximum at from five to six, P. M., when it is 45 per cent. above.

CHANGE OF NAMES.-Toward the middle of the fifteenth century it became the fashion among the wits and learned men, particularly in Italy, to change their baptismal names for classic ones. Among the rest Platina, the historian at Rome, calling together his friends, took the name of Callimachus, instead of Philip. Pope Paul II., who reigned about that time, unluckily for the historian, chanced to be suspicious and illiterate. He had no idea that people could wish to alter their names unless they had some bad design, and actually scrupled not to employ imprisonment and other violent methods to discover the fancied mystery. Platina was most cruelly tortured on this frivolous account. He had nothing to confess; so the pope, after endeavouring in vain to convict him of heresy and sedition, released him after a long imprisonment.

RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION.-Scotchmen and Germans, the former chiefly in the early part of the last century, and the latter since that period, have had the greatest influence in molding and civilizing the barbarous empire of Peter the Great. Most of the professors in the Russian Universities are Germans, who are also the principal agents in the boasted progress that the Russians have made in the study of the Oriental languages. The compilers of the great Sanscrit Dictionary, now preparing under the auspices of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, are two distinguished German scholars, Messrs. Böthlingk and Roth. The Russians, hitherto, have not been remarkable for their studious and literary habits. Their popular poets of the present day are weak imitators of the worst features of Byron's poetry.

ANCIENT ANTIQUITIES.-Nineveh was fifteen miles long, and forty round, with walls one hundred feet high, and thick enough for three chariots.-Babylon was sixty miles within the walls, which were seventy-five feet thick and three hundred high, with one hundred brazen gates.-The temple of Diana at Ephesus was four hundred and twenty-five feet high. It was

tleman is, that the swallows left Grenoble directly the cholera appeared there; and that directly it left the town they returned to their old quarters. During the two months in which the cholera raged at Grenoble, M. Dausse did not see a single swallow there. These observations may be of service to the gentlemen who have studied the atmospheric phenomena which attend the outbreak of cholera. Happy the house where the swallows build, therefore.

The death of the Rev. Dr. Kitto, the author of many valuable works connected with Biblical literature, is announced as having taken place at Canstadt, near Stuttgard, on the 25th of November. He was in his 51st year. Dr. Kitto had for some time been in ill health, and it will be remembered that a proposed tribute of respect from his friends assumed the sensible and appropriate form of a fund by which he was enabled to seek in foreign travel an alleviation of his calamity. He is best known as the editor of the "Pictorial Bible," and the "Journal of Sacred Literature."

THE AMERICAN MINISTER AT ROME.-In stating that Mr. Cass presented to the pontiff the letters of the President of the American Union, raising him to the dignity of a resident minister, the Paris Univers demands that the Cabinet at Washington should recognize the right of the pope to have a representative in the American republic, as he has at the majority of other governments. "What valid reason,' 29 observes the Univers, "can the Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia, and the President of the United States, allege for refusing to the court at Rome the right which they themselves exercise with respect to it." The reason is an obvious one, viz., that the little States of the Church, or court of Rome, cannot possibly have any state business here. The only affairs of the pope here must be connected with the religious interests of the Papists among us, and to have a diplomatic representative of the pope recognized by our government, as the infamous Bedini was informally, some time ago, would be to recognize politically a religious denomination. This will never do, and yet our absurd aping of foreign despotisms in establishing abroad pretentious diplomatic representatives may expose us to the evil. A good consul at Rome would serve all necessary purposes. An American consul ought to be able to attend to all our practical interests, in the presence of king or pope, as effectually as any court ambassador, and could easily do so if we chose to say that he should. Our whole foreign diplomacy is little better than a farce-it is something worse, as a concession to the greatest system of intrigue and dishonesty connected with the politics of Europe. We should like to see a bold administration at Washington which would sweep it all away, and teach Europe to respect a practical unpretending consular agency.

GREAT DISCOVERIES IN EGYPT.-We lately alluded to the discovery of Memphis, in Egypt, by Mariette. The readers of Bayard Taylor's travels will recall his visit to M. Mariette in the streets of the uncovered ruins. We learn from the London Gazette that M. Mariette has just

returned to Paris after having completed his operations. The most important result of these is the discovery of the famous Serapeum, or temple of Serapis, which was supposed to have been entirely destroyed. The sand and rubbish have been completely cleared away from the remains of this great and most ancient monument. It contains numerous representations of Apis, and statues of Pindar, Homer, Lycurgus, Pythagoras, Plato, and Euripides; and it is preceded by a sort of alley or passage, on each side of which are Egyptian sphinxes, about six hundred in number, and which is terminated by a number of figures, representing in a strange way the Grecian gods united with symbolical animals. Thus, a striking proof of the junction of Egyptian and Grecian art has been obtained. M. Mariette has also discovered the tomb of Apis. It is cut out of the solid rock; and consists of a vast number of chambers and galleries. In fact, it may be compared to a subterranean town. In these rooms and galleries there were found a great number of monoliths, containing dates which will be of great chronological utility; and others bearing epitaphs on, or, if we may use the expression, biographical notices of, certain of the oxen which were severally worshipped as Apis. There have also been found statues as old as the Pyramids, and in an astonishing state of preservation; they are executed. with great artistic skill, and are totally free from that inelegant stiffness of form which characterizes early Egyptian sculpture. Some of these statues are in granite and are colored, and the colors are quite fresh. A number of statues of animals, but not so well executed, one of these representing Apis, almost as large as life, and colored, have likewise been discovered; as have also numerous bronzes, jewels, vases, and little images. All the statues and other moveables have been conveyed to Paris, and are to be added to the Museum of the Louvre. The greatest credit is due to M. Mariette for his skill and industry in making his discoveries; they are only inferior in historical and archæological importance to those of Mr. Layard at Nineveh. The precise site of Memphis was until quite recently a matter of great doubt; and when that was discovered, it was not thought at all likely that any remains of the temple of Serapis could be brought to light.

WHO WROTE THE VESTIGES OF CREATION ?This book has been ascribed to Byron's daughter "Ada;" on what ground we never could ascertain, except that she was an erudite lady. A late number of the London Athenæum repeats the report that Robert Chambers is its author, and with apparently conclusive evidence-the testimony of Mr. Page, one of Chambers's literary employés. At the time the "Vestiges" was published, Mr. Page says he was engaged as one of the literary and scientific collaborateurs of the Messrs. Chambers. The first time he saw it was in the hands of Mr. William Chambers, who came into his room one day with the remark, "Here is a curious work, making some sensation," and requesting that he (Mr. Page) would write a notice of it for the Journal (Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.) For this purpose, Mr. Page took the work home,

and he had not read twenty pages of it before he felt convinced that it was the production of Mr. Robert Chambers. When asked for the review, he said he could not prepare one for two reasons:-1st, That he did not think the work suited for notice in the Edinburgh Journal; and 2d, Because he believed it to be the production of Mr. Robert Chambers. Mr. William Chambers received this announcement with apparent surprise; but denied all knowledge of the matter, and there the subject dropped. Some time after, however, and when the work was being severely handled by the reviewers, Mr. Robert Chambers alluded to the matter, affecting ignorance and innocence of the authorship; upon which Mr. Page remarked, that had he seen the sheets before going to press, he could have prevented some of the blunders. The consequence of this remark was, that Mr. Robert Chambers sent him the proof-sheets of the second or third edition of the "Vestiges," with the request that he would enter on the margin any corrections or suggestions that occurred. Mr. Page states, that he made some notes; but he does not say whether these notes were adopted into the re-impression. However, he has, as he declares, "made a clean breast of it" at length; and he concludes with the remark: "If merit is attachable to the work, the author will reap his high reward,-if demerit, the blame will, at least, fall on the right shoulders."

POPE'S SKULL-William Howitt says that, by one of those acts which neither science nor curiosity can excuse, the skull of Pope is now in the private collection of a phrenologist. The manner in which it was obtained is said to have been this:-On some occasion of alteration in the church, or burial of some one in the same spot, the coffin of Pope was disinterred, and opened to see the state of the remains; by a bribe to the sexton of the time, possession of the skull was obtained for the night, and another skull was returned instead of it. Fifty pounds were paid to manage and carry through this transaction. Be that as it may, the skull of Pope figures in a private museum.

OLD HUNDRED. · The history of this old Psalm tune, which almost everybody has been accustomed to hear, ever since he can remember, is the subject of a work recently written by an English clergyman. Luther has generally been reckoned the author of "Old Hundred," but it has been discovered that it was composed in the sixteenth century by William Franc, a German. In the course of time it has been considerably changed from the original; and it is said that, as it first appeared, it was of a more lively character than at present.

A memorial statue of Wordsworth has been erected in the baptistery of Westminster Abbey. The poet is represented in a loose classical robe, sitting on a mossy bank, and has a very characteristic aspect. In the early period of Wordsworth's career he suffered a neglect and ridicule as undeserved as was the praise of his admirers afterward exaggerated and unreasonable. Milton himself never received the encomiums heaped on the gentle and meditative poet of the

Lakes. Between the extremes of depreciation and of praise, the true estimate of Wordsworth is now more correctly taken, and every lover of true poetry will rejoice that this tribute to his memory has been placed in Westminster Abbey. The monument is next to that of Secretary Craggs, the friend of Pope and of Addison. The English papers criticise unfavorably both the statue and its position.

THE AUTHOR OF THE PLURALITY OF WORLDS. -The attribution of the "Plurality of Worlds" to Professor Whewell has met with no denial on his part, and is therefore considered as correct by English critics, so much so that an English periodical says the work is ascribed to him in the British Museum Catalogue.

After passing

A SUCCESSFUL DOCTOR.-Dr. Wilson, a distinguished physician, has lately published a book on the "Water Cure" in England, from which we learn that he has not only renovated many a dilapidated man, but also an English town. His history is quite interesting. some years as a student at the Liverpool Infirmary, he matriculated at Trinity College, Dublin, and spent four years in attending the clinical lectures of Drs. Stokes, Greaves, and Macartney. Speaking of the last, whose fine museum of specimens was purchased by the University of Cambridge, Dr. Wilson says, "I found the advantage and truth of all that I had heard from this profound physiologist and admirable teacher. Later I visited the principal German hospitals as far as Vienna. I afterward looked into the Italian hospitals for several winters in my slow progress from Milan to Naples, and found pathology and accurate diagnosis in the ascendant and rapidly progressing." From Italy Dr. Wilson went to Græfenberg, and met with Priessnitz and the water-cure system. Here he was completely bitten, and returning full of hydropathic ardor to England, he selected Malvern as the seat of his operations:

"When in Italy, my friend, the late lamented Captain Grover, advised me to visit Malvern before I settled anywhere; this I did, and found it a deserted village, but possessing all the requisites for a WaterCure Sanatorium-the climate mild, yet bracing; the purest water; with green hills already intersected by walks for invalids. My landlord, I discovered, was a bankrupt; he told me--although we were in the month of June of one of our finest summers-that I was the only person in the hotel, and the only stranger in Malvern. I took his house from the assignees, being the most suitable I could find for my purpose, but soon, however, found the necessity for a larger house, and determined on building one with all the requisites for patients under water-cure treatment. I was my own paymaster, and it cost altogether nearly twenty thousand pounds, every guinea of which I received from patients at Malvern. My private income was not touched. It soon paid for itself, and will again and again, if I do not retire early from the cares of office. Many were opposed to my undertaking; but when my establishment was finished, and full of patients, the effect it produced on Malvern was much what might have been anticipated-house building began, and went on rapidly. There is now a new town of commodious villas and lodgings: it is now well-drained and supplied with water, gas is in preparation, and there will shortly be a railroad to Worcester, eight Iniles distant, which will make the transit to London little more than three hours."

PURGATORY.-A modern Italian priest defines purgatory as "the fire that makes our pot boil."