mournful dirge of music; and the maker, by way of explanation, repeats the passages of Scripture which relate the events he has undertaken to shew. I have heard and read more than one eloquent sermon upon the passion, but I confess, none of the most laboured efforts of the pathetic ever touched my heart with one half the force of this puppet-shew. The traitor's kiss, the blow struck by the high priest's servant, the scourging, the nailing to the cross, the sponge of vinegar-every indignity offered, and every pain inflicted, occasioned a sensation, when thus made perceptible to the eye, which I had never felt at mere description.

ECHOES.

If you think it proper, Mr. Editor, you may add the following remarkable Echo, (mentioned by Mad. Genlis,) to those you have already recorded, on pages, 348, 349, 366, vol I. as it differs materially from the echoes heretofore noticed.

"In the memoirs of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, for the year 1692, mention is made of the echo at Genetay, two leagues from Rouen, which has this peculiarity, that the person who sings does not hear the echo, but his voice only; and, on the contrary, those who listen do not hear the voice, but the echo, and that with surprising variations; for the echo seems sometimes to approach and sometimes to retire ; sometimes it is heard distinctly, at others not at all; some hear only a single voice, others several; one hears to the right, another to the left, &c. This echo still exists, but is not what it was, because the environs have been planted with trees, which have greatly hurt the effect."

ON THE MUSIC OF NATURE.

How a certain disposition of certain sounds should, through the medium of the ear, raise, depress, or tranquillize the spirits, is a problem difficult to be solved; yet, in a greater or less degree, all are convinced of its truth; and to gratify this universal feeling, Nature seems to have mingled harmony in all her works. Each crowded and tumultuous city may properly be called a temple of discord; but wherever Nature holds undisputed dominion, music is the partner of her empire. The " lonely voice of waters," the hum of bees, the chorus of birds; nay, if these be wanting, the very breeze that rustles through the foliage, is musical.

From this music of Nature, solitude gains all her charms: for dead silence, such as that which precedes a thunder-storm, rather terrifies than delights the mind.

On earth 'twas yet all calm around,
A pulseless silence-dread profound-
More awful than the tempest's sound!

Perhaps it is the idea of mortality which it awakens that makes absolute stillness so awful. We cannot bear to think that even Nature herself is inanimate: we love to feel her pulse throbbing beneath us, and to listen to her accents amid the still retirement of her deserts.

Flat solitude, in truth, which is described by our poets, as expanding the heart and tranquillizing the passions, though far removed from the inharmonious din of worldly business, is yet varied by such gentle sounds as are most likely to make the heart beat in unison with the serenity of all surrounding objects. Thus Gray

"Now fades the glimmering landscape on my sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds."

Even when Nature arrays herself in all her terrors-when the thunder roars above our heads, and man, as he listens to the sound, shrinks at the sense of his own insignificance; even this, without at all derogating from its awful character, may be termed a grand chorus in the music of Nature.

Almost every scene in Nature has its peculiar music, by which its character, as cheering, melancholy, awful, or tranquillizing, is marked and defined. This appears in the alternate succession of day and night.

When the splendour of day has departed, how consonant with the sombre gloom of night, is the hum of the beetle, or the lonely, plaintive voice of the nightingale! But more especially, as the different seasons' revolve, a corresponding variation takes place in the music of Nature. As winter approaches, the voice of birds, which cheered the days of summer, ceases; the breeze that was lately singing among the leaves, now shrilly hisses through the naked boughs; and the rill that, but a short time ago, murmured softly as it flowed along, now, swelled by tributary waters, gushes headlong in a deafening torrent. It is not, therefore, in vain that, in the full spirit of prophetic song, Isaiah has called upon the "mountains to break forth into singing-the forest, and every tree thereof." Thus we may literally be said to "find tongues in trees-books in the running brooks;" and as we look upward to the vault of heaven, we are inclined to believe that

Their scatter'd cheeks, and chopt hands; there's virtue in them.
They'll sell those mangled limbs at dearer rates

Than yon trim bands can buy."-Dryden.

The Cossacks never fight in a line. They are scattered by platoons, at the head, on the flanks, and in the rear of the Russian army, sometimes at a considerable distance. They do the duties of advanced guards, videttes, and patroles. Their activity and vigilance are incredible. They creep and ferret everywhere with a boldness and address of which none but those who have seen them can obtain an idea. Their numerous swarms form, as it were, an atmosphere round the camps and armies on a march, which they secure from all surprise, and from every unforeseen attack. Nothing escapes their piercing and unexperienced eye; they divine, as if by instinct, the places fit for ambuscades; they read, on the trodden grass, the number of men and horses that have passed, from the traces, more or less recent; they know how to calculate the time of their passing. A blood hound follows no better the scent of his game. In the immense plains from Azof to the Danube, in those monstrous solitudes covered with tufted and waving grass, where the eye meets with no tree, no object that can direct it; and where the melancholy uniformity is only now and then interrupted by infectious bogs, and quagmires, torrents overgrown with briars, and insulated hillocks, the ancient graces of unknown generations in those deserts, in short-the roaming Cossack néver misses his way.

By night the stars direct his solitary course: if the sky be clear he alights from his horse at the first Kurgan, that chance throws in his way. Through a long habit of exercising his sight in the dark, or even by the help of feeling alone, he distinguishes the herbs and plants which thrive best on the declivity of the hillock exposed to the north or to the south. He repeats this examination as frequently as the opportunity offers, and in this manner he follows and finds again the direction which he ought to take for regaining his camp, his troop, or his dwelling, and any other place to which he may be bound. By day the sun is his surest guide. The breath of the winds, of which he knows the periodical

course, it being pretty regular in these countries, likewise serves him as a compass to steer by. As a new series of augury, the Cossack not unwillingly interrogates the birds; their number, their species, their flight, their cry indicate to him the proximity of a spring, a rivulet, or a pool, a habitation, a herd, or an army. Those clouds of Cossacks which encompass the Russian armies for the safety of their encampments, or of their marches, are formidable to the enemy-their resistless vigilance, their rash curiosity, their sudden attacks alarm him, harrass him incessantly, and they incessantly controul and watch his motions. In a general engagement the Cossacks commonly keep at a distance, and are spectators of the battle: they wait for its issue in order to take to flight, or to set out in pursuit of the vanquished, among whom their long pike then makes a great slaughter.

BIBLICAL CURIOSITIES.

Books, Chapters, Verses, Words, Letters, &c. contained in the Old and New Testament, and Apocrypha.

The word and occurs in the Old and New Testament, 46,227 times. The word Jehovah occurs 6,855 times. The twenty-first chapter of Ezra, has all the letters of the alphabet in it. The nineteenth chapter of the second book of Kings, and the thirty-seventh chapter of Isaiah, are alike. And in the book of Esther, which has ten chapters, neither the word Lord nor God is mentioned.

THE PARIAS AND POOLEAHS OF THE HINDOOS.

(From Hindostan in Miniature.)

The Parias do not form a distinct caste. The term Paria signifies, upon the whole, whatever is most vile. A bad priest, who neglects his religious duties is a Paria Bramun; a miserable house is a pariagor; and so of other things. The class of the Parias is composed of all those who, for heinous offences, have been expelled from their castes. The Europeans and the Mahometans are regarded as Parias, because they eat flesh, use the left hand in feeding themselves, and have communication with those despised wretches. The Parias perform the lowest offices in society; they flay animals which have died a natural death, subsist on their flesh, and tan their hides; they remove all sorts of filth. They are forbidden to enter the temples and the marketplaces. The other castes have no communication with them; they are obliged to live in the outskirts of towns or in solitary places. They run away on the appearance of a Hindoo of any of the four castes, who would deem himself polluted by the approach of so vile a creature. Neither would he touch any thing that had been used by them until it had been purified; earthen vessels are broken in pieces, and copper ones passed through fire. They must not draw water from the common wells, and are required to strew the bones of animals round their own wells, that the other castes may know them, and not drink of the same On the other hand, they may eat whatever they please, even the flesh of the cow, and enter into the service of Europeans. Among the Parias, also, there are various sub-divisions.

water.

The Parias are mostly disgusting in their appearance; both sexes are addicted to intoxication. They are dirty, impudent, gross, and ferocious; but it is not improbable that these vices may proceed from the state of degradation to which they are condemned.

Though the Parias are so thoroughly despised, yet this class is indisputably one of the most useful among the Hindoos. They act in the capacity of domestic servants, of grooms, of cooks to the castes who are not obliged to dress their own food, and of palanquin bearers; they are likewise employed in fishing and hunting.

Some of the Parias enter into the service of the Europeans; when they are taken young, they may be trained up to be good servants. They never refuse any kind of employment, in which respect they differ from persons of the four castes, who have incessantly some civil and religious ceremonies to perform, and would feel degraded if they touched this or that dish, or if they performed such and such a duty. It should be observed, how