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whereas, if it had arisen during conversation I could have joined in the fun, and made the cachinnation hearty and real. I detest your inward, half-ashamed sort of sniggle; but commend me to a good robust octave of merry notes. Even a smile of genuine kind nature sheds a light down into my depths, and imparts a glow like a glass of cordial. In short, cheerfulness is my delight, especially at meal time; and if doctors would insist upon their patients dining in society instead of giving them those eternal drugs, I'll be bound to say dyspepsia would fly away for ever on its batlike wing.

What will my friends and the world in general say, if I venture to declare that a life spent in good-will to others, and a judicious regard to our moral government, influences a humble individual like myself in a most remarkable manner? Yet the human body is such a bundle of sympathies; it is perfectly true. I do not mean a mere selfish care of the body, a regularity of existence suggested simply by providential motives; but I mean that I sympathise, and act in harmony with those higher inspirations and faculties, which distinguish a highly-gifted nature from a common one. An explanation of this principle in all its bearings would involve both a physiological and psychological disquisition, and as the office of lecturer to mankind is not my rôle in life, I will forbear afflicting the reader by any plunge into obscure matters.

Thus far, then, the necessary observances to sustain the body in health consist of moderation, mastication, a careful choice of food, regularity, exercise, society at meals, abjuration of physic, and, in case of indisposition arising from an infringement of these rules, rest and a strict regimen. Advice so simple savors, perhaps, of selfevident truisms; but why then do people neglect them so continually? By far the larger portion of the ills of life is occasioned by errors in diet; and though there, of course, exist hereditary diseases which have nothing whatever to do with myself, and rest solely with my ancestors, yet even these ills are to be mitigated, and, in a generation or two, totally eradicated, by a strict attention to what passes the lips-inwardly. The moment compounds are swallowed, the system must get rid of them in some way or other; and just conceive how much evil might be avoided, if people would only consider this simple fact. Health influences directly and indirectly a man's actions, and his mode and tone of thought; and his ideas expressed in language, are so many winged seeds, which he sows during life, to spring up ultimately for the good or ill of those who reap. He should never forget, too, that he is a link (as, indeed, is the smallest atom of matter) in the chain which stretches from the dim past into the illimitable future; and he contributes his share in giving form and shape to things to come, in the same way as he and his ideas have been formed, and shaped by things past.

Health, therefore, is a treasure he has no right to expend lavishly, or to fritter away; he holds it in trust, as he does his life; and even in the dark ages, when science was struggling in the hands of astrologers and alchemists, they regarded the vital portions of the body so highly, as to exalt matter into the throne of man's soul and spirit.

There are some members of my family whose nature is so vigorous and robust, that ordinary rules and regulations would seem scarcely to To such, I say, go apply to their particular case. on and prosper; but there are breakers ahead, and take care that you do not get wrecked on alcohol. From your very vigor you will be enm al drams, and then ticed to indulge-first larger ones; till it will come to pass, that ultimately your digestion is no longer inside you, and a part of you, but in BOTTLES AND FLASKS!

How many of these animated human bottles and flasks cross our path daily, we know not; but they are not few. Filthy, beastly, stinking wretches !-Faugh!

O'BYRNE'S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE WAR.

Part I. Royal 8vo. Charles Skeet. THE name of Mr. O'Byrne is a guarantee for this being an accurate record of the eventful war on which the eyes of all nations are now turned with the most intense interest.

We may all read, en passant, in the daily and weekly journals, detached accounts of what is going forward at home and abroad; but in this work, the whole progress of events is thoroughly digested—the details forming a continuous narrative of events, and bringing in a palpable form before the reader all that has transpired during the past month.

The materials have been carefully collected from official sources, and as carefully arranged; and they supply, at the nominal cost of sixpence monthly, a work of imperishable interest. We should mention that a well-executed map of the Danube, Black Sea, and Baltic, accompanies the first part of this Encyclopædia. For this, no extra charge is made.

THE POWER OF TRUE LOVE.
BY ELIZA COOK.

THOU art not with me when I tread
The forest path at eve,
Where the full branches over head

Their fragrant garlands weave;
Yet all things in my lonely walk-
The stream, the flowers, the tree,
The very birds-but seem to talk
In gentle strains of thee!
If in the midnight's gentle gloom
Sweet sleep mine eyelids fill,
I see thee in my curtain'd room,
In dreams thou'rt with me still!
Thou art not with me, yet I feel
Thy presence when I go
Where the pale moonbeams all reveal
Our wanderings long ago;
And when the song-bird fills the air,
Thy voice seems sweet and clear,
For memory has such power, that there
I fancy thou art near;
Until the midnight's darker gloom
My wearied eyelids fill,
And then within my curtain'd room
In dreams thou'rt with me still.

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It is hardly needful for us to premise that not actuated by any ill-feeling. Quite the contrary. As a philanthropist, we want to become useful. This is what we live for; and the grand end, we imagine, for which we were born. Pilate once asked Let us, too, inquire into the same momentous matter.

"What is Truth?"

TRUTH is the basis of practical goodness. Without it, all (so-called) virtues are mere representations, wanting the reality. Having no foundation, they quickly prove their evanescent nature, and disappear as "the morning dew."

Whatever brilliant abilities we may possess, if the dark spot of falsehood exist in our hearts, it defaces their splendor and destroys their efficacy. If Truth be not our guiding spirit, we shall stumble upon "the dark mountains." The clouds of Error will surround us, and we shall wander in a labyrinth-the intricacy of which will increase as we proceed in it. No art can unravel the web that Falsehood weaves. It is more tangled than the knot of the Phrygian king. Falsehood is ever fearful, and shrinks beneath the steadfast, piercing eye of Truth. It is ever restless-racking the invention to form some fresh subterfuge to escape detection. Its atmosphere is darkness and mystery. It lures but to betray, and leads its followers into the depths of misery.

Truth is the spirit of light and beauty, and seeks no disguise. Its noble features are always unveiled, and shed a radiance upon every object within their influence. It is robed in spotless white; and, conscious of its purity, it is fearless and undaunted. It never fails its votaries, but conducts them through evil report and good report, without spot or blemish. It breathes of Heaven and happiness, and is ever in harmony with the Great Centre.

The consciousness of Truth nerves the

VOL. V.-19.

timid, and imparts dignity and firmness to their actions. It is an internal principle of honor, which renders the possessor superior to fear. It is always consistent with itself, and needs no ally. Its influence will remain when the lustre of all that once sparkled and dazzled has passed away.

Deceit and chicanery are mean and con66 The double-minded are untemptible. stable in all their ways." and generally fail in attaining their wishes; whilst those who cultivate singleness of heart and aim, with sincerity of feeling and purpose, have energy for an attribute, and success a frequent reward.

There is no pleasure comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of Truth the air is always clear and serene. -a hill not to be commanded, and where Certainly it is Heaven upon earth to have the mind moving in charity, resting in Providence, and turning upon the poles of

Truth.

The Athenians were remarkable for their reverence of Truth. Euripides introduced a person in a play who, on reference being made to an oath he had taken, said, "I swore with my mouth, but not with my heart." The perfidy of this sentiment highly incensed the audience; and induced Socrates, who was the bosom friend of the great tragic poet, to quit the theatre. Euripides was publicly accused, and tried as one guilty of breaking the most sacred bond of society.

Montaigne says "If a man lieth, he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men; for a lie faces God, and shrinks from man." How forcible is this remark!

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There is nothing more beautiful than a character in which there is no guile. Many who would be shocked at an actual breach of truth, are yet much wanting in sincerity of manner or conversation. This is a species of conventional deceit which cannot be too strictly guarded against.

Unswerving truth should be the guide of youth. It is not sufficient to speak the truth, but our whole conduct to them should be sincere, upright, and without artifice. Children very easily discern between truth and deceit; and if once they detect the latter in those to whose charge they are committed. confidence is for ever banished; and on the first opportunity, the same baneful duplicity which they have observed in others will be practised by them. Childhood catches and reflects everything around it. An untruth told by one to whom it is accustomed to look with deference, may act upon the young heart like a careless spray of water thrown on polished steel, staining with rust which no after efforts can efface.

Finally, Truth is the basis of Love. Where we cannot trust, we cannot love. Wherever

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falsehood exists, it destroys nappiness, paralyses energy, and debases the mind. No superiority of intellect can long associate with this fearful vice.

The study of truth is perpetually joined with the love of practical virtue. There is no virtue which derives not its origin from truth; as, on the contrary, there is no vice which has not its beginning in a lie. Truth is the foundation of all knowledge. It leads at once to the love of God, and is the cement of all well-regulated societies.

A choice lies before us. Let us choose well and wisely. Then will our conscience be an honest one, and our life a life of uninterrupted enjoyment. The pleasure of doing good may be felt. To talk about it were

ostentation.

LIFE IN ITS LOWEST FORMS.

THE SPONGES.

AMONG THE ORGANISMS (the position of which has been most debated) are some very familiar to us, from our habitual employment of some of the species for domestic purposes. They constitute the extensive and widelydistributed class Porifera, or the Sponges, the history of which is curious. We shall not enumerate the names or record the opinions of the controversialists who have contended for scientific dominion over these bodies; naturalists of the highest eminence have been arrayed on each side. We shall content ourselves with giving the judgment of Dr. Johnston, the learned historian of British Sponges, and one well worthy of being listened to with respect; and we quote him the rather because his decisions, while they tersely exhibit the real merits of the case, have so yielded to accumulated evidence as to shift from the side first advocated to the opposite.

When the "History of the British Zoophytes" was published, the author omitted the Sponges, and gave the following summary of his reasons for so doing: "If they are not the productions of Polypes, the zoologist who retains them in his province must contend that they are, individually, animals; an opinion to which I cannot assent, seeing that they have no animal structure or individual organs, and exhibit no one function usually supposed to be characteristic of the animal kingdom. Like vegetables, they are permanently fixed; like vegetables, they are nonirritable; their movements, like those of vegetables, are extrinsical and involuntary; their nutriment is elaborated in no appropriated digestive sac; and, like cryptogamous vegetables, or algae, they usually grow and ramify in forms determined by local circumstances; and if they present some peculiari

ties in the mode of the imbibition of their food and in their secretions, yet even in these they evince a nearer affinity to plants than any animal whatever."

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A few years later, however, the learned writer published his "History of British Sponges," in the introduction to which he elaborately examines the whole question, concluding with the following verdict: "Few, on examining the green Spongilla, would hesitate to pronounce it a vegetable, a conclusion which the exacter examination of the naturalist seems to have proved to be correct; and when we pass on from it to an examination of the calcareous and siliceous marine genera, the impression is not so much weakened but that we can still say with Professor Owen, that if a line could be drawn between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, the Sponges should be placed upon the vegetable side of that line. We shall possibly, however, arrive at an opposite conclusion if, proceeding in our inquiry, we follow the siliceous species, insensibly gliding, on the one hand, into the fibro-corneous Sponge, filled with its mucilaginous fishy slime, and, on the other, into the fleshy Tethya, in whose oscula the first signs of an obscure irritability show themselves. Sponges, therefore, appear to be true zoophytes; and it imparts additional interest to their study to consider them, as they probably are, the first matrix and cradle of organic life, and exhibiting before us the lowest organisations compatible with its existence."

Many of our readers are probably cognisant of only one kind of Sponge,-the soft, plump, woolly, pale-brown article, so indispensable in our dressing-rooms; or, at the most, two, if they chance to have noticed the largepored, coarser sort, with which grooms wash carriages. It may surprise such persons to be informed that the streams, and shores of the British Isles produce upwards of sixty distinct species of Sponge; and that every coast, especially in the tropical seas, where they are very numerous and varied, has species peculiar to itself.

A Sponge, as it is used in domestic economy, is merely a skeleton; it is the solid frame-work which in life supported the softer flesh. This skeleton is composed of one of the following substances,-flint, lime, or a peculiar horny matter. The first two are crystallised, and take the appearance of spicular needles either simple or compound, varying greatly as to their length, thickness, shape, and curvature, but constant in form in the same species. The horny matter, of which the common domestic Sponge affords an example, is arranged in slender, elastic, translucent, tough, solid fibres, united to each other irregularly at various points, and in every direction, and thus forming an open

netted mass, commensurate with the size of the whole Sponge. The horny Sponges are almost confined to the warmer seas, but the siliceous and calcareous kinds are common with us; especially the former.

The solid parts are, during life, invested with a glairy transparent slime, so fluid in most species as to run off when the Sponge is taken out of its native element; yet this clear slime is the flesh of the animal.

fleshy substance incrusting them, which rise into little conical hillocks perforated at the extremity, like the crater-cones of tiny volcanoes. This is the Crumb-of-bread Sponge (Halichondria panicea), one of our most common species; and it is peculiarly suitable for displaying the currents of which we have been speaking. Dr. Grant remarks that it presents the strongest current which he had seen. "Two entire round portions of this sponge," he says, "were placed together in a glass of sea-water, with their orifices opposite to each other at the distance of two inches; they appeared to the naked eye like two living batteries, and soon covered each other with feculent matter. I placed one of them in a shallow vessel, and just covered its sur

The spicula, whether of flint or lime, or the horny fibres, are so arranged as to form numberless pores, with which the whole animal is perforated; it is to these that our common Sponge owes its most valuable property of imbibing and retaining water, as we shall presently see when we investigate the history of this species in detail. In life, the surface and highest orifice with water. On rounding water is made to flow through these pores by a continual current (interrupted, however, at the will of the animal) from without into the interior of the body. But whither goes this current? The pores lead into large channels, which also run through the body, like the drains from individual houses, which run into the main sewer; and these open on the exterior of the body, by more or less conspicuous orifices called oscula, From these latter the effete water is poured in forcible streams, and thus a circulating current is maintained.'

or mouths.

It was Dr. Grant who first established the fact of this current from personal observation. His account of the discovery is full of interest. "I put a small branch," he observes, "of the Spongia coalita, with some sea-water, into a watch-glass, under the microscope; and, on moving the watch-glass so as to bring one of the apertures on the side of the Sponge fully into view, I behold, for the first time, the splendid spectacle of this living fountain vomiting forth from a circular cavity an impetuous torrent of liquid matter, and hurling along, in rapid succession, opaque masses, which it strewed everywhere around. The beauty and novelty of such a scene in the animal kingdom long arrested my attention; but after twenty-five minutes of constant observation I was obliged to withdraw my eye, from fatigue, without having seen the torrent for one instant change its direction, or diminish in the slightest degree the rapidity of its course. I continued to watch the same orifice, at short intervals, for five hours, sometimes observing it for a quarter of an hour at a time,-but still the stream rolled on with a constant and equal velocity." The vehemence of the current then began to diminish, and in about an hour ceased."

No one can have looked with any attention at the rocks on any part of our shores that are left exposed by the sea at low spring-tide, without noticing irregular masses of yellow

strewing some powdered chalk on the surface of the water, the currents were visible at a great distance; and on placing some small pieces of cork or a dry paper over the apertures, I could perceive them moving by the force of the current, at the distance of ten feet from the table ou which the specimen rested.

The publication of these facts convinced naturalists that the gelatinous flesh of the Sponge exerted some vigorous action by which the currents were maintained, and cilia were suspected to be the organs. But the closest scrutiny failed to detect them, until first Dr. Dobie, and then Mr. Bowerbank, succeeded in seeing them in action in a living native Sponge. In similar situations to those where the Crumb-of-bread Sponge occurs, may be found, but much more rarely, the elegant Sack Sponge (Grantia compressa). It takes the form of a little flattened bag of angular outline, and of a whitish hue, with an orifice at each angle. The bags, which are frequently clustered, hang by a slender base from the stalks of sea-weeds, or from the naked rocks. Wher examined they are found to be hollow, with thin walls; and if a small portion be torn off, and placed beneath a microscope, it will exhibit well the structure of a spicular Sponge. The substance will appear crowded, and almost composed of calcareous crystals, most of which are stars of three radiating points; but some are linear needles, and on the exterior are many which are pointed at one end, and terminate in a bent, club-like knob at the other.

By

It was this species which, under Mr. Bowerbank's experienced eye and delicate manipulation, revealed the moving cilia. tearing specimens in pieces (for the use of the keenest cutting instruments so crushed the texture as to destroy the parts), and examining the separated edges with high powers, he found that the sides are composed of a number of hexagonal cells, defined by the peculiar arrangement of the triradiate spicula,

and having their walls formed by a multitude of nucleated granules. These angular cells are laid at right angles to the long axis of the Sponge, extending from the outer surface to the inner; and they are crossed, near the middle, by a thin partition, perforated in the centre. In this perforation, several long, whiplike cilia were seen lashing with energy, to be connected with the granules of which and the same organs were afterwards found the cell-walls were composed. By means of the wavings of these cilia, then, the water is made to flow through the cells from without, being discharged into the interior of the sack and poured out in streams from the orifices (oscula) which terminate the angles of the Sponge.

This beautiful and interesting discovery leaves no doubt of the animal nature of the Sponges.-P. H. G.

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Whose inmates live in glad exchange

Of pleasures, free from vain expense;

a new

NOTES ON PHOTOGRAPHY. (Continued from Page 204.)

No. III.-PRINTING PROCESS.

HAVING, MY DEAR SIR, in the two previous taking Collodion Pictures on glass, I now papers, given plain and simple directions for have already spoken, and which we have propose to show how to print copies on paper, from the glass negatives of which we fully described.

negatives (of which the dark shades are The principle of this operation is, that the transparent and the white ones opaque, as may be seen by holding them to the light), being laid on the prepared paper, the light underneath; whilst, under the impervious the darks, and blackens the paper penetrates whites, it is left colorless. It is "fixed" after this, when sufficiently dark, and the picture is according to nature. By this method, copies from any negative may be obtained to an indefinite extent.

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An apparatus, called a pressure frame," is useful, yet not indispensable for the printing process; for a sheet of glass and a board (though more troublesome to manage) are equally effective. Most kinds of paper will not do for this, as their surfaces are uneven. A good smooth paper is manufactured for the purpose by Canson Frères (a French house), and is sold at most photographic establishments.* Cut your paper to any required size, and mark each sheet with a pencil-mark in one corner. Pour into one of your porcelain trays a solution (previously made) consisting of hydrochlorate of ammo. nia, oz.; distilled water, pint.

Lay each sheet, in turn, on this (with the marked side down), and let it float from

Whose thoughts beyond their means ne'er range, three to four minutes-taking care that no

Nor wise denials give offence!Who in a neighbor's fortunes find No wish, no impulse to complainWho feel not, never felt, the mind To envy yet another's gain!

Though Fate deny its glittering store,
Love's wealth is still the wealth to choose;
For all that gold can purchase more
Are gauds it is no loss to lose!
Some beings, wheresoe'er they go,
Find nought to please, or to exalt-
Their constant study but to show

Perpetual modes of finding fault;

While others, in the ceaseless round
Of daily wants, and daily care,
Can yet cull flowers from common ground,
And twice enjoy the joy they share!
Oh! happy they who happy make-

Who, blessing, still themselves are blest!Who something spare for others' sake

And strive in all things for the best!

S.

air-bells are underneath, for wherever they are the salt will not get to the paper; and that none of the liquid runs over the back of the sheet. The paper will lose its tendency to curl off the water, if previously slightly damped between blotting-paper. Drain each sheet as you remove it, till it ceases to drip; and then dry it amongst blotting-paper. It will keep, thus salted, for any length of time. To render it sensitive to light, it must now be floated on a solution of nitrate of silver, of 60 grains to the ounce of water; or just double the strength of that used for the Collodion process.

This part of the operation must be done in the darkened chamber. The paper is floated as on the ammonia solution, the same care being taken to avoid stains. From four to five minutes is a common time for the paper to soak; but after a few trials, the beginner

• Ask for Cansons' "Positive" paper, and observe their name in the paper.

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