his master had to fly from England to avoid imprisonment for printing articles too liberal for the then despotic government of England, the young poet became the editor and publisher of the paper, the name of which he changed to Sheffield Iris. In the columns of this print he advocated political and religious freedom, and such conduct secured for him the attentions of the Attorney-General, by whom he was prosecuted, fined, and imprisoned; in the first instance for reprinting a song commemorating "The Fall of the Bastile ;" in the second case for an account he gave of a riot in Sheffield. Confinement could not crush his love of political justice; and on his second release he went on advocating the doctrines of freedom as before in his paper and in his books. In the lengthy periods between those times and the present, the beliefs which James Montgomery early pioneered in England have obtained general recognition, and, as men became more and more liberal, the poet gained more and more esteem. He contributed to magazines, and, despite adverse criticism, in the Edinburgh Review, established his right to rank as a poet. In 1797 he published "Prison Amusements;" in 1805, the "Ocean;" in 1806, the "Wanderer in Switzerland;" in 1809, "The West Indies;" and in 1812, "The World before the Flood." By these 1804, when they were, by order, reduced to seven inches; and at last, in 1808, another order commanded them to be cut off altogether. There had, however, been a keen qualm in the "parting spirit" of protection. The very next day brought a counter-order; but to the great joy of the rank-and-file at least, it was too late already the pigtails were all gone. The trouble given to the military by the old mode of powdering the hair, and dressing the tail, was immense, and it often led to the most ludicrous scenes. The author of the "Costume of the British Soldier," relates that on one occasion, a field-day being ordered, and there not being sufficient .barbers in the garrison to attend all the officers in the morning, the juniors must needs have their heads dressed over-night; and to preserve their artistic arrangement, pomatumed, powdered, curled, and clubbed, these poor wretches were forced to sleep, as well as they could, on their faces! Who shall presume to laugh, after this, at the Feejee dandy, who sleeps with a wooden pillow under his neck, to preserve the perfect symmetry of his elaborately frizzed head. Such was the rigidity with which certain modes were enforced in the British army about this period, that there was kept in the adjutant's office of each regiment a pattern of the correct curls, to which the barber could refer. Even at the present day, certain naval and mil-works he obtained the chief reputation he has itary orders are extant, regulating the trim of the hair, whiskers, &c., and defining what regiments may and may not wear the mustache. THE POET MONTGOMERY (the poet, not the pseudo one) has gone to his final rest since our last issue. Venerable with years, saintly with virtues, a man of genuine genius, his death would be an occasion of mourning to all good men, were it not that even death itself is beautiful in its season; and a well-spent life should have its befitting conclusion. The London Times gives an outline of his long and upright career, from which we learn that he was born in 1771, at Irvine in Ayrshire. His father was a Moravian missionary, who, leaving his son in Yorkshire to be educated, went to the West Indies, where he and the poet's mother both died. When only twelve years old, the bent of the boy's mind was shown by the production of various small poems. These indications could not save him at first from the fate of the poor, and he was sent to earn his bread as assistant in a general shop. He thirsted for other occupations, and one day set off with 38. 6d. in his pocket to walk to London, to seek fame and fortune. In his first effort he broke down, and for a while gave up his plan to take service in another situation. Only for a time, however, was he content, and a second effort to reach the metropolis was successful, so far as bringing him to the spot he had longed for, but unsuccessful to his main hope that of finding a publisher for a volume of his verses. But the bookseller who refused Montgomery's poems accepted his labor, and made him his shopman. Fortune, however, as she generally does, smiled at last on the zealous youth, and in 1792 he gained a post in the establishment of Mr. Gales, a bookseller of Sheffield, who had set up a newspaper called The Sheffield Register. On this paper Montgomery worked con amore, and when since enjoyed. In 1819 appeared "Greenland," a poem in five cantos; and in 1828, "The Pelican Island and other Poems.' In 1851 the whole of his works were issued in one volume, octavo, and of which two editions are in circulation; and in 1853, "Original Hymns, for Public, Private, and Social Devotion." This venerable poet enjoyed a well-deserved literary pension of about $750 a year. Like some others among the most genuine minds of English literature, his works have met with a better appreciation in this country than at home. He was engaged on a volume of his Miscellanies when he died. Carlton and Phillips, of this city, propose to issue, as we understand, a splendidly illustrated edition of his poems. We have discussed at some length the subject of "Pulpit Oratory." The following brief, but very significant letter from Garrick to a theological student who had requested his advice on the subject, has "turned up" in the newspapers. It is a whole volume on oratory compressed into a paragraph:— MY DEAR SIR,-You know how you would feel and speak in the parlor to a dear friend who was in imminent danger of his life; and with what energetic pathos of diction and countenance you would enforce the observance of that which you really thought would be for his preservation. You would be yourself; and the interesting nature of your subject, impressing your heart, would furnish you with the most natural tone of voice, the most proper language, the most engaging features, and the most suitable and graceful gestures. What you would be in the parlor, be in the pulpit, and you will not fail to please, to D. G. affect, to profit. Adieu. Punch says:-We would advise every father of a family, who has a daughter afflicted with a penchant for wearing one of the present absurdities, called, by courtesy, a bonnet, to forbear arguing the subject, but simply intimate that she had better not try it on. CURIOSITIES OF BLINDNESS.-We have been exceedingly entertained by a long article in a late number of the Edinburgh Review, on "The Blind, their Works and Ways;" an article which we would lay before our readers in extenso did our limits admit it. We cannot resist the temptation to condense some of its facts. Appalling as the privation of sight may be, it is not without some remarkable compensations. Other faculties, both of intellect and of sense, often seem to gain by it; and Dufau, a French writer, affirms that the blind seldom become imbecile and still less frequently insane. Profound thinkers practically admit that vision interferes somewhat with deep cogitation. Malebranche, when he wished to think intensely, used to close his window-shutters in the daytime, excluding every ray of light; and, for a like reason, Democritus is said to have put out his eyes in order that he might philosophize the better; which latter story, however, it should be observed, though told by several ancient writers, is doubted by Cicero, (De Fin. v. 39,) and discredited by Plutarch, (De Curiosit. c. 12.) Speaking on this point, M. Dufau (the manager of the famous French schools) says:-"When we wish to increase our power of attention, we shut our eyes, thus assuming artificial blindness. Diderot used often to talk with his eyes closed, and at such times became sublimely eloquent. There is now living in the County of York, England, a gentleman of fortune, who, though totally blind, is an expert archer; "so expert,' says our informant, who knows him well, "that out of twenty shots with the long bow he was far my superior. His sense of hearing was so keen, that when a boy behind the target rang a bell, the blind archer knew precisely how to aim the shaft." The tenacity of the memory of the blind is well known. This characteristic faculty is, according to Father Charlevoix, turned to good account in Japan, where the public records of the empire are committed to memory by chosen blind men. An old blind mat-maker in England can repeat Thomson's "Seasons," and one or two other long poems, besides having an almost equally ready knowledge of several of the Gospels. Very recently a son was added to a friend's family, and news of the birth was brought to the blind man, who instantly set about calculating how often the child's birthday would fall on a Monday up to the year 1900, In a short time he had accurately settled the matter. He is now, though upward of sixty, trying to learn to read. But his fingers have become hard and horny with work. terest was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. It is most probable that he never beheld the distant orbs of heaven, yet with the highest skill he reasoned of the laws which control them; unfolding and explaining the nature and beauty of light which he could not behold, and the glory of that bow in the clouds which he had never seen. Thus also was it with Huber, the blind philosopher of Geneva. His discoveries in the honeyed labors of bees have equaled, if not surpassed, those of any other one student of nature. It remained for Huber, not only to corroborate truths which others had partially discovered, but also to detect and describe minute particulars which had escaped even the acute observation of Swammerdam. It is true that others supplied him with eyes, but he furnished them with thought and intellect; he saw with their eyes. Thus he clearly proved that there are two distinct sets of bees in every hive-honey-gatherers and the wax-makers and nurses; that the larvæ of working-bees can by course of diet be changed to queens: thus also he accurately described the sanguinary conflicts of rival queens; the recognition of old companions or of royalty by the use of the antennæ; thus he explained the busy hum and unceasing vibration of wing ever going on in the hive, as being necessary for due ventilation. One of the last incidents in the old man's life that seemed to rouse and interest him, was the arrival of a present of stingless bees, from their discoverer, Captain B. Hall. Unwearied diligence, and love for his work, no doubt greatly aided him in all these discoveries; but genius effected for him what mere assiduity would never have accomplished. She taught him in a few minutes to swim the river of difficulty, while others spent hours in searching for a ford. It is the union of diligence and genius which has made so many a blind man famous among his brethren with eyes; not only the way to conceive, but the hand to carry out and achieve, in its own way, the plan of wisdom and of beauty. Thus Metcalf, the blind guide and engineer, constructed roads through the wilds of Derbyshire; thus Davidson ventilated the deepest coal-mines, and lectured on the structure of the eye; as did Dr. Moyes on chemistry and optics; thus Blacklock, poet and musician, master of four languages beside his own, wrote both prose and poetry with elegance and ease; thus, nearer to our own time, Holman the traveler, to whose labors we have already referred, has made himself a name far beyond the shores of Great Britain. We know not what Saundersons or Hubers the present generation is to see. One name equally great in another path of fame it already has: Prescott, the historian of Ferdinand and Isabella, Mexico and Peru, &c., who, though not blind, has a defect of the eyes which prevents him from reading and writing, but whose literary labors have nevertheless delighted and instructed thousands both in the Old and New World. Men of genius have sometimes triumphantly thrown off some of the worst disabilities of blindness. Genius ever devises ways and means of its own. It has a thousand little contrivances unknown to the ordinary student, who is content enough to travel along the beaten road which others have fashioned for him. Saunderson, the blind mathematician's whole machinery for computing was a small piece of Coleridge remarks that "a diseased state of deal, divided by lines into a certain number of an organ of sense will perpetually tamper with squares, and pierced at certain angles with the understanding, and perhaps at last overholes large enough to admit a metal pin. throw it. But when one organ is obliterated, With this simple board and a box of pins he the mind applies some other to a double use. made all his calculations; yet, in 1711, he was Some ten years back, at Sowerby, I met a man the friend of Sir Isaac Newton, and by his in-perfectly blind-from infancy. His chief amuse may possibly be crushed by both. Finding yourself in a damp bed on a cold night; and cogitating whether you will lie still and catch your death, or get up and dress, and pass the night on two cane-bottomed chairs. Paying your addresses to a penniless fair one under the impression that she is an heiress; and, on discovering your error, having the option of marrying the Coming to four cross roads, one of which you must take at random, or just walk back a mile or two and inquire your way. Being blandly informed by a surgeon that you can either have your leg amputated, or leave it alone and die in a few days. Seeing a man by your bedside in the middle of the night, so that you may either smother yourself with the bed-clothes or allow him to do it with a plaster. RELIGION AND SECTS IN ENGLAND. In the last census of England the religious statistics of the country were collected-much against the wishes of some of the members of the House of Lords, however, the Churchmen of which apprehended disparaging results. Horace Mann (a gentleman who seems to resemble one of our own noblest citizens, in genius as well as name) has published a masterly volume on the subject, under the direction of the Registrar General of the Kingdom. We have not seen it, but find in the London Spectator some of its most important facts. ment was fishing on the wild uneven banks of the Eden, and up the difficult mountain streams. His friend, also stone-blind, knew every gate and stile of the district. John Gough, of Kendal, blind, is not only a mathematician, but an infallible botanist and zoologist; correcting mistakes of keen sportsmen as to birds and vermin. His face is all one eye." The eyes of Moyes, although he was totally blind, were not insen-young lady or being shot by her brother. sible to intense light. Colors were not distinguished by him, but felt. Red was disagreeable; he said it was like "the grating of a saw;" while green was very pleasant, and compared to "a smooth surface," when touched. In some instances blindness seems to have gifted the sufferer with new powers. A Dr. Guyse, we read, lost his eyesight in the pulpit while he was at prayer before the sermon; but nevertheless managed to preach as usual. An old lady of the congregation hearing him deplore his loss, thus strove to comfort him:-" God be praised," said she, "that your sight is gone. I never heard your reverence preach so powerful a sermon in my life. I wish for my own part that the Lord had taken away your sight twenty years ago; for your ministry would have been more useful by twenty degrees." The old lady's judicial wish was rather a severe one; but of the correctness of her conclusion we are inclined to doubt. The detection of color by the touch of the blind is a mooted point. M. Guillie mentions several anecdotes of blind persons who had the power of discriminating colors by the touch. But, if the testimony of a large body of blind children can be relied on, the detection of color is utterly beyond their reach. Saunderson's power of detecting by his finger or tongue a counterfeit coin, which had deceived the eye of a connoisseur, is a totally different question. We are hardly aware how much of our dexterity in the use of the eye arises from incessant practice. Those who have been relieved of blindness at an advanced or even an early period of life, have been often found to recur to the old and more familiar sense of touch, in preference to sight; especially during the first few months after recovering their sight. Coleridge (in his Omniana) mentions a most remarkable instance of a blind man at Hanover, who possessed so keen a touch as to be able to read with his fingers books of ordinary print, if printed, as most German books are, on coarse paper. Among the signs of "progress" which distinguish our day, none are more grateful to a beneficent mind than provisions for the relief of the blind, the dumb, the insane, and the idiotic. Our own country is now taking the lead in such humane endeavors. They are a blessing, not only to the poor sufferers themselves, but to the land which sustains them. Let us treat them everywhere with an unrestricted liberality. They are the truest exponents of our Christian civilization. QUANDARIES.-Knocking at the wrong door, and hesitating whether you shall run away and say nothing about it, or stay and apologize. Crossing the road until you reach the middle, when you perceive a gig coming one way and a cab another; if you move on you are sure to be knocked down by one, and if you stand still you This volume shows England to be amazingly cut up into religious sects-nearly, if not quite, as much as our own country. The National Church itself is thoroughly divided and subdivided into classes. Independently of the minuter subdivisions of recognizable sects, such as the "Trinitarian Predestinarians," the "Free Gospel Christians," or the "Supralapsarian Calvinists," Mr. Mann reckons thirty-six religious communities or sects-twenty-seven native and indigenous, nine foreign-besides a number of sects so small and unconsolidated that they cannot be included in the list, and separate congregations, of which there are many. Not a few of the last eschew sectarian distinctions. There are, for example, ninetysix which simply call themselves Christians. The proportion of the distribution is in some degree indicated by the number of buildings. Out of thirty-four thousand four hundred and sixty-seven places of public worship of all denominations, there are belonging to the Church of England fourteen thousand and seventy-seven churches, with ten thousand clergy, and an aggregate property estimated at more than $25,000,000. The National Church then does not possess half the places of worship, by a large fraction. It does not comprise a majority of the whole people: Mr. Mann, however, calculates that the attendance at its places of worship is larger than the aggregate of the Dissenters. One thing is clear, that if the majority ruled, according to our republican notions of sovereignty, the Anglican Establishment would be dissolved at once, and its stupendous burdens be thrown off the shoulders of the majority of the people. We refer to one more interesting feature in these returns, a table showing the proportion per cent. of attendance to sittings; which is remarkable in many respects. The highest in the list does not show a proportion of more than forty-five per cent. of actual attendance to the total number of sittings provided in places of public worship belonging to one sect; the lowest on the list shows that in one sect the proportion is only eight per cent. The highest figures apply to the Wesleyan Reformers; the next sect who distinguish their zeal by the assiduity of attendance are the Particular Baptists; the original Wesleyans stand much lower; the Church of England is sixteenth in the list, and only exhibits a proportion of thirty-three per cent.; the lowest but one in the list are the Jews, who like the Unitarians show a proportion of twenty-four per cent.; the lowest of all is the Society of Friends. The Dissenters appear to attend oftener and to bestow longer time on religious worship than members of the Established Church. In the unendowed sects, therefore, more use appears to be made of the places for public worship than in the Establishment. Mr. Mann carefully distinguishes those who might attend, from those who would be prevented by infancy, sickness, or engagement with inevitable duties; and he calculates that the total number of the population able to attend church is ten million three hundred and ninety-eight thousand, or fifty-eight per cent. on the entire population of England. Of those, however, who might attend, by every test of age, of personal freedom, and of access to sittings, but stop away altogether, it is calculated that the number is five million two hundred and eighty-eight thousand two hundred and ninety-four. This last is a great fact, and it is the subject of earnest inquiry. The results of these statistics, though the Spectator and Church Journals try to construe them favorably, are decidedly unfavorable to national religious establishments. They afford new confirmations to the "voluntary principle." One of the greatest, perhaps the greatest experiment of our own land is this "voluntary support of religion. Among ourselves its demonstration may be considered complete; the corroborative testimony of England cannot fail to give the experiment new interest to religious thinkers in all lands. Dickens says:-Light, it is well known, promotes the development of animals and plants. Plants living in darkness do not become green, and human beings without sunshine do not become fresh-colored, and have not the true sparkle of life within their bodies. The morning light is supposed commonly to be most beneficial, and perhaps it is so. Rays of the morning sun are found by photographers to do their work more perfectly than any others. Pale, weakly, sleepy-headed people, should get out into the light, and love clear ground on which the sun beats cheerfully. Folks of an opposite kind, and those especially whose ways are the reverse of sleepy, may sometimes find their life better in the shade than in the sun. Sometimes the world is all gladness and sunshine, and heaven itself lies not far off. And then it changes suddenly, and is dark and sorrowful, and the clouds shut out the sky. In the lives of the saddest of us there are bright days like this, when we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms. Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn in our hearts nor in our hearths; and all without and within is dismal, cold, and dark. Every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not; and oftentimes we call a man cold when he is only sad. WHO READS AN AMERICAN BOOK?-Such was the satirical question of an English reviewer but a few years since. Now, London booksellers are rivaling each other in American reprints, and Chapman and others issue large "American catalogues." An article in the last Westminster Review on De Quincy, opens with the following noticeable remark :— "It is now some years since the all-powerful Sydney Smith was startled from complacent belief in his own infallibility by a young, unknown American traveler: We, on our side the Atlantic, often venture to revise your criticisms, and rejudge your judgments,'-was the astounding assertion of one who is now among the leaders of his country's senate. No wonder the great reviewer looked down with scorn upon the Yankee youth-no wonder his admiring circle of dilettanti Whigs stood aghast at the audacity of the speaker, and the strangeness of the remark! Times have changed since then; and now, even Sydney Smith would be fain to admit that among the many tests of the permanent merit of an English work, none, perhaps, is sounder than the judgment of an American public. Of this fact the English public is becoming gradually aware. It cannot but remember that Carlyle was recognized in America long before England had perceived his genius and his strength. It knows how the most graceful 'vers de société' in the language lay forgotten among musty periodicals and reviews, till America had collected the poems of Mackworth Praed. It was America who first collected and reprinted the admirable miscellanies of James Martineau; and it was America who first republished the vagrant articles of the English Opium-Eater.' Rev. Rowland Hill once said, on observing several persons entering his chapel to avoid the rain that was falling, "Many people are to be blamed for making religion a cloak; but I do not think them much better who make it an umbrella !" The author of a "Dissertation on a Salt-Box," was Francis Hopkinson, of Philadelphia. It will be found in the first volume of Hopkinson's Works, Philadelphia edition of 1792. It was originally written for, and published in, the Pennsylvania Magazine, as a satire upon the examinations in the old Philadelphia College. It is entitled Modern Learning exemplified by a Specimen of a late College Examination. The first part is dedicated to "metaphysics," and commences thus: Prof. What is a salt-box? Stud. It is a box made to contain salt. Stud. Into a salt-box, and a box of salt. Prof. Very well! show the distinction. Stud. A salt-box may be where there is no salt, but salt is absolutely necessary to the existence of a box of salt. The student goes on and divides salt-boxes into " possible, probable, and positive saltboxes." A possible salt-box is "one in the hands of the joiner;" a probable salt-box is 'one in the hand of one going to buy salt, who has sixpence in his hand to pay the grocer;" a positive salt-box is one "which hath actually and bona fide got salt in it." The examination then continues to investigate the merits of saltboxes, under the heads of " logic, natural philosophy, mathematics, (which is illustrated by diagrams,) anatomy, surgery, the practice of physic, and chemistry." It is dated May, 1784, the time when it was written. Francis Hopkinson was a member of the American Congress in 1776, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and an active politician in his day. He was the author of The Battle of the Kegs, a satirical poem, composed while the English army occupied Philadelphia, which was very popular at the time, and is yet popular among the present generation. A REMARKABLE PROPHECY OF FRIAR BACON, WHO WAS BORN IN THE YEAR 1214.-Bridges, unsupported by arches, will be made to span the foaming current. Man shall descend to the Bottom of the ocean, safely breathing, and treading with firm step on the golden sands never brightened by the light of day. Call but the secret powers of Sol and Luna into action, and behold a single steersman, sitting at the helm guiding the vessel which divides the waves with greater rapidity than if she had been filled with a crew of mariners toiling at the oars, and the loaded chariot, no longer incumbered by the panting steeds, shall dart on its course with resistless force and rapidity. Let the simple elements do thy labor; bind the eternal elements, and yoke them to the same plow. "Here," says a certain writer, "is poetry and philosophy wound together, forming a wondrous chain of prophecy." 66 CURIOUS TITLE-A book was printed during the time of Cromwell with the following title: Eggs of Charity, layed by the Chickens of the Covenants, and boiled with the Water of Divine Love-Take ye and eat.” "NINE TAILORS MAKE A MAN."-In " Democritus in London, with the Mad Pranks and Comical Conceits of Motley and Robin Goodfellow," will be found the following note, which is the earliest authority we have for the above saying.. It is dated 1682: "There is a proverb which has been of old, Book Notices. Dixon's Howard-Septem Contra Thebas-Demosthenes' Philippics-Talfourd's Works-Friends in Council-Companions of my Solitude-Hugh Miller's Two Records-Lucy Herbert-Mercein on Natural Goodness -Tweedie's Lamp to the Path-The Woodcutters of Lebanon-Mabel Grant-Voyage to the South West Coast of America-Miss Leslie's Receipts for Cooking-Mattison's Doctrine of the Trinity-The Knout and the Russians. DIXON'S Howard and the Prison World of Europe has been issued in a neat and substantial 18mo. volume of four hundred pages, by Carter & Brothers of New-York. Dixon is a leading writer and also a practical laborer in the "prison discipline measures of England. He has thoroughly sifted the materials for a memoir of Howard, and has brought to his task some new data of curious interest. Howard's life is well told, and the whole subject of prison reform is woven into the narrative with genuine skill. The volume is not only excellent for popular reading, but a sort of vade mecum for the advocates of prison reform. We regret that the American edition is abridged. 66 We have received from Munroe & Co., Boston, two specimens of new editions of classic works, which, as they come out under the editorial care of gentlemen south of Mason and Dixon's line," are an agreeable novelty in textbook editorship. The first is Eschylus's Septem Contra Thebas, a tragedy which stands among the noblest remains of Greek literature. It is edited from the text of W. Dindorf, with ample notes by A. Sachtleben, of Charleston, S. C. Two-thirds of the volumes, at least, are devoted to the annotations, yet they do not supersede the research of the student, but are cautiously brief and critical. The Greek text is highly creditable to the publishers. The same remark may be made respecting the text of The I, II, III Philippics of Demosthenes, issued by the same house and edited by Professor Smead, of William and Mary's College, Virginia. Professor Smead's historical introductions give the relations of these notable speeches, and his abundant notes volume) make the reader familiar with the (considerably more than three-fourths of the significance of allusions and of subtile idiomatic points, which otherwise would escape if not baffle his attention. Both works are very skillfully edited, and present the latest critical improvements and illustrations of the text. We are indebted to Magee of Boston for a copy of Phillips, Sampson & Co.'s edition of Talfourd's Critical and Miscellaneous Works. It includes some thirty-two articles, several of which have never before been published in this country. The contents, of course, are sterling; but the paper is dark, the type small, and the portrait-from an old one by Sir Thomas Lawrence-too juvenile. We shall give an article in our next number on Talfourd, with a portrait of later date. We must also acknowledge, and with no little satisfaction, the receipt from the same publishers of three volumes of the author of Friends in Council, &c., including the two volumes which bear that title, and also The Companions of my Solitude. There are some very questionable opinions in these works and some |