taketh it to be nothing else but an island, and land upon it, and they strike piles into it, and fasten them to their ships: they kindle fires to boil their meat, until, at length, the whale, feeling the fire, dives down suddenly into the depth, and draws both man and ships after him, unless the anchor breaks."

Twilight ends

August 27.

HUGE FISH.

"Very like a whale."

Olaus Magnus, archbishop of Upsal, cites a certain noble Englishman as saying -" In the month of August, 1532, our seas cast upon the shores of Tinmouth a dead beast of a vast magnitude, now greatly wasted, yet there remains still as much of it as 100 great waggons can draw. It was about ninety feet long as it lay in the sands, about twenty-five feet in thickness; some conjecture that his back was nine feet or more under the sand. -I came thither the 27th of August. He had thirty ribs of a side, most of them twenty-one foot long a-piece; three bellies like vast caves, and thirty throats, whereof five were very great; and two fins, each of fifteen foot long; ten oxen could scarcely draw one of them away. He had no teeth; there grew to his palate above 1000 plates of horn; hairy on one side; the length of the head, from the crown to the chaps, was twenty-one feet: his eyes and nostrils were like to an ox's, and far too small for so great a head, which had two great holes, whereby it was supposed this monster cast up water. A man rending away his share of the prize, and falling into the inside of the animal, was nearly drowned."

The archbishop has a marvellous chapter " Of the many kinds of whales." He says, "some are hairy, and of four acres in bigness; the acre is 240 feet long, and 120 broad." Another kind " hath eyes so large that fifteen men may sit in the room of each of them, and and sometimes twenty, or more; his horns are six or seven feet long, and he hath 250 upon leach eye, as hard as horn, that he can stir stiff or gentle, either before or behind." He bas another chapter, " Of anchors fastened upon whales' backs," in which he tells, "The whale hath upon his skin a superficies like the gravel that is by the sea-side; so that, oft-times, when he rais

Olaus tells of fish on the coast of Norway, of horrible forms, having very black square heads, of ten or twelve cubits, with huge eyes, eight or ten cubits in circumference; the apple of the eye being of one cubit, and red and fiery colored, which, in the dark nights, and in the deep waters, appears to fishermen like a burning lamp; and on the head there being hair like long goose-feathers hanging down in manner of a beard: the rest of the body, small in proportion, not being more than fourteen or fifteen cubits long. "One of these sea-monsters," says Otaus, " will easily drown many great ships with their mariners. The long and famous epistle of Ericus Falchendorf, metropolitan archbishop of Norway to Leo Χ., about the year 1520, confirms this strange novelty: and to this epistle was fastened the head of another monster seasoned with salt."

In another chapter, "Of the whirlpool, and his cruelty against the mariners," Olaus treats of this "whirlpool" as a stupendous fish. He says, "the whirlpool, or prister, is of the kind of whales, 200 cubits long, and very cruel. This beast hath a large and round mouth like a lamprey, whereby he sucks in his meat or water, and will cast such floods above his head, that he will often sink the strongest ships. He will sometimes raise himself above the sail-yards, and cruelly overthrow the ship like any small vessel, striking it with his back or tail, which is forked, wherewith he forcibly binds any part of the ship when he twists it about." Olaus affirms that a trumpet of war is the fit remedy against him, by reason of the sharp noise which he cannot endure, the sound of cannon with which he is more frightened, than by a cannon-ball, "because this ball loseth its force by the water, or wounds but a little his most vast body, being hindered by a mighty rampart of fat."

or

These relations of the worthy prelate are for the reader to determine upon, according to liking; but it must not be forgotten that the archbishop concludes his account of the last described "beast," as he calls him, by saying, "Also I must add that, on the coasts of Norway, both old and new monsters are seen," which usually inhabit " the inscrutable depth of the waters;" and that in these great deeps "there are many kinds of fishes that seldom or never are seen by man." away through the garish light, to seek some other congenial resort. There yet remains the mitred archway very fair and large, of wrought stone, which separated the chancel from the body of the Church,' apparently of more recent workmanship than the rest of the building. One of the gable ends having suffered considerable injury, the roof in many places stands off from it, and the light thus admitted strikes 30 vividly on the eye as to produce a painful effect. When Hasted saw it, there was a breach made in the north side, wide enough for cattle to go in for shelter, and to receive ploughs, harrows, and other implements of husbandry; it is now repaired."

Among the wonderful inhabitants of the ocean, observed upon its surface, are snakes or serpents. Olaus Magnus says, "There is on the coasts of Norway a worm of a blue and gray color, above forty cubits long, yet hardly so thick as the arm of a child. He goes forward in the sea like a line, that he can hardly be perceived how he goes. He hurts no man, unless he be crushed in a man's hand; for, by the touch of his most tender skin, the fingers of one that touches him will swell. When he is vexed and tormented by crabs, he twines himself about, hoping to get away but cannot; for the crab with his claws, as with toothed pincers, takes so fast hold at him, that he is held as fast as a ship is by an anchor. I oft saw this worm," says Olaus, " but touched it not, being forewarned by the mariners."

Again, he says, "They who employ themselves in fishing or merchandize on the coasts of Norway, do all agree in this strange story, that there is a serpent there which is of a vast magnitude, namely 200 feet long, and twenty feet thick, which is wont to live in rocks and caves towards the sea-coast, and will go in a clear night in summer, and devour calves, lambs, and hogs; or else he goes' into the sea to feed. He is black, hath hair hanging from his neck a cubit long, sharp scales, and flaming eyes. This snake disquiets the sailors: he puts up his head on high like a pillar, and catcheth away men, and he devours them. There is also another serpent, of an incredible magnitude, that lifts himself high above the waters, and rolls himself round like a sphere."

If these things be credible, so may the

accounts of the American sea-serpent.

August 27. Day breaks Sun rises sets

Twilight ends

August 28.

h. m.

2 52 54 6 56

98

28 August, 1788, died at Paris, aged sixty-eight, Elizabeth Chudleigh, duchess

of Kingston, a woman celebrated for beauty and profligacy. She was a native of Devonshire. Her father, a colonel in the English army, died whilst she was very young. Her mother, supported solely by a slender pension from government, frequented the heartless society of fashionable life, and through Mr. Pulteney, afterwards earl of Bath, procured her daughter to be appointed lady of of honor to the princess

of Wales. Miss Chudleigh attracted many admirers. The duke of Hamilton obtained the preference, and it was fixed that, upon his return from a continental tour, the marriage should be celebrated. Mrs. Hanmer, aunt to Miss Chudleigh, intercepted the letters addressed to her niece by the duke, and succeeded in persuading her to privately marry captain Hervey, afterwards earl of Bristol. On the day after the nuptials, Miss Chudleigh resolved never to see her husband again, and they separated. The duke, upon returning to England, offered his hand to Miss Chudleigh, of whose marriage he was ignorant, and to his astonishment was refused. To escape his reproaches, and the resentment of Mrs. Chudleigh, who was likewise a stranger to the secret engagements of her daughter, she embarked for the continent in a style of shameless dissipation; and, as Miss Chudleigh, so wrought upon Frederick the Great that he dispensed with all etiquette, in consequence of her request, that "she might study at her ease a prince who gave lessons to all Europe, and who might boast of having an admirer in every individual of the British nation." During her residence at Berlin she was treated with the highest distinction. She afterwards went to Dresden, where she obtained the friendship of the electress, who loaded her with presents. Upon returning to England she resumed her attendance upon the princess of Wales; and continued to be the attraction of the court. Her marriage with Captain Hervey perpetually annoyed her, and to destroy all trace of it she went with a party to the parish, where the marriage was celebrated, and, having asked for the register-book, tore out the register of her marriage, while the clergyman was in conversation with the rest of the party. Shortly afterwards, captain Hervey becoming earl of Bristol by the death of his father, and a rumor prevailing that he was in a declining state of health, Miss Chudleigh, now countess of Bristol, hoping to be soon a wealthy dowager, obtained the restoration of the

A little boy went into a barn,
And lay down on some hay:
An owl came out and flew about,
And the little boy ran away.

So runs one of those "Songs for the Nursery" endeared to us by association with our brightest and most pleasurable days. It is culled from a collection published in 1825, by William Darton, Holborn-hill, who is entitled to our best thanks for carrying us back to those scenes of infancy and boyhood which the mist of years cannot shroud, but on the contrary serves only to invest with an air of sanctity and beauty. These verses are different in their character, and display a variety of talent. Some are instructive, some amusing, some traditionary, but all, with one or two exceptions, are just what they should be. The mens conscia recti is admirably illustrated in the little narrative of

Jack Horner.

Little Jack Horner
Sat in a corner

Eating a christmas pie,
He put in his thumb

And pulled out a plum

And said, What a good boy am I !'

From this history it will be at once evident that the complacency of Little Jack arises, not from his simple and undivided interest in the pie, but from a consciousness that he had acted uprightly, the pastry being very possibly the reward of his honorable behaviour.

For sublimity of conception I know of nothing that excels the following:-

To be sung on a high wind.
Arthur o'Bower has broken his band,
He comes roaring up the land-
King of Scots, with all his power,
Cannot turn Arthur of the bower.

Milton's winds "rushing abroad from the four hinges of the world, and falling on the vext wilderness," shrinks into insignificance, when compared with this mighty conqueror "breaking his band," roaring and raving up the land, and daring even a "King of Scots" to take the field against him. Then there is the sweet blending of high and manly dignity with all the gentleness of love supposed, in the name bestowed on this valorous personage-the greatness and majesty couched under the appellation "Arthur," combined with the soft and soothing considerations inseparably connected with his title "of the bower!"

Take as a contrast to this busy bustling hero, a piece of "still life" transplanted from p. 11 :

Hickory, dickory, dock,
The mouse ran up the clock,
The clock struck one,
And the mouse came down,
Hickory, dickory, dock!

Think, gentle reader, of the "grim and breathless hour of noon," and transport yourself to a cottage in the country, with its door standing ajar, and the window thrown open to the widest. The clock stands within a few minutes of the " very witching hour of day," but the good housewife, not having read Milton, knows nothing of the "fear lest dinner cool," and has dropped into her neighbour's to hear the news. A poor mouse steals out into the quiet sunshine and clambers up the varnished case of this appendage, for what purpose this deponent saith not, when lo!

The clock strikes one,
And the mouse comes down,
Hickory, dickory, dock!

Some of the descriptive touches of these "Songs" are excellent

One misty moisty morning,

When cloudy was the weather

puts to silence all the " towery dimness" of Mr. Robert Montgomery. The witch's exploit too is quite in character :Whither, oh whither, oh whither so high? To sweep the cobwebs off the sky!

Crabbe never did any thing finer than the Poor-house Paralytic, and the Village