For simple, vast, it soothes what it disturbs,
Stills mortal pride, and calms the soul it curbs.

Hail! Genius of New Worlds! but works more grand
Await thy plastic skill, thy forming hand;

And nobler visions than thou yet hast seen,
Thy sight shall dazzle-nobler than have been.
- Man, social man, expects thy wisest care:
Sire of the Age to come! for that prepare; .
And still, whatever else be left undone,
Attract his nature by a better one—
Draw him by sympathies that shall awake
The spark divine, and teach him to partake.
But let the impulse, shed from man to man,
In human channels, kindle whom it can ;
For what strikes not the sense, not understood,
May be for angels, not for mortals good:
And since the Absolute must somewhere be,
Set it on high, in visibility-

Else the nice essence, irresponsible,
Escapes control, and answers to no spell.

Yet some there are, who from the sense set free,
Vision the Being that no eye may see.

-Thus Poets dream-but to such lofty height
What shall support their spirit in its flight?
Pure Faith transcends at once these fleshly bars;
Still soars--and finds a home beyond the stars.
Death-herald of our Life-what sting hath he?
The Grave-the gate of Hope-what victory?
How beautiful is Death! but think as well
His graces yet are stern and terrible!
Beauty is fearful, and should strike with awe;
So wisely deem, and reverence the law-
Then in the hour of his majestic pain,

The Bard shall shrink not-nor endure in vain.
O Britain Britain! Island of the Free!
Retain thy faith yet pure, thy loyalty!
Yet, in all ranks of social life, provide
Aid for the weak, and for the blind a guide;
And that your Liberty may know no end,
Use it for good, but make the evil bend;
-Freedom for Virtue; Vice, condemned to chains,
If Sermons mend not, Law at last restrains ;-
And midst a world in wreck, as in thy prime,

Smile at the threats of Man, the strokes of Time;
As thy white Cliffs, serene amidst the sea,

Laugh at the storms that rage 'gainst them and thee.
A Spirit is abroad-a Voice is heard-

The nations tremble- thou hast never feared—
Thy Heart is sound, thy Sons are brave and wise,
Whose deathless Souls sit glowing in their eyes.
Isle of the Free! what, if the bolt of Heaven
Strike despot Thrones-a People unforgiven---

N. S. VOL. I.

L L

Why shouldst thou dread the issues of the wrath?
No vengeance thwarts an unpolluted path!
Celestial Justice strikes not, where the Shrine
Protects and sanctifies the ancient Scrine
Of Law and Liberty, in union sweet,

Each true and perfect, loving and complete.

The Earth is shaken! Truth hath blown a blast--
And doomed the Oppression that must wither fast.
The poor are answered.-Swifter than the light,
Sped, to the Seat of Mercy and of Might,
Prayers with indignant eloquence and deed-
Took Heaven by force :-It suffered them to plead—
Not from His hand the thunder dropt, but went
Upon the errand whereto it was sent;

While He who made, swore that his creature Man
Should be as free as when the race began;
Made free by Truth, nor to the sense a slave,
Believe a lie, and labour for a grave-

No more rude Nature should subdue the mind,
No more harsh Tyrants triumph o'er their kind;
But from the Mountain, Flood, and billowing Sea,
Music rejoice the Genius of the Free!

Come! Genius! come-O winged Child! away,
And let us look on Nature in her play-

Bring with thee Will, and Pleasure bring with thee,

And let us seek young Love,-for where is he?

-Young Love! which Love? Lo, there twin brethren stand;

Each like to each, as hand is like to hand!

One Eros is-one Anteros they name

Which woos thy heart with most congenial claim?
One pure and simple, with an upward look,
Spells the blue heavens like an open book!
Rapt as in ether's height prepared to soar,
Aspiring still beyond for evermore !
The other with a downward aspect bent,
Reads the green earth and watery element;
Pleased with the inverted sky within the wave,
And seeking there his languid wings to lave.

Choose now-for on thy choice how much depends;

The earthly Love, or heavenly, thee attends.

-This, like an ardent seraph, ever burns

With light and life, like flames from burial urns;
What though beneath mere ashes perish, climb
The lambent glories to a point sublime:

Though fixed and bound to caskets deftly wrought,
To grace what else revolts the living thought;
From base to apex, in perpetual play,

Still chased and chasing, each revolving ray
Sports in free air, the imprisoned dust above :-
Such privilege belongs to heavenly Love!
-But his terrestial brother, less divine,

Falls-like heaven's flash on earth's polluted shrine

Smites and consumes the altar's impious feast,
And spends itself,--to consecrate a beast;
Soon quenched, survives, its idol worship done,
Nought but a wreck abhorrent to the sun,
Scorched flesh and bone, black relics of the slain-
Rite superstitious, bloody and profane.
Nought lingers now on that neglected pyre
But the sad issues of the extinguished fire!
A sacred Fire is Love, nor may permit
Unhallowed freedom to intrude on it-
The guardian Pains all watchful and awake,
Swift as transgression, sacred vengeance take —
How greatly more, then Love itself offends !
Love, that on earthly objects condescends.
True Love adores alone the good and true,
Nor sees by sense, nor judges by its view;
But, still transcending all that it conceives,
Above the ideal mounts, and yet believes-
Being recedes beneath its wonderous flight,
That seeks the Nameless Source of life and light.
As Love inspires, works Genius hitherto
And still shall work, while Love shall ever woo:
What Love developes in eternal sphere,
Genius exhibits in its orbit here.

-Happy the Bard, obedient to their sway,
Whom Love and Genius teach the better way-
The paths of wisdom, pleasantness, and peace!
Let pine the world, his joys shall never cease.
In him a fount of living water is-
All he surveys or does reflects his bliss
Serene-sublime and lovely in his life,
To him is nought unbeauteous or at strife-
But nature, the apt Image of his Heart,
Affirms "the varied God" in every part-
And to his faith, the social or the wild

A miracle remains, as when a child.

;

One such I know. To Care and Sorrow bred, His mind would commune with the immortal Dead, For therein he was happy, and their Voice

Bade manhood early waken, and rejoice.

With none to cherish, solace or admire,

His heart consumed within him, as with fire:
But it was fire from heaven; and he was fain
It should ascend to him who gave, again.

And o'er his lips song gushed from boyhood's hour,
And gathered compass, harmony and power-
And when he deemed the world might deign to hear,
He gave it utterance with less hope than fear-
Prepared for scorn, or for neglect, he kept
His soul in patience, yet in secret wept.
Much wronged, and cast abroad for life to swim,
The world he loathed not, though it loved not him

Resolved, howe'er unjust mankind might be,
Still to preserve his own integrity—

For Truth he loved and Virtue he esteemed,
And self-respect the first of virtues deemed.
-Howe'er with him blind Fortune sternly dealt,
He prized that Genius when its joys he felt;
And in abstraction's hour, he loved to dream,
That not alone by mountain or by stream,
It wandered, musing on the state of Man,
But dwelt with Wisdom ere the worlds began,
Called into being Earth, and Heaven, and Hell,
And Man, the monarch of the visible;
And still presides o'er every spot of earth,
Guardian of realms, and Star of human birth;
And, o'er the ruin of dethroned Time,
Shall rise in beauty, lovely and sublime,
The Father of the Age, that not in vain

It sought to free from Death, and Sin, and Pain,—
A Spirit perfect made, if not divine,

And glorious still,-when Suns shall cease to shine!

CENSUS OF SCIENTIFIC THEORIES.

No. 1.-THE UNDULATORY THEORY OF LIGHT. BY CHARLES TOOGOOD DOWNING, M.R.C.S.—Author of the “Fanqui in China,” &c. (Continued from page 227.)

It may be unnecessary to remind the reader, that when a ray of light is incident upon a polished surface, a considerable portion is thrown back, or, as it is called, reflected; and thus we are able to distinguish its shape and colour. The various phenomena resulting from this law are comprehended under the term Catoptics, and constitute a considerable branch of the science of Optics. It is not intended to dwell upon this subject further than is absolutely necessary in order to explain the Huygenian doctrine of reflection. The general opinion that prevailed before the time of Newton was, that light was reflected by striking or impinging upon the solid parts of the reflecting surface, in the same manner as a billiard ball is reflected from the sides of the table.

Huygens, as well as Sir Isaac, perceived the improbability of this supposition; and that if it were true, the reflection from polished surfaces would not be so regular as it is. The latter has shown, that however carefully a glass is polished, this is effected by grating and scratching it with powders, so as to remove its protuberances. Thus when it is polished, its protuberances, which cause the roughness, are brought to a very fine grain, and thus the marks and scratchings of the surface are rendered too small to be visible to the eye. Now it is manifest, that if these little pits and protuberances bear any sensible proportion to the magnitude of

the particles of incident light, and the particles of light impinged against them, they would be scattered as much by the most polished as by the roughest glass. As Sir Isaac Newton, however, perceiving that the light is more perfectly reflected from polished surfaces, concluded that this regular reflection of light was not owing to single parts of the body acting upon single particles, but to some power of the body evenly diffused over all its surface, and by which it acts upon rays without immediate contact, this supposition was necessary in order to explain reflection by the corpuscular doctrine; but Huygens, on the contrary, has endeavoured to show that a perfectly polished surface is not necessary to an equal and regular reflection. According to the undulatory theory, it is believed that the solid particles of the ethereal matter are much smaller than those of the reflecting surface, and that this surface consists of particles of matter put together, and smaller or ethereal particles over and above them. Thus, if we take the reflecting surface of mercury, for example, we are to consider its particles as so minute that we may conceive millions of them arranged like a mass of grains of sand, in the smallest visible space, and having their surface smoothened as much as possible. This surface will then become uniform, like that of polished glass; and though it is always rough in relation to the ethereal particles, yet the centres of all the particular spheres of reflected undulation are nearly in the same uniform plane, and their common tangent will touch them as perfectly as is necessary to the production of light; for all that is necessary is that some of the motion reflected from all points shall not produce any opposite effect.

When light falls upon a polished surface, only part of the rays are reflected, some of them being transmitted and thus subjected to refraction, while others are dispersed in all directions by the inequalities. The proportion of those rays which are reflected varies according to the nature of the substance, and also to the angle at which they are incident. Thus, if we take a polished surface of glass, we find that twenty-five rays in every 1000 are reflected while the greater part of the remainder are transmitted, when the light falls at a perpendicular incidence. But at very great angles of incidence, such as 8740, it reflects 584 rays. This is the reason why rough glass, which will scarcely reflect a single ray at small angles of incidence, reflects it most copiously and appears perfectly polished when viewed at an angle of 70° or 80°. If in the place of glass we substitute water, and let the light fall perpendicularly, 982 out of the 1000 rays are transmitted, and only 18 are reflected. When the same pencil is incident at an angle of 40°, 22 rays are reflected; at an angle of 75°, 211 rays; while at an angle of 89°, 692 rays are reflected. Thus it may be seen, that bodies reflect more in proportion to their refracting power, although they reflect less light than water at very great angles of incidence.

With these preliminaries, we may now proceed to the mathematical theory of reflection, according to the undulatory system of Huygens. It is acknowledged to be very ingenious, and to be more consistent with the phenomena than that of the corpuscular. The