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band approaching; the chain creaked, and the bucket swung, as it stopped above the black abyss. Even now there was danger, the chance of great danger: it was necessary for Herman to remain immoveable; at the highest certainty of hope, he might yet be plunged at once into the yawning depths below. Blanch felt this, and stirred not, not a feature of her face altered; she held in her breath convulsively-she saw, through her thick veil, the planks drawn over the cavern's mouth; she saw Herman spring from the bucket; -some one caught her child, as, stretching out her arms to her husband, she fell senseless on the ground. There were some hearts that sorrowed over the departure of the young Alberti and his wife from the mines of Idria. The wretched miners, with whom they had lived so long, had learned to love then, at a time when too many a heart had almost forgotten to love and to hope; had learned from their kind counsel, but more,-oh, much more!-from their example, to shake off the dreadful bands of despair, and daily to seek, and to find, a peace which passeth all understanding. Her man and Blanch had taught them to feel how happy, how cheerful a thing religion is! Was it surprising, then, that at his departure, his poor companions should crowd around him, and weep with mournful gratitude, as he distributed among them his working tools, and the simple furniture of his small hut? Was it surprising, that Blanch and her husband, as they sat on the green hills that surrounded their country residence, with a clear blue sky above them, and the summer-breeze bringing with it full tides of freshness, and fragrance from the orange-trees around them, watching the pure rosecolour which had begun to tinge their infant's fair cheek; was it surprising that they should turn, with feelings of affectionate sorrow, to the dark and dreary mines of Idria ?

I must not forget to mention, that Herman and his wife were publicly reinstated in all their former titles and possessions. A short time after their return to Vienna, they made their first appearance at court, for that purpose. At the royal command, all the princes and nobles of Austria, gorgeously dressed, and blazing with gold and jewels, were assembled. Through the midst of these, guiding the steps of his feeble and venerable old mother, Alberti advanced to the throne; a deep blush seemed fixed upon his manly features,

and the hand which supported his infirm parent, trembled more than the one which he tenderly clasped in his; the Empress herself hung the order of the golden fleece round his neck, and gave into his hands the sword which he had before forfeited; but, as she did so, her tears fell upon the golden scabbard ; the young soldier instantly kissed them with quivering lips. And now every eye was turned to the wife of Alberti, who, with her young child sleeping in her arms, and supported by the nobleminded General who had obtained her husband's pardon, next approached. Blanch had not forgotten that she was still only the wife of an Idrian miner, and no costly ornament adorned her simple dress-not a tinge of colour had yet returned to her cheeks of marble paleness, and a shadowy languor still remained about her large hazle eyes; her delicately shaped lips had, however, regained their soft crimson dye, and her dark brown hair, partly concealed by a long veil, shone as brightly as the beautiful and braided tresses around her. She wore a loose dress of white silk, only adorned with one large fresh cluster of pink roses, (for since she had left the mines, she was more fond than ever of flowers.) Every eye was fixed on her, and the Empress turned coldly from the glittering forms before her to the simple, but elegant Blanch. Descending from the throne, Maria Theresa hastened to raise her before she could kneel, and kissing her with the tender affection of a dear and intimate friend, she led the trembling Blanch to the highest step of the throne; then, turning to the whole assembly, and looking like a queen, as she spoke, said,

"This is the person whom we should all respect, as the brightest ornament of our court. This is the wife, ladies, whom I, your monarch, hold up as your example, whom I am proud to consider far our superior in the duties of a wife. Let us all learn of her, to turn away from the false pleasures of vanity and splendour, and, like her, to act up modestly, but firmly, to that high religious principle which proves true nobility of soul! Count Alberti," continued the Empress, "every husband may envy you your residence in the mines of Idria. May God bless you both, and make you as happy with the rank and wealth to which I now fully restore you, as you were in your miner's hut."

SOLAR AND LUNAR ECLIPSES.

High on her speculative tower
Stands Science, waiting for the hour
The moon is destined to endure
That darkness of her silvery face,
Which superstition strove to chase
Erewhile with rites impure.

In the ensuing month there will be two eclipses, one of the moon on the 2d day, the other of the sun on the 17th day, the latter invisible to us; that of the moon will be visible from its commencement to its termination, and the greatest eclipse that has occured, or will occur for some years: its duration will be 3h 36m, of which time the moon will be 1h 40m 30s wholly plunged in the earth's shadow, and either invisible, or only emitting a feeble light.

These celestial phenomena have in all ages of the world, and classes of society, had a powerful effect on the mind; and though eclipses are now dismantled of those terrors with which the bewildered imaginations of ignorance and superstition formerly clothed them, still they will always be regarded with intense curiosity, mingled with an indescribable feeling of awe. In the present lunar eclipse, it cannot be devoid of interest to trace the moon from its conjunction with the sun to its opposition,-from the time it is first observed escaping from the solar effulgence, bending its delicate crescent towards the horizon in the autumnal twilight,-approaching to, and receding from, the brightly beaming stars, Mercury, Spica Virginis, Antares, and Jupiter,-night by night expanding, till it attains its full-orbed glory, then, at the moment of its utmost illumination, to observe a mysterious veil gradually obscuring its brightness, till the queen of night either blends with the dark blue sky, or is dimly seen struggling on her way, red and dreary, like a desolated world. wonder that the designing, or the selfdeceived, traced in such awful changes the ruin of empires, and the overthrow of the mighty: the fame and faith of astrology would have been wonderfully strengthened, had the eclipses of next month occurred a few weeks earlier; these signs in the heavens would have been doubtless considered infallible portents of the death of the British and Neapolitan kings, the downfal of Charles X. and the recent French Revolution.

No

Miscellaneous Notes on Eclipses. Under the reign of Chou-Kang, Emperor of China, 2,169 years before Christ, happened an eclipse, the most

ancient of which we have any records. Hi and Ho, two astronomers charged with composing a calendar for the regulation of husbandry, were put to death because they had neglected, through intoxication, to foretell it.

In China there is a tribunal of astronomy, the business of which is to calculate eclipses, and to present their types to the emperor and mandarins some months before they occur, with an account of the part of the heavens where they will happen, and how many digits the luminary will be eclipsed. When an eclipse is announced, preparation is made at court for the observance of it; as soon as it begins, a blind man beats a drum, upon which the mandarins and great officers mount their horses, and assemble in the great square of the palace.

An eclipse happened during Lord Macartney's embassy to China, which kept the emperor and his mandarins the that the moon might not be eaten up by whole day devoutly praying the gods the great dragon which was hovering about her: the next day a pantomime was performed, exhibiting the battle of the dragon and the moon, and in which lanterns at the end of long sticks, danctwo or three hundred priests, bearing ing and capering about, sometimes over the plain, and then over chairs and tables, bore no mean part.

The dramatic representation of the eclipse of the moon is thus described by De Guignes:-"A number of Chinese, placed at the distance of six feet from one another, now entered, bearing two long dragons of silk or paper, painted blue, with white scales, and stuffed with lighted lamps. These two dragons, after saluting the emperor with due respect, moved up and down with great composure; when the moon suddenly made her appearance, upon which they began to run after her; the moon, however, fearlessly placed herself between them, and the two dragons, after surveying her for some time, and concluding, apparently, that she was too large a morsel for them to swallow, judged it prudent to retire, which they did with the same ceremony as they entered. The moon, elated with her triumph, then withdrew with prodigious gravity, a little flushed, however, with the chase which she had sustained."

Du Halde assures us, that the circumstances of no fewer than thirty-six eclipses of the sun are recorded by Confucius, out of which there are but twothat are false and doubtful.

Eclipses, especially of the sun, have been always considered as events of the most portentous kind. Isaiah, and others of the sacred writers, speak of them as indicative of the wrath of the Almighty. Homer, Pindar, Pliny, and many others of the ancients, also make mention of them in a similar way; and it used to be noticed, more particularly by the superstitious, that an eclipse was often accompanied by a national calamity, or an occurrence of a striking nature, the malevolent effects of which were to continue, for the sun, as many years as the eclipse lasted hours, and for the moon as many months. Dionysius of Halicarnassus remarks, that both at the birth and death of Romulus there was a total eclipse of the sun, during which the darkness was as great as at midnight. It is also said that there was a solar eclipse on the day the foundation of Rome was laid, July 5, B.C. 754. An eclipse of the moon is mentioned by Ptolemy to have been observed by the Chaldeans at Babylon 720 years before the birth of our Saviour; the middle of the eclipse reducing the time to the meridian of Paris, was 6h 48m, March 19th. From this eclipse it is determined that the mean revolution of the moon is 27d 7h 43′ 5′′. This is considered the first eclipse of the moon on record.

Thales rendered himself famous by foretelling an eclipse of the sun; he, however, only predicted the year in which it would happen, and this he was probably enabled to do by the Chaldean Saros, a period of 223 lunations. This eclipse is rendered remarkable by its happening just as the armies under Alyattes, king of Lydia, and Cyaxeres the Mede, were engaged; and being regarded by each party as an evil omen, inclined both to make peace: it has been clearly proved that this eclipse occured 610 years before Christ, Sept. 30th. Xenophon observes, that the King of the Persians laid siege to the city of Larissa at the time the empire was taken from the Medes, but was not able by any means to make himself master of it; finally, a cloud coming over the sun made it disappear, so that the hearts of the inhabitants failed, and the city was taken. This cloud was, no doubt, the moon eclipsing the sun; for it appears that Cyrus finished the reduction of the Median empire, B.C. 547, in which year there was a great solar eclipse, the centre of which crossed the Tigris, not far from the place where Larissa was situated.

Anaxagoros, who lived about 530 B.C.

is said to have predicted an eclipse of the sun, which, according to Thucydides, happened in the first year of the Peloponnesian war.

When the fleet of Pericles was about to proceed to the attack of Peloponnesus, and Pericles himself was on board the galley, there happened an eclipse of the sun, which was considered by the Athenians as a most unfavourable omen; and they were all thrown into the greatest consternation. The result of this would have very probably been a refusal to proceed on the expedition, had not Pericles, who was aware of the cause of the eclipse, explained it by holding up his mantle before the eyes of the pilot, and observing, that the deprivation was occasioned by the interposition of a much larger body in a similar way.

523 B.C. July 16th.-An eclipse of the moon, which was followed by the death of Cambyses.

502 B.C. Nov. 19th.-An eclipse of the moon, succeeded by the slaughter of the Sabines, and the death of Valerius Publicola.

478 B.C.-When Xerxes undertook his expedition against Greece, in marching from Sardis, an eclipse of the sun took place, which so terrified the army, from its being considered an ill omen of their success, that Pytheas, who had a son in the army, entreated of Xerxes that he might be dismissed; which Xerxes not only refused, but ordered the young man to be cut asunder,-the two parts of his body to be fixed up, and the army to march between them.

463 B.C. April 30th.-An eclipse of the sun. The Persian war, and the falling off of the Persians from the Egyptians.

431 B.C. April 25th.--An eclipse of the moon. A great famine at Rome. A plague over all the known world.

413 B.C. August 27th-When Nicias, the Athenian general, had resolved to quit Sicily with his army, and every thing was ready for embarkation, there happened an eclipse of the moon, at which he was so alarmed, that he delayed his departure until it was too late; the consequence of which was, the loss of his army and the death of himself.

394 B.C. August 14th.-An eclipse of the sun. The Persians beaten by Conon in a sea-engagement.

168 B.C. June 21st.-A total eclipse of the moon. The next day, Perseus, king of Macedonia, was conquered by Paulus Emilius. This eclipse was also observed at Rome, and predicted by Q. Sulpitius Gallus.

Seneca, who was born about the com

mencement of the Christian era, relates from Posidonius, that during an eclipse of the sun a comet was seen, which had before been invisible by being near that luminary.

It is by a lunar eclipse that a mistake has been found in the Christian era; for it is well known that Christ was born when Herod was king of Judea; and Josephus affirms, that just before the death of this Herod there was an eclipse of the moon on the night between the 12th and 13th of March: but it has been clearly proved that this eclipse happened on the fourth year before what is considered the Christian era; wherefore this era ought to be carried back three years at least. The darkness that occurred at our Saviour's crucifixion, and which continued three hours, cannot be attributed to an eclipse of the sun, the passover being kept at the time of full moon: had even the two luminaries been in conjunction, the darkness could only have lasted four or five minutes, owing to their apparent diameters being so nearly equal. Dionysius, a judge of Areopagus, being at Heliopolis, and observing this preternatural phenomenon, cried out, that Nature was either dissolving, or the God of nature suffering.' He afterwards embraced the Christian faith, and suffered martyrdom for the truth of it.

A.D. 14.-A total eclipse of the moon, which terrified the Roman troops, and prevented a revolt.

A.D. 59, April 30th.-An eclipse of the sun. This is reckoned among the prodigies, on account of the murder of Agrippinus by Nero.

A.D. 237, April 12.-A total eclipse of the sun. This was considered to be a sign that the reign of the Gordiani would not continue long. A sixth persecution of the Christians.

A.D. 306.-An eclipse of the sun. The stars were seen, and the Emperor Constantius died.

A. D. 840, May 4th. A dreadful eclipse of the sun. Lewis the Pious died within six months after it.

A.D. 1009.-An eclipse of the sun. Jerusalem taken by the Saracens.

A.D. 1133, August 2d.-A terrible eclipse of the sun. The stars were visible. A schism in the church, occasioned by their being three popes at one time.

A.D. 1140, March 20th.-A total eclipse of the sun visible at London. Dr. Halley remarks, that though there are necessarily twenty-eight central eclipses of the sun at some part or other of the

globe in eighteen years, and that no fewer than eight of these pass over the parallel of London, three of which are total with continuance, yet from the great variety of elements whereof the calculus of eclipses consists, it has so happened that since March 20th, 1140, there had not been a total eclipse of the sun visible at London, although the shadow of the moon has often passed over other parts of Great Britain.

A.D. 1191, June 22d.-A very large solar eclipse in England. The true sun was seen dimly, with an apparent one, but very much obscured.

A.D. 1493.-Christopher Columbus was driven on the island of Jamaica, where he was in the greatest distress for want of provisions, and refused any assistance from the inhabitants; on which he threatened them with a plague, and told them that in token of it there should be an eclipse; which accordingly fell on the day he had foretold, and so terrified the barbarians, that they strove who should be the first in bringing him all sorts of provisions, throwing them at his feet and imploring his forgiveness.

One of the strongest proofs against the veracity of Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller, was connected with a lunar eclipse. In recording his observations of it, he describes the shadow as having advanced some way upon the disc of the moon, at a time when, by calculation, the luminary was several degrees below the horizon, and did not rise till the middle of the eclipse. Bruce's general truth has, however, been confirmed by all later travellers.

The Marchioness of Hastings, when in India, observed that one of her female attendants absented herself during an eclipse of the moon. On enquiry whither she had been, the woman answered, that "she had been paying the cobbler, for that it was quite dark." Not perceiving what connexion the darkness had with the payment, her ladyship naturally required a solution of the mystery. "Oh!" said the simple creature," it is an old story: a long while ago, they borrowed nails and a piece of leather of a cobbler, to nail over the moon. The cobbler was never repaid; so I have been with the rest to pay our share of money to the priest."

Dean Swift, happening to tell his parishioners, that, on a certain day and hour, an eclipse would be visible, found to his great amazement, that at the appointed time his house was besieged by the country people, who had imagined

tha the sight to be seen could only be exhibited by the dean, and exclusively visible from his dwelling. To rid himself of his troublesome visitors, he told them to go home, as the eclipse was put off for a day or two.

The celebrated Bode, author of the · Celestial Atlas, and other excellent works, was conversing with Professor Encks, on the 23d of November, 1826, relative to the eclipse of the sun, of the 29th of that month, when he was surprised by death.

The eclipses which happened about the time of the creation are little more than half way of their ethereal circuit: it will be 4,000 years before they enter the earth any more.

A catalogue of eclipses was calculated, to gratify the curiosity of the French king, who was anxious to know if a total or annular eclipse would soon happen, visible at Paris. From this calculation it appeared, that only one annular eclipse would occur in the nineteenth century, and that it would take place on the 9th of October, 1847. The distance of the centres of the two luminaries will be only 10"; the distance of the south limbs, 1' 24"; distance of the north limbs, 1' 4".

Clavius observes, that at the total eclipse of 1560, the darkness at Coimbra was greater, or at least more striking, than that of night; and the birds fell to the earth through terror.

At the solar eclipse of 1699, there was only 1-180th of the sun visible at Gripswald in Pomerania; and the obscurity was so great, that the inhabitants could neither see to read nor write. Two of the planets, and two or three of the fixed stars also made their appearance.

In 1706, at Paris, the sun was eclipsed nearly eleven digits; yet, although only one-twelfth of the diameter was visible, every thing could be distinguished as clearly as in the fullest sunshine.

The sky an azure field displayed

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the sky appeared as starry as during the night of a full moon. An observer at Zurich says, "that the birds went to roost; the bats came out of their holes, and the fishes swam about; a sensation of cold was experienced, and the dew fell on the grass."

The next lunar eclipse (after the ensuing one in September) visible in Britain, will take place Feb. 26th, 1831. Digits eclipsed 8° 18'; the moon will rise eclipsed.

A very small solar eclipse will occur July 27th, 1832. 12' 30" only, of the sun's southern limb will be concealed.

A great solar eclipse, visible in England, will take place 15th May, 1836, when 119 18' will be covered.

Another considerable eclipse of the sun will occur 15th March, 1858, when 11° 30' will be hidden.

A still more remarkable eclipse of the sun will take place 19th August, 1887, when the whole of the disc will be covered excepting 2'.

A total eclipse, without continuance, will occur 3d February, 1916. The apparent diameters will coincide, and, for an instant, there will be a total concealment of the sun's light. This eclipse will be the greatest that will be visible in England till after the year of our Lord 2,000.

Lit. Gaz.

ROYAL PORTRAITS. No. 5. (For the Olio.)

HENRY THE SECOND.

"This prince," says Baker, began his reign as Solomon would have begun it." His first act was to drive out of England the numerous hordes of mercenary soldiers whom his predecessor had brought over to aid him in obtaining the crown. He then banished William Ypres, a Flemish warrior, whom Stephen had created Earl of Kent, and destroyed nearly the whole of the castles that had been raised during the reign of that King, considering them

"Twas sun-light sheathed, and gently charm'd, rather as nurseries of rebellion than

Of all its sparkling rays disarm'd,

And as in slumber laid;

Or something night and day between,
Like moon-shine-but the hue was green.

The grand eclipse of the 22d of April, 1715, presented most interesting phenomena; it was observed, and minutely detailed, by Dr. Halley: his description of it is said to be the best that astronomical history affords of this species of phenomenon. During the greatest obscuration, the planets Jupiter, Mercury, and Venus, and not fewer than twenty of the fixed stars, were visible; so that

places upon which he could rely in time of need. But it is evident that this king had few good qualities. His unkindness to his brother Geoffery, and his perjury, are foul stains upon his character.

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