attention; and how minute soever may be the notice | trunk alone remaining of above four fathoms in comof their decline, decay, and death, no chronicles are found of their early life. Of some, however, extensive memorials can be framed, but of these hereafter, Little is known of the GREAT SALCEY OAK, whose portrait we give above,

Major Rooke observes, it was perhaps the inland situation of the little forest of Salcey, ten miles from Northampton, that caused some of its majestic oaks to escape the axe, until age had secured them from the claims of the dock-yard; and of these the Great Salcey Oak is the most remarkable. Its circumference at bottom, where there are no projecting spurs, is forty-six feet ten inches; at one yard from the ground, thirty-nine feet ten inches; at two yards high, thirtyfive feet nine inches; and at three yards, thirty-five feet its circumference within the hollow of the trunk, near the ground, is twenty-nine feet; at one yard from the bottom, twenty-four feet seven inches; at two yards high, eighteen feet six inches; and at three yards from the ground, the circumference is sixteen feet two inches. Major Rooke figures this living cavern with an arched entrance on either side, closed with gates, thus forming an enclosure, in which cattle might be penned and adds, 'From observations that have been made by naturalists on the longevity of the oak, there is reason to suppose that this tree is at least one thousand five hundred years old.'

Other oaks of this kind, though less remarkable for their size, are common in many parts of the country, and known as 'Bull Oaks' from these animals taking shelter within them, which when they are of smaller dimensions, they effect not by going in and turning round, but by retreating backwards into the cavity till the head alone projects at the aperture.' Mr. South describes one standing in the middle of a pasture and bearing the most venerable marks of antiquity, which gives a name compounded of itself and its situation to the farm on which it grows, viz. Oak-ley Farm; the hollow of this tree was long the favourite retreat of a bull. Twenty people, old and young, have crowded into it at the same time. A calf being shut up there for convenience, its dam, a two-year-old heifer constantly went in to suckle it, and left sufficient room within the trunk for milking her. It is supposed, adds he, to be near a thousand years old; the body is nothing but a shell, covered with burly protuberances; the upper part of the shaft is hollow like a chimney. It has been mutilated of all its limbs; but from their stumps arise a number of small branches, forming a bushy head, so remarkable for fertility, that in years of plenty it has produced two sacks of acorns in a season. It measures in the middle round the burls twenty-nine feet three inches, and is therefore little more than half the size of the noble Salcey Patriarch. Circumference round the stumps of the old arms thirty-one feet six inches, and in the smallest part between two and three feet from the ground, it is twenty-six feet in girth.

In the Bath Society's papers we find given the dimensions of another very grand Bull-oak, in Wedgenock park, Warwickshire; which measures at three feet from the ground, eleven yards one foot in circumference; at one foot above the ground, thirteen. yards one foot; six feet from the ground, twelve yards one foot; broadest side, seven yards five inches; close to the ground, eighteen yards, one foot, seven inches; height of the trunk, only about four yards one foot. The inside quite decayed; and when the writer saw it, a cow and a sheep had sheltered themselves within it. The head was very round and flourishing.

Martyn mentions Fisher's oak, about seventeen miles from London, as a tree of enormous bulk, the

pass. When King James made a progress that way,
a schoolmaster of the neighbourhood and all his
scholars dressed in oaken garlands, came out of this
tree in great numbers, and entertained the king with
an oration. They have a tradition at Tunbridge that
thirteen men on horseback were once sheltered within it.
THAN a tree, a grander child earth bears not.
What are the boasted monuments of man,
Imperial column, or triumphal arch,
To forests of immeasureable extent,
Which Time confirms, which centuries waste not?
Oaks gather strength for ages, and when at last
They wane, so beauteous in decrepitude,
So grand in weakness. E'en in their decay
So venerable! 'twere sacrilege t'escape
The consecrating touch of Time. Time saw
The blossom on the parent bough. Time watch'd
The acorn loosen from the spray. Time pass'd
While springing from its swaddling shell, yon Oak,
The cloud-crown'd monarch of our woods, by thorns
Environ'd, 'scaped the raven's bill, the tooth
Of goat and deer, the school-boy's knife, and sprang
A royal hero from his nurse's arms.

Time gave it seasons, and Time gave it years,
Ages bestow'd and centuries grudg'd not:
Time knew the sapling when gay summer's breath
Shook to the roots the infant oak, which after
Tempests moved not. Time hollowed in its trunk
A tomb for centuries; and buried there
The epochs of the rise and fall of states,
The fading generations of the world,
The memory of man.-Amanitates Quernea.

TRAVELLING IN SPAIN.

[From The Alhambra, by WASHINGTON IRVING.]

MANY are apt to picture Spain to their imagination as a soft southern region, decked out with all the luxuriant charms of voluptuous Italy. On the contrary, though there are exceptions in some of the maritime provinces, yet, for the greater part, it is a stern melancholy country, with rugged mountains, and long sweeping plains, destitute of trees, and indescribably silent and lonesome, partaking of the savage and solitary character of Africa. What adds to this silence and loneliness is the absence of singing birds, a natural consequence of the want of groves and hedges. The vulture and the eagle are seen wheeling about the mountain cliffs, and soaring over the plains, and groups of shy bustards stalk about the heaths; but the myriads of smaller birds, which animate the whole face of other countries, are met with in but few provinces in Spain, and in those chiefly among the orchards and gardens which surround the habitations of man.

In the interior provinces the traveller occasionally traverses great tracts, cultivated with grain as far as the eye can reach, waving at times with verdure, at other times naked and sun-burnt, but he looks round in vain for the hand that has tilled the soil. At length he perceives some village on a steep hill, or rugged crag with mouldering battlements and ruined watch-tower; a strong hold, in olden times, against civil war or moorish inroad; for the custom among the peasantry of congregating together for mutual protection, is still kept up in most parts of Spain, in consequence of the maraudings of roving freebooters.

But though a great part of Spain is deficient in the garniture of groves and forests, and the softer charms of ornamental cultivation, yet its scenery has something of a high and lofty character to compensate the want. It partakes something of the attributes of its people; and I think that I better understand the proud, hardy, frugal and abstemious Spaniard, his manly defiance of hardships, and contempt of effeminate indulgences, since I have seen the country he inhabits. There is something, too, in the sternly simple fea

tures of the Spanish landscape, that impresses on the
soul a feeling of sublimity. The immense plains of
the Castiles and of La Mancha, extending as far as
the eye can reach, derive an interest from their very
nakedness aud immensity, and have something of the
solemn grandeur of the ocean. In ranging over these
boundless wastes the eye catches sight here and there
of a straggling herd of cattle attended by a lonely
herdsman, motionless as a statue, with his long slen-
der pike tapering up like a lance into the air; or
beholds a long train of mules slowly moving along
the waste like a train of camels in the desert; or a
single herdsman, armed with a blunderbuss and sti-
letto, and prowling over the plain. Thus the country,
the habits, the very looks of the people, have some-
thing of the Arabian charater. The general insecurity
of the country is evinced in the universal use of wea-
pons.
The herdsman in the field, the shepherd in the
plain, has his musket and knife. The wealthy villager
rarely ventures to the market town without his tra-
buco, (Spanish gun) and perhaps a servant on foot with
a blunderbuss on his shoulder; and the most petty
journey is undertaken with the preparation of a war-
like enterprise.

The dangers of the road produce also a mode of travelling resembling, on a diminutive scale, the caravans of the east. The arrieros, or carriers, congregate in convoys, and set off in large and well armed trains on appointed days; while additional travellers swell their numbers and contribute to their strength. In this primitive way is the commerce of the country carried on. The muleteer is the general medium of traffic, and the legitimate traverser of the land, crossing the peninsula from the Pyrenees and the Asturias to the Alpuxarras, the Serrania de Ronda, and even to the gates of Gibraltar. He lives frugally and hardily: his alforjas, of coarse cloth, hold his scanty stock of provisions; a leathern bottle, hanging at his saddlebow, contains wine and water, for a supply across barren mountains and thirsty plains. A mule-cloth, spread upon the ground, is his bed at night, and his pack-saddle is his pillow. His low but clean-limbed and sinewy form betoken strength; his complexion is dark and sun-burnt; his eye resolute, but quiet in its expression, except when kindled by sudden emotion; his demeanour is frank, manly, and courteous, and he never passes you without a grave salutation: "Dios guarde à usted!" "Va tisted con Dios; Caballero!" "God guard you!" "God be with you, Cavalier!"

As these men have often their whole fortune at stake upon the burthen of their mules, they have their weapons at hand, slung to their saddles, and ready to be snatched out for desperate defence. But their united numbers render them secure against petty bands of marauders, and the solitary bandolero, armed to the teeth, and mounted on his Andalusian steed, hovers about them, like a pirate about a merchant convoy, without daring to make an assault.

the journey. This talent of singing and improvising is frequent in Spain, and it is said to have been inherited from the Moors. There is something wildly pleasing in listening to these ditties, among the rude and lonely scenes that they illustrate; accompanied, as they are, by the occasional jingle of the mule-bell.

It has a most picturesque effect also to meet a train of muleteers in some mountain pass. First you hear the bells of the leading mules, breaking with their simple melody the stillness of the airy height; or, perhaps, the voice of the muleteer admonishing some tardy or wandering animal, or chaunting, at the full stretch of his lungs, some traditionary ballad. At length you see the mules slowly winding along the cragged defile, sometimes descending precipitous cliffs. so as to present themselves in full relief against the sky; sometimes toiling up the deep arid chasms below you. As they approach you descry their gay decorations of worsted tufts, tassels, and saddle-cloths, while, as they pass by, the ever-ready trabuco slung behind the packs and saddles, gives a hint of the insecurity of the road.

WHAT is true knowledge?—Is it with keen eye
Of lucre's sons to thread the mazy way?
Is it of civic rights, and royal sway,
And wealth political, the depths to try?
Is it to delve the earth, or soar the sky;

To marshal nature's tribes in just array;
To mix, and analyse, and mete, and weigh
Her elements, and all her powers descry?
These things, who will may know them, if to know
Breed not vain-glory: but o'er all to scan
GoD, in his works and word shewn forth below;
Creation's wonders; and Redemption's plan;
Whence came we; what to do; and whither go:

This is true knowledge, and "the whole of man."

D. C.

Ir is the prerogative of GENIUS to confer a measure of itself upon inferior intelligences. In reading the works of Milton, Bacon, and Newton, thoughts greater than the growth of our own minds are transplanted into them; and feelings more profound, sublime, or comprehensive, are insinuated amidst our ordinary train; while in the eloquence with which they are clothed, we learn a new language, worthy of the new ideas created in us. Of how much pure and exalted enjoyment is he ignorant, who never entertained, as angels, the bright emanations of loftier intellects than his own? By habitual communion with superior spirits, we not only are enabled to think their thoughts, speak their dialect, feel their emotions, but our own thoughts are refined, our scanty language is enriched, our common feelings are elevated; and though we may never attain their standard, yet, by keeping company with them, we shall rise above our own; as trees, growing in the society of a forest, are said to draw each other up into shapely and stately proportion, while field and hedge-row stragglers, exposed to all weathers, never reach their full stature, luxuriance or beauty.— JAMES MONTGOMERY.

The Spanish muleteer has an inexhaustible stock of songs and ballads, with which to beguile his incessant wayfaring. The airs are rude and simple, consisting of but few inflections. These he chaunts forth with a HUMMING BIRDS.-Some idea may be formed of the loud voice, and long, drawling cadence, seated side- advances which have been made in zoological pursuits ways on his mule, who seems to listen with infinite of late years, (especially since the immense continent gravity, and to keep time, with his paces. to the tune. of the New World has been opened to European reThe couplets thus chaunted, are often old traditional search) by the following fact. Goldsmith, in his Aniromances about the Moors, or some legend of a saint, mated Nature, speaking of the humming bird, says: or some love ditty; or, what is still more frequent," Of this charming little animal there are six or seven some ballad about a bold contrabandista, or hardy bandolero, for the smuggler and the robber are poetical heroes among the common people of Spain. Often the song of the muleteer is composed at the instant, and relates to some local scene, or some incident of

varieties, from the size of a small wren, down to that of an humble bee." There are at this moment in the possession of the eminent nurseryman, Mr. Loddiges of Hackney, no less than one hundred and seventy distinct species of this "charming little animal."

"At four, P.M. (so late an hour that few of us ex-of the first of the run-aways to return to action; and pected any sport) Lord Combermere and nine others of our party, mounted elephants, and taking twenty pad elephants to beat the covert, and carry the guides and the game, proceeded towards the swamp pointed out as the lurking-place of the buffalo-devouring mon

us.

vanced, and after beating for half-an-hour, I saw the | having enjoyed the singular distinction of lying for grass gently moved about one hundred yards in front some moments in the very clutches of the royal quaof me; and soon after, a large tiger reared his head druped. Though I have heard him recount the incident and shoulders above the jungle, as if to reconnoitre more than once, and have myself sketched the I tally-ho'd, and the whole line rushed forward. scene, yet I am not sure that I relate it correctly. The On arriving at the spot, two tigers broke covert, and main feature, however, of the anecdote, affording so cantered quietly across an open space of ground. Seve- striking an illustration of the sagacity of the elephant, ral shots were fired, one of which slightly touched the may be strictly depended upon. largest of them, who immediately turned round, and roaring furiously and lashing his tail, came bounding towards us; but, apparently alarmed by the formidable line of elephants, he suddenly stopped short, and turned into the jungle again, followed by us at full speed. Those who had the fastest elephants had now the best of the sport, and when he turned to fight, (which he soon did) only three of us were up. As soon as he faced about, he attempted to spring on Capt. M.'s elephant, but was stopped by a shot in the chest. Two or three more shots brought him on his knees, and the noble beast fell dead in a last attempt to charge. He was a full-grown male, and a very fine animal. Near the spot where we found him, were discovered the well-picked remains of a buffalo.

"A lion charged my hero's elephant, and he, having wounded him, was in the act of leaning forward in order to fire another shot, when the front of the howdah suddenly gave way, and he was precipitated over the head of the elephant into the very jaws of the furious beast. The lion though severely hurt, immediately seized him, and would doubtless shortly have put a fatal termination to the conflict, had not the elephant, urged by his mahout, stepped forward, though greatly alarmed, and grasping in her trunk the top of a young tree, bent it down across the loins of the lion, and thus forced the tortured animal to quit his hold! My friend's life was thus saved, but his arm was broken in two places, and he was severely clawed on the breast and shoulders."

SIR ISAAC NEWTON,

THE most distinguished philosopher of modern times, was born in the manor-house of Woolsthorpe, a ham

"One of the sportsmen had, in the meantime, kept the smaller tiger in view, and we soon followed to the spot to which he had been marked. It was a thick marshy covert of broad flag leaves, and we had to beat through it twice, and were beginning to think of giving it up as the light was waning, when Capt. P.'s elephant, which was lagging in the rear, suddenly ut-south of Grantham, and about a mile west of the great let of Coltersworth, in Lincolnshire, situated six miles tered a shrill cry, and came rushing out of the swamp, road from London to the North. The house stands with the tiger hanging by his teeth to the upper part in a pretty little hollow, on the west side of the valley of its tail! Capt. P.'s situation was perplexing enough, of the river Witham, which rises at a short distance. his elephant making the most violent efforts to shake off his back-biting foe, and himself unable to use his This was the paternal estate of Newton, and here he was brought up and educated by his widowed mogun, for fear of shooting the unfortunate Coolie, who, ther. frightened out of his wits, was standing behind the howdah, with his feet in the crupper, within six inches of the tiger's head. We soon flew to his aid, and quickly shot the tiger, who, however, did not quit his gripe until he had received eight balls; when he dropped off the poor elephant's mangled tail quite dead. The elephant only survived ten days, but it was shrewdly suspected that his more mortal wounds were inflicted by some of the sportsmen who were over-zealous to rid him of his troublesome hanger-on.

"Thus in about two hours, and within sight of camp, we found and slew three tigers, a piece of good fortune rarely to be met with in these modern times, when the spread of cultivation, and the zeal of English sportsmen, have almost exterminated the breed of these animals. Four other sportsmen of our party returned to camp this evening, having been out for four days in a different direction, they only killed one tiger, but he was an immense beast, and was shot on the head of Colonel F.'s elephant, which he wounded severely. This is considered the acme of tiger shooting."

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"Tis

'Every memorial of so great a man," says Dr. Brewster, in his Life of Newton, "has been preserved and cherished with peculiar veneration. His house at Woolsthorpe has been religiously protected by Mr. Turnor of Stoke Rocheford, the proprietor. Dr. Stukeley, who visited it in Sir Isaac's lifetime on the 13th October 1721, gives the following description of Capt. Mundy had not the fortune to fall in with a it in his letter to Dr. Mead, written in 1727: Lion; his account however of an adventure which befel built of stone, as is the way of the country hereabouts, one of his friends, illustrated by the print which ac- and a reasonable good one. They led me up stairs companies this article, will be read with great interest. and showed me Sir Isaac's study, where I suppose he 'By crack sportsmen the lion is reputed to afford studied when in the country in his younger days, or better sport than the tiger: his attack is more open perhaps when he visited his mother from the univerand certain; a peculiarity arising either from the noble sity. I observed the shelves were of his own making, nature of the Jungle King, or from the country he being pieces of deal boxes which probably he sent his haunts being less favourable for a retreat than the books and clothes down in on those occasions. There thick swampy morasses frequented by the tiger. Col. were some years ago two or three hundred books in Skinner relates many interesting anecdotes of lion-it of his father-in-law, Mr. Smith, which Sir Isaac hunts, with the exploits and narrow escapes of the horsemen of his corps, who always accompanied the line of elephants into the jungle on these occasions.

"A gentleman of our party had, perhaps, as perilous an adventure with one of these animals as any one, he

gave to Dr. Newton of our town.

"When the house was repaired in 1798, a tablet of white marble was put up by Mr. Turnor in the room where Sir Isaac was born, with the following inscrip tion:

Here Newton dawn'd, here lovely wisdom woke, And to a wondering world divinely spoke. If Tully glowed, Phædrus's steps he trode, Or fancy formed Philosophy a God; If sages still for Homer's birth contend The sons of Science at this dome must bend. All hail the shrine! All hail the natal day, Cam boasts his noon,-This Cot his morning ray. "The house is now occupied by a person of the name of John Wollerton. It still contains the two dials made by Newton, but the styles of both are wanting. The celebrated apple tree, the fall of one of the apples of which is said to have turned the attention of Newton to the subject of gravity, was destroyed by wind about four years ago; but Mr. Turnor has preserved it in the form of a chair.

"The modesty of Sir Isaac Newton, in reference to his great discoveries, was not founded on any indifference to the fame which they conferred, or upon any erroneous judgment of their importance to science. The whole of his life proves, that he knew his place as a philosopher, and was determined to assert and vindicate his rights. His modesty arose from the depth and extent of his knowledge, which showed him what a small portion of nature he had been able to examine, and how much remained to be explored in the same field in which he had himself laboured. In the magnitude of the comparison he recognized his own littleness; and a short time before his death he uttered this memorable sentiment: 'I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.' What a lesson to the vanity and presumption of philosophers,-to those especially who have never even found the smoother pebble or the prettier shell! What a preparation for the latest inquiries, and the last views of the decaying spirit, for those inspired doctrines which alone can throw a light over the dark ocean of undiscovered truth!

SAINT SWITHUN'S DAY.
[July 15th.]

THE circumstance of St. Swithun's name occurring in the Calendar of our Church, has given much satisfaction to PINIUS, who wrote the commentary upon his life in the Acta Sanctorum; and if what has been recorded of the character of St. Swithun be true, we have good reason to be proud of his having lived among us, and for retaining his name in the remembrance of our countrymen.

The chroniclers of the church of Rome tell us that St. Swithun was of noble parentage, passed his youth in innocent simplicity, in the study of grammar, philosophy, and the Holy Scriptures; and that when he was promoted to holy orders, he was an accomplished model of all virtues. His learning, piety, and prudence, induced Egbert, king of the West Saxons, to make him his priest, and to appoint him tutor to his son Ethelwolf. When Ethelwolf succeeded to the throne, he governed his kingdom in ecclesiastical matters by the prudent advice of his former tutor, whom he caused to be elected bishop of Winchester.*

William of Malmesbury says, "Though this good bishop was a rich treasure of all virtues, those in which he took most delight were humility and charity to the poor; and that in the discharge of his episcopal functions he omitted nothing belonging to the true pastor. He built divers churches and repaired others; his mouth was always open to invite sinners to repentance, and to admonish those who stood to be aware of falling. He was most severe to himself, and abstemious in his mode of living. He delighted in spiritual exercises, and in conversation would bear no discourse that did not tend to edification."

Of the man who thus adorned and blessed the church in his generation she may be truly proud, and if gratitude would suffer his name to be omitted in her calendar, the interest of religion would retain it. The name of St. Swithun therefore still adorns it,—a monument of virtue, piety, and wisdom.

He died on the 2nd day of July, 864, his body being buried by his own order in the church-yard, in order that his grave might be trodden by passers-by. Had the history of this virtuous and pious prelate here been closed, justice would have been done to his memory, and his name been retained in the remembrance of his countrymen with those feelings of respect to which he was so eminently entitled. But an over-strained anxiety to do honour to his memory, has, by the imputation of incredible wonders to the virtue of his relics, cast a shade of ridicule upon him; and he is now only known among us as a weathergage, which is still preserved for its antiquity and our amusement.

66

"The native simplicity of Sir Isaac Newton's mind is finely pourtrayed in the affecting letter in which he acknowledges to Locke, that he had thought and spoken of him uncharitably; and the humility and candour in which he asks forgiveness, could have emanated only from a mind as noble as it was pure. Upon the removal of his body from the church"In the religious and moral character of our au-yard to the church, or, in the language of the monk thor there is much to admire and imitate. While he of Malmesbury, upon the translation of his relics," exhibited in his life and writings an ardent regard for on the 15th of July, 964, "such a number of miracuthe general interests of religion, he was at the same lous cures of all kinds were wrought as was never in time a firm believer in Revelation. He was too deeply the memory of man known to have been in any other versed in the Scriptures, and too much imbued with place." Doubtless he speaks the truth; for not their spirit, to judge harshly of other men who took only does the catalogue exceed the powers of memory different views of them from himself. He cherished but even the stretch of imagination. the great principles of religious toleration, and never scrupled to express his abhorrence of persecution, even in its mildest form. Immorality and impiety he never permitted to pass unreproved; and when Dr. Halley ventured to say any thing disrespectful to religion, he invariably checked him, and said, "I have studied these things,-you have not."

The narrators of the traditions relative to St. Swithun, disagree in their accounts of the miracles they impute to the virtue of his relics; though they vie with cach other in a desire to magnify the importance and

"This church was first dedicated to the Holy Trinity under the patronage of St. Peter, afterwards by St. Ethelwold, in the presence of king Etheldred, St. Dunstan, and eight other bishops, to St. Swithun, as Rudburn relates in 980. King Henry VIII. in 154C commanded this cathedral to be called no longer St. Swithun's but of the Holy Trinity."