life. It thus associates common occurrences and objects with the most elevated feelings, and every view of nature calls forth the notes of pleasure, and the song of praise to its Author. Such exercises are undoubtedly often mechanical at first, but their repetition cultivates the feelings they describe. It leaves an impress of softness, and produces a tendency upward, which is useful to all, and it is of peculiar importance to those for whom it is generally deemed superfluous; I mean, whose minds are chiefly occupied with providing for the immediate necessities of life, and who are conversant with its ruder elements.

A passage of Vehrli's journal of his school at Hofwyl, presents a very interesting example of the influence of this species of music. "The last autumn I was walking with my children by moonlight-' How beautiful the moon rises, and shines red over the lake,' said one of them. Another instantly began singing the hymn

"In still and cheerful glory
She raises mild before us.'

and all joined in chorus. The last summer, at the approach of a storm, they often sung the hymn beginning

'God thunders, but I nothing fear.

They selected, as appropriate to the marked divisions of time, the hymn which begins

'The days that Heaven allows us here,
How swiftly do they fly;'

and sung it frequently at the close of the week."
The visiter at Hofwyl may often hear them sing, in
going or returning from their labours, especially at the
unseasonable hours sometimes necessary for securing
the harvest in this variable climate; and thus cheering
their toils, and elevating their thoughts and feelings
above the little inconveniences and hardships they en-
dured. A number of commissioners who visited the
establishment observe, that they, like most other stran-
gers, could not hear the music of these pupils without
the deepest emotion. The greater part of them know
by heart a hundred religious and popular hymns. Vehrli

himself, observes, that he has uniformly found, that in proportion as vocal music was improved, a kind and devotional spirit was promoted among his pupils.

In furnishing an amusement of this kind, we shall divert from others of a doubtful or injurious character. In giving young men such a means of innocent excitement, by music appropriate to their age and feelings, we diminish the temptation of resorting to stimulating li quors, and other questionable modes of producing cheerfulness. The editor has known and visited a village in Switzerland, where a set of drunken, disorderly young men were led, by the cultivation of vocal music among them, to an entirè exterior reformation, which was regarded with as much surprise as the change in regard to temperance in our own country. He has seen them, when they met at a public house, resort to this method of raising their spirits, instead of drinking, and amuse themselves with singing songs and hymns adapted to improve the mind and elevate the heart, instead of the profane or indecent conversation or noisy clamor which is generally heard on such occasions.

But, aside from this benefit, music, of itself, has an effect which cannot be doubted, in softening and elevating the character. It diminishes the strength of the passions by keeping them, for a time at least, in a state of inaction. It counteracts them, by producing the op posite and softer feelings.

In addition to this, the study of music, from its very nature, cultivates the habits of order, and obedience, and union. All must follow a precise rule; all must act together, and in obedience to a leader; and the habit acquired in one part of our pursuits necessarily affects others.

On all these accounts, vocal music has no small influence on school discipline. We were struck with the superior order and kindly aspect of the German schools. in comparison with our own, and ascribed it not a little to the cultivation of music in them. Those who unite in singing with their fellows and their master, will be more disposed to be kind to the one and obedient to the other

SKETCH OF MILTON.

MILTON stood apart from all earthly things. He may be likened to that intepreter of the mysterious things of Providence, who sits in the bright circle of the sun : while Shakespeare resembles rather the spirit created by his own matchless imagination, which wanders over earth and sea, with power to subdue all minds and hearts by the influence of his magic spell. The poetry of Milton is accordingly solemn and dignified, as well becomes the moral sublimity of his character, and the sacredness of his awful theme. His mind appears to have been elevated by the glories revealed to his holy contemplation; and his inspiration is as much loftie than that of other poets, as his subject was superior to theirs. It is superfluous to say, that his moral influence is always pure: for how could it be otherwise wit such a mind, always conversant with divine things, and filled with the sublimest thoughts? Yet it has beer sometimes said, that the qualities with which he has endued that most wonderful of all poetical creations, the leader of the fallen angels, are too fearfully sublime to be regarded with the horror and aversion, which they ought naturally to inspire. He is indeed invested with many sublime attributes; the fierce energy, unbroken by despair-the unconquerable will, which not even the thunders of the Almighty can bend; but these qualities, though they may fill us with wonder and awe, are not attractive. His tenderness is only the bitterness of remorse, without end and hopeless; his self-devotion is only the result of wild ambition; and a dreadful retribution at length falls upon him, "according to his doom." In this exhibition of character, there is undoubtedly vast intellectual power; but there is nothing redeeming, nothing which can win the soul to love. We dread the effect of those delineations where crime, from which nature recoils, is allied to qualities, with which we involuntarily sympathise; such portraits are of evil tendency, because though unnatural, they are still attractive; but great crime frequently supposes the existence of imposing traits of character, which may excite admiration, with

out engaging sympathy. We are interested in Conrad, because his fierce and gloomy spirit is mastered by the passion which masters all; because in him it is deep and overwhelming, yet refined and pure-like the token, which restored the repenting Peri to Edenthe redeeming and expiatory virtue, which shows that the light of the soul, however darkened, is not extinguished altogether-and we do not ask, how purity and love can find their refuge in a pirate's bosom-we do not remember, that they could as hardly dwell there as Abdiel among the rebel host. Not so the ruined Archangel. In him all may be grand and imposing but all is dark, stern and relentless. If there be aught to admire, there is at least nothing to imitate. Through all the writings of Milton, there reign a loftiness and grandeur which seem to raise the soul to the standard of his own clevation. The finest minds have resorted to them for the rich treasures of eloquence and wisdom; and they might also find in them the more enduring treasures of piety and virtue.

ན་

THOMSON AND COWPER.

THERE are few who do not love to contemplate the two great masters of descriptive English poetry, Thomson and Cowper; with whom we seem to converse with the intimacy of familiar friends, and almost to forget our veneration for the poets, in our love and admiration of the virtues of the men. Both had minds and hearts which were touched with the feelings of the beauty, and fitted to enjoy the influences of nature; and the poetry of both was elevated, if not inspired, by religious veneration of the great Author of the grand and beautiful. The view of Thomson was bold and wide; it comprehended the whole landscape; he delighted to wander by the mountain torrent, and in the winter's storm; and it seemed as if the volume of na.. ture was open and present before him. It is not so with Cowper. His lowly spirit did not disdain the humblest thing that bore the impress of his Maker's hands; he looked with as keen an eye of curiosity and

admiration upon the meanest flower of the valley as upon the wide expanse, glittering in the pure brilliancy of a winter's evening, or bright with the dazzling glory of the summer noon. He made the voice of instruction issue from the most familiar things, and invested them with beauty, hourly seen, but never felt before; and he painted them all with the pure and delightful coloring of simplicity and truth.

CIRCLE OF THE SCIENCES WITH SUITABLE REFLECTIONS.

ASTRONOMICAL SKETCHES. NO. XI. THE MOON.

THE Moon has an apparent daily motion from east to west, like all the other heavenly bodies; (this apparent motion is caused by the rotation of the earth from west to east) a progressive motion from west to east, advancing through the twelve signs of the zodiac in about 29 days, 12 hours; and a rotation upon her axis, which is completed in the same time as her revolution round the Earth.

The motion of the Moon in her orbit is very unequal. Sometimes she moves faster than the Earth, at other times slower. In some parts of her orbit she is behind the Earth, at others times she is before the earth; but at the conjunction, and opposition, she is in the same part of the heavens as seen from the Sun.

The Moon's absolute motion from her change to the first quarter is so much slower than the Earth's that she falls 24,000 miles behind the Earth at her first quarter. From her first quarter to her opposition, her motion is gradually increased, having regained what she lost in her first quarter. From her opposition to the beginning of her last quarter, her motion continues_accelerated so that she is advanced as far before the Earth as she was behind it at her first quarter, namely, 24,000 miles, which is equal to the semi-diameter of her orbit. But from the beginning of her last quarter to her conjunction with the Sun, her motion is so retarded, that she loses as much with respect to the Earth, as is equal to her distance from it. From these remarks it appears