NEW AND INTERESTING SCIENTIFIC FACTS. "Look, then, at those who profess to be his followers, and bear his name. Scores of churches surround us, mutually repelling and attacking each other, and affording a scene of strife, jealousy, animosity, and evil speaking, with scarce a parallel for virulence in the proceedings of those who profess no fellowship with Christ. to see it. been convulsed to their centres, or blown asunder by ex plosions of strife and evil passims, which were a disgrace to civilization, let alone Christianity. Apart from these flagrant departures from the spirit of Christianity, what 11 gave an account of a case of vision without retina, he says: "In the course of last summer, I met with a gentleman who had a peculiarity of vision of a very remarkable kind, and one of which Did any of our readers, in all their experience in I believe there is no other example. While theological controversy, ever meet with any t ing quite hunting he fell from his horse, and received so bitter as this charge? As to its truth, we need say such a severe blow upon his head as to denothing. It confutes itself. Is there any gall in infidel prive him entirely of the sight of one eye, ink quite equal to the following. If so, we have yet and to a great extent of the sight of the "But while this sectarianism is thus a spectacle to other. Neither of the eyes had suffered the the world, it is eclipsed by the internal feuds to which slightest local injury from the blow, and these sects are themselves exposed. Many of them have therefore the total blindness in one eye, and the partial blindness in the other, arose from the insensibility of the retina, caused by the disorganization of the part of the brain more immediately connected with the origin of the optic nerves. The degree of vision which remained in one eye, was such as to enable its possessor to recognize any friend at the distance of 400 or 500 yards, or more generally speaking at a considerable distance; but in society he could not recognize his most intimate acquaintance. He could see only the eye or the mouth of his friend; and he was not able to obtain, from the duration of the impression of light, and the rapid transference of his eye from one feature to another, such a combination of the separate impressions as to give the likeness which they composed." does the current history of the various churches, in greater or less degree disclose? Intense and often unscrupulous rivalry, incessant and unkind competition, a self-glorifying and haughty demeanor."" Now, who that has observed the bitter controversies between the old and new schools, in the Presbyterian church-the feud between the Methodist church South, and the Methodist church North, illustrated in many cases by driving preachers from their pulpits, with stones, and threatening them with tarring and feathering, or deathor that fierce partisanship in the Episcopal church, of which the depositions of the Bishops of New York and Pennsylvania, and the impeachment of the Bishop of New Jersey, are incidents, does not perceive that despite the impotent fustian of this "Layman," the author of the "New Themes" has expressed but notorious and literal truth. The first Christians were termed Atheists by the heathen, because no statues graced their places of worship, or received their homage as the representatives of some divine attribute; and in modern Italy, the same term is bestowed on those, who doubt the almighty power of the Virgin or the Pope. The reviewer of the "New Themes for the Protestant Clergy," seems to regard that performance as an example of Atheism, because its author sees in the admitted inefficiency of the churches, evidences that they need regeneration. The whole "Review" is but a tissue of impotent rage, without a single redeeming point of good sense, or reasonable appreciation of the design, spirit or tendency of the work reviewed. DR. ROYLE, read a paper on the Black and It was a remarkable fact, that the subject of the difference between the black and green teas had been, until recently, a matter of great uncertainty. The Jesuits, who had penetrated into China, and Mr. Pigou, were of opinion that both the black and green teas were produced from the same plant; while Mr. Reeve believed that they were manufactured from two distinct plants. Now, as regarded himself, he (Dr. Royle) had adopted the view that the best kinds of black and green tea were made from different plants; and examination of tea samples seemed to confirm that view, but a repetition of the Mr. Fortune experiment had not done so. subsequent to the China war, having been sent out to China by the Horticultural Society of England, made inquiries on the subject. He there found the thea bohea in the Southern parts of China, employed for making black tea; and in proceeding as far north as Shanghae, he found the thea viridis used in making green tea near the districts NEW AND INTERESTING SCIENTIFIC | where the best green tea was made. So far, FACTS. The Twenty-second Meeting of the British Association for the advancement of Science, is now being held in London. We subjoin some of its proceedings: SIR DAVID BREWSTER in a report made, | therefore, the information seemed to confirm the view of two different species of thea being employed to make the two different kinds of tea; but Mr. Fortune, in visiting the district of Fokien, was surprised to find what he conceived to be the true thea viridis employed in making black tea in districts near such manner. Hence it was unequally thick, but its extreme thickness was two-tenths of an inch, its focal length being 44 inches. It had twelve remains of cavities which had originally contained liquids or condensed gases; but ten of those had been opened probably in the rough handling which it receivin the act of being ground; most of them therefore had discharged their gaseous contents. Sir David concluded by assigning reasons why this could not be looked on as an ornament, but a true optical lens. AUNT PHILLIS IN ENGLAND. where the best black tea was made. He took plants with him from Fokien to Shangae, and could find no difference between them. It was still, however, desirable to get specimens from the district, where the black and green teas of commerce were actually made, and this had latterly been effected. In consequence of the great success which had attended ed the experimental culture of tea in the nurseries established in the Himalayas, Mr. | Fortune was again sent to China by the East India Company. He proceeded to the northern parts of the country, in order to obtain tea seeds and plants of the best description, as the most likely to stand the Himalaya climate. Mr. Fortune procured seeds and plants in great numbers, and sent them to the Himalayas, where they had been since cultivated. When he had reached Calcutta, the tea manufacturers whom he had brought with him, made from the plants in the Botanic Gardens their black and green tea from the same specimens; so that it was evident it was the process of manfauc- "It is in the very nature of tyranny not to ture, and not the plant itself, that produced be able to bear being told that it is tyranthe green tea. All now who were acquainted nous. 'You belong to me body and soul,' with the difference between black and green | said Louis Quartorze, to one of his household; teas knew that they could be prepared from and if I tell you to leap into the sea you will the same plant without the assistance of any be bound to do it.' The young noble bowed extraneous materials, though it was a com-low, and was retiring. Where are you gomon thing for manufacturers to use Indigo, Prussian blue, tumeric, &c., in coloring the tea. Dr. Royle showed specimens of the Black Tea plant from the Woo-e-Shan, and of the Green Tea plant from the Hwuychou districts. No specific difference could be observed between the two specimens. The London Atheneum has a notice of "Aunt Phillis' Cabin," by Mrs. Mary II. Eastman, from which we make a few extracts for the benefit of our readers. They are full of John Bullism, especially in the blows which they aim at the institution of slavery. The reviewer commences thus:— ing to?' asked the great king. To learn to swim, Sire,' returned the well-dressed slave, with a yet lower bow. Louis laughed at the joke, though he was not a man to feel its point.-Your owners of men, 'body and soul,' in the great American plantations have lately been told to their faces, with half the civilised world for audience of the words, that their moral life is-and must be-a contradiction of itself so long as the merchandise in human beings is carried on by them. The truth was outspoken-clear, ringing, unmistakeable,—and they are of course, angry, and responsive. SIR DAVID BREWSTER gave an account of a Rock-Crystal Lens and decomposed Glass found at Ninevah. He said that he had to bring before the Section an object of so incredible a nature that nothing short of the strongest evidence was necessary to render the statement at all probable:-it was no less than the finding in the treasure-house at "Mrs. Stowe's narrative, 'Uncle Tom's Ninevah of a rock-crystal lens, where it had Cabin,' stands somewhat outside the usual for centuries lain entombed in the ruins of barriers of fiction. As a novel-on the score that once magnificent city. It was found in of its art-it is easy to find fault with it; and company with several bronzes and other ob- when introducing it to the notice of our readjects of value. He had examined the lens ers we ourselves pointed out its artistic dewith the greatest care and taken its several fects. It is fairly a question, too, whether measurements. It was not entirely circular fiction is a sound vehicle for the conveyance in its aperture, being 1 6-10ths inches in its of ethics,—and on that subject we have opinlonger diametar and 1 4-10ths inches in its ions of our own, of which our readers have shorter. Its general form was that of a had the benefit more than once. Many, howpiano-concave lens, the plain side having ever, of even those who agree with us as to been formed of one of the original faces of the principle will think that there are cases the six-sided crystal of quartz, as he had of exception, in which its application may be ascertained by its action on poralized light, waived in favor of particular circumstances, -this was badly polished and scratched.and many, we know, look on Mrs. Stowe's The convex face of the lens had not been book, as presenting one of these cases. ground in a dish-shaped tool in the manner authoress has guaranteed the authenticity of in which lenses are now formed, but was her facts and the truth of her characters; and shaped on a lapidary's wheel, or in some it is as a faithful picture of Negro life in the The Southern States, with its perils, its romance, | tiful and interesting thing to be a slave,— and its temptation-its debasing tendencies and the worst that can happen to a quadroon and its utter want of moral logic-that this or a negress is, to gain her freedom. One of book is now having a reading throughout the figures of her story-Susan-listens to the length and breadth of the land, in Ame- the Abolitionists, and gets entrapped into rica and here. It is in this sense, also, that personal liberty; but repenting thereof, she it has been answered in books, in magazines, begs to be made a slave again,-when her and in newspapers. mistress makes an example of her and refuses to take her back! This has been the prattle of men in all times in reference to the 'peculiar' institution. When burly old Johnson poured out one of his scornful denunciations of slavery, little Boswell held up his hands in pious horror, and declared that To abolish the slave-trade would be to "The acceptance of the book in this country is itself a literary fact of some interest. Our advertising columns show that the sale is enormous. We can scarcely count the number of editions that have appeared. There are lying before us as we write a handsomely illustrated edition for the boudoir, and a sixpenny reprint for the cabin, with intermediate issues of various sizes and prices. One of these is announced as the ninety-fifth thousand, a second as the thirtieth,- -a third as the twenty-fifth,—and so forth. There are possibly two hundred thou-history:-'We have a servant woman named sand copies now circulating in the British Islands. This success is not altogether personal: it is a rational response to an appeal powerfully made in a great cause. Shut the gates of mercy on mankind.' "Listen to one little anecdote told by Mrs. for a moment to write fiction and rises into Eastman, parenthetically, when she ceases Phillis, her price is far above rubies. Her family, exceed everything. I wish abolitionindustry, her honesty, her attachment to our ists would imitate one of her virtues-humility. I know of no poetry more beautiful than the hymns she sang to me in my infanher whole life has been a recommendacy; ap-chance of Heaven were half as good as hers. tion of the religion of the Bible. I wish my She is a slave here, but she is destined to be a saint hereafter.' It "The book at the head of this article is one of the answers to Mrs. Stowe which have appeared on the other side of the Atlantic. is also written by a lady,-a lady who pears to be familiar with the ways of Negro life in Virginia, if not farther South. Mrs. Eastman is dogmatic and decisive. She talks of "the northerner" with a freedom and a vehemence that would suggest nothing but gunpowder and the bowie-knife to the more peppery spirits of the other sex. In a long preface to her story she defends slavery against all assailants as "God's own institution,”—and in a still longer appendix she derides and denies all the facts and points brought forward in Mrs. Stowe's narrative. The laugh is certainly sometimes on her side. She makes herself merry at the idea of Uncle Tom's power of converting negroes,-certainly the weak point of Mrs. Stowe's book; and maliciously reminds the reader that Cassy steals money and tells lies after her marvellous conversion in the gin-house. She is still more delighted to throw a lance at the 'strong-minded' women of New England; and is particularly happy in her sarcasms on the doings of a certain Female Society for setting the World to Rights. She even intimates that the strong minded will not object to a little lying when it suits their benevolent purpose. An extract which the reviewer supposes to be pat to his purpose is here given, which is followed by numerous others. He then proceeds as follows: "With Mrs. Eastman slavery is all bedecked with flowers and besprinkled with rose-water. It is sweet to the soul and consoling to the heart. With her, it is a beau "We think Mrs. Eastman here, as in many another place where she thinks she is building an argument is very unconsciously giving it a dangerous side blow. That is the fault of her materials. The tools with which she works are sharp-edged, and they cut her own case. If Mrs. Eastman received a visit from an angel, would she like to detain the celestial stranger for a place in the sugar plantations? Or, to put the case lower, would she like to keep in bondage the heir to an earldom or principality, knowing him to be rich and certain to inherit his estate in due course? Or, like the king who keeps a fool or the quack who hires a poet, does she think it respectable and in the way of business for a Virginian planter to own a saint? "Our readers will have seen by this time, that this advocate for 'God's own institution' is more earnest than adroit. She means to put MUSICAL BIZARRE. ALBONI. "How do you like Alboni?" said we to a professor of music, the other night, at the But Alboni, notwithstanding the snobbism above stated: her success in Philadelphia was good. She is a wonder; with a voice of matchless richness, power, register and flexibility. In "Ah non giunge" and "Una voce poco fa," no one has surpassed her.— She also is preeminent in Rhode's and Hummel's Variations, as also in the exceedingly clever "Musical Difficulties Solved," composed for her by Arditi. madam's first concert. "Bless you, my deared, as their genius and talents divested of fellow, have I not heard Catalani?" "But adventitious circumstances may prompt. how do you like Alboni? answer the question if you please!" "My good soul," replied the professor, "how can one judge of a singer with such an orchestra? and then, as I said before, I have heard Catalani, Cat-alani." "We don't care for Catalani," said we, "here is Alboni, the celebrated Al-bo-ni; once more let us ask you, how do you like her?" "Well," sluggishly replied the professor, twitching gently the left ear, "when one has heard Catalani you know, one is spoiled for every body else." This was all we could get out of the professor. He was closed up to any favorable impressions of Alboni-no matter how exquisitely she might sing. He had heard Catalani! As it was with the professor in reference to Catalani, so it is with many of our cognocenti, in reference to Jenny Lind. They have heard Jenny, the Swedish Nightingale, who cleared $300,000 and upwards in one year, and now so far as prime donne are concerned they are done. Others may come to America, they will go to their concerts passer le temps, but as for expecting to hear anything calculated to excite a heartfelt brava, they have no idea of the thing. Alboni they think is very good, very good, but then Jenny Lind-she made $300,000 and upwards in one year! pour This is a good deal the feeling with which many Philadelphians hear artistes who come to us at this time. Barnum's admirable showing up of the Swedish Nightingale has made them, as to music, blaze! Though, with few exceptions, they never have been abroad, yet they consider that the highest pleasures derived from transcendent singing to have been all obtained through the Lind. They remind us of the man who had seen the Mammoth Cave, in Kentucky, and who felt no desire to go to Niagara. Alboni is the only great modern contralto. She stands as such, too, all alone-for Jenny Lind, Grisi, and the famous Sontag-now in our city-are all soprani. She was born in 1826, and commenced her studies at the age of eleven, under Bagioli, now a popular teacher in New York city. At the Conservatoire of Bologna, where she soon went, Rossini was the director, and bestowed on her great attention. Her first appearance was under an engagement made for her by him at the Bologna Opera House, when she sustained the rôle of Sappho with immense credit. "The following year," says a writer, "she appeared at Milan, and there decided her previous triumph. From Milan she travelled to the principal capitals of Europe, in each of which she established her reputation; being, perhaps, the only great female vocalist who has met with equal success in Vienna, Paris. Her husband, to whom she has been Berlin, Naples, St. Petersburg, London, and but a few months married, is the Count Achille Pepoli, of Venice, a gentleman of great literary talent, and son of the distinguished poet of that name, whose devotion to his it "is one of the most brilliant as well as the This feeling does not indicate an honest appreciation of music. There is no abstract judgment of merit in it. It is prejudice; and prejudice created by the tact of the manager, as much as by the vocal superiority of the managed. It is peculiar to many mamas and papas, who have been engrafted with music of the scientific schools; who sprouted and growed with Hail Columbia, the Star Spangled Banner, and the like, and who after becoming thriving trees, have had "Una Voce" and "Di Piacer," thrust into their stocks. The children of these heads of families, now growing up, will possess a true musical taste, for with the natural inclinanations of Americans, they are, generally Some twenty-six years ago we used to hear speaking, receiving instruction from compe- a good deal of Henriette Sontag. All Europe tent teachers. Artistes will therefore come to was then alive with her magnificent achieveour shores, some few years hence, to be judgments as a cantatrice. After a time she re SONTAG. tired; and devoted herself to the gentle, affec- | able as ever. We have heard Sontag in New York and with the greatest possible satisfaction. She has a beautiful person and a manner thoroughly refined. You are favorably impressed with her before she opens her mouth to sing. The charm is then, of course, greatly increased. She has a beautifully sweet voice and manages it with consummate taste. Every thing she does is executed with the most winning grace. She will be popular in Philadelphia; her beautiful air and manner will settle that. As yet, we want something more in our country to create a furore than a rich voice, artistically managed. The singer must possess either beauty or winning manner. Sontag has both, and to an eminent degree, while she has also one of the most bird-like warbles of which it is possible to conceive. No one can hear her sing the polka aria from Le tre nozze without setting her down as still a star of the first magnitude, whatever she might have been twenty-five years ago. She is admirably sustained by Badiali, Pozzolini, Jaell, little Julian, and one of the most magnificent orchestras we have ever heard in Philadelphia. The early day at which we are compelled to put BIZARRE to press, prevents us from making record in this number of Sontag's various concerts in our city, but we shall be enabled to do so in our next issue. LITTLE PATTI. A friend gave us a card of admission to one of the concerts of this remarkable child; but it was after we had written the article which appeared in our last number; or after the form containing that article had gone to press. She is a wonderful, truly wonderful girl. We hope to hear her again. It is said she sings all her difficult pieces without knowing a note of music. Can this be so? If she does not lose her voice, and goes on improving, she will be the wonder of the world-there is nothing at all oysterish in this-yes, the wonder of the world! THE GERMANIANS. These ever-welcome musicians, assisted by Jaell and Novelli, have been concertizing at the Musical Fund, of course, to large audiences. They deserve, at least, a half page of eulogy, and yet want of space compels us to dismiss them, with a very few words. Come to our city, as often as they may, and the Germanians will ever receive substantial fa Novelli as a primo basso, and very profondo, stands at the top of the ladder. We really wish we had room to say more, but we have not, and so here is an end of MUSICAL BIZARRE-number fourteen, new volume. BOOK NOTICES. A HISTORY OF THE ARTICLES OF RELIGION. BY CHARLES HARDWICK, M.A. Philadelphia: HERMAN HOOKER. This octavo of 366 pages, was compiled by its reverend author, more particularly for the use of theological students preparing for the pulpit of the church of England, and certainly he has entitled himself to their warmest thanks; for he has brought within the compass of a well-digested, convenient manual, the substance of a whole library of recondite learning, scattered far and wide, and difficult of access. In fact, we have here the history of the Reformation, extending over nearly a century, and comprising the growth of Protestantism from its vexed and perturbed infancy, up to its strong and peaceful maturity. Protestants of every class, not less than the clerical, will find this a very valuable book for reference; and see in it abundant cause for gratitude, that they have fallen on more tranquil and happy days than their forefathers. LECTURES ON THE WORKS AND GENIUS OF HEART OF MID-LOTHIAN, Abbotsford Edition. Philadelphia: LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO & Co. As for Mr. Jaell, he is growing very We have here another volume of this exfat, but the ladies think him quite as irresist- | cellent reprint, and familiar as the story was vor. |