songs and music were so sweet and so domestic, was also among those who had been; and Henry J. Purkiss, one of the most promising mathematicians of the time, met with a sudden death by accidental drowning before another week had passed. September carried with it as the hostage of its closing day Dudley Costello, a novelist of no slight reputation among those who write laboriously to wile away the leisure of reading multitudes to whom amusement is a necessity. October lustily bore away two lexicographers, Dr. Charles Richardson, the most mature of British dictionarists, and Dr. J. E. Worcester, the Johnson of America. Years and work had lain heavy on them both, and they each laid down his burden with a sense of sweet relief. J. N. Pearson, a theological writer of some sagacity, and Hugh Stowell, a controversialist of much adroitness and subtlety, a man of fine powers and commanding influence, breathed out their lives on the October winds. Lindley, the botanist; J. S. M. Fonblanque, the jurisprudentist; and Lady M. T. Lewis, historian, died in the early part of “ gloomy November." With a swoop as sudden as that of a bird of prey came the death-word to Mrs. Gaskell. The blood-congealing touch was given in the very midst of cheerful converse and lively thought; with the work of to-day laid aside, and the work of to-morrow planned. Many sat in far-scattered homes, awaiting with anxiety the results of that to-morrow's labour which should bring to a close a tale to which her genius had imparted a creative vitality beside which common life seemed tame and dull, such were the fascinations and the spells which her imagination had thrown around the ways of ordinary men and women. But the unimaginable romance of true life was already preparing a greater surprise than novelist could invent, for the dénouement was the author's death. Truly we spend our lives as a tale that is told, but we know not at what moment the Interrupter may come, and the story become sealed with seals that cannot be broken. Can it be that the creative soul should in a moment lose its gifts and powers, because the body has been emptied of it, and lies, "Like a disabled pitcher, of no use "? Is it not rather true that the diviner essence evaporates and rises? "You may break, you may scatter the vase if you will, for memory venerates the grave, and love haunts it. Even the relics of the great departed have become dear to human hearts, and the children of men of genius are looked on often with the light of love. So was it with John Glencairn Burns, the Scottish peasant-bard's son, who not only cherished his father's memory, but was touched in some measure with his genius. He 66 died, carrying away with him another link of present with past, and so did Captain Gronow, whose "Recollections and Anecdotes brought so vividly before us the changes of time; and both were laid in the grave in chill November with its days of gloom." December did not much increase the literary losses of the year. Sir Charles Eastlake was not only an artist of renown, but also an author of considerable ability. He was an early contributor to the "Penny Cyclopædia," and is the translator of Goethe's "Theory of Colour;" he supplied "Materials for a History of Oil-Painting ;" and has written several choice biographies of painters. He was a man of power and worth, and added the glory of a real life to that of a splendid representer of the outward aspects of men and times. On the very last day of the year Frederika Bremer, the Danish novelist, was taken from among the living, and betook herself to a olng-expected grave. She was a woman of fine mind and pure life, whose personal and literary influence were exerted for good. She is no longer among our Neighbours," but has gone to "The Homes of the New World," where her "Morning Watch" will be enduring. men. 66 So passes the revolving year, and so pass away the children of As Homer of old has declared, "As is the race of leaves, even such is the race of men. Some are shed upon the ground, but the fertile stem produces others, and these grow up in the spring season. Even so the generations of men come and go; and as one produces another ceases."* Life and death are not only alternate, but simultaneous active agents in history and time. If there is a loveliness there is also a grandeur in death. Of its awful loneliness no living spirit can form a conception. It requires us to gird up our loins for a sublimely solitary journey, in which there is neither human aid nor companionship. From the panorama and pageant, the stir and whirl, the hum and strife of life, each must pass alone -biography in hand-to the world to come. Each takes the authorcraft of his life-long conduct to the tribunal of Infinite Criticism. How have we written, and how are we now writing, that which we must take with us there our personal character? Is it in script which can meet the all-wise Eye? Does it contain matter suited to the opportunity our life has given us for composing-out of our feelings, intellect, and will, our circumstances, age, and means a noble, beautiful, and compact biography of one to whom much was given, and to whom heaven has been proffered, should death compel us to write Finis on it now? These are questions for our own hearts; but they are such, we believe, as arise spontaneously from a consideration of the memorials of death which we have been perusing. If they seem to the reader too solemn, to the writer they are much more so. As the procession of the dead arose in his mind, and he marshalled the thoughts to which it gave rise, could he avoid the self-reference ?-"To me also that messenger must * Homer's "Iliad," b. vi., 1. 146, &c. come; how will he be met, and to what issue shall it be?" Then the aspiration rose for ourselves as for all,— "In life's closing hour, when the lonely soul flies, And death stills the heart's last emotion, Oh, then may the Saviour in mercy arise, As a guide through eternity's ocean." Our paper has been sombre. In the dark valley and shadow of death human light is unavailing; only a divine light—the “Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world"-can give the blessed radiance the soul needs. If occasionally, as it arose upon the writer's heart, it has been flashed, as it fell through the breaking clouds, upon the thoughts he has uttered, he will be forgiven by all who believe that man needs a "true light" to lighten the darkness of death : In POWERS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.-The English language has a veritable power of expression, such as, perhaps, never stood at the command of any other language of men. Its highly spiritual genius and wonderfully happy development and condition, have been the result of a surprisingly intimate union of the two noblest languages in modern Europe, the Teutonic and the Romaic. It is well known in what relation these two stand to one another in the English tongue; the former supplying, in far larger proportion, the material groundwork; the latter, the spiritual conceptions. truth, the English language, which by no mere accident has produced and upborne the greatest and most predominant poet of modern times, as distinguished from the ancient classical poetry (I can, of course, only mean Shakspere), may, with all right be called a world language, and, like the English people, appears destined hereafter to prevail with a sway more extensive even than its present, over all the portions of the globe. For in wealth, good sense, and closeness of structure, no other of the languages at this day spoken deserves to be compared with it; not even our German, which is torn, even as we are torn, and must first rid itself of many defects before it can enter boldly into the lists as a competitor with the English. GRIMM. Toiling Upward. LUKE HOWARD, F.R.S.-SCIENTIFIC METEOROLOGY. THE phenomena of meteorology are at once so numerous and so complex, they are so involved with the results of other sciences, and so difficult to extricate from surrounding influences, so as to be made the subjects of careful observation or methodical experiment, they demand so much patience in investigating them, and so great an amount of fidelity in recording them, that it seems at a first glance quite an impossibility that they could ever be effectively reduced to a science. The ever-changing landscapes of the sky, the uncertain variations of the weather, the gradual progress and regress of the seasons, the differing effects of clemency or in-. clemency on the human frame, and the influence all these fickle elements exerted on vegetable and animal life, could not fail to make the desire to forecast these changes one of the chief wishes of mankind. From a remote period there has consequently been a sort of traditionary and empiric meteorology in vogue, the maxims of which were handed down from sire to son, and passed along from neighbour to neighbour, often in epigrams, sometimes in proverbs, and not unfrequently in rhyme. Indeed, weather and climate are such large factors in the production of human happiness, that to be weatherwise is to be able often to preserve health, life, and property. The several elastic fluids by which man is surrounded exert a salutary or baneful effect on him in many ways; and hence it is of the utmost importance for him to know the causes which excite changes in the skiey amphitheatre which whirls incessantly around him. Aristotle, in whose mind everything tended to take a formal exactitude, was the first who definitely attempted to cause these various traditionary and empiric statements regarding the changes of weather to crystallize into a science. His "Meteorologia" is stated by G. H. Lewes to be "in many respects one of his most interesting treatises." "It has," he says, a more directly scientific attitude, and is guided by a more consistently inductive method," than several of his other works. 66 'The work shows what could and what could not be effected by observation when unassisted by instruments." He objects, however, that it contained qualitative not quantitative knowledge, although his speculations "often display remarkable sagacity, and bear the stamp of an earnest investigating mind." Theophrastus, his pupil, continued his researches. Cicero, Virgil, and Lucretius have supplied a few notices regarding the seemingly capricious and irregular changes which take place in the thin woof of the sky and among the unresting winds. Without instruments scientific observation is scarcely possible, and scientific experiment wholly so. Torricelli, in 1643, by the discovery of the means of ascertaining the weight and pressure of the atmosphere, gave a scientific possibility to Meteorology. The thermometer came to the aid of the barometer, and to these, in a brief period, the hygrometer was added. From the time when she became possessed of these instruments Meteorology was able to acquire and preserve a record of well-authenticated facts, and trustworthy experiments could be made in proof or disproof of the common hypotheses on the subjects of climate, weather, fogs, frosts, winds, dews, &c. Then observers were multiplied, and an interest was felt in the recording and investigation of changes in the degree of heat, cold, moisture, &c., the effects of these changes on animal health and vegetable growth, and the connections which may be traced among these as forecasts or concomitant signs. In 1793 modern meteorology was reduced to scientific principles by John Dalton. Dr. Wells (1753-1817), in his singularly acute experiments on dew, made science his debtor. In Humboldt's treatise on Isothermal Lines in 1817 many notable facts and inductions were incorporated, and in Daniell's Meteorological Essays (1823) the subject was much advanced. The names of Davy, Maury, Arago, Fournet, Dove, and Fitzroy, are written in indelible characters in the history of the science. The scientific literature of the subject has been enriched not only by the works which have been noted above, but also by the labours of Kaerntz, Drew, Espy, Herschel, Fitzroy, Brewster, &c. The name which we have chosen as that of one who deserves to be remembered as an example of toiling upward is not perhaps so eminent as that of several we have quoted. It is, however, a name recognized among meteorologists as that of a man of singular clearness of eyesight and fineness of observation who could not only see but describe, not only observe but comprehend, not only notice keenly but describe with reproductive fidelity and with informing pictoriality. To him meteorology is indebted amongst other important things for the scientific classification and naming of the clouds. His nomenclature has been universally accepted and adopted, and it is applicable in all climates and in all conditions of the atmosphere. If the intense labour of three quarters of a century spent in the endeavour to solve the mysteries of meteorology do not entitle the labourer to honourable mention, and do not cause a little curiosity to be felt regarding his life, his works, and his career, we cannot tell why there should be any record kept of men made memorable by toiling upward. We hope our notice will justify its place and possess interest for our readers. Luke Howard, the son of members of the Society of Friends, was born in London in 1772-the year of the first partition of Poland, and of the appointment of Warren Hastings to the governorship of |