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2

ASTROLOGY AND ALCHEMY.

BY CAMILLA TOULMIN.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."-SHAKSPEARE.

SPEAK gently of those two wild dreams, nor curl the lip with scorn,
That ever, wearing human shape, such dreaming fools were born,
As they whose gorgeous errors shook the steadfast thrones of kings,
And shadow'd long the mental world with their outspreading wings.
It was an age of darkness-yea, the mighty mind of man
Was struggling 'mid the brambles, which its pathway over-ran ;
And feebly shone the star of Truth, which rises as we gaze,
Until at last we fain must hope 'twill shed meridian blaze:
But only near the horizon did it glimmer to the view

Of the earnest ones of olden time-the seekers of the True!

Speak gently of those parents old, who, dying at the birth,
Brought forth their marvellous offspring, to shed upon the earth
The truth-enkindled, living light, which never shall be lost.
ASTRONOMY and CHEMISTRY!-oh, where can Science boast
Such peerless daughters as the two that time hath won at last
From travail of the teeming mind, through darksome ages past?
It was a dazzling meteor, that well might lead astray
The bounding heart, which fain would soar above its home of clay,
To think the whirling stars, that watch with their unslumb'ring eyes,
Had power unseen to guide the reins of human destinies.

Oh! surely 'twas no grovelling soul that first the thought did own,
Which link'd his being to the stars, upon their purple throne,
And mounting on the pinions strong, which only Faith can spread,
Disdain'd sometimes the rugged path that Reason loves to tread ;
And yet, methinks, with wounded wing, Faith often in the race
Did turn where Reason's finger shew'd anon a resting-place.
It might be such indeed were few, and yet the daughter fair,
ASTRONOMY, that mounts the path, and doth its steepness dare,
Reveals the things and thoughts that ask of man more ample mind
Than in her old dead parent's dream were ever found entwined.

But see, the yet more duteous child advances proudly now,
To twine a laurel-wreath around her ancient parent's brow,
And tell it was no baseless hope, by knaves and fools begot,
To merit but the passing sneer, or dull oblivion's lot,

Which lured the gray-beards on to strive, though terrors round them furl'd,
To form of meaner elements the Thing that rules the world!

The soulless bless'd-accursed Gold, which in life's tangled web
Must weave its strange controlling thread till life itself shall ebb.
But CHEMISTRY, that boldly speaks in Wisdom's garb array'd,
And wrests from Nature secrets hid since first the world was made,
Who can detect the subtle part the radiant diamond hath,
And moves with steady, rapid march, in her extending path
Proclaims-so spake the great high priest* who trod behind the veil
Of her pure temple-that the thing at which the thoughtless rail
May prove among her triumphs mean, in those advancing years,
Whose herald-shadow now, methinks, upon the earth appears:
A triumph mean, if not in vain, that cherish'd dream of old-

Compared with knowledge, that outweighs the earth's whole store of gold

Sir H. Davy, in one of his lectures, asserts not only the possibility of the transmutation of metals, but the probability that such a discovery will be made. He adds, however, "it would of

course be useless."

MY DREAM AT HOP-LODGE.

BY LAMAN BLANCHARD.

WHEN I was in Kent, last spring, on a visit to the friendly owner of Hop-lodge, in that county, I remarked that all the ladies of the family devoted their leisure hours to the same occupation. In a spirit of unanimity never before seen, except on the stage, all entered with enthusiasm into the same amusement;-it was not scandal.

My friend's lively, warm-hearted wife-her sister and his sistertogether with the little bright-eyed daughter not sixteen, and an ancient dame, distantly related to all the rest-nay, even the governess, at intervals-seemed to take a placid delight, hour by hour, in tearing up old letters, notes, envelopes, and other remnants of manuscript into small pieces, not much larger than a silver penny, and dropping them, by little handfuls, into little baskets beside them.

Every dull morning after breakfast, and every danceless evening after tea, the conversation was carried on to the monotonous accompaniment of a sharp, quick, rustling sound, produced by the continual tearing up of writing paper, of many qualities and sizes-some so crisp and so substantial that simply unfolding it would elicit a crackling noise, while reducing it to fragments caused a sound equal to that of a fine saw. So loud was it, at times, that the very postman's knock, announcing the arrival of a fresh supply of epistles, to be condemned, in due season, could hardly have been heard.

Enter the ordinary sitting-room when one would, there sate the lady of the house, emulating upon sheets of paper the experiments of M'Adam upon blocks of granite-the M'Eve, we may designate her, of foolscap and demy. With hands almost as white as the material they demolished, she pleasantly pursued her task of destruction, letting fall into the basket a tiny handful of little pieces every minute. She looked, in her gaiety and beauty, like a laughing Juno, who had resolved to possess herself of a silver shower to match Jove's golden one.

Chariest of the chary in all matters which relate to ladies, married or single, I should as soon have thought of asking them to let me read one of the letters they were tearing up, as of questioning them as to the intended appropriation of those epistolary particles. So I watched the white hands plying their trade, I listened to the crumpling and crushing of paper day by day, but uttered not a word of inquiry. "It was," as Mr. Pepys remarks, " pretty to see."

One cannot interrogate a lady as to the destination of that thirtysecond bead bag, which she is slowly manufacturing; nor ask the name of the gentleman for whom she is, with heroic fortitude, knitting that extremely protracted purse; nor wonder to her face why on earth she gives herself the trouble of spoiling that velvet by covering it with such crowds of coloured disfigurements. As little could one ask her, when intently and constantly occupied, what she meant to do with those multitudinous scraps of paper. I could, with equal delicacy, have inquired whom the letters came from!

It was enough that the occupation or the amusement seemed intellectually analogous to the more current performances with garnets and gold thread, in satin-stitch and water-colours, or upon lace-collars and fancy-bags;-idle labours often, and most forlorn recreations,

which make so many ladies' lives like unto a gay, light, loosely-knitted silken purse, without any money in it!

I con

Of course I had my private speculations concerning the ends for which those myriads of minute fragments were provided. jectured that some wise man, justly abhorring long epistles, might have devised a plan of administering homeopathic letters, inditing notes infinitesimally. Again, I had a notion that the drama of the "Exiles of Siberia" was about to be revived, and that the young ladies, great admirers of Mr. Macready, were anxious to make that gentleman a present of a severe snow-storm on the occasion.

On taking my departure, the most elderly of the ladies pleaded for the rest-" Had I any waste sheets of writing paper, outside scraps, useless business-letters, lithographed circulars, fly-leaves of notes, or old envelopes? their stock was running low, and before the fine weather had quite set in, they should be left with nothing in the world to do." Nothing in the world to do but to tear up writing-paper into fragments no larger than silver pennies! Still it remained a question whether the fancy for destroying letters in that way might not be both wiser and pleasanter than a passion for writing them; and as I had recently contributed a large packet of old postage-stamps in aid of the funds for building a new church, so I resolved to let a huge pile of the letters themselves follow-for which I received a profusion of thanks, and another invitation to Hop-lodge.

It was in the autumn that I paid my second visit; and arriving at night, after riding some miles, jaded and sleepy, I was truly glad to retire at the earliest moment to rest. Had my pillow been a pillow of flints, the hardness would have been totally unfelt, for both eyes were close-sealed before I could fairly lie down.

It would be more correct to say that my lids, rather than their tenants, were close-sealed; for the eyes themselves began now to see extremely well-rolling inwardly about in quest of things visionary. Perhaps I was a little too tired for sound and dreamless slumber; my legs, cramped and weary as they were, would be still in motion; and so, like a man upon his oath, I could not lie with any comfort.

Still I was asleep; but how long sleep's reign, disturbed or not, had lasted, is very doubtful, when I heard," in my dreaming ear"-the one next the pillow-a little crackling, rustling sound, as of the rending or rumpling of paper, considerably firmer in its texture and substance than bank-notes. Yes, those peculiar noises, whether born in the brain, or having their existence actually within the pillow, as they appeared to have, resembled nothing else out of fairy-land. Millions of full-sized letters, oblong, and swarms of civil little notes, three-cornered, seemed heaped, by supernatural hands, under my head, in pieces equally countless and minute.

Perfectly still, I lay and listened. My downward ear seemed to draw in the sounds from the very interior of the pillow on which my head was now throbbing with surprise; and at every movement I made, there was an increased rustle; not so sharp, by a thousand degrees, yet in tone not unlike the crashing of tender forest-branches, or the clatter of little shells and pebbles washed upon the beach. Was the magic noise engendered in the air? Was it a most novel