casions high betting and fresh encounters, until the new comer is again beaten in turn. If we consider what a trifling gratification this sport affords, when compared with the time, trouble, and expense of preparing the quails, it is astonishing it should be so much esteemed. An extreme fondness for gaming can be the only inducement; but it exhibits at the same time a strong proof of their effeminate character. It is, however, pursued with great ardour in China, many persons losing and winning large fortunes at it, and some of the most avaricious men I was acquainted with were great quailfighters. I have been told also by the adepts that there is a great deal of art in choosing and dressing quails, as well as feeding them and handling them. Next to quail-fighting, the flower-boats occupy most of a Chinese gentleman's leisure hours. "Among their dinner customs, the following would do well for Mr. Planche's Easter piece." Besides the stated periods for drinking, the guests drink with one another occasionally, as in England. But when it is done ceremoniously, the parties rise from their chairs, with their wine-cups held in both hands, and proceed to the middle of the room. They then raise their cups as high as their mouths, and lower them again until they almost touch the ground-the lower the more polite. This process is repeated three, six, or nine times, each watching the other's motions with the greatest exactness; nor will one of them drink before the other, until, after repeated attempts, their cups meet their mouths at one and the same instant, when they empty them, and turn them up so as to expose the inside, and show that every drop has been drunk. After this, they hold the empty cups and salute one another in the same manner, retreating by degrees towards their chairs, when they sit down to resume their functions at the repast. Here, some times, a polite contention takes place who shall be seated the first, and is not decided until after a number of ceremonious bows, nods, curvings of the bodies, and motions of the hands, when they contrive to lower themselves into their chairs at one and the same moment. At the commencement of this ceremony, when the parties approach one another so as almost to touch their wine-cups, they very often exchange them before they begin their salutations. They have also a game for making each other drink, which I shall endeavour to describe. The wine-cups being filled, the two persons engaged stretch forth their right hands towards the centre of the table, with their fingers closed. When the hands come almost in contact, they open as many fingers as they please, and each person cries out the number be opens, as one, three, five, 1 &c. Whoever hits on the exact number of fingers presented by both persons, obliges his adversary to drink. I have seen this game continued for an hour, until one of the parties, finding himself the loser, and his head a little affected, is obliged to recede. It is an extremely noisy amusement when any number of guests engage in it. In passing up and down Canton River, on a holyday, one's ears are assailed on all sides with this boisterous merriment, which saYours strongly of the barbaric customs that prevailed at the feasts of our uncivilized ancestors. VARIETIES. Quantity of Circulating Blood in Man.Each cavity of the heart may contain from two to three ounces of blood. The heart contracts four thousand times in an hour: therefore there passes through the heart, every hour, eight thousand ounces, or seven hundred pounds of blood. The whole mass of blood in an adult man is about twentyfive or thirty pounds, so that a quantity of blood equal to the whole mass passes through the heart twenty-eight times in an hour, which is about an ounce every two minutes. What an affair must this be in very large animals! It has been said, and with truth, that the aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main-pipe of the waterworks at London Bridge; and that the water roaring in its passage through the pipes, is inferior in impetus and velocity to the blood gushing from a whale's heart! Dr. Hunter, in his account of the dissection of a whale, states, that the aorta measured a foot in diameter, and that ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart at a stroke, with an immense velocity, through a tube a foot in diameter. It has been observed, that we cannot be sufficiently grateful that all our vital motions are involuntary, and independent of our care. We should have enough to do had we to keep our hearts beating, and our stomachs at work. Did these things depend, not to say upon our effort, but even upon our bidding, upon our care and attention, they would leave us leisure for nothing else. Constantly must we have been upon the watch, and constantly in fear night and day, our thoughts must have been devoted to this one object; for the cessation of the action, even for a few seconds, would be fatal: such a constitution would have been incompatible with repose. The wisdom of the Creator, says a distinguished anatomist, is in nothing seen more gloriously than in the heart. And how well does it perform its office! An anatomist, who understood its structure, might say beforehand, that it would play; but, from the complexity of its mechanism, and the delicacy of many of its parts, he must be apprehensive that it would be always liable to derangement, and that it would soon work itself out. Yet does this wonderful machine go on night and day, for eighty years together, at the rate of a hundred thousand strokes in every twenty-four hours, having at every stroke a great resistance to overcome, and it continues this action for this length of time, without disorder and without weariness. That it should continue this action for this length of time, without disorder, is wonderful; that it should be capable of continuing it without wearing, is still more astonishing. Never for a single moment, night or day, does it intermit its labour, neither through our waking or our sleeping hours. On it goes, without intermission, at the rate of a hundred thousand strokes every twenty-four hours; yet it never feels fatigued, it never seems exhausted. Rest would have been incompatible with its functions. While it slept, the whole machinery must have stopped, and the animal inevitably perish. It was necessary that it should be made capable of working for ever, without the cessation of a moment without the least degree of weariness. It is so made; and the power of the Creator in so constructing it, can in nothing be exceeded but by his wisdom.-Library of Useful Knowledge. Lord Chancellor Eldon. Mr. Cooper, in his "Letters on the Court of Chancery," gives a description of the court as he found it one morning before Lord Eldon's arrival, who then held the seals. Mr. Bentham compared that noble personage, not inaptly, to the Old Man of the Sea, who rode upon the shoulders of Sinbad the Sailor. The "Old Man" is shaken off, but the evils of which he was, if not the cause, the fostering parent, remain; and since there are among the partisans of the chancery, as it is, some individuals who affect to have loved him while he was on the judgment-seat, and to venerate his memory now that he has quitted it, we extract the description we have alluded to, and which now belongs to history. "I have seen Lord Eldon. Even if I could believe that the energies of any one man would be sufficient to enable him to discharge the laborious duties which are confided to this functionary, I am quite convinced that his lordship's great age renders him incapable of fulfilling them. Besides, there appeared to me, as well as I could judge from a first impression, to be so much indecision and so little method in his conduct, that I no longer wondered at the delay which takes place in causes that are pending in his court. The causes of those delays are to be sought for elsewhere than in the number of causes before him, and in the variety of his occupa tions. The lord-chancellor entered Lincoln's Inn Hall at half-past ten, having kept the counsel and solicitors some time in waiting for him. He began his sitting by putting off several decisions which he had promised a thousand times; and the confusion which prevailed was really very amusing. In one corner were solicitors imploring the counsel to mention to his lordship the causes in which they were engaged, which had long been in arrear, and which he had not yet decided; and the counsel in most cases replied, that they were quite tired of repeating applications which they had often before made in vain. Some of the younger counsel asked the seniors with what business it was probable the chancellor would begin on that day; whether with cause petitions, or lunatic or bankrupt petitions, or with motions. The seniors, whose experience had taught them the uselessness of such questions, smiled at their simplicity, as if it was possible to know beforehand what the chancellor might choose to do; and one of them replied ironically, that as this was not the day which had been fixed for motions, it was most likely his lordship would hear them. After the judge had taken his seat, a cause was called on; but his lordship had lost his notes of the argument. He then asked some of the counsel about a case which had been argued and had forgotten on which side they were so long ago that they had all lost sight of it, engaged. The business, to which it had been announced this day would be devoted, was the hearing of petitions in lunacy, as I after having discussed for a full hour what saw by the paper affixed in the court; but he should begin with, he took up some matters wholly different from those which had been expected. Before three o'clock the chancellor rose, having advanced nothing, but having, nevertheless, promised much. I saw loitering about the court several persons, whose unhappy and care-worn countenances made me think they were the wretched lunatics whose cases I had seen in the paper for discussion; but I was informed that these were suitors, the hapless victims of the delays which are practised in this court, and who came day by day, with enforced patience, to feed their hopes upon the ready promises of Lord Eldon." In estimating Lord Eldon's character, and his conduct as judge of the court of chancery, it should never be forgotten, that whatever delay occurred in the administration of the other causes before the court, the bankruptcy business, which put money into his pocket, was always despatched with reasonable diligence: that although very soon after he took his seat on the woolsack, he expressed a conviction that the system of law, as administered in bankruptcy, was the greatest nuisance that ever was known to exist under the name of law; and that, notwithstanding this avowal, during the quarter of a century in which he possessed as much influence and power as any individual in the country, he neither effected, nor attempted to effect, the slightest reform in that or in any other of the departments, of which he was the supreme head. We may have bad men for chancellors, as we have had before; we may have men inefficient as lawyers, and heaven knows they have been plentiful enough; but it is hardly possible to imagine that any man's vice or ignorance can do more to stop reform, and to nourish abuses, than the conduct of Lord -Eldon, who was neither vicious nor ignorant. -Foreign Quarterly Review. An Honest Bookseller.-Mr. Robson, of Bond Street, was at one time persuaded to take a partner in his business, who advanced a handsome sum of money on the articles being signed. The profits were increased to a degree which had not been anticipated, and it was supposed that Mr. Robson, when the first quarter's accounts were made up, would be highly gratified at the impulse which had been given to his trade. But the contrary was the case-he declared that he did not conceive such great profits could be obtained fairly, and dissolved the partnership, to the surprise of every person, who thought he, for one in his life, had lost his senses.-Anecdotal Reminiscences. "The Mr. Robert Montgomery's Estimate of Satan. It would be a satisfaction to the Arch One to see the price at which he is rated in Mr. Mongomery's list. Omnipresence of the Deity" is valued at seven shillings and sixpence; "A Universal Prayer" for the same money; while "Satan" stands at half a guinea! He is not only highly-priced, but he is particularly distinguished. The "Omnipresence of the Deity" is plumped up with "Other Poems." "The Universal Prayer" clubs with "Death" and "Other Poems." Satan alone has a book to himself. The pride of Lucifer, proverbially abundant, must needs be swelled by these marks of consideration, and thus it is, that men are prone to send apples where there are prchards. To him who has much, more is given; bad qualities are fed with compliments delicately indirect, and so the patternpeople of this virtuous age demoralize the very Devil himself. When Mercury made experiment of his estimate among men, he experienced a far different treatment. "Buy the other Deities," said the dealer to the dis guised God," and I will fling you that fellow into the bargain." Should Satan go in masque as a saint to Mr. Maunder's in Newgate Street, he will find a more flatter ing treatment of his fiend-head, for, with the exception of the place of publication, which seems rather more personal than consists with taste, he has every reason to be gratified with the consideration in which he is held, and the value put on him-and as for the venue, which savours of disrespect, he would hardly have been at home in Paternoster Row. Tony Lumpkin makes the profound remark, that he reads the superscription of letters addressed to himself without difficulty, while the interior, which is by some considered the cream of the correspondence, is all buz to his eyes, and baffles his comprehension. Similar to this is our remarkable case with regard to a certain or uncertain kind of poetry. We chiefly relish the title pages, which are easy reading, and generally the most unexceptionable page in the book. Mr. Montgomery begins well"Satan," by Montgomery, a bold and original authorship. Then turning the leaf, we are somewhat startled by these three words on the next page, "To MY FRIEND." As there is only the difference of the dog's letter between friend and the quality of the subject, we looked to the errata, thinking it probable there was a misprint of fiend; but as none is acknowledged, we suppose the friend is one whom it is not decorous more distinctly to particularize. It is the fashion of the day to make biography a work of friendship. Moore writes the life of Byron; Campbell is the historian of Lawrence; Paris takes the life of Davy, and Mr. Montgomery handles Satan. Indeed, on looking again at the address we discover the ingenuity of device, on one page stands "To my Friend," "Satan, Book I," is the next title, completing the dedication. As thus, "To my Friend Satan his First Book." Horace instructs us that neither gods nor man endure mediocre poetry, and consequently Mr. Montgomery had no course, but to address his song to the third estate, whose liberal patronage of every thing bad may reasonably be reckoned on. The arch enemy's ear for discord must needs be gratified by such verses as we see before us, and as a lover of deceit he will be pleased with lines simulating poetry by the capital letter at the head of each, "Like dead-sea fruits that tempt the eye," As Milton may be read in Heaven, so this is precisely the book fit for Hades, and though we trust we hate the enemy as vehemently as all good Christians ought to hate him, yet we own we wish him no worse than a patient perusal of this work to his honour. He will here bathe in a stream of molten lead. Every page is fraught with the weariness that protracts time, and makes a duodecimo a doomsday book. For the common-place of the thoughts, and the lumbering awkwardness of the verse, where shall we find lines more fit for vexation than strict as his sworn testimony. But yet oaths these: "The bloom of life, the bright deceit, Array them in their spring no more." "The heavenliness of youth is o'er," ye nymphs of Nick, what a line is there for ye to sing! How suited to adust lips, and tongues parched to coal. This heavenliness passes away with the crunch of cinders! What demon's mouth can twirl it off with out a contortion trebly demoniacal. It is a precious Pierian gargle for throats of the tunefulness of Tartarus. Our poet obviously knows how to strike the infernal lyre, or liar -we care not how the printer sets it. From the following, indeed, appears that Mr. Montgomery is hand in glove with Satan, and qualified, from intimate acquaintance with his sentiments, opinions, observations, and feelings, to give an account of his travels: "And such a wanderer on earth, The viewless power I've dared to draw, To all he felt and all he saw." are required in courts of justice, though the effect, if any, is a fallacious reliance on that which is of no force with depraved natures. Why does not the merchantswear his clerk, or the tradesman his apprentice, to respect his property, and observe the laws of honesty? Because he knows that no sort or degree of dependence is to be placed on the ceremony, and it were as feasible to catch sparrows with salt as to hold rogues by the religious sanction; aye, but it is excellent to exclude the evidence of atheists, for them the Bible is a test. That is, it is good to exclude the evidence of such unbelievers as will not declare an untruth for those who are unscrupulous, profess religion, and offer testimony most probably as honest as their qualifying declaration. And here, again, we have occasion to remark, the premium of the law to falsehood. It proposes tests to the witness which he cannot decline without the sorest injury to his character, and he is placed between the alternative of an easy lie or the suffering of public odium. If his integrity succumbs to the trial, the first step he has made to eligibility as an evidence, has practically impressed upon He says he understands him particularly him the convenience of falsehood, and the well, "And what art thou? the dark Unknown Thy meaning hovers o'er my mind." He is completely possessed of the devil. "I see thee in the vigil star, I hear thee in the thunders deep, Thy shadow riseth o'er my sleep." Oaths in Courts of Justice.-The experience of mankind is nought in law whose character is a perpetual infancy of barbarism. The experience of society has taught it that slender dependence is to be placed on the statement of a man whose word is not as grand barrier of custom is thrown down which separates honesty from its opposite.Ibid. Debtors in Rome. No insolvent debtor can be incarcerated in Rome, for a period longer than twelve months, unless he has been guilty of fraudulent conduct. There is a singular process adapted in this state for deferring the payment of a debt even after judgment has been given. The debtor procures an order from his confessor to put himself under a course of preparation for receiving the sacrament; and whilst this course is in progress, he is privileged against arrest or imprisonment. The duration of the fortunate ordeal depends upon the favour of the cardinal-legate of the department or his secretary.-Athenæum. Effects of Tea-Tea taken strong, and in great quantity, produces exhilaration, an indescribable feeling of lightness of body, as if in one's step he scarcely touched the ground; along with a perception of increased magnitude, apparently, of all objects. Swallowed in very great excess, it produces horror of mind, an intolerable apprehension of sudden death, and fits of asphyxia or suspended animation.-Cabinet Cyclopædia. Voice of Fishes. I have often heard it remarked, that fishes have no voices. Some tench, which I caught in ponds, made a croaking like a frog for a full half hour, whilst in the basket at my shoulder. Magazine of Natural History. TRAVELS IN BRAZIL†. IN the year 1817, the King of Bavaria sent an expedition, consisting of two learned men, to explore the empire of Brazil. Having remained in that country four years, they published in 1823 the first volume of their "Travels." This volume was translated into English. Since the publication of the first volume, one of the authors has died; and, in consequence, all the weight has fallen on the shoulders of Dr. Martius, who promises a third volume, in which the description of the journey from the River of the Amazons to the western boundary of the Brazilian Empire will be contained, and besides an Atlas, some dissertations on the geography, statistics, and native languages of that country. Having landed at Rio de Janeiro, and passed some time in exploring the neigh bourhood of that city, the travellers first took a south-west direction, and visited the town of St. Paulo. From thence, making some diversions, they journeyed northwards to Villa Rica, and so on to the Diamond District. Passing by some gold mines, in which the gold is found in veins of quartz, traversing strata of clay-slate, they afterwards cross a high Alpine country, covered with a rich vegetation. "In walking through the high grass, we had," says Dr. Martius, "the misfortune to tread upon a round sand hill, which was thrown up and pierced through in every direction by a swarm of large wasps, whose venomous sting we could only escape by throwing ourselves on the ground, according to the direction of our guides. These insects inhabit holes and cavities in the earth; they are nearly the same size as our hornets, are of a green colour, and their sting causes violent inflammation, swelling, fever, and even madness." In a small valley near this place they found an iron foundry, erected in 1812, at the expense of the king. The works are on a large scale, and the walls of the furnace are made of sand-stone, imported from Newcastle, the quartz slate of the country not resisting fire. It is on this stratum that the iron ores are found reposing. The travellers next reached Villa do Principe, a town of some size, lying near the edge of the Diamond District, into which they were admitted by virtue of an order from the king. This tract of country is entirely occupied by the government, for the sake of its mineral treasures. In 1730, diamonds were declared the property of the crown; and this district being particularly abundant in them, has been subjected to a most curious system of exclusion. Lines of demarcation are set around it, guarded as strictly as those of an infected city. No direction, without an order from the intendperson is permitted to pass these, in either ant of the mines. Every one, on going out, himself, horses, and baggage, is subjected to a most minute examination; and in case of suspicion that a diamond has been swallowed, may be detained for twenty-four hours. The intendant is head judge in all cases, and chief of the police; he may send any inhabitant out of the district on bare suspicion. Nor is there any appeal from him and his council, the Junta Diamantina, except to the mercy of the king. Every member of this board, if he knows of any person having diamonds in his possession, is bound to give notice to the intendant, who immediately issues his search-warrant, though, in cases of emergency, the soldiers are permitted to search without such authority. There are also strict rules with regard to the registration of the inhabitants, the admission of fresh settlers, the erection of new inns or shops, and the hiring of slaves. The members of the expedition being acquainted with the intendant, who, though a native Brazilian, had studied mineralogy under Werner in Germany, were invited to a sitting of the Junta. The order of proceedings was as follows:-First: the whole stock of diamonds was laid before the meet ing; it amounted to nine thousand three and was divided into twelve classes (lotes), hundred and ninety-six carats, two grains, inclosed in bags of red silk. The division there were eleven sieves of different size, so was made by means of a brass box, in which arranged that the smallest diamonds were collected in the lowest, the largest in the upper sieve. There were eleven stones of spurious diamonds were rejected by the more than eight carats in weight. Some Junta, and given, for the sake of accurate examination, to the travellers. These are now preserved at Munich, and were found to be several beautiful varieties of chrysoberyls marines and sapphires), white and blue (chiefly those called in Brazil green aquaAfter the whole collection of the year had topazes, rubies, quartzes, and other stones. been examined, and a list made, they were, in the presence of all the members, packed up in bags, and deposited in a small red morocco-box. locks, of which the intendant and the officer This was fastened by two of crown-revenue had each a key, and then given in charge, together with the minutes of the proceedings, to a detachment of dragoons, and addressed to the king, to be forwarded by the governor of Villa Rica to Rio Janeiro. The diamond-washing is performed by slaves, who are hired by the |