presence of azote, hydrogen, and some unknown
substance only.

Spectral analysis, therefore, renders probable
the hypothesis of a cosmic matter whose
successive condensation has given birth to the
worlds which revolve in space. It supports
Laplace's theory of the origin of our solar
system; that the nebulæ are suns in the course
of formation; and that the organisation of
matter is still going on before our eyes,
although at distances inconceivable by the
human mind.

THE REMEMBRANCES OF A CORNISH
VICAR.

IT has frequently occurred to my thoughts,
that the events which have befallen me since
my collation to this wild and remote vicarage,
on the shore of the billowy Atlantic sea, might
not be without interest to the reader of a more
refined and civilised region. When I was
collated to the incumbency in 18—, I found myself
the first resident vicar for more than a century.
My parish was a domain of about seven
thousand acres, bounded, on the landward border,
by the course of a curving river, which had its
source in a sister-stream in a moorland spring
within my territory, and flowing southward,
divided two counties in its descent to the
sea. My seaward boundary was a stretch of
bold and rocky shore, an interchange of lofty
headland and deep and sudden gorge, the
cliffs varying from three hundred to four
hundred and fifty feet of perpendicular or
gradual height, and the valleys gushing with
torrents, which bounded rejoicingly towards the
sea, and leaped at last, amid a cloud of spray,
into the waters. So stern and pitiless is this
iron-bound coast, that within the memory of one man
upwards of eighty wrecks have been counted
within a reach of fifteen miles, with only here
and there the rescue of a living man. My people
were a mixed multitude of smugglers, wreckers,
and dissenters of various hue. A few
simple-hearted farmers had clung to the grey old
sanctuary of the church and the tower that
looked along the sea, but the bulk of the people,
in the absence of a resident vicar, had become
the followers of the great preacher of the last
century, who came down into Cornwall and
persuaded the people to alter their sins,
was assured, soon after my arrival, by one of his
disciples, who led the foray among my flock,
that my "parish was so rich in resources for his
benefit, that he called it, sir, the garden of our
circuit." The church stood on the glebe, and
close by the sea. It was an old Saxon station,
with additions of Norman structure, and the
total building, although of gradual erection, had
been completed and consecrated before the
middle of the fifteenth century. The vicarage,
built by myself, stood, as it were, beneath the
sheltering shadow of the walls and tower. My
land extended thence to the shore. Here, like
the Kenite, I had "built my nest upon the rock,"
and here my days were to glide away afar from
the noise and bustle of the world, in that which
is perhaps the most thankless office in every
generation, the effort to do good against their
will to our fellow-men. Mine was a perilous
warfare. If I had not, like the apostle, to "fight
with wild beasts at Ephesus," I had to soothe
the wrecker, to persuade the smuggler, and to
"handle serpents," in my intercourse with
adversaries of many a kind. Thank God! the
promises which the clergy inherit from their
founder cannot fail to be fulfilled. It was never
prophesied that they should be popular, or
wealthy, or successful among men; but only
that they "should endure to the end," that
"their generation should never pass away."
Well has this word been kept!

Among my parishioners there were certain
individuals who might be termed representative
men; quaint and original characters, who
embodied in their own lives the traditions and
the usages of the parish. One of these had
been for full forty years a wrecker; that is to
say, a watcher of the sea and rocks for flotsam
and jetsam, and other unconsidered trifles
which the waves might turn up to reward the
zeal and vigilance of a patient man. His name
was Peter Burrow, a man of harmless and
desultory life, and by no means identified
with the cruel and covetous natives of the strand,
with whom it was a matter of pastime to lure a
vessel ashore by a treacherous light, or to
withhold succour from the seaman struggling with
the sea. He was the companion of many of my
walks, and the witness, with myself, of more
than one thrilling and perilous scene. Another
of my parish notorieties, the hero of contraband
adventure, and agent for the sale of smuggled
cargoes in bygone times, was Tristam Pentire,
a name already known to the readers of these
pages under their former name of Household
Words. With a merry twinkle of the eye, and
in a sharp and ringing tone, it was old Tristam's
usage to recount for my instruction such tales
of wild adventure, and of "derring do," as would
make the foot of an exciseman falter, and his
cheek turn pale. But both these cronies of
mine were men devoid of guile; and in their
most reckless of escapades innocent of
mischievous harm. It was not long after my
arrival in my new abode, that I was plunged all
at once into the midst of a fearful scene of
the terrors of the sea. About daybreak of an
autumn day I was aroused by a knock at my
bedroom door; it was followed by the agitated
voice of a boy, a member of my household,
"O, sir, there are dead men on Vicarage
Rocks."

In a moment I was up, and in my dressing-gown
and slippers rushed out. There stood my
lad, weeping bitterly, and holding out to me in
his trembling hands a tortoise alive. I found
afterwards that he had grasped it on the beach,
and brought it in his hand as a strange and
marvellous arrival from the waves, but in utter
ignorance of what it might be. I ran across my
glebe, a quarter of a mile, to the cliffs, and