would only be another form of expressing
the unceasing as well as the infinite
power, and the universal presence of the
great Creator, who blew the breath of life
into the nostrils of man himself.

Another set of players, much resembling
the last, may be had from vinegar (home-
made is the best, as the addition of sulphuric
acid destroys your troop,) that has stood
uncovered, got flat, and has a mouldy scum on
its surface. Vinegar eels will grow so large
as to be discernible by the naked eye. A
writhing mass, either of these, or the former
species, is one of the most curious spectacles
which the microscopist can exhibit to the
inexperienced observer. If the vinegar
wherein such eels abound be but moderately
heated at the fire, they will all be killed and
sink to the bottom; but cold does them no
injury. After such vinegar has been exposed
a whole night to the severest frost, and has
been frozen and thawed, and frozen again
several times over, the animalcules have
been as brisk as ever. Still, they prefer not
to have an icy bed, if they can help it. In
cold weather, if oil be poured on vinegar
containing eels, they will creep up into the oil
floating on the surface, when the vinegar
begins to freeze; but on thawing it, they
return to their original home. To add variety
to their gymnastic exercises, and their plastic
poses, drop a few grains of sand amongst
the eels you submit to your microscope;
it will be an entertaining pantomime to
see them struggling and embarrassed, like
sea-serpents caught in a shower of rocky
boulders. The Anguillulæ generally, or
eel-like worms, including those of wheat
and river-water, possess the additional
recommendation (which they enjoy in
common with certain other animalcules),
of reviving, after they have become as dry as
dust, at however remote an interval. You
may bequeath to your great-great-grand-
children the very identical acrobats whose
agile feats you have applauded in your own day.
It appears that the best means of securing
a supply of paste eels for any occasion,
consists in allowing any portion of a mass of
paste in which they may present themselves
to dry up; and then, laying this by so long
as it may not be wanted, to introduce it into
a mass of fresh paste, which, if it be kept
warm and moist, will be found after a few days
to swarm with these curious little creatures.

And so the actors attached to our minor
theatre strut and fret their hour upon
the stage. The downy atom which floats
on the breeze, the drop of discoloured
stagnant water, the tiny vermin which
invade our dwellings, the crystal which
shapes itself into symmetry unseen, the
cast-off skins of despised creeping things,
the change effected in natural tissue by
disease, the parasitic moulds which threaten
the life of higher vegetables, the nameless
creatures that breed and batten in mud and
slime, the rejected worthless sediment of
far-fetched fertilisers, the organised means
of self-preservation, well-being, and
dispersion with which the humblest weed is
endowed, the gorgeous items composing the
wardrobe inventory of the beetle, the butterfly,
the caterpillar, and the moth—all are
replete with marvels which would harass the
mind, if they did not entrance it with
delight. At the same time that they fill the
soul with awe and wonder, they tend, more
than all the doctrinal arguments that have
ever been urged, to impress a consciousness
and an undisputed admission of the existence
of omniscience and omnipotence.

With a telescope directed towards one end
of things created, and a microscope towards
the other, we sigh to think how short is life,
and how long is the list of acquirable knowledge.
Alas! what is man in the nineteenth
century! It is provoking that, now we have
the means of learning most, we have the
least time to learn it in. If we had but the
longevity of the antediluvian patriarchs, we
might have some hope, not of completing our
education, but of passing a respectable
previous examination prior to our admittance
into a higher school. The nearer we approach
to infinite minuteness, the more we appreciate
the infinite beauty and the infinite skill
in contrivance and adaptation, which marks
every production of the one great creative
hand.

THE CAPTAIN OF THE BOATS.

A WRITER in this publication sang, some
time ago, of a book. It is my intention to
sing of a hero. Not of any of those pagan
impostors unfavourably known to us through
the pages of Lemprière. Not of any of the
moderns, whose exploits may have won for
them the title: Cromwell, Napoleon, Nelson,
the heroes Hardinge and Gough, the heroes of
Silistria, and of Kars. The personage whom
I am about to celebrate occupies in my mind
a position immeasurably higher than that
accorded to any great ruler or great general.
His worship was founded for me in my early
youth, his altar was erected in the recesses of
my boyish heart, and the flame kindled on
that altar will burn true and constant to the
end of life's third volume. I compare with
the impression which he whilom made upon
me, the impressions produced by other
distinguished characters who have brushed
against me in my after career; and the latter
seem mere pigmies. After twenty long years
he shall burst in upon my mature manhood
as I sit surrounded by ledgers and day-
books, and all the material attributes of most
unheroic life; yet I recognise and bow down
before the object of my boyish enthusiasm.
He shall come from the Queen's Bench, in
rags, barefoot, blind, like Belisarius; yet the
magic which surrounds his name survives his
fallen fortunes. He remains to me at forty