palatable—better to eat aloes or colo- he was also fervent in spirit. At a time quintida, than violate a primary law of when his health was much affected, his nature, impressed on every heart not thoughts and affections were peculiarly imbruted by avarice, than rob one hu- engaged in matters of religion. The folman creature of those eternal rights, of lowing is a short prayer which he comwhich no law on earth can justly deprive posed at this period :-“O thou Bestower him.'

of all good, if it please thee to continue During a visit which Sir W. Jones my easy tasks in this life, grant me made to a native of the island of Hin- strength to perform them as a faithful zuan, or Joanna, a Koran was produced servant; but if thy wisdom hath willed for his inspection, and his attention was to end them by this thy visitation, admit directed to a passage in a commentary, me—not weighing my unworthiness, but accusing Christians of blasphemy, in through thy mercy declared in Christcalling our Saviour the Son of God. into thy heavenly mansions, that I may To this he promptly replied, “The continually advance in happiness, by adcommentator was much to blame for vancing in true knowledge and awful passing so indiscriminate and hasty a love of Thee. Thy will be done." censure; the title which gave your le- Sir W. Jones was restored from this gislator, and which gives you, so much illness, and vigorously pursued his foroffence, was often applied in Judea by a mer engagements. His testimony to the bold figure, agreeably to the Hebrew verity and authenticity of the Old and idiom, though unusual in Arabic, to an- New Testament, though often quoted, gels, to holy men, and even to all man- may here be repeated :-"I have carekind, who are commanded to call God fully and regularly perused these Holy their Father; and in this large sense, Scriptures, and am of opinion that the the apostle to the Romans calls the elect volume, independently of its Divine the children of God, and the Messiah origin, contains more sublimity, purer 'the first-born among many brethren ;' morality, more important history, and but the words “only begotten' are ap- finer strains of eloquence, than can be plied transcendently and incomparably collected from all other books, in whatto Him alone ; and as for me, who be- ever language they may have been lieve the Scriptures you also profess to written." believe, though you assert, without The largest portion of each year was proof, that we have altered them,) I can- devoted to his professional duties and not refuse him an appellation, which far studies; and all the time that could be surpasses our reason, by which he is saved from these important avocations distinguished in the gospel ; and the was dedicated to the cultivation of science believers in Mohammed, who expressly and literature. Lady Jones was comname him the Messiah, and pronounce pelled by impaired health to embark for him to have been born of a virgin, England in December, 1793. The mere (which might fully justify the phrase desire of increasing a fortune, which he condemned by this author,) are them- acknowledged was large enough to satisfy selves condemnable, for cavilling at words his wishes, would not have induced Sir when they cannot object to the substance William to remain alone in Bengal, but of our faith consistently with their he was earnestly desirous to complete a

great work on English law, which he On his landing at Calcutta, towards had originated. But in the following the close of 1783, be entered on his sprîng he was attacked by inflammation duties as a magistrate of the Supreme of the loins, which was quickly followed Court of Judicature. He had now the by death, April 27, 1794. The opportunity, long ardently desired, of “ Digest,” to which he had thus sacridevoting his talents to the service of his ficed his life, was completed by Mr. native country, and of promoting the Colebrooke, and published in 1800. welfare of the community in which he The most extraordinary feature of his resided; while the history, antiquities, character was his facility in learning natural productions, arts, sciences, and languages. A list, in his own handliterature of Asia, opened an extensive writing, thus classes the twenty-eight in and almost boundless field to his in- number with which he was in any dequiries.

gree acquainted :—“ Eight languages To devotional exercises he was also studied critically - English,

Latin, habitually attentive; diligent in business, French, Italian, Greek, Ajabic, Persian,

own.”

a

Sanscrit; eight studied less perfectly, were supplied-had been filled with but all intelligible with a dictionary heated whisky; the partakers of the -Spanish, Portuguese, German, Ru- cheer' being too far gone' to perceive nic, Hebrew, Bengali, Hindi, Turk- they were strengthening their punch, ish; twelve studied less perfectly, but instead of making it weaker. If a guest all attainable—Thibetian, Pâli, Pahlair, were able to mount his horse without Deri, Russian, Syriac, Ethiopic, Coptic, assistance in the 'good old times,' he Welsh, Swedish, Dutch, Chinese.” was presented with a deoch and durrass'

Due honours were paid to this great glass, which he was forced, seldom man after death. The Court of Direc- against his will, to drink at the door.' tors placed a statue of him in St. Paul's This glass usually held a quart; it was cathedral, of which an engraving is terminated by a globe, which, of itself, given at the head of this biographical contained a .drop' sufficient to complete sketch; and Lady Jones erected a monu- the business of the night. The degradament to him in the ante-chapel of Uni- tion was looked upon as a distinction : versity College, Oxford. In accordance and an Irishman drunk, was an Irishman with his own expressed opinion that, 'all in his glory ;' and a strong head' “ the best monument that could be was considered an enviable possession. erected to a man of literary talent, is a Many years ago we were acquainted with good edition of his works," she caused a gentleman at Ross-Carbery, whose

" them to be collected and printed in six daily "stint' was five-and-twenty tumbquarto volumes, in 1799. They have lers of whisky punch of the ordinary been reprinted in octavo. A life of Sir strength; and we knew another, whose W. Jones was afterwards written by his frequent boast it was, that in a long life intimate friend in India, the late Lord he had drunk enough to float a seventyTeignmouth.

four gun ship. « In a word,” said the eminent pre- “All attempts to check the progress of late, to whose testimony a reference has intemperance were fruitless : it had long already been made, I can only say of been customary, indeed, to take oaths to this wonderful man, that he had more abstain from drink for a season; but if virtues and less faults than I ever yet kept, they produced no permanent good, saw in any human being ; and that the and the tricks and shifts to evade them goodness of his head, admirable as it were generally successful. We recollect was, was exceeded by that of his heart. a man swearing he would not drink for I have never ceased to admire him from a month; he soaked bread in spirits, and the moment I first saw him; and my ate it: another, who swore he would not esteem for his great qualities, and regret touch liquor while he stood on earth,' for his loss, will only end with my got drunk amid the branches of a tree: life.”

AMICUS. another, who vowed not to touch a drop

'in doors or out,'strode across his threshIRELAND-ITS INTEMPERANCE AND old, placing one leg inside, and the

other outside, and so persuading himself The following extracts are taken from he did not break his oath, drank until he a work on Ireland, now in course of pub- fell: another, who bound himself not to lication, by Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall ::

“touch liquor in the parish,' brought a

sod of turf from a distance, and placed “A manifest improvement had of late his feet upon it, when he resolved to years taken place among the higher drink. We knew one who was kept classes. We are ourselves old enough sober thus : he was always willing to to recollect, when a host would have been take an oath against whisky for six scouted as mean and in hospitable, who had weeks, but no longer; his master insuffered one of his guests to leave his variably watched the day on which his table sober. Ingenious devices were time' expired, and compelled him to reinvented for compelling intoxication : peat his oath; which he would readily glasses and bottles so formed that they do after swallowing two glasses. To could not stand, and must be emptied make the Irish abstain, even to a moderbefore they could be laid upon the table ate extent, was therefore considered a -the object being to pass the wine hopeless task; and he would have been a rapidly round-were in frequent use. visionary indeed who foretold a time We dined once with a large party where when a drunken Irishman would be a the tea-kettle- from which the tumblers far greater rarity than a sober one.

TEMPERANCE.

INTEMPERANCE.

a

TEMPERANCE.

6

now.

sobriety has spread, it will be almost “We entered, one day, a cottage in a sufficient to state, that during our recent suburb of Cork: a woman was knitting stay in Ireland, from the 10th June to the stockings at the door; it was as neat and 6th September 1840, we saw but six percomfortable as any in the most prosper- sons intoxicated; and that for the first ous district of England. We tell her thirty days we had not encountered brief story in her own words, as nearly one. In the course of that month, we as we can recall them. ‘My husband is had travelled from Cork to Killarney, a wheelwright, and always earned his round the coast; returning by the inguinea a week; he was a good workman, land route, not along mail-coach roads, and neither a bad man, nor a bad hus- but on a ‘jaunting car,' through byways band ; but the love for the drink was as well as highways; visiting small vilstrong in him, and it wasn't often he lages and populous towns, driving through brought me home more than five shil- fairs, attending wakes and funerals (relings out of his one-pound-one on a turning from one of which, between Saturday night; and it broke my heart Glengariff and Kenmare, at nightfall, to see the poor children too ragged to send we met at least a hundred substantial to school, to say nothing of the starved farmers mounted ;) in short, wherever look they had out of the little I could crowds were assembled, and we congive them. Well, God be praised, he sidered it likely we might gather intook the pledge; and the next Saturday formation as to the state of the country he laid twenty-one shillings upon the and the character of its people. We chair you sit upon. Oh! didn't I give repeat, we did not meet a single individual thanks on my bended knees that night? who appeared to have tasted spirits ; Still, I was fearful it wouldn't last, and and we do not hesitate to express our I spent no more than the five shillings I conviction, that two years ago, in the was used to, saying to myself, Maybe same places, and during the same time, the money will be more wanted than it is we should have encountered

many

thouWell, the next week he brought sand drunken men. From first to last, me the same, and the next, and the we employed, perhaps, fifty car-drivers; next, until eight weeks passed; and we never found one to accept a drink; there was no change for the bad in my the boatmen of Killarney, proverbial husband; and all the while he never for drunkenness, insubordination, and asked me why there was nothing better recklessness of life, declined the whisky for him out of his hard earnings: so I we had taken with us for the bugle felt there was no fear of him; and the player, who was not pledged,' and ninth week, when he came home to me, after hours of hard labour, dipped a I had this table bought, and these six can into the lake, and refreshed themchairs, one for myself, four for the child- selves from its waters. It was amusing, ren, and one for himself. And I was as well as gratifying, to hear their new dressed in a new gown, and the children reading of the address to the famous all had new clothes, and shoes and stock - echo— Paddy Blake, plase yer honour, ings, and upon his own chair I put a the gintleman promises ye some coffee bran-new suit; and upon his plate I put whin ye get home;' and on the Blackthe bill and resate for them all—just the water, a muddy river, as its name deeight sixteen shillings they cost that I'd notes, our boat's crew put into shore, saved out of his wages, not knowing what midway between Youghal and Lismore, might happen, and that always before to visit a clear spring, with the wherewent for drink. And he cried, good abouts of which they were familiar. lady and good gentleman, he cried like The whisky shops are closed, or cona babby—but 'twas with thanks to God : verted into coffee houses; the distilleries and now where's the healthier man than have, for the most part, ceased to work ; my husband in the county of Cork, or a and the breweries are barely able to happier wife than myself, or dacenter or maintain a trade sufficient to prevent better-fed children than our own four ?' entire stoppage. Of the extent of the It is most unlikely that such a family change, therefore, we have had ample will again sink into poverty and wretch experience; and it is borne out by the edness. We might add largely to these assurances of so many who live in towns, cases, not only from what we have heard, as well as in the country, that we can but from what we have seen.

have no hesitation in describing sobriety to “In reference to the extent to which / be almost universal throughout Ireland.

“We may, perhaps, interest our read- / which man has availed himself for his perers by giving them some details of our sonal benefit; and thousands are annually visit to Mr. Mathew. The room in collected and distributed throughout the which members are received is large, whole of Europe, to be kept in readiness and furnished with a desk and wooden for his service. It is common in many benches. When we entered it, the of the still waters of our own island; but President was not there ; but there were is especially abundant in certain districts men and women of all ages, waiting of France, where many persons make to take the pledge. Among them was the collecting of it a trade. Well known, a sturdy mountaineer from Kerry; a however, as the leech is, and acquainted fine athletic fellow, who had led his as all are with its powers of drawing 'faction for a quarter of a century, blood, there are numbers totally ignowhose head was scarred in at least a rant of its structure and organization, dozen places, and who had been re- and who therefore look at it with no nowned throughout the country for his other interest than that derived from its prowess at every fair within twenty use: but who, were they to gain even a miles of his home. He had long been general knowledge of its anatomy, would a member of this society, and had perceive with pleasure how admirably it brought a few of his 'friends' to follow is adapted to the purpose for which it is his example. He described to us, with applied by man; and that though in its natural and forcible eloquence, the effect natural state, it may never have the of temperance producing peace be- opportunity of drawing one drop of tween man and man, in his own im- blood, how palpably its structure accords mediate neighbourhood; in terminating with an instinct to satiate itself with the brutal fights between two notorious blood, whenever an opportunity is preand numerous factions, the Cooleens and sented. It is to this point that our atthe Lawlors, whose names had figured tention is directed. The general figure in every criminal calendar for a cen- of the leech need not be described. It tury back. 'No matter what was doing, belongs to the class annelida, or redit was left undone,' he said, “if any one blooded worms, whose body, always elonof either party chose to call up the rest. gated and destitute of true limbs, conThey'd leave the hay half cut, or the sists of a series of rings or segments, oats to be shelled by the four winds of often furnished with short spines or heaven; and, taking the hay fork, the bristle-like appendages, available for the reaping hook, and the scythe in their purpose of locomotion. The blood cirhands, they'd rush out to massacre each culates through a double system of arother. Tubs of potheen would be drunk teries and veins, and is aerated either hot from the mountain stills ; and then, in an internal laboratory, or by means of whooping and hallooing like wild In- external tuft-like appendages or vascular dians, they'd mingle in the unnatural branchiæ. Some of the annelida are, war of Irishmen against Irishmen. I've however, not only destitute of external known them fight so on the sea shore, branchial tuft but also of setæ, or that the sea has come in and drowned spines, on the rings of the body, and those that had fallen drunk in the fray. such is the leech, placed by Cuvier as a How is it now ? At the last fair at family by itself in the abranchious section Tralee, there wasn't a stick lifted. There (" des abranches sans soies”) of the was peace between the factions; and the annelida.* The external investment of Cooleens and the Lawlors met, for the the leech may be described as muscular first time in the memory of man, without tunic, with a coloured pigment on its laving a dead boy' to be carried home surface, the whole being covered with to the widow's cabin."

a delicately thin cuticular membrane, lubricated with a mucous fluid, secreted in considerable abundance. It is to the

arrangement of the muscular fibres of (Hirudo medicinalis.)

the investing tissue, which, like the Of the utility of the medicinal leech, finger of a glove, encloses the internal (Hirudo medicinalis,) nothing need be organs, that the external ringed or an

all are familiar with it, and there are nulated character of the body is owing, many of our number who have been subjected to its operation. It is one of those tris) is one of the abranchious annelida with bristles,

ON THE MEDICINAL LEECH.

said ;

or

and upon which its movements, whether preys; this, at all events, if not absocontractile or expansive, depend. lutely proved, is probable.* For a long

This muscular tissue is found to con- time, the leech was supposed to be dessist of three distinct layers of fibres, titute of eyes, but this is ascertained to be each layer having its peculiar direction. erroneous; the existence of such organs The outer layer consists of annular has been demonstrated by Professor fibres, or of fibres forming bands run- Carena, in his monograph on the genus ning round transversely to the body Hirudo, in Mém. R. Acad. Sc. Turin, of the animal, and very distinguishable. vol. xxv. p. 281. These in the mediThe second layer consists of a system of cinal leech are ten in number; and are fibres arranged in a spiral manner, round seated in a semicircular row upon the the animal, but in such directions as sucking surface of the oral disc, where to cross each other, while the innermost, they appear as minute black points, not or third distinct layer is composed of however to be seen without the aid of longitudinal fibres, running in a straight a lens. According to Professor Müller, direction from one extremity of the ani- these eyes are of the simplest structure, mal to the other. Such, then, is the being merely the expansion of the exstructure of the muscular tunic of the tremity of minute nervous fibrils, coleech; but at the caudal extremity its vered by a delicate transparent convex fibres enter into the structure of a suck- cornea, derived from the epidermis, and ing disc, and some there assume a ra- lined posteriorly with a layer of black diating, others a circular, course. The pigment, to which their appearance as same observation applies to their ar- black specks is to be attributed. As rangement on the expansive moveable no crystalline lens, nor aqueous, lips which encircle the oral aperture, vitreous humours for the refraction or and which also form another sucking the condensation of rays of light have disc, capable of being attached to objects been detected, their situation, and the over which the leech is proceeding: simplicity of their structure, prove that These suckers, namely, the caudal and their use is restricted to the close and the oral, are the principal agents of loco exclusive examination of food or obmotion on solid surfaces; the caudaljects on which the animal is about to sucker, for example, being fixed, the ani- seize, or to which it is about to apply mal elongates its body to the utmost, the oral sucker. Of the distinctness and then fixes its oral sucker; this done, of vision resulting from such an appathe caudal sucker is disengaged, the ratus no idea can be formed: it is probody drawn up, and the sucker fixed bably at a low ratio. The mouth (or again, while the oral sucker is disen- disc-like lips) of the leech forms, as gaged, the body again elongated, and already stated, an efficient sucker, and, this sucker once more attached, and so in this respect, may be compared to a on alternately. By this simple process, cupping glass; but it is one containthe leech can crawl along with consider- ing lancets for making, when fixed able expedition, and even proceed up on the skin, three superficial, yet suffithe smooth sides of a glass vessel, or cient incisions. Around the oral ori. it can there fix itself and rest. This fice, which leads into the stomach, crawling mode of progression is, how- are arranged three minute cartilaginous ever, not the only one with which the teeth, so situated as to form the three leech is endowed ; it swims both rapidly points of a triangle. Each tooth, which and gracefully. In the performance of is somewhat semicircular in its figure, is this act, the body assumes the form of surrounded by circular muscular fibres, a ribband, being both flattened and elon- by which it is acted upon; and its free gated; and it makes its way through the edge, instead of being smooth, is found, water by a series of serpentine or undu- when examined by means of a good latory movements, executed with the microscope, to be serrated, or finely utmost ease and celerity. With respect to the senses with which the leech may

* That leeches enjoy the faculty of tasting, seems

to be proved, not only by the refusal of them to bite be endowed, there is much to be ascer- the skin, which has been rubbed or anointed with tained ; the oral sucker, or lip, evi- any oleaginous or acrid embrocation, until it be dently enjoys a more refined sense of away from such a part, without even fixing their

well washed and cleaned; but by their turning touch than any other part, and may oral disc upon it, as if from disgust. It is, more

over, well known, that a little milk, or milk and even appreciate the flavour or the scent

sugar, smeared on a part which they have refused of blood, or of the animals on which it I to bite, will often induce them to attack it eagerly.