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chasm opened its mouth, and closed again after swallowing the vessels and the crowded quay.

The same phenomenon was observed in the earthquake of Calabria, which commenced in February, 1783, and repeated its shocks over an interval of nearly four years. In many places the ground was rent by fissures, which opened and then closed again, so that houses, trees, cattle, and men were engulfed. By this series of earthquakes the aspect of the country in some parts was entirely changed. In one case an extensive olive-ground and orchard were hurled a distance of two hundred feet, into a valley sixty feet in depth. A small inhabited house, standing on the mass of earth carried down, was uninjured; and the olive trees continued to grow on the land, and bore the same year an abundant In many cases disputes naturally arose as to whom the property, which had thus shifted its place, should belong.

crop.

Earthquakes are by no means unfrequent in Great Britain, but they are generally very slight. In March, 1871, the northern counties of England, and especially Lancashire, were more seriously visited. The undulation of the earth was clearly perceptible, and houses shook sufficiently to set the bells ringing and to throw down glass and china from the shelves of the cupboards.

The west coast of America is particularly subject to earthquakes. In 1868, a series of very violent earthquakes shook the west coast of South America. The first shock was felt at Arica, a town on the coast of Peru; on the 13th August, 1868, the sea presented a very dull appearance, the air was unusually heavy, the gulls and other sea-fowl, after circling aloft with loud screams, at length quitted the bay. About a quarter to five in the afternoon a tremendous shock was felt. The houses were thrown down, the earth opened in fissures two or three inches in width, and belched forth Idust which darkened the air. The sea at first seemed to retire, and all the vessels in the bay were carried out to

sea, anchors and chains snapping like packthread.

In a

few minutes, however, the outward current was stopped by a huge wave, about fifty feet high, which came in with a mighty rush, carrying all before it. The quay and mole were crowded with terror-stricken inhabitants, and before they could escape, two hundred were swept away. Several vessels were wrecked; but an American gunboat-the Wateree-was lifted up by an immense billow, and carried half a mile inland. There she was landed among the sandhills, perfectly upright, without a scratch, and not a man lost. At Callao, the port of Lima,3 three terrible shocks were felt, and the following graphic description is from the pen of an eye-witness :-"For full five minutes the heavy, rolling, rumbling shock continued, rocking the furniture, and even the houses themselves, with such violence that persons could hardly keep their feet, and an instantaneous rush was made for the street. Here the sight beggared1 description: all the affrighted people kneeling and praying in the open streets, crossing themselves, and falling in deep swoons full length on the pavement; women kneeling with both arms upraised, screaming and crying; the great bell of Santa Rosa church tolling and tolling, while the terrified people fled in crowds within the sacred enclosure, and the great steeple swayed and rocked as if every moment it would fall down and crush the affrighted masses. As far as the eye could see down the long narrow street, the very street rose and fell in long billowy undulations; while out in the bay the ships tossed up and down under the violence of the tremendous internal jar.5"-[Abridged from Lawson's Physical Geography (Oliver & Boyd)].

1 Calabria. The peninsula in the S.E. of Italy.

2 Undulation.-Up-and-down movement like that of a wave [L. unda, wave]. 3 Lima.-The capital of Peru.

Made

Beggared description. any description seem poor and beggarInternal jar.-The clash or struggle within the earth.

ly.

RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD.

I.

THERE was a time' when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore :—
Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

II.

The rainbow comes and goes,

And lovely is the rose,
The moon doth with delight

Look round her when the heavens are bare :

Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair;

The sunshine is a glorious birth,

But yet I know, where'er I go,

That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.

III.

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound,

To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong :

The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the echoes through the mountains strong,
The winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the earth is gay;

Land and sea

Give themselves up to jollity,
And with the heart of May

Doth every beast keep holiday ;

Thou child of joy,

Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy

Shepherd-boy!

IV.

Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see

The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee ;
My heart is at your festival,

My head hath its coronal,2

The fulness of your bliss, I feel I feel it all.
Oh evil day! if I were sullen
While earth herself is adorning,
This sweet May-morning,

And the children are culling
On every side,

In a thousand valleys far and wide,
Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,
And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm :—
I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!

-But there's a tree, of many, one, A single field which I have looked upon, Both of them speak of something that is gone : The pansy at my feet

Doth the same tale repeat:

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

V.

Our birth is but a sleep, and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar :
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy,

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;

The youth, who daily farther from the east

Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

3

VI.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own ;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a mother's mind,
And no unworthy aim,

The homely nurse doth all she can

To make her foster-child, her inmate man,
Forget the glories he hath known,*
And that imperial palace whence he came.

VII.

Behold the child among his new-born blisses,
A six years' darling of a pigmy 3 size!
See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,
With light upon him from his father's eyes !
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learnéd art;
A wedding or a festival,

A mourning or a funeral ;

And this hath now his heart,
And unto this he frames his song :
Then will he fit his tongue
To dialogues of business, love, or strife ;
But it will not be long

Ere this be thrown aside,

And with new joy and pride

The little actor cons another part;

Filling from time to time his 'humorous stage
With all the persons, down to palsied age,
That life brings with her in her equipage;
As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation.

There was a time.-The poet is lamenting that his spirit is not so much in harmony with joyous Nature as when he was a boy.

Coronal (co-rd-nal).—A garland worn

round the head on festal occasions.

Nature's priest - So called because the boy delights in the sights and sounds of Nature, and the joy he feels is the best praise and worship that can be rendered her.

Forget the glories, etc.-A mere poetic fancy that the soul has lived in a happier world before taking up its abode

on earth.

WORDSWORTH.

Pigmy size.-Literally, of the size of a fist [Gr. pygme, the fist]."

The little Actor cons, etc.-The child is compared to an actor, who having played one part, then learns another. Shakspeare says:

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely
players,-

They have their exits, and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many
parts,
His acts being seven ages."

AS YOU LIKE IT.

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