The branches form excellent fuel, especially for heating ovens; they are likewise frequently used to protect young plants, hedge-rows, etc. The leaves are good fodder for cattle. The berries, as we have seen, form a main supply in winter for the wants of the feathered tribes; they are also used medicinally, and in some parts of France a fermented liquor, of a very intoxicating nature, is made from them. The hawthorn has ever been a favourite with the poets. What can be more picturesque than an old tree, with its gnarled trunk and tortuous branches, when under the influence of gradual decay, yet still sending forth an annual crop of leaves, flowers, and fruit. How interesting are the associations with which we connect it, when it stands in the village green, the trysting place of the hamlet, the play-place of the children, the favourite resort of the aged. Such a tree has Goldsmith immortalized in his touching description of his native village. "The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade, For talking age, and whispering lovers made! "Every shepherd tells his tale, While another poet represents a monarch regarding such a spot with envy. "Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade woods with the sound of music, there to gather large branches of May, which they brought home in triumph to adorn their doors and windows. The after part of the day was spent in rural sports, principally in dancing around a high pole, erected for the purpose in some place of public resort, which was annually decorated for the occasion with garlands of flowers, streamers, etc. Even royalty itself was not negligent of the festal occasion, as Stowe tells us in his account of the Mayings near London, as these sports were termed. "In the moneth of May, namely on May-day in the morning, every man, except impediment, would walke into the sweet meddowes and greene woods, (many of these are now covered with long lines of houses) there to rejoyce their spirits with the beauty and savour of sweet flowers, and with the harmonie of birdes, praising God in their kinde. And, for example, hereof Edward Hall hath noted, that King Henry VIII., as in the third of his reigne and divers others yeares, so namely in the seventh of his reigne on May-day, in the morning, with queene Katherine his wife, accompanied with many lords and ladies, rode a Maying from Greenwich to the high ground of Shooter's hill." Here a pageant was prepared for their entertainment, two hundred "tall yeomen dressed in greene, with greene hoods, and bowes and arrows," personated Robin Hood, and his band of archers. The chieftain, who represented this renowned outlaw invited the king to witness the skill of his men, and then entertained them "in greene arbours made of boughes and deckt with flowers where they were set and served plentifully with venison and wine, to their great contentment." Stowe goes on to Chaucer in a yet earlier period was not relate, "I find also that in the month regardless of its beauties. "Mark the fair blooming of the hawthorn tree, Who finely clothed in a robe of white, Fills full the wanton eye with May's delight." Perhaps a few words upon the Mayday sports of our ancestors may not be uninteresting or irrelevant to our subject. They no doubt originated, like many other of our popular customs, in the pagan ceremonies which the heathen were wont to observe at this season of the year, in honour of Flora, the goddess of flowers. The younger part of the community were accustomed to rise with the dawn of day, and went forth to the of May, the citizens of London (of all estates) lightly in every parish or sometimes two or three parishes, joyning together, had their several Mayings, and did fetch in May-poles with divers warlike showes, with good archers, morris-dancers and other devices for pastime all the day long, and towards the evening they had stage-plaies and bonfires in the streets." These sports being found to lead, as might naturally be expected, to much excess and licentiousness, the May-poles were ordered by Act of Parliament, in 1644, to be removed. At the Restoration, however, they were replaced, and one in the Strand was reared with much ceremony. It remained there for many years, until | being much decayed, Sir Isaac Newton obtained permission to remove it to Wanstead Park in Essex, where it was used to support an enormous telescope, one hundred and twenty-five feet in length, presented to the Royal Society by a French gentleman. Many of our old poets have commemorated these Mayings. We have only room to insert Herrick's description of the street when decked with these branches, in his poetical invitation to his mistress "to goe a Maying." "Come, my Corinna, come; and coming, marke Or branches; each porch, each doore, ere this, Made up of white-thorne neatly interwove." But the first of May is now comparatively neglected, and these rural festivities have ceased, though in some of the more secluded districts and villages, May-poles are yet standing, and the younger part of the population retain the custom of going a Maying. In London, too, the annual processions of the chimney sweepers remind us of former times. Much as we must all deplore the decline of any old customs which tended to cement the ties which ought ever to exist between the upper and lower classes of society; and natural as it is for all to welcome the return of the delightful season of spring, yet we could hardly desire the revival of these public revels. In these days it would be impossible to observe them with the simplicity of former times, and they would only furnish an excuse for intemperance and wickedness. Against similar scenes, the apostle no doubt cautioned his Galatian brethren, when he warned them of the works of the flesh, among which he enumerates "drunkenness, revellings, and such like," on the ground that "they who do such things should not inherit the kingdom of God." The Roman Christians too are charged to the same effect, Rom. xiii. 13. Ere we close these notices of the hawthorn, we will just allude to the tree known by the name of the Glastonbury thorn; with which a superstitious legend is connected. Tradition states that it sprang from the staff used by Joseph of Arimathea, who on a visit to this country to found a Christian church, fixed it on the ground on that spot on Christmas day; praying that God would by it work a miracle to convince the heathen around of the truth of his mission. The staff took root immediately, put forth leaves, and the next day was covered with blossoms. For many years, it was believed that every Christmas eve the tree budded, and the next day bloomed. Slips from this tree were said to possess the same miraculous power. The mystery, like many others by which our forefathers were misguided in the days of Popery, has however been satisfactorily accounted for. The Glastonbury thorn is a variety of the common hawthorn, distinguished for bearing two crops of leaves and flowers in a year: it comes into leaf for the second time late in the autumn, and blooms in the course of the winter. As for the staff being transformed into a tree, that is by no means so doubtful as that Joseph of Arimathea ever visited Britain; for it is well known that the hawthorn, as well as many other trees, will often grow from stakes. Before taking our leave of the hawthorn, let us learn from this favourite tree a valuable lesson, well conveyed in the following lines by an anonymous writer: "On summer's breast the hawthorn shines, 'Mid slopes where the' evening flock reclines, When yellow autumn decks the plain, A night of frost, a day of wind, But red with fruit, that hawthorn bough, Be thus thy youth as lilies gay, Thy manhood vigorous green; And thus let fruit bedeck thy spray 'Mid age's leafless scene." PHOTOGENIC DRAWING.-No. I. ONE of the most remarkable of the scientific discoveries which have distinguished the present age, is that which has recently been made known under the term of photogenic drawing, or Daguerrotype. It has frequently happened that an application of some well known scientific fact, which, when proposed, seemed so simple that we wondered why we did not observe it ourselves, had, been delayed year after year, without attracting any attention, or at least a very partial examination. It is equally worthy of remark, that discoveries are generally made by different persons at about the same time, so that it is often difficult to apportion the honour between them, or to say who ought to be considered as having had the first idea, or as having followed out a principle with most success. It is thus with the photogenic drawing. There are already many candidates in the field, | and nation is in competition with nation for the discovery of this process, and a much more laudable competition it must be considered than that in which life and property has been so often sacrificed. of Naples, Giovanni Battista Porta, discovered that if a very small hole be pierced in the window shutter of a room, completely darkened in other respects, or better still if the aperture be perforated in a thin metallic plate applied to the shutter, all the exterior objects from which rays can enter through this opening will be represented on the opposite wall, in dimensions enlarged or diminished according to the distance. He found also that even with this imperfect apparatus, throughout a large extent of the picture, objects were painted in their natural colours, and with considerable truth of linear perspective. A short time afterwards, Porta found that it was not necessary to have the opening very small, thus limiting the view; but that if the perforation was covered with a lentiscus, or a convex glass, it might be of any dimensions. He remarked also the great improvement thus produced in the delineation. The images passing through the simple medium of the hole were without distinct The art of photogenic drawing may be said to depend on two facts-That the forms and shadows of bodies may be thrown by the rays of light on surfaces capable of receiving them, and That light has the property of changing the character of a certain preparation of silver, or in other words, converts the white chloride into the black oxide. This explana-ness of position, intensity of colour, or tion of the art is, we are conscious, liable to many objections, and we should, perhaps, have better described it, by saying, that it is a method of obtaining the forms, proportions, and groupings of natural objects, by the physical and chemical action of light upon a prepared ground; but we doubt whether this would convey so much information as the previous less accurate but more explicit statement. When we say that the definition wants in accuracy, it must not be understood that it is contrary to present practice; but, on the other hand, although it is now perfectly true, new methods may be discovered of producing the effect required with greater ease and with more advantage. Let us, however, now turn to an examination of the principles to which we have referred, and endeavour to explain them fully to the reader. A work has been recently published by M. Daguerre on the history and practice of the Photogenic Drawing, which has been translated by Dr. Memes. In this book we find an analysis of the report presented to the Chamber of Deputies by M. Arago, and from it we may extract the following passage, which fully illustrates the first principle to which we referred-the projection of the forms of bodies upon prepared surfaces. "Two centuries ago, a philosopher neatness of outline. On the contrary, with the lentiscus, the mimic forms rivalled the vivacity and strength of nature herself, the focal distances being properly adjusted. It is well known that all these discoveries of Porta have become truly astonishing in precision of detail and strength of colouring since the art of constructing achromatic glasses has been brought to its present perfection. Formerly a simple lentiscus composed of one kind of glass only, and consequently acting with as many separate focuses as there are colours in the undecomposed white ray, transmitted a comparatively indistinct image of objects. Now that we employ achromatic glasses, which combine all the incident rays in one focus, and that a periscopic construction of the apparatus likewise has been adopted, great perfection has been given to its effect. "Porta constructed also portable dark chambers: these were composed of a tube, longer or shorter, armed with a lentiscus as its optic instrument; a screen of white paper, or some prepared substance, occupied the focus, and upon it the images of external objects were received. The Neapolitan philosopher proposed his simple arrangements for the benefit of those who had not been taught drawing. According to him, nothing else was required in order to obtain the most perfect transcripts of nature than merely to trace carefully the outline of the focal image. becomes black when exposed to the light, the shades being more and more dark according to the intensity of the light. The knowledge of this might have suggested to the alchymists, that if any image were thrown upon a piece of paper, or any other medium, impregnated with it, that image would be painted by the rays of the sun, although, as far as lights and shadows are concerned, the picture must be the reverse of the real object; the parts which are deeply shaded, those on which no light falls, will remain white, and those which are brilliantly illuminated will be quite black. Strange as it may appear, this application was not thought of by the early chemists, nor indeed until the commencement of the nineteenth century. "These anticipations of Porta's have not been realized. Painters and draughtsmen, those in particular who execute large views, have still recourse to the camera. They, however, employ it merely to group objects en masse, to trace their contours, and to fix them in their proper position and magnitude, according to the principles of linear perspective. As to those effects proceeding from the imperfect transparency of our atmosphere, whence. arise all the charms of tone and colouring, which, by a sufficiently erroneous appellation are designated by the term aerial perspective, the most experienced artists are aware that in reproducing Wedgewood seems to have been the these, the camera affords them no assist- first person who had any idea of applyance. No person, however, has wit-ing the property of which we have nessed the neatness of outline, precision spoken to the formation of drawings. of form, the truth of colouring, and the The inquiries of this philosopher were sweet gradations of tint, without regret-published in June, 1802, in the Journal ting that an imagery so exquisite and of the Royal Institution, and he there so faithful to nature could not be made proposes paper steeped in chloride of to fix itself permanently on the tablet silver to copy paintings on glass and of the machine. Who has not been engravings. deeply anxious. that some means might be discovered by which to give reality to shadows so exquisitely lovely. Yet in the estimation of all, such a wish seemed destined to take its place among other dreams of beautiful things; among the splendid but impracticable conceptions in which men of science and ardent temperament have sometimes indulged. This dream, notwithstanding, has just been realized. Let us take, then, the invention of its germ, and mark carefully its gradual unfolding." The principle here referred to, is employed in the camera obscura, an instrument employed to throw the rays of light from external objects, by reflection from a looking glass, so that the image may be formed on some horizontal prepared surface, which is done in such a manner as to give the proper form and colours to them. The next thing to be considered is a means of giving permanence to the image thus formed; this will be done, probably, in various ways, and indeed is already accomplished in more than one way. There is a substance, long since discovered, called lunar or caustic silver, or, according to modern nomenclature, chloride of silver. This remarkable compound, although in itself white, The experiments made by Wedgewood were repeated by Davy, who states he had obtained representations of objects exhibited in the solar microscope, but only at a short distance from the lens. Both Wedgewood and Davy then were unsuccessful in their attempts to introduce a photogenic drawing. Not having obtained the drawing, they of course devoted no time to the discovery of a method of fixing it, although this would have been to them an object of not less importance than the production of the outline. The pictures when produced cannot be submitted to the action of day-light, and are therefore only to be examined by the light of a lamp or candle. Some means, therefore, must be provided to neutralize the action of the light upon the paper. In the year 1814, M. Niepce, a country gentleman residing on his property near Châlon, on the Gaône, commenced a series of photogenic experiments. In January, 1826, he became acquainted with M. Daguerre, and in 1827, during a short stay in England, read a paper on the subject before the Royal Society of London. "On an attempt," says M. Arago, "having been made to establish a priority of invention, thees sketches, still in a state of good preserv NOTES ON THE MONTH. JANUARY. THE new year begins its career in winter it is ushered in by clouds and storms, yet we welcome and hail its ap : ation, were immediately and honourably produced from the collections of certain English philosophers. They prove beyond dispute, as respects both the photographic copies of engravings, and the formation, for the use of artists, of plates in the state of advanced etch-proach. The old year, with its sorrows ings, that M. Niepce, in 1827, was acquainted with a method of making the shadows correspond to shadows, the demitints to the demi-tints, the lights to the lights. These early essays farther prove that he had discovered how to render his copies once formed, impervious to the erasing and blackening effects of the solar rays. In other words, the ingenious experimentalist of Châlons, by the composition of his grounds, had so early as 1827, resolved a problem which had defied the lofty sagacity of a Wedgewood and a Davy.' and joys, its hopes and fears, its gratifications and disappointments, has passed; its chequered months, have rolled back into eternity, and we stand on the margin of an untried future, over which hangs a dense cloud, receding only in proportion as we advance, so as merely to lay bare the present, while all beyond it is unseen; for we know not what a day may bring forth. Let us then use the present, and be thankful that it is ours to employ and improve. How a Christian should use the present, depends upon the circumstances in which he is placed, In December, 1829, a deed of part--the exigencies, and the duties of the nership was drawn out between MM. Niepce and Daguerre, and by their united efforts, the art has been brought to a wonderful state of perfection. We are not, however, certain, from the evidence before us, that the name of M. Daguerre should be applied to the invention excluding that of M. Niepce, as the French have done, for it is quite certain that we are as much, if not more indebted to him; but we suppose the process will now always be known in France as the Daguerrotype. But it is here necessary to remark, that the English philosophers have not been entirely excluded from this work, although they have taken but a small and comparatively insignificant part. Soon after the publication of M. Daguerre's process, Mr. Fox Talbot stated, in a communication to the Philosophical Magazine, that he had been for four years acquainted with a process analogous to that of M. Daguerre; and yet it must be allowed that the operations of these two philosophers are sufficiently distinct. With Mr. Fox Talbot's arrangement, the picture is taken on prepared paper, and all the lights and shadows are reversed; a densely heavy thunder cloud appearing white, and a brilliantly illuminated body of water, quite black. According to the French process, the image is impressed on the silvered surface of a copper plate, the lines are distinct, and the shadows are in their proper places. In our next paper, we shall proceed to explain the former of these processes. H. hour; but among all his pursuits he will not forget his God, or heedlessly pass by the works of the great Creator, whose Spirit, at the beginning, moved upon the face of the waters, and whose great works are recorded in Scripture, that we may render them tributary to his praise. Need we then an apology, if, as each month appears, we direct our readers to the natural occurrences which, in the order of things, God has appointed; at least as far as our portion of the world is concerned, invite them into the fields and lanes, "by woods and lawns and living streams," show them a bird's nest, a bud, a flower; teach them to feel an interest in the fluttering insect, whose little life is its all; to relish the beauties of nature; and instead of gazing around them, and exclaiming, "All is barren," teach and induce them to acknowledge, "These are thy works, Parent of good. Thyself how wond'rous then!" But what is there worth looking at in winter, when the trees are leafless, and the hedges bare, and the ground either locked up with frost, or deluged with rain; when the fallow lands look dreary, and the lark has forgotten his song, and the sun, far in the south, scarcely rises above the verge of the horizon, and soon finishes his course? Such, methinks, I hear some reader ask, as he looks from this paper to the window, then stirs the fire, and shivering, creeps closer to the blazing embers, glad that he is not obliged to go out in such a bitter day. What, then! is there no pleasure in a winter's walk? nothing to see, nothing |