age JOHN FRANCIS WALLER. [Dr. Waller is an instance of the poets who preserve in the ardour of their youth. He is still an active contributor to periodical literature; but his career began at a period which is now almost antique. He was born in Limerick in 1810; entered Trinity College when he was but sixteen, and graduated a year before the great Reform Act. He was called to the bar in 1833; in 1852 received from his university the honorary degrees of LL.B. and LL.D., and some time later was appointed one of the permanent officials of the Courts of Chancery. Such, briefly, are some of the facts connected with the professional and less important side of Dr. Waller's career. To many THE SPINNING-WHEEL SONG.1 Mellow the moonlight to shine is beginning; 66 Eileen, achora, I hear some one tapping." ""Tis the ivy, dear mother, against the glass flapping." "Eileen, I surely hear somebody sighing." "'Tis the sound, mother dear, of the summer wind dying." Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring, Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot's stirring; Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing, Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing. "What's that noise that I hear at the window, I wonder?" "Tis the little birds chirping the holly-bush under." it may be more interesting to know that he press. In 1856 appeared the Dead Bridal. In addition to his poetic labours Dr. Waller has done his share of the wear-and-tear work of literature. He edited the University Magazine for some years after the retirement of Charles Lever from the post; wrote many of the articles in The Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography, and generally supervised the production of that book; and he also published an edition of Goldsmith's works. Dr. Waller's chief strength as a poet lies in his power of melodious versification. The rhythm and rhyme in his pieces, the shorter ones especially, are perfect. Many of his songs have accordingly become extremely popular, and have been eagerly grasped at by the musical composer in search of the fit accompaniments of words to music. The majority of Dr. Waller's poems are tender, or tranquilly fanciful; but he has a rich vein of humour as well, and some of his verses are very mirthprovoking.] "What makes you be shoving and moving your stool on, singing all wrong that old song of 'The Coolun?"" There's a form at the casement-the form of her true love And he whispers, with face bent, "I'm waiting for you, love; Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly, We'll rove in the grove while the moon's shining brightly." Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring, Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing, The maid shakes her head, on her lip lays her fingers, Steals up from the seat-longs to go, and yet lingers, A frightened glance turns to her drowsy grandmother, Puts one foot on the stool, spins the wheel with the other. Lazily, easily, swings now the wheel round; 1 This and the following pieces are quoted by permission of the author. Slower and slower-and slower the wheel swings; Lower and lower-and lower the reel rings; Ere the reel and the wheel stopped their ringing and moving, Thro' the grove the young lovers by moonlight are roving. A PLEA FOR IRISH UNION. Air-"St. Patrick's Day." The white and the orange, the blue and the green, boys, We'll blend them together in concord to-night; The orange, most sweet, amid green leaves is seen, boys, The loveliest pansy is blue and white. The light of the day, As it glides away, THE SONG OF THE GLASS. Once Genius, and Beauty, and Pleasure The brightest her skill could combine. Chorus. Beauty fetched from her ocean-water Paints with orange the white clouds that float on Grasped a sun-lighted wave in his musing, the West; And the billows that roar, Lay their green heads to rest on the blue Heaven's Where sky and sea meet in the distance away. The hues of the prism, philosophers say, boys, And found his hand sparkling with brine. The brine, and the wraik, and the sand; With the flame of the lightning she fused them, Unbroken, more lights up and warms our hearts. Beauty glanced at the Crystal, half-frighted, Each musical tone, Struck one by on, Makes melody sweet, it is true, on the ear; But let the hand ring Those hues in one bosom be sure to unite, boys, Be your scarf white or not, If you love as a brother each child of the soil. If you stand in her need, To the land of your birth in the hour of her dolours, 66 For stirring with life it was seen; Chorus. Then push round the flagon, &c. To Genius the power divine, To draw down the planets from heaven, The rest fell to earth-Pleasure caught it- And cried "Here's the true use of Glass!" JOHN TYNDAL L. [Professor Tyndall is an instance of native | and apt illustration. Indeed, he is one of the genius and energy raising themselves to a pioneers in the new era, in which a polished lofty reputation in spite of early difficulties, style has been found quite compatible with and by nought but worthy means. the revelation of physical truths. His pub on purely scientific subjects; but occasional visits to the Continent and explorations among the Alps have led to the production of pleasant volumes, in which the scientist brings into striking and sometimes amusing combination the dreamy eye of the lover of the picturesque, and the keen eye of the philosopher in search of explanations of physical phenomena.] SCIENTIFIC LIMIT OF THE IMAGINATION. (FROM ADDRESS TO BRITISH ASSOCIATION.1) John Tyndall was born in 1820 at Leighlin-lished works are numerous. Most of them are Bridge, Carlow. His parents were poor; but, with that zeal for education which is one of the best characteristics of the Irish people, they managed to have their son taught well; and he early acquired a sound knowledge of mathematics. His first employments were not of a particularly philosophic character, for he had to be content with the post of a "civil assistant" of the Ordnance Survey in his native district, and with employment in railway engineering operations in connection with a Manchester firm. In 1847 came what was, probably, much more congenial employment, when he received an appointment as a teacher in Queenwood College, Hampshire. Here he formed a friendship which was destined to deeply influence his life. The chemist of the college was Mr. (now Dr.) Frankland, and with him Tyndall began that career of physical investigation in which he has since gained such a fame. In company with his friend he went abroad and prosecuted for some time the study of chemical and other phenomena. His discoveries had been noted, and he received the fellowship of the Royal Society. In 1853 he was elected professor of natural philosophy in the Royal Institution, and was successor of Michael Faraday as superintendent. It is not our duty to speak in detail of his scientific achievements. We must content ourselves with saying that he has received those honours which are conferred on those alone who have reached the highest position in the scientific world. He has been President of the British Association, has been made an LL.D. of Cambridge and of Edinburgh, a D.C.L. of Oxford, and held office in 1877 as President of the Birmingham and Midland Institute. In 1872 he went on a lecturing tour in the United States, and the proceeds he devoted to the encouragement of original research. Professor Tyndall is best known to the general public as a lecturer. He shares with his friend, Professor Huxley, a singular power of making the dark ways of science light to the ordinary understanding by a style of wonderful clearness, and brightened with humour If you look at the face of a watch you see the hour and minute hands, and possibly also a second-hand, moving over the graduated dial. Why do these hands move? and why are their relative motions such as they are observed to be? These questions cannot be answered without opening the watch, mastering its various parts, and ascertaining their relationship to each other. When this is done we find that the observed motion of the hands follows of necessity from the inner mechanism of the watch when acted upon by the force invested in the spring. The motion of the hands may be called a phenomenon of art, but the case is similar with the phenomena of nature. These also have their inner mechanism, and their store of force to set that mechanism going. The ultimate problem of physical science is to reveal this mechanism, to discern this store, and to show that from the combined action of both the phenomena of which they constitute the basis must of necessity flow. I thought that an attempt to give you even a brief and sketchy illustration of the manner in which scientific thinkers regard this problem would not be uninteresting to you on the present occasion; more especially as it will give me occasion to say a word or two on the tendencies and limits of modern science; to point out the region which men of science 1 By permission of the author claim as their own, and where it is mere waste of time to oppose their advance, and also to define, if possible, the bourne between this and that other region to which the questionings and yearnings of the scientific intellect are directed in vain. There have been writers who affirmed that the pyramids of Egypt were the productions of nature; and in his early youth Alexander von Humboldt wrote a learned essay with the express object of refuting this notion. We now regard the pyramids as the work of men's hands, aided probably by machinery of which no record remains. We picture to ourselves the swarming workers toiling at those vast erections, lifting the inert stones, and, guided by the volition, the skill, and possibly at times by the whip of the architect, placing them in their proper positions. The blocks in this case were moved and posited by a power external to themselves, and the final form of the pyramid expressed the thought of its human builder. Let us pass from this illustration of constructive power to another of a different kind. When a solution of common salt is slowly evaporated, the water which holds the salt in solution disappears, but the salt itself remains behind. At a certain stage of concentration the salt can no longer retain the liquid form; its particles, or molecules, as they are called, begin to deposit themselves as minute solids, so minute, indeed, as to defy all microscopic power. As evaporation continues solidification goes on, and we finally obtain, through the clustering together of innumerable molecules, a finite crystalline mass of a definite form. What is this form? It sometimes seems a mimicry of the architecture of Egypt. We have little pyramids built by the salt, terrace, above terrace from base to apex, forming a series of steps resembling those up which the Egyptian traveller is dragged by his guides. The human mind is as little disposed to look unquestioning at these pyramidal salt-crystals as to look at the pyramids of Egypt without inquiring whence they came. How, then, are those salt-pyramids built up? Guided by analogy, you may, if you like, suppose that, swarming among the constituent molecules of the salt there is an invisible population, guided and coerced by some invisible master, and placing the atomic blocks in their positions. This, however, is not the scientific idea, nor do I think your good sense will accept it as a likely one. The scientific idea is that the molecules act upon each other with out the intervention of slave labour; that they attract each other and repel each other at certain definite points, or poles, and in certain definite directions; and that the pyramidal form is the result of this play of attraction and repulsion. While, then, the blocks of Egypt were laid down by a power external to themselves, these molecular blocks of salt are self-posited, being fixed in their places by the forces with which they act upon each other. I take common salt as an illustration because it is so familiar to us all; but any other crystalline substance would answer my purpose equally well. Everywhere, in fact, throughout inorganic nature, we have this formative power, as Fichte would call it-this structural energy ready to come into play, and build the ultimate particles of matter into definite shapes. The ice of our winters and of our polar regions is its handiwork, and so equally are the quartz, felspar, and mica of our rocks. Our chalk-beds are for the most part composed of minute shells, which are also the product of structural energy; but behind the shell, as a whole, lies a more remote and subtle formative act. These shells are built up of little crystals of calc-spar, and to form these crystals the structural force had to deal with the intangible molecules of carbonate of lime. This tendency on the part of matter to organize itself, to grow into shape, to assume definite forms in obedience to the definite action of force, is, as I have said, allpervading. It is in the ground on which you tread, in the water you drink, in the air you breathe. Incipient life, as it were, manifests itself throughout the whole of what we call inorganic nature. The forms of the minerals resulting from this play of polar forces are various, and exhibit different degrees of complexity. Men of science avail themselves of all possible means of exploring their molecular architecture. For this purpose they employ in turn as agents of exploration, light, heat, magnetism, electricity, and sound. Polarized light is especially useful and powerful here. A beam of such light, when sent in among the molecules of a crystal, is acted on by them, and from this action we infer with more or less of clearness the manner in which the molecules are arranged. That differences, for example, exist between the inner structure of rock-salt and crystallized sugar or sugar-candy, is thus strikingly revealed. These differences may be made to display themselves in chromatic phenomena of great splendour, the play of molecular force being so regulated as to remove some of the |