vated and commanding spot, where our prospect of time, and space shall be equally unobstructed. In this situation, where all must be silence, and where no perplexing cares must be suffered to intrude, we will endeavour to present them with a mirror, in which they may behold, on a miniature scale, a few of the principal events of the year that has just elapsed. It is not, however, our intention, nor would it comport with the limits of the present article, to attempt to trace these several events to their causes. Equally foreign is it from our view to draw from them, in a spirit of censorship and uncharitable denunciation, all those moral and theological conclusions, which, in the opinion of some, they might seem to warrant. Our chief business shall be to represent facts, leaving to our readers to make such application and use of them, as each one's feelings may incline him, and his judgment direct.

Recollecting, then, the words of the poet, " omnià ab Jove incipiuntur," all things begin from above, we will first direct our attention to the heavens. We are here presented with a "burning sphere," a " fierce, fiery form," threatening in its aspect, and stupendous in its dimensions, which had lately made an eruption into the solar system. One of those rare and erratic bodies denominated comets, alike unusual for its magnitude and brilliancy, with its "illimitable torch," lighting up the heavens like another moon, appears in the north, and with a rapidity of motion, altogether inconceivable to us, sweeps across the hemisphere, till it disappears in the south. Although happily emerged from that dismal night of ignorance and superstition, during which the approach of comets excited universal terror and dismay, these meteor orbs" are still viewed by us with a lively interest and awakened feelings-we are still susceptible of very serious and solemn impressions from their appearance. When attentively examined, and considered in all the views and relations they present to the mind, their aspect is no less awful than sublime. Though it would be difficult to persuade us that they do literally, "from their fiery hair, shake pestilence and war," yet we cannot help regarding it as an extreme, almost equally extravagant, and certainly no less erroneous, to contend, that they are altogether inefficient in their passage through the solar system. That they produce some effect on the ecomony of this earth, as

well, perhaps, as on that of her sister planets, is a point respecting which our present views of the subject absolutely forbid us to cherish a doubt. On this topic, however, it is our intention to dilate in a future article.

Were we, at this time, to dwell any longer on the subject of comets, it would be to descant on the wonderful display they make of the infinitude of space, the grandeur of the universe, and the immensity as well as the power, wisdom, and goodness of Him who rules all, controls all, preserves all, and is every where present. In relation to these points, the comet seems to impart to us a more luminous and impressive lesson, than all the other bodies that roll through the heavens. More rapid in its motion than the lightning of the skies, travelling several millions of miles every hour, it journeys at this rate for many centuries, before it completes a single round of its customary orbit. How many other suns it passes, through how many other systems it sweeps, and what proportion of entire space it traverses during this stupendous career, it does not belong to us even to conjecture. Imagination itself, unable to pursue it through a field so unbounded, shrinks from the attempt in absolute despair. When we reflect on the inconceivable impetus with which the comet moves; the number of other celestial bodies it must necessarily pass in its course; the thousand fragments into which it would shiver both itself and them, were it to impinge against them; the disorder and confusion likely to ensue in the grand system of nature, from such an event, and the difficulty of regulating and controling millions of such bodies, all flying in swift and simultaneous motion--when we reflect on these points, we are lost in amazement, at the power, the wisdom, the vigilance, and the benignity of that Being, who sits at the helm of creation, and directs the movements of the mighty machine. Such is the lofty, and pious style of reflection, which the appearance of comets is calculated to inspire; and, should it not be thought to savour of self-commendation, we might safely, because truly, add, such is the style which oftentimes took possession of our own mind, on viewing the comet of 1811. It is, in a peculiar manner, when looking on these bodies, that we are inclined with the poet, emphatically to exclaim,

"An undevout astronomer is mad."

On the 17th day of September last, the sun suffered an annular, amounting almost to a total eclipse. The skies were unusually serene, as if fitted up for the grand celestial exhibition. The spectacle bespoke, in the loftiest language, the boundless power and magnificence of its author. It displayed a most impressive combination of the terrible and the sublime. Solemnity and awe were its necessary effects on the minds of mortals. Even the inferior animals seemed fixed, for a while, in deep apprehension and mute amazement. While the astronomer applied this instructive phenomenon to the cultivation and improvement of his favourite science, the pious and reflecting mind could not fail to derive from it a freshened recollection, and to perceive in it a faint image, of that great day, when the moon and the stars shall withhold their light, and the sun himself be turned to darkness.

From this brief survey of the heavens, we must now direct our view to the atmosphere and the earth. Here, again, we are presented with a series of events, during the year 1811, not, indeed, new with regard to their nature, but certainly new, in relation to the scale of magnitude on which they occurred. In the United States, the intensity of our summer heats was, for a short time, unparalleled within the memory of the oldest inhabitants. Perhaps it would not be extravagant to assert, that it was without a precedent in the annals of our country. Certainly thermometrical registers do not, at any former period, place it so high.

In one place the earth was unusually parched with drought, in another, drenched with torrents of rain. In Europe, whole plains and forests consumed by fire, and thousands of peasants either reduced to beggary or destroyed by the conflagration:

-ignis

"Robora comprendit, frondesq: clapsus in altas

Ingentem cœlo sonitum dedit: inde secutus
"Per ramos victor, perque alta cacumina regnat,
"Et totum involvit flammis nemus, et ruit atram
"Ad cœlum picea crassus caligine nubem.”

In the United States, various places overwhelmed by unheard of inundations, sweeping along with them, in promiscuous ruin, the works of nature and the monuments of art, the products of the " unvanquished forest," and the labours of the cultivated farm.

-ruit arduus æther,

Et pluvia ingenti sata læta, boumque labores
Diluit: implentur fossæ, et cava flumina crescunt
Cum sonitu, fervitque fretis spirantibus æquor.
Proluit insano contorquens vortice sylvas

Fluviorum rex Eridanus, camposque per omnes
Cum stabulis armenta tulit."

As far as records entitled to credit are extant on the subject, the inundations of the year 1811 appear to have been more formidable and destructive in the United States, than those of any former period since the settlement of the country.

Of these overwhelming floods the ultimate effects were by no means made manifest on their first appearance. Their aspect was terrible, and their devastations great, on the tracts of country over which they immediately swept. Beyond these limits they were not, in the first instance, felt, except through the medium of public sympathy. Disasters, however, of a more melancholy and extensive nature they still kept in reserve. Bodies of stagnant water which they every where left behind them, being impregnated with vegetable and animal matter, and acted on by the rays of an ardent sun, were soon converted into vast and offensive repositories of putrefaction. From these numerous and prolific sources issued a noisome odour, accompanied by a pestilential vapour, which soon infected the atmosphere to a great distance around them. A state of things like this could not long remain ineffective or innocent. Diseases of a malignant character and dangerous tendency overspread the adjacent country, in some instances, to a very alarming extent. Whole families and settlements were prostrated at once, the well being insufficient to minister to the wants and distresses of the sick. Under such circumstances, the mortality could not fail to be great, although not always in proportion to the extent of suffering, or the amount of disease. In no instance does Death appear to have been sparing, in many he was unusually prodigal of his visits; in no instance had the Grave a right to complain that he was defrauded of his due. This is no exaggerated picture of real, much less a mere fancy piece of fictitious calamity. It would be easy to demonstrate by authentic documents, that if it

be in any respect false to nature, it is below the truth. Our large commercial cities have, indeed, been happily exempt from the devastations of those wide-wasting epidemics, which, on former occasions, poured their thousands into the tomb. Notwithstanding this, it is, we think, susceptible of distinct and incontrovertible proof, that, within the limits of the United States, the year 1811 was as fruitful of disease, as any other since the middle of the eighteenth century. The general amount, therefore, of our national suffering from this source, constitutes an event which is strongly entitled to our remembrance and serious reflection as a people.

Having glanced at our calamities inflicted by the waters, we must now turn to those that have so fiercely assailed us on the wings of the wind. When we take a view of the sea-coast, we behold the Atlantic, from the banks of Newfoundland to the Gulf of Mexico, frequently lashed into wide-yawning vallies and mountains of foam, by the fury of the tempest. Our liveliest sympathies are awakened, and our feelings even roused to horror, at the sight of numerous vessels within the very jaws of destruction, now tossed to the heavens, now sinking as low in the fathomless abyss.

"Hi summo in fluctu pendent, his unda dehiscens
"Terram inter fluctus aperit."

Here they are dashed against the rocks and shivered into fragments,

"Tres Notus obreptas in saxa latentia torquet,"

there they suddenly descend into a wide-gaping chasm, and the surrounding waters enclose them forever;

while such as are enabled to ride out the storm, are left in the condition of floating wrecks.

"Rudes cedunt, et mali et franguntur antennæ

-laxis laterum compagibus omnes

"Accipiunt inimicum imbrem, rimisque fatiscunt."