King of Israel. He is called Yau a' the son of Kh'u · um• r'i· i; that is the son of -or, according to the English version, Jehu the son of Omri. The name of his supposed father is precisely that which appears in the cuneatic name of Samaria, Bit-Khumri, as identified by Colonel Rawlinson. It is true that Jehu was neither the son nor the grandson of Omri; nor is it probable that he was connected with his family at all; but the King of Assyria could not know this. He found him on the throne where Omri had sat; and this was a sufficient reason for his calling him his son. As a corroboration of this identification, I observe that Hazael, the King of Syria, the known contemporary of Jehu, is repeatedly mentioned on the obelisk and in the bull inscriptions of the same King. He waged war with him in his eighteenth and twenty-first years. Colonel Rawlinson calls this King Khazakan; but the four characters which compose the name are, according to my syllabary, Khá • já (or dzá ) a'h • Il, the last being here the ideograph for "God." This name would be in Hebrew —which is nearly the biblical name of the King. From this identification, it follows, that the date of the obelisk is, according to the chronology in the margin of our Bibles, about 875 B.C., leaving an interval of less than one hundred and fifty years between it and the accession of Sargon, the Khorsabad King. I am, &c., EDW. HINCKS. A LAZARETTO FOR PERVERTS. A LETTER from Rome announces that a portion of the old palace of the Spinola family, situate on the Piazza di Santo-Giacomo-Scossa Cavalli, at the foot of the Vatican, is about to be devoted as a special establishment to prepare for the priesthood such Protestant Ministers as after their conversion to Catholicism may feel themselves called on to enter into holy orders. Cardinal Castaldi, who in 1685 became the proprietor of this palace, bequeathed it at his death as a temporary asylum for such persons as had sacrificed their position by embracing the Catholic religion; whence it derived its present name of the Palace of the Convertiti (converts). The Pope has taken on himself from his private purse to defray the expense of these pupils for the priesthood.-The Times. VARIETIES. LOOKING abroad on the religious state of Europe, the only recent events that we observe have been of mournful interest. Not only in countries where the Jesuits might be expected to luxuriate, but also in Prussia, their work of mischief seems to be going forward. Even in Protestant Berlin, and under the sovereignty of a reputedly Christian King, the circulation of the holy Scriptures is interfered with, if not forbidden. A remarkable statistic is published in "Evangelical Christendom," by which we learn that a Protestant population of ten millions in Prussia received, in the year 1849, the sum of 349,824 thalers, while a Romanist population of six millions has received 864,019 thalers, which is at the rate of more than one to four for equal numbers. A last vestige of "Gallic liberty" was the use of an independent Breviary, or book of daily prayer, just as Toledo and Milan have had their ancient Liturgies. But, among changes introduced by the recent Imperial revolution, is the suppression of the Gallican Breviary, and authoritative substitution of the Roman, throughout France. A remarkable literary fraud has been detected in London, by which the publishers, Mr. Murray and Mr. Moxon, are the sufferers. A number of letters, said to have been autographs of Lord Byron and of Shelly, were purchased, and the latter actually published, when it was discovered that they were forged. It appears that a system of counterfeiting the writings of eminent men has been going on for some time past, and that the Shelly and Byron forgeries are supposed to be but a part of an extensive manufacture of the kind. The Court of Prussia has seen good to patronise the erection of a statue to the memory of Copernicus. Thorn was the birthplace of the astronomer; and the statue, from the chisel of Tieck, has been conveyed to that town, attended and welcomed with every expression of enthusiasm. The incident is pleasing in itself, but Christians would rejoice to see honours rendered to Him whose church is now depressed and persecuted in that kingdom. The "Athenæum contains the following interesting notice:-"The latest development of the electric telegraph system is at once useful and beautiful. It is a plan for distributing and correcting mean Greenwich time in London, and over the country, every day, at noon. Every holiday-maker knows the ball which surmounts the Royal Observatory, and has watched with interest its descent as the clock gave the first stroke of noon, thereby telling the sea-going men in the river the exact state of the chronometers which were to become their guides over the pathless waters. Such a ball is to be raised on a pole on the telegraphic office near Charing Cross, and at noon each day is to drop, by electric action, simultaneously with that at Greenwich, both balls being, in fact, liberated by the same hand,- and, falling on a cushion at the base of the pole, is to communicate standard time along all the telegraphic wires of the country. At the same instant the bells will ring out noon at the most distant places, - Hull, Holyhead, Aberdeen, Harwich, and Devonport. The great metropolitan clocks, such as the Horse Guards, the Exchange, the New Palace, are to be regulated on the same principle. It is said that all the railway companies have agreed to avail themselves of these means of obtaining an exact uniformity of time." Yet noon will ever keep to the meridian in its own place. The historical works of Lamartine are forbidden to be published by the present authority in France. THE SOUL. MYSTERIOUS thing! What art thou? whence thy towering wing? To blend with nature's harmony? Seraph thou seem'st, till earthward turning, That listed erst thy soaring hymn. Mysterious thing! What woe, what blight, shall wisdom bring! Ashbourne. Mysterious thing! Soul, lift on high thy grovelling wing! Earth's syren voices fail to win Up! there are heights of glorious day; ADELINE. Ezekiel xx 37. ANIMATED AND VEGETABLE NATURE. MAY. PROSAIC verse and poetical prose appear so often, that the measured line does not guarantee the reader that he shall find poetry, any more than does the solid page disclaim an indwelling of the most refined spirit of poesy. But the great Creator and Governor of the world mingles in every work of every season the imaginative and the real, the solid bases and the decorated superstructure of this vast fabric. The month of May exhibits youth, gaiety, delight, fair promise, a hand half opened to pour forth early summer crops, and a cornucopia adorned with beauties and redolent with fragrance, waiting for the fruits. "From the moist meadow to the wither'd hill, And by the end of the month forest and field are fully robed, as if the vestuary of Nature were emptied to deck the earth, as when the mantles of the multitude, and the palm-branches from the grove, with all variety of broidery and colour, and verdure intermingled, had been spread beneath the feet of the Blessed One who approached Jerusalem in triumph. Who, now, can stay to pen the catalogue of bird, and flower, and quadruped, and insect, that swarm through the visible creation? First, the hawthorn-blossom, taking the very name of May, serves to symbolise the rest, when brought home early on the May-day morning by fresh youths, themselves the flowerets of our homes. The nests are full of young. The busy insects levy contributions on the orchards, and the busier mother-birds, minishing their forces, carry them away by myriads to satisfy their broods. The beehives send out infant colonies, who travel over country where there is now no barrenness, to build new cells, and gather honey out of every hedge. The glowworm, as June approaches, ventures to uncover his phosphoric lamp at even; the angler sits beside the clear stream, where the May-fly shows him that the trout are there in multitude; and husbandmen, waiting between the latter seedtime and the earlier crop, or the more distant harvest, chiefly employ their hands to work against the exuberance of vegetation, and destroy the wild weeds that spring up in every soil, reminding him that even if this were paradise, he must not only till the ground, but keep it. And here the poetry of Nature passes into prose. few degrees of latitude southward, and we should have a steadier climate, and might realise more than even Arcadian poets could invent, and find a Tempe that verse might vainly sing, and pencil too feebly shadow. Or, had old Time lagged upon his course, and A the New Style grown older, so that the first days of May might not bear any resemblance to unsteadfast April, whence they would now seem to have been borrowed; or, if the cold winds from Russia and the Arctic seas could be turned back, and poured rather upon Labrador or Kamtschatka than upon our island, we might be free from the dread of unseasonable frosts, that have been known to wither these beauties like a wintry simoom. But there is no barrier against the winds. There is no retarding the cycles of time. There is no possibility of bringing up the climate of the Azores to beautify the banks of Tyne and Clyde. Now comes the prose of the market to damp the poetic furor of the field; and ever and anon a last gush of unseasonable frost just bids men recollect, that as in sunnier countries of this globe there is no more a paradise, so neither here. ASTRONOMICAL FACTS OF MAY, 1852. RISING AND SETTING OF THE SUN. Truro. London. Manchester. Edinburgh. T'ain. Day Rises. Sets. Rises. Sets. Rises. Sets. Rises. Sets. Rises. Sets. h. m. h. m. h. m. h. m. h. m. h. m. h. m. h. mh. m. h. m. First Quarter, 26th day, 3h. 38m. aftern. MERCURY, in the constellation Aries, rises throughout the month from 7m. to 45m. before the Sun. On the 1st, at 9h. 48m., P.M., in conjunction with Saturn, at 2° 26' S.; on the 12th, at 9h. 53m., A.M., stationary, and at 1h. 52m., P.M., in aphelion, and on the 26th, at 7h. 9m., A.M., in conjunction with Saturn, at 1° 27' North. VENUS, in the constellations, Taurus, Gemini, and Cancer, sets from 4h. 23m. to 3h. 22m. after the Sun, throughout the month; on the 12th, at 4h. 36m., A.M., at greatest elongation, 45° 23 E. MARS, in the constellations Cancer and Leo, on the 15th, passes the meridian at 5h. 42m., P.M. JUPITER, in the constellation Libra, on the 8th, at 7h. 46m., P.M., in opposition to the Sun; on the 15th, passes the meridian at 11h. 26m., P.M. SATURN, in the constellation Aries, on the 15th, passes the meridian at 10h. 50m., A.M. URANUS, in the constellation Aries, on the 15th, passes the meridian at 10h. 41m., A.M. H. T. & J. Roche, Printers, 25, Hoxton-square, London. |