axis of Jupiter is so nearly perpendicular to his orbit, that he has no sensible change of seasons, which is a great advantage, and wisely ordered by the Author of nature; for if the axis of this planet were inclined any considerable number of degrees, just so many degrees round each pole would in their turn be almost six of our years together in darkness. And as each degree of a great circle on Jupiter contains seven hundred and six of our miles, at a mean rate, it is easy to judge what vast tracts of land would be rendered uninhabitable by any considerable inclination of his axis. Four very little Moons are observed near Jupiter, which constantly accompany him through his mighty round. They are invisible to the naked eye; but, seen through a telescope of considerable power, they make a most interesting and beautiful appearance. The motion of Jupiter appears sometimes direct, and sometimes retrograde; whilst at other times he appears stationary. His motion is retrograde during one hundred and nineteen days, and he remains stationary four days. PHILIP GARRETT. YOUNG LADIES' GARLAND. INNOCENCE. Written for the Monthly Repository and Library of Entertaining Knowledge. There is a charm in innocence before which strength becomes weakness and power becomes impotent. Beauty may dazzle,—but beauty without innocence never awes the bold intruder who would despoil the loveliest flower in the garden of God. The attainment of this virtue in its full perfection requires not only an irreproachable course of conduct, but also a strict guardianship over the thoughts. The thought of licentious and forbidden pleasure has power to impart a stain to female purity which, if unseen by the eye of man, throws its shadow on the heart and creates fear, distrust, and a sense of guilt in a bosom whiter than the mountain snow. The greatest blessing lent to poor humanity to remind it of Eden and Heaven, should retain its freshness and its perfection of moral beauty without those secret defections of thought which are like enemies admitted one by one at midnight into the strong hold of virtue. Young ladies should never presume on hiding a serious defect in their principles of moral virtue. If it be known to themselves, the glance of their own eyes may betray the secret-if they feel the hidden guilt, the indescribable charm of innocence may have fled from the blooming countenance for ever, or may only linger like a frightened dove on a flowering shrub whose branches a serpent is shaking in his ascending folds. All of the joys of earthly pleasure, that may truly bear the name of pleasure, time will scatter in the path of the virtuous from his silken wings;-all of the sor rows of departure from virtue, the grave and the sunless eternity beyond only can reveal. A ruined female is like a once beautiful star turned aside from the glorious path in which she rolled in music round the sunnow adrift and on fire, the wonder and terror of the silver-eyed constellations-the seducer only of those wayward lights that might have risen at first in the heavenward skies, but whose onward courses have been towards the blackness of darkness. A virtuous female, preserving her purity of thought, and increasing the charities and generous affections of her heart through every vicissitude and change of life, may be compared to a star that rises indeed dimly, half seen in the dusky twilight and baptized in the dewdrops of the eveningbut soon putting on the spotless apparel of beauty, diffusing strange splendor through the admiring heavens, smiling on earth, yet attracted towards the kindred star of Bethlehem, and lost long before the dawn in the intense glories of a better sphere. If woman be the ministering angel of humanity, what must she be when the heavens receive her into their unsullied realms! What must she be whom the bright immortals stoop to love while she walks through earthly bowers! BOTANY, A BRANCH OF FEMALE EDUCATION. (Continued from Vol. I., page 360.) And such an endless variety, too, of forms, and hues, and shapes, almost as infinite as the everlasting changes of the kaleidoscope, and yet all harmonizing and blend. ing in one splendid picture of beauty. "Some," says the pious Hervey, "are intersected with elegant stripes, or studded with radiant spots-some affect to be genteelly powdered, or neatly fringed; while others are plain in their aspect, unaffected in their dress, and content to please with a naked simplicity. Some assume the monarch's purple, but black, doleful black, has no admittance into the wardrobe of Spring." But, "Who can paint Like Nature? Can Imagination boast Thomson What a fine picture is this from Casimir's address to the sleeping rose: "Siderum sacros imitata vultus His But the mere external beauties, however rich and splendid, of the vegetable kingdom, are not all that please or charm the amateur of this science. views of the Deity are enlarged; he sees His matchless wisdom in the formation, and His goodness in the production of every flower that blooms; and his heart expands with loftier and more ardent feelings of grátitude and adoration to Him, "Whose breath perfumes them, and whose pencil paints." The female who loves the study of Botany has no great relish for the wild and feverish dissipations of society; she prefers the quiet and tranquil scenes of nature, and luxuriates amidst the varied and beautiful productions of her hand.-She may be seen gliding through the walks of a garden, like the spirit of flowers, or bending over them, like a sylph hovering over a bed of roses. To her "Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, Milton. On the study of this science some judicious observations and some curious facts will be found below, from a work on "Domestic Education," with which we conclude our brief remarks: "In Botany, a science singularly adapted for female study, how many subjects for surprise and admiration are continually appearing. One cannot open a volume of travels, but some shrub or plant is made known to us, peculiarly adapted to the clime. Bounding our views to one object, let us see what nature has done to meet the wants of man and animals in hot countries, where the heat, by evaporating moisture, causes thirst. "In the Brazils a cane is found, which, on being cut below a joint, dispenses a cool pleasant liquid, which instantly quenches the most burning thirst; and Prince Maximilian, when travelling in America, in 1816, quenched his thirst by drinking the water found within the leaves of the bromelia. "Mr. Elphinstone says the water melon, one of the most juicy of fruits, is found in profusion aniid the arid deserts of western Asia; and adds, "that it is really a subject of wonder to see a melon, three or four feet in circumference growing from a stock as slender as that of a common melon, in the dry sand of the desert." "Mr. Barrow thus describes that curious vegetable, the pitcher plant:-To the foot stalk of each leaf is attached a bag, girt round with a lid. Contrary to the usual effect this lid opens in wet dewy hours, and, when the pitcher is full, the lid closes; when this store of moisture is absorbed by the plant, the lid opens again.' Of course the thirsty traveller can take advantage of this beautiful provision of nature. "The stapelia is a singular plant found in Africa, and from its containing water amid the severest drought. has been called the "Camel of the Desert." YOUNG GENTLEMEN'S DEPARTMENT. THE AMERICAN CHARACTER. Written for the Monthly Repository and Library of Entertaining Knowledge, It is a matter of high moment to a young American gentleman to reflect, as he shapes his character for life, on the model by which he would be moulded to future distinction. The republican form of our government, the omnipotence of public opinion in this country of free, unshackled mind, and the high destinies allotted to the elder republic of the western continent impose peculiar rules of formation on the rising pillars of American empire. The scholar, the jurist, the statesman, the artist, the mechanic or the cultivator of the eastern continent may not be the models for those of the new world -a world happily disenthralled and aloof from the despotism of hoary error, the accumulations of many centuries of ignorance and encroachment on social rights. The young American must make religion the foundation of his character-for here, as to a refuge, the persecuted servants of God came when the green curtain of the wilderness covered the continent, and their prayers hallowed all the soil and dedicated their unborn posterity to a holier cause than that of earth. The young American should be generous-for here, as to an asylum from cruelty and the whirlpool of revolution, thousands have come, and millions must come as the old continents break up under the hammer of convulsion and melt down under the purifying fires of judg ment to a fairer and holier type. He must be patient and persevering for those who have ever breathed the tainted atmosphere of monarchy and hereditary power cannot in a moment be made to understand the nature and the full extent of our national freedom; the lessons of Washington to a young nation are often to be repeated. He must be brave-for too much has been entrusted to him to be in the keeping of a coward. To him has been committed the world's last experiment for liberty-to him belongs the helm of the republican vessel, if his skill and patriotic virtues prove him worthy to guide the ship of state through seas of passion and under the adverse storms of external war. He must be |