have for such a pilgrimage, and for such a retreat, is most intense. We can then scarcely be denied the enjoyment, mournful though it may be, yet not the less valued, of retreating from the toils and perplexities of life, to linger a little, in that place where is all the quietness, and where are all the unchanging endearments of home. And for one we know of no time when this feeling of which we have been speaking-this desire to sit us down again beneath the paternal roof comes over the spirit with more potency than at the season of Autumn.

In certain individual cases there may be a very obvious reason for the existence of this feeling, at this season. Its return may awaken such remembrances, as will bid every thought and every tender emotion of the mind to dwell for the time, nowhere but at home-where perchance at this time of the year some trace in one's history was so deeply, perhaps painfully drawn, as to remain there unerased till the hour of death-where the sere leaf of autumn fell upon the new made grave-of friendship-of perished hope.-If events of this kind were witnessed at this season, it is not strange that the return thereof should awaken the feeling which we have mentioned, in all its intensity. But as a general thing is not the desire to visit and enjoy the scenes of home, stronger, at this season than at any other. And why is it so? on this question there might be some interesting and perhaps not unprofitable speculation-but we have not now the time for it-one thing is true, it is now a season of pensiveness, a time when the buoyancy of the most gay cannot but be in some measure checked by the sombre outspread of autumnal scenery-by the withering of every thing around us, by the solemn preparation which all nature seems now to be making to lay herself down beneath the death-shroud of coming winter. Now while this is the case, while there is thrown over the face of all things around us the aspect of sickliness and decay, we know that the same is the case a few hundred miles from us. The field, the wildwood, the garden and the grove, where we mused or where we sported when life was young, and which are endeared to us by all the fond recollections of early years, are now mantled over with the yellow of autumn. Now may not this be a reason why in the autumnal

season home is so much thought of and longed for. Its cenery we love, and when we know that the hand of decay is upon it, that the bloom and the beauty of our own native bowers are fading away, that the leaves thereof are falling down and the flowers thereof are withering, then our sympathies are awakened, a pensiveness immingles itself with the thought of all that is faded and fallen on the landscape at home, upon which our young eyes once beamed with gladness; and wə desire to go there, just as we would to go and visit a long-loved friend whom we might hear to be under tho unchecked influence of disease, declining rapidly to the grave. To go and visit that friend would allay a feverish anxiousness of mind, and gratify a strong feeling of sympathy-so also it is in visiting the home we love during the sombre season of autumn. We long to go and muse with a sadness that gratifies, and with a sympathy that relieves the spirit, over that process of decay which we know is going forward upon all we love at HOME--upon all, save the undecaying AFFECTION which is there, and which no autumn chills, no winter storms can wither or waste.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

SIR WILLIAM HERSCHEL.

This eminent astronomer was born at Hanover on the 14th of April, 1738, and was the second of four sons. At the age of 14 he was placed in the band of the Hanoverian regiment of guards. About the year 1758, he proceeded with a detachment of his regiment to England. While here, it was young Herschel's good luck to gain the notice of the Earl of Darlington, who engaged him to superintend and instruct a military band then forming for the militia of the county of Durham, and towards the close of the year 1765, he was appointed to the situation of organist at Halifax.

In the year 1766, the late Mr. Linley engaged him and his elder brother for the pumproom band at Bath. He was a distinguished performer on the oboe and his brother on the violincello. He was not long in the city

before he was appointed organist to the Octagon Chapel : on attaining this distinguished situation he resigned that of Halifax; but this accession of business only increas ed his propensity to study, and frequently after a fatiguing day of fourteen or sixteen hours, occupied in his professional avocations, he would seek relaxation, if such it might be called, in extending his knowledge of the mathematics.

Having in the course of his extensive reading, made some discoveries which awakened his curiosity, he applied himself to the study of astronomy. Finding himself becoming hourly more attached to that pleasing study, he lessened his professional engagements, as also the number of his pupils. Towards the latter end of the year 1779. he commenced a regular review of the heavens, star by star; and in the course of eighteen months' observations, he fortunately remarked that a star which had been recorded by Bode as a fixed star, was progressively changing its position, and, after much attention to it he was enabled to ascertain that it was an undiscovered planet. He communicated the particulars to the Royal Society, who elected him a fellow and decreed him their annual gold medal. This great and important discovery he made on the 13th of March, 1781, and bestowed on the planet the name of Georgium Sidus, in compliment to our late King, George the Third.

Herschel, from the splendid result of his labors, not only established his fame in the scientific world, but was enabled, by the donation of a handsome salary from his late Majesty, to relinquish his professional labors, and devote the remainder of his life wholly to astronomy.

In consequence of this munificent act of the king, which must ever be mentioned to his honor as a patron of science, he quitted Bath, and fixed his residence first at Datchet, and afterwards at Slough, near Windsor

In 1783, he announced the discovery of a volcanic mountain in the moon; and four years afterwards communicated an account of two other volcanoes in that orb, which appeared to be in a state of eruption.

In 1802, Dr. Herschel laid before the Royal Society a catalogue of five thousand new nebulae, and nebulous stars, planetary nebulae, clusters of stars, which he had

discovered. By these and other scientific labors he established his title to rank amongst the most eminent astronomers of the age, and to be placed in the roll of those whom this country produced, only second to the immortal Newton.

Dr. Herschel married Mary the widow of John Pitt. Esq.; by whom he had one son, who was some time since a member of the university of Cambridge.

Sir William did not diminish his astronomical ob servations until within a few years of his death, which took place on the 22d of August, 1822, at the age of S2. He expired in the fulness of years, honored with the applause of the world, and, what was far dearer to him. the veneration of his family, and the esteem and love of all who knew him. On the 7th September, his remains were interred in the church of Upton Berks, in which parish he had for many years resided.

CABINET OF NATURE.

MOUNT HECLA, IN ICELAND.
With an Engraving.

Still pressing on beneath Tornea's lake,
And Hecla flaming through a waste of snow,
And farthest Greenland to the Pole itself,
Where falling gradual, life at length goes out,
The Muse expands her solitary flight;
And hov'ring o'er the wide stupendous scene,
Beholds new scenes beneath another sky.
Throned in his palace of cerulean ice,
Here winter holds his unrejoicing court,
And through his airy hall the loud misrule
Of driving tempests is forever heard ;
Here the grim tyrant meditates his wrath;
Here arms his winds with all subduing frost,

Moulds his fierce hail, and treasures up his snows.

ON proceeding along the southern coast of Iceland, and at an inconsiderable distance from Skaalholt, this mountain, with its three summits, presents itself to the view. Its height is five thousand feet, or nearly a mile above the level of the sea. It is not a promontory, but lies about four miles inland. It is neither so elevated nor so picturesque as several of the surrounding Ice

landic mountains; but has been more noticed than many other volcanoes of an equal extent, partly through the frequency of its eruptions, and partly from its situa tion, which exposes it to the view of many ships sailing to Greenland and North America. The surrounding terri.ory has been so devastated by these eruptions, that it has been deserted.

Vast regions dreary, bleak, and bare'
There on an icy mountain's height,
Seen only by the Moon's pale light,
Stern Winter rears his giant form,
His robe a mist, his life a storm:
His frown the shiv'ring nations fly,

And, hid for half the year, in smoky caverns lie.

The natives asserted that it was impossible to ascend the mountain, on account of the great number of dangerous bogs, which according to them, are constantly emit ting sulphureous flames, and exhaling smoke; while the more elevated summit in the centre is covered with boiling springs and large craters, which continually prope! fire and smoke. To the south and west the environs present the most aflicting results of frequent eruptions, the finest part of the territory being covered with torrents of melted stone, sand, ashes, and other volcanic matter, notwithstanding which, between the sinuosities of the lava in different parts, some portion of meadows, walls, and broken hedges may be observed. The devastation is still greater on the north and east sides, which present dreadful traces of the ruin of the country and its habitations. Neither plants nor grass are to be met with to the extent of two leagues round the mountain, in consequence of the soil being covered with stones and lava; and in some parts, where the subterraneous fire has broken out a second time, or where the matter which was not entirely consumed has again become ignited, the fire has contributed to form small red and black hillocks and eminences, from scoriæ, pumice-stones, and ashes. The nearer the mountain the larger are these hillocks, and there are some of them, the summits of which form a circular hollow, whence the subterraneous fire ejects the matter. On approaching Hecla the ground becomes almost impassable, particularly near the