Benevolent and affectionate, ever generously anxious to do justice to the merits of all around; of universal talent, playful wit, and kindly humour, endeared by tenderness, a truly childlike simplicity and unaffected piety; no wonder that I listened with glowing interest to the striking details of his diversified and eventful life, from the time of his escape from the horrors of the French Revolution in 1793, to the completion of his great work, the Thames Tunnel. No wonder that I "drank in with greedy ear" the beautiful romance of his early attachment to the estimable object to whose energetic and devoted constancy he was ever wont to refer his establishment in England, and all he had there achieved. With her, a month before his death, he had completed a happy union of fifty years. With his hand clasped in that of his devoted lady, and with his beloved children around him, he sunk to rest with the sweet calm that marks an infant's sleep.

Like most men of eminence, he had frequent applications for his autograph, and it is a beautiful fact that in the latter years of his life he seldom gave it without the accompaniment of the following favourite passage from the life of sir Christopher Wren, "If I glory in aught, it is in the singular mercy of my God, who has enabled me to begin and finish my great work." How amiable is humility! How lovely is piety! Without them the most inestimable parts are comparatively valueless :

Oh would that gifted men of lofty powers
Were meekly moved, through all their earthly

hours,

To seek less ardently for human praise,
And glorify their God in all their ways!

On the morning of sir Marc's funeral, owing to some delay in the necessary information communicated to me, I arrived not at Kensal Green till the solemn service was over. The mourners had left the cemetery, though the hearse and horses were still there,

"In sable sadness, and with shadowy plumes."

Í hastened to the grave; it was partly filled in; but the men very willingly, at my request, threw back the soil till they came again to the coffin plate, that I might see and read it:

There came one hurrying along the gravel walk while I was watching the removal of the soil. "Ah," said he, looking into the grave, "he was a good man! He was good to his workmen !" "I believe he was good to everybody," said I. "Yes, sir,' said he, "but I speak feelingly with regard to myself, for many is the penny, and many is the pound that I have had of his money." "Are you from the Thames Tunnel? said I. "I am, sir," was his reply," and should have been in time for the funeral if I had not been hindered. No time have I lost in hastening here, and glad am I that I have seen his coffinplate.' Thus it is that kindly qualities bind us to those who possess them, not only through life, but when they lie in the grave.

There was an elderly female in black,

of some threescore years, perhaps, lingering at the grave-a poor woman, but well-spoken, and evidently better brought up than her appearance indicated. She seemed much interested, and spoke of all who had attended the funeral, particularly the little grandson. Very likely she had been a domestic in the family in former years.

The brink of the grave is a suitable place for reflection, and happy is he who, while pondering on the sentence of death passed on man, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," is able to say in the fulness of belief and the exultation of faith, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God," Job xix. 25, 26.

As I walked away from the cemetery, the garden of death, I thought awhile of the high endowments of the deceased, and of the renown he had acquired in the different departments of science; but what were these compared to the wellgrounded hope of an eternal life? I had in my pocket an epitaph, written by an affectionate and talented friend of sir Marc, of which the following lines are a copy:

"Hark! 'tis a nation's voice to speak his fame; From Portsmouth, Chatham, Rotherhithe it

came;

While many an humbler note will rise to tell
Of the dear friend, the good, the kind Brunel!
The child-like sage!' who waved his honours
meet,

And, as an infant, sat at Jesus' feet."

But how utterly insufficient and inappro

priate for the tomb would have been this friendly and affectionate record of success and earthly honours, save for the concluding hope that all was laid at His feet, who will "beautify the meek with salvation," and make them shine as the stars in heaven.

But now having dwelt for a time on the great works of man, let me turn to the greater works of his Almighty Maker. The works which I have mentioned are great only when compared with the lesser works of man; but how inconceivably small are they in comparison, when contrasted with the mightier works of Him who sitteth upon the throne of heaven! 66 'Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity," Isa. xl. 15, 17. When we read in holy writ, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," Gen. i. 1; "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God," 2 Tim. iii. 16; and "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," 1 Tim. i. 15; or, in other words, when we ponder on the three great works of the King of kings and Lord of lords-the work of creation, the work of revelation, and the work of redemption, well may we humble ourselves in dust and ashes before him:

Well may the holiest angel feel
An awful fear around him steal;
And highest seraph, when he sings,
Conceal his face with folded wings.

"Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable." "Great is our Lord, and of great power; his understanding is infinite." O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!" "Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord," Psa. cl. 6.

THE CHAPLAIN'S STORY.

A CLERGYMAN, who was chaplain of a little squadron stationed in the Mediterranean for five years, related the following interesting anecdote, which occurred during that time :

"The commodore was a frank and

generous man, who treated me with marked attention, and I used to preach in all the ships but one. This was a small frigate, and its captain was an irreligious and profane man. He used to say he wanted no methodist parson for a pilot, and he embraced every opportunity of annoying me. Being a person of violent temper, he took offence, and insulted the commodore, who meant to send him home. When I heard of his intention, I waited on the commodore, and said I was come to ask a particular favour of him.

“That shall be granted. I am always happy to oblige you. What is it?'

That you will overlook the conduct of captain Š—,' said I.

"Nay, nay; you cannot be serious. Is he not your greatest enemy? and I believe the only man in the fleet who does not wish to see you on board his ship?"

That is the very reason why I ask the favour, commodore; I must practise as well as preach.'

"Well, well, it is an odd whim; but if, on reflection, I can grant your request, without prejudice to his majesty's service, I will do it.'

"The next day I renewed my petition.

"Well,' said he, if captain S will make a public apology, I will overlook his conduct.'

"I instantly got into a boat, and rowed to the frigate. The captain met me with a frown upon his countenance; but when I told him my business, I saw a tear in his eye, and taking me by the hand, he said, 'Mr. —, I really do not understand your religion, but I do understand your conduct, and I thank you.'

"The affair blew over, and he pressed me to preach in his ship. The first time I went there, the whole crew were dressed in their best clothes, and the captain at my right hand. I could hardly utter a word, my mind was so much moved, and so were the whole crew. There seemed a more than ordinary solemnity among

us.

"That very night the ship disappeared, and not a soul survived to tell the tale. None ever knew how it happened; but we supposed, as there had been a gale of wind, she had foundered, and went down in deep water."

How cheering the thought, that the men thus suddenly summoned into eternity had listened to the blessed message

A VISIT TO A REPTILE-ROOM. ANECDOTES of snakes and serpents may be said to be universally popular. There are no animals which men like less to encounter, and none about which they like more to hear. The deadly powers which many species of reptiles possess, and the fatal facility with which they can destroy human life, invest them with a painful though repulsive interest, which quickens the attention of all classes of

readers.

Superior in interest, however, to reading about serpents, is a real live exhibition of them. It is pleasant to look from a safe distance at the boa constrictor or the rattle-snake, and to know that you can examine them without danger. A plate of glass, a sheet of gauze wire make, in this respect, a wonderful difference. It is one thing in stepping through the forests of India to see the cobracapella gliding across your path, while your blood curdles at the sight; and another and quite a different thing to see the same animal in a secure cage, where his attempts to manifest his hostility to you can only recoil (and that not figuratively, but literally) upon his own head. OCTOBER, 1850.

It is seldom that in this country opportunities have been presented of seeing, in a natural manner, the more important species of reptiles. Occasionally, in the days of our boyhood, some travelling showman has lured us within his caravan, by the announcement that a live boa constrictor was to be exhibited; and by the representation on gaudy painted canvass of the monster of the jungle, coiled round some Indian palm, and crushing a buffalo or a human victim in his folds. On going in, however, the result was commonly wofully disappointing; the boa, instead of being like its portrait, resembling rather some long eel, as it languidly reposed within the folds of some warm English blankets.

The

About thirty years ago, a reptile of a deadly class, (a rattle-snake, if we remember aright,) was exhibited in London. One day, its keeper having handled it, we presume, incautiously, was bitten by it, and died of the wound. attraction to an idle populace was irresistible. Multitudes flocked to see a live snake which had actually killed a man. In the letters of the late Charles Lamb, mention occurs of an exhibition of reptiles, in the English metropolis, to which he

2 F

paid a visit, in the year 1800. The passage is so curious, that although it is probably a little coloured by the writer's poetical imagination, we transcribe it for the entertainment of our readers :"There is," he says, when addressing a country correspondent, "there is an exhibition here quite uncommon in Europe -a live rattle-snake, ten feet in length, and the thickness of a man's leg. I went to see it last night, by candle-light. We were ushered into a room very little bigger than ours, at Pentonville. A man, woman, and four boys live in this room, joint tenants with nine snakes, most of them such as no remedy has been discovered for their bite. We walked into the middle, which is formed by a halfmoon of wired boxes, all mansions of snakes, whip-snakes, thunder-snakes, pignose-snakes, American vipers, and this monster. He lies curled up in folds; and immediately a stranger entered (for he is used to the family), he set up a rattle like a watchman in London, or near as loud, and reared up a head from the midst of these folds like a toad, and shook his head, and showed every sign a snake can show of irritation. I had the foolish curiosity to strike at the wires with my fingers, and he flew at me with his toad | mouth wide open the inside of his mouth is quite white. I had got my finger away, nor could he well have bit me with his big mouth, which would have been certain death in five minutes. I forgot, in my fear, that he was secured. You would have forgot too, for it is incredible how such a monster can be confined in small gauzy-looking wires. I dreamed of snakes in the night. I wish you could see it. He absolutely swelled with passion to the bigness of a large thigh. I could not retreat without infringing on another box; and just behind a little snake, not an inch from my back, had got his nose out, with some difficulty and pain, quite through the bars. He was soon taught better manners. the snakes were curious, and objects of terror; but this monster, the rattle-snake, swallowed up the impression of the rest. He opened his mouth when he made at me, as wide as his head was broad. I hallooed out quite loud, and felt pains all over my body with the fright."

All

It has only been lately that even in the gardens of the Zoological Society an opportunity existed of seeing reptiles to advantage. The boa constrictor,-the animal alone,—so far as we can recall to

mind, exhibited to public view, was encased in a box covered with wire, upon opening the cover of which, there was seen at the bottom a slimy mass, only partially distinguishable, and which bore little correspondence to the ideas which the visitor had formed from the narratives of travellers, of the far-famed king of the serpent tribes. Now, however, all has been altered. An apartment, designated the Reptile-room, has been erected, and furnished in a manner which affords the visitor every opportunity of examining the properties and habits of some of the deadliest species of snakes, with a feeling of perfect security.

On a fine summer's afternoon, when on my way to see the last acquisition to the Zoological Gardens, in the shape of the hippopotamus, I found myself opposite the doors of the reptile-room. Two circumstances unhappily deducted from the interest which I was prepared to feel; first, the crowded state of the apartment, which had attracted a large number of visitors; and second, the absence of two Arabs, who had recently arrived in the country, as the guardians of a fresh importation of snakes from the pasha of Egypt. One of these the newspapers of the day described as an old man, who for more than fifty years had followed the dangerous trade of serpent hunting, and who, in that capacity, had been employed by the savans attached to Napoleon's expedition of 1801. The next visitor whom I should have been glad to have found present was an Arab boy, the relative of the other. He was described as possessing not only a highly characteristic appearance, but as handling deadly serpents with a fearlessness, and, strange to say, a fondness akin to that with which an English boy would take into his hands a favourite dog. Since writing this passage, the two Arabs, I find, have been advertised in the newspapers of the day, as giving an exhibition of snake charming.

I gradually succeeded in finding my way to a portion of the reptile-room, less crowded than the entrance. It is an apartment of moderate dimensions; and the reader who has not paid it a visit, will form a correct conception of it, if he figures to himself a room, one half of which is fitted up with large cabinets, fronted with plate-glass, the remaining space being principally occupied by boxes of a smaller size, not fixed against the walls, and by small jars containing toads