tricity is always developed during chemical change. The galvanic battery is merely an arrangement for taking advantage of this. A plate of zinc, when placed in water, rusts, or oxidizes—taking its oxygen, to form Oxide of Zinc, from the water. For every grain of this oxide formed, an equivalent (an exact quantity) of water is decomposed—and an equally exact proportion of electricity is liberated. If near this zinc plate a piece of copper is placed, it collects this subtile Power; and provided we attach to each piece of metal a wire, and carry those wires into another vessel of water, holding a metal in solution-say copper-a remarkable action takes place. The electricity obtained by the oxidation of the metal, zinc, in one vessel, passes over by the wires into the other, and there it precipitates precisely the same proportion of copper as was required of zinc to develop the electricity in the first vessel.

The Sun is represented by the galvanic arrangement. In that orb matter is continually changing its form to produce Light, Heat, and other Physical forces; the connecting wires are the sun-beams, and our earth is the second vessel-or the recipient-upon which a corresponding change of matter is effected-the agencies being absorbed in producing the material effect. That " every dust is weighed in the balance we are told by the inspired poet; and this beautiful truth is proved to the satisfaction of the human intellect, by the labours of the philosopher.

By the sun-light the face of early Nature was covered with vegetable forms, and the Powers emanating from the sun were used (expended) in their production. The tree grew in size, and the leaves and the flowers were abundant, or otherwise, and palely or intensely coloured, according to the degree of sunshine poured upon them. Decay comes over the living forests, and they gradually change into the form which we name COAL. We dig this from the earth, and we submit it to the destructive chemistry of the gasworks. Gas is obtained; we employ it for all purposes of illumination, and there are other products left behind. The quantity of light we obtain from the gas produced by a given weight of coal is exactly the quantity of Light which was necessary to complete the growth of the plants from which the coal was formed; so that we are actually in our library, writing this brief essay, warmed by the Heat, and illuminated by the Light, which was flooded upon this earth long before it was fitted to be the abode of man. Again, the Mauve and Magenta, with their allied colours, are due to those mysterious forces which we scarcely yet know how-give colour to Nature. They were produced in the very youth of the world, and have been stored until now in the earth's recesses.

The lady clad in Mauve or Magenta, modern though these colours be, walks abroad, into the sunshine of to-day, in tints produced by that same orb, ages before Eve, the mother of mankind, had been taught to clothe herself in the vegetable beauties of the Garden of Eden.

RALPH,

THE

BAILIFF.

IN THREE PARTS.-PART I.

CHAPTER I.

THE FUNERAL OF THE ELDER SON.

A DRIZZLING rain fell upon the long grass and the moss-grown tombstones of the churchyard of the village of Olney, on the Trent, in Lincolnshire.

Every now and then, beaten down by this incessant rain, a dead leaf fell from one of a row of sycamores, which bordered the low churchyard wall, and dropped heavily upon the graves beneath the trees.

The sunless September day held out no promise of one gleam of sunshine in the blackish grey of the low sky.

Half a dozen villagers and a few children, grouped together at one angle of the irregular stone wall, drew their wet clothes closer round them, and shivered as if this late September had been January.

From one side of the churchyard vibrated the monotonous voice of the ourate of Olney, reading the service for the burial of, the dead.

At the white gate, on the other side of the church, waited three mourning coaches, surrounded by another group of village children, who, regardless of the ceaseless rain, stood with open mouths staring at the long-tailed black horses and the solemn-visaged charioteers.

The funeral service had just concluded, and the chief mourner walked slowly through the churchyard, followed by the seven or eight gentlemen who had been present at the ceremony.

He was evidently in very great grief; his hollow eyes were dry and tearless, but he walked along, looking straight before him, with a gloomy abstraction painful to behold. He took his seat in one of the coaches, accompanied by his uncle, a gray-haired old farmer, and the village attorney.

"You must bear up-you must bear up, my dear Dudley," said the grey-haired man, as the mourning coach lumbered along the uneven paving of the High-street of Olney.

“I will, uncle Richard; but it's harder to bear than I ever thought it would be," said the chief mourner; and to the surprise of his companions he let down the window at his side; and, putting out his head, looked back at the churchyard they had left. He remained in this position till a turn in the street completely hid the burial-ground from his view, and then drawing in his head, he closed the window with a short sigh.

Poor boy, he wants to have a last look at his brother's grave," said the grey-haired man to the doctor, while his nephew looked out of the carriage window.

After this the chief mourner sat quite still, never speaking to his companions, but looking fixedly out at the flat high-road, and the dripping leaves and shivering cattle in the wet fields.

He was a young man of one-and-twenty, but he looked nearer thirty. He had a fair complexion, a small straight nose, very red, womanish lips, a slightly receding chin, a low forehead, large blue eyes, and light auburn hair. He was rather handsome, and was generally said to have a most prepossessing countenance.

He was the youngest son of the late Arthur Carleon, gentleman farmer, and proprietor of the Grey Farm, the broad lands of which lay flat and low on the border of a narrow river, whose waters often overflowed the meadows nearest to the bank.

The dwelling-house of this Grey Farm stood a mile away from the high road, and the pathway leading to it lay by the side of a river— a narrow, dismal river, on which coal-barges went up and down between Grimsby and Lincoln.

The broad lands of the farm, which consisted of three hundred and eighty acres, lay flat and low on the border of this river, stretching down to the shelving bank, and only shut by this bank from the water, which constantly overflowed the meadows nearest to the river side.

Along its bank the three mourning coaches drove slowly and carefully; a road dangerous at the best of times, at night doubly dangerous.

Half an hour brought the dismal cortège to the gates of the garden in front of the farm-house. The mourners alighted, and silently assembled in a long, low, oak-panelled apartment, furnished in the ponderous fashion of half a century ago.

The Carleons were one of the oldest families in Lincolnshire. The house of the Grey Farm was filled with portraits of fine gentlemen, in doublets and hose; soldiers who had fallen at Bosworth and Flodden; cavaliers who had fought at Worcester, and brave soldiers and loyal gentlemen who had helped to beat the rebels on Marston Moor; but for the last hundred and fifty years the sword had been exchanged for the ploughshare, and the Carleons had been farmers from father to son.

The estate of the Grey Farm, which was so called from having originally belonged to a body of the order of Grey Friars, who built an abbey upon the land, was bought, in 1700, by a younger son of the house of Carleon, the elder branch of which becoming extinct, all other estates belonging to the family had fallen into Chancery, and the Carlcons had sunk into simple gentlemen farmers.

Dudley Carleon walked to the wide fire-place, in which a dull flame struggled with a mass of black coal and thick white. smoke. The young man rested his arm against the angle of the high chimney-piece, and then leaned his head upon his arm, turning his face away from the other gentlemen, whom his gloomy silence considerably embarrassed.

A young woman, the principal female servant, dressed, like her master, in the deepest mourning, busied herself in handing about wine and cake. After taking it to the visitors, she offered it to Dudley Carleon; but the young man, hearing the jingle of the glasses at his elbow, looked up

suddenly, and shook his head, with an impatient gesture. He was very pale, and his large blue eyes were surrounded by a purple circle, which gave them a strangely haggard appearance.

One of the gentlemen, an attorney from Olney, read the Will of the deceased. It was very simple. Martin Carleon had had nothing to bestow but the farm and homestead, on which he was born, and on which he had lived his short life of three-and-twenty years. He had died of an ague, produced, according to the doctors, by the fatal dampness of the Grey Farm. Young, handsome, vigorous and athletic, the farmer had succumbed, after a lingering illness, under this painful and exhausting disease. He had never married, and Dudley was his only brother; so no one had ever felt any doubt as to who would inherit his property. The estate, though it had gone straight down from father to son for a hundred and fifty years, had never been entailed, and the will of Martin's father had left no provision for the event of the young man's dying childless; but the attachment between the brothers was known to have been so sincere, that this will was looked upon as a mere form. It was worded as every one had expected :

"I, Martin Carleon, being at this time of sound mind, though weak in bodily health, do hereby give, will, and bequeath, to my beloved brother, Dudley Carleon, all those lands, tenements and out-buildings, known as the Grey Farm, together with all live stock, farming implements," &c. &c.

A few trifling legacies followed: a gold snuff-box to his uncle, Richard Weston, the grey-haired old man present at the reading of the will; his watch and chain to a young lady to whom he had been engaged to be married; and some bequests to the servants.

During the reading of the will the young man had never once lifted his head from its recumbent position against the angle of the chimney-piece; but when it was quite finished, and the visitors rose from their chairs, and approached Dudley, prior to taking their departure, he looked up at them with the same expression his face had worn at the gate of the churchyard— an expression that seemed to say, "What ought I to do next ?"

"You are very kind," he stammered, in answer to the consolatory speeches addressed to him: "Yes; I will do my best to bear his loss."

He said these words again and again, in a mazed and helpless manner, and sighed a sigh of relief as the door closed upon the funeral party, and he was left alone with his uncle. For some time he remained silent, his head again buried in his hands, while the old man sat looking at him furtively, as if almost afraid to speak. Presently he looked up and said, with strange abruptness

"Do know if Agnes Marlow is very sorry you

Agnes Marlow was the daughter of the Vicar of Olney, and was to have been married to Martin Carleon.

They say so at Olney," answered Mr. Weston. "They say that she is very ill, and has seen no one but her father since your brother's death."

E

"She came here the night before he died. When her father was sent for, she heard the message, and stole out of the house after him, and followed him down here. I shall never forget her white face, as she stood at the door of Martin's room. I shall never forget her white faceit haunts me to-day more than his.”

My poor boy, these are silly fancies. Agnes Marlow's grief has nothing to do with you. You did your duty to your poor brother from the first to the last."

"That's something," muttered Dudley.

"Something! Everything. Martin was a good brother to you". Dudley Carleon shivered involuntarily

"A very good brother. He had hard work to keep up your allowance at College, I can tell you, Dudley. But he always said that one farmer at a time was quite enough in the Carleon family, and that you should be a man of education, and a polished gentleman.'

"And a dependant on my brother's bounty," said Dudley, bitterly.

"No, Dudley. Martin never thought anything he did for you a bounty or a favour."

Martin-perhaps, no; but other people thought so."

The old man was to dine and spend the night at the Grey Farm, as his own residence at Thorpe Grange was ten miles on the other side of Olney. The uncle and nephew dined in a room at the back of the oak parlour in which the will had been read, and were waited on by a maid-servant.

"Then you will manage the farm yourself, Dudley?" said Richard Weston, as they sat over their wine, the room only lighted by a blazing fire, and the sky outside the windows darkening with the September twilight.

"Yes; I may not know as much of agriculture as poor Martin, but I know a little, and I can learn more. In short, I'll accept the fate of the Carleons, and turn gentleman farmer."

"There's only one thing I'm afraid of, Dudley”—

"And that is -?"

"Your chance of falling ill of the ague that killed Martin. The doctors attribute his illness to the air of the Grey Farm."

"Then why is it that the men who live upon the premises, and are at work in the fields from sunrise to sunset, from the first of January to the thirty-first of December, have never fallen ill of the ague that killed poor Martin? Take my word for it, it was not the Grey Farm that caused my brother's death; his constitution could not have been a strong one."

"But such a tall, broad-chested, powerful young man," said his uncle.

"Is often the first to sink under an illness which the ignorance of his medical attendant attributes to a wrong cause. Martin had lived on the Grey Farm for three-and-twenty years, and if this autumn has been cold and rainy, other autumns have been cold and rainy; if the farm has been