Blackwood’s Magazine.

* * * * *

APPARITIONS.

Dr. Southey’s opinion on apparitions deserves to be carried to the controversial account of this ever-interesting question:—­“My serious belief amounts to this, that preternatural impressions are sometimes communicated to us for wise purposes; and that departed spirits are sometimes permitted to manifest themselves.”—­Colloquies.

* * * * *

THE FEUDAL SYSTEM.

The system of servitude, which prevailed in the earlier periods of our history was not of that unmitigated character that may be supposed.  “No man in those days could prey upon society, unless he were at war with it as an outlaw—­a proclaimed and open enemy.  Rude as the laws were, the purposes of law had not then been perverted;—­it had not been made a craft;—­it served to deter men from committing crimes, or to punish them for the commission;—­never to shield notorious, acknowledged, impudent guilt, from condign punishment.  And in the fabric of society, imperfect as it was, the outline and rudiments of what it ought to be were distinctly marked in some main parts, where they are now wellnigh utterly effaced.  Every person had his place.  There was a system of superintendence everywhere, civil as well us religious.  They who were born in villainage, were born to an inheritance of labour, but not of inevitable depravity and wretchedness.  If one class were regarded in some respects as cattle, they were at least taken care of; they were trained, fed, sheltered, and protected; and there was an eye upon them when they strayed.  None were wild, unless they were wild wilfully, and in defiance of control.  None were beneath the notice of the priest, nor placed out of the possible reach of his instruction and his care.  But how large a part of your population are, like the dogs of Lisbon and Constantinople, unowned, unbroken to any useful purpose, subsisting by chance or by prey; living in filth, mischief, and wretchedness; a nuisance to the community while they live, and dying miserably at last!”—­Ibid.

* * * * *

THE STEAM BOAT ILLUSTRATED.

By one of “the Islington, Gray’s Inn Lane, and New Road Grand Literary, Scientific, and Philosophical Institution.

How wondrous is the science of mechanism! how variegated its progeny, how simple, yet how compound!  I am propelled to the consideration of this subject by having optically perceived that ingenious nautical instrument, which has just now flown along like a mammoth, that monster of the deep!  You ask me how are steam-boats propagated? in other words, how is such an infinite and immovable body inveigled along its course?  I will explain it to you.  It is