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Brussels is rapidly advancing in the art of printing; one individual published no less than 250,000 volumes in the year 1827. Books are published much cheaper than in Paris, which creates no small jealousy there. Didot projected to bring his press into Brussels, but found that he had been forestalled by the labours of more than one printer. Neither the type nor the paper equal the printing of London or Edinburgh, or perhaps Paris; but they are daily improving, and an immense number of books are exported.—New Mon. Mag.
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Huber, a German priest, relates a curious instance, in his own experience, of the mischief done by hasty proceedings. When he first went to his parish, he found, to his great disgust, only the common books of devotion, viz.:—P. Cochem, the Great and Little Garden, the Spiritual Soul-watcher, &c. The very first occasion which offered, he attacked these books publicly and vehemently from the pulpit. The people were shocked and offended; they said that their fathers knew how to pray as well as fresh teachers, and would not look at his new volumes of prayer. Taught by his ill success to vary his plan, on a subsequent occasion he took occasion to speak in proper terms of respect of the piety of the composers of those early books, but added that many improvements, as they all knew, were constantly making in agriculture, masonry, &c., and so they must see that this might be the case with books. He then proceeded in the pulpit to compare the old and one of his new books of devotion, and before the evening he had numerous applications for copies.—Foreign Quarterly Review.
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MOONLIGHT.
When sunbeams on the river blaze,
You on its glory scarce can gaze;
But when the moon’s delirious beam,
In giddy splendour woos the stream,
Its mellow’d light is so refined,
’Tis like a gleam of soul and mind;
Its gentle ripple glittering by,
Like twinkle of a maiden’s eye;
While all amazed at Heaven’s steepness,
You gaze into its liquid deepness,
And see some beauties that excel—
Visions to dream of, not to tell—
A downward soul of living hue,
So mild, so modest, and so blue!
Ettrick Shepherd.
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PERILS OF TRAVEL.
Humboldt and his party, on their memorable ascent of the volcano of Tunguragna, in the Nevado del Chimborazo, at the elevation of 19,300 feet, the highest spot ever trod by man, suffered severely. The air was reduced to half its usual density, and felt intensely cold and piercing. Respiration was laborious; and blood oozed from their eyes, their lips, and their gums. Another peculiarity of great elevations,