privations to which his conformation constrains him, he is not an object of pity, and perhaps very little on that account. We meet many perfectly-formed beings in daily society whose abject indulgences or abject circumstances in life render them far more pitiable, and in a mora. point of view, some of them are far more shocking. There is nothing in Seurat to disgust, as far as I could judge from what I saw or heard of him. Thou who despisest so debased a fate As in the pride of wisdom thou may'st call The much submissive Seurat's low estate, Look round the world, and see where over all injurious passions hold mankind in thrall!— Behold the fraudful arts, the covert strife, The jarring interests that engross mankind; The low pursuits, the selfish aims of life; Studies that weary and contract the mind, That bring no joy, and leave no peace behind; And Death approaching to dissolve the spell! Death is not contemplated by Seurat as near to him, and it is even probable that his "last event" is far off. The vital organs have wonderfully conformed themselves to his malformation, and where they are seated, perform their office uninterruptedly. The quantity of solid nutriment for the support of his feeble frame never exceeds four ounces a day. The pulsations of his heart are regular, and it has never palpitated; at the wrist, they are slow and equally regular. He has never been ill, nor taken medicine, except once, and then only a small quotity of manna. His skin is not more day than the skin of many other living persons who abstain, as he does, from strong vinous or fermented liquors, and drink sparingly; it is not branny, but perfectly smooth; nor is it of a colour unnatural to a being who cannot sustain much exercise, who exists in health with very little, and therefore does not require more. The complexion of his body is that of a light Creole, or perhaps more similar to that of fine old ivory; it must be remembered, that his natural com, lexion is swarthy. What has been asserted elsewhere is perfectly true, that when dressed in padded clothes, he would not in any position be more remarkable than any other person, except that, among Englishmen, he would be taken for a foreigner. On the day before his public exhibition, he walked from the Gothic-hall in the Haymarket, to the Chinese Saloon in Pall-mall, arm-in-arm with the gentleman who brought him from France, and was wholly unrecognized and unnoticed. Until ten years of age, Seurat was as healthy as other children, except that Southey's Tale of Paraguay his chest was depressed, and he was much weaker; until that year, he used to run about and play, and tumble down from feebleness. From that age his feebleness increased, and he grew rapidly until he was fourteen, when he attained his present stature, with further increase of weakness: he is not weaker now than he was then. His recreation is reading, and he is passionately fond of listening to music. He cannot stoop, but he can lift a weight of twelve pounds from a chair: of course, he displays no feats of any kind, and unless great care is taken, he may be injured by cold, and the fatigue of the exhibition. Of this, however, himself and his father, who is with him, and who is a shrewd, sensible man, seem aware. He remains about ten minutes standing and walking before the company, and then withdraws between the curtains to seat himself, from observation in a blanketed arm-chair, till another company arrives. His limbs are well-proportioned; he is not at all knock-kneed, nor are his legs any way deformed. Seurat is "shocking" to those who have never reflected on mortality, and think him nearer to the grave than themselves. Perhaps he is only sɔ in appeatance. The orderly operation of the vital principle within him for the last thirteer or fourteen years, may continue to the ordinary duration of human life. Every one of his spectators is "encompassed in a ghostly frame," and exemplifies, as much as Seurat, the scriptural remark, that "in the midst of life we are in death" it is not further from us fo not thinking on it, nor is it nearer to w because it is under our eyes Seurat's existence is peculiar to himseif; he is unlike any being ever heard of, and no other like him may ever live. But if he is alone in the world, and to himself useless, he may not be without his use to others. His condition, and the privations whereby he holds his tenure of existence, are eloquent to a mind reflecting on the few real wants of mankind, and the advantages derivable from abstinent and temperate habits. Had he been born a little higher in society, his mental July 27. St. Pantaleon, A. D. 303. Sts. Maximian, Malchus, Martinian, Dionysius, John, Serapion, and Constantine, the Seven Sleepers, A. D. 250. St. Congail. St. Luica improvement might have advanced with his corporeal incapacity, and instead of being shown as a phenomenon, he might have flourished as a sage. No man has been great who has not subdued his passions; real greatness has insisted on this as essential to happiness, and artificial greatness shrunk from it. When Paul "reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled." Seurat's appearance seems an admonition from the grave to "think on these things." THE SEVEN SLEEPERS. These saints, according to Alban Butler, were Ephesians, who for their faith, under Decius, in 250, were walled up together in a cave, wherein they had hid themselves, till they were found, in 479; and hence, he says, "some moderns have imagined that they only lay asleep till they were found." He designates them in his title, however, as having been “commonly called the seven sleepers;" and we shall see presently who his "moderns" are. He adds, that “the cave wherein their bodies were found, became famous for devout pilgrimages, and is still shown to travellers, as James Spon testifies." before the emperor Decius, but they carried him to the church before St. Martin and Antipater, the consul; and the bishop looked at the money, and marvelled at it, and demanded where he had found the hidden treasure; and he answered, that he had not found it, that it was his owr, and that he had it of his kinsmen. Then the judge said his kinsmen must come and answer for him; and he named them but none knew them; and they deemed that he had told them untruly, and the judge said, how can we believe that thou hadst this money of thy friends, when we read "that it is more than CCC.lxxii. yere syth it was made," in the time of Decius, the emperor, how can it have come to thee, who art so young, from kinsmen sc long ago; thou wouldst deceive the wise men of Ephesus: I demand, therefore, that thou confess whence thou hadst this money. Then Malchus kneeled down, and demanded where was Decius, the emperor; and they told him there was no such emperor then in the world whereat Malchus said he was greatly cop fused that no man believed he spoke the truth, yet true it was that he and his fellows saw him yesterday in that city of Ephesus. The miraculous story of the seven sleepers relates, that they remained in the cave till the heresy that "denyed the resurreccyon of deed bodyes" under Theodotian, when a "burges" of Ephesus causing a stable to be made in the mountain, the masons opened the cave, and then these holy sayntes that were within awoke and were reysed," and they saluted each other, and they "supposed veryley that they had slepte but one nyght onely," instead of two hundred and twenty-nine years. Being hungry, Malchus, one of themselves, was deputed to go to Ephesus and buy bread for the rest; "and then Malchus toke V shillynges, and yssued out of the cave." He marvelled when he saw the mason's work outside, and when he came to one of the gates of Ephesus he Then the bishop told the was "all doubtous," for he saw the sign judge that this young man was in a hea of the cross on the gate; then he went to venly vision, and commanded Malchus another gate, and found another cross; to follow him, and to show him his com and he found crosses on all the gates; and panions. And they went forth, and a he supposed himself in a dream; but he great multitude of the city with them tocomforted himself, and at last he entered wards the cave; and Malchus entered the city, and found the city also was first into the cave, and the bishop next, "garnysshed" with the cross. Then he "and there founde they amonge the went to the "sellers of breed," and when stones the lettres sealed with two seales he showed his money, they were surprised, of syluer," and then the bishop read and said one to another, that "this yonge them before all the people; and they all man" had found some old treasure; and marvelled, "and they sawe the sayntes when Malchus saw them talk together, syttynge in the caue, and theyr visages he was afraid lest they should take him lyke unto roses flouryng." And the before the emperor, and prayed them to bishop sent for the emperor to come an. let him go, and keep both the money and see the marvels. And the emperor came the bread; but they asked who he was, from Constantinople to Ephesus, and for they were sure he had found a trea- ascended the mountain; and as soon as sure of the "olde emperours," and they the saints saw the emperor come, "their told him if he would inform them they vysages shone like to the sonne," and the would divide it, "and kepe it secret." emperor embraced them. And they de But Malchus was so terrified he could manded of the emperor that he would not speak; then they tied a cord round believe the resurrection of the body, for to his neck, and drove him through the that end had they been raised; and then middle of the city; and it was told they gave up the ghost, and the empero that he had found an ancient treasure, and arose and fell on them weeping," and "all the cite assembled aboute hym;" and embraced them, and kyssed them debohe denied the charge, and when he be- nayrly." And he commanded precious held the people he knew no man there; sepulchres of gold and silver to bury and he supposed they were carrying him their bodies therein. But the same night they appeared to the emperor, and demanded of him to let their bodies lie on the earth, as they nad lain before, till the general resurrection; and the emperor obeyed, and caused the place to be adorned with precious stones. And all the bishops that believed in the resurrection were absolved.* In the breviary of the church of Salis bury, there is a prayer for the 27th of July, beseeching the benefit of the resurrection through the prayers of the seven sleepers, who proclaimed the eternal resurrection. Bishop Patrick,† who gives us the prayer, says, "To show the reader in what great care the heads of the Romish church had in those days of men's souls, how well they instructed them, and by what fine stories their devotions were then conducted, I cannot but translate the history of these seven sleepers, as I find it in the Salisbury breviary; which, if it had been designed to entertain youth as the history of the Seven Champions, might have deserved a less severe censure; but this was read in the church to the people, as chapters are out of the bible, and divided into so many lessons." He then gives the story of the seven sleepers as it stands in the breviary, and adds, that there was no heresy about the resurrection in the days of Theodotian, and that if any had a mind to see the ground of their prayer in the breviary, and the "stuff" of the legend of the seven sleepers, they might consult " Baronius's notes upon the Roman Martyrology, July 27." It appears then, that the ecclesiastics of the church of Salisbury were among the "moderns" of Alban Butler, "who imagined" of the seven sleepers as related in the legend, and so imagining, taught the "stuff," as bishop Patrick calls it, to their flocks. Yet Alban Butler weeps over the Reformation, which swept the "imaginations" of his "moderns" away, and he would fain bring us back to the religion of the imaginers. FLORAL DIRECTORY. Purple Loosestrife. Lythrum Salicariu. Dedicated to St. Pantaleon. July 28. Victor, Pope, A. D. 201. St. Innocent I. Pope, A.D. 417. St. Sampson, A. D. 564 Musical Prodigies. When There is at present in Berlin, a boy, between four and five years old, who has manifested an extraordinary precocity of musical talent. Carl Anton Florian regiment of Fencible Guards, was born on Eckert, the son of a sergeant in the second the 7th of December, 1820. While in the cradle, the predilection of this remarkable child for music was striking, and passages in a minor key affected him so much as to make tears come in his eyes. about a year and a quarter old, he listened to his father playing the air "Schone Minka" with one hand, on an old harpsichord: he immediately played it with both hands, employing the knuckles in aid of his short and feeble fingers. He continued afterwards to play every thing by the ear. He retains whatever he hears in the memory, and can tell at once whether an instrument is too high or too low for concert pitch. It was soon observed that his ear was sufficiently delicate to enable him to name any note or chord which might be struck without his seeing it. He also transposes with the greatest facility into any key he pleases, and executes pieces been opened to buy him a pianoforte, as of fancy extempore. A subscription has he has got tired of the old harpsichord, and two able musicians have undertaken to instruct him.* Eckert was pre-rivalled in England by the late Mr. Charles Wesley, the son of the rev. Charles Wesley, and nephew to the late rev. John Wesley, the founder of the religious body denominated methodists. The musical genius of Charles Wesley was observed when he was not quite three years old; he then surprised his father by playing a tune on the harpsichord readily, and in just time. Soon afterwards he played several others. Whatever his mother sang, or whatever he heard in the streets, he could, without difficulty, make out upon this instrument. Almost from his birth his mother used to quiet and amuse him with the harpsichord. On these occasions, he would not suffer her to play only with one hand, but, even before he could Sts. Nazarius and Celsus, A. D 68. St. speak, would seize hold of the other, and • Golden Legend. + In his "Reflections on the Devotions of the Romish Church." • The Parthenon, a new musical work typolitho graphied, notices this precocious musician on the authority of the German papers. put it upon the keys. When he played by himself, she used to tie him by his back-string to the chair, in order to prevent his falling. Even at this age, he always put a true bass to every tune he played. From the beginning he played without study or hesitation. Whenever, as was frequently the case, he was asked to play before a stranger, he would invariably inquire in a phrase of his own, "Is he a musiker ?" and if he was answered in the affirmative, he always did with the greatest readiness. His style on all occasions was con spirito; and there was something in his manner so much beyond what could be expected from a child, that his hearers, learned or unlearned, were invariably astonished and delighted. When he was four years old, Mr. Wesley took him to London; and Beard, who was the first musical man who heard him there, was so much pleased with his abilities, that he kindly offered his interest with Dr. Boyce to get him admitted among the king's boys. This, however, his father declined, as he then had no thoughts of bringing him up to the profession of music. He was also introduced among others to Stanley and Worgan. The latter in particular, was extremely kind to him, and would frequently entertain him by playing on the harpsichord. The child was greatly struck by his bold and full manner of playing, and seemed even then to catch a spark of his fire. Mr. Wesley soon afterwards returned with him to Bristol; and when he was about six years old, he was put under the tuition of Rooke, a very good-natured man, but of no great eminence, who allowed nim to run on ad libitum, whilst he sat by apparently more to observe than to control him. Rogers, at that time the oldest organist in Bristol, was one of his first friends. He would often sit him on of that master, as a first attempt, was a wonderful production; it contained fugues which would have done credit to a professor of the greatest experience and the first eminence. His performance on the organ, and particularly his extempore playing on that sublime instrument, was the admiration and delight of all his auditors of the preceding, and born in 1766, also The present Mr. Samuel Wesley, brother gave a very early indication of musical genius. When only three years of age, he could play on the organ; and, when eight years old, attempted to compose an oratorio. Some of the airs which he wrote for the organ were shown to Dr. Boyce, and occasioned the doctor to say, "This boy unites, by nature, as true a bass as I can do by rule and study." Mr. Wesley's compositions are in the highest degree masterly and grand; and his extempore performance of fugues on the organ astoinstrument all the grand and serious graces nishing. He produces from that solemn though struck out on the instant, are sweet of which it is capable. His melodies, and varied, and never common-place; his harmony is appropriate, and follows them with all the exactness and discrimination of the most studious master; his execu tion, which is very great, is always sacrificed to the superior charms of expression. To this be it added, that the intellectual endowments of Mr. Samuel Wesley equal his musical talents, and that the amiable and benevolent qualities of his nature add lust re to his acquirements. He is a man of genius without pretension, and a good man without guile. FLORAL DIRECTORY. Mountain Groundsel. Senecio montanus St. Martha V. July 29. his knee, and make the boy play to him, declaring, that he was more delighted in hearing him then himself. For some years his study and practice were almost entirely confined to the works of Corelli, Scarlatti, and Handel; and so rapid was his progress, that, at the age of twelve or thirteen, it was thought that no person was able to excel him in performing the compositions of these masters. He was instructed on the harpsichord by Kelway, and in the rules of composition by D.. Boyce. His first work, "A Set of Six Concertos for the Organ or Harpsichord," published under the immediate inspection book Sts. Simplicius and Faustinus, brothers, and Beatrice, their sister, A. D. 303. St. William, Bp. A. D. 1234. St. Olaus, or Olave, king of Norway, A. D. 1030. St. Olaus, king of Sweden. These anecdotes of the ;resent Mr. Samuel Wesley and his deceased brother, Charles, are from the "Biographical Dictionary of Muncians," a word |