aloft, are resolved into cumulostratus, and, together | yellow, modified by the different power of reflecwith the cirrus, condense into nimbus. The change tion. The ice crystals of the cirrus are good reflectin the form of clouds is not an arbitrary process; ors, while the cumuli reflect and refract the rays stratus does not become all at once cirrus; it as- thrown down upon the stratus. The tints of the sumes the latter form only by passing through the lower clouds are modified by reflected light from successive gradations, as already described. Clouds the earth, to which cause the green tint is perhaps of a sharp, well-defined outline, betoken rain, their to be attributed. We have described the gradual condensation being far beyond that of the loosely-increase and diminution of cumulus between sunrise piled masses. Those clouds which sweep along and sunset; the appearance of colors is consequently half-hidden in a ragged coat of mist, often detaching regulated by the same law: cirrus and stratus themselves from cumulus or cumulostratus, bring diminish while the sun is easterly, and increase light showers. Hail clouds, more than any other, when it is westerly-precisely the reverse of what are enveloped in these mists, owing probably to the takes place with regard to cumulus. The greatest great depression of temperature in their vicinity. variety of color will be seen in the morning and Rain seldom falls from the smaller cumuli, however evening, as the sun's rays then pass in long lines numerous they may be, when they are equally dis- through the atmosphere, giving rise to endless tributed over the sky. Cumuli generally disappear effects of refraction and reflection, which are lost at at sunset; but sometimes they remain, and subside mid-day, when the rays fall more direct. into cumulostratus-an indication that the upper regions of the atmosphere are approaching the point of complete saturation, and about to discharge their contents. Thomson describes the process : "At first, a dusky wreath they seem to rise, Scarce staining ether; but by swift degrees, In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapor sails Along the loaded sky, and, mingling deep, Sits on the horizon round a settled gloom." When the cumuli formed in the morning are not changed into cumulostratus, the continuance of fine weather may be expected, as those two conditions are required for the formation of nimbus. The latter cloud may always be known by its uniform gray tint, the individual forms of the masses of which it is composed being indistinguishable. The lower edges of nimbus have a fringed appearance, caused by the accumulation of falling drops. In continued rains, the approach of fair weather is foretold by the resolution of the nimbus or cirro-cumulo-stratus into the formations from which they originated, particularly when the transition is into cumulus or stratus; and the more rapidly this is effected, the nearer is the change in the weather. Shelley's vigorous and animated lines on the clouds eloquently depict the phenomena they present: he makes one say "I am the daughter of the earth and water, I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; For after the rain, when, with never a stain, And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, The circle within which the clouds appear is twice as large in summer as it is in winter in the latter season there is more condensation, and the masses occupy a lower position. According to Herr Fritsch, their formation appears to be governed by some law. Cirrostratus, cirrocumulus, and cumulus, are most abundant in winter; cirrocumulo-stratus is less in quantity in the spring than in the other three portions of the year, during which it is equable. Cirri increase from February to May, and decrease from May to August; from August to October they again increase, and again diminish from October to February. Cumuli increase from January to July, and decrease in the latter half of the year. An opposite law prevails with regard to stratus; cumulostratus is most abundant at the summer solstice, and least abundant at the corresponding period in winter. The clouds present other phenomena worthy of observation, among which their rising and falling most deserve attention. The real cause of their suspension in the atmosphere is not yet ascertained; the assumption is, that they are supported in their place by ascending currents of air acting on the whole mass of vesicles of which clouds are composed. Dependent as vegetation is upon the weather, it is clear that any means of arriving at certainty, with respect to its fluctuations, must be of essential importance to cultivators. The periodical and other phenomena exhibited in M. Fritsch's pages, are not exclusively confined in their effects to physical science; they have a bearing on the well-being of mankind. And notwithstanding the disposition to escape from the operation of natural laws, society is inevitably influenced by their periodicity. "TIGHTNESS" OF THE MONEY MARKET.-Some faint idea of the past scarcity of money may be entertained from the following circumstance. No less Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from than six dukes, four marquesses, as many earls, and the tomb, I rise and upbuild it again.” It is seldom that the clouds are completely motionless; the pleasure we feel in gazing on them is greatly enhanced by their various movements: their chief beauty, however, is to be found in their alternations of color. Although the hues appear so numerous, they are produced from ten colors, chiefly combinations of red and green. Many variations of hue are naturally caused by the sun's rays; the lower clouds are shadowed by those above them. Green clouds are the rarest, and blue the most numerous; the next in order are red and three barons, all of whom we learn intended to send to the Shakspeare fund certain sums, varying from £50 to £200, have, up to the present moment, not sent a single sixpence. In our next we trust to be enabled to give a better account of the money market.-Punch. BARTER-A probable effect of Peel's measure, and consequent scarcity of coin. to? Lady. How much would a dress of this come Linen-Draper. We could do that, ma'am, at three silver forks and a tea-spoon. Lady. William, give me my plate basket. From the Westminster Review. Wit and Humor, selected from the English Poets; with an Illustrative Essay, and Critical Comments. By LEIGH HUNT. London : 1816. UNDER the pretence of illustrating Wit and Humor from the English poets, Mr. Hunt has produced a very pleasant book. It contains a great variety of extracts and sketches of character, short and sweet, which cannot fail to elevate and enliven our notions of the poetic genius of our native country. The personality of the editor, which is summed up in his worship of Uncle Toby as the noblest of beings, mixes with all his observations that touch upon human life, or human perfection; but the reader can easily allow for this bias if he thinks proper. It is no imputation upon Mr. Hunt to say, that he has failed in his attempt to define wit and humor. We should have reckoned it creditable to his literary and philosophical sagacity if his quotations had always been undoubted instances of one or other of these qualities; but, in fact, it is impossible to agree with him in ascribing either wit or humor to a great number of the passages he has cited and emphasized the beauties of. So that he may be said to have confused as much as he has cleared the discriminating boundaries of the peculiar effects in question. The criticism of art may create out of its subject an additional gratification, as well as give a peculiar expansion and illumination of mind, by comparing a wide range of productions, and indicating, by varied illustration, the great leading attributes that belong to them. There is an effect partly artistic and partly scientific in the aggregation of examples of sublimity, beauty, pathos, humor, eloquence, or keeping, from the artists of every country and time; and it is instructive alike to the creator and to the lover of art. The criti cisms of Aristotle and Longinus do not detract from the pleasure of reading Homer or Demosthenes; they rather produce a new intellectual effect, which some minds enjoy even more than the primary influence of great compositions. The mustering of analogies and unthought-of resemblances, from the remotest ages and situations, into one blazing heap of illustration, like the historical comparisons of Niebuhr, the geographical speculations of Humboldt, or the similes of Shakspeare, is one of the most impressive and stimulating efforts of human genius. It is the greatest known device for irradiating the obscure and enigmatical complication of the world, and running a thread of kindred and recognition through the processes of nature and the manifestations of mind. It gives the highest effect that the mere scientific faculties of man can work up. We may call it the sublime of classification. But it requires a considerable maturity in critical distinctions, and in the knowledge of first principles of science and art, to bring together things according to their genuine likenesses; and unsuccessful attempts are apt to produce in our minds only new distraction. If there are any books that we are wiser and better for not having read, they are such as have theory for their object, and theorize badly, as for example, Burke "On the Sublime and Beautiful," not to mention the myriads of obsolete scholastic folios. To illustrate wit and humor-to bring together a gorgeous array of the finest examples that human genius has created, or human life spontaneously offered of these attractive qualities-we must first discriminate precisely what they are. The term unless it be fixed by an express definition it is unfit wit has had an application so loose and wide, that to enter into any accurate discussion. It formerly meant intellect generally, and the phrase, “a great or powerful wit," would have been applied miscellaneously to Shakspeare and Newton, Milton and Hobbes. In becoming narrower in its application it has not yet settled decisively on any distinct thing or quality; but is so applied as to confound matters that are wholly different, and thus prolong the reign of confused conceptions. We shall cite a few of the kinds of intellectual products that are uncommonly reckoned such in ordinary speech, given as wit (or humor) by Mr. Hunt, and not and then ask the reader to judge which of them the word should be confined to; premising that, in our own opinion, the best restriction would be, to whatever truly contains the ludicrous or laughable, which is an effect most distinct and peculiar, and produced by one specific and uniform cause. And undoubtedly, when a witty book is promised, the most common expectation is that it will make people laugh. 1. Felicitous comparisons, that render some conception remarkably clear or vivid, or that condense into a brief expression a great compass of thought. duced with "as," or "like," or "as if;" or These may be either formal comparisons, introthey may be involved in a metaphorical phrase, or an epithet. As "Her face is like the Milky Way i' the sky; A meeting of gentle lights without a name. Or Goldsmith's line on Garrick : "An abridgment of all that is pleasant in man.” "The rank is but the guinea stamp, The man's the goud for a' that." "True as the dial to the sun, Although it be not shined upon.” "Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike; yet each believes his own." Or this, from the teeming pen of Shakspeare :— "A woman moved is like a fountain troubled, Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty.” His account of the feelings caused by wit is an admirable expression for the effects of comparison and epigram, as we have defined them, to the exclusion of the ludicrous : : the greatest resources of human genius in effecting | plicable; being answerable to the numberless rovits ends; it may have a purely intellectual effect, ings of fancy and windings of language. It is, in as in making an obscure thought clear by citing short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and an illustrative parallel, or it may involve and be plain way (such as reason teacheth and knoweth things by.)" concerned in producing any kind of emotionanger, pathos, love, beauty, the ludicrous. The only constant effect that follows on an original and striking comparison, is a shock of agreeable surprise; it is as if a partition wall in our intellect was suddenly blown out; two things formerly "It raiseth admiration, as signifying a nimble strange to one another have flashed together. It sagacity of apprehension; a special felicity of inis the feeling of any sudden violation or contradic-vention; a vivacity of spirit; and reach of wit more tion of use-and-wont, and has a sharp, pleasant, than vulgar. Whence, in Aristotle, such persons are termed επιδέξιοι, dexterous men, and ευτροποι, stimulating effect. Like all agreeable things it men of facile and versatile manners. It also probecomes painful when we get too much of it, as in cureth delight, by gratifying curiosity with its rarereading Hudibras, or in keeping company withness or semblance of difficulty (as monsters and people that are always aiming at clever sayings. juggling tricks are beheld with pleasure;) by diThere is a great tendency to call a very striking verting the mind from its road of serious thoughts; comparison wit, although there be nothing laugha- by instilling gayety and airiness of spirit; and by ble in it. It would be better, however, to confine seasoning matter, otherwise distasteful or insipid, ourselves to some name implying the general fact with an unusual and thence grateful tang." that two things have been likened or identified, such as a simile, a comparison, a discovery of likeness, a coincidence, an analogy, a flash or rush of two into one, and so forth. 2. Sudden surprise, or the agreeable crossing of our expectation, is carried to the utmost in cpigram; which often gives us a truth under the guise even of contradiction :-- "This world, they say, is worst to the best." Or "By indignities men come to dignities." Or this, of Göethe "I am content, and I don't like situation." my Pope's writings are crowded with epigrams like these 66 "And most contemptible to shun contempt." The ludicrous is not at all brought out in the greater number of epigrams; yet perhaps there is no kind of effort apart from the creation of the laughable that is more commonly denominated wit," than this dexterous tampering with contraries and contradictions while expressing sense and truth. It is like tantalizing a dog before giving him a bone. But the forms and devices of epigrammatic surprise are endless. Similarities in things where they do not naturally occur, as in the sounds of the words expressing contrary things; or contrarieties in sound with sameness in sense; or bold contradictions, as, "There is nothing so uncommon as common sense;❞ metrical felicities; or even mere brevity, "the soul of wit," are all of this species. The copious detail of Barrow's famous passage on wit is nearly full of varieties of epigrams : "Sometimes it is lodged in a sly question; in a smart answer; in a quirkish reason; in a shrewd intimation; in a plausible reconciling of contradictions; or in acute nonsense. Sometimes it ariseth only from a lucky hitting what is strange; sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the purpose. Its ways are unaccountable and inex Supposing we are to be allowed to restrict the term "wit" to the causes of the laughable, "epigram" would be our chosen term for the class of surprises" produced, by startling, unusual, terse, or apparently contradictory phraseology. 66 66 3. There is an effect produced in the literary "Her feet beneath her petticoat, Her lips were red, and one was thin, Here the soft melodious movement of the metre faculty; the latter, when in its highest glory, being an entire blank in regard to the exercise of this gift of the muses, and even almost preventing the possibility of its coming into play. 4. Closely allied to the highest character of chimes in exquisitely with the picture that the art-artistic creations is what we call truth to the life, ist intends to give us. or a representation by words that calls up the most striking images of the distant or unseen realities of the world. We wonder that the mere use of language should give to a man sitting in London the visions and spectacle, almost the very sensations, of another walking in the streets of Rome; or that we should be made to know a hero of former ages as if we had lived with him and loved him; and we are agreeably surprised by receiving, from a printed book, the exact form and pressure of what we have otherwise known by personal experience. As, for example, such graphic descriptions of natural appearances as "I expose no ships To threat'nings of the furrow-faced sea:" or the portraitures of character by great artists. Shakspeare's Fop, or his Mrs. Quickly, occur to us among the thousands of such; and Mr. Hunt's book supplies admirable cases from Pope, Dryden, Swift, Goldsmith, &c. A single stroke in " Mary the cook-maid's letter," is worth citing: "For I write but a sad scrawl, but my sister, Marget, she writes better." The perfection of modern poetic and prosaic art in character-drawing and life-imitation is very great; but we demur to styling this operation wit; although it is very liable to be characterized as such if done in the epigrammatic style of Pope, Dryden or Goldsmith, more especially when executed in the malicious taking-down spirit of the first two. 5. The embodiment of a passion, or a feature of character, or a class attribute, in situations and circumstances and conduct that present it in a strong light; as, for instance, many of Pope's characters, and his Ode on the Ruling Passions; Randolph's Fear, Rashness, and Flattery; Swift's exposure of human selfishness, in his verses on his own death. This effort has more of abstraction and less of fulness and the varied circumstances of real life than the former; it has, in fact, a kind of scientific purpose to impress an idea or a doctrine, and uses living personification to aid the effect. It can be achieved by a less measure of the true artistic faculty than is required to set a completely filled up reality before us. The greatest of modern poetic artists abounds with perfect examples of this, as he might have been quoted for the highest harmonies, and for complete life pictures. We shall take from him two extracts in the form of speeches, each bodying forth the express image of the speaker. They are from the prelude to Faust; where the manager consults with the theatre-poet and merryman as to the business of getting up a play. The manager explains his mind on the subject thus (we use the closest translation we have been able to pro When the question is very closely argued, "Is such a one a poet?" there is nothing so certain to procure an unanimous affirmative as undoubted instances of this creation of fine harmonies. Accordingly, while the claims of Johnson, or even of Pope, to the highest order of poetic inspiration are disputed, there is never any question about Chaucer, Shakspeare, Homer, Virgil, Dante, Milton, Wordsworth, Campbell, or Burns. Men may have very great force of intellect both in thought and expression, and be totally incapable of such efforts as we now allude to. They mark the extreme points of contrast between the artistic and the scientific cure)- "You two, who have so frequently To please the public is my anxious study, carries the palm over all mortals; we may ask, like Solomon, "who has come after him" in his expression of almost any great sentiment, situation, or opinion that has come in his way? The Fear of Death, The Love of Life, the Affections, Author The posts and boards are all put up and ready,ity, Order, Mercy, Grief, Ingratitude, the Vanities And every one is counting on a treat. They sit there now, each one his eyebrows ing of Life, and more than we can recount, have been cock-clothed by him in immortal shapes which have struck them deeper into the human spirit than before. A single line will serve to bring before At ease, and quite in key for something shocking. I know the people how they are amused; And with strong heaving and repeated hustle, So, for a ticket, almost break their necks. Such is the manager's feeling; the poet's point of view is embodied as follows "Go hence, and seek thyself another slave! The poet, sooth, because thy pockets crave, Is 't not the stream of song which out his bosom springs. And to his heart the world back-coiling brings? In glory wreaths for every merit known? the reader what we mean― so loving to my mother, That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly." We have alluded already to the illustration of sentiment by comparison or simile, but this illustration by circumstance, or the invention of contiguous or collateral incident and situation, comes more near the true poetic effect than the other; being more allied to harmony, which is not produced by exact likeness. Fable, also, whose creation Hazlitt admires as the most enviable of human gifts, is a powerful device for conveying sentiment. Now when such embodiments and enforcements of sen timent yield nothing of the laughable, we take the liberty of excluding them also from the domain of wit. 7. Eloquent and powerful panegyric, or abuse, or stirring assertions borne out by terseness of example, illustration, proof or epigram. "Of these the false Achitophel was first, A name to all succeeding ages curst; Much of Swift has this character of direct downright earnest assertion of bad or good qualities. Burke's "French Revolution" is full of it. His famous expression of trampling law and order under "the hoofs of the swinish multitude," is an oratorical thunderbolt rather than a flash of wit. 8. Indirect and insinuated expressions of good or ill regard, abuse, or praise. These are very often witty in the sense of laughable, but in general they are not so; they merely heighten the effect of the meaning conveyed, and please us by the ingenuity and dexterity that can do one thing while seeming to do a quite different thing. The extreme case of irony, we shall notice again. The sketching of class peculiarities, ruling passions, or strong isolated points of character, is all that many artists can achieve. Even Ben Jonson, notwithstanding his genuine power and his great. poetic resources, stops short at this effect, oftener than he rises into the higher region of full-life description. The quotations from Marvel often exemplify this mode of speech; as in his lines on "Blood stealing the crown" He chose the cassock, circingle and gown, The fittest mask for one that robs the crown." Voltaire's mockeries are often conveyed by in6. Fine and happy renderings of great or favor- sinuation, as in his critique on the Song of Soloite sentiments, by the invention of circumstances mon: "A Jew is not obliged to write like Virgil." or situations that bear them out and illustrate them A good instance occurs in Pope's lines on the strongly. In this we believe that Shakspeare Lord Mayor's show |