of the Valley of Sarnen was picturesque and delightful,-and if it is not gone it is so still. The Swiss cottage, the mountain road, the flock of sheep feeding in a sequestrated nook, gave a kind of lonely animation to the scene; the deep verdure of the glades and slopes, contrasted with the blue surface of the lake into which they decline, and the vapoury magnificence of the surrounding hills, combined to throw a most romantic air over this beautiful picture. I sighed for home when I saw it. A runnel of living water bestowed reality on the scene, and was so contrived as to flow down the canvas as naturally as if it was painted there, not spoiling the eye for the artificial part of the scene. This is a good test of the merits of the painting; the works of nature when set beside those of art generally put the latter out of counte nance. I hope the Valley of Sarnen will remain in the Regent's Park,or that it may be replaced by something as beautiful. There is likewise the Cosmorama, ́ and the Myriorama, and may others not mentionable. I hear also that there is one in preparation, which is to be perfectly ecliptic of all its predecessors, and is to be called the Pandemoniopanorama, being an exact View of Hell, intended chiefly, I suppose, for the patronage of those who intend emigrating thither. It has been painted from drawings taken by Padre B- who visited the premises, and has been since restored to life by Prince Hohenlohe. But I must defer the account of these to a future opportunity. At present-"I can no more" (as we say in a tragedy). Vale! JACOB GOOSEQUILL. ON THE OPERATION OF COUCHING. CHESELDEN the celebrated surgeon and oculist gives some very curious particulars respecting a boy who was couched by him in his thirteenth year his narrative is the more interesting as it seems to determine the question so long and so hotly contested by philosophers,-Whether a person blind from his birth upon being made to see could, by sight alone, distinguish a cube from a globe ? Most persons would probably answer in the affirmative, notwithstanding the many theoretical arguments which might be brought against it,-at least until they have such facts as the operation of couching discloses, which are of too stuborn a nature to be easily evaded. It is previously remarked by Cheselden that though we speak of persons afflicted with cataracts as blind, yet they are never so blind from that cause but that they can distinguish day from night; and for the most part in a strong light distinguish black, 'white, scarlet, and other glaring colours: but they cannot distinguish the shape of any thing. And he gives the following reason for his remark. The light coming from external objects being let in through the matter of the cataract which disperses and refracts the rays, these do not, as they ought, converge to a focus on the retina or back part of the eye, so as to form a picture of the objects there; the person afflicted is consequently in the same state as a man of sound sight looking through a thin jelly. Hence the shape of an object cannot be at all discerned, though the colour may. And this was the case with the boy couched by the operator. Before couching he could distinguish colours in a strong light, but afterwards, the faint ideas he had previously acquired of them were not sufficient for him to recollect them by, and he did not know them to be the same that he had scen dimly, when he was enabled to see them perfectly. Scarlet he now thought to be the most beautiful, and of others the gayest were the most pleasing: black, the first time he saw it perfectly, gave him great uneasiness, but after a little time he became more reconciled to it; he however always associated some unpleasant idea with it, being struck with great horror at the sight of a Negro woman whom he met some months afterwards. When he first saw, he was so far from making any right judgment about distances, that he thought all objects whatever touched his eyes (so he expressed it), as what he felt did his skin. He thought no objects so agreeable as those which were smooth and regular, though he could form no judgment of their shape, nor guess what it was in any object that pleased him. He did not know any one thing from another, however different in shape or size; but upon being told what things those were whose form he knew before from feeling, he would carefully observe that he might know them again. Having often forgot which was the cat, which the dog, he was ashamed to ask, but catching the cat (which he knew by feeling), he looked steadfastly at her, and then putting her down, "So, Puss," said he, "I shall know you another time." He was very much surprised that those things which he had liked best when blind did not appear most agreeable to his eyes, excepting those persons whom he loved most would appear most beautiful, and such things most agreeable to his sight which were so to his taste. His friends at first thought that he even knew what pictures represented, but found afterwards they were mistaken; for about two months after he was couched he discovered that they represented solid bodies, at first taking them for partycoloured planes or surfaces diversified with a variety of paint: but even then he was surprised that the pictures did not feel like the things they represented, and was amazed when he found that those parts of pictures which by their light and shade appeared prominent, and uneven to his sight, felt equally flat with the rest. On this latter occasion he pertinently inquired -Which was the lying sense, feeling or seeing? Being shown his father's picture in a locket at his mother's watch, he acknowledged the likeness, but was very much astonished, asking how it could be that a large face could be expressed in so little room, and saying that it should have seemed as impossible to him as to put a bushel of any thing into a pint. At first he could bear but very little light, and the things he saw he thought extremely large; but upon seeing things larger, those first seen he conceived to be less than they had appeared before, never being able to imagine any figures or lines beyond the bounds he saw the room he was in he said he knew to be but part of the house, yet he could not conceive that the whole house could look bigger. Before he was couched he expected little advantage from seeing, worth undergoing an operation for, except reading and writing; for he said he thought he could have no more pleasure in walking abroad than he had in the garden at present, which he could do safely and readily. And even in blindness he said he had this advantage, that he could go anywhere in the dark much better than those who could see. After he was enabled to see he did not soon lose this faculty, nor desire a light to go about the house in darkness. He said every new object was a new delight, and the pleasure was so great that he wanted words to express it; but his gratitudeto the operator was extreme, never seeing him for some time without shedding tears, and if he did not happen to come at the time he was expected, the boy could not forbear crying at the disappointment. A year after his first seeing, being carried to Epsom Downs, he was exceedingly delighted with the largeness of the prospect, and called it a new kind of seeing. He was afterwards couched of the other eye, and found that objects appeared large to this eye, but not so large as they did at first to the other looking upon the same object with both eyes, he thought it appeared about twice as large as to the first couched eye only,-it did not appear double. Mr. Cheselden performed the operation of couching on several other persons, who all gave nearly the same account of their learning to see as the it may, when we see a landscape or a group of figures on canvass, the parts assume to our eyes a depth or protuberance, though really flat, because, exhibiting the same light and shade which the objects represented by them do themselves rerum neutra present, we judge them to be similar in all their dimensions, and to recede or come forward from the canvass in the same manner as the real objects would do if placed against a wall. In conformity with this reasoning it appears that the boy who was couched had no perception of the effect of painting: not having yet obtained experience of the lights and shades imitated on canvass they could not deceive him, as they do a person of sound sight, into the supposition that they were reflected by massive bodies,-he only saw flat canvass diversified with a variety of paint. preceding. They all had this curious defect after couching in common, that never having had occasion to move their eyes, they knew not how to do it, and at first could not direct them to any particular object, but had to move the whole head, till by slow degrees they acquired the faculty of shifting the eye-balls in their sockets. Several philosophical inferences may be deduced from the above-cited experiment. First it is evident that the eye is not a judge of direct, though may be of transverse distance, i. e. that it cannot estimate the distance between two trees, for example, nearly in a line with itself, though it if they are at equal lengths from it, but not in the same line with it, Hence when we look at a chair standing against the wall of our chamber we really do not see that the fore legs stand out upon the carpet,-we see Secondly, as it appears that the both them and all parts of the chair boy could not tell a cat from a dog painted as it were (projected is the until he had felt them, it is plain that philosophical word) on the wall. It neither could he tell a cube from a is only by having felt that they do globe. It is to be observed, however, stand out from the wall that we judge that although at first all distinction of them so to do, when we merely see shape were perceived, yet experience them exhibiting the same appearances would shortly have taught him to disthey had when we felt them before. tinguish, by sight alone, a cat from a The boy upon whom Mr. Cheselden dog, a cube from a globe. All that operated, thought, it seems, "that Locke and his partisans asserted was, all objects whatever touched his eyes," ," i. e. all objects and parts of objects appeared equally distant from him, the fore-legs of a chair as distant as the hind, in short he could not see direct distance at all. It was only by habit, by feeling a table, for instance, by then observing the lights and shades its different surfaces presented to his eyes (for of colour the eye is a judge), it was only by this process that he was at length enabled to know a table when he merely saw it. And it is the same process which gradually teaches us in our infancy to correct the errors of our sight by the testimony of our feeling, and to know that that is protuberant which appears flat, as every object does to the eye of new-born child. This habit, which the mind gets of deciding upon the massive form of objects immediately upon seeing them, is that from which the whole effect of painting results: a that sight alone would never have taught him to determine (unless by chance) which of the bodies was the cube of his feeling, which the globe. He would in a short time have seen that one of these bodies was even, and the other angular, but he could not certainly tell that the former would feel as the globe felt before he saw it, nor the latter as the cube did. That which was a cube to his sight he would probably have fixed upon as that which was the globe to his feeling. At least, there is no reason why, because a given body appeared evenly shaped to his sight, it should enable him to determine that this body must necessarily, when he touched it, give him that sensation which he denominated smoothness before he was made to see. Thirdly, the above-mentioned experiment appears to suggest a doubt of the truth of that philosophical dis tinction which has usually been put between Reason and Instinct. If it is by an exertion of judgment that a man coming into a room where there is a real chair and one ill-painted on the wall, will sit down upon the former and neglect the latter, it is certainly by an exertion of a similar faculty, that a cat coming into a room where there is a real mouse and an ill-painted one, will spring upon the former and neglect the latter. And from the same principle it is that the man will attempt sitting down on a wellpainted chair, and a cat will attempt catching a well-painted mouse,-neither discovering their error till they come near enough either to see the defects of the painting or to feel the delusive objects, and thus correct the mistake of their judgment acting upon the information of sight alone. For it is to be remembered that, in this case, it is not their sight which deceives them, but their judgment; sight informs them that certain colours, lights, and shades, appear before them, and its information is true; whilst judgment tells them that these colours, lights, and shades, indicate a massive substance (viz. a chair or mouse) which is false. From this it would appear, that instinct has no more to do with a cat mouse-catching, than with a man hare-hunting; and similar considerations may perhaps, teach us, that brute animals approach much nearer to us in faculties than philosophers are generally disposed to allow. Lastly, it may be inferred, that the staring and vacant expression of coun tenance, which is to be seen in children and idiots, proceeds rather from an inability to move their eyes than from a want of thought at the time. The former through inexperience, the latter through mental weakness, have not been sufficiently conversant with different objects to have exercised the moving powers of the eye, which therefore remains generally fixed. Both, when they wish to observe a new object, turn the whole head rather than the eyeball. And, that vacancy of look does not always proceed from want of ideas in the mind at the time, is evident from this, that men intently engaged in contemplating certain ideas generally stare with a fixed and foolish countenance, whilst their reverie continues. If a child were shut up in a dark room where he might exercise all his senses but one, it is obvious that upon light being admitted at the end of some years, when he had acquired a good stock of ideas by means of these four senses,-it is obvious that he would still continue to stare like an infant, how full soever his mind might be of ideas. For the motion of his eyes is consequent upon an act of his will so to move them, and he can have no will to move them from the object at which he first looks, because he knows as yet of no other object existing, and could therefore have no motive to ex cite his will to action. There are many other inferences which might be drawn from this curious experiment, but I will leave them to the reader's own sagacity or fancy. GREENWICH HOSPITAL. THE BARGE'S CREW. "Tis sweet to poise the lab'ring oar WHY, aye, Mr. What's your name, we were the pride of the ship-all picked men; and if you had seen us in those days, when hope and enterprise spread our white canvass to the breeze, and we either lufft up to get to windward of an enemy, or sailed large to run down to the succour of a friend in dis tress, it would have done good to your heart, man. Then there was our barge, so neat and trim with her gratings in the bow, and starn sheets as white as the drifted snow, and every oar a perfect picture. But to see her under sail with three lugs and a jib set, and the sheets trimm'd aftmy eyes! how she'd smack through the breeze, skimming the billow-tops like a flying fish as he dips to wet his wings and refresh him in his flight! Oh how sweetly she'd walk over the curling wave and climb the rolling swell. Why she could do any thing but speak, and every one of the crew loved her as his own, and tended her with the same affection that a fond mother would her darling child. But then what's the use of speechifying about it now?-she's broke up by this time, (though I'm glad I didn't see it, for every stroke of the axe would have gone to my heart;) and of the jovial lads that once manned her, some are cast like weatherbeaten shattered hulks adrift upon the Ocean of Distress, exposed to the windy storm and tempest, without a port in view or friendly barque to hail them in adversity. Ah, they think of the barge now, and on those times they will never see again, when they were called the jollycoach horses' that never flinched from their duty. Every soul was first captain of a gun; and our coxwain, Joe Snatchblock, was one of the finest fellows in the fleet, be the other where he wouldsix foot two inches without his shoes —a heart like a prince and the spirits of a lion-generous and brave. Why, Lord love you, Mr. What's-your-name, he was the very man as nailed the colours to the mast on board the Belly-quekes in Duncan's action. I thinks I sees him now. Up went the helm, and away he bore down right into the thick of it: slap comes a shot athwart the halliards, and down rattles the ensign. "Hurrah!" shouted Mynheer in exultation. "Dunder de Bloxam!" roared Joe from the gangway; and shaking his fist at the enemy, "Dunder de bloxam, but we'll give it you presently!" and then he ran aft, and rolling up the flag, tucked it under his arm, and skimmed aloft like a sky-rocket, while the musket-balls came pouring round him in leaden showers. "Grape and cannister to the five aftmost guns, (cried the first Lieutenant;) point them well at the enemy's poop-watch the roll, and be ready, my men !"___66 Aye, aye, Sir:" and we clapped the grapes into the still, and pressed them down with cannister, ramming all home with a vengeance. Rattle went a volley at Joe again, but we matched 'em for it in prime style; we smoked their manoeuvres and powdered their wigs. Yes, yes, our grape was squeezed into Win de grave for a good many-it damaged their upper works, and knocked away their understandings. Well, d'ye see, by this time Joe had got to the main-top-mast head with the ensign under his arm, the hammer betwixt his teeth, and the nails in his pocket; so he shoves one through the head of the flag, just below the toggle, and drives it into the mast above the cross-trees. Down he comes about half a dozen rattlins, and in went another nail, and so on till he descended to the main cap, where he took a severe turn with the tack, and hammered all fast. At this moment all hands at their quarters were casting one eye aloft, and the other at their gun, like a crow peeping into a pitcher, or a goose at a thunder-cloud. "Huzza!" roared Joe, as he threw out the fly of the ensign, which catching the breeze, waved majestically above us, floating in grandeur, like the Genius of Britain soaring on the wings of Victory. "Huzza!" shouted Joe again, slueing his starn to the Dutchman, and slapping his hand in an inexpressible attitude, while they returned the salute with a round of musketry that, had he not been bomb proof, must have knocked him off his perch. "Huzza!" responded the main and quarter decks; the lowerdeck caught the soul-enlivening strain, and three hearty cheers resounded from all hands. At it we went again, like fighting-cocks, for, d'ye see, we expected some of the right sort in the prizes-real right arnest Schiedam Ginever. At it we went, while Joe came sliding down the top-mast backstay like a cat. "Weel behaved, my mon, weel behaved! (said the captain-he was a Scotchman, though his name was English.) Troth ye've the spirit of a Highlander. Bring the |
