ageous
to extend the knowledge of those phenomena of nature which may be turned
to the profit of the arts. The charm which accompanies them will
overcome the repugnance that men have in general for manual operations,
(which most regard as painful and laborious,) as it will make them find
pleasure in the exercise of their intellect; thus there ought to be in
the formal school a course of descriptive geometry.

As yet we have no well compiled elementary work on that art, because
till this time learned men have taken too little interest in it, or it
has only been practised in an obscure manner by persons whose education
had not been sufficiently extended, and were unable to communicate the
result of their lucubrations. A course simply oral would be absolutely
without effect. It is necessary then, for the course of descriptive
geometry, that practice and execution be joined to the hearing of
methods; thus pupils will be exercised in graphic construction of
descriptive geometry. The graphic arts have general methods with which
we can only become familiar by the use of the rule and compass. Among
the different applications that may be made of descriptive geometry,
there are _two_ which are remarkable, both for their universality and
their ingenuity; these are the constructions of _perspective_ and the
strict determination of the _shadows_. These two parts may finally be
considered as the completion of the art of describing objects.

R. BROWN.

* * * * *

AN IDLER'S ALBUM; OR, SKETCHES OF MEN AND THINGS.

THE RADIANT BOY.

It is now more than twenty years since the late Lord Londonderry was,
for the first time, on a visit to a gentleman in the north of Ireland.
The mansion was such a one as spectres are fabled to inhabit. It was
associated with many recollections of historic times, and the sombre
character of its architecture, and the wildness of its surrounding
scenery, were calculated to impress the soul with that tone of
melancholy and elevation, which,--if it be not considered as a
predisposition to welcome the visitation of those unearthly substances
that are impalpable to our sight in moments of less hallowed
sentiment,--is indisputably the state of mind in which the imagination
is most readily excited, and the understanding most favourably inclined
to grant a credulous reception to its visions. The apartment also which
was appropriated to Lord Londonderry, was calculated to