"But each returning day she deems
The hour he fix'd to come;
And ever at the wonted hour
She's here to greet him home.

"And when the coach is at the door,
She marks with eager eye
The travelers, as, one by one,
They're slowly passing by.

"Alack!" she cried, in plaintive tone,
'He surely named to-day!
He'll come to-morrow, then,' she sighs,
And turning, strolls away!"

With the exception of some of the smaller poems, which, not being long, are more easily quotable, "Progress" is the most popular poem that Saxe has yet written, and the one by which he is best known to the mass of readers. Of the entire poem, consisting of four hundred and eighty verses, more than four hundred different lines have been quoted, with expressions of approbation in specimen passages. Six or seven years have passed since its first appearance, but it is still going the rounds of the papers and magazines. We cannot at present follow the poet over the whole field of modern "progress," for in this marvelous age of spiritual rappings and mesmeric revelations, some new science and wonder may arise before we can finish the paper. They come like shadows; may they so depart! The following hits at our boy-philosophers and our smart young ladies are well-deserved: "Room for the sages!-hither comes a throng Of blooming Platos trippingly along, In dress how fitted to beguile the fair! What intellectual, stately heads—of hair! Hark to the oracle-to wisdom's tone Breathed in a fragrant zephyr of Cologne. That boy in gloves, the leader of the van, Talks of the 'outer' and the inner man,' And knits his girlish brow in stout resolve Some mountain-sized 'idea' to 'evolve.' Delusive toil-thus in their infant days, When children mimic manly deeds in plays, Long will they sit, and, eager, bob for whale,' Within the ocean of a water-pail !

Nor less, O Progress, are thy newest rules
Enforced and honor'd in the 'Ladies' Schools ;'
Where education, in its nobler sense,
Gives place to learning's shallowest pretense;
Where hapless maids, in spite of wish or taste,
On vain accomplishments' their moments
waste;

By cruel parents here condemn'd to wrench
Their tender throats in mispronouncing French;
Here doom'd to force, by unrelenting knocks,
Reluctant music from a tortured box;
Here taught, in inky shades and rigid lines,
To perpetrate equivocal designs ;'
'Drawings' that prove their title plainly true,
By showing nature drawn' and 'quartered' too!"

Among other things satirized is Socialism,

"That matchless scheme, ingeniously design'd From half their miseries to free mankind;" and it affords Saxe the opportunity to let off the following good-natured squib :— "Association' is the magic word From many a social 'priest and prophet' heard; 'Attractive Labor' is the angel given To render earth a sublunary heaven! 'Attractive Labor!' ring the changes round, And labor grows attractive in the sound; And many a youthful mind, where haply lurk Unwelcome fancies at the name of work,'

Sees pleasant pastime in its longing view, of toil made easy' and 'attractive' too, And fancy-rapt, with joyful ardor, turns Delightful grindstones and seductive churns! Men are not bad'-these social sages preach, 'Men are not what their actions seem to teach;

'No moral ill is natural or fix'd-
'Men only err by being badly mix'd!'
Made up of richest viands, fruits, and creams,
To them the world a huge plum-pudding seems,

Which of all choice ingredients partook,
And then was ruin'd by a blundering cook!"

A passage from "The Times," and we have done with our extracts from Saxe's satires. From what we have seen of the class of ladies he alludes to, the satire seems to us just and fair :

:

"What hinders then, when every youth may choose

As fancy bids, a musket or a muse,
And shows his head among his fellow-men,
From the dark muzzle of a gun or pen;
When blooming school-girls who absurdly think
That naught but drapery can be spoil'd with
ink,

Ply ceaseless quills that, true to ready use,
Keep the old habit of the pristine goose,
While each a special Sappho in her teens,
Shines forth a goddess in the magazines;
When waning spinsters, happy to rehearse
Their maiden griefs in doubly grievous verse,
Write doleful ditties, or distressful strains
To wicked rivals or unfaithful swains,
Or serenade, at night's bewitching noon,
The mythic man whose home is in the moon;
When pattern wives no thrifty arts possess,
Save that of weaving-fustian for the press;
Write lyrics, heedless of their scorching buns,
Dress up their sonnets, but neglect their sons,
Make dainty doughnuts from Parnassian wheat,
And fancy-stockings for poetic feet;
While husbands-those who love their coffee hot,
And like no fire that does n't boil the pot-
Wish old Apollo, just to plague his life,
Had, for his own, a literary wife!
What hinders, then, that I, a sober elf,
Who, like the others, keep a muse myself,
Should venture here, as kind occasion lends,
A fitting time to please those urgent friends,
To waive at once my modest muse's doubt,
And, jockey-like, to trot the lady out?"

cave speculum of which is three feet in diameter, and whose focal length is twentyseven feet. It is elevated and depressed with the greatest ease, being accurately balanced by heavy weights over pulleys; and it is turned to any part of the heavens by means of wheels running on a graduated iron circle, fixed in the ground. The casting, grinding, and polishing of this speculum, and the machinery of the tube, and its suspension, were all accomplished under his lordship's eye, and by his own direction. We give a view of the exterior of his workshop, and of the house, where, by help of a steam-engine, all the processes connected with the producing of the speculum were performed. It will be interesting to know more exactly what were the operations carried on in this laboratory. We will attempt a description, necessarily very brief, and as much on the surface as possible: a more scientific and elaborate one will not befit a popular pictorial article like this. A detail of the several steps taken in the

THE TELESCOPE ON THE LAWN.

making of the large speculum will suffice for our purpose.

Lord Rosse has discovered that the only metals which should be employed in forming speculum metal are copper and tin, and that the proportion should be, copper 58.9 to tin 126.4. Of these metals for his large speculum he melted three tons, in three cast-iron crucibles. In his first trial to melt the metal, he found that the weight was so great that it insinuated itself into the heated crucible, and oozed through it at the bottom. To remedy this, his lordship had crucibles cast with their faces upward. Crucibles are always cast with the bottoms up; and so, the air rising, makes those parts porous, and caused the oozing of the metal. The plan he adopted

of getting them cast face upward-allowed the air to lodge at the top; and he completely succeeded in his next attempt. Having sunk in the ground three large furnaces, each about four feet in diameter, and six feet deep, and connected with a chimney about nineteen feet high, and

four feet broad, tapering slightly to the top, he heated them with turffires, which he preferred to coal. One crucible, holding one ton of metal, was placed in each, and for nineteen hours was subjected to an intense heat. The shape on which the metal was to be cast being made ready, and three sleepers being rightly placed to receive the crucibles, they were lifted, by means of an immense crane, from their furnaces; and at nine o'clock on the evening of the 18th of April, 1842, without accident or delay, they simultaneously poured forth their glowing contentsa burning mass of fluid matter, hissing, heaving, pitching itself about for a minute, and then calmly settling into a monument of man's industry forever. There were a great many witnesses of

this scene, and not one can forget the entire composure of the Earl of Rosse's manner. While every other person seemed anxious and fearful, he directed the men as collectedly and easily as if it I was one of the most ordinary occurrences of life; and his only answer to the many proffered suggestions of the bystanders was, "There's no fearthere's no hurry."

When the metal had settled, it was drawn by a capstan into a heated oven, and built in, where it remained for sixteen weeks, annealing. The great difficulty experienced in producing large reflectors is, that in cooling the metal generally cracks; and when this does not occur, the number of holes often found in the solid mass renders it of no use. Lord Rosse has the merit of overcoming completely both these obstacles. The plan usually adopted in casting is to make the shape in sand; this substance, however, in his lordship's experiments, allowed the under portions of the metal to remain heated as long as the upper, and both surfaces setting together, left the central portions the last to cool, which thereby caused warping and cracking in the speculum. Lord Rosse thought that if the metal was cast in the shape of iron, its high conducting power would cool the under surface rapidly, and that the cooling would extend itself gradually to the top. This he found, on trial, to be the case; but the air and gas that is always mixed with the fluid metal not having the porous sand to allow its escape, rose through and filled with holes the speculum, and consequently destroyed it. The problem now was, to find some substance of sufficiently high conducting power to cause rapid cooling; but, at the same time, sufficiently porous to allow the escape of air when the metal was poured on it. In a happy moment the noble mechanic solved it. He thought

LORD ROSSE'S WORKSHOP.

that by binding together layers of hoopiron, and turning the required shape on them edgewise, that the interstices would be too small to let the metal pass, and large enough to give the air exit. The existence of the six-foot speculum is a magnificent proof of the truth of the calculation. Nothing could have answered more fully. We should be proud to think that the greatest scientific triumph was not the creation of a happy chance, but the result of reason.

The speculum being cast, was left for sixteen weeks in the annealing oven; and we may well envy, but can scarcely imagine, the feelings of its maker when, on removal, it was found without spot or blemish. The surface had now to be ground and polished. The figure required for the surface of a reflecting speculum is that of a parabola. There is, in general, very great difficulty in producing this curve; and it has been such a terror to opticians that few can be found willing to undertake a speculum of larger diameter than six or eight inches. However, Lord Rosse, by a combination of motions, both of the speculum and polishing tool, easily produced the desired effect. The speculum was placed in water, and turned round by