during which all the company kneeled, as is usual to family devotions throughout this country. The servants were present. It was nearly twelve o'clock when we took leave of Dr. C. A very friendly request which he made that I would visit him hereafter in Glasgow, I fear that I shall never have it in my power to comply with.

Glasgow, 14th April.—Yesterday I had the satisfaction to hear Dr. Chalmers preach once more. It was generally understood that it would be the last time that he would officiate in Glasgow for two or three months, and the crowds which assembled to hear him were very great. He was absent from his own pulpit, by exchange, in the morning, which did not prevent, however many from following him to the church where he preached. The Tron, in the afternoon, was overflowing some time before the hour of service, and the rush of people to the doors was as great as I have seen at Covent Garden, when John Kemble was to play. I repaired early to the church with some ladies, and we were fortunate in procuring excellent seats. Dr. C. fully equalled my expectations, although I have heard him in Edinburgh produce a superior effect. The eloquence of this great man is very vehement and impassioned. The effect which he produces in preaching, does not consist in approaching his point by any artful and covert process of reasoning and illustration, but by openly marching up and confronting it with unhesitating and manly intrepidity. Whatever faults may be detected in Dr. C's. style by the cool eye of fastidious criticism,—from the profusion of his ornaments, the overstraining of his metaphors, the redundancy of his expression,—perhaps there is no person living who, when once seen and heard, would be pronounced more free from the petty or laboured artifices which are generally employed to recommend and enforce instruction. So regardless is he of the factitious aids of composition, that his style may often be considered negligent, and sometimes even coarse. This again may be regarded by hyper-critics as a species of affectation; a contrary, and, I believe, a juster inference may be drawn from the fact. Dr. C. unconsciously overlooks, while he is thought studiously to disdain, the more common trappings and gilding of composition. In preaching, he seems wholly absorbed in his sublime occupation, and to be irresistibly borne along by the grandeur of his theme. As a man, he appears to sink under a prostrating sense of his own personal nothingness, but as a herald of the Christian faith, he rises to the majesty of more than mortal elevation. In discussing the great truths of Revelation, his imagination kindles; and strange it would be if it did not. The fire which is elicited is the natural effect of the rapid motion of his thoughts, combined with the fervour of his ardent piety. His single services yesterday were enough to prove him the first preacher of his age. In each of his discourses there are some parts which are particularly impassioned, and at such moments he hurries onward as with the excitement of inspiration, and produces an effect which Whitefield could not have surpassed. At these times, too, the listening audience may be seen bending forward, as if with breathless interest, to catch each word as it falls from his lips; and, on his arriving at the conclusion of the particular train of sentiment, again arousing as from the spell of a dream to the reality of conscious existence. This is not fancy, or if it be, it is one which I am not singular in possessing. Dr. C. at least produces the effect of awakening susceptibilities in the most obdurate bosoms. I was present one evening when he was preaching in lady Glenorchy's chapel, in Edinburgh, and occupied a seat next to Spurzheim, the celebrated craniologist. I noticed that he was deeply engaged by the preacher. On his finishing, I inquired what he thought of him? "It is too much, too much," said he, passing his hand across his forehead, "my brain is on a fever by what I have been hearing," a striking declaration from a cold and phlegmatic German.

Dr. C. seems to act and feel as one, who, possessed of great intellectual endowments, is conscious that he owes them all to the service of religion. His aim apparently is, to "bring every thought into captivity to the truth of Christ," and to "cast down each lofty imagination," at the foot of the cross. To add to the weight of his discourses, he is accustomed to call into requisition the abounding stores of his various knowledge. In delivering his sermons he usually commences in a low, but always a distinct tone of voice; and proceeds for some time with a calm and uniform utterance. As his subject is developed, his mind and feelings gradually expand, and his voice is insensibly raised. His manner at first is not prepossessing; nor indeed is his voice to an English ear, as it has much of the Fifeshire accent. The hearer, however, soon loses whatever is disagreeable in each; and even forgets the man while listening to the message of the preacher. Dr. C. appears turned of thirty-eight, in his person he is tall, and rather slender; his hair and complexion incline to dark; his eye is a blue tending to gray, and is distinguished at first only by a certain heaviness in its expression. It beams however in conversation, and flashes in public discourse.

Some facts in the history of this extraordinary man are peculiar. For the first few years of his ministry he was settled in Kilmany, an inconsiderable parish in the county of Fife. While there, he was generally accounted a man of talents, but rather indifferent to the duties of his profession, fond of social and gay company, proud of his intellectual powers no less so of his acquirements, and careless of the construction which the more serious part of the community might put upon his principles and sentiments. If I am correctly informed, he occasionly gave lectures in natural philosophy at the university of St. Andrews, and was considered as belonging to the moderate party in the kirk. Dr. Brewster applied to him to write the article Christianity, in his Encyclopedia; and it is said, that the train of thought into which his investigation led him, terminated in convictions which had the effect of changing his whole course of life and sentiments; and from that moment, entering into the ranks of orthodoxy, he became an eminent and powerful champion of the faith. His essay has since been published in a separate form, and entitled the "Evidences of Christianity." Shortly after this remarkable change, his reputation rose with astonishing rapidity; his zeal in the service of religion became inextinguishable; and if the excellence of a preacher is to be estimated by his popularity, Dr. C. is decidedly the first in Great Britain. He was transferred to Glasgow two or three years ago. His parish is very large, consisting, as he told me, of nearly ten thousand souls. So great a number imposes duties upon him peculiarly heavy: nor does his constitution seem capable of sustaining his fatigues. In delivering his discourses from the pulpit, which generally occupy an hour, it is usual with him to stop about midway, and read a hymn of six or eight verses, to be sung by the audience, while an opportunity is given him to recover from the partial exhaustion occasioned by this vehement oratory. The people in Edinburgh are desirous of erecting a church for him, and requesting him to settle among them; but an obstacle is found in the jealousy of the inhabitants of Glasgow, who look with no small uneasiness upon every thing which tends to aggrandize the reputation of Edinburgh.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF ANTS.[1]

Natural history is perhaps the most amusing of studies, though not