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Extraordinary Fact. - Unfortunate Artificee

that probably at their return to England they might find themselves without connections or friends, and that their acquired habits ill fitted them to mingle with polished society; in short, that they would not quit Caffraria.

Such, then, is the powerful influence of habit! Two young ladies, highly educated and in all probability lovely in their persons, are taught by habit to forget those scenes of gaiety they were so well calculated to ornament, and the anticipated enjoyments of high matrimonial connections; to forget their parents, their relations, the accomplished companions of thei youth, and all the refinements of life! Among a savage people, they acquire congenial feelings, and their vitiated nature ceases to repine: they love the untutored husbands given to them by fate; they rear their children in the stupidity of Hottentot faith; they designate their wretched hovel with the sacred name of Home; they expel memory from their occupations; and regret no longer mingles with their routine of barbarous pleasures. Is this, in reality, a picture of the human mind, with all its boasted attributes, its delicacies, its refinements, its civilized superiority? Yes! for custom is a second nature.

This fact is also related by Vaillant, in his Travels in the interior parts of Africa. He says, volume i. page 286, " I was told, almost six weeks prior to my visiting that coast, that an English vessel had been wrecked on these barbarous shores; that being driven on the sands, a part of the crew had fallen into the hands of the Caffres, who had put them all to death, except a few women, whom they had cruelly reserved." UNFORTUNATE ARTIFICER. - There was an artificer in Rome, who made vessels of glass of so tenacious a temper, that they were as little liable to be broken as those that are made of gold and silver: when therefore he had made a vial of the purer sort, and such as he thought a present worthy of Cæsar alone, he was admitted into the presence of their then Emperor Tiberius. The gift was praised, the skilful hand of the artist applauded, and the donation of the giver accepted. The artist, that he might enhance the wonder of the spectators, and promote himself yet further in the favour of the Emperor, desired the vial out of Cæsar's hand, and threw it with such force against the floor, that the most solid metal would have received some damage or bruise thereby. Cæsar was not only amazed, but affrighted with the act; but he, taking up the vial from the ground, (which was not broken, but only bruised together, as if the substance of the glass had put on the temperature of brass,, he drew out an instrument from his bosom, and beat it out to its former figure. This done, he imagined that he had conquered the world, as believing that he had 5 B merited an acquaintance with Cæsar, and raised the admiration of all the beholders; but it fell out otherwise, for the Emperor inquired if any other person besides himself was privy to the like tempering of glass? When he had told him, "No," he commanded his attendants to strike off his head, saying, "That should this artifice come once to be known, gold and silver would be of as little value as the dirt of the street." Long after this, viz. in 1610, we read, that amongst other rare presents, then sent from the Sophy of Persia to the king of Spain, were six mirrors of malleable glass, so exquisitely tempered that they could not be broken. ←