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named Snobbery, — giving a foolish, trivial name to a thing far from trivial. He always spoke of his father, the blacksmith, as simply and naturally as a good democratic American would, if he had been so fortunate as to have an honest blacksmith for a father. When he was lecturing one evening upon something which he had discovered respecting illuminating gas, he concluded as follows:

"Thus much for my part. I believe I devised the scheme; but I should never have carried it into practice but for the casualty that I had, and have, a brother who is a gas-fitter."

Professor Scoffern relates an incident which occurred, when Faraday was at the height of his celebrity, that shows the simplicity of his character:

"While I was working in the Laboratory of the Royal Institution, Faraday came down and gossipped about things in general. The preparations for a chemical lecture involve many details of work not pleasant, and for the most part dirty. There are corks to be bored and adapted, joints of apparatus to be made good, stains to be removed, slops to be disposed of. That duty, aided by the Royal Institution assistant, was mine. Instinctively Faraday began to help-not choosing mere fancy work, however, but aiding right and left, doing whatever he saw had to be done. Handling a retort, I chanced to let it fall, and then there was a slop of some corrosive liquid. In an instant Faraday threw some soda on the floor; then down on his hands and knees he went, slop-cloth in hand, like an humble housemaid. Laughing, I expressed my desire to photograph him then and there; he demurred to the pose, begged me to consult his dignity, and began laughing with a childish joyousness. Hilariously boyish upon occasion he could be, and those who knew him best knew he was never more at home, that he never seemed so pleased, as when making an old boy of himself, as he was wont to say, lecturing before a juvenile audience at Christmas."

Professor Tyndall relates a very striking and amusing anecdote of Faraday's revisiting his old bookbinder's shop at a time when his fame as a philosopher was spread over the world. The incident occurred about the year 1850, when Professor Faraday was sixty years of age.

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Faraday and myself," writes Professor Tyndall, "quitted the Institution one evening together to pay a visit in Baker Street. He took my arm at the door, and, pressing it to his side in his warm, genial way, said:

"Come, Tyndall, I will now show you something that will interest you.'

"We walked northward, passed the house of Mr. Babbage, which drew forth a reference to the famous evening parties once assembled there. We reached Blanford Street, and after a little looking about, he paused before a stationer's shop, and then went in. On entering the shop, his usual animation seemed doubled; he looked rapidly at everything it contained. To the left, on entering, was a door, through which he looked down into a little room, with a window in front facing Blandford Street. Drawing me towards him, he said eagerly:

"Look there, Tyndall, that was my working-place. I bound books in that little nook.'

"A respectable-looking woman stood behind the counter: his conversation with me was too low to be heard by her, and he now turned to the counter to buy some cards as an excuse for our being there. He asked the woman her name — her predecessor's name - his predecessor's name.

"That won't do,' he said, with good-humored impatience; 'who was his predecessor?'

"Mr. Ribaud,' she replied, and immediately added, as if suddenly recollecting herself, 'He sir, was the master of Sir Charles Faraday.'

"Nonsense!' he responded, 'there is no such person.' "Great was her delight when I told her the name of her visitor; but she assured me that as soon as she saw him running about the shop, she felt-though she did not know why - that it must be Sir Charles Faraday.'"

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This admirable man, in the ardor of his devotion science, wore out both mind and body. There was one period of two years during which he was not even permitted to read scientific works, much less perform experiments. He lived to be seventy-six years of age; but his last years were passed in a kind of lethargy, caused by the exhaustion of his brain from forty years of laborious experiment and intense thought. We may form some idea of the extent of his labors from the fact that the last experiment entered in his book is numbered 16,045.

The Queen gave him a suite of apartments at the pleasant palace of Hampton Court, near London, and there he peacefully dozed and dreamed away the evening of his life. Nothing roused him, we are told, near the end of his days, but a thunder-storm. He would gaze in rapture upon the scene, and watch the play of the lightning with all the eager curiosity of his prime. But when the clouds broke up, and the storm rolled away beyond his view, the philosopher sank again into his state of dreamy unconsciousness.

THE REAL MERITS OF COLUMBUS.

THE CHAIN OF EVENTS LEADING TO THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. WHO SUGGESTED THE EXPEDITION.

ABOUT the year 1254, two Venetian merchants, brothers of noble extraction, named Maffeo Polo and Nicholo Polo, set out upon a voyage to Constantinople in their own vessel, carrying with them a large quantity of rich and valuable merchandise. At Constantinople they sold their merchandise, and were then ready to employ their capital in any way that promised to be profitable. Hearing that there was a good market for jewels at the court of a powerful Tartar Chief, beyond the Black Sea, they bought a number of costly gems, and sailed to a port at the extremity of the Crimea, where they purchased horses, and travelled many days until they reached their destination. Upon being presented to the Tartar Prince, they showed him the jewels they had brought with them. Perceiving that he was exceedingly pleased with their brilliancy and beauty, they, in accordance with the custom of the East, made him a present of them all; which was only a more profitable way of selling them. The Tartar Chief, not willing to be surpassed in generosity, ordered his treasurer to give them twice the value of the jewels in money, and made them several costly presents besides.

Well pleased with the result of the transaction, they remained a year in the dominions of this generous Prince, and at the end of that time prepared to set out on their return to Venice. But a war breaking out between the Prince

and one of his neighbors, the roads by which they had come were unsafe, and they attempted to reach Constantinople by going round the head of the Caspian Sea, a distance of about sixteen hundred miles. Travelling on horseback, they crossed plains, deserts, and mountains, journeying week after week, until they arrived at the Persian city of Bokhara, where they remained for three years. At Bokhara, they fell in with an ambassador who was on his way to the court of the Grand Khan, or King of Kings, the great chief of all the Tartar tribes, and at that time the most powerful monarch of Asia.

The precise place of his residence is not certainly known, but it was in the north of China, about fifteen hundred miles east of Bokhara. Hearing from this ambassador of the wealth and liberality of the king, and the disturbed state of the country rendering it extremely difficult to travel homeward without an armed escort, they joined the suite of the ambassador, and travelled with him to the capital of the Grand Khan. They were impeded sometimes by the deep snow, and often delayed on the banks of a swollen river until the waters had receded into their usual channel; so that a whole year elapsed, after leaving Bokhara, before they reached the abode of the Tartar King.

The ambassador introduced the brothers to this mighty potentate, who enjoyed nothing so much as conversation with well-informed and intelligent travellers. Besides questioning them respecting the kings of Europe, the extent of their possessions, their laws and customs, he manifested a particular curiosity concerning the Pope, the church, the worship and religious usages of Christians. The brothers, who were good Catholics, gave him abundant information on these points, and they made upon his mind so favorable an impression with regard to the Christian religion, that he

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