GLEANINGS.

ESCAPE or GuoTrus FROM PRISON.—Grotius was freely allowed, during his close imprisonment, all the relaxations of study.—His friends supplied him with quantities of books, which were usually brought into the fortress in a trunk two feet two inches long, which the governor re- gularly and carefully examined during the first year. But custom brought relaxation in the strictness of the prison rules; and the wife of the illus- trious prisoner, his faithful and constant visiter, proposed the plan of his escape, to which he gave a ready and, all hazards considered, a cou- rageous assent. Shut up in this trunk for two hours, and with all the risk of suffocation, and of injury from the rude handling of the soldiers who carried it out of the fort, Grotius was brought clear off by the very agents of his persecutors, and safely delivered to the care of his devoted and discrat female servant, who knew the secret and kept it well. She attended the important consignment in the barge to the Town of Gor- cum ; and after various risks of discovery, providentially escaped, Grotius at length found himself safe beyond the limits of Lis native laud.—Grat- tan's History of the Netherlands, in the Cabinet Cyclopadia.

MAII3/OUD THE IDOL DEsTnoynn.—Having placed guards round the walls and at the gates of Sunanaut, Mahmoud entered, accompanied by his sons and a few of his nobles and principal attendants. On ap- proaching the temple he saw.a superb edifice built of hewn stone. Its lofty roof was supported by fifty-six pillars, curiously carved and set with precious stones. In the centre of the hall was Somnat, a stone idol, five yards in height, two of which were sunk in the ground. The king approaching the image raised his mace, and struck off its nose. He or- dered two pieces of the idol to be broken off and sent to Ghizny, that one might be thrown at the threshold of the public mosque, and the other at the court-door of his own palace. Two more fragments were reserved to be sent to Mecca and Medina. It is a well-authenticated fact, that when llIahmoud was thus employed in destroying this idol, a crowd of Brahmins petitioned his attendants, and offered a quantity of gold if the king would desist from further mutilation. His officers endeavoured to persuade him to accept of the money; for they said that breaking one idol would not do away with idolatry altogether ; that therefore it could serve no purpose to destroy the Image entirely ; but that such a sum of money, given in charity among true believers, would he a meritorious act. The king acknowledged that there might be some reason in what they said ; but replied that if he should consent to such a measure, his name would be handed down to posterity as " Mah- mood the idol-seller :" whereas he was desirous of being known as " Malimood the idol-destroyer ;" he therefore directed the troops to pro- ceed in their work. The next blow broke open the belly of Somnat, which was hollow, and discovered a great quantity of diamonds, rubies, and pearls, of much greater value than the amount which the Brahmins had offered.—G/eig's History of India, in the Family Library. ORIGIN OF THE EAST INDIA CO IiIPANY.—It was 110 sooner known in London that the Dutch had penetrated beyond the Cape of Good Hope, than the English merchants determined, at all hazards to keep pace with their rivals. An association was formed in 1599, and a fund raised by subscription, the management of which was intrusted to a committee of fifteen persons ; whilst a second application was made, with greater earnestness than before, for the royal sanction upon the Company's proceedings. But Elizabeth, though well inclined to the measure, was deterredfrom giving to it her countenance, in consequence of the treaty then pending between England and Spain. She contented, therefore, herself with referring the memorial to her privy council, which made a favourable report ; and in the course of the same year John lilildenhall, a merchant, was sent overland by the route of Constar"- tinople on an embassy to the Great Mogul. It does not appear that this measure, however well intended, produced any favourable results ; indeed, the obstructions thrown in the way of the ambassador proved such, that he failed in reaching Agra, or obtaining an interview with

the Emperor, till the year 1606 ; but the mercantile spirit of England

was not therefore repressed. On the contrary, fresh applications were made to Elizabeth for that license, without which it was considered

hopeless to embark in so gigantic an undertaking ; and her own in-

clinations happening to coincide with the views of the privy council, the boon so earnestly solicited was obtained. Oil the 13th of December, 1600, the petitioners were erected into a corporation, under the title of " Governors and Company of Merchants of London trading to the East Indies." They were :vested, by charter, with the

power of purchasing lands without any limitation ; they were enjoined to commit the direction of their commerce to a governor and twenty-four persons in committee ; and the first governor, Sir Thomas Knight, was specially named in the act. Upon the Company, their sons when of age, their apprentices, servants, and factors in India, was con-

ferred, for the space of fifteen years, the privilege of an exclusive trade

" into the countries and parts of Asia and Africa, and into and from all the islands, ports, towns, and places of Asia, Africa, and America, or

any of them, beyond the Cape of Bona Esperanza or the Straits of Ma-

gellan, where any traffic may be used, to and from every of them." Such were the feeble commencements of a power which now holds sove- reign sway over the entire continent of India, with the islands immedi. ately contiguous. Two hundred and fifteen persons, with the Earl

of Cumberland at their head, composed the company to which this charter was originally granted, and the capital with which they prepared to en- gage in their novel enterprise amounted barely to 70,006/. divideT into

shares of fifty pounds each. With this they fitted out a fleet consisting

of four ships and a pinnace, which they freighted with cloth, lead, tin, cutlery, and glass, and adding to the cargo the value of 28,742/. in bid. lion, they committed the whole to the management of Captain James Lancaster. On the 2d of May, 1601, the squadron sailed from Torbay.— Gleiy's History of India. ALKiNa MOUNTAINS IN CALABRIA.—From each side of the deep valley or ravine of Terranuova' enormous masses of the adjoining flat country were detached and cast down into the course of the river, so as to give rise to great lakes. Oaks, olive-trees, vineyards, and corn, were often seen growing at the bottom of the ravine, as little injured as their

companions from which they were separated in the plain above at least

500 feet higher, and at the distance of about three-quarters of a mile. In one part of this ravine was an enormous mass, 200 feet high, and

about 400 feet in diameter at its basis, which had been detached by some former earthquake. It is well attested that this mass travelled down the ravine near four miles, having been put in motion by the earthquake of the 5th of February. The momentum of the " terre movitine," or lavas, as the flowing mud is called in the country, is no doubt very great ; but the transportation of masses that might be compared to small hills, for a distance of several miles at a time, is an effect which could never have been anticipated. The first account Sent to Naples of these two great slides or landslips was couched in these

words :—" Two mountains on the opposite sides of the valley walked from their original position until they met ill the middle of the plain, and there joining together, they intercepted the course of a river, &c." —Lyell's Geology. PROVISIONS OF CREATURES FOR THEIR YOUNG.—It is very ple,asing to observe the provisions that are made by creatures for the security, and, in many cases, comfort of their young : we see the land-

birds collect a variety of materials, and where requisite, of warm sub- stances, to shelter their broods. Others require no such provision. The water-birds provide down from their bodies to line their nests : vegetable matters would soon become damp, but this plumage contracts little mois- ture, and hence the eggs are kept dry in humid situations. The stop, or nest of a rabbit, is a very conspicuous instance of maternal care : the mother, plucking off nearly all the hair and fur from her stomach, and mingling it with short dry grass, forms a mass of 'materials for the com- fort of her young ones, securing them in it with great art, and visiting them with the utmost vigilance and caution. The insect weaves up the hair of its skin to form a covering, a web of cotton or of silk impervious

to the contingencies of the weather—all tending to the security and well. being of its young ; manifesting the deep and settled affection for its offspring impressed by the Creator upon the parent, in whatever grade or state it may be placed ; "for even the sea monsters draw out the breast."—Journal of a Naturalist.

WONDERFUL STRENGTH or_Isr.sscrse—The employ of the Dorr Beetle is to mine holes in the soil, remove the earth, and secrete the

nuisances and incumbrances that may be found upon the surface ; and this no weak animal could accomplish, but the strength of this beetle almost exceeds credibility. It has little power as a draught animal, but his business is to heave up the earth, entombing matters, and his mus- cular means appear to be situated in his legs, the upper joint of which is very large and firm. Having repeatedly placed one of these creatures, weighing 15 grains, under a weight equal to 4796 grains, sufficient, it would be considered, to crush its body, 319 times its own weight ! it heaved it up and withdrew, and the same pressure, being placed on its

leg, was immediately disengaged by the powers of the other. Man effects his objects by the reasonings of his mind, mechanical agencies, or the strength of others : had he depended upon mere animal power to accomplish his wishes, in order to equal the means of a common beetle, he must have raised his body from an incumbent pressure of perhaps twenty tons ! Our glow-worm requires all its faculties, retiring in autumn into the crevices of a stony or earthy soil, where it passes its inanimate hours : before the spring arrives' all these passages by which it entered would probably be closed by the decomposition of the one or

mouldering of the other, through the agency of frosts and rains; and it is thus probably endowed with strength and the faculty of contraction

and flattening its body, in order that it may remove the weights, or squeeze through the impediments that check the return to light and warmth, and, the accomplishment of the purport of its being. These are but lowly: things to converse upon, creatures fashioned beneath in the earth ; yet, hallowed by their Creator's hand, they manifest his omniscience, and we cannot but revere his wisdom and goodness..-. Journal of a Naturalist.