Passing under the pleasant shade of two fine oak trees, and then between a collection of very promising roses, we enter the house. Once inside, we see that the spirit of order, regularity, and neatness, is there paramount. The exactitude requisite for scientific observation, gives a habit of exactness in other things. In one room we perceive a galvanic battery ready for experiments; a disc of iron for showing a now defunct mode of steadying the vibrations of the compass; a specimen of the mixed iron and wood braced together as they are now employed in the construction of first-class ships of the Royal Navy, like the Queen’s Yacht; and more, interesting than all the rest, a copper bowl, contrived by Arago, for stilling the irritability (so to speak) of the magnetic needle. The French astronomer and ex-minister of the Provisional Government here claims our admiration of his scientific skill, and his work suggests the reflexion how much more pleasant the calm pursuit of nature’s laws must be to such a man, than the turbulent effort to enact rules and constitutions for an impetuous and changeable people. Passing from this room to another, we find books, and charts, and maps, on which are laid down the magnetic currents over the great oceans, and amongst its instrumental relics, a magnetic needle that belonged to poor Captain Cook. It is a plain small bar of steel in a rough wooden case, but to the mariner who loves his craft and its heroes, this morsel of iron has an interest greater than the most perfect of nautical inventions—for Cook was a seaman who achieved great ends with humble means and from humble beginnings. A third room is full of compasses of all sorts, sizes, and kinds, from China, from Denmark, from France; from the most rude and simple, to the most complex and finished. All the schemes and plans ever proposed for improving this useful invention are here preserved. Many of the contrivances have been discovered more than once. A sanguine theorist completes what to him is perfectly new. Certain that he is to be immortalised and enriched, he sets off to the Observatory with his treasure, to reveal his grand secret, and receive the anticipated reward. He is shown into the compass-room, and there,—horror of horrors,—upon the table, amidst a host of others, there is an old discarded instrument the very counterpart of his own! It was made, and tried, and discarded, years ago. From the main brick building we pass through another line of roses, and under a bower, boasting some fifty different varieties of that charming flower, to the wooden structure in the rear, which is, in fact, the Observatory.