our folly and our fault that we should ever | They do hate her when she flatters and cafor an instant seem to lose sight of the distinction between an oppressed nation and its government, of the deep, vital, abiding interest which England has, not in the momentary quietude or stupor of France, not in her mere material prosperity or clatter of monetary speculation, but in her freedom, her unchecked moral development.

From The London Review.
MUMMIES.

some one they have loved or hated; but most men would strongly object, at a time AN American author has recently brought when rents are so high, to be called upon to out a work on what he calls the "Apocatas- find house-room for their ancestral mumtasis; or, Progress Backwards," of the pres- mies. We bury our dead, and are inclined ent day. He pictures to himself the whole to get rid, as soon as possible, of the disahuman race retrograding into the gloomy greeable associations connected with their forests and dank caverns whence it has been resting-places. The suburban cemeteries allured by civilization, and looks forward to afford an interesting lounge to Sunday visa future darkening into the blackness of the itors; but the friends of those who occupy old primeval night. We are returning to the soil seldom have leisure to seek again the follies which were discarded by the wis- the melancholy spot which they may have dom of our ancestors, occupying ourselves once honored by their sympathizing preswith exploded fallacies, and attempting to ence. It is all very well for benighted forresuscitate lifeless shams, and are, therefore eigners to strew flowers on the graves of the degenerating so fast, both mentally and beloved one, and make it a picnic-point on physically, that it is to be feared that we stated aniversaries; but we prefer to permay lower to the level of the races from petuate our regret in masonry, and if our which we have been gradually developed, hearts are oppressed with care for the loss that our great-grandchildren may become of a friend, to rear such a mass of marble conscious of prehensile tails, and our re- above his remains as will effectually prevent mote descendants may jabber in an inarticu- the earth from lying lightly upon them. late tongue among the shapeless relics of ruined cities. A highly picturesque view of the wonders that shall be, but apparently a little over-colored. It may be true that there is a tendency to stand once more upon the ancient ways, to re-open in the palace of art some of the cobwebbed galleries which science has condemned, and to strive to peep into the unseen world through windows which a stern materialism has bricked up; but such undertakings are not likely to be so disastrous as to impede the onward march of man, and to hurl him back into aboriginal apehood.

The question of how to dispose of the dead to the greatest advantage has occupied the minds of many peoples, and has been solved in various ways. Some nations have exhib ited an originality of idea in their funeral arrangements that has sufficed to redeem their names from oblivion. In the tribe of the Arvacæ, inhabitants of the kingdom of Guinea, it was the custom for a bereaved family to pulverize the bones of a defunct relative, and mix the dust in the flowing cups quaffed to his memory. In some countries a man's relations would have been thought wanting in respect towards him if they had The custom of preserving the bodies of omitted to eat him when he died, and it was the dead is one of the antiquated heresies considered a delicate attention to send a which, after a prolonged hibernation, is small joint to friends at a distance. Such a showing feeble signs of life, and attempting custom may have been very gratifying to old to recover an orthodox character. Little persons who were allowed to die a natural has as yet been said about it in England, death, but it must have been very unpleas but in France and America it has of late ant for an ancient Sardonian, who had lived excited a good deal of interest, and given the number of years allowed by law, to comrise to considerable discussion. There are ply with the regulation which compelled him enthusiasts who look forward to a day when to invite his kinsmen and acquaintances to every family of distinction will pride itself come and dine off him on a certain day, and upon its store of pickled ancestors; and to have himself killed and cooked in time there are opponents of the scheme, who for the feast. No wonder that the difficulty consider it a proof of most dangerously ret- of calling up the conventional smile expected rograde tendencies. But it does not seem under such circumstances, should have given probable that embalming will become fash-rise to the phrase of a " Sardonic grin." But ionable among us. A few eccentric individuals may avail themselves of its assistance to preserve the outward semblance of

these were barbarous peoples, and it is hardly necessary for the most retrospective eye to study their cadaverous cookery, while the

numerous class, for the prices demanded were large, and the subjects operated upon were many. To be preserved in firstrate style would cost a dead aristocrat some three hundred pounds, and a middle-class house

funeral records of ancient civilization are | templated the money in his chest. The trade open to its inspection. If we are to alter must have been the means of supporting a our method of burial we can choose between cremation and embalming. The former has the merits of speed and economy, the latter commends itself chiefly to the pompous mind and to one that is regardless of expense. Where burning is in vogue, an entire ances-holder would have to lay by more than a try can be contained in one small vault, and third of that sum if he wished to do credit there must be something almost cheerful in to his family. But the money would be conthe sight of a family circle "safely potted in sidered well spent by men who were contheir urns." But the practice is not likely vinced that after a period of three thousand to become general; a book was published years their souls would return to their earthly not long ago advocating its revival on sani- tenements, and start afresh on a new lease tary grounds, but we do not suppose that its of life. It was not strange that they should arguments will ever result in depressing the wish to keep their vacant habitation in as shares of any Great Necropolis Company. good a state as possible, and should attach We should be more likely to follow in the considerable importance to the entirety of track of the Egyptians, were not the climate their future epidermis, or the preservation against us. It is chiefly in hot and dry re- of their favorite features. A similar belief gions that the art of the embalmer has flour- may have induced the Guanches, the extinct ished. Amidst the burning sands of Lybia, inhabitants of the Canary Islands, to preand on the plains of Central America, the serve the bodies of their dead. They, too, traveller who is left by his companions to may have imagined that the ghosts of their die and lie unburied, is mummified by Na- ancestors were constantly hovering about the ture's hands. The next passers-by find a xaxos, the mummified forms which they once shrivelled image of man, dried almost into used to animate. But they have vanished nothingness, and weighing as little as the from the world, and left little record behind defunct Hannibal is stated by a trustworthy them of their hopes and fears; so that it is satirist to have weighed. From such fortui- to Egypt alone that we can refer for infortous specimens of the homo siccus the first mation on the subject. There must have embalmers may have taken a hint, and have been strange scenes there in the olden days, afterwards improved upon their model until when the living and dead relations kept they produced the masterpieces which still house together, when a deceased grandfather charm the eye of the public in the Egyptian might be handed round at a banquet, and a galleries of the British Museum. They ap- needy child could borrow money on the sepear to have spared no pains, at all events curity of a parent's corpse. If such a pracin the case of corpses of quality, and it is tice prevailed now-a-days, what a rush there not surprising that they should have been would be along Drury Lane, on a Saturday treated with the respect which great artistes night, of thirsty sons bearing their fathers deserve. No doubt, they led a jovial life, to the pawnbroker's shop. There was no for it is an unvarying law of society that per- danger of such an occurrence among the ansons who make a living out of their neigh- cient Egyptians, for they prized their dead bors' dying should be cheerful, if not jocose. relations at least as highly as their live ones, Undertakers are proverbially facetious, and and were very unwilling to let them pass out a mute when off duty, is always full of spir- of their hands. The mummies remained inits. And, no doubt, the Egyptian corpse- tact for many a century, till European hands stuffers enjoyed themselves heartily, and rifled the tombs and carried off their occueven the despised "dissecter," whose duty pants. Not always, however, with impunity, it was to make the necessary incisions in the as the veracious Radzevil bears witness, who bodies, and who in consequence was hooted purchased two embalmed bodies at Alexanand pelted out of sight when his services dria, and smuggled them on board the ship were no longer required - even he had his in which he sailed for Europe; for a furious hours of jollification, and if the populace tempest arose, and two spectres hovered hissed him, applauded himself when he con- around the vessel regarding it with menacing

looks, until the mummies were cast over- as any in the book, but the idea has been board, when the ghosts disappeared and the worked out with signal success by a French storm was stilled. Radzevil was severely physician, Dr. Gannal. He has embalmed reprimanded by the captain for his conduct, but the theologians whom he consulted justified it on the ground that mummy was necessary for the sick. For in the Middle Ages it was considered a specific against all diseases, and a piece of it hung round the neck was looked upon as a preservative against numberless evils. So great, indeed, was the demand for this invaluable commodity, that a trade in false mummies sprang into life, and bodies were pickled by the score, in order to be sold at high prices to the eager and credulous foreigner.

a number of bodies, many of which have been examined after the lapse of several years, and they have been found to retain a lifelike appearance that defies the power of decay. A single incision is all that is necessary for the purpose of injection, the preserving fluid is rapidly forced through the veins, and the body becomes firm and elastic. The drying process occupies about six months, but after that time the embalmed individual requires no farther treatment, and is presentible in any society. An excellent specimen of the process is at present on view at the Burlington Gallery, being the embalmed body of Julia Pastrana, who was also exhibited in London during her lifetime. Her story is a very strange one. She was in all probability the most hideous woman who ever lived, but her ugliness made her fortune and gained her a husband. She had the features of an ape, and her face was covered with strong black hair, which lengthened along the jaws into luxuriant whiskers and a flowing beard. She is said to have been discovered in Mexico, but little is known of her parentage, for her first proprietors were anxious to enhance her market value by making out that she was the missing link between man and the brute creation. When Barnum heard of her fame he her appearance, intending to secure her for his museum, if she was really as frightful as she was said to be. The agent came, and saw, and perceiving that she was incredibly hideous, at once, with characteristic smartness, made her his wife in order to secure such a treasure for himself. He exhibited her in all parts of the world, until two years ago, when she died at Moscow, soon after giving birth to a little monster, who fortunately survived only thirty-five hours. The husband, we are thankful to say, is dead also. Her body, as well as that of her child, has been preserved by Dr. Sokolov, the professor of anatomy at Moscow, and well deserves the attention of all for whom female ugliness has a charm, or who have any idea of perpetuating their own attractions for the benefit of generations to come.

As medical science progressed, the belief in the healing properties of mummies faded away, and they were looked upon merely as curiosities. Now and then an attempt was made to rival the work of the Egyptian embalmers, but in general without any great success. Royal personages were often thought worthy of being guaranteed against corruption, and a few specimens of ordinary mortals were preserved for the inspection of the curious. The College of Surgeons can boast of the body of Mrs. Van Butchell, and Jeremy Bentham is on view at University College, dressed in the clothes which he used to wear, while he was yet alive; but they are both of them ghastly objects, and offer little encouragement to persons who are desirous of posthumous exhibition. sent an agent to report upon In "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship," an account is given of a process by which a dead body may be indefinitely preserved, retaining all the beauty which it had during life, and offering the appearance of being locked in a gentle sleep. After Mignon's death, her body is subjected to this process, and is then exhibited to the sorrowing friends who have come to her funeral. A balsamic substance," says the abbé who conducts them, "has been forced through all the veins, and now tinges, in place of blood, these cheeks too early faded. Come near, my friends, and view this wonder of art and care. He raised the veil; the child was lying in her angel's dress, as if asleep, in the most soft and graceful posture."

Many of the readers of this passage have doubtless considered it as fanciful and unreal

From The Spectator.
THE BRITISH REFORM JEWS.*

that the Israelites might, indeed, have been justly regarded as the chosen people at the THE British Reform Jews at first sight time when they alone possessed a higher appear to stand almost equidistant between truth in the midst of general superstition; the orthodox sect and the more advanced but that the truth which they then possessed German Reformers, whose chief congrega- is not necessarily the highest degree of ention is at Berlin. The orthodox party may lightenment attainable by the human mind, be described as Rabbanites, the British Reformers as Scripturalists, and the German Reformers as Deists. The first derive their doctrines from the Hebrew Bible, the Mishna and the Talmud, and the vast Rabbinical edifice reared on the massive foundations of the Mishna and Talmud; the English Reformers admit the authority of the Hebrew Bible alone; and the German Reformers simply make the Hebrew Scriptures the groundwork for their own views and convictions.