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So awed, so silent, land of God! will we

Recall our fancies from thy scenes and thee.
Ah! we have seen the pictures of thy tale
Like evening rainbow in the misty vale,
And have forgotten, in entrancement glad,
That earth was round us, and that life was sad!
Alas! the sights which haunted earth so long!
They linger but to bless the soul of song;
Gone with the thousand isles in ocean hurl'd-
Gone with the patriarch forests of the world!
So let it be we have a holier faith-
Believing life amid the land of death;
Looking from darkness upon visions strange,
And down into eternity from change!

God of our spirits! from thy throne sublime,
Poised o'er the dark profundity of time,
Breathe on our hearts thine influence good and calm,
Strength to our souls, and to our sorrows balm;
Our guiding light may deep devotion be,
And rapt imagination bend to thee!

May hope and memory close embracing twine,
And thought's sole form, her very life, be thine!
Till the strong spirit, with the speed of morn,
Up to the presence of thy power is borne;
And even in life the cares of earth shall show,
Fair as from mountain-heads, the sun-spread haze below!
W. S.

THE BATTLE GROUND.

By J. Memes, LL.D., Author of the " Life of
Canova," &c.

Rimaner dopo vita pien di faville.

and but a few hours before, uncovered, showed the entire mound to be one vast sepulchre, whose dread contents, by their confusion, too plainly evidenced the unpeaceful de parture and the reckless entombment. The scenery d no mean event, of no trivial contest, was now obviously around me; but multitudinous and unrecorded death seemed here involved in double mystery.

Resuming enquiry, I found the door of the belfry only slightly secured, thus reaching, with some difficulty, by a half ruinous stair, an exterior bartizan. This station. though not elevated above forty feet, commanded a prospect of surpassing grandeur, which would have presented, even to less excited imaginings, no unfitting theatre Here, too, for some mighty act in the drama of events. knowledge, far from discrediting, was to give fixedness and veracity to the pourtrayings of fancy. On the pa rapet had once been a sun-dial; the gnomon broken away, the hour lines defaced, seemed, like the awful secrets beneath, to have no more doings with time; but there still remained legibly inscribed, as the name of the place"WAGRAM!"

To the communication of this brief legend there required no addition. The landscape which now extended before and around me, bright, and calm, and beautiful, had been the torn and echoing battle-field, whereon two hundred thousand human beings had toiled in mortal conflict. Here the Austrian had bled within sight and sound of home's endearments, and side by side, his foe, afar from all "the closing eye requires;" yet did not home in sunny France mingle sweetly even in his latest blood-dimmed visions! It is when on some battle-plain we thus view each nameless wreck apart-regard each single bosom, in itself a world of life, a little sanctuary of loves and charities, desolated as if not an holy thing-as if not the holiest of created things-that our souls sicken at the trade of warfare. It is then we execrate his renown, as formerly we may have contemned the vulgar quality that constitutes the military hero. Father of Mercies! how have thy rational offspring become how do they continue-the veriest dupes and slaves of names and influences the most abhorrent to all that is truly noblest in their nature and best ends of being!

Hope fain would whisper this may not always be. Meanwhile yield we somewhat to the deceit; and do you, reader, placing yourself beside us in the narrow balcony of the church tower, look forth upon the scene while we describe the associations of its history. Turn we first attention eastwards to these low verdant islands, floating from thence about cannon-shot down the stream where the Danube expands to receive them in a wider reach. These, for many weeks, formed the position of the French army, whence it marched on the morning of July 6th, 1809, "the day of Wagram." That village just seen above the coppice of the right bank opposite is Ebersdorff, the station of Davoust and the reserve. These dark masses to the rear of the extreme right are the towers of Vienna, which, then in possession of a French garrison, extended their line of communication seven miles. The

A SOLITARY ramble along the left bank of the Danube, for I had escaped from Vienna and all inflictions of regular sight-seeing for one day's enjoyment of nature-terminated in a spot which arrested thought with a power still well remembered. Yet scarcely could the impressiveness be assigned to any definite or striking characteristics of locality. A village church, the principal object, with steep roof and square belfry, supporting its extinguishershaped spire of shining tiles, nowise superior to the similar buildings of German hamlets, was surrounded by an humble cemetery alike unpretending. But something in the aspect of the place spake to the heart and engaged attention. The more observation was indulged, a greater intensity, or perhaps individuality of sentiment, awoke. How have these walls been literally ploughed by the deadly though not recent shower of musketry; and these once magnificent trees, so evidently survivors of themselves as of compeers, what has smitten their giant limbs in such ruthlessness? And, more than all, these numerous and lengthened ridges reposing green and silent in the calm sunshine, how are they to be contemplated? Too capacious for the last resting-places of the rustic population around—if not tombs, why rise they in consecrated earth? But who shall unfold the story of their indwell-main force, however, commanded by Napoleon in person, ers, if tenanted they be by unknown dead thus lonely and unhonoured! Here no sumptuous monument proclaimed its tale of flattery or of pride, nor modest stone recorded the tribute of affection. Nothing indicated the sympathies or interests of this world-not even the rude cross of wood, (rarely, in Austria, omitted over the lowliest grave,) on which might be read the initials of some loved name, traced with bare intelligence by the unpractised hand. Nature's sweets had here strewn, it might be, over human decay, the sole and affecting ornament in the spring flowers that gemmed the undulating sward,

A consequent search conducted to the extremity, close upon the river, of the largest of these mysterious elevations. At this point a late inundation had burst the cerement that shrouded from the eye-formless nothings that had once been men! The portion thus singularly,

lay in Lobau, the largest of the islands, three, or perhaps
four miles in circuit, and joined to the left bank by an
isthmus seemingly artificial, where these grassy inequali-
ties still mark the strong entrenchments opposed to hos-
tile attack on that side, while, on the other, friendly in-
tercourse was secured by a bridge of boats.
Here a spe-
cies of military colony was established, and not uninte-
resting relics of the habits and tastes of the French sol-
diery may yet be discovered in the ruins of regular streets
and squares of turf habitations, intermingled with par-
terres, miniature gardens, and promenades. On this hand
a battery, on that a theatre-here a champs de Mars,
there a circus rises. Beyond this once-crowded spot,
where men, cut off by situation and hostility from all the
world, and from all aid save their swords, could be thus
careless and gay, the noblest of European rivers winds his

i

majestic course through a champaign of luxuriant fertility, bounded only by the horizon where the blue waters gleam along the azure plains of distant Hungary.

ANECDOTES OF AN AUTHOR OF THE OLD

SCHOOL.

By Robert Chambers.

DR WALTER ANDERSON, who died about thirty years The Austrian force, under the Archduke Charles, confined wholly to the left bank of the Danube, occupied a ago, minister of Chirnside in Berwickshire, was a man of excellent private character, of the best intentions, and strong position in front of these two villages, about three miles to the westward, or up the river, whence they are great benevolence; but he was unfortunately spoilt by the idea that he possessed the qualifications of a great about half a mile distant. From our present station their author. Perhaps not a single reader of this Journal is white walls glisten cheerfully amid the fresh green of the cultivation which surrounds them, but their magnitude acquainted with Dr Anderson's name as an author; yet it is certain he published a prodigious number of books—aye, and appearance may seem to contrast strangely with the and books of a substantial nature, too-none of your light importance attached in history to the names of Asperne and Esseling. The immediate field of battle, however, gossamer royal eighteenmos, or your slim twelvemos but thick, honest-like quartos, or decent octavos, at the was upon the plain, or rather two plains, above and below Had the Doctor's works been only solid and Wagram; interjacent between the Danube and these irvery least. massive in their physical or external structure, there regular heights, which, on the point where the church would have been no occasion to speak of him here; but, stands, forming a kind of isthmus with the river, afteralas! they were equally solid in their moral constitution, wards recede to a distance in the shape of a double crescent. Eastwards, below Wagram, these elevations graand lay upon the public stomach like so many masses of lead. The means by which he contrived to gratify his dually subside into the general level; but to the west, and above Asperne, they rise into grandeur, presenting a mag- literary ambition, in the face of general disapprobation, He was a man of some property, and, nificent amphitheatre of hanging forest, broken cliff, and for a long time, he regularly sold a house in Dunse, and castled steep, with woodland and cultivated valley between, while far beyond tower the mountains of the Moravian chain, behind whose rampart the discomfited Aus-published a book in Edinburgh, every other year; the trian first sought refuge.

It falls not in with our purpose to describe the battle. Both from its situation, and the circumstances of attack, Wagram formed the principal object of contest, as being in reality the key of the position. During the early portion of the day the Austrians remained in possession, and the French were confined to the lower semicircle of plain opposite Lobau, whence they had deployed; but after various captures and re-occupations, the latter became the final masters of this important point, whence they could not be driven, the former retreating nearer their first ground in the upper plain. And from the rude balcony of Wagram tower, from the very spot where the broken sun-dial lately stood, did Napoleon Bonaparte behold the closing hours of that conflict, whose issues affected the

most distant thrones of Europe. Thus, reader, the place
on which we had stationed you, was, in common par-
The moral grandeur
lance, one of no ordinary interest.
of endurance, too, and of persevering endeavour under du-
bious or even adverse circumstances, which latterly are by
no means conspicuous qualities in Napoleon's character,
were here eminently displayed. During the early part
of the day, more than once, by his own personal exer-
tions, exposing himself to every danger, had he re-esta-
After all ef-
blished his broken and retreating legions.
forts and a partial success, he beheld the fortunes of that
field on which so much depended-often more than
doubtful-yet even then, from this post where we have
stood, he gazed upon its varying array, and wielded its
Nor
movements, with firm eye and unblanched cheek.
(we report the evidence of a witness, though no friend, of
one, in fact, who was cut down and made captive in a
dash upon that very station)—nor did one changing ex-
pression for a moment disturb the marble composure of his
fine and statue-like countenance, or turn aside his intense
concentration of thought, fixed on one great crisis, yet
alive to minor incidents, till perceiving the Austrian
centre to be injudiciously and irretrievably extended, he
exclaimed, in tones as if a spell had been broken, "We
have gained!" Then rushing down the narrow stair
flinging himself into the nearest saddle-several of his
favourite chargers having been in readiness for hours in
the church below, he poured the shock of his columns
upon the weakness of his adversary, and verified his own
prediction.

were curious.

proceeds of the house to defray the expenses of the publication. By this expedient, he converted a row of goodly houses in one of the best streets of his native town, into a row of goodly volumes in one of the best shelves of his library.

Dr Anderson was one of those pregnant wits who require nothing but to have a subject suggested to them in One day he was dining at the order to write a book.

house of the patron of the parish, Mr Hume of Mire-
wells; and in the company assembled was the illustrious
"Mr Dauvit," said
David Hume, brother of the host.
the mortal to the immortal, with all the familiarity which
66 you have
a clergyman may use towards a parishioner,
got a great name by your writings; but the worst of it
is, that you, and sic as you, have engrossed all the good
subjects, so that we who come a little later can find no-
thing to employ our pens upon."-" Why," said Hume,
"I rather believe there are a few good subjects still un-
handled."-" Could you mention any?" asked Anderson.

tures;

"What, for instance," said the philosopher, "would "The best possible!" exclaimed the poor Doctor, in rapyou think of a history of Croesus, king of Lydia ?”—___ "there is no such book in existence, and I think it is just exactly the sort of subject I could make the most The Life of." Accordingly, upon this hint he spoke : But, alas! tavo, at the expense of a three-story house. of Croesus, King of Lydia, came forth in a splendid ocbook was no better than the rest of Dr Anderson's proalthough the subject was the richest in the world, the ductions, being simply a crude compilation from Herodotus and such writers of antiquity, without a single ray

of mind to illuminate the mass.

It cost a

Anderson imitated the example of Burke, by writing a he did not imitate Burke in making it sell. pamphlet in vituperation of the French revolution; but two-story house, and the public purchased five copies. About a twelvemonth after the work appeared, the author came to Edinburgh, and called upon the historian Robertson, with whom he was intimately connected, "Doctor," said through the means of church politics. an appendix to my pamphlet on the French revolution." he, "I've come to town to see about the publication of Robertson expressed surprise at the object of the expedition, seeing that the original work had not done any good. "Ah," said the author, "but this is three times as big a book as the pamphlet ! and I think they'll baith gang aff thegither."—" Well," said the learned Principal, "this is the most extravagant business I ever knew you engaged in to think that a pamphlet which has been already found so heavy, will be made lighter by an addi

Do

tion of three times the weight! Nonsense, Doctor! You
must give up the idea."-" But I winna gi'e up the idea.
I ken better than you how to make a thing lighter.
you no mind, when ye was a callant at the schule, that
ye sometimes found a dragon (a kite) too heavy to go up
into the air by itself?"-" Yes, I do," answered Dr Ro-
bertson. "Weel, was there ever ony plan sae gude for
making the thing rise, as to tie a tail far langer and
heavier than itsell to the bottom o't? Just sae I intend
to do wi' my pamphlet." Dr Robertson laughed out-
rageously at the humour of the author; but he found
means to save him the house which the publication would
have cost, by using some other arguments.

But this Academy, the establishment of which to place in the ninth century, not having been chartered soon fell into decay, and centuries were destined to elaps before its revival. During this long period, when all E rope, and especially France, experienced the beneficial e fects of Italian literature, the minstrelsies of the Trous dours, and above all, the discovery of printing, no academy was in existence, nor in contemplation, although the uni versity of Paris, on account of the great reputation it had acquired, was then attended by more than twenty-five thousand students. But in the sixteenth century, a bright constellation of authors, ascending towards th zenith of French literature, shone forth, and under their fostering influence the institution of the French Academy took place. The names of its illustrious founders are Ronsard, Ponthus de Thiard, Remy-Belleau, Jodelle, Dubellay, Dorat, and Baïf. These seven celebrated chiracters, in allusion to the Egyptian Pleïades, near the time of Philadelphus Ptolemy, King of Egypt, were called the French Pleiades,-a name well merited, for like the fair daughters of Atlas, every one of them became the theme of admiration; and the enthusiastic regard evinced by Queen Mary of Scotland, towards Ronsard, one of their number, is an additional proof how powerful the charms of that poet must have been.

This ill-starred writer once got a dreadful hit in the stomach of his absurdity, from a hand that did not seem the most likely to inflict it. There prevailed in his time a very reprehensible custom of making one of every little party the butt, as it was called; in other words, an individual was selected, remarkable for either natural or assumed eccentricity of character, who was set up as a sort of mark, against which all the rest might direct their witticisms. The custom prevailed immensely in society of the second order, and particularly among the clergy, whose presbytery dinners and other meetings gave them frequent occasion for exercising it. The chief butt of the clergy of Dr Anderson's district was a Dr Ridpath, brother to the author of "The Border History of Scotland;" a worthy man and a scholar, but whose simpli-guage, was considered by some an encroachment on the city of character made him quite the proper person for being used as a butt. It was a peculiar feature, however, of Dr Ridpath's character as a butt, that he sometimes stood at bay, and paid back as good as he got; and of this a noted instance is told in connexion with the name of

Dr Anderson. One day, that gentleman, after a long course of bantering, fairly told Dr Ridpath that "it was weel kenn'd he was but a weak brother."—" Ou ay, Willie, man," answered the Doctor; "I never published it, though."

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE
RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE
OF FRANCE.*

THE French Institute, styled L'Institut Royal de France, is composed of four distinct Academies. The first is exclusively devoted to the French language, and is called L'Académie Française; the second takes under its care the learned languages, antiquities, monuments, history, &c. and is termed L'Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres; the third, in which matters connected with medicine, surgery, mathematics, astronomy, &c. are treated of, bears the name of L'Académie Royale des Sciences; and the fourth, which is composed of painters, sculptors, architects, musical authors, &c. is known by the appellation of L'Académie Royale des Beaux-arts. L'Académie Française having been the cradle of the three others, its origin should be first explained.

The first French Academy may be traced as far back as the time of Charlemagne, at which period it was composed of the chief personages of his court, Charlemagne himself being a member. Various were the objects of their academical conferences, but they were for the most part suggested by the different works, ancient and modern, which had formed the studies of the members. With the view of giving greater dignity to their society, a name connected with the literature of antiquity was assumed by each member. Alcuinus, for instance, an illustrious Englishman, whom Charlemagne had called to his court, took the title of Flaccus, the surname of Horace; Augilbert, a lord and a poet, called himself Homer; Adelard, the Bishop of Corbie, was named Augustin; and Charlemagne assumed the appellation of David.

This paper is from the pen of an able French writer now resident in Edinburgh.

The establishment, however, of an academy, the avowed object of which was to refine and perfect the French lan

rights of the University, and a remonstrance from that
body was forwarded to Charles IX. then King of France,
and then also, fortunately for the infant Academy, one of
its members. Instead of supporting the University,
Charles became the zealous protector of the French Aca
demy against the attacks of its enemy; and his patronage
was so effectual, that, notwithstanding the odious cha-
racter borne by that monarch in history, he has a claim
to the favourable remembrance of pesterity, at least for
the part he acted on this occasion. But by the death of
Baïf, one of the Pleiades, and the main support of the
Academy, and also by the civil wars then raging in
France, in which Henry IV. was making gigantic efforts
to recover his crown from the Ligueurs, this establishment
suffered severely; and until the time of Cardinal Riche-
buried in oblivion.
lieu, under Louis XIII. the Academy seems to have been

reviving from its ashes, the illustrious body assumed a
In the middle of the seventeenth century, like a Phoenix
new life, and from the lustre reflected by a Balzac, a
houses of whom, from 1628 till 1635, its meetings were
Chapelain, a Voiture, a Benserade, and a Sarazin, in the
held, the literary horizon of France became once more
illuminated.

About this period died Malherbe, styled
genius the French language, assuming a new character,
"the poet," par excellence-under the influence of whose
became more pure, flowing, and harmonious, and also
acquired a degree of elevation and dignity, unknown be-
fore the time of this elegant and accurate writer.
of him that Boileau has said, in his Art Poétique,-

"Enfin Malherbe vint, et, le premier en France,
Fit sentir dans les vers une juste cadence;
D'un mot mis en sa place enseigna le pouvoir,
Et réduit la muse aux règles du devoir."

It is

Cardinal Richelieu's good taste, liberality, and fondness for every thing connected with French literature, can never be forgotten. Under his fostering care, the Academy acquired a solid reputation; and it was under erected the first Botanical Garden at Paris, it obtained his patronage that in 1635, the same year in which was the name of l'Académie Française, the objects of which refinement, and perfection of the French language. The were understood to be exclusively for the improvement, number of its members was limited to forty, out of which a director, a chancellor, and a secretary, were chosen ; the two first offices being for a limited period, and the latter

for life. In the apartment of Cardinal Richelieu the first legal sittings were held; but some time after his death, accommodation in the palace of the Louvre, corresponding with the dignity and independence of the illustrious body, was prepared and appropriated for them. Corneille, Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, Ménage, D'Olivet, and other luminaries, were members of this Academy, which to this day has retained the exclusive title of l'Académie Française, the meaning of which is-l'Académie de la langue Française, because the labours of its members are confined to that kind of literature, in which the accuracy of style and beauties of diction form the prominent objects. This may account for poets having composed the majority of the French Academy, which is now the first branch of the Royal Institute of France.

Academy, Colbert, always alive to every thing from which France could derive either honour or benefit, and aware that meetings of mathematicians, natural philosophers, and other scientific persons, such as Descartes, Pascal, Mersennes, Blondel, Montmort, Thevenot, &c. had, for some years, been frequently held in private, thought proper, as a mark of respect, and also as a stimulus to every individual versed in particular sciences, to recommend the erection of an Académie des Sciences; and in 1699, precisely at the time of the breaking out of the war for the Spanish succession, which set Europe in a blaze, it became a legal institution. Its constitution, however, on account of the multifarious branches of which the Academy was composed, was necessarily modelled on grounds differing from the others, for, in the first place, the number of members was fixed at seventy; secondly, the members were divided into four classes, honorary, pensionary, associates, and pupils; and, in the last place, no one was to be admitted unless he was the author of an invention, discovery, or original work of importance.

Such are the elements of which the National Institute of France is now chiefly composed, and such they were exactly before the French Revolution in 1788, when a political storm, which had been gathering for many years, exhibited, on the horizon of France its hideous and fearful aspect, and, bursting with indescribable fury, spread devastation far and wide, overturning every legal barrier, rooting out every institution, and rending asunder every moral tie. After several years of confusion and desolation, a successful stop, however, was put to the victorious and bloody career of the evil spirit by which that dreadful storm and its destructive concomitants were directed. The extinguishing of the torch of civil war, which, unfortu

On the death of Cardinal Richelieu, which was followed by that of Louis XIII., when the young king was about four years old, Cardinal Mazarin, taking advantage of the high favour he was in with the queen regent, succeeded Richelieu in the premiership, and by repeated reckless and oppressive measures, the offspring of his unbounded ambition, brought France to the point of a gene ral civil war. Fortunately, however, the excitement was confined chiefly to Paris, where, after the conspicuous part played, during a whole year, by the Barricades and the Fronde, peace and apparent harmony between the queen, the young king, the prime minister, the parliament, and the people, were at last restored. Five years after these events, Cardinal Mazarin, sensible of the influence the fine arts would have in repressing those fierce passions, whence flowed all the miseries with which France had been afflicted since he began to govern, formed the liberal and generous resolution of erecting, under his special protection, an Academy of Painting and Sculp-nately for my country, had been too long burning, was ture, which was accordingly established in 1654, under the name of l'Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture. The office-bearers of this Academy were composed of a di- | rector, a chancellor, a treasurer, rectors, and professors; and the rank of every member was regulated by the style of art pursued by him,-historical painters ranking highest, portrait painters next, then landscape painters, and so on through all the grades of the profession.

A monarch of an indifferent capacity, or possessing no taste either for the fine arts or literature, might have remained a cold spectator of the liberal and generous efforts of his prime minister; but, great by principle, magnificent by habit, and enthusiastic by nature, Louis XIV. was fired with the glorious design of increasing the fame of France, by extending to Rome a branch of the Parisian establishment, so that young artists, who had deserved well of the Academy at Paris, might be sent to "the Eternal City," where they would enjoy the inestimable advantage of witnessing the efforts, and imitating the beauties, of the ancients. This plan was no sooner conceived than executed. The modern Romans were not a little surprised to see within their walls a French Academy of Painting and Sculpture, so quickly and so skilfully organised. Its foundation, as well as its present prosperity, form a lasting monument to the glorious memory of Louis

XIV.

These Academies had not been long on foot, when five or six members of the Académie Française, known for their intimate acquaintance with antiquity, monuments, history, &c., and also with foreign languages, were requested to draw up a plan of an Academy of General Literature, and its inauguration took place in 1663, just as the foundation of the College Mazarin at Paris was laid. In 1710, five years before the death of Louis XIV., at the solicitation of Colbert, his prime minister, this body obtained the royal charter, under the name of l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Among its members, Charpentier, Gédoin, Godeau, La Monnaie, Charles Perrault, and Vaillant, were remarkable for their profound knowledge and sterling merit.

attended with the re-establishment of those institutions
which, though excellent in themselves, the irresistible tor..
rent of the Revolution had indiscriminately swept away,
and France began again to assume that commanding atti-
tude and that high rank, which its acknowledged political
influence so justly entitled it to hold.
G. S.

LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES OF
EDINBURGH.

SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES.

Monday, 17th May, 1830.

Sir HENRY JARDINE in the Chair.

Present, Drs Hibbert, Maclagan, Carson, Borthwick;
Skene, Dalzel, Gordon, Gabriel Surenne,
T. G. Repp, Edward Lothian, Donald Gregory, &c.
&c. Esqrs.

A COMMUNICATION from Oriel Hay, Esq. was read, relative to the locality in which the Cyrenaic marbles, which we mentioned some weeks ago, were discovered. The following is an extract from the letter of Mr H. Warrington, female statue was found at Cyrene. The remains of the son to our Consul at Tripoli, who discovered them. "The city stand on the elevation of a mountain; below which, facing the north, are various shelving flats, or terraces, inclining towards the base or plain country. These hill-sides contain sepulchral caves, or apartments, evidently constructed by human art. It was upon the uppermost of these terraces, and near to the celebrated fountain of Cyrene, where, on digging about seven yards below the surface, I discovered the statue in question, perfect all but the arm, and some trifling defects. The arm was found the day following, by digging a few yards distance, and about the same depth. Above the spot where the statue was discovered, a half-legible inscription, in Greek characters, might be traced on the hill-side. The bassi-relievi were found near the place described, and about the same distance from the surface. From the nature of the ruins on that spot, I have every reason to believe that future excavations would be attended with success." The vase, which we are happy to

This is a mistake on the part of Mr Warrington; it is a statue

A few years before the legal installation of the above. of Exculapius.

say is a fine specimen, and almost entire, was found at Bengazi, the ancient Berenice.

A letter from John Mackinlay, Esq. was next read, containing an account of some ancient carvings in oak panel, discovered in the refectory of the Priory at Pittenweem in 1829. One of the medallions is supposed to be a likeness of James V. We are happy to learn that the Right Rev. Bishop Low, to whom they belong, contemplates presenting them to the Society.

Dr Hibbert read a memoir " On the caves occupied by the early inhabitants of the west of Europe; with illustrations of some still remaining in France and Italy." The meagre abstract to which our limits restrict us, can afford but an imperfect idea of this interesting paper; and the absence of the numerous drawings by which Dr Hibbert illustrated his subject is yet a severer want. He commenced by stating that his paper had for its object, to prove that natural caves were the temporary resort of the earliest and rudest inhabitants of Europe; that even at a more advanced stage of civilisation, caves had been used for human habitations; that in certain localities, they had afforded protection to the chiefs and vassals of the feudal times; and that even at the present day, whole villages of Troglodytes might be found in the civilized countries of the Continent. The subject of caves had lately attracted considerable notice on the Continent; but more on the part of the geologist than of the antiquarian. It had been incontrovertibly established, that in the caves in the south of France, human remains had been found along with bones of different mammiferæ. As the particular species of animals found in this juxtaposition were now no longer to be met with, they had been assumed to be antediluvian, but upon insufficient evidence. The destruction of the forests in which they found shelter, the drying up of the lakes on the borders of which they found their food, and partial convulsions of nature, sufficiently accounted for their extinction. In this view the investigation of the caves in which human bones had been found, was as much the province of the antiquary as of the geologist. Dr Hibbert assumed as an hypothesis, that the tribes inhabiting Europe, previous to the historical times, were in a state similar to that of the Fins described by Tacitus, as leading an almost brutish life, destitute even of the earliest rudiments of the arts. Such beings might well be conceived to contend with the beasts, above whom they were so little elevated, for places of shelter they knew not how to construct; or, at all events, they might crawl like the beasts into holes, to conceal their dying agonies. At this period the bones could scarcely have been deposited in caves for the purpose of inhumation-the idea of sepulture belonging to a more advanced state. The rude fragments of earthenware found in the same caves, strengthened the conjecture that the bones belonged to an extremely rude and early period. The Celtic and Gothic tribes who supplanted the aborigines of Europe, seem to have reached the agricultural state. The Germans are described as inhabiting houses built of gross and unhewn materials, constructed without the aid of mortar, and also caves, into which they retired for shelter from the inclemency of the winter, or from the attacks of a more powerful enemy. Traces of these ancient subterraneous habitations are still to be met with in Germany, but much more frequently in France and Italy, where the nature of the rock is in general more favourable to the task of excavation. They are most numerous in the south of France. Each cave appears to have been entered by a low chink or fissure, situated almost halfway between the floor of the cave and its roof, and differing as little as possible from the level of the avenue by which it was approached. The entrance seems intended to have been closed, from the invariable presence of a narrow opening, reaching the external air in an oblique direction for the purpose of ventilation. Sometimes these caves are isolated, sometimes they are found in groups. It has been conjectured by French antiquaries that these are the latebra of the Roman historians, in which the Gauls so often eluded pursuit, and re-appeared as suddenly to harass the enemy. Dr Hibbert next proceeded to remark that these caves continued to be used even during the feudal riod. At Ceyssac, in the province of Velay in France, the castle of the lord crowned the summit of a hill, all of which was excavated into caves, that seem either to have been used as chambers, or to have contained regular stalls for horses, and one has evidently been employed as a chapel. The entrance and lower apartments of a castle which flanks Mont Perrier, in Auvergne, has been scooped out of the solid rock; and on the opposite eminence is a system of grottoes, which served for the abodes of the retainers. At Conteaux,

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| in Velay, is a system of caves, one of which, apparently the baron's hall, is twenty yards long, by six and a half broad. Attached to it is a kitchen, opening to the top of a superjacent terrace, and almost as spacious as the famous one of the Abbot of Glastonbury. Among the caves of Roche Robert is a hall twenty yards by five, lighted by a wellshaped window. The period when these caves were abandoned by their feudal proprietors cannot be ascertained. They became subsequently the haunts of banditti.

The next portion of the memoir was intended to show that, even in the present day, whole villages of Troglodytes were to be found even in the civilized countries of Europe. In the neighbourhood of Bagnovea, in the Pope's territories, is a village, of which an Italian traveller has observed, that a few stones for the purpose of closing the entrance of the cavern, a hole for the smoke to go out of, and an aperture to admit the light, suffice to complete each habitation. In the island of Ponza, near the bay of Naples, is another town of the same kind, the inhabitants preferring to reside in caves, although the island abounds with the best materials for building. The caves are described as being refreshing in summer, warm in winter, and without the least humidity. In France, many villages of inhabited caverns still exist, as at Cuzolo in the Cantal, at Mount Perrier in Auvergne, and many other places. Swinburne has described a village of the same kind, which occurs in the province of Andalu sia, in Spain. In Transylvania, the places which the nomadic gipsies inhabit during the winter, ought to be called holes or burrows, rather than caves, which, for farther se curity from the weather, are covered over with branches of trees, with moss, and turf. Dr Hibbert concluded his memoir by recommending the history of European, and particularly of Scottish, caves, to the attention of the Society; and by describing the geological formations in which the search for them was most likely to be attended with success.

The present being the last meeting of the session, the President, before quitting the chair, briefly addressed the members present, congratulating them upon the activity which had characterized their proceedings, and the increasing riches of their museum. He concluded with exhorting them to perseverance.

The Royal, Wernerian, and Antiquarian Societies, have now closed their winter session. We shall resume our reports of their proceedings as soon as they again meet, and are glad to know that those which we have already given have proved satisfactory.

THE DRAMA.

THE trade winds have set in,-which is an obscure and allegorical mode of saying that the benefits have fairly commenced. At such a season the sternest critic smooths down his rugged front, and either looks silently on, or At present we wish to give a little advice, and from bene. pronounces a word or two of benevolent encouragement. fits which are passed, propose to suggest a useful hint for those which are to come. The first thing which an actor has to attend to in the choice of pieces for his benefit is novelty; the next is the probability of their being well performed; and the third and last is their suitableness to b own peculiar talents. The two principal benefits which have taken place this week were those of Mackay and Murray, and in what we have set down as the leading qualification of a benefit-novelty-they were both miserably deficient. Mackay took "Speed the Plough," and "Cramond Brig;" the first of which is not particularly refreshing, and the second has been played so often here, that it has become at last a positive drug, especially now that we have no longer Miss Noel to sing the songs of Marian Howison. Murray, by way of being equally original, fixed upon "Paul Pry" and "Masaniello;" the former being as familiar to all play-going people as the stage lamps; and the latter, besides being well known, affording him not the slightest opportunity for the display of his own particular abilities. Mackay has a good many supporters, and Murray has numerous friends and pa trons, and the consequence was that they both, particularly the manager, had good houses; but we can assure them that this was in spite, not in consequence, of the performances. Had inferior actors made a similar selec

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