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themselves with glad heart to the heavenly guide, and only by implication reject the clamorous nonsense of the hour. Grave seniors talk to the deaf, church and old book mumble and virtualize to an unheeding, preoccupied and advancing mind, and thus they by happiness of greater momentum lose no time, but take the right road at first.

But all these of whom I speak are not proficients, they are novices; they only show the road in which man should travel, when the soul has greater health and prowess. Yet let them feel the dignity of their charge, and deserve a larger power. Their heart is the ark in which the fire is concealed, which shall burn in a broader and universal flame. Let them obey the Genius then most when his impulse is wildest; then most when he seems to lead to uninhabitable desarts of thought and life; for the path which the hero travels alone is the highway of health and benefit to mankind. What is the privilege and nobility of our nature, but its persistency, through its power to attach itself to what is permanent?

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Society also has its duties in reference to this class, and must behold them with what charity it can. Possibly some benefit may yet accrue from them to the state. In our Mechanics' Fair, there must be not only bridges, ploughs, carpenters' planes, and baking troughs, but also some few finer instruments, rainguages, thermometers, and telescopes; and in society, besides farmers, sailors, and weavers, there must be a few persons of purer fire kept specially as guages and meters of character; persons of a fine, detecting instinct, who betray the smallest accumulations of wit and feeling in the bystander. Perhaps too there might be room for the exciters and monitors; collectors of the heavenly spark with power to convey the electricity to others. Or, as the storm-tossed vessel at sea speaks the frigate or line-packet' to learn its longitude, so it may not be without its advantage that we should now and then encounter rare and gifted men, to compare the points of our spiritual compass, and verify our bearings from superior chronometers.

Amidst the downward tendency and proneness of things, when every voice is raised for a new road or another statute, or a subscription of stock, for an improvement in dress, or in dentistry, for a new house or a larger business, for a po

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litical party, or the division of an estate, - will you not tolerate one or two solitary voices in the land, speaking for thoughts and principles not marketable or perishable ? Soon these improvements and mechanical inventions will be superseded; these modes of living lost out of memory; these cities rotted, ruined by war, by new inventions, by new seats of trade, or the geologic changes: - all gone, like the shells which sprinkle the seabeach with a white colony to-day, forever renewed to be forever destroyed. But the thoughts which these few hermits strove to proclaim by silence, as well as by speech, not only by what they did, but by what they forbore to do, shall abide in beauty and strength, to reorganize themselves in nature, to invest themselves anew in other, perhaps higher endowed and happier mixed clay than ours, in fuller union with the surrounding system.

A SONG OF SPRING.

LEAVES on the trees,

And buds in the breeze,

And tall grass waving on the meadow side,
And the showerlet sweet,

While the soft clouds meet

Again in their golden robes, when day has died.

The scholar his pen

Hath mended again,

For the new life runs in his wearied veins;

While the wild child flies

Mid the flowers' fresh dyes,

And the happy bird gushes with sudden strains.

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DISCOVERIES IN THE NUBIAN PYRAMIDS.

[Translated from the (Vienna) Jahrbücher der Literatur.]

DR. C. G. CARUS, on the discovery of valuable golden ornaments in a Nubian pyramid, by Dr. Ferlini, of Bologna.

On the 22d of April, 1841, on my return from Florence, I passed a day in Bologna, where the rich collections of Professor Alessandrini, in Comparative Anatomy, might well offer me sufficient objects of consideration. At noon, after I had attended a sitting of the Academy of Sciences, and had particularly enjoyed an interesting discourse of Professor Calori, I visited some collections of art, and among others it was proposed to me to see a collection of antiquities, which a Bolognese physician had brought with him from Egypt about four years before. My interest was increased by the fact, that it was a physician who had collected these treasures, and I delayed not to enter. Dr. Ferlini himself was not at home; a young black (whom he had also brought home with him) opened the door to me, and I found first, a small number of stuffed Egyptian animals of little variety; also, oriental weapons and utensils; but in addition, a very remarkable collection of rich golden ornaments, with the model of the Pyramid, in which this so valuable treasure was found. The sister of Dr. Ferlini, a friendly, well-bred lady, appeared, and explained very pleasantly the different pieces of the collection; and also at parting gave me an opportunity to buy a little quarto volume, in which her brother has himself given a report of his researches and this important discovery, with a catalogue, and drawings of the most remarkable pieces. The volume is entitled Relation historique des fouilles opérés dans la Nubie, par le docteur Joseph Ferlini, de Bologne. Rome, 1838.

The treasure found, and here collected, has not failed to attract the attention of antiquarians; and the more, because many other travellers, who have made researches, furnished with ample means, and commissioned by governments, (as for instance the learned Rosellini,) have not succeeded in discovering anything of consequence wrought in gold. The king of Bavaria has indeed already, at considerable cost, procured a small part of Ferlini's treasure for the gallery at Munich. Yet it was not all this, which particularly interested me in this discovery. The interest, with which it inspired me, came especially from the psychological side.

I did not fail to make myself thoroughly acquainted with the

history of Dr. Ferlini's discoveries, and will presently lay before my readers in a translation, the most important parts of his account. For two reasons this will draw to itself the whole attention of every one, who is not accustomed to stop at the surface of what he sees. First indeed, that in a man who for twenty years had led a very active life as a practising physician in Albania, Greece, and Egypt successively, and might now at length return with a well-earned fortune to his home, the determined impulse should át once arise, to seek for curiosities and treasures among these mysterious relics of a grey antiquity, -even risking the loss of his property so laboriously acquired. And in the second place, that this quite irresistible attraction, resting merely upon a dim presentiment, spite of all obstacles, and after it already seemed that all hope must be given up, has yet actually led to a result so splendid, a reward so rich.

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It must be allowed that the whole affair is a little disenchanted and brought down, by the circumstance, that Ferlini himself cared little for finding any but particularly costly objects. Not the less does his decided presentiment, and its complete confirmation through this discovery, remain a remarkable psychological fact. Certainly, when a Columbus stakes everything on a like undoubting presentiment of the existence of transatlantic countries, year after year moves high and low to assist in the execution of his plans, at last actually discovers a fourth quarter of the globe, we feel more deeply the meaning of that beautiful saying of Schiller,

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"Nature is ever in alliance with Genius;

The one keeps the promise of the other."

And yet with Columbus also it was originally rather instinct, the unconscious presentiment, that the reality must respond to his effort; and if he thought of the advantages of a possible discovery, they were far more material and nearer at hand, rather contemplating his own emolument and that of the crown, than any distinct internal prophecy of the development of European humanity in a transatlantic region. In short, we always come back to this; a presentiment lay in the mind, a possibility of a foreseen future and destiny, through some means, which as yet has no existence, or as yet exists not for us; and it is the same, which moves strongly in the animal world, leading the bird of passage upon his journey, and guiding with certainty to her young the dove who has been carried more than fifty miles from her nest. But it is interesting, when we meet such facts in the life of man, to consider and preserve them. And as a fact of this kind, we may certainly regard these discoveries of Ferlini. I hope, therefore, that his own communications, which follow, will not fail to excite the interest of our readers.

He tells his story thus.

"Ever since my residence in Greece and Egypt, I had had the idea of making some discovery useful to history. For this end I sought to gain the good opinion of the Governor. After some months an opportunity occurred of asking his permission to undertake excavations in the places where old monuments were found. The Pacha was astonished at my request, and told me of all the dangers to which my undertaking was exposed; he also represented to me that, though he had given me permission, he would only allow me to work, upon my promising to pay the laborers. I also ran the risk of losing my savings for full four years. He advised me to satisfy myself with what I had, and even told me that I exposed myself to certain death by my covetousness, since the blacks, whom I must employ, were so malicious and cruel, that in case I should discover anything of value, I might be certain they would take my life, in order to possess themselves of my treasure. Finally, the Governor told me, that since he had no great authority in the desert, through which the way to Sabdarad lay, he could give me no perfect guarantee of my safety. As the Governor saw meanwhile, that his remarks made no great impression upon me, he promised me, that he would grant my wish, as soon as another physician could be procured to take my place. As soon as I heard that my successor had set out from Cairo, I called upon Sig. Antonio Stefani, an Albanian, and made him a partner in my undertaking, since he knew the country better than I, having already carried on a trade there for fifteen years. I promised him half the fruits of our discoveries, gave him four hundred Spanish dollars, and sent him to Musselamiah to buy camels, ropes, grain, leather bags, and the necessary instruments for excavation. Musselamiah is a large village three days journey from Cartum, in the interior of the peninsula, where a market is held once a week. I bought large stores of meat and cut it in strips, which were dried in the sun, as is the custom of the country.

"I took into my service thirty resolute young men, and promised each of them two Spanish dollars a month, and his food. After fourteen days came Stefani with twenty-seven camels, provisions, and tools. We now only waited for Sig. Gallina, my successor, who arrived the 10th of August, 1834. The next morning I sent forward the camels, the servants, and some slaves by land, and embarked with Sig. Stefani and our families.

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At Vod-Benaga, after three days journey, I sent my companion to the Turkish governor of the village, who lived in Sendih, to show him the form of permission which the Pacha had given me. The Governor commanded all the servants of

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