foot the sides of the mountain a considerable way below it. The fellahin were now aware of our arrival, and carrying their long formidable looking firelocks slung upon their shoulders, visions of bakshish glittering in their view, and shouting, 'Inglees! Inglees!" till the rocks rang, came out to meet us. Though we were now within a few minutes' walk of Petra, we saw nothing to indicate even its existence. Pursuing our way along the brink of a small stream, flowing in the direction of the invisible city, the first objects that arrested our attention were some excavations on the rocks on the right, adorned with pillars of the Corinthian order. Beyond these we came to what seemed an immense fissure or chasm in the rocks, as if by the stroke of an earthquake they had been rent asunder. This was the Gate of Petra. Here we entered a narrow deep defile of rocks, forming a passage of more than a quarter of a mile in length. The height of the rocks on either side is from three to four hundred feet, the breadth of the passage such as to enable one camel, or perhaps two horsemen, to ride through it abreast, though (from the stream in the centre and the stony nature of the ground) this is no smooth bu-siness. Trees and plants shooting in graceful festoons from the clefts and crevices of the rocks, break and diversify the light that pours down upon it from the open blue sky above. Such is the portal to Petra. Passing through it, the mind is filled with wonder and delight. Such another entrance and arcade, so strange and sublime, the world does not contain. This, however, is but the beginning of wonders. Emerging from the entrance, in which light and darkness mingle, you come into the open light of day; and here, bathed in light, and beaming on the view full in front, appears the first and fairest of the rock-hewn structures of Petra. This is the Khasne el Faraoun, or Treasury of Pharaoh, this name having been given to it from an urn in the centre, supposed by the Arabs to contain the treasures of some of the old Egyptian kings. Like the other buildings of Petra, at least such of them as remain, the Khasne is cut out of the rock. In the interior, which consists of one principal chamber, there is nothing remarkable. It is its exterior which is the glory of the Khasne, It is adorned with four Corinthian pillars. and several statues of exquisite finish and beauty, the effect of which is heightened by the rosy hue of the stone out of which they are cut, which is absolutely lovely.'-pp. 96, 97. Baalbee is visited and Damascus; and the architectural sublimity of the former, and the freshness, and beauty, and wealth of the latter, are well and gracefully painted. The Damascene Jews are splendid in their houses and domestic arrangements, while those of Jeru salem live in great simplicity. The clearness, brightness, and gushing sparkle of the Abana and Pharphar springs are so vividly dwelt on as to diminish our wonder that the leprous Syrian noble should prefer them to the yellow Jordan, replete with mud. Mr. Anderson narrates in detail how the Jews keep their Passover still in the Holy Land. The passage is worth transcribing : "The day on which the Passover commences is ushered in with prayer. At night it is kept with the following ceremonies :-A table is covered with a white linen cloth, and three plates are placed upon it. In one, they put three cakes of unleavened bread; in another, an egg and the shoulder-bone of a lamb; in the third, a cup of salt and water, bitter herbs, and a compound of almonds and apples, in the form of a brick, and having the appearance of lime or mortar, to remind them of their affliction and hard service in the land of Egypt and house of bondage.' Wine-cups are also placed on the table, and every one who sits at it drinks four cups. The wine is made of raisins and water. Certain psalms are read, blessings pronounced, and in answer to the question put by one of the children, "What mean ye by this service?' a historical relation is given of its institution and import. At the close of the feast, a cup called Elijah's Cup is placed on the table, and the door being thrown open, all eyes are turned in that direction, and Elijah is expected to enter, to announce the approach of the Messiah. Such is what John significantly calls the 'Jews' Passover.' Once it was the Lord's Passover;' now it is a poor, dark, dead ordinance of man, without use or meaning."-pp. 250, 251. Their eyes are still waiting on their coming Messiah, who is to restore all things, forgetting that he has come, and they have done to him whatsoever they wist. Sir Moses Montefiore has built a handsome tomb over where Rachel was buried. This he did in the year 1841. The Scotch Free Church has schools and teachers in the East, and the American Mission has been singularly successful in Armenia. The following extract will be read with interest by all who have at heart the propagation of Divine truth :— "Though the Armenian Church has a Patriarch of its own, and is nominally different from the Church of Rome, it is essentially the same. Various attempts have been made to reform it. The most remarkable of these was made in 1760, by Debajy Oghlû, who has been called the Armenian Luther. But whatever individual life there may have been in it, till 1846 no separation took place from it. In that year a Protestant or Reformed Armenian Church was formed in Constantinople. This was the work of the American Mission. The people have chosen one of their number to be their pastor; he was ordained by the ministers of the American Board, assisted by Messrs. Allan and Koenig, of the Free Church of Scotland. Since that time, 'the word of God has had free course, and been glorified.' The Evangelical or Reformed Armenian Church now consists of several congregations, and by a decree of the Turkish government, passed in 1847, native Protestants are recognised as constituting a separate and independent community in Turkey. By this decree, copies of which were sent to the pashas within whose pashalics Protestants were known to exist, it was enacted that no interference should be permitted in their temporal or spiritual concerns, on the part of the Patriarch or the priests of the old sect. They have schools as well as churches."-pp. 172, 173. It is manifest from this that the Turk treats us better that the Pope. Take, in connexion with this, a graphic description of the Sultan himself at page 175, which brings that potentate strongly before our eyes in his individuality: "About eight or nine pashas and military officers now rode past, and, following them at some distance, on a splendid horse, but in the simplest attire-a European blue frock and a Turkish red fez-came Abdoul Medjid, the Sultan himself. He seemed about forty years of age: his hair is red, his face pale and sickly, and scarred with the small-pox. In his appearance there is nothing striking or commanding. His eyes, half cast to the ground, threw occasionally a kind of stolen and suspicious glance along the line of his guards, showing that, though he reigned over the bodies, he had no confidence that he reigned in the hearts of his soldiery. On his coming up where we stood, taking off my hat (I was the only one there who wore one), I bowed. Without returning my obeisance, which it is not the custom of oriental rulers to do, he looked at me for a moment, and passed on. He seemed unhappy, and to illustrate the truth of the line Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.'" We feel we have done Mr. Anderson little justice, save in the extracts from his own book. He writes flowingly and agreeably. He is comprehensive without being laboured, and circumstantial without being tedious. He has not the brilliancy and origi nality of Dr. Aiton, nor has he his rollicking fun; but he is gentle, scholarly, and judicious - bold in his great Master's cause, and unaffectedly pious. With a mind fraught with Scripture learning, he finds the Book "in the running brooks," and sermons in the stones of Jerusalem. He has condensed and arranged a great mass of matter into order and distinctness; and thus, while his volume possesses all the fulness of a handbook, it has none of its formality. He always underrates his own labours, and underpaints his hazards, and his work has more of fact than fancy. We confess we were at first a little tired at turning back with him-and twice over, too— after our long but spirit-stirring canter with his gifted brother, Dr. Aiton; but presently we felt ourselves unconsciously partaking of his calmer spirit, and blending in with his sobriety of feeling, as we trod with him the long Via Dolorosa of the Holy Land, or lingered by his side in his quiet "walks around Jesusalem"-of which every true heart in Christendom may say, as Byron said of Rome— "Oh, Jerusalem, my country, city of the soul." On closing our observations on Mr. Anderson's book, we thought we had bid adieu to oriental criticism, when a third volume was laid on our table for reading and remark, thus justifying the aptness and the applicability of the quotation from La Bruyere, which stands at the head of this article. "A Four Months' Tour in the East," by J. R. Andrews, Esq., is a very pleasant book, written manifestly "stans pede in uno"-journal fashion, but exhibiting sense, spirit, and good feeling. The volume, though published in our country by Mr. McGlashan, seems to be the product of an essentially English mind. Mr. Andrews likes his comforts, and appreciates the value of his cuisine, and why not? He has decidedly artistic taste-an eye for colours, and an ear for chords. seems sceptical as to the source of the Nile being as yet discovered; he is extremely graphic and interesting amidst the ruins of Thebes, describing these gigantic remains with an accuracy and animation far beyond that of Mr. Anderson, who also visited the place. Silsilis, he sees the stone quarries, out of which he tells us "it took 2000 men for three years to remove one block,” He At according to the statement of Herodotus. But Mr. Andrews forgets to add, that these quarrymen and Egyptian labourers were fed on "radishes, onions, and garlic," as told by the same historian! What would a London beef-eating stone-mason say to such meagre diet as this? or how could a modern physiologist reconcile the enormous waste of animal force under a burning sun, and on a sandy soil, with an outward reinforcement so disproportioned to the outlay, except he were to illustrate it by an Irishman getting fat on potatoes. Mr. Andrews visits Jerusalem on the Holy Week, and depicts the comfort he enjoyed in the quiet, staid, and solemn worship of the beautiful English church, built by British liberality, on Mount Zion, after having, on PalmSunday, been a spectator of the noise, riot, and squabbling at the Holy Sepulchre, between the rival churches, the Greek and Latin. In this church there are seven services performed every week in the Hebrew tongue; and in Jerusalem, of all the varied sections of its population, the sons of Israel are the most numerous. Accompanied by 8000 pilgrims, our author goes down from Jerusalem to visit the Dead Sea and the Jordan. His references to Scripture are many, and his illustrations instructive. In spite of all the gilded flies which skim the bright, rich stream of oriental life and landscape, our author seldom rises beyond the surface of his plain and steady flow of narrative; yet there is the poetry of feeling, taste, and appreciation of "whatsoever things are fovely" pervading the book, mingled with home yearnings and thoughts of fatherland, and the spirit of association, and the usual finale to all Englishmen's wanderings, be they east, or be they west, to the frozen north, or the sunny south-namely, unmingled approbation and admiration at the sight of the steamer which is to convey them HOME to their own happy, fair, free, and singularly blessed country. TO WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. THIS year goes out in storm. The sky is full Nor visit fiercely my unshelter'd door, Yet hear me, tempests!-as ye drown that toll, The thrones where men of serpent forehead sit, Ay, the Lord lives, and, therefore, down with ye! Torn in the mighty tempest, would I crawl, Among the rabbits in the benty sand, Or else need none. Dark clouds are taking wing Out of the wave continually. They fly Over those heaps of benty sand, and moor And mountain, eastward, hurrying to the dawn; New Year's Eve, 1852-3. WILLIAM ALLINGHAM. MISCELLANEA LITERARIA.NO. II. ON HEREDITARY MISFORTUNE IN CERTAIN FAMILIES. "Ludit in humanis divina potentia rebus, Et certam præsens vix habet hora fidem.' "Should no disease thy torpid veins invade, "The world is full of strange vicissitudes." MANY people fancy, or try to persuade themselves, that there is no such thing as good or bad luck. The words are simple, colloquial, intelligible, of honest Saxon descent, and as much in use as any in our language. But there are stiff, prim objectors, who affect to be shocked when these terms are applied to the affairs of men. They start as if piety was invaded, and the doctrine of predestination making insidious approaches under a masked battery. According to their orthodoxy the events of every man's life are in his own hands, to be regulated by his own conduct. If he is in the right course he will succeed. If he has strayed into a wrong path he will fail. The wise man cannot miss the mark, which the fool can never approach. Actions govern fate. "Fate,” says the greatest of modern poets, in 1823, "is a good excuse for our own will." Home, the author of Douglas (and a clergyman besides), many years before, wrote and printed in the first edition of his tragedy that circumstances could be controlled by determination, and that "Persistive wisdom is the fate of man." But he raised an outcry under which he quailed, and in the next edition expunged the line, and explained away the hypothesis. A theory such as this is plausible as well as wholesome, if it could be carried out to a logical or practical conclusion. But it breaks down before arriving at either. Daily experience, the authority of history, and above all, the study of the inspired writings, teach us that it is impossible. Le Sage (in "Gil Blas") quotes from an anonymous Pope, who says, "Quand il vous arrivera quelque grand malheur OVID. Vanity of Human Wishes, LORD BYRON. examinez vous bien, et vous verrez qu'il y aura toujours un peu de votre faute "Whenever any heavy misfortune happens to you examine yourself well, and you will be sure to find that it is in some measure your own fault." With all deference to his Holiness, his dictum will encounter many dissentient voices. Reader, were you ever in a house when the next room lodger set fire to his curtains by reading in bed, and burnt you out in a mortal terror, with the loss of all your moveables? Were you ever upset with the fracture of ribs, arms, or legs in a stage coach, or a railway train, by the wilful carelessness of the conductors? Were you ever gored by a bull, bit by a mad dog, or shot by an unskilful sportsman when you were walking in the fields? Were you ever assaulted, plundered, and thrown into a ditch by three footpads, when you were sauntering in a secluded lane, full of gentle aspirations, and enjoying the tranquillity of the evening? Were you ever run over by an omnibus when you were not crossing a crowded thoroughfare, but trying hard to keep out of the way? Were you ever arrested in mistake for another, or subpœnaed on a trial in a case of which you knew nothing, when you were just setting out on a most important journey? Did your carriage ever break down when half-an-hour would have enabled you to prevent a weak relative from making a foolish will? Did you ever get your eye knocked out by a stone, intended for some one else? Were you ever injured in purse or reputation by evil reports which had no shadow of a basis? Did you ever suffer from a treacherous friend, a scolding wife, an insolvent partner, or an |