"Polygamy is abolished. Female chastity and honour are protected by law. The Sabbath is respected by the council during session. Mechanics are encouraged by law. The practice of putting aged persons to death for witchcraft is abolished, and murder has now become a governmental crime." Our readers will agree with us, we believe, that these particulars savour a little of the marvellous, especially when considered as uttered by the voice of an Indian: yet we have no doubt of their truth. The Cherokees have written laws, and a representative government, though not, as far as we can learn, of a very republican cast. The chiefs have found little difficulty probably in persuading the people that they know not how to govern themselves. Power is a strong argument, and this the THE TYRANT THE Emperor Muley Ismael was eighty-seven years old, and bore traces of the infirmities belonging to so advanced an age. He had lost all his teeth, breathed with difficulty, and had a severe cough. His beard was thin and very white; his eyes much sunk. He was still very active, however, and his eyes had not lost all their fire. He had reigned fiftythree years, having, in 1762, succeeded his brother, Muley Arschid, of whom he was not the rightful heir; but being governor of Mequinez, and having thus a considerable force under his command, he dethroned and put to death Muley Hamet, his nephew. The cruelty of this extraordinary barbarian soon began to manifest itself. It produced at first Vol. IX. No. XLIX. chiefs had entirely in their own hands. They deserve credit, therefore, for giving up as much of it as they have done; and it may be expected that the same spirit of concession will hereafter operate in accordance with circumstances, till a free government shall grow out of the present aristocratic system. The Cherokees exhibit a novel spectacle; but the result is not difficult to conjecture. A community of civilized Indians is an anomaly that never has existed, nor do we believe it ever will exist. Bring the Indians up to this mark, and you put them on a level with the Whites; they will then intermarry, and the smaller mass will be swallowed up by the larger; the red skin will become white, and the Indian will be remembered only as the tenant of the forests, which have likewise disappearled before the march of civilization. OF MOROCCO. some salutary effects: the laws were rigorously enforced; the roads were cleared of banditti, by whom they had been infested; travelling was rendered secure, and the kingdom preserved, during his long reign, in a state of tranquillity. His executions, however, were not confined to those who had given just cause of offence; he always maintained the habit of putting to instant death all who became the objects of his capricious resentment. The instruments of his violence were a body of eight hundred negro guards, who formed his chief confidants, and were carefully trained to their functions. He tried their temper by furious beating, and sometimes laid forty or fifty of them at his feet H THE LOVER OF MONSTERS. sprawling in their blood; when such he was agitated by frequent and ter as shewed any sensibility to such treatment were considered wholly unworthy of being attached to the person of his majesty. These negroes, on the slightest signal, darted like tigers on their victim, and not content with killing, they tortured him with such fury as reminded the spectators of "devils torturing the damned." A milder fate awaited those whom the emperor killed with his own hand. He merely cut off their heads, or pierced them at one blow with a lance, in the use of which instrument he was very skilful, seldom letting his hand go out of practice. When he came out in the morning an awful observation was made of his aspect, his gestures, and even the colour of his clothes; yellow being his killing colour. When he killed any one through mistake, or a violent gust of passion, he made an apology to the dying man, saying that he had not intended it; but surely it was the will of God, and that his hour must have been come. Those, however, who had opportunity for closely observing him, reported, that rible remorse; that in his sleep he started wildly, calling on the names of persons he had destroyed. Sometimes, even when awake, he would inquire for his victims, and on being told they were dead, he would ask with emotion, "Who killed them?" The attendants, aware that an explicit answer might occasion their being sent after the defunct, took care to answer they supposed "God killed them." The greatest favourite he ever had was a youth named Hameda, son to the keeper of the slaves, whom, when a boy, he distingushed for his spirited conduct at the siege of Tarudent. This youth, being of a gay disposition, was soon admitted to the greatest familiarity: yet this did not prevent the tyrant from beating him so severely that he died soon after. The murderer was often heard in his sleep, and when he believed himself alone, calling upon the name of Hameda. This ferocious personage made great pretensions to sanctity, and to inspiration for expounding the Alcoran. 1 1 1 THE LOVER OF MONSTERS. THE Wise Solomon has said, that || there is nothing new under the sun. Were he living now, however, I am inclined to think he would find an exception to this rule in the person of Mr. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, one of the Professors of Natural History at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. This worthy gentleman has obtained among his friends the name of the lover of monsters; and certainly no appellation was ever better merited. He spends all his time in pursuit of those objects in the formation of which Nature has departed from her usual mode. Present him with the most beautiful production of the animal or vegetable world, he receives it with cold politeness, and scarcely looks at it; but a calf with two heads, a cat with six claws, or a child with four legs, throws him into raptures, and is carefully preserved in spirits of wine, and added to his collection of monsters. This collection is already very extensive, and Mr. St. Hilaire vows, if he lives long enough, to make it the largest in Europe. THE LOVER OF MONSTERS. 51 mician, more distinguished for his skill in the science of eating, than for any other kind of knowledge. All the learned members rose, and each remained with mouth watering and eyes fixed upon the terrine. The professor began his speech: "I have the honour, gentlemen, to present to the Academy something which, I may say without vanity, cannot fail to please the taste of all its members." He paused-the professors licked their lips. "This extraordinary production, gentlemen, is a remarkable infant, which eight days ago The whole assembly was seated in a moment, busily employed in stuffing their noses. Mr. St. Hilaire paused in unfeigned astonishment and anger at the effect produced by his harangue. "What," cried he, "is it possible! Is the sacrifice I was about to make of such a precious object thus thanklessly received? Gentlemen, since such is my recompence, I declare that it is to your conduct the Institute will owe the loss of the most magnificent monster that has appeared for years; I shall reserve it to crown my own collection:" and he withdrew in high But our learned academician, not content himself with proclaiming his affection for dead monsters, is equally partial to living ones. All the virtues and talents in the world are not so sure a passport to his good graces as some monstrous deformity of person. But since those divine subjects, as he calls them, are very rare, he does not disdain to court the acquaintance of minor monsters; such as people with a redundancy of fingers or toes, odd-shaped legs, or figures peculiarly distorted. He has even attempted to prove that he belongs to the class of monsters, by instancing the peculiar form of his ears, the shape of which, it must be confessed, is very singular; and once, to the great dismay of his wife, he seriously informed his acquaintance, that he was in hopes of having a legitimate claim to the title of a horned monster, because he felt an excrescence in the middle of his forehead, which he had no doubt would become in time a tolerable-sized horn. During six months he watched with intense interest the supposed growth of this so much coveted ornament to his brows, but as it never came to more than a good-dudgeon, hoping, but in vain, that a sized lump, he has been forced to re- deputation would follow to recall him sign all hopes of the distinction which and his monster. he flattered himself it would bestow upon him. Mr. St. Hilaire is a member of the Academy of Sciences, of the section of Natural History; and few meetings of that learned body pass without our indefatigable savant calling their attention to new monstrosities. It is not very long since he arrived, preceded by a terrine de Nerac, large enough to contain six partridges stuffed with truffles. "It is a pâté!" exclaimed all the learned members. "It is a pá-â-té!" cried an acade Another passion of the worthy professor's, which is nearly as strong as his mania for monsters, is to trace an analogy between man and the smallest animals. He explained lately, at one of the meetings of the Institute, the affinity which, according to him, exists between man and the lizard. In order to illustrate the subject the better, he had brought with him one of these animals in a phial. The phial, passed from hand to hand till it reached an academician who loves a joke, and who happening to be seated next to one of the most dimi- as fond of his wife as he is of his nutive members of the Institute, hand-monsters, and always ready and willed it to him, saying, with much gra- ing to employ both his purse and his vity, "Permit me to present our credit in the service of his friends, brother to you." even though they have the misforNotwithstanding these two pecu-tune to have nothing monstrous about liarities, Mr. Geoffroy St. Hilaire is a worthy, learned, and studious man, them. PENN'S TREE AND TREATY WITH THE INDIANS. In a memoir published some time since by Mr. Vaux, an American writer, respecting the place in which the famous treaty between William Penn and the natives was ratified, he establishes the common opinion, by arguments as strong perhaps as the nature of the case will admit, that it was on the bank of the Delaware, in Kensington, the northern suburbs of the present city of Philadelphia, under a large tree, which was to be seen there till 1813, when it was uprooted by a storm. A vague notion has gone abroad, that this treaty was formed farther down the river, at the Uplands, the present site of Chester. Other places have claimed this distinction, as did the Grecian cities the honour of being the birthplace of Homer, but the testimony is in favour of the great elmtree in Kensington. The following extract from a letter on this subject by the venerable Richard Peters, dated September 6, 1825, will be read with interest: general tradition did not confirm the fact, that William Penn chose to hold this treaty beyond the reach of any jealousy about the neighbourhood of fortified places, and within the lines of his province, far from such places; and at a spot which had been an Indian settlement, familiar to, and esteemed by, the natives; and where neither Swedes nor Dutch could be supposed to have influence, for with them the Indians had bickerings. This view of the subject gives the strongest confirmation to the tradition of the treaty being held at Kensington; and that the tree, so much hallowed, afforded its shade to the parties in that important transaction. The prudent and necessary conferences, or talks, preparatory to the treaty, if any vestiges of them now remain, may have given the idea that the treaty was held at Upland. "It appears that the seat of Penn's government was first established at Upland or Chester, where several of the letters are dated. Now I always understood, that talks with the Indians, preparatory to a final arrangement by a conclusive treaty, were held at Upland or Chester. But it is almost indisputably probable, if "The name and character of William Penn, denominated by the Indians Onas, were held in veneration through a long period by those who had opportunities of knowing the integrity of his dealings and intercourse, especially by the Six Nations, who considered themselves the masters of all the nations and tribes with whom he had dealings in his time, and his successors thereafter, who adhered to the policy and justice practised by him. At Fort Stanwix, fifty-seven years ago, I was present when the De-home by the war parties as trophies. lawares and Shawanese were releas- The feathers decorated the Moccaed by the Iroquois, or Six Nations (ori- || sins (whereof I had a pair presented ginally five), from the subordination to me), mixed with porcupine's quills in which they had been held from the in beautifully ornamented workmantime of their having been conquered. ship. If there be any thing in my The ceremony was called taking Indian name of Paroquet ludicrous in our estimation, I shall not be ashamed of it, when the great and good Penn was denominated not a whole bird, but merely a quill. My moccasins cost me an expensive return in a present the ceremony required, but I considered the singular honour conferred on me richly deserving remuneration; though, in fact, I was more diverted than proud in the enjoyment of the amusing and curious scene, and had no doubt but that this expected remuneration was an ingredient in the motive leading to my adoption. My nation is reduced, as is all that confederacy, to a mere squad, if not entirely annihilated; though at that time it (the confederacy) could bring three thousand warriors into the field." off the petticoat,' and was a curious spectacle. When I was adopted into the family of a Tuscarora chief, at the time of the treaty of Fort Stanwix, he made to me a speech in the style used on such occasions, in which he assured me of his affection, and added, that he was pleased with my being one of the young people of the country of the much respected and highly esteemed Onas,' which means a quill or pen. He gave to me one of his names, Tegochtias. He had been a celebrated warrior, and has distinguished himself on expeditions, toilsome and dangerous, against the southern Indians. The feathers and desiccated or preserved birds, called by the Indians Tegochtias, i. e. paroquets, were brought MUSICAL REVIEW. GRADUS AD PARNASSUM, or the Art | Like the Preludes and Exercises of of Playing on the Piano-forte, Sebastian Bach, the "Gradus ad exemplified in a Series of Exer-Parnassum" will form a guide to the cises in the strict and free Styles, composed, and dedicated to her Excellency the Princess Sophia Wolkonsky, by Muzio Clementi. Vol. III. Op. 44. Pr. 21s.-(Cle-forte playing, and, indeed, of the harmenti and Co.) WITH this third volume Mr. Clementi terminates a work which has excited the admiration of every musical country in Europe; and which, more than any of his other labours, will hand his name down to the children of our grandchildren. students of every country, in the present as well as in future ages; like Bach's works, it will stand as a record of the attainments in piano monic knowledge possessed by the living generation. In looking over the fifty exercises contained in this volume of the Gradus ad Parnassum, we were filled with wonder at the profound knowledge, the inexhaustible fancy, and the classic purity of taste displayed |