accounts for by the vicinity of the lake, in whose waters the stones may have been ingulfed. The names, so familiar and so dear to our memory, of Capernaum, Bethsaida, and Chorazin, Dr. Robinson believes to have utterly perished. His most persevering inquiries could not discover even a possible resemblance in any existing ruins, although he sought for them with the minutest anxiety and attention. The conjecture of Pococke, who found Bethsaida at Irbid, is considered to be entirely unsupported.

The remarks on the sources of the Jordan are carefully digested; but we pass on to Tyre, where a few hovels only serve to illustrate the page of Prophecy. The red and grey granite columns-the only memorials of the departed city-are scattered along the shore. Sidon naturally rises to the mind after any allusion to Tyre. The distance between the two places is about eight hours. Sidon (Salda) offers an agreeable contrast to the modern Tyre. Although the streets are narrow and dirty, many of the houses are well built and pleasantly situated. The population is about five thousand. The gardens and orchards of Saida are celebrated for their beauty. From Sidon the travellers pursued their journey to Beirut, and from the houses of their friends, the heights of Lebanon, with its cultivated terraces, refreshed their eyes, and awoke some of the holiest feelings of the heart. The famous cedars are somewhat more than two days' journey from Beirut. Professor Ehrenberg informed Dr. Robinson that the cedar grew abundantly-contrary to the common opinion-on those parts of the mountain" lying north of the road between Ba'albek and Tripolis."

Of so elaborate a work as that produced by Dr. Robinson, it will be sufficient to have indicated the character and the objects. It is unquestionably a valuable contribution to Biblical history, condensing a very large store of important information. Its interest, however, is in a great measure scholastic. The tone of composition is not always in harmony with the earnest feelings of the Christian reader. A mitigated rationalism pervades the volumes; and if the writer sheds new light over some dark questions, he certainly unsettles many articles of critical and topographical faith. The style is plain, often forcible, never eloquent; nor will the scholar omit to notice several American phrases, which jar upon the ear of taste. The work possesses, however, great and positive merit; it has a definite object, and it keeps that object in view; the traces of diligent historical research are numerous, and generally interesting; and to those readers, especially, who desire to purchase one work on Biblical geography and history, we feel justified in recommending the Researches of Dr. Robinson.

The Olympian Queen moves on with radiant pride,
Her garments glowing in the purple air;

Her peacocks' glitt'ring "tayles dispredden wide."+

Or flow'r-intwin'd,

In Milton's twilight garden stretch'd along,

Through fancy's painted windows, on the mind,
Steal in the sunshine and the bloom of song.

Here, in dim light,

The jasper columns of Fame's house uprear'd,

That flash'd on Chaucer's slumb'ring eyes at night,

Care's clouded cheek have often smooth'd and cheer'd.

O joyous hour!

Far from the tumult of the world be mine,

To shed poetic rainbow on the shower

Of grief, and gild it with a ray divine!

In this dark nook

Pondering-unheard life's billows dash their foam;
And rapt into the spirit of the book,

I bless the Muses, in the Muses' home!

Alluding to the different books which he glances over.

These words are taken from one of the love'iest descriptive stanzas in Spenser-Faery Queen, b. i.

c. 3, xvi.-beginning, "So forth she comes," &c.

MEMOIRS OF A GRIFFIN.

BY CAPTAIN BELLEW.

CHAPTER XV.

I HAD now been about twelve days a visitor with my hospitable friend, the indigo planter a period, as the reader has seen, fertile in events—when I began to think of returning, and a letter or two which I received served to hasten my departure. One was from an old friend and schoolfellow, Tom Rattleton, a good deal my senior, and whom I had not seen or heard of for four or five years. It ran thus:

My dear Frank,

It was by the merest chance that I heard from a Capt. Marpeet, who has been staying here, in his way up, of your arrival in India. How I missed seeing your "well-known" name in the papers or General Orders I really cannot imagine. Capt. Marpeet, who appears a worthy old stager, and one of those whose great delight is to teach the young ideas" of us griffins "how to shoot"-(à-propos, of shooting, have you forgotten our adventure with the horse-pistol and the tom-tits, and your blowing up the magazine in your waistcoat-pocket?), -Marpeet says, you only want a little more of his tuition to become a ne plus ultra-in short, I must not tell half the handsome things he has said of you; but in all I could not fail to recognize, clearly and distinctly, my old class-mate and companion of the third form. How I long, my dear fellow, to have a good dish of chat with you about school-days, and all the fun and frolic we have had together in times past! Do you recollect lame Tomkins, the pieman, and your unsuccessful attempt to prove to him, synthetically and dialectically, that long credit and great gains were preferable, as a mercantile principle, to small profits and quick returns, to which logic many an empty pocket sent forth, doubtless, a confirmatory echo? But oh, that stony-hearted man! Orpheus himself could not have moved him-no eloquence, no wiles-nought but the ipsa pecunia, the money's chink. Do you remember your set-to with Oliver Tinker, the town boy, and old Thwackem's calling you the arch-rebel, at which terrible name we all looked aghast, and thought he meant the d—l, and our killing and then roasting the stray duck-I acting Argus whilst you purloined the butter and stuffing? My regiment has lately arrived here from Berhampore. I have been for some time out of my griffinage, and though but a “jolly ensign," like yourself, and not very deep in the mysteries of the Hindee Bolee, have lately obtained the command of a company-we being rather deficient in old hands. This works me a good deal, but I like my new powers, and if I could but understand the fellows, I should get on famously. I have a small bungalow near the river, and am comfortable enough, all things considered, so you must come and spend a month with me at least. Why not get to do duty with our regiment at once? it can be easily managed. There are some very pleasant men in the corps, to whom, of course, I shall be happy to introduce you. I hear you are on a visit to the son of that old fire-eater, General CapsiI hope you enjoy life amongst the "True Blues" in the Mofussil. I have had some experience of them myself, and a kinder-hearted and more hospitable set of fellows, taking them in a body, does not exist. Give me a few lines to say on what day I may expect you here, and I will ride out and meet you (if you dawk it), and have breakfast ready. So for the present adieu-au revoir.

cum.

Your friend and school-fellow.

T. RATTLETON. P.S.-By-the-bye, do you recollect your changing old Thwackem's digestive pill, daily deposited at the corner of his desk, for a pea rolled in flour (or a bolus of your own manufacture), and how unsuspectingly the old boy would gulp it down, prepara. tory to locking up his cane and descending from his awful elevation? Many a good laugh I've had at this piece of friponnerie of yours.

This letter delighted me, and Mr. Capsicum, to whom I read it, with some slight reservation, seemed also a good deal amused by it. I felt an intense longing to see my friend Tom again, and in fact fell into such a fidgetty and excited state, that I could take an interest in nothing. Old Time, instead of flying, seemed to me all of a sudden to have lost the power of locomotion altogether. Rattleton and I were the Castor and Pollux of the school, sworn brothers-backers and abettors of each other in all fights, scrapes, and difficulties, of which we generally had quantum suff. on hand; he was also the manager in a thriving business we carried on (I believe junior partner), and of which peg-tops, marbles, birds'-eggs, and lollipops constituted the principal stock in trade.

There are few opinions current in the world which have been less the subject of dispute than those entertained respecting our school-boy days, a season which poets and sentimentalists love to paint as amongst the happiest of our lives. There is, however, I think, great self-delusion indulged in regard to these retrospections; for in the mental as well as the material prospect, it is too often that "distance lends enchantment to the view." Pope observes, and it is the fundamental maxim of all true philosophy, "What can we reason, but from what we know ?" and if I can judge from my own experience, and that of others of my acquaintance, nothing can be more questionable than the justice of the claims thus established by a sort of prescription, and banded about from mouth to mouth, as amongst the most indubitable of dogmas. If those who echo the prevailing opinion mean merely that our pleasures at this season are enjoyed with a keener relish than at any other period of our life, I fully agree with them; but then it must be borne in mind, that the intensity of our school-enjoyments arises principally from the effects of contrast; that it is the natural elasticity of youthful spirits, rebounding from painful restraints, and too often odious petty tyranny, and no more proves the general tenor of the life to be a happy one, than a famished man's devouring a meal with avidity, or a captive's enjoyment of temporary freedom, proves starvation and imprisonment to be pleasurable states. My remarks, however, have reference to schools as they were; they are now conducted, I am aware, on much better principles than formerly (though much remains to be done), and, as a proof of it, I observe that boys return to them with more alacrity than in my juvenile days. The march of intellect has invaded the school-room, as well as the senate, and pedagogues are beginning to learn, as well as rulers of a higher order, that boys, like "children of a larger growth," may be taught and governed through a far nobler medium than their fears; and that as respects the former, it is possible to cast aside the relics of barbarism, and furnish one extremity of the human animal without the application of torture to the other. School was truly a black passage in my life, in which the happiness was to the misery in about the proportion of honest Jack Falstaff's bread to his quantum of Sherris sack. “Ah, chien de livre, tu ne me fera plus répandre de pleurs!" exclaimed the enraged Scipio of Le Sage, as he wreaked his vengeance on the "maudite grammaire," the passive instrument of all his sufferings. I can too well understand the feelings which actuated, on this occasion, the little son of the honest usher of St. Hermandad, for never to this day do I enter a school-room, or my eye light on a grammar, dictionary, or other buff-coloured associate of the long-past days of my pupilage, but a host of painful and degrading recollections rush on my mind, of the hundred thwackings, confinings, mortifications, of which they were the proximate cause, as nauseous to the feelings as the remembrance of a black dose, or

James' powder "grating harsh music" through its envelopment of blackcurrant jelly. The young mind may, in truth, be likened to the notes of an instrument, from which an harmonious result can only be extracted by the hand of a master, acquainted with their respective powers; whilst a bungler may thump away at them to the end of the chapter, and nothing but discord, or the instrument irretrievably put out of tune, will be the consequence. In fact, the art of developing, governing, and improving "the young idea," the most important of all, is yet in its infancy, particularly as regards the moral training. But to curb my erratic vein, and proceed with my narrative.

A period having been fixed for my departure, Mr. Augustus asked me in what manner I proposed to return. I told him, that was a matter I had not considered, but that I should be entirely guided by him. “Well," said he, there's the boat you came in at your service; but the Sunderbunds are roundabout, and I'd strongly recommend your going by dawk; you'll find it pleasanter as you're alone, and you'll reach your destination much sooner." "Very well," I replied, "let it be so; but may I ask what mode of transport this said dawk is, of which I have heard such frequent mention made—'tisn't any sort of animal, is it?” “Animal!" exclaimed my friend in astonishment, and laughing heartily, "why you are a greater griffin than I took you for: this beats your spearing the village pig. A dawk is a relay of bearers at stages of ten or twelve miles apart, to carry you, at the rate of four or five miles an hour, to your journey's end." "Thank you,” said I, “for the information; but not possessing intuitive knowledge, you see, one can't be expected to know all things until told of them." Augustus admitted that there was reason in the observation.

Well, it was decided that I was to proceed to Barrackpore on the second night after the day on which this conversation took place; so I wrote at once to my friend Tom, to tell him that he might expect me immediately. The last day of my stay, De la Chasse and his fidus Achates dined with us, and we all appeared depressed at the prospect of separation, for our short acquaintance had already ripened into a friendly feeling. Like towns in an ill-governed country, where, owing to the absence of sound laws and honest administrators of them, every one is afraid of his neighbour, hearts, in artificial England, are too often petty fortresses, where pride, caution, and suspicion, are incessantly on the watch to guard against surprise, and to break down these barriers and effect a lodgment is the work of years; but in India, amongst Anglo-Indians, the case is reversed; the gates are thrown wide open, and intimacies and cordial (though, perhaps, not always lasting) feelings are generally the result of a few days' acquaintance. Both extremes are bad; but it is indubitably far pleasanter to live amongst those, the approaches to whose confidence and kindness are supinely, rather than too rigorously guarded; the one system, 'tis my belief, shuts out more good than the other admits of bad.

Sahib, ka daktiar hyr," said a servant, entering the apartment some time after dark, on the day of which I am speaking. "Gernon," observed Mr. Augustus, "the best of friends must part; your palankeen is ready outside, and only waits your orders." I arose, walked to the terrace, and there was my equipage. The sentimental St. Pierre, with all the accuracy of a Frenchman, thus describes the equipage of his truth-seeking doctor, who, if as subject to blundering as himself, might have been a long time in discovering that valuable treasure:-" The Company's superintendent of Calcutta furnished the doctor with every thing necessary for his journey to Juggernauth, consisting of a palankeen, the curtains of which were of crimson silk, wrought