say, if this transcript dissygeringe is not, what we suspect, a mistake of a y for a g, and that the real word is dissyveringe or dissevering.

All this bears the aspect of serious trifling; but it is a great mistake. We have had occasion to observe slightly, under our notice of the Foreign Review, No. VIII. that Archæology is the of History, and saves useless assay and inconclusive dissertation. For instance, if anacronisms ensue, if absurdities occur, as would be affirmation that Roman remains had been discovered at Otaheite, or that the Romans were acquainted with the use of cannon in war (as Shakspeare says in his Julius Cæsar), then it is certain that such history must be a fabrication. If a man goes to law, he should not think what makes for his own ease, but for that of his adversary; and he who wishes to decide the real pretensions of very ancient history, will find its manners and customs the best test of its veracity. Really this antiquarianism is capital fire-side hunting; in point of fact a man should be an autiquary, before he undertakes history.

Of Ashby Church it is said, that the splay of the arches on the south side terminates in grotesque heads of an immense size. P. 119.

"In the Church of Bratoft, over the chancel arch, is a painting representing the Spanish Armada under the figure of a dragon. At each corner a portion of terra firma is visible, on which are inscribed, Anglia, Scotland, Hibernia, France. Ships of war are stationed off the different coasts, and on that of England the Royal standard is displayed, having on its left three forts, and on its right a body of troops. Robert Stephenson is inscribed at the bottom. Below are the following lines:

work; but this Bratoft painting shows, that it was a symbol of sanguinary warfare, possibly by invasion. We know by authority, that the dragon standard did imply hostility in its most bitter form; and we might reasonably think, that the victory of St. George over the Dragon did originally at least symbolize repulse of invasion; for it is to be recollected, that this legendary achievement is a hack story applied to various countries.

The Church of Candlesby, woodcutted in p. 131, has a square chimney tower without angular buttresses, like that of Oxford Castle; both are mere parallelogram boxes standing upright. It appears from Domesday, that there were two Churches in Candlesby. That of Oxford is said to be the work of Robert D'Oyly in the time of the Conqueror; it may have been so; but nevertheless, from St. Peter's, Oxford, this specimen, and others, we are inclined to think that the fashion is Anglo-Saxon as to origin, for it is certainly Roman. We do not recollect any of the latter in ancient remains, or paintings, with angular buttresses; though buttresses do appear annexed to town walls; hollow and having a postern doorway on one side, with a stair-case ascending to one of the towers above (see Pompeiana, Plates 16 and 17). It is possible that these posterns suggested the side-long entrances of Norman keeps; for the object in both was the same, and the fashions similar. Our solid angular buttresses had evidently no other intention than strength and ornament; but the instances quoted show, that in the Roman æra they were mere projections, covering postern entrances and stair-cases, without weakening the walls, easy to be stopped up, and impossible to be attacked, because completely commanded by the walls above, through the entrance being on the side, not the face of the buttress.

We remember well, that nouns of multitude govern a verb plural; but it seems, that certain bell-founders of London, so late as 1762, were determined that they should govern a verb singular, for we find again in p. 136, "Lester and Pack of London, fecit." The English have a natural aversion to the change of cases by termination. We have heard she's face and he's face, used by the vulgar, for her and his

face; and by the way, his is no more than another accentuation and orthography of he's; and as to her, instead of she's, the former was originally their, and she's had a singular meaning, and a correct one; si being illa in the Gothic, and izor corrupted into she's the genitive. Her in ancient authors is the plural their; borrowed from the genitive plural of the Anglo-Saxon heora; but, says Hickes, whom we quote (Grammat. Anglo-Saxonica, pp. 28, 29), "A gen. sing. hipe, venit her in moderno sensu." In Herefordshire him is a nominative used for he; and, says Hickes, p. 28, note *, "hiri in Runico significat ille."-We have thus digressed, on purpose to show that (grammatical error excluded) the real origin and history of our language, as to the Northern words, is to be found in vulgar dialect, which in truth, where the words are not mere slang, is a vocabulary or glossary of barbarous English.

(To be continued.)

Foreign Review, No. VIII.

IT is well known to medical men, that precocious talent often indicates only water in the brain. So it is with rapid education. Dexterity is acquired before judgment is matured, and the forcing process produces eccentric leaf and premature semination-show and not fruit, turnips and cabbages merely running to seed. To apply these remarks to the work before us. The criticisms show the vast superiority of our own science; of the criticisms (with here and there an exception, which we shall notice) to the articles reviewed.

In the majority of scientific instances, the Foreigners appear to be either apprentices or projectors, not philosophers, but charlatans; indeed, it is most certain, that the March of Intellect may produce forward school-boys, but the March of Reason must endure the drill of experience and time, before that valuable knowledge can be given to the world, which promotes improvement. The curse of the present times is theory, and however foolish it may be, there is no hesitation, provided it be practicable, and overthrows veneration for ancient institutions, and thus is auxiliary to the grand object of sly seditionists, for that is a main cause why GENT. MAG. December, 1829.

IV. Muller's Dorians. Learned, but suspicious.

All inquiries of this remote period should be tested by the stages of society, viz. the hunting, pastoral, and agricultural; for these are the philosophical instruments by which are gauged the truth or falsehood of ancient history; e. g. the romanized habits of Geffrey of Monmouth's civilized Britons, are utterly irreconcileable with Cæsar's savages. Geffrey antedates by whole centuries their arts and manners; and the contents of barrows prove the latter to be correct.

V. Bourienne's Memoirs of Napoleon Buonaparte. This article is commenced by the following paragraph:

"It is the certain indication of a weak mind to suppose that any subject can be exhausted. Magazine critics, indeed, and drivelling newspaper-mongers may arrive at that sage conclusion, and may divulge such conclusion to their as sage readers." P. 345.

As "Magazine Critics," we are of course included in this sapient insult, which may excite all the periodicals to hostility against an infant miscellany only eight numbers old. We know that not great dogs, only curs and puppies, bark at other dogs, and that the word cynic is derived from the growl and snarl of the said curs and puppies; that the term "a subject is exhausted," is a common colloquial phrase, as old as Methusalem, no more appropriate to Magazine critics and readers, than legs and arms; that it is no indication of a weak mind, only of tædium in the public; and that the merit of an article is not dependent upon its appearance in a pamphlet, instead of a miscellany.

The fact is, that unpublished anecdotes of very eminent men are always acceptable; and the sapient critic, instead of introducing his article by this rational common-sense preface, has

adopted the blacking manufacturer's literature by depreciating other wares; and for what purpose? to enlighten us with new information that Buonaparte was at one time a needy, and at all times a selfish and ambitious man. According to the Reviewer, it required a voyage round the world to make this discovery, and he is the Captain Cook who made it. That to usurp a crown per honestas artes is impossible, said Tacitus long before: and a M. Bourienne, who had once been a personal friend of Napoleon, and had been amply promoted by him, now rips up every unfavourable thing, that he may please the Bourbons. Yea, even his own familiar friend, whom he trusted," thus served the fine lad who beat Goliath.

66

VI. Political Economy. We shall give instances under our review of "Letters from Sidney," which show that "Political Economy" is theoretical and unphilosophical; that it is a grammar consisting of rules, by which statesmen schoolboys cannot parse their lessons; a lighthouse which leads ships to dangerous rocks: and sorry are we to say, that the decay of the agriculture, trade, and revenue of this country, begins to feel its pernicious influence, because, though never acknowledged as legally born on the Royal Exchange, it has been legitimated by the Senate. How inapplicable it is to actual business, will appear from the following paragraph :

"If a farmer, by laying out 100%. more in labour or manure this year, than he did the last, can procure an additional gross produce worth 110l. he thinks he does well for himself and the public; and so he does on tithe-free land; for he has his extra capital returned, and 10l. per cent. for trading interest. But if his land be titheable, the tither will take eleven pounds worth, and the farmer will have 997. left to replace his 100l. and no interest at all." P. 399.

Now setting aside the evident fact, that if a farmer gains 10. more, a tither can only take a tenth of it, i. e. 17., and the odd nine remains; we, who pay both great and small tithes, know that this kind of calculation has no relation to the usual forms of business. A money composition is paid; and tithes are taken in kind, only under the extreme of non-adjustment. The tithe which we pay upon meadow land, worth more than 21. 2s. per acre, is (great and small tithe) 7s. 8d.

per acre; the arable (best) 10s. the highest, and so downwards; orcharding (small tithes only) 2s. 6d. per acre. Now if the crop of this meadow be only one ton of hay per acre, say worth 60s., the full tithe is a tenth, or 6s., remainder 54s. If the farmer by improvement makes the product a ton and a half, worth 90s., then the tenth is 9s., remainder 81s.; subtract 54s. from 81s., and the remainder is 275., the additional profit to the farmer; through paying in tithe, only 3s. more than he did before. How would Mr. Coke of Norfolk have improved his estate from 2 to 20,000l. per annum, if the political economy statements had a real operation? and so far from tithe retarding improvement, every man of business knows that the burden diminishes through such improvement; for in the case before us, it is more severe to pay 6s. out of 60s., than 9s. out of 90s. Every man now pays 25 per cent. taxes, and he willingly parts with 25 per cent. more upon the accession of every new hundred, because he gains the remainder of 75.

VII. Modern Italian Comedy. Here is another foolish digression (p. 409) · about writing for money; but it is redeemed by the following excellent remarks upon the common plots of our comedies.

"Fathers are to allow their thoughtless daughters to run away with the first vagabond who can disguise himself like an honest man; to consider how a family is to live is incompatible with true love, as if the only true love should be to contrive to live at the expence of the parish; that a rogue, who seduces the affections of an inexperienced girl, particularly if she be a fine one, deserves all our compassion; and that daughters are to follow blindly their inclinations, and look upon their fathers not as their truest and sincerest friends, but as their bitterest enemies, or at least blinded by prejudice." P. 418.

VIII. History of the Cid. The Cid, a Don Rodrigo Diaz, who lived in the eleventh century, is the King Arthur of Spain; and the object of the Essay is to discriminate the real from the marvellous.

IX. General Jackson and the United States of America. The story about the General is that of Falstaff and his Men of Buckram; of course it breaks down under cross-examination.

In the short reviews we meet with nothing of that relation to the English

public, which is likely to interest our readers.

We hope that the notice which we have taken of certain imprudencies and sophisms, in this number, will not be considered as depreciating the general merit of this Review.

Travels in Chaldæa, including a Journey from Bussorah to Bagdad, Hillah, and Babylon, performed on foot in 1827, with Observations on the Sites and Remains of Babel, Seleucia, and Ctesiphon. By Capt. Robert Mignan, of the Hon. East India Company's Service. 8vo. pp. 333. Plates. IT was customary with the oriental nations to vie with each other in their claims to antiquity; but Chaldæa exceeds them all, inasmuch as the fragments of Berosus* give us the names of ten antediluvian Kings, and inform us that Chaldæa in the first ages of the world had been peopled by a race of monsters, hermaphrodites, centaurs, and satyrs, men with the tails of fishes and heads of dogs. Sir William Drummond (i. 33) concludes, from an examination of the etymologies of the Royal antediluvian names, that this History of Berosus was a figment composed long after the Persians had destroyed the ancient Chaldean Monarchy. Nevertheless, there are some very deep substructions (allowed by men of judgment to be part of the foundations of the Tower of Babel), stamped with cuneiform characters, which have induced Capt. Mignan to suppose (p. 317) that these characters composed the antediluvian mode of writing; and it is also certain that the discoveries of Cuvier wonderfully accord with the monstrous stories of Berosus. Nevertheless, fossil bones might have been seen by him also or his authorities, and have formed the groundwork of his fiction; and the cuneiform characters are admitted to belong to a phonetic alphabet, which is known not to be of the earliest kind. In short, the first historical truth concerning Chaldæa, is the beginning of the kingdom of Nimrod, and the erection of the Tower of Babel; events

Collected by Polyhistor, and preserved by Eusebius and Georgius Syncellus.

+ Sir Will. Drummond's Origines, i. 41. -The zodiacal and monstrous Egyptian figures might have originated in such a tradition.

which have been antedated; for that profound scholar Sir William Drummond proves that it is not irreconcileable with the sacred text to assume that Nimrod was contemporary with Abraham. He further assumes, that the Scriptural Nimrod was the same as the Chaldæan Bel or Belus, and Persian Zohak. §

We have written this short preface by way of introduction to the work before us; and, as the principal circumstance connected with ancient Chaldæa is the Tower of Babel, we shall offer some opinions upon that subject.

It has been called an impious attempt to build a tower which should reach to heaven; but, as the Chaldæans were the first astronomers, through the clearness of their sky, and large level of their plains, the term "of reaching to heaven," might have been merely a metaphor, denoting the use of the tower, for an observatory, one purpose, according to our recollection, of its foundation by Belus. As it was a stupendous work, and such things were formerly erected by impressment of all the people of several provinces (a circumstance which occurs in the

history of the Pyramids), a short extract from the "Picture of Australia" (p. 202) will explain the confusion of tongues.

little in the form of their bodies, their modes "The aborigines of Australia differ very of living, and of making war, their implements and their habitations; yet, though in these respects they might be all taken for brothers, their language is so diversified, that, within a comparatively short distance, the one is just as unintelligible to the other, as both are to an European."

Whether this celebrated tower was the Birs Nimrod, or the Mujellibah, is contested. Capt. Mignan observes, that a tradition handed down from time immemorial, says that near the foot of the ruin of El Mujellibah," is a well invisible to mortals, in which those rebellious angels were condemned by God to be hung with their heels upwards, until the day of judgment, as a punishment for their wickedness. || But as these angels are Harut and Marut, mentioned in the Koran, we think that the tradition may not be older

Origines, b. i. c. x. passim. § Id. c. xi.

See our author, p. 162.