OPINION OF A CHANCERY BILL. The following passage occurs in the Journal of the Rev. J. Wesley, under the date of Thursday, 27th Dec. 1744:-"I called on the solicitor whom I had employed in the suit lately commenced against me in chancery; and here I first saw that foul monster, a Chancery Bill. A scroll it was of 42 pages in large folio, to tell a story which need not to have taken up 40 lines! and stuffed with such stupid, senseless, improbable lies, (many of them quite foreign to the question,) as, I believe, would have cost the compiler his life in any heathen court either of Greece or Rome. And this is called equity in a Christian country!"- Excerpt. FRANKLIN. The versatility of Franklin's genius is best indicated in the variety of uses to which his head is put in every community. As a printer, his head adorns the printing press, as a philosopher, the studio, —as a moralist, the hall of the theologian, as a politician, the desk of a statesman —as an industrious man, the shop board of every good tradesman who minds his business. We have seen his head made to adorn these several offices and vocations, and one of the northern papers under our hands, employs it to recommend the spectacles of a shopkeeper, because the old patriot invariably wore them.. Charleston Gazette. Will yet be my undoing; In agony I sat, While that unwieldy booby Hans, Met with her, as it were by chance, And squired her to the village dance; Now only think of that! Next Easter, it will be a year, I scrap'd some cash together, To grace her Sunday's hat: Now only think of that! Next Sunday in the chapel loft But ah! when I beheld the pair, To visit her I deck'd myself, My grandpa's buckles in my shoon, My father's Sunday's vest, But when I came the bird was flown, Impell'd by mingled rage and love My ribbon round his hat! Heart-sick, and lame, I limped within, When stealthy as a cat, I peep'd, and saw the clownish knave Ah! faithless Gretchen! think upon Ere Hans, the hound's-foot, won your heart, By his malicious chat; A long farewell-I'll poison take, LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. Lieut. Waghorn, who for some time has been engaged in organizing a more extended steam communication with India, has just obtained a charter of incorporation for a new company, in conjunction with several eminent merchants. The route to be adopted, and which has been approved by the Board of Admiralty, is by the way of Egypt, Ceylon, Singapore, Batavia, Port Essington in Torres Straits, and thence by Wednesday Island to Sydney. It is calculated that Sydney will then be brought certainly within 64 or 65 days, and probably within 60 days, of London, and within 30 days of India. The time is thus divided: from London to Singapore, 8,390 miles, 42 1-3 days; from Singapore to Port Essington, 2,000 miles, 10 days; and from Port Essington to Sydney, 2,340 miles, 12 days; -total, 12,730 miles, to be performed in 64 1-3 days. It is stated that there will be no want of fuel; as a depöt can be formed at Port Essington, being supplied from Newcastle, New South Wales, where coal can be shipped at 7s. to 7s. 6d per ton, subject to a freight of 20s. to 22s. per ton; and another at Lombock or Batavia, to be kept up from the mines of Lebuan to Borneo, or from Cal cutta. A proposal has been published by M. Jules Sohn for the establishment of a general museum of sculpture in London. The Museum in Paris is suggested as the model for this institution. A congress of European Reformers on the subject of Prison Discipline, adjourned from that which was held last year at Frankfort, is to assemble in the Gothic Hall of the Hotel de Ville, at Brussels, on the 20th and 25th of next month. The order of the deliberations has been already arranged by a committee of organization which met there on the 12th inst. - An appeal is made, through the columns of the Universe, to that humanity which seeks the alleviation of all the varied forms of suffering that are curable to add one to the many public charities which grace the crowned England better than her crown. An asylum in the metropolis for Idiots is the object proposed: and a provisional committee has been formed to receive communications for the present at the King's Head, Poultry, and at the office of the Universe. The education of the Idiot, too hastily placed in the category of moral impossibilities, has been found by experiment in various European countries to be a labor yielding most gracious fruits. While the blind man may be taught and the lunatic restored, idiocy is not the sole waste in nature, moral or physical, for which there can be no reclaiming. As applied to the earlier periods of life, in particular, it is asserted that the evil, as in the case of insanity, is wholly physical. If, says the Universe, the young Idiot "be taken early, and carefully trained and educated on the principle that there is mind, and that it only demands physical manifestation, much that is essential to life, if not all that is desirable, may be secured."-The object is well worthy the attention of the philanthropist, and we gladly bring it under the notice of our readers. The papers inform us that a new movement is making in Scotland towards a renewal of the works which formerly contemplated the restoration of the Athenian Parthenon on the Calton Hill of the Northern Capital. It is now proposed, we are told, to cut away the church and sepulchre clauses from the Act for its erection; and to devote the edifice at large to the purposes of a "Scottish Pantheon, or Gallery of Honor, for the reception of monumental busts and statues of great and distinguished men, whether statesmen, warriors, poets, men of literature, science, artists, &c., not limited to Scotland, or even Great Britain, but open to great men of all nations." The pediments and metopes, together with the friezes of the peristyle, are to be decorated with national sculpture, and the interior with painting illustrative of Scottish and British achievements, in fresco, encaustic, or oil, as may be decided upon. A new Act is to be applied for, providing for the establishment of 51. shares to the amount of 150,000l., instead of 25l. shares to the amount of 50,000l., formerly proposed. The mere laying of the foundations for the original plan, and the rearing of the picturesque pillars which have so long stood on the hill as at once an ornament and a rebuke, cost, it is said, no less a sum than 15,000l. SHORT REVIEWS AND NOTICES. THE LANDS OF THE BIBLE VISITED AND DESCRIBED, in an Extensive Journey undertaken with special reference to the promotion of Biblical Research and the Advancement of the cause of Philanthropy. By JOHN WILSON, D. D., F. R. S., &c. With Maps and Illustrations. In two volumes. Dr. John Wilson is known to a religious section of the community as an active missionary of the Church of Scotland at Bombay, and a frequent writer on philology and theology in reference to the religions of India. A sojourn of more than fourteen years in the East had impaired his health, and in 1843 Dr. Wilson proceeded home to recruit. With the habitual energy of his country, he determined to make his journey homeward subservient to a religious and philanthropic purpose; to follow the wanderings of the Israelites in the Desert, explore the localities of Mount Sinai and Petra, and visit the principal places in the Holy Land. The identity or description of place was not his only object: he wished to examine the present condition of the Eastern Christians, and of the Jewish sects of Palestine, and to compare the latter with their fellows in India; he had also an eye to such matters as the probable success of missions in the Turkish dominions, and the restoration of the Jews. For a book of mere travels, there was not much interest in Dr. Wilson's route. A steam voyage from Bombay to Suez could furnish little of incident. The Desert trip from Suez to Cairo is made by shoals of travellers three or four times a month; the Pyramids and Cairo have been described by persons of every order of mind; the principal places of the Holy Land are nearly as hacknied; and if the journey through the Wilderness to Mount Sinai and Petra is not so common, the subjects have been handled by very superior travellers, and Petra in particular has been exhausted. Still, Dr. Wilson had some advantages. He came from India instead of Europe, and was familiar with the manners and character of Orientals; his acquaintance with Hebrew and Arabic enabled him to converse with Mahometans and Jews; his objects often gave him and them some topics in common, besides furnishing him with a continual pursuit. The book, however, by no means equals the expectations that these advantages might induce one to form; nor will it add much to Dr. Wilson's reputation with the general public. A more mistaken twelve hundred pages we have rarely encountered. Nearly every thing is done to death. The author would seem to suppose that his reader knows nothing, and has no means of knowing any thing, of Egypt, Arabia, or Palestine. He draws no distinction between the trivial and the important; the merest occurrence is told with as much specificality as if it were an incident of importance. A judicious stroke of the pen would have got rid of a hundred pages of tedious narrative from Bombay to Cairo, and left the reader fresh to start with the Israelites on their journey to and through the Red Sea; and other though shorter passages might be expunged with advantage. The real source of the expansion, however, is deeper, and perhaps beyond the reach of revision. The observer cannot but have remarked that a habit of extempore speaking is fatal to closeness and character of style in writing; and this is more especially the case in platform and sectarian pulpit oratory. The lawyer's train | ing gives him closeness of reasoning and expression; he is continually in the habit of writing; and even in speaking he must seem to speak to some point. The more learned education of the Anglican divine, and the general habit of preaching from written compositions, contribute to a closer and more scholarly style than obtains among sectarians, with whom written preaching is a sort of sin. A popular sectarian minister, too, has generally more reliance on his audience; let him say what he will, it is "acceptable." Hence, minuteness, and personal detail either of act or thought, become a habit with the generality of missionaries and nonconformist divines; which tells against them when they take up the pen to address a mixed class of readers. A temptation to undue extension in The Lands of the Bible was the error of making the b ooka continuous narrative of travels at all. Disquisition and exposition are the true characteristics of the matter. Probable routes, the site of places, the truth of tradition, the condition, opinions, learning, and prospects, of religious sects in the East, with traits of the people at large, are the real topics of the work, and those which Dr. Wilson is best fitted to handle. As a mere descriptive traveller, he wants the vivacity of mind and vigor of delineation which alone enable a man to write his travels with effect when he is passing over exhausted ground. These remarks, however, are general. Dr. Wilson may know the demands of a certain class of readers; and to many, his interpolations of the nature of sermons will be acceptable enough, however critically faulty. Dr. Wilson differs from Dr. Robinson on many points, and those often capital questions. He does not agree with him, for instance, as to the passage of the Red Sea; and he holds, in opposition to Dr. Robinson, that tradition is correct in regard to Mount Sinai and the spot whence the Ten Commandments were issued; whereas Dr. Robinson wished to change the site. Numerous other identifications of places mentioned in Scripture are discussed, indeed, every place of note in Palestine. In the main, we think Dr. Wilson uses a sound judgment and exhibits a rational conclusion in these discussions: though ever speaking in the extreme Protestant views of Romanism. The more generally interesting portions of the volumes are those which relate to the character of the people. In this very important part of a traveller's business Dr. Wilson enjoyed many advantages, not only in his religious objects, but his Oriental experience, and his acquaintance with the languages. His judgment is upon the whole more favorable to the Arabs, Jews, and Syrians, than that of many other travellers. Dr. did their duty, and to mark our progress in our researches. During the other days we continued at Petra, we did not meet with the slightest impediment or annoyance." SPECIMEN OF ARAB QUARRELS. Wilson brought more consideration and a juster | he frequently visited us to inquire if his men spirit of dealing to his intercourse with the Arabs: and, without losing sight of externals, he does not dwell so much upon mere modes in his description, as is the case with writers who have no means of penetrating beyond the outside. Much misconception in wild countries would be saved if the traveller could always communicate directly with the people, and would do it in the spirit of Dr. Wilson at Petra. His Arab escort thither had no power in that district, beyond what they could enforce by the strong arm, and, either from fear or interest wished to get the travellers away as soon as they arrived. "We sent for Sheikh Suleiman, now at the head of the fellahin of Wadi Musa; and we got him engaged in a peaceful conversation. On our blaming him, and the people of his tribe, for their want of hospitality and kindness to the strangers who, in past years, had come from distant lands to examine the wonders of the place, he solemnly declared that all along they had been misunderstood and misrepresented. We wish only,' he said in his own way, to maintain our own rights; but these are not respected by the camel-sheiks, and the English and French gentlemen whom they conduct to our valleys. While they are here, they seek to put our own authority in abeyance. They despise the protection which we are ready and willing to afford. They set their camels loose, to destroy our small pasturage and even our crops; and they never think of repairing the damage which they do to us. They sometimes make demands on our service without recompensing us for it, and carry off the provisions which they get from us, without paying us. But these evils we are determined to tolerate no longer. We have five hundred stand of arms; and we are determined to use them. We shall show that our injured tribe is as strong as any which can oppose us.' 'We are men of peace,' we said in reply, and we have no wish to fight. Most of the Franks who have come to Wadi Musa have likewise been men of peace; but they may have made a mistake in treating with their Arab conductors, instead of with yourselves, the occupants of these territories. We have made no agreement with our Arabs in your behalf; and we shall be happy to give you reasonable remuneration for the protection which you may afford, the supplies you may furnish, the services you may render to us, and the damage which may be done to you by any of our people.' On this declaration, the Sheikh's countenance brightened; and complimenting us for our consideration, he added, 'This is all we want, and for a hundred piastres for each of you, and for daily wages to your attendants, you are welcome to stay with us as long as you please.' The bargain was instantly closed; and he told us that he would let us have as many men as we pleased, to show us every thing in the place, answer all our inquiries, and render to us whatever services we might exact. He was perfectly faithful to his engagements; and We observed the party of Arabs who had joined us on our leaving Petra, and had crossed studiously keeping at a distance from us at night. the Arabah with us in the course of the day, The occasion of their shyness was a quarrel which they had had with Sheikh Husein, one of our conductors; and which originated in a conversation on the respective merits of the camels of the stood the Badawin are averse to speak about, the party, and on a subject which we had undersuitableness and serviceableness of the female members of their community. Sheikh Husien was in fault for introducing this last delicate topic, and for the injudicious manner in which he brought it to the notice of the strangers. "Your wives and daughters," he tauntingly said, are such tender and fastidious objects, that they can neither drive a sheep to the waste, nor bake, nor boil, nor grind, nor bring water. Inrecall a wandering camel. They can neither stead of serving you, you have to serve them, and assist them. They are the sheikhs, and you are the slaves." This impudence met with a "Get down from your corresponding response. camels, and we shall show wives are women; but not so are yours, who are that you lie. Our so dirty, and smell so rank, that a man cannot sit with them in the same tent." Worse than this fered, the consequence might have been lamentfollowed; and had not we peremptorily interable, as both parties became absolutely frantic แ with rage. you HEBREWS AT HEBRON. It was about nine o'clock when we arrived in Hebron, that ancient city which was "built seven years before Zoan in Egypt," and which is so hallowed in the history of the great patriarchs. We entered it on foot by a low gate; and groping our way through its dark streets, we went direct to the Jews' quarter, where our friend Mordecai had for weeks been awaiting our arrival. We knocked at the door by which is the entrance to this division of the town; and as soon as it was announced that the "travellers from Hind" had arrived, there was a general turn-out of its inmates, to bid us welcome to the place which became the first possession of Abraham in the land of promise. Every thing, they told us, was in readiness for our reception at the house of one of the Rabbis. Before we passed its threshold, we were embraced by all its members, of all ages, and both sexes; and so many persons offered us their services that we really knew not how to avail ourselves of their kindness. We were conducted to a vaulted room, raised from the general passage, having diwans in the Turkish style at its extremity, and covered with carpets. We were told it was the best in the house; and that it was set apart for our use while we might remain in the place. Several lamps with olive oil, the product of the Vale of Mamre, and a fire of charcoal, were immediately kindled. Our luggage, carried from the gates by some of the willing youth who came to our assistance, was quickly at our command. The damsels brought us water for our ablutions, offering also to wash our feet, in discharge of the primitive rites of hospitality. We were speedily arrayed in dry clothes. A dainty repast was set before us; and every thing which we could desire was at our command. After escaping the exposure and toils of the Desert, and the rough travel of the night, we found ourselves, amidst all these comforts, in some measure grateful, I trust, to our Heavenly Father and Guardian, from whose grace they flowed. In our social worship, we returned thanks for all the protection extended to us during perhaps the most perilous part of our journey, and for the mercy and goodness which He was making to continue with, and abound, toward us. It will be seen from these extracts that there is often a great deal of curious and characteristic matter in Dr. Wilson's pages. It is only to be regretted that an error in judgment, and the want of a habit of selecting his thoughts, did not induce him to throw aside the narrative form altogether; treating the inquiries into routes and sites as disquisition, and presenting his observations upon the actual manners and characters of men as extracts from his journal. By this means, the tedious minuteness of commonplace travel would have been got rid of; as well as the frequent extracts from other travellers, which, though exhibiting a wide range of reading, and Dr. Wilson's laborious preparation for his journey, are rather out of place in a work of this form. STORIES AND STUDIES FROM THE CHRON ICLES AND HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Mrs. S. C. Hall and Mrs. J. Foster. 2 vols. post 8vo. Darton & Co. History is a necessary study for the young, and yet they do not take to it spontaneously. It is never found that when any pocket-money is to be spent that they think of purchasing a history of any kind, without it be that of "Martin the Foundling," and yet history is the very foundation of modern fiction. Children of a larger growth, it must be confessed, have had recourse to romance to learn the leading facts of our nation's story, and others, besides Marlborough, have known no more` of it than what they gleaned from Shakespeare's plays. To this agreeable medium have now been added the Waverley Novels, with collateral branches by Bulwer, James, and a long list. A taste so universal and indestructible would tend to prove that the fault was not all on one side; and that the literary taste that revolted from the food offered to it was justified from the nature of the crude and dry pabulum. A long political History of England is like a treatise on chess or mathematics to a person understanding neither. And a miserable curt abridgement, stuffed full of bald facts, such as battles, and the births and deaths of people, that a child, and indeed for that matter, a man, can have no interest in, except for some human interest to be raised for them, is enough to drive them for ever from such reading. This has long been felt, and many before the authors of the present volumes have endeavoured to throw the narratives of the chief events of history into an interesting form. To Sir Walter Scott, however, belongs the merit of having conquered the difficulty, and we are inclined to go further even than Thierry, the great French historian, and think that more than half of the real history of the period is to be found in "Ivanhoe." Certainly, if only one portion could be read, we think more true knowledge might be found of Richard Cœur de Lion's reign in the romance than in the professed history. It must not, however, be conceived that every flimsy sentimental story, based on the historical fact, is of value. Such unwholesome verbiage is worse than an idealess history. If nothing but bare sticks can be had, let them be planted, and peradventure in a good soil they may fructify into truths. The present attempt is wanting in vigor. It is history cut out in fine woven paper. It is too fine; too pure for the genuine substance. Like some of our much-admired modern painters, all is so smooth, so glossy, so smug, that it loses its vraisemblance. It cannot be denied that there is a very delicate perception of the moralities: a fine sense of the heroic, but a want of boldness and breadth, that renders the stories and pictures weak and vague. Running through our history from Brutus even to Victoria, there is, however, much that must excite the attention of the young reader, and awaken an interest that will induce him to seek further information in the pages of the more regular historians; and, if properly inducted through the medium of the old chroniclers, probably induce a taste for this important branch of literature. We should indeed have said that the narrative is frequently carried on by means of quotations from the old chroniclers; and no scholastic reader need be informed how deeply their pages are imbued with human feeling. The illustrations of each monarch's reign are somewhat too brief, and the subjects are not selected in a very striking manner; nor is there any distinctive force either of remark or narrative. They however supply a want, and will, as we |