the skirts of his own coats shorter, to make them look smarter and only a short time since I found him discussing the cut of his half-boots, and suggesting alterations to his servant, when I went in upon business. The vanity of great men shews itself in different ways, but I believe always exists in some shape or other..

Of the other contents of these volumes the following is a favourable specimen :—

A TRAGICAL STORY.

In my own department I have another rather melancholy story. A Mr. M, clerk in the commissariat department, had been guilty of fraud and embezzlement of stores, some pork, rice, and milks, to no great amountas far as I could prove, under 201.; but it was sold out of the store at Galigas, in a village near. By Lord Wellington's orders I made out a charge against M, and sent it to him at Coimbra, with an order from the Commissary for him to attend under close arrest at Cea to

take his trial, as the witnesses were near Galigas. He, soon after the receipt of this letter and order, shot himself, and, by his death, has put an end to the whole busi

ness.

I understand he is well connected in England, has respectable friends, and was in a good situation there. A woman he lived with here, I believe, has been the cause of the whole, and when he turned her off she stirred up the witnesses against him, and was the cause of its being known to Sir R. Kennedy, and, by his means, to Lord Wellington, when, of course, a prosecution was inevitable. By the Mutiny Act he was liable to transportation for life, fine, imprisonment, or pillory, and he could not stand the disgrace. In part he admitted the charge, and pleaded sickness and distress. It was unfortunate that the discovery fell on such a subject, for it was, I believe, a single falling off from general good

conduct.

"Three Years with the Duke of Wellington in Private Life, by an Ex Aid-de-Camp," is a volume with a promise on the title-page that receives but small fulfilment. The reader will at once perceive from the headings of the chapters that the title must have been suggested by the publisher. It is a light, gossiping description of the state of Paris during the Duke's presence there, with as much about the Duke as the writer can remember. But

Whatever record leap to light,
He never shall be shamed,

writes Tennyson, and thus far the prophecy stands uncontradicted by any of these books.

Having said this much upon the Wellington Literature, we, in mitigation of the offence, faithfully promise, that for four Numbers yet to come we will not mention another book upon the subject, unless, indeed, something strange should happen, such as an epic by a hitherto mute Milton, or more schoolboy verses on the battle of Talavera by that graceful, juvenile, honey-hearted poet, the Right Honourable John Wilson Croker. A new Milton twanging a new harp, or a grey old gentleman with doting eagerness stringing words into excruciating doggrel, might perhaps tempt us to admire or to laugh, but nothing else shall.

The Strickland family threaten to become something very like literary bores. Every month brings forth some uninteresting vacant-faced

bantling, who claims our admiration because its progenitor is sister or brother, or even brotherin-law, to "Agnes Strickland, author of 'The Queens of England,' &c." We have tolerated Mrs. Moodie and the brother-in-law; but when Major Strickland, C. M., comes forth under the championship of his sister, "Edited by Agnes Strickland, author of 'The Queens of England,' &c. ;" we begin to think that "The Queens of England" have had their names taken in vain quite enough. As to this Major Strickland he is a bore of the first water. The twaddle he talks is vapid, insipid, and monotonous enough for the most remote corner of the most dusty of the libraries of the most ancient of the military clubs of this enduring metropolis. Those who feel an ungovernable impulse to know how many wives Major Strickland had, and how he lost them; and of the marriage of his eldest girl, who lived afterwards within a mile's walk of him; and of the death of his sweet, promising little boy; and of all the other details of the very commonplace life of this communicative Major; may safely have recourse to these volumes or if any one should haply want information upon that very new and unworked topic, the treatment of prisoners by the Indians, the Major will describe it to him. If, however, you want to read any thing that may interest a man to know about Canada, pray avoid the Major. He will disgust you with the topic for ever. Miss Agnes Strickland is very welcome in her own proper person, and the public has accepted her, and has the proper orthodox affection for her, which John Bull bestows upon his regular family; but John Bull can't stand this importunate crowd of Stricklands.

Among the productions of the quarter that may be most easily classified under the one general category of rubbish we may mention Mr. Buckley's "Great Cities of the Middle Ages:" whereof we would especially direct attention to the account of Paris. The author regrets that Victor Hugo should have prostituted antiquarian lore to the illustration of a novel, and gives abundant pledge that he himself will never be guilty of a similar sin.

Another of not dissimilar merit is a book, called "The Scarlet Book," shewing the connection of the Roman-Catholic ceremonies with the pagan rites. It is chiefly distinguished by bad spelling and an indecent engraving. Mammon is spelt "Mamon;" Madiai is spelt "Maidai:" and although we entirely agree that a nude figure is by no means necessarily suggestive of impropriety, yet there are different styles of nudity; and that of "Ken, the mother of the gods," is, we would suggest, of a style that should not lie about in drawingrooms.

The French duodecimo "Souvenirs de la Vie Militaire en Afrique," by the Comte de Castellane, which we noticed among our French reviews six months ago (NEW QUARTERLY REVIEW, Vol. I. p. 422), has been expanded into two volumes octavo, and published as an original English work by Messrs. Hurst and Blackett There is not one word upon the titlepage of this book to inform the reader that it is a translation, or that it has ever appeared in any other form. We humbly submit that this is not a creditable proceeding. It is, however, not a title likely to make many dupes.

The travels of the Baron Von Schönberg in India and Kashmir+ also appear to come under the same category. They contain nothing new; nothing, in fact, that a bookseller's clerk might not readily have compiled with a very easy week's toil in a back-parlour in Marlborough Street. Were we satisfied that these travels had not been thus produced, we should only say that the incidents are miserably commonplace, and that most of the anecdotes we have heard ad nauseam before.

It is much the fashion for our essayists to acknowledge and collect their contributions to the leading organs of public opinion. Stimulated, probably, by the success which attended the volumes whereby Macaulay and Sidney Smith extricated themselves from the mass of mediocre writing in which their best efforts lay forgotten, others, whom contemporaries are less anxious to know, come forward with their avowals "Ce n'est pas par vanité Messieurs, mais l'auteur-c'est moi!" Mr. Gregg is doubt less a powerful, and often an elegant writer, and his two volumes will be welcome to the few who can turn back with interest to not far distant events, and note the effect they produced upon a strong observant mind. The articles here collected are chiefly from the "North British," the "Economist," "Tait's Magazine," and the "Edinburgh Review." To all of which Mr. Gregg seems to have contributed in about equal proportions.

"A Life of Walter Scott," by Mr. Donald Macleod, is perhaps convenient to those who have not access to the works by Allan, Washington Irving, and Lockhart, from which it is compiled. There is nothing new in it, nor can we say much in its favour, even as an abridgment. It is possible that a small life of Scott may be wanted, somewhat upon the plan of

Southey's "Life of Nelson;" but this volume will certainly not supply such a want.

The youthful authoress of " A Trap to catch a Sun-beam," and some other pretty little works addressed to pretty little people, has just fluttered her wings for more adventurous flights. "Evil Genius" is a charming story, redolent of fresh feeling and instinct with innocent sympathies. The tale is a sort of juvenile Faust. Ethel is the good genuis, Forrester is the Mephistophiles, Cyril is the victim, divided between the temptations of virtue and vice, and succumbing at last to the baser influence. It is pleasant to be able to introduce an unpresuming and interesting little volume, wherein the younger branches of every family will find a tale that may engross their attention, and sentiments that must insinuate many a salutary lesson.

Perhaps the most fantastic and curious little book of the quarter is one which has been sent to us in proof sheets, without any author's or publisher's name attached. It is called "The Memoirs of a Stomach, written by himself, and edited by the Minister of the Interior." It is a most humorous account of the miseries this poor organ has to endure, from the bread and treacle days of childhood, through the collegiate nights of fiery port and devilled kidneys, and well into the aldermanic senescental difficulties of turtle and venison dinners. We, alas! sometimes feel we have a stomach, and have been eftsoons tempted to adopt the Frenchman's definition of a happy man, one who has a good stomach and a bad heart." We owe the author, whoever he may be, a kind word, for he has obtained us a hearty laugh and an appetite. He has exposed to us also the absurdities of some of our favourite stomachics, and we hope to feel less bilious and write better hereafter. The biped who is conscious of possessing a stomach must possess one out of order: let him consult this oracle. consult this oracle. It is apparently written by some physician, who thinks it etiquette to remain anonymous.

Of the pamphlets of the quarter some few are worthy of mention. Mr. Jellinger Symons has put forth a scheme whereby the whole of the revenue of the country may be raised, and the customs and excise duties abolished. He proposes a tax of one and ninepence in the pound upon all incomes above 501., a moderate tax on real property inherited, and a double duty on licences. The pamphlet is well worthy of attention, but there is one point the author has not touched. Would not direct taxation carried downwards to the mechanic destroy our institutions? We confess we think it would.

The cost of the monarchy, and the dead weight of the national debt, cannot knock every quarter at the cottage door without becoming grievances in the eyes of indigent men.

On the subject of India we dare not add to what we have elsewhere written: we may mention, however, "Bombay Briberies" (4th edit.), and the answer of Mr. Reid to the first edition. The first is an accusation of corruption. The defence seems to us to rest rather too much on mere abuse of the accuser. But the pleadings are now before the public: let them read and judge. We have ourselves taken no part in this question: not that we think it a little thing that the officials of the East-India Company should be accused of corruption-pudet hæc opprobria dici-but we have no space in this Number to treat the subject separately. It cannot, in fairness to either party, be dealt with shortly, and we are unwilling to be drawn from the consideration of the main question by any merely personal revelations, however astounding.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer is just now in an agony as to how the two and fifty millions are to be raised next year. We will suggest to him a new tax, for which we will ask no other remuneration than the repeal of the duty on paper. We would have a good

*"Letter to the Daily News in answer to Remarks republished in a pamphlet signed Indus,'" by Lestock R. Reid, Esq., late member of Council at Bombay. Smith, Elder, and Co., 1853.

heavy duty on "Novels." They come forth in shoals like herrings, and, like them, are devoured chiefly by gulls. Our pages actually teem with them this quarter; and three months hence not more than two of them will be ever again seen, heard, or thought of. "My Novel" and "Lady-bird" are the two exceptions. They form quite enough novel reading for one three months; but, of course, we have given separate notices of all the others which it was possible to read. The well-known author of "Margaret Maitland" has just given birth to "Harry Muir," a three-volume tale of Scottish life; but it is far from equalling the former productions of the same pen. We were altogether disappointed with it, and feel confident that it is not calculated to enhance the reputation of the writer. Our readers would scarcely have thanked us had we presented them with even a brief analysis of the plot, which is dull, tedious, and uninteresting. Again we crave reference to the Table of Contents.

If we have omitted to mention any book of importance, we once again refer to the Table of Contents, where the reader will find reference to its place in our ranks. We don't guarantee this, however, if the searcher should happen to be the author of the book in question. It is singular that there should be no two classes who differ so much in opinion as authors and the public, and no subject upon which they dif fer so much as upon the importance of any given book.

tion free of technicalities and fractional accuracies, and to place it in popular form before our readers. And first

What is gold? Gold is that substance which civilized men in every age, without reference to laws, and without regard to its intrinsic utility, have agreed to consider the most precious of those metals whereby the relative value of all other commodities is measured. It is so universally diffused throughout the earth, that Bergman and other metallurgists have said that it is the most common of all metals, iron only excepted: Becher and Cramer have gone so far as to assert that no sand is entirely free from its presence. It has remained rare and precious, not because its quantity is small, but because its particles are so diffused, that the labour of obtaining it, is too immense to pay for its production, even at its present value, except under unusually favourable circumstances. The theory of its production is, that its home is beneath those rocks which we call the crust of the earth; that it is a portion of the molten fiery mass thought to form the interior of the globe; that when the central fire approached the surface of the earth, breaking through the outer crust, and either bursting forth in lava, or smouldering beneath, gold, volatilized, (chemists are not agreed how,) rose in vapour through the fissures, and while the limestone was being burnt into marble, the sandstone vitrified into quartz, and common slates baked into mica, the golden vapour mixed with the transforming mass, entered into its minute fissures, and, as the heated earth-crust cooled back into rock,-condensed into gold. Then came the slow continual agency of water, wearing away atom by atom the mother substance in which the gold is bedded, gradually and for countless years converting the surface rock into powder, carrying it down to the plain, but allowing the particles of gold, heavy and tenacious, to sink, while the lighter and friable particles of rock are drifted away in suspension.

The rock is the matrix which Californian and Australian quartz crushers tell us they are about to compel to yield up its treasures; the diggings, are the alluvial deposits which the waters have, by an industry of countless ages, worn away and carried down.

Retrospect-Gold was found, we know not how early, in land close bordering upon Eden.*

"And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. "The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. "And the gold of that land is good."—Gen. ii. 10. As Ophir and Havilah were those sons of Joktan who lived "from Mesha as thou goest into Sephur, a mount of the east," the names may, perchance, be thought to involve a tradition that these two postdiluvian patriarchs, who were the great-great-great-grandsons of Shem, were

It was used as a medium of barter certainly before the time of Abraham; for Abraham "was rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold." Job even knew that silver was found in veins and gold in particles. "Surely there is a vein for the silver and a place for the gold when they fine it," and "the earth hath dust of gold." Solomon collected in a single year 300,000l. of gold. Semiramis, according to Diodorus, expended 11,000,000l. worth of solid gold in ornaments for her temple of Belus. Darius Hystaspes, according to Herodotus, had a surplus revenue of 3,250,000l. sterling; but a large part of this was silver; and Croesus, when he presented his 3,000,000l. to the temple of Delphi, sent only one-twelfth of it in gold. That Croesus, however, was not a man in straitened circumstances as to this metal may be gathered from the good story Herodotus tells about the origin of the family of Alemæonidæ, whence it would appear that it was an act of ordinary hospitality with Croesus to give a guest as much gold as he could carry away. To drop down to Rome, we note, with a little surprise, the quantity of ready money afloat in that city. Not to mention Crassus or Lucullus, a quiet augur, a certain Lentulus, had a snug little fortune of 3,229,1667., and 2,500,000l. was an estimate of the savings of one Claudius a freedman. But Rome had by this time plundered all the treasures of the world, and doubtless these were the nuggets. Where the gold wherewith Abraham was rich was found we do not know, except that it probably came from his cousins, Ophir and Havilah. Solomon's Ophir was, as Mr. Bruce and Dr. Doig both agree (although they agree upon no other point), somewhere in Africa. The washings of the sands around the sources of the Indus certainly gave to Darius the chief portion of his golden treasures. We thoroughly believe Herodotus, when he tells us how the Arimaspi, a one-eyed race, hunted the Griffins, and took from them their gold. These Griffins probably dwelt on the southern and eastern borders of the Ural mountains, for there gold mines have been traced, worked by a people who knew not iron, but used tools of copper to hammer and to wedge, and fangs of boars to scrape out the gold. Probably the Arimaspi, whom the father of historians admits to have had a sole eye for gold, found no great difficulty in plundering a race who could make gold earrings, but could not fabricate a sword.

The Phoenicians were great gold merchants. From Nubia, Ethiopia, Southern Africa, and from Spain, by caravans and by ships, they col

the first gold diggers. They were also contemporaries of Noah during the last two hundred years of his life. It is pleasant to know that the Hebrews, who have so peculiar a dominion over this metal, have the ancestral right of first discoverers.