fat, spices, and dyes," hunting parties and other festivities. At Agra, which they reached on the fifth of April, the thermometer stood at thirty-five degrees (Reaumur); and yet there were balls taking place here! They paid a very interesting visit to the Rajah of Bhurtpoor, and on the 26 April reached Delhi, the ancient residence of the Great-Mogul. The neighbourhood of the city is a complete wilderness covered with the ruins of former magnificence, but still possessing monuments which are as interesting as the pyramids, and of very great antiquity.

But the most valuable part of the work is contained in the next letters, which describe the journey to the boundaries of Thibet, and their residence in that cool mountainous region. They first reach the chain of Gagher, inhabited by legions of monkeys, but also by tigers, which even on the borders of the snow are as dangerous as in the torrid plains. The foaming mountain-streams can only be crossed on rope-bridges, and thus they passed the Mundagree, and reached the sacred springs of Gaurikund, where a great number of pilgrims were bathing; the heat in the meanwhile had risen to forty-one degrees. Yet more celebrated is the temple Kedernath, where Vishnoo is buried; it lies 11,800 feet above the level of the sea, and the temperature was only five degrees. Thus the travellers penetrate into the recesses of the mountains, and the Rajah of Ghurwal expresses a fear lest the prince should be followed by an army to lay waste and destroy the country. The dangers of their journey are multiplied as they draw near to the falls of the Ganges, which there is scarcely twenty feet wide; they soon reach the frontier of Thibet, but "intrigues" delay the further prosecution of their journey, and at last compel them to take another road. Few travellers have endured such hardships as now fell to their lot. During thick fogs, rain, and frost, they had to make their way over naked and slippery rocks, or over rolling stones and blocks of granite, until they had attained an elevation of 15,000 feet, and then to descend over precipices of snow and ice, in which they had first to cut steps with the axe, in order to reach the valley of the Sutley. The English sanitory station at Simlah offered a very welcome haven of rest. The villages built in the crevices of these mountains are said to resemble swallows' nests; the inhabitants are Llama-worshippers, and clay vases of peculiar form were observed to be set up as objects of worship in many places, but the exact meaning of these could not be ascertained. The mountains of Purgeul on the Chinese frontier presented a splendid Alpine panorama, but a nearer approach showed only bare and broken rocks covered with snow.

Lipay was a very animated place, of original appearance; there was here a Llama temple with a gilded idol, whose priest though he prayed unceasingly did not display the least degree of devotion.

In the twelfth letter is described the entrance into Chinese territory; the inhabitants, though forbidden to supply the strangers with food under the penalty of being ripped up, brought them abundance of milk and apricots; two native physicians also came but they were all distinguished by avarice and ugliness and but ill repaid the travellers for the laborious journey which had been undertaken on their account. On the 30th of August they reached the residence of two German missionaries at Kotghoor, where they have established a large school for the Hindoos.

Here terminates the mountain tour, and they returned to Simlah, where festivities took place in honor of the Prince. The thirteenth letter describes the campaign against the Sikhs, but only briefly; for within a few days the brave and active physician received his death-wound at Ferozeshah at the side of the prince, who volunteered to take part in that hard-fought battle. On the previous day he had concluded a letter with these words: "tomorrow the army is to advance and I am confident of success; may we soon meet again."

There is an appendix which shows how much we have lost by the death of Dr. Hoffmeister. From Simlah he wrote to Humboldt on the geographical distribution of the coniferæ on the Himalaya mountains, and reports eleven or twelve species which flourished at an elevation of 12,000 feet. We find also remarks on the vegetation and on the birds of the Himalaya mountains, and tables of the temperature at different heights, and lastly seven maps which indicate the courses of the mountain-streams among which this novel and interesting journey was made. — Leipziger Repertorium.

DR. CHALMERS.-A correspondent of the Daily News writes as follows:-"Phrenology is rather at fault regarding Dr. Chalmers. From the largeness of his head externally and the peculiarity of his mental temperament, the leading craniologists have long spoken of him as of necessity possessing a large brain; but the post mortem inspection of the encephalon has disabused this idea. Thus, the weight of brain in Dupuytren was 64 oz., in Cuvier 63, in Abercrombie 63, in Chalmers 53-the average weight in persons from fifty to sixty years of age being 50 oz. 2 drachms."— Athenæum.

John Jones.

If treated in due form and order here is a subject which would afford scope for the voluminous labors of a James in place of such a curt book as Mr. John Jones has devoted to it. To indicate a few of the obvious lights in which it might be set :-There is the currency Question; with all its manifold ramifications and civilizations since the primitive days when Peace could be ratified by the present of a "great balas ruby" and a famine stayed by a loan upon a carkanet! Then, the History of Bribery, largely embracing the philosophy of Political Conscience, would offer not a few richly instructive chapters. Subservient to these in moral importance would come the chronicle of such showy matters as Royal Progresses, Princely Bridals, &c., &c., in which crowns, sceptres, and necklaces have always played brilliant parts. Nor should the historian overlook the employment of jewels in Medicine and in Magic :- the last (by poetical licence) bringing him within the domain of Beauty's sieges, "stratagems and spoils." In short, it would not require the assumptions or exaggerations of a Munchausen to prove that the great world (no inconsiderable portion of "the great globe itself") would have gone on till the present time tamely and lamely, without Jewellery!

Here we have a few of the above topics even touched upon. But Mr. John Jones manages to set many "sparks" of information and entertainment within the compass of his threescore and ten pages. First: the ignorant wearer of rings, "owches," and bracelets may learn that "jewellery derives its name from the Hindoostanee ‘jouhur,' a gem - and is of Oriental origin." So that Hunt and Roskell,- Kitching and Abud, M. Herz, with his ingenious Egyptian counterfeits, the curiosity merchant, Herr Piklert (?) of Eüath, near Nurember, &c., &c., &c., all take style and title from " allegory on the banks of the Nile." We read, further, that the Egyptian scarabai and other ornaments in gold and blue earthenware were "emblems of spiritual principles or charms against evil; "that the brooch of Pharaoh's daughter was no trifle; the head-tire of the wife of Sesostris not an affair of mere chance and fantasy.

an

"The sphynx, being the compound of human intelligence and the lion's strength, was the emblem of royalty, it is presumed that its use was

objects of honor, for the flood of the Nile was at the full when the sun was in Leo. The signs of the zodiac, referring to the agricultural events of the year, formed a collection of popular symbols. A star would suggest astronomical movements, and is the leading idea in the formation of almost all flowers: Cowley calls them 'stars of the earth:' precious stones were generally disposed into stars. If ornamental form, for its own sake, were at all admired, it was chiefly in geometric figures, a taste cultivated by the physical necessities of the country; yet, even here, the symbolic association was not forgotten; the square for strength, the circle for eternity, and so forth."

Who knows, then, to give a moment's play to fanciful speculation, of how many things besides their mere gold and precious stones the Israelites, when breaking from their captivity, may have spoiled the Egyptians!

The Greeks (still to bear company with Mr. Jones) showed less wealth and less mysticism than the Egyptians in the matter of gold and precious stones, but more skill. The Artist rose as the Priest waned on the horizon of the jeweller's shop. Engraved rings, in which the device or posy counted for as much as the ornament, "came up: "-and hence the Jewel, by becoming a document and a token, gained a new and precious significance.—

"It is through an engraving on an emerald that we have the likeness of the founder of our

religion; it was taken by command of Tiberius Cæsar, and became deposited in the treasury of Constantinople, whence it was given by the Emperor of the Turks to Pope Innocent VIIIth as a ransom for his brother, then a prisoner to the useful in determining facts of history or biogChristians. Not only have gem engravings been raphy, but they have formed the school in which modern genius has been trained. Raphael is known to have been indebted to them for many graces of figure and expression which animate his productions. . . . The oval form, as being that which bounds the range of vision, was used as the field on which their engravings were cut."

Under the Romans, brute jewels, so to speak, returned to favor-being used by them, it would seem, more sensually and in more lavish profusion than they had been by Egyptian or Greek. The wanton disrespect of every thing but their nominal value reached its acme in Cleopatra's far-famed draught. From the origin of Antony's "wrangling queen" one might have expected greater reverence for her trinkets; but as a prosaic writer of the Fordyce school once expressed

American literature has been long a "moun- | tain in labor," and might have been expected to bring forth either a mouse or a monster. Many will deem the mouse amply typified by the numerous small poets and essayists who abound in that country; and some will see the monster in the strange, eccentric, and untameable son of the wilderness before us. It is not, however, in this light that we regard Emerson. We look on him as a genuine man, whose mistakes as well as merits unite in stamping on his character the ineffaceable marks of sincerity, dignified simplicity and independence, as well as of a peculiar and powerful genius.

Elsewhere we have spoken shortly, but sincerely, of Emerson, and even at the risk of egotism, we must say, that we have been not a little amused at the treatment which our remarks have met with from the press of America. So far as we can judge from periodicals and newspapers, from Baltimore to Boston, a cry of universal reprobation has assailed that article. It has fallen between two stools-on the one hand, Emerson's detractors are furious with us, for placing him at the head of American literature, and so far they are right-though a most national writer, to American literature he does not belong. He is among them, but not of thema separate state, which no Texas negotiation will ever be able to annex to their territory. On the other hand, the school of Transcendentalists contend that we do him less than justice, that our lines are unable to measure or to hold this leviathan; and the opinion of one American author to this effect, deeply humiliated us, till accidentally falling in with her own criticisms, and finding that, among other judgments of the same kind, she preferred Southey, as a poet, to Shelley, we were not a little comforted, and began to think that, perhaps, we had as good a right to think and speak about Emerson as her

self.

"Verily, a prophet hath honor, save in his own country, and among those of his own house"- an expression containing much more truth than it at first seems to imply; for, indeed, the honor given in one's own country is often as worthless as the neglect or abuse; and, notwithstanding the well-known French adage, the vilest and commonest of hero-worship is that of valets and parasites, who measure their idol by the standard of his superiority to their own littleness. Hero-worship, however, even in its worst form, is preferable to that spirit of jealousy

which pervades much of the American press in reference to Emerson, which, at the mention of his name, elicits in each journal a long list of illustrious-obscure, (like a shower of bats from the roof of a barn on the entrance of a light,) in its judgment superior to him- as though a Cockney, insulted by a panegyric on Carlyle, as one of the principal literary ornaments of London, were to produce and parade the name of the subordinate scribblers in the Satirist, Literary Gazette, &c., as the genuine galaxy of her mental firmament. With occasional exceptions, the great general rule is—how does a name sound afar?-does it return upon us from the horizon?—what impression does it make upon those who, unprejudiced either for or against the author personally — uncircumscribed by clique or coterie-unaltered by adverse, unsoftened by favorable criticism, have fairly brought his works to the test of their own truefeeling and true-telling souls?

This has been eminently the case with Emerson. To him Britain is beginning to requite the justice which America, to her honor, first awarded to Carlyle. Sincere spirits, in every part of the country, who have, many of them, no sympathy with Emerson's surmised opinions, delight, nevertheless, to do him honor, as an earnest, honest, and gifted man, caught, indeed, and struggling in a most alien element, standing almost alone in a mechanical country, and teaching spiritual truth to those to whom Mammonnot Moses - has become the lawgiver, and Cant -not Christ-the God, but as yet faithful to the mission with which he deems himself to be fraught.

Alike careless and fearless of the judgment which may be passed by any party here or in America, on our opinions, we propose now to extend our former estimate of Emerson - an estimate which has at once been strengthened and modified by the volume of poems he has recently issued.

And first of his little volume of poems. They are not wholes, but extracts, from the volume of his mind. They are, as he truly calls some of them, "Woodnotes," as beautiful, changeful, capricious, and unfathomable often, as the song of the birds. On hearing such notes we sometimes ask ourselves, "What says that song which has lapped us in such delicious reverie, and made us almost forget the music in the sweet thoughts which are suggested by it?"