stition to scepticism." We are reminded by this of Shelley's vehement assurance that, for his part, he would rather be damned with Plato and Lord Bacon than go to heaven with Paley and Malthus. The most eloquent passages, to our thinking, in this book, are those which immediately bear upon the composition of the immortal "Decline and Fall." taining the English at his hospitable table. After leaving Florence, I compared the solitude of Pisa with the industry of Lucca and Leghorn, and continued my journey through Sienna to Rome, where I arrived in the beginning of October. 2. My temper is not very susceptible of enthusiasm; and the enthusiasm which I do not distance of twenty-five years, I can neither forfeel, I have ever scorned to affect. But, at the get nor express the strong emotions which agiI shall advance with rapid brevity in the nar- tated my mind as I first approached and entered rative of this tour, in which somewhat more the eternal city. After a sleepless night, I trod, than a year (April 1764-May 1765) was agree with a lofty step, the ruins of the Forum; each ably employed. Content with tracing my line memorable spot where Romulus stood, or Tully of march, and slightly touching on my personal spoke, or Cæsar fell, was at once present to my feelings, I shall waive the minute investigation eye; and several days of intoxication were lost of the scenes which have been viewed by thou- or enjoyed before I could descend to a cool and sands, and described by hundreds, of our mod-minute investigation. My guide was Mr. ern travellers. Rome is the great object of our Byers, a Scotch antiquary of experience and pilgrimage; and 1st, the journey; 2nd, the taste; but in the daily labour of eighteen weeks, residence; and 3rd, the return; will form the the powers of attention were sometimes fatigued, most proper and perspicuous division. 1. I till I was myself qualified, in a last review, to climbed Mount Cenis, and descended into the select and study the capital works of ancient plain of Piedmont, not on the back of an ele- and modern art. Six weeks were borrowed for phant, but on a light osier seat, in the hands of my tour of Naples, the most populous of cities, the dextrous and intrepid chairmen of the Alps. relative to its size, whose luxurious inhabitants The architecture and government of Turin pre-seem to dwell on the confines of paradise and sented the same aspect of tame and tiresome hell-fire. I was presented to the boy-king by uniformity; but the court was regulated with our new envoy, Sir William Hamilton; who, decent and splendid economy; and I was intro- wisely diverting his correspondence from the Secduced to his Sardinian majesty Charles Eman-retary of State to the Royal Society and British uel, who, after the incomparable Frederick, held the second rank (proximus longo tamen intervallo) among the kings of Europe. The size and populousness of Milan could not surprise an inhabitant of London; but the fancy is amused by a visit to the Boromean Islands, an enchanted palace, a work of the fairies in the midst of a lake encompassed with mountains, and far re-cessor Ganganelli. 3. In my pilgrimage from moved from the haunts of men. I was less Rome to Loretto I again crossed the Apennine; amused by the marble palaces of Genoa, than from the coast of the Adriatic I traversed by the recent memorials of her deliverance (in fruitful and populous country, which could December 1746) from the Austrian tyranny; alone disprove the paradox of Montesquieu, that and I took a military survey of every scene of modern Italy is a desert. Without adopting the action within the inclosure of her double walls. exclusive prejudice of the natives, I sincerely My steps were detained at Parma and Modena, admire the paintings of the Bologna school. I by the precious relics of the Farnese and Este hastened to escape from the sad solitude of Fercollections; but, alas! the far greater part had rara, which in the age of Caesar was still more been already transported, by inheritance or pur-desolate. The spectacle of Venice afforded some chase, to Naples and Dresden. By the road of hours of astonishment; the university of Padua Bologna and the Apennine I at last reached Flor- is a dying taper; but Verona still boasts her ence, where I reposed from June to September amphitheatre, and his native Vicenza is adorned during the heat of the summer months. In the by the classic architecture of Palladio; the road Gallery, and especially in the Tribune, I first of Lombardy and Piedmont (did Montesquieu acknowledged, at the feet of the Venus de Med-find them without inhabitants?) led me back to icis, that the chisel may dispute the pre-em- Milan, Turin, and the passage of Mount Cenis, inence with the pencil, a truth in the fine arts where I again crossed the Alps in my way to which cannot on this side of the Alps be felt or Lyons. understood. At home I had taken some lessons of Italian; on the spot I read, with a learned native, the classics of the Tuscan idiom; but the shortness of my time, and the use of the French language, prevented my acquiring any facility of speaking; and I was a silent spectator in the conversations of our envoy, Sir Horace Mann, whose most serious business was that of enterVOL. XIII. 575 LIVING AGE. Museum, has elucidated a country of such inestimable value to the naturalist and antiquarian. On my return, I fondly embraced, for the last time, the miracles of Rome; but I departed without kissing the feet of Rezzonico (Clement XIII), who neither possessed the wit of his predecessor Lambertini, nor the virtues of his suc The use of foreign travel has been often debated as a general question; but the conclusion must be finally applied to the character and circumstances of each individual. With the education of boys, where or how they may pass over some juvenile years with the least mischief to themselves or others, I have no concern. after supposing the previous and indispensable But requsites of age, judgment, a competent knowledge of men and books, and a freedom from domestic prejudices, I will briefly describe the qualifications which I deem most essential to a traveller. He should be endowed with an active, indefatigable vigour of mind and body, which can seize every mode of conveyance, and sup port, with a careless smile, every hardship of the road, the weather, or the inn. The benefits of foreign travel will correspond with the degrees of these qualifications; but, in this sketch, those to whom I am known will not accuse me of framing my own panegyric. It was at Rome, on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare footed friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind. cation and love-making. This cannot be done without a Livy-like imagination, which produces conversation of considerable length and not wanting in spirit. We may, however, suppose that most of the illustrations of life outside Africa form the superstructure reared by the Colonel, and that all which refers to Zulu Land and the continent of which it is a part belongs exclusively to the Captain, the Government agent in the Zulu district. For this reason especially, and for others in reserve, we shall confine ourselves to what Capt. Walmsley has to say on an interesting matter connected with that rapidly developing land. We do not now hear for the first time of the close analogy that seems to exist between some of the modern South African In concluding our insufficient comments tribes and the ancient people of Egypt. upon this reprint, we are reminded that we Barron, in his account of travels at the have been considering the personal narra- Cape, has alluded to similitudes of men, tive of one of the most gigantic minds the manners, climate, and productions between history of literature has to offer us. To these nations far apart. Col. Napier's the student this memoir is a valuable lesson; volume continued the analogy; the Rev. to the reader it is a provocation of untiring Mr. Fleming, in his Kaffraria and its Inwonder. It is a valuable lesson by the habitants,' bore similar testimony, and scores need it suggests of unwearying diligence in of other wayfarers have adopted and exthe accumulation of knowledge, and in the pressed the same views. In this district is acquisition of the graces of style, as the to be found one of the half-score localities conditions of the labours of the author who where Ophir has been placed, and fancy proposes to transmit his name to the latest most favours the tradition. When it sees posterity; it is a provocation of untiring the ships of the wise king sailing from wonder by showing us what copious duties Tarshish it brings them to port at the Zulu have to be fulfilled, what patience to be Ophir, whence they return freighted with practised, what arts to be acquired, what studies to be prosecuted ere he who proposes to instruct can hope to be listened to as a teacher. From The Athenæum. RUINED CITIES OF ZULU LAND. gold. As to the Egyptian element still supposed to be traceable in various characteristics which distinguish the people and the soil on which they dwell, legend easily derives it from Pharaoh Necho, and there may be something in it to account for the facts. Assuming, or allowing, that he sent forth that famous expedition for the circumnavigation of Africa, which left Egypt by the Red Sea and returned to it by the Mediterranean, there is nothing improbable THE editor of these volumes, a "Colonel in the alleged circumstance that the exin the Ottoman Imperial Army," dedicates plorers tarried by the way, under some them to his brother, Capt Walmsley, stress of weather or accident; that they Government Agent, Zulu Frontier, Natal," made acquaintance with such people as they adding, by way of notice to his readers, found; sowed corn, stayed long enough to that the work is, in the Colonel's own eat it, and, having eaten it, were off to sea words, "founded on a manuscript I received from him." It would be satisfactory to know the nature of the foundation on which Col. Walmsley has built a superstructure of his own. The book is discursive, and goes far away from Zulu Land and its ruined cities. It deals with India and the mutiny, and accidents by flood or field, and jollifi 66 again. The story further says, that the indelible mark of the Egyptian was then made. To this, the Captain's exciting story makes some additions. We are told of the ruined cities of Zulu Land, and are taken into what is left of them by means of this volume. The personages are a Polish missionary in search of Ophir, and a Capt. Hughes. They are out, combining the chase with research, when, getting clear of the forest land, they come upon masses of fallen masonry lying along the bend of a river in front of them. They were on forbidden ground, for the Kaffirs hold the ruins sacred, and believe that no rain will fall for three years if strangers intrude on this ancient inclosure. This is what the travellers saw; we tell it with a little abridgment: trooping along. What the building had been it was impossible to tell; but it must have once seemed a mighty pile standing on its platform of stonework, with a flight of broad steps leading to it. These steps had disappeared; but remains of them could be noticed, and from the elevation where the two stood the line which had once been the wall of the town could be traced here and there. There were not any remains "There rose right in front of them two mas- of a purely Egyptian character, save a worn sive ruins of pyramidical form, which must at arabesque representing the process of maizeone time have been of great height. Even now, grinding; but this was to be seen daily practised broken and fallen as they were, the solid bases among the tribes, and therefore proved nothing, only remaining, they were noble and imposing. for it remained an open question whether the Part had come tumbling down, in one jumbled natives had taken it from the sculptor, or whether mass, into the bed of the river, while the dwarf he had imitated the natives. Here and there acacia and palm were shooting up among the were remains of carvings representing serpents, stones, breaking and disjointing them.... By birds, and beasts of uncouth form, leading to the banks of the stream the pomegranate, the the belief that the building had once been a plantain, and the mango, were growing in wild temple.” luxuriance trees not known in the land, consequently imported. Overshadowing the fallen blocks of stone, the date-tree and palmyra waved their fan-like leaves. Dense masses of powerful creepers crept up the ruins, rending the solid masonry; and the seeds of the trees dropping year by year had produced a rapid undergrowth, those which had once been valuable fruit-trees having degenerated into wild ones. Chaos had, in a word, re-appeared where once trade and prosperity, order and regularity reigned. The whole mass appeared at one time to have been encircled by a wall, now fallen, the entrances to which could be distinctly traced, and this confirmed the report which had been gathered by the missionaries of Santa Lucia Bay." The travellers penetrated through passages which led to a courtyard, in which were the remains of pillars bearing traces of carved work upon them. They bore none of mortar, the "stones fitting into one another exactly." The explorers having got to the platform on which the building had rested, this (with some shortening of detail) is what they further beheld: Leaving the temple, the explorers made their way to a cave, one of many on the slopes of the Malopopo hills : "To this cave the two climbed, entering very cautiously. . . . Bones of different kinds were heaped about, showing that for a time at least it had been the abode of wild animals. It was about twenty feet high, and there were some curious carvings on the walls, the entrance having evidently been scarped down by the hand of man. Close to the doorway were two colossal carvings, as if to guard the mouth of the cave. Each represented the figure of a nearly naked warrior, having a covering only round the loins; and each held in his hand two spears, not having any shield-in this widely differing from the present race. The faces of these figures seemed of an Arab type. There was no trace of a door, but some broken remains would seem to indicate that the entrance had once been walled up, while close by lay a slab of stone bearing a tracing on it of the African elephant. There were many similar caverns here and there in the mountain side.” The Amatongas with their chief Umhleswa surprised the travellers, who had penetrated these solitudes in spite of prohibition. The two men, who speak of themselves as probably being the first Europeans who had, for at least many years, seen these ruins, were well-nigh paying with their lives for their intrusion. The details of their adventures till they reached the Zambesi in safety partake strongly of the marvellous. Colonel's gay embroidery seems rather lavishly laid upon the Captain's old uniform. The "Below them ran a maze of crumbled galleries and court-yards: and wherever the eye could penetrate, mounds of fallen masonry cropped up amidst the dense forest growth. The vast ruin itself was now a shapeless mass, being utterly broken and defaced. The top of the mound was overgrown by bushes, interlaced with creeping plants, and, as using their knives, the two cut their way onward, the light of day penetrated feebly into a ruined chamber of vast size. . . . They penetrated the ruined chamber, but hardly had they put their feet across the The above is nearly all that the book conthreshold, when bats in vast numbers came sweeping along, raising, as they did so, a fine tains of the so-called ruined cities of Zulu dust, which was nearly blinding.... Their numbers seemed to increase, for troops of others, of a dull brownish red colour, joined their loathsome companions, and then a third species, of a chestnut brown, mingled with dingy white, came Land. It differs, therefore, very essentially from Stephens and Catherwood's volumes on the ruined cities of Central America. In the latter, the narrative is solid record, with ample illustrations of the ruins. The Captain-Colonel's book partakes of romance a good character; Sir W. Heathcote took so much that it is difficult to pluck reality pains in the selection of tenants. While out of it; and with numerous illustrations Keble was out of the room, Arnold's life of other things there is none of these ZuluEgyptian ruins. In a matter of such interest the reader should not be left in doubt as to the narrator's earnestness. In other respects, the volumes will be found rich in variety and amusement. From Macmillan's Magazine. BY ARCHDEACON ALLEN; was spoken of,the book lay on the table. Mr. Roundell Palmer said that the essence of such a Committee of ours (that of General Literature) must be caution. From a Letter written to his Brother, July 25, 1844. I HAVE lately been spending a couple of days with Mr. John Keble. I reached the vicarage of Hursley, Saturday last, about half-past eight P. M. I had scarcely got out of the fly, when a man, perhaps rather below the middle size, with grey hair, and some of his front teeth out, came to the door, and with a great deal of kindness and simplicity of manner welcomed me to the house. The first impression reminded me somewhat of the plain exterior of Wordsworth. He ushered me into the diningroom, where his wife, his sister, and a Mrs. Moore (staying in the house) were just finishing tea. Over the fireplace was the engraving from Domenichino's picture of St. John; opposite a real Wilson, a very fine landscape, with two prints from German designs-Christ blessing little children, Overbeck, and St. John preaching in the wilderness, -a drawing of the exterior of Otterbourne Church, a print of Judge Coleridge, and Strange's engraving of Van- Keble said that, "as they must go in a dyke's three faces of Charles I. An engrav-diagonal, the great matter was to apply as ing of Bishop Selwyn stood against some much force as one could in the right direcbooks. After tea we went to the drawing- tion." room, where hung two engravings after Roundell Palmer said, “ And beyond the Raffaelle, -the Transfiguration and the right direction, as Aristotle held that the Marriage of Joseph, Belshazzar's Feast, way to recover a bent stick was to force it by Martin, a large head of our Saviour, in the opposite curve." after Guido, a head of Bishop Fox (both On Keble laughing approvingly, I said, prints), and one or two drawings of land-"I am sure, Mr. Keble, you would never scapes. In his study there is Westmacott's recommend going on the other side of right marble bust of Newman, a copy (in oils) of Jeremy Taylor's portrait, prints of Archbishop Moore, the Duke of Wellington, and Lord Grenville. The first evening Keble talked of the difficulty of getting Hampshire properly stocked with churches; the population was scattered; the river ran like a ribbon through the country, but the cottages did not nestle close to it, as was the case in Wilts and Oxfordshire. He gave his farmers I recommended him to write a grumbling letter about the giving up of the publication of the designs after Raffaelle, as such a letter would strengthen the hands of those members of the Committee who wished them continued. The sermon to the persons newly confirmed at Hursley Church, July 21, 1844, was to the effect that life was full of disappointments; perhaps, after all their preparation, they might have been disappointed that the rite of Confirmation had not at the time impressed them more. They might even feel disappointed, when they came to the Holy Communion, that they did not receive a more sensible we walk by faith, not by sight; let them continue blessing; yet let them not faint, but persevere; here patiently in the diligent use of all the means of grace supplied to them, struggling on, and then, when they came at last to the full communion of the saints, assuredly they would not be disappointed. to get your neighbours to go exactly the examinations for Orders, if, on reflecright." 66 He rejoined, Why, I was not speaking of the morality of such a course of proceeding, but only of its effects;" and then asked if I thought a grumble to the Tract Committee would do any good, as he had one in store, ready to be fired off, if likely to prove serviceable. tion, he could think of anything likely to help me. At dinner we had three curates, and another clergyman. Some of the talk went on the best modes of catechizing children, and of managing Sunday-schools. I spoke of what I thought could be done by a teacher to lead his scholars to compare different passages of Holy Scripture, and so, in a measure, to find out its interpretation for themselves. Mr. Keble, dissenting, asked how far I should think it wise to foster in the scholars the notion that they could themselves find out the meaning of the Scriptures; and was it not best to give them the interpretation with authority? In the afternoon Mr. Keble took me to his Sunday-school, and first examined his boys in the Catechism, and afterwards asked me to take them in Scripture, especially in the proofs of the doctrine of the Trinity. The evening was hot, and the room close; so we took them into the yard, under the shadow of some trees growing There was some talk about Bishop Wilin the churchyard, which adjoins the school. son, and his son, and the editor of his After church we took a walk in the park, to works; also about the short-horned cattle see an old castle, or rather the moat of one, of the Southampton show. The following built by Bishop Henry de Blois (1129-71). day, talking of Oliver Cromwell, Mr. On the road we talked of the examination Keble said that, from some letters now in of candidates for Orders, Keble having Sir W. Heathcote's possession, it appeared heard elsewhere of my being chaplain to Bishop Lonsdale. On my mentioning that the only books we recommended were Pearson, Hooker (Book V.), and Butler, Keble said he supposed these were our three English classics. In talking about Church history, he said he liked to look at it with reference to some one man who lived at the period he was reading about, and to make out, as much as he could, what that person thought of what was going on around him; to take at one time Sæculum Ignatianum," at another "Sæculum Cyprianicum," &c. Speaking of the mystical interpretation of Scripture, I expressed a doubt as to following Augustine; I said I preferred what I had read of Chrysostom's expositions. Mr. Keble said he thought Augustine's mind was rather oratorical than poetical; that he did not think his spiritualizations of Scripture were inventions, but were actually drawn from a stock of Catholic interpretation, then accessible, and reaching from the Apostle's days. He found that mystical interpretations took hold of the common people; and again, on my expressing my fear of adding anything to God's Word, he said that his plan was, when he met with any mystical interpretation which struck him as probable, to consult the books within his reach, and if he found the same view entertained by one or two of the ancients, he gave it to his people without scruple, as feeling pretty sure that he was right. On my mentioning Wogan, Keble said that with him he could not go along, as his mystical interpretations were not the interpretations of the ancient Church. He promised to write me something about that Oliver Cromwell was as sharp in buying |