countries, but he possesses a very accurate ordinary balance of power is best maintained knowledge of his own. He witnessed the by two great States-a Northern and a errors, the follies, and the disappointments Southern. Russia thus possesses in Prussia which political inexperience, combined with (if Prussia were wisely ruled) a strong bulpolitical enthusiasm, engendered in the Par-wark against French aggression; while Engliament of Frankfort, which aspired in the land, France, and Turkey obtain an effectual plenitude of its presumption to regenerate security against any dangerous outbreak of Germany and to construct an edifice of free- Russian ambition in the existence of a great dom which was to excite the admiration and Austrian empire in the south. In the new envy of the world. High-minded, and en- phase which Austria has now entered she dowed with a luminous intellect and firm may shine with a truer splendour than she will, he accepted the charge of guiding a ever possessed before, and will, perhaps, be constitutional monarchy as the most glorious recognised by future ages as the first great to which a statesman could aspire. Continental State which reconciled the dignity of monarchy with the energy of freedom, and the power of a vast but composite empire with the liberty and contentment of each of its component parts.

A general awakening, a thrill of returning political life, now pervades, with the unhappy exception of Hungary, all the provinces of the empire. It is not, however, perhaps, so much the revival of long dormant liberty which now animates the mass of the people as the conviction that their material condition will be inevitably improved by the new system of government which has been so happily inaugurated, and that their country is a vast but hitherto much neglected mine of wealth, in the boundless riches of which they are now certain to participate. England has doubtless the highest interest, next to that of Austria herself, in the great future of Austrian commerce and agriculture. The Prime Minister of England acknowledged this, when he declared at a public meeting that there is no country in Europe, not even excepting France (and we have seen the rapidly-increasing magnitude of our transactions with our neighbours), with which England can carry on a commerce so extensive and beneficial on both sides. With augmented material prosperity, the political importance of Austria will revive. A great constitutional and conservative monarchy in the heart of Europe, connected by political and commercial interests with Great Britain, cannot but prove one of the best securities of peace. The part which Austria once played in the great drama of the world was an imposing one. As the head of the old Germanic Empire, her Sovereign was long supreme. That time-honoured dignity has passed away, new political combinations have been formed, and new principles prevail. The reconstruction of a great Teutonic empire embracing the whole of Germany is a dream of political pedants. The influence of Germany, which was once so great in Europe, will hereafter be felt rather in an identity of moral sympathies and material interests than in a powerful political organization. Germany may be various, yet united; and any serious danger to a part would speedily combine, for the purpose of resistance, all her people into one.

The

6.

Vermischte Sammlungen aus der Naturkunde zur Erklärung der heiligen Schrift. Von Samuel Oedman. 1786.

7. Descriptiones Plantarum et Animalium, &c., quæ in Itinere Orientali observavit Petrus Forskål. Hauniæ, 1775.

8. Samuelis Bocharti Hierozoicon, sive de Animalibus S. Scripturæ, recensuit suis notis adjectis E. F. C. Rosenmüller. 3 vols. 4to. Lips. 1793.

9. Calmet's, Aug., Great Dictionary of the Bible, with continuation and Scripture illustrated by means of Natural Science in Botany, Natural History, &c. By C. Taylor. 4to. 4 vols. London, 1797-1803. 10. Hemprich and Ehrenberg's Symbola Physicae, seu Icones et Descriptiones Animalium, ex Itinere per Africam borealem et Asiam occidentalem, &c. Berol. 18281831.

11. A Dictionary of the Natural History of | habitants of Capernaum and the other vilthe Bible. By Thaddeus M. Harris. Lon-lages around the lake, you will be disappointdon, 1833. ed. There was not a year ago a single spe

13. Palestine: the Physical Geography and Natural History of the Holy Land. By John Kitto. London, 1841.

14. A Scripture Herbal. By Maria Callcott. London, 1842.

15. The Plants of the Bible. By John H.
Balfour, M.A., M D. 1857.

16. Kitto's Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature.
Edited by the Rev. W. Lindsay Alexander,
D.D. Parts I.-XIII. Edinb.
17. A Dictionary of the Bible, comprising its
Antiquities, Biography, Geography, and
Natural History. Edited by William
Smith, LL.D. Vol. I. London, 1860.

12. The Mineralogy and Botany of the Bible. | cimen of a fish from Palestine in the British By E. F. C. Rosenmüller. Translated from Museum. If you visit the entomological the German. Edinb., 1841. department and ask to see specimens of insects, you will generally obtain no other information than that the Museum contains no specimens of any Palestine species. And so we may go on, and obtain the same negative results whatever be the department visited. How is this? How is it that naturalists, who have brought or sent to this country animals from almost every portion of the habitable globe, have done so little for Palestine? Is it because her fauna is poor and little diversified? Certainly not; on the contrary, perhaps there is no other country in the world, as Mr. Tristram assures us, whose physical character presents on a small scale an epitome of the natural features of all regions, mountainous and desert, northern and tropical, maritime and inland, pastoral, arable, and volcanic. The bear (Ursus Syriacus) of the snowy heights of Lebanon and the gazelle of the desert, the wolf of the north and the leopard of the tropics, are associated together; the buntings, goldfinches, and linnets of our own land occur together with brilliant forms of tropical bird-life, such as the little sun-bird (Cinnyris osea) and the beautiful Amydrus Tristramii, whose notes of wonderful power and of the richest volume make the very rocks resound. Within a walk of Bethlehem the common frog of England, the chameleon, and the gecko of Africa may be found almost in company, while the Lepidoptera of Palestine are as numerous and as varied as might have been expected in a land of flowers. Is it because there are few inducements for the naturalist that we possess so imperfect a knowledge of the fauna of Palestine? We are told (1 Kings iv. 33) that the wisest of men thought it not unworthy of him to speak of its trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes. Our ignorance is chiefly to be ascribed, no doubt, to the unsettled nature of the country, and the difficulty and danger of making investigations and collecting specimens amongst a lawless people; besides which most of the travellers who year by year visit the Holy Land are led thither by associations of a different nature from those which engross the mind of the naturalist; they are absorbed in questions of an historical or topographical character, and really have

'IN one of my botanical lectures in 1747,' ⚫ writes Linnæus, in his preface to the posthumous work of his enterprising pupil Has selquist, I enumerated the countries of which we knew the natural history and those of which we were ignorant. Among the latter was Palestine: with this we were less acquainted than with the remotest parts of India; and although the natural history of this remarkable country was most necessary for divines and writers on the Scriptures, who have used their greatest endeavours to know the animals therein mentioned, yet they could not with any degree of certainty determine which they were before some one had been in the country and informed himself of its natural history.' Notwithstanding the publication of a few contributions to our knowledge of the natural history of Palestine, it must be confessed that the great Swede's lament, uttered more than one hundred years ago, is almost as applicable now as it was then; we are still less acquainted with the natural history of Palestine than with the remotest parts of India. This remark applies, it is true, more especially to its zoology and geology, although much yet remains to be done for the botany of the Holy Land. It is perfectly amazing,' a recent traveller in Palestine once remarked to the writer of this article, how little we know of the fauna and flora of this country, and how rich and new they are.'

As a practical illustration of the truth of this observation, we may notice that our great national Museum contains scarcely any specimens of animals from Palestine; it matters not which department you visit. If you desire to see the fish which swim in the Sea of Galilee, and which in Apostolic times (as now) formed the principal support of the in

*Dictionary of the Bible,' art. Palestine, Zoology of.

not time for collecting specimens of natural | English in 1776. Imperfect as this work is, history during the short period commonly owing to the short time that the traveller was allowed for a tour in the East. Hence many in Palestine, it would be difficult to name questions, the solution of which would aid us another more valuable; and it is still the in our attempts to determine the plants and book of reference for those interested in the animals mentioned in the Bible, are left un- matters of which it treats. decided. The want of this information was noticed by the late Dr. Kitto, who thus writes:

and well directed research has been left undone.

man.

The great Danish expedition of 1761 included Carsten Niebuhr, F. C. von Haven, the naturalist Forskål, C. C. Cramer as physician, and G. W. Baurenfeind as draughts'The Natural Histories of the Bible form a class by themselves, having less connexion than They visited Lower Egypt, Mount any other with the science of nature. They Sinai, and Arabia Felix, which last country are rather works of criticism than of Natural appears to have been the destined seat of History-rather the production of philologists their mission. At Mocha Von Haven the than of natural historians. Whatever learning philologist died; soon after Forskål expired; could do on such subjects has been done; and and while the three remaining travellers whatever might be done by science, observation, were on their journey from Mocha to BomThe process usually taken in works of this class bay, the painter Baurenfeind died; and at has been to exhaust the resources of philology Bombay it was poor Niebuhr's melancholy and conjecture in the attempt to discover the duty to bury the last of his fellow travellers, meaning of the Hebrew name and the object for there the physician Cramer breathed his denoted by it. From the very nature of the last. The result of the combined labours of thing, the conclusion arrived at is often un- these travellers was published in three sepasatisfactory or uncertain. But a conclusion rate works, which contain a vast amount of being taken, the ancient writers of Greece and information relative to the countries visited. Rome are ransacked to supply the history and description of the object, and in particular to The natural history portion, containing an furnish such intimations as may coincide with account of the plants and animals observed or illustrate those of the sacred writers. All by Forskål, was published at the expense of this was very proper; but the value of the in-Niebuhr; and although it contains no direct formation thus collected as contributory to a Natural History of Palestice might have been very greatly enhanced had corroborations and elucidations been sought in the actual condition of the country, and the character of its products in the various departments of nature.**

contributions to the natural history of Palestine, it is still of much value in aiding to determine those productions of Egypt and Arabia of which mention is made in the

Bible.

From the great French work on Egypt,* also, the student of Biblical natural history may derive much assistance, as well as from the Natural History of Aleppo,' by Dr. Russell. But the writers who are most famous for the value of their researches are undoubtedly Samuel Bochart and Olaus Celsius, the former for his systematic treatises on the different animals mentioned in the Bible, the latter for his discussions on the plants. Bochart was a man of deep learning and most extensive reading; his

The faulty process complained of by Dr. Kitto was certainly not pursued by the indefatigable Hasselquist, nor by the members of that famous expedition which, at the suggestion of the learned Michaelis, sailed from Copenhagen in 1761 for the purpose of illustrating the Sacred Records. Poor Hasselquist, after hearing the lament of Linnæus relative to the defective knowledge of the natural productions of the Holy Land, though in a very delicate state of health, determined to visit the country and investigate its naturalHierozoicon,' which was the labour of thirty history. He accordingly sailed from Stockholm to Smyrna in 1749, and after visiting Egypt and Palestine, and making many valuable notes on the zoology and botany of these countries, he was compelled, on account of the heat of Palestine, to return to Smyrna, where he died in the thirty-first year of his age, wasting away daily,' as his great tutor and biographer laments, like a lamp whose oil is spent. The result of Hasselquist's investigations was given to the world by Linnæus in 1757, under the name of 'Iter Palæstinum; the volume was translated into

* Physical History of Palestine,' p. iv.

years, is a complete storehouse of ancient zoology. Quotation follows quotation-velut unda supervenit undam '-from Greek, Latin, and Arabic sources, so that the reader is fairly overwhelmed with the list of authorities quoted, and astounded at the amazing diligence of which the result was the com pletion of so extraordinary a work. The Hierozoicon' is therefore quite indispensablę to him who is investigating the zoology of the Bible; but there can be no doubt that Bochart's conclusions are often unwarranted; he depends too much on etymologies which

* Description de l'Égypte,' &c.

these things. He is far too hasty in his conclusions; he often sets at nought the careful investigations of others in the matter of the identity of an animal or plant, and advances his own opinion, which is too frequently unsupported by any kind of evidence. He cares not to know, for instance (p. 256), the botanical name of a certain species of lily which he first saw in the plain of the Huleh; he seems satisfied it is the 'lily of the field' referred to by our Lord, and speaks in raptures of the beauty of the flower, but gives so vague a description as to defy any attempt to divine what is the plant he is talking about.

are sometimes forced and fanciful, besides | afforded him, of increasing our knowledge of which, it must be remembered that Bochart was no naturalist. Physical science did not enter into the category of his studies; hence his great work contains much that is mere fable, and his conclusions are often erroneous. What Bochart has done for the zoology of the Bible, Celsius has done for its botany. Dr. Olaus Celsius was Professor of Divinity at Upsal, and is well known to scientific readers as the friend and patron of Linnæus at a time when that great naturalist stood in pressing need of assistance, and the clouds of adversity hung thickly over him. Celsius was at that time preparing his work on the plants of the Bible, in which he was assisted by his young friend. His 'Hierobotanicon,' which was published at Amsterdam in 1748, is by far the most valuable work that we possess on sacred botany. Celsius was a botanist, he had travelled in the East, and was an accomplished 'Oriental scholar-a combination of qualifications that could not but result in the production of a work of permanent value. The Hierobotanicon' is an extremely rare book, as there were only two hundred copies printed; and 'it is now one of those works which are oftener talked of than read.'*

·

The importance of Natural History in its bearing on the Bible has long been acknowledged. It is true that it is looked upon with suspicion and forebodings of evil consequences by many persons, but this fact should rather increase our desire for fuller investigation. We look with no degree of anxious suspicion upon attempts to discover the truth, provided those attempts be conducted with honest integrity of purpose, with fair argument, and sound deduction. It is not our intention upon the present occasion to enter into the controversies which are raging upon this subject; our immediate purpose is to bring before our readers a few of the most remarkable animals and plants which the Bible record has invested with more particular importance.

It would be unpardonable were we to pass over without mention the names of Michaelis, Maundrell, Shaw, Harmer, Charles Taylor, Harris, Mariti, Volney, Seetzen, Pococke, The animals and plants of which mention Burckhardt, Irby and Mangles, Hemprich is made in the Bible belong principally to the and Ehrenberg, Elliott, Kitto, Rosenmüller, countries of Egypt and Palestine, though, of Robinson, Royle, Hamilton Smith, Hooker, course, we have notices of some that occur in &c., who have contributed to our knowledge the peninsula of Sinai, as well as of various of the Natural History of the Bible, either by articles of merchandise consisting of animal suggesting investigations, or by personal ob- and vegetable products from foreign countries. servation, or by a careful condensation of Of the animals of Egypt, the most remarkexisting trustworthy materials. It is, how-able are the crocodile and the hippopotamus; ever, from the writings of men who have been the former being occasionally mentioned long resident in Palestine that we should ex-under the Hebrew name liv'yathan, the lepect to derive the most information on these viathan of the authorised version, while the subjects. Travellers, as we have observed, latter-named animal is denoted by the Hebrew have not the necessary time and opportuni-behemoth. The leviathan may denote almost ties at command; but we naturally anticipate any huge monster.' In the 41st chapter of very valuable contributions from residents in Job it undoubtedly represents the crocodile the country. We have not been altogether of the Nile and no other animal, notwithdisappointed in the perusal of Dr. W. M. standing the assertion of Sir G. Wilkinson to Thomson's work, which contains some use- the contrary.* It is perfectly true, as this ful helps to the understanding of certain pas-eminent writer maintains, that 'Isaiah (xxvii. sages in the Bible which allude to animals 1.) calls "leviathan the piercing serpent," and and plants. But there is a great fault "that crooked serpent" where it is probable to be found with Dr. Thomson; he has that it corresponds to the aphophis, or great failed to employ to much advantage the op- serpent of Egypt; but this by no means invaportunities which a twenty-five years' resi- lidates the opinion that liv'yathan is a generic dence as a missionary in Syria and Palestine term to signify any huge monster, whether terrestrial, amphibious, or marine. Thus, in Psalm civ. 26: 'O Lord, how manifold are

Smith in Linnæan Transatcions, vol. i. p. 34. The Land and the Book,' by W. M. Thomson, D.D., twenty-five years a missionary in Syria and Palestine. London. T. Nelson and Sons. 1860.

*Note in Rawlinson's 'Herodotus,' ii. p. 99.