to themselves its painful and dismal features. Death was regarded as a sweet slumber or a delightsome ravishment. An Etruscan shielded his senses by no such poetical expedients. He felt it was a real journey to a new life, and so represented it for good or bad on the evidence of his actual character. His artistic creations to people the world which opened itself to his dying view were not merely men deified and super-sensuous, but a distinct, supernal race with attributes corresponding to their spiritual functions. What his devils were we have seen; his genii, furies, and other celestial powers were grand in idea, often sublime in creation, and, as well as he knew to make them, beautiful; more elevated in conception and functions than those of the Grecian mythology; fit precursors of the angels and archangels of Giotto, Orgagra and Luca Signorelli. In truth medieval art had but little to do to adjust this phase of the Etruscan to its own purpose. The infant Jupiter in the arms of his nurse as seen in the Campagna bas-reliefs is the legitimate model in motive and grouping of subsequent Madonnas and Bambinos. But the most Striking of their supernal creations are the two so-called female furies which guard the portal of the principal sarcophagus of the

making their figures natural without diminishing aught of the solemnity of their purpose. They are the veritable persons they represent, receiving us moderns with the same polite dignity which would have distinguished them had our call been two thousand years earlier, while they were still in the flesh. Secondly, we learn from it that they believed their dead entered at once on a new life without any intermediate sleep or purgatorial probation. I interpret the Etruscan in his tomb to mean that he still regarded himself in all respects as his old identical earthly self called to a new part in life, but retaining every original characteristic and experience, and holding that future changes in him must be the result of processes of growth and development in accordance with laws analogous to those that regulated the formation of his personality on earth. Meantime he remains himself and none other at our gracious service, if I read the lesson in stone aright. It seems to me that the Pagan Etruscans recognized this vital principle of creation more decidedly, or at all events more practically, than we Christians do. They may have sensualized their faith in immortality overmuch by their funeral feasts, games, and music, or other exhibitions of their enjoyment of the good things of life, with The contents of this family vault merit the evident expectation of something corattention because of their pure Etruscan responding to these pleasures and honours character and feeling in the best time of hereafter. But, as the moral qualities of their art, when its native strength was tem- the departed were made the test of his pered by the Grecian sense of the beautiful. spiritual condition, the lesson was a saluSeveral generations of the Volunnii are tary and hopeful one. The base of the found deposited here in elegant urns, all chief monument of the Volunni is, to my admirable as art, but especially the two that apprehension, as completely a spiritualized face the visitor as he enters the principal motive in art of this sort as exists, uniting chamber. One contains the ashes of the consummate simplicity of treatment to a chief of his family, the other, the remains sublimity of character, excelled only in of a lady of the same name of high distinc- this respect by Blake's design of Death's tion. Both these monuments are remarka- door, which is the highest conception in the ble for extreme simplicity, purity of style, most chaste and suggestive form that the breadth of design, and refined adaptation Christian mind has yet achieved to embody to their honoured purpose. The man lies its idea of eternal life. The figures do not in a semi-upright posture, with head up- so much express the new birth as the mysraised on a richly draped couch. He is not teries attending it. On each side of the dead, as we moderns persist in representing door, which represents the passage from our departed friends, as if we were disbe- the tomb to the life beyond, sits a colossal, lievers in the doctrine of immortality, leav-winged female figure, in whom the nobility ing on the spectator's mind only a disagree- of both sexes is harmoniously united, devoid able impression of material dissolution; nor of any sexual feeling proper, chastely does he sleep, as the medievalists in better draped, wearing sandals, a burning torch taste and feeling represent their dead, while uplifted in one hand, the other slightly calmly waiting the universal resurrection; turned towards the door, and with an exbut with greater truth than either, he lives. pression that seems to penetrate the secrets This characteristic vitality of the Etrus-of eternity. I say colossal figures, though can effigies is worthy of observation in two in reality they are very small, but so grand respects. First, it displays the skill of is their treatment that nothing actually their artist in rendering individual likeness, colossal as to size excels the impression

the

at all from the feminine grace and beauty of the statue, but rather adds dignity and character to it. As an art motive, this monument is as effective and suggestive as Buonaretti's "Duke Juliano," misnamed Lorenzo. The plates of these monuments in the expensive work, Il Sepolcro dei Volunni, edited by Count Connestabile, Perugia, 1855, though fairly correct in design, fail to do them justice in spirit.

they make of supernal force and functions. had a military command. There is nothing They are in a sitting attitude, with the feet unreasonable, therefore, in believing that drawn up and crossed; but the artist has the distinguished lady of the Volunni sepsucceeded in giving them a self-supporting ulchre once held an important office of look, and also of taking away from the state, - a supposition which seems spectator the feeling that they could need more plausible from the masculine pose of any material support. As they will they the right hand on the knce, which is auare in rest or motion. This is a real sub-thoritative in movement and indicative of limity of art, because it diverts the mind firmness and decision. It does not detract from thought of material laws to sole cognizance of its loftiest spiritual functions. In this subtle superiority of spirit over matter, these figures, perhaps, surpass the sculptures of Michael Angelo, and in other respects are akin to his extraordinary power, devoid of the physical exaggeration which obtains in so much of his work, but which further stamps him as a genuine descendant of ancient Etruscan masters now unknown to us by name. Even with The miniature winged genii, modelled in his finest symbolical statues, Night and terra-cotta, attached to the lamp hung from Day, it is difficult, on first view, to get rid the roof of the tomb, are graceful and of an unwelcome sense of weight, size, and appropriate conceptions, on a par in sentisolidity, though this finally disappears as ment with Fra Angelico's guiding angels in their full meaning and nobleness flow into his "Last Judgment." A spiritual, almost the mind. The superiority of their Etrus- ecstatic element, akin to his, is sometimes can prototypes is manifest at once from the to be met with in the best specimens of fact that they suggest nothing below the genuine Etruscan art. It is not to be constandard of their conception. We feel the founded with the Grecian beautiful, for it is trembling awe of the four shadowy figures, the result of a higher clairvoyance of the now dimly seen, issuing from the tomb with imagination into spiritual life. It seems an anxious, inquiring look at the mystical strange at first thought that such a lofty guardians of the gates of Eternity. Mod- mystic element should be found in the art ern learning calls them Furies. Their of a people whose ohief attributes of their countenances, nevertheless, are benevolent supreme good or god were strength, and inviting. If we meet no more unkindly riches, wisdom not love; not even adface than theirs on being ushered into the mitting into their triad of divine credenother life, it will be a desirable welcome. tials, like the Greeks, beauty, but taking The monument of a lady is less elaborate, the same materialized and practical view of but as finely treated in its way. A beauti- the purposes of life that the English race ful head of Medusa on a panel is the sole does under the specious term ornament of the base of the urn, the cor-sense." But through their grosser undernice of which, like the others, contains standing of things there is ever to be obituary inscriptions. A handsome matron detected the spiritual light which discloses in her prime is seated on the top in a curule chair. She is profusely draped, the right arm, however, being bare and upraised, and the hand with unconscious action lightly touching her shoulder, as she earnestly listens, and looks a little forward and downwards. One fancies her a judge; of a surety, one accustomed to be obeyed, but still just and gracious, and in every sense a lady.

Etruscan women were trusted housekeepers. They sat at the head of the table and kept the keys, except those of the wine-cellars. They had greater social freedom, and were more eligible to public posts than are their English sisters, whom they so much resembled in their domestic habits. One of the female ancestors of Maecenas

66 common

their Oriental origin, purged of the worst shapes of Asiatic superstition and mysticism, manifesting itself in impressive and intelligible speech after 2,000 years of silence in Pagan graves.

The greatest puzzle of Etruscan art is the extraordinary bronze found at Arezzo, but now in the Uffzzi Gallery, called, in antiquarian despair of interpretation, the Chimera. It has the body of a lion, with the head of a goat growing out of its back, poisoned by the bite of a serpent that forms the tail of the compound beast, whose entire body is showing the fatal effects of the venom. If it admits of explanation, I should say the lion represented the strength and riches of the Etruscan civilization, the goat its corrupting luxury, and

the reptile the fatal sting of sin that finally adjacent. They are strongly contrasted in cast it into the mire never to rise again appearance and manners. The Malays are among the nations.

From The Pall Mall Gazette. "THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO." *

of a light brown colour; the Papuans are nearly as black as negroes; the Malays are of small stature, beardless, flat-nosed, highcheeked; the Papuans are tall, with long and prominent noses, and thick beards. The Malays are reserved and undemonstrative, men of few words, not given to altercation, SOME years have elapsed since Mr. Wal- punctilious in the observance of forms, and lace returned from his travels, but the couneasily submitting to rule; the Papuans are tries which he visited are so little known to free of speech and gesture, and impatient highly excitable, boisterous in manner, Europeans, and lie so much out of the track of all restraint. Finally, the Malays, deof even the most enterprising tourists, and further they are so little subject to social spite the bad reputation they have acquired, changes, that what was true about them fif- treat strangers with civility and hospitality, while the Papuans, in New Guinea at any teen years ago is true now, and is also new to the majority of readers. Yet the Malayan rate, massacre any chance visitor without Archipelago is no insignificant portion of ceremony. After all that one has heard of the globe, either in respect of its size or of the treachery and bloodthirstiness of the Mathe number and character of its inhabitants.lays, it is not a little surprising to find that It extends for upwards of 4,000 miles in length from east to west, and 1,300 miles in breadth from north to south. One island

Mr. Wallace is able, after a lengthened experience, to give them a very different character. He went, almost unattended, from of the group, Borneo, is half as large again their savage inhabitants, his life in their island to island; he lived for months among as all the British isles put together; another, hands and at their disposal; and he felt, New Guinea, is still larger. Sumatra is about as large as Great Britain; Java and on the whole, rather more secure than in Ireland are of about equal dimensions, and the streets of London. Indeed, if we do the number of smaller islands, varying in not misinterpret his concluding reflections, size from that of Jamaica to that of the Isle he would draw a comparison between the of Wight, is almost innumerable. A great morals of an Englishman and a Malay not volcanic belt traverses the Archipelago in a very flattering to the former. From the curving line, passing through the length of characteristics of the Malay and Papuan Sumatra and Java-in Java alone there races their future destinies may be augured. are forty-five volcanoes The Malays accept foreign domination, and bending to the north at the extremity of the island of Ti- thrive and multiply under it. The island mor, and continuing to the northern extremof Java, favoured by every gift of nature, ity of the Philippine Islands. In the is also the scene of one of the greatest trivery centre of this curve is Borneo, quite free umphs of colonization. The population infrom yolcanoes and earthquakes, and Cele-creased between 1826 and 1850 from 5,500,bes, similarly favoured, except just at its 000 to 9,500,000, and in 1865 amounted to northernmost point. The great island of more than 14,000,000, showing an increase New Guinea is equally undisturbed by vol- of 50 per cent. in fifteen years. The avercanic action, which, however, reappears in age number of inhabitants to the square mile New Britain, to the north-east of New in 1865 was 368, or "just double that of Guinea, and continues to the eastern limit the populous and fertile Bengal Presidency of the Archipelago. The climate, for the as given in Thornton's Gazetteer of Inmost part, is moist and damp, in the west dia,' and fully one-third more than that of of Java rain falling nearly all the year round, Great Britain and Ireland at the last cenand the vegetation is luxuriant, the forests sus.". On the other hand the Papuan race, extending from the mountain summits to superior physically to the Malay, seems the level of the sea. Two distinct races in- doomed to extinction from an unwillingness habit the Archipelago, the Malays and the to harmonize with any foreign element. The Papuans. The former occupy Borneo, Su- great island of New Guinea is practically matra, Java and other western islands; the closed to foreigners by the merciless and latter are found in New Guinea and the isles ineradicable hostility of the natives, and when the necessities of the world require its colonization, every inch of ground will be contested and defended to the uttermost. The Malay, content to be a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, may survive; but

"The Malay Archipelago: the Land of the Orang-Utan, and the Bird of Paradise. A Narrative of Travel, with Studies of Men and Nature." By Alfred Russel Wallace. (London: Macmillan

and Co. 1869.)

66 a

the warlike Papuan, who will not submit of cleared forest in Borneo covering only a to national slavery or to domestic servi- single square mile, he collected in a few tude, must disappear before the white man months 2,000 distinct kinds of beetles, and as surely as do the wolf and the tiger." on twenty-six consecutive nights he caught But we must not forget that ethnology 1,386 moths, about two-thirds of which were was not the main object of Mr. Wallace's distinct species. Butterflies also abounded, travels. The Malay Archipelago is not but the more brilliant kinds were not everyonly comparatively new ground to a trav- day prizes, and so great was Mr. Wallace's eller, but is also an extraordinary field for excitement on first securing a specimen of the naturalist, more especially for the ento- the ornithoptera or birdwinged butterfly, mologist. Mr. Wallace is an enthusiastic whose gorgeous colouring of velvety black entomologist without enthusiasm no one and fiery orange is of unique beauty, that would bring himself to handle insects of on taking it out of his net and opening its grotesque and repulsive appearance, and of glorious wings, his heart began to beat viounpleasant powers of biting and stinging. lently, the blood rushed to his head, and, But when a man can sincerely congratulate he says, "I felt much more like fainting himself on the discovery of superb than I have done when in apprehension of bug" in his sleeping apartment, his enthu- sudden death." And similar sensations afsiasm can no longer be called in question. fected him at a later period of his travels, And as is often the case when people have on capturing a specimen of the "ornithopno fear, every creeping thing seemed to tera poseidon," with wings seven inches know and respect Mr. Wallace. Enormous across, of glossy black and brilliant green, spiders, with great hairy bodies, lurked in a golden body, and a crimson breast. the folds of his bed curtains and stared at him; centipedes sheltered themselves under his pillow; millipedes, more attentive still, would get into his hair; playful scorpions, with tails lifted up on high, used to pop out of his boxes and from under his boards, and gambol round him like a body guard; yet after living twelve years in the tropics, he was never once bitten or stung. Only the irrepressible ants gave him moments of trouble and annoyance. Out of six kinds of ants of unwearied industry and insatiable appetite five will devour everything not isolated by water, and the sixth can swim. As soon as Mr. Wallace arrived at a house his friends the ants arrived also. At Dorey, in New Guinea, they visited him in large numbers, built a nest over his head, and constructed numerous tunnels down every post in order to facilitate more intimate communications. They carried off the insects he was preparing from under his nose, they tore them off the cards on which he had gummed them, and devoured them, insects first and cards afterwards. They swarmed over his hands and face and his body, and when he put up his work and went to bed they went to bed with him. Yet, says Mr. Wallace, placidly, these were by no means a voracious kind of ants. They were rather ascetic in their nature: but then, good heavens! what must a really voracious ant be? Some idea of the multiplicity of insect life in these regions may be gathered from the fact that in one order alone, the Longicorn beetles, Mr. Wallace collected specimens of a thousand species, of which nine hundred were previously undescribed, and new to European cabinets. On a space

The title-page reminds us that Mr. Wallace gives special prominence to his experiences with the orang utan and the bird of paradise. The great man-like ape (Simia Satyrus) is found only in certain districts of Borneo and Sumatra. It is an animal of prodigious strength, but perfectly harmless except when attacked. It lives almost entirely on fruits, and does not avoid the presence of man. It was desirable, perhaps, to secure a few specimens, otherwise Mr. Wallace, whose instincts are scientific rather than sportsmanlike, would have been glad to have been saved from inflicting unrecessary torture on so inoffensive an animal. The mias, as the natives call the orang utan is exceedingly tenacious of life, and Mr. Wallace is evidently not a first-class shot; consequently we read, with no satisfaction but rather with disgust, of one which remained alive and struggled to retain his po sition on a sheltered branch after both legy were broken, one hip joint and the root of the spine were completely shattered, and two bullets were flattened in his neck and jaws; and of another which " began climbing a tree with considerable facility, after a bullet had entered the lower part of the abdomen and completely traversed the body, fracturing the first cervical vertebra," and remaining flattened in his tongue. We are glad to get over these scenes of bungling butchery, and come to Mr. Wallace's humane attempt to educate a young mias. This little thing lived for three months in his possession, and appears to have required much the same attentions as an infant. When handled or nursed it would be quiet, but when laid down by itself it would begin

to cry like a child. Mr. Wallace made a ent obscurity, and live out the length of cradle for it, and washed it morning and days allotted to him by nature. night, and dried it with a towel, and combed and brushed its hair, all these operations giving it exceeding pleasure. He likewise fed it with a spoon, and if the food was not quite to its liking it would get into a tremendous passion; but if it was approved of, it would lick its lips and exhibit its satisfaction by the most singular grimaces. When left dirty, or hungry, or otherwise neglected it would scream violently till attended to. If no one was in the house, or its cries were not attended to, it would be quiet after a little while, but the moment it heard a footstep would begin again harder than ever." Want of its natural food and the unaccustomed confinement soon caused the little creature to pine away, and thus Mr. Wallace was prevented from completing its education. Of the eighteen species of birds of paradise at present described, one of which was discovered by Mr. Wallace himself, fourteen are known to inhabit New Guinea, and only a few of these have been seen alive by Europeans. The skins are prepared by the natives in the interior and sent to the coast, but at present it is impossible to penetrate into the regions which these exquisite birds inhabit. Five separate voyages did Mr. Wallace undertake, each occupying the greater part of a year in its execution, in search of birds of paradise; yet in all that time he was only able to obtain specimens of five out of the fourteen species belonging to the New Guinea district. Readers have only to look at his glowing accounts to understand his ardent desire to obtain specimens of these wonderful birds, "whose exquisite beauty of form and colour and strange developments of plumage are calculated to excite the wonder and admiration of the most civilized and the most intellectual of mankind, and to furnish inexhaustible materials for study to the naturalist and for speculation to the philosopher.' But one can scarcely help smiling at Mr. Wallace's plaintive regrets that such lovely creatures should live and die in dark gloomy forests, unknown and unseen," with no intelligent eye to gaze upon their loveliness; to all appearance a wanton waste of beauty." If the bird of paradise could understand the bearings of the case he might take a different view of the question. If he could know that after the intelligent eye had gazed on his loveliness sufficiently, the intelligent hand would be forthwith raised to take his life, and that the penalty for being too beautiful would be certain death, he would probably prefer to remain in his pres

But, apart from the birds of paradise, Mr. Wallace's journeys must have been successful enough to satisfy his most sanguine expectations. Nor does he appear to have experienced much hardship or privation. Almost everywhere he went he was well received, and he cruised about from island to island, sometimes in a native prau, with an immunity from danger remarkable in those pirate-haunted waters. Occasionally he got a lift in a Dutch steamer, and if the dietary scale is as liberal on all of them as on that which conveyed him from Macassar to Banda and Amboyna, they must be desirable conveyances for tourists of large appetite. At 6 A. M. cups of tea and coffee were served. From seven to eight there was a light breakfast of tea, eggs, sardines, &c. The "et cetera " is suggestive. At ten, Madeira gin and bitters were served as a whet for the substantial eleven o'clock breakfast, which differed only from dinner in the absence of soupa distinction, in fact, without a difference. At three P. M. more tea and coffee; at five, bitters, "et cetera; 29 at half-past six, a good dinner with beer and claret; at eight more tea and coffee. "Between whiles beer and soda-water are supplied when called for, so there is no lack of little gastronomical excitements to while away the tedium of a sea voyage." Mr. Wallace is accurate in his remark that these arrangements " are somewhat different from those on board English steamers." Moreover the Dutch seem to have communicated to the native populations under their control a knowledge of the truth that if a man does not eat neither can he work. Mr. Wallace was entertained in Celebes by a native chief whose father wore nothing but a strip of bark, and lived in a hut raised on poles and decorated with human heads. "The dinner was excellent. Fowls cooked in various ways; wild pig roasted, stewed, and fried; a fricassee of bats; potatoes, rice, and other vegetables; all served on good china, with finger glasses and fine napkins, and abundance of good claret and beer, seemed to me rather curious at the table of a native chief on the mountains of Celebes." But, in truth, throughout his wanderings, Mr. Wallace seems to have had something more than average good luck, and, as far as we can judge, he deserved it by exhibiting a regard for the prejudices and peculiarities of those among whom he sojourned that won their confidence and their co-operation. He has compressed into two moderately