of Celsus, upon which the author thinks Origen changed his mind in the course of his work. Professor Lightfoot points out that the argument rests on a misconception of the force of tenses. The author replies that Tischendorf, in correcting a paraphrase of Volkmar's, translated as loosely as himself. The author relegates his other alleged mistranslations to a note; he had translated Aóyoç idov, "the word (? the Word) was declaring," "Scripture declares": his defence is that Prudentius Maranus renders the words scripturam declarare," and Otto "effatum declarare." "The next passage is xarà кóóóηę πрожλ akilev, which Dr. Lightfoot says is rendered to inflict a blow on one side:' but this is not the

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case"; nothing turns on the matter, and the author is fairly right. The author quotes Tertullian, who says of Marcion, "Lucam videtur elegisse quem caederet," "He seems to have selected Luke to mutilate." Instead of translating this, he "ventured to paraphrase" it as follows: "He seems to have selected Luke, whom he mutilates." The author is "extremely obliged to Dr. Lightfoot for pointing out two clerical errors which had escaped him." The first is this: "the words 'it is argued that' were accidentally omitted from vol. i. p. 113, line 19; and the sentence should read, and it is argued that it was probably a later interpolation; "" in the second edition the author substituted probably for certainly, without noticing the omission, which, as Professor Lightfoot observes, made him contradict his statement in vol. ii. p. 420, where he says, "I proceed to state my own personal belief that the words must have originally stood in the text." "The second error is in vol. ii. p. 423, line 24, in which 'only' has been substituted for 'never in deciphering my MS." Another point on which the author spends three pages and a half is this-Dr. Westcott writes of Basilides as follows: "At the same time he appealed to the authority of Glaucias, who, as well as St. Mark, was an interpreter of St. Peter." The author still insists that Dr. Westcott was more or less to blame for more or less implying that Basilides said that St. Mark was an interpreter of St. Peter. In the Contemporary Review Professor Lightfoot gives the following skeleton of the author's argument from "the silence of Eusebius: A knows nothing of B, for C does not say that A says anything of B, and proceeds to test it by the facts. He explains Eusebius' own account of the objects for which he should quote citations and references to the New Testament in previous writings, and then compares the programme and its execution, with the result of showing that numerous quota

tions from the New Testament in extant writers are not mentioned by Eusebius as having no connexion with his object, which was simply to test the authority of the disputed books, and to throw light on the origin of the undisputed, whence it follows that we can infer nothing from the fact that Eusebius has no quotations of a given book from writers who only exist in his quotations, and in general, that since Eusebius has no quotations to establish the genuineness of St. Paul's thirteen letters, the Acts or the Gospels, his silence proves that no Church writer had ever disputed the genuineness of any of these to his knowledge. In the remainder of the article the Professor exhibits in parallel columns the way the author treats the passage of Irenaeus in his first and his fourth edition. We hope Professor Lightfoot will not take leave of the author without an acknowledgment of his real vigour and ability. An able man who reads up a subject to answer the question he imposes on it is sure to make mistakes, and, if he is an eager partisan, to stick to them: it would be absurd to test a constitutional argument of the seventeenth century by the standard of scientific history. Dr. Arnold gives a third and very interesting instalment of his "Reply to Objections to Literature and Dogma," which is mostly taken up with a reply to the "mechanical" criticism of a Westminster Reviewer, whom Dr. Arnold cannot help identifying with the author

of Supernatural Religion. In the course of this reply we have a very striking sketch of the course of Hebrew religion from Abraham to the author of the book of Daniel. In a future number Dr. Arnold promises to give us his views on the external and internal evidence of the Fourth Gospel. Professor Max Müller's reply to Mr. George Darwin is one of the explanations of which an author who, with many higher gifts, is so plausible as to be often misunderstood, has to make many. It was hardly necessary to disinter Montalembert's article on Rome and Spain, written five years ago to prove that Spain was ruined by the union of spiritual and temporal despotism, a system for which the Jesuits of the Civiltà Cattolica are

solliciting him to undertake this business and persuading him to the continuance of it, and feeding him from time to time with fair words and promises, he would then have had greater cause to approve my diligence than now he hath."

The Peace of Lübeck was signed ten days later on May 12 (0. S.). There can be little doubt that we have one more instance of the deleterious influence which the strife between Charles and the House of Commons exercised upon the course of Continental politics.

NOTES OF TRAVEL.

WE invite the attention of our readers to the

appeal of the Council of the Royal Geographical Society for subscriptions to meet the expenses connected with Lieutenant Cameron's gallant attempt to trace the course of the Lualaba, and so to complete Dr. Livingstone's discoveries. This the countrymen of Cameron. Alone, and in the appeal certainly deserves a liberal response from face of extraordinary difficulties and perils, this officer is gallantly striving to achieve a discovery which will redound to the credit of England. We are confident that the appeal for help will not be made in vain.

responsible, through the Spanish Jesuits of the sixteenth century were not. Mr. Greg's article on the Obligations of the Soil is a development of the following ignoratio elenchi. Democrats hold that the soil being a limited gift of nature, ought to be administered for the common good and notably so as to grow more food: if the land be administered exclusively so as to grow as much food as possible, we shall have no animal food, no meadows, no woods (except on cold mountain-young sides), no heaths, hardly any open spaces-all which democrats would dislike; ergo all the private rights to which democrats object are good.

In the New Quarterly Magazine Lewis Parker gives some very discouraging "Leaves from an Emigrant's Journal in Canada;" John Latouche supplements his Notes of Travel in Portugal with some observations intended to be practically instructive. The Portuguese hoe is better for planting cabbages than the English spade, but the Portuguese plant them year after year on the same ground, and have no idea of the rotation of crops. They raise maize year after year on the same ground, because they use gorse, gentians, moss, ferns, &c., torn up by the roots, instead of straw in their cattle-sheds, whereby they get three times as much manure and have all the straw for feed. The Portuguese women who work in the fields all have from five to thirty pounds worth of gold jewellery; and a camellia tree in full flower is very ugly, for at any one time three-fourths of

the blossoms are withered and brown.

THE circumstances under which Christian IV. of Denmark signed the Treaty of Lübeck in 1627, and withdrew from all participation in the Thirty Years' War, receive elucidation from the despatches of Sir Robert Anstruther in the Public Record Office. Up to the end of April Christian was pressing for aid from England, and he had received assurances from Charles that with the supplies which he hoped to obtain from Parliament he would send all the help that he could need. The quarrel between King and Parliament, however, which was consummated in the violent scene of March 2, put an end to all hope of subsidies, and Charles ordered Anstruther to inform the King of Denmark that though he would do what he could for him, he must have patience.

Christian's answer was given on May 2 (O.S.). 'Necessity," is Anstruther's account of his reply, "hath no law, which causeth me to have patience par force, but wishes withal of God he had known sooner what he might have expected, thinking it much that in so short a time those hopes which were given and sent him by your Lordship's directions, and delivered by mine own servant, should so soon be changed, seeing that upon those assurances he had scraped together what he could to make a head against his enemies, and refused indifferent good conditions of peace that were offered unto him, saying plainly it will be hard for them to answer one day to God, who have drawn him into this labyrinth, wherein he runs not only hazard of his life and crown, but of his reputation, of which he hath ever been very tender, and moreover that now he could not be able to work so good a peace for his done, nor so honourable for himself, and his posterity. friends and neighbours as formerly he could have He hath been thus plain, and withal writes that if I had been as careful in solliciting aid from England for the maintenance of the common cause, as I was in

THE German Polar Committee at Bremen, which was so active in promoting the despatch of the Germania, is taking steps to secure the equipment of a fresh Arctic Expedition. It is desired that our Geographical Society should strengthen the hands of Dr. Fiusch and the German geogra phers, in their representations to the Imperial German Government, by expressing its sense of the value and importance of the proposed undertaking; and we do not doubt that their wishes will be complied with by Sir Henry Rawlinson with all possible goodwill and heartiness. If the idea is promptly made to take definite form and shape, a German expedition may be utilised to very good effect, in a general scheme for the examination of the unknown area round the Pole. It would proceed, like the Germania, to the east coast of Greenland, and could then usefully cooperate in the discovery of the northern boundary of that vast mass of land. The direct distance from Hall's farthest up Smith Sound to Cape Bismarck, the most northern point seen by the Germans on the east side, is about 5-40 miles. This distance must be doubled if the coast tends much to the north. McClintock made a sledge journey of 1,200 miles, which can be repeated. So that the united efforts of one of the vessels of our Arctic Expedition on the west side, and of a German Expedition on the east side of Greenland, could, under the least favourable circumstances, complete the discovery of the whole northern side. This will be a geographical feat of the first importance, although only a portion of the work to be done. We wish the German Polar Committee all possible success in their efforts to secure the despatch of an expedition.

It

THE names of the two Arctic ships will of course be changed; indeed, that of the whaler that has been purchased could not be adopted, as there is already a Bloodhound in the service. has been suggested that the memory of Captain Cook's memorable voyage to the North should be revived, and that the ships of the Arctic Expedition should be named the Discovery and Resolution. We believe, however, that the names will be those of two later Arctic navigators, and that the two ships of our new Arctic Expedition will be the Parry and the Franklin.

COMMANDER A. H. MARKHAM, the second in command of the Arctic Expedition, arrived in London on the evening of the 2nd, having been telegraphed for from Lisbon. He will proceed immediately to Dundee, to enter six experienced men as ice quartermasters. Captain Nares is expected to arrive in London, from Hong Kong, on the 17th or 18th inst. We trust that the appointment of the other officers will be promptly

"29 June 1723.

"The Town of Battersea about 3 miles from this City being ye place of ye Lord Bolingbrokes Nativity have Rung y Bells for sev1 days successively on acct of his Ldships arrival, & yesterday when he appeard in publick a Hogshead of Strong Beer was given to ye Towns people who drank his health & afterwas made a very large Bonfire by way of Rejoycings."

"1st Octr 1723.

"On Sunday last ye Rt Honble ye Lady Russel Relict of ye Lord Wm Russel yt was Beheaded departed this life at Southampton House in Bloomsbury Square, aged 86, by whose death we hear a good sum falls to ye Dutch' Dowager of Rutland & an Estate of about 5,000l. a year to ye Duke of Bedford."

"17th Oct 1723.

"This morning Dr Halley, King's Professor of Astronomy, gave ye Lord Chancellor an account of ye Blazing Star yt hath appeard for sev" evenings last past. It rises at 7, & is discernable in some measure by y naked eye, but by ye help of Telescopes they can Discern ye Star in ye Middle of what appears like a Blaze."

"7 January, 1723. "Tis very surprizing to hear y' Bishop Burnet's History of his own times wch y Pious Prelate solemnly devoted to ye Eternal God of truth shod by some people be deem'd a Romance, the report of others, hearsay, and ye like; & y those people should likewise give out yt ye 2d part of ye Bpps History web relates to ye Reyns of K. Wm &Q. Mary has not yt consent for its publication as was expected."

"11th January, 1723.

"Yesterday at 5 in ye morning ended ye Ball in ye Hay Market, a great number of Ladys went from ye Lord Viscount Falmouths in Masquerade dresses. His Mty and ye Prince were present at ye Theatre in Habits. The Dress wch was ye wonder of y Assembly was a Walking Statue with 2 heads; it's computed y' above 1,000 Persons were there.

"This afternoon y Archbpp. of York arriv'd in Town at his House in Cecil Street from York City with a numerous Retinue, having with him

2 Coaches and 6 besides 20 Horsemen."

BOSTON LETTER.

Boston Dec. 22, 1874.

Mr. Emerson's Parnassus appeared last week. It is a good-sized octavo of more than five hundred pages, with a brief preface by the compiler. The only rule he adopted in the selection was to insert such poems, or parts of poems, as he liked, and certainly the book gives evidence of a catholic taste. From Chaucer there are extracts a few lines long as well as the story of Griselda; there are some of Shakespeare's sonnets, and brief selections from the plays; oddly enough, Mrs. Browning's "Lady Geraldine's Courtship," and the "Rhyme of the Duchess May;" yet of William Blake only "The Tiger," "The Sunflower," and the singular "Orthodoxy;" of Landor only two lines, the "Inscription on a Sea-Shell." On the other hand, there are very copious and just selections from many other poets. The greatest space, nearly one hundred and fifty pages, is devoted to narrative poems and ballads. Probably no one will be perfectly contented with this compilation, for the reason that it is made by some one else, but it cannot fail to give a great deal of satisfaction. It is to be noticed that many of the poems are given in mutilated form, and Mr. Lowell's "Hosea Biglow's Lament" is purged of its Yankee dialect, and, with very slight changes, printed in academic English. This was done by the author, at Mr. Emerson's request. The preface is interesting. Mr. Emerson

says:

The poet demands all gifts, and not one or two only. Like the electric rod, he must reach from a

down to the earth, and into the wet soil, or neither is of use. The poet must not only converse with pure thought, but he must demonstrate it almost to the senses. His words must be pictures, his verses must be spheres and cubes, to be seen and handled . .

Coleridge rightly said that poetry must first be good it must be a house.' Wordsworth is open to ridicule sense, as a palace might well be magnificent, but first gest to a sympathetic mind his own mood, and though of this kind; and yet, though satisfied if he can sugsetting a private and exaggerated value on his compositions, and taking the public to task for not admiring his poetry, he is really a master of the English language; and his best poems evince a power of dietion that is no more rivalled by his contemporaries than is his poetic insight. But his capital merit is that he has done more for the sanity of his generation than any other writer."

There are many extracts from American poets, though none from two valued more highly in England than here-namely, Walt Whitman and Joaquin Miller; what is more to be regretted is that the book contains, naturally, none of Mr. Emerson's own poetry.

It is understood that the preparation of this volume has caused a delay in bringing out the volume of Essays, which is probably postponed until another year. Mr. James Lowell's volume may be looked for, however. Among other announcements is that of a volume of short stories, which have appeared in various American magazines during the last few years, by Mr. Henry James, jun. Mr. James is now writing a long novel in the Atlantic Monthly, to run through the whole year.

I would most earnestly call the attention of the readers of the ACADEMY to a reproduction, by the introduction by Mr. Charles Eliot Norton, which heliotype process, of Blake's Book of Job, with an Norton says with truth that they has just come out in this city. Of the plates Mr.

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reproduce, with the closeness of a facsimile, the general character of the original engravings; but they

fail to render the most delicate beauties of expression, and the finest touches of execution. The inmost, evanescent, vital spirit of the original is not to be found in these copies. But for what they do afford the poetic and pictorial conception, the general composition, the distribution (though not the scale) of light and shade-these heliotypes are greatly to be prized, and by their means many a lover of art, who without them could know little of Blake's style, may gain a near and, so far as it goes, a true acquaintance with the best designs of the most spiritually imaginative of English painters."

As was only natural, Mr. D. G. Rossetti's interpretation of the different plates is largely quoted from, but in the remarks explanatory of the

fifth of the series Mr. Norton observes that "it seems to me that there is a clear distinction between the fires that surround Satan, and which he pours on the head of Job, and the flames of light with which the shrinking angels are clothed; and they, indeed, seem to shrink away, not so much in compassionate horror, as in dread of contact with the

deathless fires in which Satan burns."

Mr. Rossetti, it will be remembered, gave the explanation which Mr. Norton quotes but rejects.

The introductory sketch is admirable. It is sympathetic but discriminating. Mr. Norton does not go so far as Mr. Swinburne in praise of the Prophetic Books. Speaking of the Marriage of Heaven and Hell, he says:

"It is a book of abundant but most erratic genius, in which childishness and maturity, wisdom and folly, strength and weakness, plainness and obscurity, imagination and understanding, humour and passion, paradox and truism, poetry and prose, contend and share in the expression of the free play of an impulsive genius, a bewildering and unexampled fashion. The book is bound by no laws but those of its own making; and it would seem as if Blake, with little hope of the acceptance by others of the doctrines he had to propound, gave himself no pains to render them intelligible to the common reader, and pleased himself with the indulgence of his own eccentric humours. In this

quality it is like the work of a child, who expects no followers, and looks for no converts, but amuses himself with an impossible world of his own imagining, more important and absorbing to him, for the time, than the actual world of the nursery, the schoolroom, and the garden. Blake was a most childlike man childlike in simplicity and faith: childlike even to childishness, as mystics are apt to be, in the indulgence of wayward moods, and in the defect of the sense of proportion between individual conceits and the wisdom of mankind."

the

The whole essay is well worth reading, and, with its artistic criticism, which is only too brief, admirably supplements Mr. W. M. Rossetti's introduction to his recent edition of Blake's poems. The book is very nearly the handsomest that has ever been published in this country. It is from press of James R. Osgood and Co. Yesterday took place with appropriate ceremonies the dedication of Hitchcock Hall, which contains the new Congregational Library. The building is an excellent one for the purpose for which it is designed. It differs from every other library building in the country in being absolutely fire-proof. The shelves alone are of wood. The rest of the building consists of brick, stone, and iron, even the windows having iron sashes. It has room for 123,301 volumes, and it is expected that half or two-thirds of the space will be immediately filled. It is intended to supplement older and larger libraries, especially in the branches of biblical, exegetical, statistical, biographical, ecclesiastical, and historical research.

In the Nation of a week or two since there was a notice of one of its editorial staff, Mr. John Richard Dennett, who died about a month ago. I cannot add anything to that article, which was a discriminating as well as a warm tribute to a man whose loss is deeply mourned by the few who knew him, while it is at the same time a serious blow to the literature of this country. He held by far the first position among the young men in criticism; his disapprobation was the more noticeable in a land where "genial" criticism is the rule, and his praise was all the more valued because it was never won by pretence. His own sincerity made him able to separate sharply the false from the true; and while he was merciless to shams, he was always glad to recognise genuine merit. Every word that the Nation said about him was true. His death was indeed a heavy THOMAS SERGEANT PERRY.

blow.

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE ORIGINAL OF SHAKESPEARE'S "OTHELLO." Casa della Vida, Venice.

That Shakespeare's Othello was founded on one of Cinthio's novels is one of the common-places of literary history. But it has not been noticed that there are circumstances in the play which are not to be found in the novel, or that the personage whose history was transformed into the story of the Moor is to be met with among the heroes of the Venetian Republic. A few notes, therefore, regarding the relations between Venice and Cyprus at the time when Othello is supposed to have visited that island will not be out of place.

In 1471, one Giosafat Barbaro went on an embassy from the Republic of Venice to Usong Hassan, or Uzun Hussun, and wrote an account of his travels, which was published by Aldus; the narrative being so graphic that an English version of it may be read among the publications of the Hakluyt Society. Giosafat Barbaro landed at Famagosta from Venice, shortly before the death of the last of the Lusignano kings, whose consort was the noble Venetian gentlewoman, Caterina Cornaro. After a brief sojourn at the Cypriot court, the ambassador proceeded towards Persia, and, stopping on the way at a city called by him Chuerch (Karmanshah, on the Kerkha?), he tells a tale which (although he protests against his own entire belief in it) has subjected him to the charge of childish credulity. His story purports that in this city of Chuerch there was a spring, or pool, the waters of which not only cured leprosy, but saved graincrops from the destruction caused them in Cyprus by the locusts. His words are as follows:

"This water is said to have great efficacy against leprosy and against locusts, of one and the other of which plagues I will not say that I have had any experience, but that [I have witnessed] the credulousness of certain persons [with regard to their antidotes].

At that time a Frenchman, with some servants and Moorish guides, was going that way to the said pool, with what result I know not, but it was said publicly that many persons were thus cured. Whilst I was still in that town, there arrived an Armenian who, long before I set out, had been sent by the King of Cyprus to bring some of that water; and two months afterwards, I being in the country on my return, after my arrival at Tauris, he came back with the water in a tin flask. He accompanied me for two days, and then went on his way towards Cyprus, where I, finding myself on my homeward voyage, saw that identical flask of water suspended on a pole projecting from a certain tower; and the natives of the place assured me that, owing to this water, they had no longer any locusts; and there I also saw certain red-and-black birds, called 'Mahomet's birds,' which fly in flocks like starlings; and as he told me, in like manner in Cyprus when I was returning, these birds destroy all the locusts they can find, and in whatever place this water may be, they instinctively fly towards it, as asserted by the peasants there."

The last King of Cyprus died the year after Giosafat Barbaro gave this account of Mahomet's birds; and the crown of his widow, Caterina Cornaro, passed to the Republic of Venice in 1489. The Signory vested the government of the island in a lord-lieutenant, six councillors, superintendents, a treasurer, Captain of Paphos, and a Captain of Famagosta, alias of Cyprus; each of these officials to be of Venetian birth, elective by the Grand Council of Venice. And in the years 1506-7 the veracity of Giosafat Barbaro was officially confirmed by the lord-lieutenant then in office (by name Christopher Moro), now known far and wide under the pseudonym of Othello, and whose despatches received at Venice on May 22, 1506, and June 26, 1507, inform the State that "the locusts were doing mischief, although the water, their bane, had arrived."

"That the locusts had damaged the wheat, and that the reason assigned was, the water had been spilt, so that they had sent others into Persia to fetch the said water; it takes them eight months to go and return."

which interested Desdemona, and facilitated the Do grow beneath their shoulders," suit made to her by Othello, the circumstances narrated by Giosafat Barbaro were nevertheless gravely listened to by those potent, grave, and reverend signors who formed the Venetian Senate. Fronting the summit of the "Giants' Stair," where the Doges of Venice were crowned, there berries" ("strawberries" in the description of are still visible four shields "spotted with mulDesdemona's handkerchief), indicating that that part of the palace portal on which they are carved was terminated in the reign of Christopher Moro, whose insignia are three mulberries sable and three bends azure on a field argent; the word "Moro" signifying in Italian either mulberry-tree or blackamoor.

In July, 1469, this Doge wrote rather a stringent letter to James King of Cyprus, implying that he had trifled with the affections of Caterina Cornaro, and the consequence was that she forthruled it for sixteen years after her husband's with became queen-consort of the island, and demise, which took place in 1472, one year after that of the prepotent prince to whom she may be said to have owed her crown. Doge Christopher Moro effected indirectly the annexation of Cyprus to Venice in 1469; and in May, 1505, as a reward for military and diplomatic services, the Grand Council elected his namesake-Christopher Moro, son of Lorenzo-lord-lieutenant of the island, where he remained, after his term of service had expired, and by reason of his being thus accidentally on the spot he was appointed to defend it from an hypothetical attack which, according to report, was meditated either by the Soldan, the Sofi, or the Turk. This statement exists in the summary of a despatch from Christopher Moro's successor, the Lord-Lieutenant Lorenzo Giustinian, who adds that he and the counsellors had "elected Christofal Moro captain of the fourteen ships detained by them from fear;" and it is a curious coincidence that the tenour of these with the causes assigned for the subsequent deofficial advices from Cyprus corresponds precisely spatch of "Othello" from Venice for the defence of that island, as in act i. scene 3 of Shakespeare's tragedy. And, finally, the return of Christopher Moro to Venice is recorded in Marin Sanuto's Diaries, thus:—

A.D. 1508. October 22.

1508.

"Item. The ship from Syria arrived, having on board Christopher Moro, on his return from the Lord-Lieutenancy of Cyprus.

"In the morning there presented himself October 26. to the College, Christopher Moro, returned Lord-Lieutenant from Cyprus, and elected Captain in Candia, wearing his beard for the death of his wife [Desdemona?] on her way from Cyprus, as heard previously, and he made his report."

Sanuto has not transcribed the Moor's "Report," so we do not know whether it alluded to the "locust water," or to his wife's death; but, at any rate, the despatches of the Lord-Lieutenant may be said to have tested and confirmed the veracity of his countryman Giosafat Barbaro, who, according to the Barbaro genealogies in the Correr Museum, died at Venice in 1494, and was buried "behind the grotto in the monastery of San Francesco della Vigna."

To return to Christopher Moro. He was decidedly a lady's man, as according to Barbaro's genealogies he was married four times. Nor should it be forgotten that the tale, whether told

by Cinthio or Shakespeare, must have its incidents dated between 1486, when Catherine Cornaro abdicated in favour of Venice, until the fall of Famagosta, in 1571. Further, Moro's military exploits in the Romagna, against Caesar Borgia, and subsequently during the League of Cambrai, as recorded by the Venetian historians, and by an inscription which once existed in the Palazzo Pretorio at Padua, would warrant his saying of himself, "I have done the State some service, and they know it."

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Cinthio's novel, it may be added, would never have sufficed Shakespeare for his Othello. The Italian described Desdemona's handkerchief as a nose-napkin" (pannicello da naso), and says it was most delicately wrought, but does not give the design, which reveals the whole thing. Had he called things by their right names, the sale of his book in Venice would have been prohibited. Othello came out in 1611, according to Malone; Chalmers says 1614, and Drake 1612; and as among the Venetians in England from 1603 to 1615 there were the secretary Scaramelli, and the ambassadors Duodo, Correr, Francesco Contarini, and Foscarini, from one or other of them, or from some of their attendants, Shakespeare-who may perhaps have been struck by some English translation of Cinthio's tales-might easily have ascertained the true story of his Othello.

as

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RAWDON BROWN.

STATUE TO KING ROBERT THE BRUCE AT
STIRLING.

Bellevue, Chelsea: Jan. 5, 1875.

A few months ago I was applied to by my friends north of the Tweed to subscribe to a monument to King Robert the Bruce, described a statue surmounting an appropriate pedestal," to be erected on the Castle Hill, in Stirling. Having done so, as a patriotic Scotchman should, I found, on receipt of the printed papers, that the designer of the statue in question (the sculptor, in fact) was Mr. George Cruikshank, and that the artist had submitted his design to the Queen at Windsor, who had "most cordially approved of it," and that the site has been granted to the committee by the Secretary of State for War.

Struck by the coincidence of the name being the same as that of our comic draftsman of veteran years, and having some misgiving as to a comic statue of the old chivalrous king being the right thing, I wrote to the secretary for the undertaking-Mr. W. Christie, of Stirling-enquiring into the antecedents of the sculptor employed, and received for answer that he knew nothing of him except that he lived in the Hampstead Road!

If you will kindly print this letter, perhaps we may hear something more of him. I am aware

that Mr. Cruikshank has faith in himself, but it is only since his day, and very lately indeed, that we have had comic artists of great educated ability; and however much we may enjoy his humour, it is impossible to look upon his art with pleasure; and a public statue is one of the things that ought to be protected from experiment.

I may mention that the statue in question is stated to cost not more than 1,2007., the half of which seems already subscribed. WILLIAM B. SCOTT.

MONDAY, Jan. 11,

TUESDAY, Jan. 12,

8 p.m. Medical.

8.30 p.m. 3 p.m.

8 p.m. 8.30 p.m. WEDNESDAY, Jan. 13, 3 p.m.

Monday Popular Concert, St. James's Hall (Mdlle. Krebs). Geographical. Royal Institution: Mr. E. Ray Lankester on "The Pedigree of the Animal Kingdom." Civil Engineers. Photographic. Anthropological Institute. Medical and Chirurgical. Literary Fund. Archaeological Association. Geological. Graphic. Royal Society of Literature. Royal. Antiquaries. Royal Institution: Professor Duncan on "The Grander Phenomena of Physical Geography." Royal Society Club. London

66

5 p.m. London Institution : Professor containing perfectly credible statements relaArmstrong on "The LifeHistory of Plants and Ani- tive to comparatively short periods of time, mals." and as free from what Sir G. C. Lewis calls the tendency of the Oriental mind to enormous numerical exaggeration," as the statistical records upon the tombstones of our own churchyards. It is the study of this series of texts which compels us to admit the succession of monarchical rulers in Egypt extending back to a very remote antiquity. The antiquity of Una as compared with what we have been taught to regard as the earliest extant literature may be estimated by the fact that he flourished at the commencement of the sixth Egyptian Institution: Professor dynasty-Unas was the last king of the fifth -whilst the writer of the Pentateuch, whoever he was, was familiar with a royal name of which no trace can be discovered till the nineteenth.

8 p.m.

8.30 p.m. THURSDAY, Jan. 14, 3 p.m.

FRIDAY, Jan. 15,

6.30 p.m. 7 p.m.

Rolleston on "The Early Inhabitants of England."

8 p.m. Chemical. Mathematical. Inventors' Institute.

8 p.m. Philological: Mr. F. T. Elworthy on "The Dialect of West Somerset."

9 p.m. Royal Institution; Professor Tyndall on "Some Acoustical Problems."

SCIENCE.

Records of the Past; being English Translations of the Assyrian and Egyptian Monu

ments. Published under the sanction of

the Society of Biblical Archaeology. Vol. II. Egyptian Texts. (London: Samuel Bagster & Sons, 1874.)

THE second volume of the Records of the Past contains the translations of fourteen ancient Egyptian texts. Some of these texts are in very sober prose, and are of importance for the history and geography of very remote periods. Of the poetical compositions two are of historical interest, the others are sacred hymns. Of the remaining texts three are decidedly works of imagination, whilst a fourth describes a Syrian journey, the reality of which is a very fair matter for controversy.

The inscription of Una, now completely translated for the first time, is of prodigious antiquity. I hope no one who reads this will be scandalised by my saying that its date is probably more ancient than that assigned on the margins of English Bibles to the Deluge. Una was in the service of several Egyptian kings in succession, the first of whom, Teta, is the thirty-fourth on the royal list of the great temple of Abydos. The royal names of this period (corresponding to the sixth dynasty of Manetho) stand in the following order on the tablet dedicated to his predecessors by Seti I. of the eighteenth dynasty: Unas, Teta, Userkara, Merira, Merenrā, and Neferkara. This order is in perfect harmony with inscriptions contemporary with the sovereigns bearing the names just quoted. Una, who in his youth enjoyed an honourable position at the court of King Teta, rose to the highest offices first under Merira, and then under Merenra. The relative chronological positions of Unas and Neferkara are equally well established. The inscriptions still extant of Sabu, surnamed Abeba, a high functionary under King Teta, speak of him as being already a distinguished officer under King Unas. And the inscriptions of the queen of Merira are still extant, which show that King Neferkarā, her son, was the younger brother and successor of Merenrā. There is a long series of such texts completely independent of each other,

The inscription of Una consists of fifty lines, and at present we possess no more ancient Egyptian text of the same extent. There are, indeed, very much older inscriptions (for instance, the religious text on the coffin of king Mycerinus, and the very remarkable ones in the tomb of Chuu, in which Lepsius' Denkmaeler, ii. pl. 43), which prove that the language of Una, like the religion professed by him and the whole social and political organisation of Egypt, had flourished for centuries before him; but as compared with the language written during the eighteenth dynasty, or even the twelfth, it presents some remarkable archaic forms. The difficulties in the way of translation have been most successfully overcome by Dr. Birch wherever success was possible. Unfortunately, translation is not all that is required to make a text thoroughly intelligible. The nature of the charges borne one after another by Una must for a long time at least be a matter of doubt or controversy to archaeologists. The names of many localities at that remote period necessarily baffle all geographical investigations at present. But these difficulties, far from being in themselves insoluble, tend gradually to disappear before fresh accessions of knowledge. The splendour and extent of the reign of Pepi Merira over the whole of Egypt was already known from monuments found in all parts of the country, and even in the Arabian peninsula. But we learn in the Arabian peninsula. But we learn from Una, who commanded this king's armies in the war with two great nations, that Ethiopia also was subject to the royal rule, and furnished important contingents of negro troops. Under the supreme direction of Una for the organisation of the army, we find the heads of the priesthood of both Upper and Lower Egypt; a sufficient proof

that in the older as well as in later times no such thing as a sacred caste existed like that in India. The warlike reign of Pepi Merira, which lasted for at least eighteen years, as is known from an inscription in Wady Maghâra, was followed by a period of profound peace, and Una, who was governor of all Upper Egypt under the successor of that monarch, was chiefly occupied in great works of public utility.

The most important inscriptions of Thothmes III. (of the eighteenth dynasty) are translated by Dr. Birch, and among them the inscription of Amen-em-heb, accidentally

discovered a year or two ago by Dr. Ebers. This invaluable text, containing the biography of an officer of no very exalted rank, like several other texts of the same nature, confirms and completes the information furnished by the official royal inscriptions of Thothmes III. and his successor Amenophis II. It is from this source that we learn, among other things, that the former of these two kings died in the fifty-fourth year of his reign, and was succeeded by the latter, his son. The annals of Thothmes III. have unfortunately come down in a very mutilated condition. The walls on which they were inscribed are mere ruins, from which whole blocks have disappeared. The records of the twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, and twenty-eighth years are wanting, and the order in which the remaining fragments should be read, some of which are in Paris, must be determined by their contents. Some of the numbers which appear in the present translation require revision. "The forty-second year," at page 47, line 11, is clearly a misprint for "twentyfourth," but "the thirty-second year" is a mistake of the copy from which Dr. Birch has made his translation. It is so evidently at variance with the context that M. de Rougé long ago called M. Mariette's attention to it. This latter gentleman, after carefully examining the monument, wrote back saying that the number forty-two is still perfectly legible, though "l'un des chiffres dia a presque disparu par une sorte de dissolution spontanée de la pierre, et il est évident que si M. Lepsius a fait sa publication sur un estampage, il a dû lire 32." M. Mariette verified another correction at the same time, and M. de Rouge very justly observed that "la science doit paraître établie sur des bases bien solides aux yeux de tout esprit impartial, lorsque l'interprète peut, de son cabinet, et malgré de larges lacunes, indiquer ainsi par avance le chiffre des corrections qu'on trouve ensuite sur les monumens par une exploration plus minu

tieuse."

The fragment printed at page 20, containing, as it does, records from the twentyninth to the thirty-fifth year, should evi dently come between the fragment printed at page 42, which contains the events not later than the twenty-fourth year ("fortieth year" in line 32 being a manifest clerical error), and the fragment printed at page 48, which begins with events of the thirty-eighth year.

An important document of this reign might have found its fitting place here. It contains a list of the populations reduced to submission by Thothmes III. both in Africa and Asia. It is of great geographi cal interest, particularly as regards the nations composing the confederated army defeated by the Egyptian king in the battle of Megiddo.

The translations contributed to this vo

lume by Professor Lushington and Canon Cook cannot fail to make Egyptologists congratulate themselves on the accession to their ranks of two such excellent scholars. The critical notes which Professor Lushington has appended to his translation of the Third Sallier Papyrus in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology show a most intelligent insight into the