Aurelli) Opera, cum Vita et Indice Generale, Editio Benedictina, 11 vols. in 15, fcap. 8vo, calf extra, Paris, 1836-40, 9 guineas.-Concilia Sacrosancta, ab Initiis, Christianæ Religionis ad Annum 1564, studio Labbæi et Cossartii, cum Indicibus et Apparatu curâ Jacobatii, 18 vols. folio, calf, Paris, 1671-2, 77. 15s.—BhagvatGeeta Purana, with the Heetopades or the Incarnation of Wisdom, a richly illuminated MS. in Sanscrit, on the purest vellum, 45 feet 7 inches long, and 4 inches wide, bordered with gold and arabesque blazon, and illustrated with forty-seven miniatures representing Ganestra, the Hindoo Minerva, and the Avatars or Incarnations of Vishnoo, mounted on rollers, and inclosed in a glazed mahogany case. This MS. is a perfect specimen of Eastern miniature illustration and arabesque illumination, 257. 10s. (Quaritch).-A Persian MS. roll, being an Historical and Genealogical Table of the Emperors of Hindostan, from Timur the Great to Mahomet Ackbar Badsha (father of the present King of Delhi), exquisitely written in twelve compartments, surrounded by a broad border of bright gold, with other illuminations, measuring 5 feet 10 inches long, and 2 feet 8 inches wide, mounted on rollers, 4 guineas.-A Pali MS. in beautiful preservation, written on talipot leaves, said to be of considerable historical interest, 57.-Mitarelli (Joh. Bened.) et Ans. Costadoni Annales Camaldulenses Ordinis S. Benedicti, Italico-monasticas Res, etc., 9 vols. folio, plates, vellum, scarce, Venetiis, 1755-73, 47. 158.-Tillemont (L. S. le Nain de), Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire Ecclésiastique, et Histoire des Empereurs des six premieres siècles, 22 vols. 4to, Italian vellum, Venice, 1732, 57.Vasquez (P. Gabrielis, Soc. Jesu) Commentarii ac Disputationes, 9 vols. in 5, folio, fine large copy, in the original calf binding, with clasps, very rare, Antverpiæ, 1621. The works of this celebrated Thomist hold the highest rank in scholastic divinity, and copies now seldom occur for sale, 107. 15s. (Stewart).—Wilkins (Davidis) Concilia Magnæ Britanniæ et Hiberniæ, a Synoda Verolamiensi, A.D. 446, ad Londinensem, A.D. 1717, 4 vols. folio, hogskin, from Mr. Dansey's library, very rare, Lond. 1737, 197. (Brown).-The Books of Common Prayer, from the Reign of Edward VI. to the Present Time, viz.: 1. The First Book of Edward VI., 1549; 2. The Second Book of Edward VI., 1552; 3. The First Book of Queen Elizabeth, 1559; 4. King James's Book, as settled at Hampton Court, 1604; 5. The Scotch Book of Charles I. (Archb. Laud's), 1637; 6. King Charles II.'s Book, as settled at the Savoy Conference, 1662; 6 vols. folio, printed in black letter, and rubricated, iu the style of the original editions, with fac-similes of the titles and capitals, uncut, 1844, 4l. 12s.-The Book of Common Prayer, for the use of the Church of Scotland (Archbp. Laud's), with the Proclamation, dated Dec. 20, 1636, Edinb., R. Young, 1637; with the Psalter, 1836; 1 vol. folio, slightly stained, antique calf, gilt edges, very rare, 21. 7s.-The Book of Common Prayer, folio, the Victoria edition, of the late W. Pickering, beautifully printed in black letter by C. Whittingham, superbly bound in dark olive morocco, super extra gilt leaves, the back and sides covered with gold tooling, by Rivière, 1844 (exhibited at the Palais d'Industrie, Paris, where it was pronounced to be the choicest specimen of English binding), 21. 12s.-Athenæum.

Antiquities, etc., of the Holy Land.—Several objects of interest were shewn us by our guide, an old Christian Arab, called Thomas, such as a stone in a wall which our Lord touched as he went through this street to the hall of judgment, then a stone pillar, nearly sunk in the ground, and where he is said to have rested. We passed under an archway, where it is supposed that Pilate shewed our Lord to the people; it is called, therefore, the arch of "Ecce Homo."

....

The Pool of Bethesda is surrounded by buildings on three sides; on the east side, where I sat, is a very low, ruinous wall, with wild flowers growing all over it. The pool is very deep-nothing in it but large mounds of green turf; the only appearance of water was that of a scanty stream trickling out from a wall belonging to a Turkish public bath. This spot is, indeed, one of the "waste places" of Jerusalem...

I one day made a long visit to the Church of the Holy nearly everything. Almost the first object of interest pointed is a long marble slab on the pavement like a tombstone.

Sepulchre, and saw out to the stranger At each end were

three very large candlesticks covered with red velvet. At this spot it is said our Saviour was anointed for his burial. People were prostrating themselves on the slab, and kissing it. To the left, not far off, is shewn the place where the Virgin stood while the body was anointed. On the right are the tombs of Godfrey of Bouillon, of Balwin the First, and Melchisedech, and the small chapel of St. John the Baptist, and Adam. There is a grating in the wall of this chapel, where a fissure in the rock is shewn which was formed when the "rocks were rent," at the crucifixion of our Lord.

Continuing our ride to Banias, on the way from Nazareth to Damascus, we toiled up steep, rocky paths, where we found trees and shrubs very abundant, particularly on grassy table land. We met people travelling, women on horseback wearing the curious horn, which is fixed on the front of the head, and fastened behind. This tantur, or horn, is made of tin silver, or gold, according to the rank or wealth of the wearer. Some are a yard long, shaped like a speaking-trumpet. It rises from the forehead, and is fastened at the back of the head by a band. A large veil is thrown over it, and falls down the sides of the head and shoulders. It is usually worn only by married women; but I believe unmarried women also occasionally wear it. There are many references to this horn in the Old Testament. It was sometimes worn by men. Job says, “I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and defiled my horn in the dust" (Job xvi. 15); and David, alluding to the righteous, says, in Psalm cxii. 9, "His horn shall be exalted with honour."

The vegetation was unusually rich; and there was a brook rushing by old towers and walls, and over foundations of ancient buildings, and great massive pieces of rock and stone scattered about, which almost impeded the course of this small, energetic stream, which was the Jordan. Tall trees mingled with the ancient ruins and modern town, and wild flowers peeped up among loose stones and hidden heaps of rock.

Our tents were placed under a grove of olive-trees-a more beautiful situation could not have been chosen-and from it, though surrounded by hills and much foliage, there was a charming view. Just below the tents was the Jordan with its thickly-wooded banks. Beyond, here and there, one caught a glimpse of some picturesque old buildings, shaded by olive-trees, and the whole was backed by grassy hills and trees which rose close to the town.

One of the sources of the Jordan is at Banias; we went, soon after our arrival, to the cave from whence it springs. It does not flow freely at first, stones impeding its rapid progress. We had now traced the holy river in all its length, from its mouth to its source.

"Stream most blest for his dear sake,

Who touch'd its sacred wave, and hallow'd all its ground."

Over the cave where the Jordan (which is there called Nas Mahr) rises at Banias, are small niches, in which, probably, statues were once placed. On a tablet over these niches is a Greek inscription..

The approach to the city, coming from Jerusalem, is anything but imposing. On each side of a very long, ill-paved road, are miserable looking houses (made of the same material as the walls of the gardens before-mentioned), and dilapidated mosques. I thought we must be in the suburbs; but as we rode on we found that we were in the " pearl surrounded by emeralds," as Damascus has been called. This long paved road terminated in several narrower ones, in which butchers' stalls were plentiful. We then entered the bazaar, under a roof which must have been many feet above us, with shops on each side. Emerging from this covered place, through an archway with two doors—one very rickety, the other prostrate-I thought we should now see palaces, gardens, and terraces, but there were still only poor looking dwelling-houses, which the minarets near them, falling into decay, seemed ready to crush.

It was

On we went, and entered a second very extensive covered bazaar. very dark and crowded, and my horse's head often rested on some turbaned gentleman's shoulders, who seemed quite accustomed to this, and merely looked at me while he moved, as well as he could, to one side, where probably he would

meet another horse or donkey. I could scarcely look at anything, having to guide my horse through these dark passages. At length we arrived at our journey's end, and I was glad to dismount near a fountain in the court-yard of the hotel, into which I gladly entered, to find peace and repose in the cool, large, and beautiful room prepared for me.

The outside of the hotel did not promise well. Nowhere more than at Damascus must one attend to the old proverb, "Never go by appearances "— that is, as far as houses are concerned.

My room was as curious as it was handsome, large and lofty, with a fountain in the centre. Steps on three sides led up to platforms, one of which was arranged as a sitting-room, the other two as sleeping apartments. The ceiling was about thirty feet high, of carved wood, painted red, green, and purple, and here and there gilt. To the height of about four feet the walls were ornamented with beautiful coloured designs, and the floor in parts was of variegated marble. -Journal of Viscountess Falkland.

The Dead Sea.-Letters have been recently received at Munich, from Dr. Roth, who, it will be remembered, was sent at the expense of the present king of Bavaria, to explore scientifically the shores of the Dead Sea, and the land bordering the river Jordan on both sides. According to his private letters and his report, the first expedition has been most successful; its object was thoroughly to examine the valley which separates the Dead Sea from the Red Sea, in order to settle the mooted point as to the exact position and extent of the old bed of the Jordan. In order to facilitate his researches, Roth engaged the Schah Hainzees-Seru, a relative of the chief of the Jehalin Arabs, whose pasture lands lie to the south of the Hebron, to conduct and protect his small caravan. On the 6th of April Dr. Roth left Jerusalem, and journeyed south of the Dead Sea till he came to the shores of the Red Sea, and making a considerable circuit, returned again to his starting place. He performed this dangerous journey without suffering from illness, or being greatly inconvenienced either by the heat or the badness of the water, but was seriously interrupted, and finally obliged to hurry on his expedition, by the dangerous state of the country, which was infested by powerful bands of robbers as careless of human life as they were greedy of booty. Dr. Roth was forced to leave much territory unexamined which he had determined to explore. He has forwarded to Munich very valuable barometrical and geographical observations, copies of which have been transmitted to Dr. Petermann of Gotha. A complete scientific report of the first expedition is expected

at Munich.

At the Syro-Egyptian Society, June 9th.-1. Mr. Sharpe described some of the principal Egyptian monuments in the British Museum, mentioning their date, their material, their style of art, and what may be learned from them as to the mythology of the Egyptians, and also as to the changes in their religious opinions as shown by the intentional alterations which they had undergone. He mentioned the four-sided altar of Thothmosis III. made in honour of Amun-ra, which was afterwards adapted to the god Mandoo-ra. This change he supposed had been made after Thebes had fallen, and the sovereignty of the country had passed into the hands of the kings of Lower Egypt. The plastercast from the great obelisk at Karnac, as Mr. Bonomi points out, betrays the same, and also a second change; there we see the name and ornaments of Amun-ra cut in, on the very spot from which they had before been cut out. This second change Mr. Sharpe thought had been made under the Ptolomies. Two highly polished and beautifully carved slabs of basalt he thought belonged to the little temple mentioned by Herodotus at Sais, which measured in its three directions, thirty feet, twenty-one feet, and twelve feet; this, Herodotus was told, was cut out of one single enormous block of stone. But this was probably a mistake; perhaps the priest meant to tell him that each part was a single block of stone. These two slabs were two of the intercolumnar walls of this diminutive temple. The forepart of the colossal foot of white marble sent from Alexandria by Mr. Harris, Mr. Sharpe considered was once part of the statue of Serapis,

which was destroyed by the Christians in the reign of Theodosius. The statue was built of wood, clothed with drapery down to the ground, and had a golden face, and this half of a marble foot probably peeped from under its robe. The four lesser gods of the dead, to whom the Canobic jars were dedicated, had names which he translated the Bleeder, the Carpenter, the Painter, and the Digger. These gods watched over those parts of the art of mummy-making, and their jars held those parts of the body which had to be removed before the mummy was made. Of the tombs brought from the neighbourhood of the pyramids, Mr. Sharpe argued that the style of art, together with the small false doors, disproved the opinion of Bunsen and Lepsius, that they were made under the so-called fourth dynasty. He thought that king Mesaphra, whose name they bore, was the same person as Thothmosis II. 2. Mr. Bonomi then read a paper on the "Identification of certain Figures on the Walls of the Palace of Sennacherib, at Khorsabad, with some of the Officers of that Sovereign mentioned in Scripture." He began by describing the shape of the mound on which the palace was built, and the extent of the square inclosure contiguous to it, which he held to be the Paradisios, or pleasure-grounds attached to that royal abode. He then led us to the gate, which gave access to the mound or platform of the palace, and shewed us a drawing of the colossal figure standing between two human-headed winged bulls, which, for certain specified reasons, he identified as a figure of Nimrod. We were then conducted into the courts of the palace, and shown the figures, Rabshakeh, Rabsaris, and Tartan, all which figures he described as the fulllength portraits, in the Assyrian style, of the persons holding those offices in the reign of Sennacherib, and probably the very individuals whom that king sent to Jerusalem in the fourteenth year of the reign of Hezekiah. He also identified the person of a "magician," and of a "ruler of a province," of which officers we read in the second and third chapters of Daniel; and, lastly, remarked that these images of the Chaldeans or magicians were really "portrayed with vermilion," as described in the twenty-third chapter of Ezekiel. 3. Mr. C. G. Harle exhibited a colossal facsimile drawing of an Assyrian slab in the British Museum, known by the description, "a four-winged figure with thunderbolts chasing a demon," and which he pointed out, corresponded with Berosus's description of Belus-the Bel and Baal of the Bible.

"On

At the Royal Society of Literature, July 22, Mr. Birch read a paper, the Political System of Egypt under the Pharaohs," in which he gave a careful analysis of its form of government, classified the various offices, with lists of the different functionaries employed under its rulers, and pointed out that the latter dominion in that country of the Macedonians and the Romans was unquestionably founded upon the native polity which had survived from the earliest ages down to the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great. Through all the phases of rulers which Egypt underwent, the four great social castes, of the Priest, the Scribe, the Warrior, and the Bureaucrat, remained distinctly and definitely marked out; but it is an error to suppose, as some have imagined, that these castes were in any sense distinct races, raised from particular families, and then endowed with special offices in the state.

Duty of Prayer.-The following beautiful imitation of Plato is from Sivan the Sleeper, a charming work by the Rev. H. C. Adams.

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Surely," said he, "O Socrates, thou dost not mean that a man should not offer up prayer to the Blessed Ones! How could we reconcile that with what thou didst tell Euthydemus not many days since, that it was right to reverence the Deity by sacrifices and prayers, in that manner which the laws of the country wherein each man dwelleth may prescribe-or with thine own daily practice which is in strict conformity with this rule? How may this be, that we are to worship, yet to forbear from worship; to pray, yet to abstain from prayer?"

"It is indeed a difficult question, my Xenophon," said Socrates, “yet let us examine it more attentively. Was it not said that we had better desist from praying, because we knew not what would be good for us to petition for ?"

"It was," said Xenophon.

"But are we thus ignorant as to what may be the effect of all things that a man may receive, or only of some? Thus, for instance, do we not know that virtue is better than vice, and knowledge than ignorance, and content than disquietude of mind ?”

"It is true, we do know these things."

"It must be better for us, then, to acquire virtue rather than vice, and knowledge than ignorance, and truth than falsehood?"

Certainly."

"Then, since we know that it must be good for us to receive these things, we need not fear to entreat the gods to give them to us?"

"It appears reasonable to think so," said Xenophon.

"But tell me again, my Xenophon, how do we know this? How do we know that truth is better than falsehood, and virtue than vice, and the like?" "Thou teachest us," replied Xenophon, "that it is by contemplation and study of the divine nature that we come to know these things; which are indeed written on our souls, but the hand-writing being overlaid with dirt and rubbish, the soul hath need to be cleansed and purified by contemplation and self-mastery, so that the writing may be the more clearly discerned."

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'Right," said Socrates; "the more then that we learn of the divine nature, the more things shall we know of, that are of a certainty good for man to possess, and which he may safely ask for."

"Even so, as it appears to me," was the answer.

"Such, then," said Socrates, "do I account to be the nature of prayer. Whatsoever things we know to be certainly and immutably good we may rightly ask the Blessed One to bestow upon us. They are, indeed, the same things that the Gods, if they were pleased with us, would bestow upon us, whether we asked them or not; yet doubtless the more for our asking. But to pray for such things as the vulgar petition for, such as riches, or power, or prosperity in any undertaking, or a life longer than that of other men, or exempt from the ordinary conditions of humanity; such prayers I account as folly, nay, by Jupiter, as approaching to madness!"

Sivan had stood by while this dialogue proceeded, so deeply interested, that he had almost forgotten that his name and person were unknown to the philosopher. But the last remark brought his own peculiar case so directly home to him, and in a light so unfavourable, that he could not remain silent.

"Pardon me, O wise Socrates," he said, stepping forward from behind Ariston's seat; "but if the Deity be such as thou describest him, would he suffer his gifts to be hurtful to those unto whom he grants them? Is it not in his power to make a thing profitable or injurious at his pleasure; and may he not, therefore, make anything which thou or I may ask for, beneficial rather than hurtful to us?"

Socrates looked in some surprise at the youthful speaker: and Ariston hastened to interpose. "He is my nephew," he said, "Antipho, the son of Menexenus, who yesterday returned to Athens after an absence of many years. It was my purpose in coming hither to-day to ask thee to admit him among the number of thy disciples; as he is anxious to make up, so far as he may, for the time he hath lost during his residence among the barbarians of Macedonia and Thrace."

Socrates bent his head graciously. "I reject none who are anxious to seek after divine philosophy; and I doubt not that the son of Menexenus and nephew of Ariston will be an apt pupil. For thy question, noble youth, remember that there are things hurtful in themselves, as excessive pleasure, or success, which of necessity injure those who receive them; and other things, which if granted to one man must needs hurt another; as if it be granted to one man to slay his enemy, it must be destruction to him who is slain. And again, have we not already mentioned certain persons who did receive that which they prayed for; yet it proved not advantageous but hurtful to them?"

"But hath not the Deity," replied Sivan, "power to cause even what is evil in its own nature to become good to any one, if he so will it; and so, again, if he