least a death to nature." All the rest were at large, taking exercise in the courts, or roaming about the galleries, the windows of which, with a view to their amusement, were made to command a prospect of the adjacent road. In the course of our round we approached the bed of an old man who was languishing in the last stage of a palsy. He addressed Mr..D—— as an old acquaintance. "Why," said Mr. D, "you don't know who I am, do you?" Yes, to be sure I do," said the madman, "you are Mr. D." Upon inquiry, it was discovered that this man had once seen Mr. Dabout five and thirty years before at the old Bedlam Hospital. Thus it seems that the memory, at least, may remain unimpaired amidst the general wreck of the understanding.

There are certain wards set apart for the reception of criminal lunatics. In one of these were assembled nine persons, every one of whom had committed murder; and it required no little exertion of nerve to feel at ease in such company. Amongst this class old Peg Nicholson was pointed out to us, who sometime in the last century attempted the life of King George the Third, and whose appearance, or rather apparition, after the lapse of so many years, seemed like a resurrection from the dead. Here, too, is Hatfield, who made a similar attempt at a later period; and here, also, are all those mischievous maniacs, whose histories have from time to time served to fill up a column in the public prints:-from the disappointed lover, who fired a pistol at Miss Kelly, to the disappointed half-pay officer, who took a flying shot at Lord Palmerston.

We were continually assailed with petitions for a few coppers for the purchase of snuff and tobacco; and many took us aside with coherent well-teld tales of the treacherous devices by which they had been trepanned into a place of confinement:-some of which really sounded so probable, that if this were not known to be the commonest of delusions that prevail in these cases, it would have been difficult to withhold belief from such very circumstantial details. We had an example of the ruling passion, strong in madness as in death, in the reply of a poor dancing-master, of whom we were inquiring whether he had any thing to complain of. "Complain of!" said he, "look at my shoes!"-which were certainly not of that light fantastic character to which he had probably been accustomed in his dancing-days. We were much struck, too, with a pretty interesting-looking girl who had gone mad for love. Her hair was floating loosely about her shoulders, and she came tripping up to us, humming an air, and suddenly addressed us-" Did you know Sam Williams?-Ah! he was a sweet youth. But then, do you know, they took him away to India, and there Warren Hastings killed him;-but I made him pay a guinea for it, that's what I did!" And then bursting out into a wild hysterical laugh, she turned away, and ran off in anc

ther direction. Amongst the incurables we saw a poor cracked creature, the miserable victim of nervosity. His fears had at last driven him out of his wits, and he was at this time a prey to the strongest paroxysms of apprehension. All day long he was crouching down and trembling, under an idea that the sky was about to fall; and he cried out to us-" Take care! Don't you see it shake? Now it is coming!" There was another man who fancied himself in the family way, and was under terrible alarm with the notion that he was just about to be brought to-bed of a black boy. In short, it would be endless to recount all the strange and ridiculous delusions which we found possessing the distempered brains of the inhabitants of Bedlam, and ruling them with all the force of reality.

If there was any thing in the management of this asylum to which one might object, it is, perhaps, the unnecessary parade of locks and keys, and bars and bolts;-but upon the whole, we were strongly impressed with the admirable regulations that prevailed throughout, and of the excellent effects of kindness and conciliation in mitigating the violence of this dreadful visitation. The admiration we felt was expressed in every language of Europe, by the various visitors from different countries, who had recorded their sentiments in the books of the hospital. I select one by way of example, from the pen of the late minister and ambassador of France.

"Cet éstablissement ne laisse d'autres vœux à former que celui de voir toutes les maisons de la meme nature en Europe administrées d'après les memes principes, et avec les memes soins; et je croirai avoir bien mérité de mon pays et de l'humanité, si je peux contribuer à faire suivre en France les règlemens en les plans de Bethlehem qu'a bien voulu me promettre de me communiquer M. le Gouverneur, á qui j'offre l'expression de ma reconnoisance, comme ami de la morale et de l'humanité.-DE CAZES.

Having concluded our survey, we were glad to escape from this melancholy scene. We had seen examples of almost every variety of mental derangement: Religious enthusiasts;-political projectors;-despairing lovers;-husbands frantic for the loss of their wives;-wives for the loss of their husbands;-parents for the loss of their children. One only modification of grief seemed wanting, there were no filial instances of the same effects being produced by the loss of parents. In reflecting upon this fact, however, we ought rather to admire the wise dispensation of Providence in thus constructing the human mind, than suppose the younger part of our species deficient in the kindly feelings of affection. In the natural course of events such excessive sensibility must have proved a constant source of misery. Happily it has

been ordered otherwise:-and the reasoning that Shakespeare has put into the mouth of the hypocritical king of Denmark, has its just and reasonable effect on the most sensitive mind.

"The survivor bound

In filial obligation for some term

Performs obsequious sorrow: But to persevere
In obstinate condolement, is a course

Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief,
And shews a will most impious to Heaven."

What an awful impression does the contemplation of a spectacle like Bedlam leave upon the mind! How wonderfully, and yet how fearfully, are we made! There is no part of the mysterious subject of evil, with respect to its origin and purpose, that is so inexplicable as this;-and who can help exclaiming, why is it that we are mad? But we are surrounded with mysteries on every side, which baffle our inquiries, and the result of all our boasted knowledge

"Is but to know how little can be known."

If we endeavour to push our conjectures farther, and escape from the narrow circle with which it has pleased Heaven to circumscribe our faculties, the attempt always ends in defeat and disappointment. We have, it is true, a glimmering of the world above us, but if we presume to imagine we can break the bars of our prison, and soar into these forbidden regions, what is the result? We exhaust our strength in fruitless efforts;-like an imprisoned blue-bottle, who, seeing the light without, tries to escape from the confinement of a room, and bangs himself with piteous violence against the window, humming and buzzing with increasing impatience at every successive failure of his hopes, till wearied out at last he sinks down into a corner, sore and crest-fallen, to brood in silence over his own ignorance and helplessness.

October 1. Letters from America,-which summon me away. I should lament my departure more if I did not hope soon to renew my intimacy with a country in which I have met with so much hospitality and kindness. It is indeed lamentable to think that two nations so formed by nature to be friendly to each other, should have ever been at enmity. Let us hope that we shall both grow wiser as we grow older. Every impulse of feeling, and every consideration of interest would seem to bind America and England together by the firmest ties of friendship:-" Those then whom God hath joined, let no man put asunder!"

PARTING.

Yox fleecy cloud that veils the gentle moon,
My Lelia! seems some lover lingering there,
Whom destiny hath doom'd to sever soon

From all it loves in heaven-that mistress fair.

And now it slowly leaves her, floating bright
Through the soft azure, but more dim appears
As farther from her beams, 'till, dark as night,
The joyless cloud dissolves in dewy tears.-
O! Lelia, we must part! For I have been,

At best, a cloud upon thy happiness,

Which thou hast rendered bright like that thou'st seen;
And like it will I flee in dark distress,

To free thy brow from sadness-for 'twill be

Clear as that cloudless moon, when I have pass'd from thee.

C. L.

SONNET.

sing that sweet and soothing strain again!
Öft in the quiet night it comes to me,

And memory of the past, and home, and thee,

And joys long gone are ever in its train:

Sweet strains! sweet days! if there be hours when pain
O'er pleasure sways, your joys rememb'ring,
Soon can my heart those weaker thoughts restrain,
And nobler musing to my spirit bring.-

Nor would I prize the uncertain dawning light
Above the splendour of a noon-day sun;
Nor live again the hours, however bright,
And full of joy, as when my life begun
If my faint knowledge of the just and true;

And good and holy, must desert me too.

E. T.

GERMAN LITERATURE. THE MINES OF THE EAST.* "Gottes ist der Orient, und Gottes ist der Occident,

Er leitet, wen er will, den wahren Pfad." Koran. II Surg. THE contents and object of the "Mines of the East" appear to us so interesting, that we cannot withhold from our readers the following sketch of the nature of the work. In the middle ages, when Asia, by the conquests of the Arabians in Spain, burst into Europe, and Europe into Asia, by the expedition of the Crusaders to Palestine, the genius of the East first began to disperse the mists of Gothic barbarity, and to diffuse its genial breath over the rougher spirit of northern climes. The 15th century witnessed both the extirpation of the Arabians from Spain, and the fall of Grecian dominion in Constantinople. From this period the study of Oriental literature may be said to have taken birth. Its utility in advancing history, general knowledge, and the cultivation of the human mind, in short, its intrinsic worth, became universally recognized. England, Holland, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, have each contended for the palm in this branch of learning; not to mention the progress that has been, and still continues to be made in the Ottoman empire itself, by means of libraries, literary societies, academies, and printing-offices.

• Fundgruben des Orients. Folio, Vieuna, 1809-18.

Notwithstanding its importance, and the manifold efforts learned men have devoted to this study, it is far from being so general as could be wished. Our perfection in it can by no means compare with that we have attained in Latin and Greek. This is occasioned, less perhaps by the repulsive difficulties it presents, than by the total want of such aid and facilities as might encourage many to attempt it. It is expensive on account of the sacrifices it requires both of money and time: thus the manuscripts are to most people unattainable, and the multiplying of these pieces of literature, either by printing or copying, would by no means indemnify the expenses of the bookseller, still less the labour of a transcriber, who looks for daily sustenance to the produce of his work. The learned who have it in their power to devote themselves to this species of knowledge, are few, and still fewer the rich who are inclined to esteem and patronise it, in preference to all others. Many useful works, which, but for these reasons, would have issued from the first Orientalists, have either remained at a stand, or never been undertaken. Periodical productions especially, which, being commercial speculations, were least capable of sustaining themselves, soon failed in the trial. Such was the fate of Klaproth's Asiatic Magazine, in Germany, abandoned at the expiration of its first year; and even in England, where Oriental literature meets, in general, with so much encouragement, Ouseley's Collections have been discontinued.

To make up for this scarcity of learned men who, unrecompensed, might have leisure for such an undertaking, and for this want of patrons with an inclination to recompense, a society of amateurs and connoisseurs assembled at Vienna in 1809, determined on instituting a periodical work, under the above title of “Fundgruben des Orients," or "Mines of the East." This enterprise was unconnected with all idea of pecuniary emolument; the only ad vantage the contributors proposed to themselves, being the honour of extending the sphere of Oriental literature, and receiving the thanks due to their exertions. Count Weneziaus von Rzewusky, a Polish Nobleman of the highest distinction, himself a profound Orientalist, became at once responsible for the expenses, whick the sale of the work was at first far from covering; at the same time undertaking, if the costs were eventually realized, to advance an equal sum in the promotion of other pursuits of similar tendency. The principal contributor, and indeed editor of the whole, is Joseph Hammer, who, after fulfilling a long series of arduous diplomatic duties in Asia, is now settled at Vienna, where he is held to be the first Orientalist in the empire.

No city on earth could be better qualified for the site of such an enterprise than Vienna. Besides the rich collection of MSS.