olution, and no wars of succession; since, by the grace of Bud, we have a king who never dies, and whose bonzes exercise their power in the most paternal way imaginable, provided we pour exactly four-fifths of our revenues into the treasure of the ministerial convent; provided we enroll all our male children, at the age of sixteen, in the standing army, which the reigning bonzes keep up on the frontiers of Mogul and China; provided we receive with the profoundest respect, and swear to die in defence of the Pouch, when. the grand Lama vouchsafes to decorate us with it; provided we work three days in each week for the advantage of the immortal, that is to say, for five hundred priests with long beards, who represent him; provided we eat the flesh of no ruminating animal, and that we visit, three times a day, the grand pagoda; provided we do all these things, we are free as air, and certain after death of passing into the body of a cow, or at least into that of a she-goat.' "What liberty!' cried an inhabitant of the north of Europe, Tell me of that which we enjoy on the banks of the Spree. Putting on our uniform the moment we get rid of our swaddling-clothes, we beat all the world in our military evolutions. Recently our youth, somewhat too strongly tinctured with the prejudices of the schools, foolishly supposed that there could be some other industry besides that of handling a musket,-some other liberty than that of killing or being killed, in order to transform an electorate into a kingdom;

and that, after all, mankind could have some other destination on earth than that of marching in step, and charging in quick time; but happily this beardless insurrection had no lasting effect, and we remain, as before, the freest, that is, the best disciplined nation in Europe.'

"If by liberty you mean passive obedience,' interrupted a Chinese, we ought, it strikes me, to proclaim ourselves the freest people on earth. Confucius has said that there is no freedom where there are no laws. Now, as we have more laws than all other nations together, and mandarins without number to put them into execution, it is clear that there must be

more liberty amongst us than any where else. As the excess of population might embarrass our paternal government, we are at liberty to expose our children on the banks of the river. Our women have strong passions; and as the sedentary life to which the laws and the care of our honour confine them would not suit them very well we are at full liberty to bind up the feet of our daughters in their infancy, so as to render them useless when they arrive at an age in which they might abuse them. Our great king Fo-Hi has defined liberty to be order joined with politeness, and this in truth is the great distinction of the Chinese. What stranger is not struck with admiration when he traverses the streets and markets of Canton and Pekin, in the midst of an immense crowd, arranged in two files, each marching steadily along in contrary directions, without any noise or confusion to disturb their course. If, by chance, any hair-brained fellow derange this beautiful procession, the police-mandarin, accompanied by two executioners, is always at hand to administer justice. Brought before this ambulatory judge, who squats himself down in the street on a cushion which is carried behind him, the delinquent is stripped to his waist, and receives on the shoulders so many half-scores of blows of the chambone as the magistrate raises fingers during the operation. The patient dresses himself again, bows to the chambone-bearer, kisses the mandarin's hand, and withdraws. All this passes, on both sides, with a politeness and tranquillity which cannot be too much admired.'

"Silence! vile slave!' exclaimed a Mahratta, as he brandished his assagay; is it for you, a people conquered by some hordes of Tartars, who can defend yourselves only by building massy walls, and who are ruled by a bastinado, is it for you to raise your voices when liberty is the theme? They alone are free who choose their own leaders, who make their neighbours tremble, who know no laws but those of nature, strength, and courage. Freemen are the most daring pirates, and the best knights in the world; and such are the Mahrattas. True, our Peishwa has the right of life and death

over the whole nation: but that most
excellent prince never uses it, and has
always been content to hire out a part
of his subjects,at the price of a rupee per
head, to our friends the English, who pre-
tend to be still more free than we are.'
"Since this class of beings,' cried
the European islander, with a smile of
disdain,has had the insolence to
name the English people, when speak-
ing of our stipendiaries on the Persian
Gulf, I will take the trouble to show
that not only is there no liberty except
in the United Kingdom, but that there
cannot be any elsewhere, because such
is our sovereign will and pleasure. No
one will deny, I suspect, that modern
freedom had its birth in our island, and
that the title of majesty of the people,
given by lord Chatham, is the result of
our sovereignty, proclaimed by the
voice of Victory, from one end of the
world to the other. If indeed we have
left to our chief the name of King,
which was so offensive to the Romans,
we have managed to restrain his pow-
er by those laws of which he is the
first subject. We live under the em-
pire of a representative government,
whose strength consists in the wise
balance of the three powers which con-
stitute it; and we enjoy with too just
a pride the freedom we have conquer-
ed, to suffer any other nation to partici-
pate in the blessing. Perhaps there
will be objected to me facts which belie
every day the rights of which we are so
proud. I shall be asked, what the lib-
erty of that country is, where two or
three families have made themselves
masters of the government, which con-
centers all the prejudices and all the
abuses of aristocarcy?-where the sov-
ereignty of the people are confined to
the saturnalia of the hustings,-where
the citizen, who is taking his walk on
the banks of the Thames, may be press-
ed by a parcel of drunken sailors, and
at the orders of a subaltern agent of the
Admiralty, put on board a vessel,
which transports him to the other end
of the world, to the tune of Rule
Britannia!' I shall be asked what lib-
erty is in a country, where the law of
habeas corpus does not prevent a man
from being thrown into prison for a
debt of five shillings, at the first request

of a creditor, to whom he may prove, when he gets out, that he owes only three,-I shall, perhaps, be asked a thousand questions of this nature: instead of answering them, I shall say, that we Englishmen are free to knock out the brains of a ministerial candidate, to box in the street with a peer of the realm, to sell our wives at market, and to break the windows of the King's coach when he goes down to Parliament.'

"After this discourse from the representative of the majesty of the British people, I thought myself called upon to say a few words. I hope,' said I, raising my voice, that this gentleman will not be offended when I assert, that if liberty be in fact the fruit of the highest civilization, of the oldest recollections, and of the proudest glory that any nation ever yet attained, then France ought to be accounted its classic soil. It was the spirit of liberty which presided there a thousand years ago, over the confederation of the Gaulish Republics, and which consecrated the stone of the oath, around which their deputies assembled. It was liberty which presided over the meetings of the Champs de Mai, and which raised on high the great shield on which the bravest was borne, consensu populi. For some centuries the feudal system had exiled it from the soil of France, but philosophy and victory brought back freedom to their country. She reigns there under the sway of a constitutional chart, where the duties of the prince are marked out, and where his rights and those of the people are guaranteed. With us all all men are perfectly equal in the eye of the law; taxes are equally divided, ministers are responsible, the judiciary power is independent, the judges are unremovable, and every citizen who loves his country, and who contributes to its prosperity by his industry and his talent, and who confers honour on it by his virtue, lives happy, free, and is under the protection of the laws.' At these words, a loud laugh burst from all corners of my cell-all my guests vanished, and their voices repeated, as they died away in the air, He is in Sainte-Pélagie.!"

IT is well known, that there were two

statues of Memnon: a smaller one, commonly called the young Memnon, whose bust, by the skill and perseverance of Belzoni, has been safely deposited in the British Museum; and a larger and more celebrated one, from which, when touched by the rays of the morning sun, harmonious sounds were reported to have issued. Cambyses, suspecting that the music proceeded from magic, ordered this statue to be broken up, from the head to the middle of the body; and its prodigious fragments now lie buried amid the ruins of the Memnonium.-Strabo, who states himself to have been a witness of the miracle, attributes it either to the quality of the stone, or to some deception of the priests; while Pausanias suspects that some musical instrument was concealed within, whose strings, relaxed by the moisture of the night resumed their tension from the heat of the sun, and broke with a sonorous sound. Ancient writers vary so much, not only as to the cause of this mysterious music, but even as to the existence of the fact itself, that we should hardly know what to believe, were it not for the authority of Strabo, a grave geographer, and an eye-witness who, without any apparent wish to im

pose upon his readers, declares that he

stood beside the statue, and heard the sounds which proceeded from it :"Standing," he says, "with Elius Gallus, and a party of friends, examining the colossus, we heard a certain sound, without being able to determine whether it proceeded from the statue itself, or its base; or whether it had been occasioned by any of the assistants, for I would rather believe any thing than imagine that stones,arranged in any particular manner, could elicit similar noises.'

Pausanias, in his Egyptian travels, saw the ruins of the statue, after it had been demolished by Cambyses, when the pedestal of the colossus remained standing; the rest of the body, prostrated upon the ground, still continued at sun-rise, to emit its unaccountable melody. Pliny and Tacitus, without having been eye-witnesses, report the same fact; and Lucian informs us, that Demetrius went to Egypt for the sole purpose of seeing the Pyramids, and the statue of Memnon, from which a voice always issued at sun-rise. What the same author adds, in his Dialogue of the False Prophet, appears to be only raillery: "When (he writes) I went in my youth to Egypt, I was anxious to witness the miracle attributed to Memnon's statue, and I heard thi

STANZAS.

In Egypt's centre, when the world was young,
My statue soar'd aloft,-a mau-shaped tower,
O'er hundred-gated Thebes, by Homer sung,
And built by Apis' and Osiris' power.

When the sun's infant eye more brightly blazed,
I mark'd the labours of unwearied time;

And saw, by patient centuries up-raised,
Stupendous temples, obelisks sublime.

Hewn from the rooted rock, some mightier mound,
Some new colossus more enormous springs,

So vast, so firm, that as I gazed around,

I thought them, like myself, eternal things.

Then did I mark in sacerdotal state, Psammis the king, whose alabaster tomb, (Such the inscrutable decrees of fate,)

Now floats athwart the sea to share my doom.

O Thebes, I cried, thou wonder of the world!
Still shalt thou soar, its everlasting boast;
When lo! the Persian standards were unfurl'd,
And fierce Cambyses led th' invading host.

Where from the East a cloud of dust proceeds,
A thousand banner'd suns at once appear;
Nought else was seen ;-but sound of neighing steeds,
And faint barbaric music met mine ear.

Onward they march, and foremost I descried
A cuirass'd Grecian band, in phalanx dense,
Around them throng'd in oriental pride,

Commingled tribes-a wild magnificence.

Dogs, cats, and monkeys in their van they show,
Which Egypt's children worship and obey;
They fear to strike a sacrilegious blow,
And fall-a pious, unresisting prey.

Then, Havoc leaguing with enfuriate Zeal,
Palaces, temples, cities are o'erthrown;
Apis is stabb'd!-Cambyses thrust the steel,
And shuddering Egypt heaved a general groan.

The firm Memnonium mock'd their feeble power,
Flames round its granite columns hiss'd in vain,-
The head of Isis frowning o'er each tower,

Look'd down with indestructible disdain.

Mine was a deeper and more quick disgrace :-
Beneath my shade a wondering army flock'd,
With force combined, they wrench'd me from my base,
And earth beneath the dread concussion rock'd.

Nile from his banks receded with affright,

The startled Sphinx, long trembled at the sound; While from each pyramid's astounded height,

The loosen'd stones slid rattling to the ground.

I watch'd, as in the dust supine I lay,

The fall of Thebes,-as I had mark'd its fame,Till crumbling down, as ages roll'd away,

Its site a lonely wilderness becaine.

The throngs that choak'd its hundred gates of yore ;
Its fleets, its armies, were no longer seen;
Its priesthood's pomp,-its Pharaohs were no more,-
All-all were gone-as if they ne'er had been.

Deep was the silence now, unless some vast

And time-worn fragment thunder'd to its base;
Whose sullen echoes, o'er the desert cast,
Died in the distant solitudes of space.

Or haply in the palaces of kings,

Some stray jackal sate howling on the throne:
Or, on the temple's holiest altar, springs
Some gaunt hyæna, laughing all alone.

Nature o'erwhelms the relics left by time ;-
By slow degrees entombing all the land ;
She buries every monument sublime,

Beneath a mighty winding-sheet of sand.
Vain is each monarch's unremitting pains,
Who in the rock his place of burial delves;
Behold their proudest palaces and fanes,
Are subterraneous sepulchres themselves.
Twenty-three centuries unmoved I lay,

And saw the tide of sand around me rise ; Quickly it threaten'd to engulf its prey,

And close in everlasting night mine eyes.

Snatch'd in this crisis from my yawning grave,
BELZONI roll'd me to the banks of Nile,
And slowly heaving o'er the western wave,
This massy fragment reach'd the imperial isle.

In London, now with face erect I gaze

On England's pallid sons, whose eyes up-cast,