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'coveries and acquisitions,' says Sir T. Wyse, ' must be con'signed pell-mell to the lumber-room, to casinos, private houses, to the doubtful faith of ignorant or apathetic ministers, and, ultimately, all may be lost.' In vain was the duty of remedying this deficiency urged again and again upon the Greek Government by Sir Thomas Wyse, who held the opinion, and ' omitted no opportunity of impressing it on all Greeks, that 'the preservation of their antiquities is a duty they owe to Europe quite as much as to their own country.' But his representations upon this, as upon so many other subjects, remained without effect. Want of funds was, indeed, the obvious excuse pleaded by the ministers; but there is little doubt, as Miss Wyse, who well knew the real state of things, remarks, that

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Had the will been there, the means would have doubtless been forthcoming. Proper representations would have easily induced the wealthy M. Sina, of Vienna, to have applied the unlimited sum he has destined for the Academy at Athens to the more essential purpose of a museum. As to this academy, it is idle to dwell on its utter uselessness, as even those professors, who have the ambition to be appointed academicians, acknowledge that such an institution is unsuited to the wants of Athens, at least for another half-century to come; but it is painful that such generosity should be so ill-applied, when a really useful purpose might have been attained in its stead. Moreover, the most eligible spot for a museum has been usurped by this new building. A vacant space remained beside the University, as though in waiting for its satellite-a museum: but this exactly is the ground chosen for the Sinas Academy. The building in itself promises to be beautiful, and the internal decorations are to harmonise with the exterior. A new quarry was opened at Pentelicus in 1862 to supply the marble, and it is proposed to erect the whole without cement, after the manner of the ancients. That expense is no consideration, may be inferred from the fact that 500,000 drachmæ, or about 20,000l., were stated to have been laid out on the walls, when not six feet above ground. Yet the very perfection aimed at will have the drawback of extinguishing the University close by, which is in size and position so well-suited to the wants of Greece. Sir Thomas Wyse never ceased lamenting the fatal choice of this site, and what he considered the uselessness of a building, which, if rightly applied, might have proved a lasting benefit to Greece, and a noble monument to the munificent founder.' (Vol. ii. pp. 93, 94.)

One reason why the project of an academy finds especial favour in the eyes of Greek savans, as well as government employés, is perhaps to be found in the fact that the scheme includes a provision of liberal salaries for the academicians!

The result of all Sir Thomas's exertions, in this and many similar matters, is thus summed up in the words of his editor:

In fact all Sir Thomas Wyse's disinterested efforts for the advancement of Greece proved mere waste of time in regard to the Government, no matter who its members. Not so, however, in the moral influence obtained, and in the earnest desire for improvement he aroused among the more serious-minded 'portion of the community, with whom he was in constant communication. Of the universal esteem he thereby enjoyed, and the high respect to his memory shown by every Greek, this is not the place to speak, deeply as it may be felt.' The collection and publication of the various instructive memoirs presented by him to the Government, translated into Greek, was repeatedly urged upon him, and would have proved a most valuable boon to the Greek community, but it was considered incompatible with his official position. By the publication of the present volumes his accomplished niece has in some degree, though of necessity but imperfectly, supplied the deficiency: she has at least furnished an enduring record of his untiring and zealous interest in the welfare of the people among whom he resided so long; a record not the less likely to impress itself on the minds of many readers, because it is found in the pages of an agreeable book of travels, instead of those of a ponderous official blue book.

ART. X.-1. The Principles of Nature: her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind. By and through ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS. Fourth Edition. 8vo. New York: 1847.

2. The Great Harmonia; being a Philosophical Revelation of the Natural, Spiritual, and Celestial Universe. By ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS. Fifth Edition. 8vo. 5 vols. Boston (U.S.): 1858-60.

3. Spiritualism. By JOHN WORTH EDMONDS and GEORGE T. DEXTER, M.D. With an Appendix by N. P. TALLMADGE. Tenth Edition. 8vo. 2 vols. New York; 1854-5.

4. Experimental Investigation of the Spirit Manifestations; demonstrating the Existence of Spirits and their Communion with Mortals. By ROBERT HARE, M.D. Fifth Edition. Svo. New York: 1858.

A BOUT midway between New York and Albany, on the eastern bank of the Hudson river, stands the pleasant town of Poughkeepsie, containing a population of nearly twenty

thousand souls. A quarter of a century ago the site was occupied by a few miserable cottages and farmsteads, and a solitary building for public worship; it now includes many handsome rectangular streets, sixteen churches, four banks, various large factories, an endowed collegiate school for boys, a corresponding academy for girls, and the PANTHEON OF PROGRESS. Such, at all events, was the grandeur, and such the prosperity of this newly-created capital of Duchess County at the sudden disruption of the United States in 1861. Possibly, that terrible event has changed, as in too many other Transatlantic cities, the whole aspect of its fortunes-possibly, ruined its commerce and decimated its people, or caused many of them to fly from the presence of the detested conscription-agent, or the more dreaded tax-gatherer. We are ignorant, however, of the particular fate of Poughkeepsie during that momentous crisis in the history of the great Republic: on its fall or preservation, not a little, socially and religiously, would seem to depend.

Whether, in our enumeration of the principal edifices adorning this modern capital in the West, we are strictly correct in comprising in it that which bears the high-sounding but antiChristian title of Pantheon' is dubious; because, whilst some people of large faith speak of that surprising structure as if it were a material reality, there are not a few sceptics who profanely treat it as an unsubstantial fabric of the architect's brain. So far as we dare predicate from these conflicting opinions, it has neither a celestial nor a terrestrial basis; but, like the coffin of the Arabian prophet, is balanced in intermediate space on the opposite poles of magnetism. That subtile power, moreover, not only regulates with marvellous effect its whole interior economy, but it likewise influences in an equally wonderful manner every inquirer who ventures to pass its portals, upon the somewhat startling condition, that he leaves his corporeal form' outside; for disembodied spirits alone are admitted into it, or those (to quote the gibberish of its presiding genius) who can get out of the sphere of their bodies.' Compliance with this indispensable requisition, accompanied by a tractable will and an absolute faith, insures the visitor— be he plebeian or noble, literate or illiterate-temporary possession of all knowledge and of all wisdom, human and divine. No secret of Nature, no mystery of art, is withheld from him; all the truths of philosophy and all the results of science are his, without alloy and without labour; he acquires the whole intuitionally; angelic intelligences, as well as the spirits of departed men, obey his summons and minister to his curiosity;

planets and constellations roll submissively at his feet; the panorama of the whole universe passes before him; and the hidden springs of all things are exposed to his omniscient gaze. These astounding powers of inquisitive mortals, and these revelations of spiritual phenomena, are daily exercised in and proclaimed from that novel chamber of imagery, the Pantheon of Progress. Thither, it is said, countless multitudes of eager pilgrims, from all parts, and of all grades and professionsjudges and senators, physicians and clergymen, artisans and day-labourers-continually resort, as to a solitary well in a desert, to slake their insatiable thirst for extramundane experience and wisdom. Neither the Pythian priestesses of Delphi, nor the Selli of Dodona, in antiquity-neither the Hadjis to Mecca, nor the worshippers of Latin shrines in modern times, pretended to higher powers of divination, or to greater sanctity of purpose, than the projector of this eighth wonder of the world, and the composite body of devotees flocking into it. Its foundations were noiselessly laid in Poughkeepsie between the years 1845 and 1847; and the superstructure raised upon them, gigantic as it is already, is still apparently very far from completion. Either a story, Either a story, or a wing, or some embellishment equally important, is yearly or oftener added to it; so that it really is what its title expresses it to be-a Pantheon of Progress.

To describe the multifarious contents of this vast building, or even to enumerate the principal personages in honour of whom it has been designed, would far exceed our ordinary limits. None, in fact, but the most enthusiastic and accomplished of spiritualists would undertake so laborious a task. The temple is not only a habitation for the most illustrious of the world's teachers, heathen and Christian; but likewise a repository for every moral philosophy and every scientific theory recognised and exploded. In the comprehensive language of its architect, it covers an immense field of beautiful conceptions; also boundless regions of psychological problems, and ' of scientific discoveries innumerable.' Lest the mind of the visitor should be overwhelmed by the contemplation of this vast accumulation of treasures, ancient and modern, he may turn for instant relief and doubt-subduing instruction to the ever-present guardians of them. There, amongst others, he will meet with Brahma, the representative idealist'; with Sanconiathon, the divine friend of mankind,' who flourished, it seems, in this rudimentary sphere' exactly 3,632 years ago; with Moses, the reputed author of certain personal byelaws' (vulgarly known as the Ten Commandments) and

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egotistic institutions': Whether he lived, or did not,' our architect paradoxically remarks, is no question of importance he lives in the Pantheon of Progress;' with Epicurus, to 'whom the world is indebted for some of its sublimest lessons'; with JESUS, of whom, in the spiritualised judgment of our architect, too little is really known for any honest man to 'affirm anything as positively true-nevertheless, a place is conceded to Him in this modern Pantheon; with Paul, the apostle and believer,' whose 'whole soul went down on its knees before the altar of a special incarnation;' with Luther, the self-sufficient leader'; with Swedenborg, the inspired 'writer'; with Ann Lee, or Ann the Word,' as she styled herself, the illustrious foundress of the sect of the Shakers— She unfolded,' says our architect, a principle—an Idea'which no man, not even Jesus, had announced, or perhaps 'surmised'; with John Murray, the founder of Universalism'; with Joanna Southcote, who came forth about the year 1804 'with a full-blown double-rose of typical experiences'; and with Theodore Parker, the noblest politico-theological and 'spiritual reformer that ever breathed.'*

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The projector, builder, and arch-flamen of this modern temple of the 'gods' is Andrew Jackson Davis, universally known on the Northern Continent of America as the Seer of Poughkeepsie.' The personal history of this remarkable individual corresponds with the marvels of his creation. Born in the year 1826 of humble parents, his early youth was spent in tending cattle at Blooming Grove, Orange County, New York, the scene of his birth. Owing to the straitened circumstances of his father, whose occupation was that of a cobbler, the boy's school tuition was limited to five months; during which time he was shifted from one village pedagogue to another, with the vain hope of developing any latent talent within him. But, as he confesses in his autobiography, he had an inwrought repugnance to the compulsiveness of 'studying in a book,' and no wonder, therefore, as he presently adds, his perpendicular position at the foot of the class became a fixt fact.' Both tutors and relatives despaired of making anything of him; he was the laughing-stock of his little brothers and sisters, who nicknamed him a dummy;' whilst his father averred, that he would never earn his salt, for he had not gumption enough to make a whistle!' Dismissed from the village academy as a confirmed blockhead,' the lad

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* A. J. Davis' 'The Great Harmonia,' 5th edit. vol. v. et seq.

pp. 198,