so gradually, that I was not only forced to 'sneak in,' but to walk through the water nearly a quarter of a mile, before I could get out of my depth When, at last, I was able to attempt to dive, the salts held in solution made my eyes smart so sharply, that the pain which I thus suffered, acceding to the weakness occasioned by want of food, made me giddy, and faint for some moments, but I soon grew better. I knew before-hand the impossibility of sinking in this buoyant water, but I was surprised to find that I could not swim at my accustomed pace; my legs and feet were lifted so high and dry out of the lake, that my stroke was baffled, and I found myself kicking against the thin air, instead of the dense fluid upon which I was swimming. The water is perfectly bright and clear; its taste detestable. After finishing many attempts at swimming and diving, I took some time in regaining the shore, and before I began to dress, I found that the sun had already evaporated the water which clung to me, and that my skin was thickly encrusted with salts."

Life among the Arabs, and the passage of the Jordan supply both traveller and reader with much amusement. Jerusalem is visited during the Easter ceremonies, and opportunity is thus afforded of seeing many strange sights. One of the longest and best chapters is that on the Desert-for the truth of which assertion of ours-take this specimen-illustrating the significancy and force of the Bible imagery— shadows of rocks, rivers, and waters, &c.

"The heat grew fierce, there was no valley, nor hollow, no hill, no mound, no shadow of hill, nor of mound, by which I could mark the way 1 was making. Hour by hour I advanced, and saw no change-I was still in the very centre of a round horizon; hour by hour I advanced, and still there was the same, and the same, and the same- -the same circle of flaming sky, the same circle of sand still glaring with light and fire. Over all the heaven above, over all the earth beneath, there was no visible power that could balk the fierce will of the sun; he rejoiced as a strong man to run a race; his going forth was from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it; and there was nothing hid from the heat thereof.' From pole to pole, and from the east to the west; he brandished his fiery sceptre as though he had usurped all heaven and earth. As he bid the soft Persian in ancient times, so now in his pride he seemed to command me, and say Thou shalt have none other gods but me.' I was all alone before him. There were these two pitted together, and face to face-the mighty sun for one, and for the other, this poor, pale, solitary self of mine that I always carry about with me."

Cairo and the plague-a dismal conjunction-claim our notice next. As many as 1200 a-day were swept off by this awful scourge. Some passages here of thrilling power we reluctantly pass by-as well as the towering Pyramids-for the chapter on the Sphynx, which we give entire, it is so beautiful and brief:

"And near the Pyramids, more woudrous and more awful than all else in the land of Egypt, there sits the lonely Sphynx. Comely the creature is, but the comeliness is not of this world; the once worshipped beast is a deformity, and a monster to this generation, and yet you can see that those lips, so thick and heavy, were fashioned according to some ancient mould of beauty-some mould of beauty now forgotten-forgotten because that Greece drew forth Cytherea from the flashing foam of the Ægcan, and in her

image created new forms of beauty, and made it a law among men that the short and proudly-wreathed lip should stand for the sign and the main condition of loveliness, through all generations to come. Yet still there

lives in the race of those who were beautiful in the fashion of the elder world, and Christian girls of Coptic blood will look on you with the sad serious gaze, and kiss your charitable hand with the big pouting lips of the very Sphynx. ... Laugh and mock if you will at the worship of stone idols, but mark ye this ye breakers of images, that in one regard the stone idol bears awful semblance of deity-unchangeableness in the midst of change the same seeming will and intent for ever, and ever inexorable! Upon ancient dynasties of Ethiopian and Egyptian kings-upon Greek and Roman-upon Arab and Ottoman conquerors-upon Napoleon dreaming of an eastern empire-upon battle and pestilence-upon the ceaseless misery of the Egyptian race-upon keen-eyed travellers-Herodotus yesterday, and Warburton to-day, upon all, and more, this unworldly Sphynx has watched, and watched like a providence with the same earnest eyes, and the same sad tranquil mien. And we, we shall die, and Islam will wither away, and the Englishman, leaning far over to hold his loved India, will plant a firm foot on the banks of the Nile, and sit in the seats of the faithful, and still that sleepless rock will lie watching, and watching the works of the new busy race, with those same sad earnest eyes, and the same tranquil mien everlasting. You dare not mock at the Sphynx."

Suez comes next en route. In the outset of the chapter, the following illustration of Scripture occurs :—

"There are two opinions as to the point at which the Israelites passed the Red Sea one is that they traversed only the very small creek at the northern extremity of the inlet, and that they entered the bed of the water at the spot on which Suez now stands-the other that they crossed the sea from a point eighteen miles down the coast. The Oxford theologians who, with Milman their Professor, believe that Jehovah conducted his chosen people without disturbing the order of nature, adopt the first view, and suppose that the Israelites passed during an ebb tide aided by a violent wind. One among many objections to this supposition is, that the time of a single ebb would not have been sufficient for the passage of that vast multitude of men and beasts, or even for a small fraction of it. Moreover, the creek to the north of this point can be compassed in an hour, and in two hours you can make the circuit of the salt marsh over which the sea may have extended in former times: if, therefore, the Israelites crossed so high up as Suez, the Egyptians, unless infatuated by Divine interference, might easily have recovered their stolen goods from the encumbered fugitives, by making a slight detour. The opinion which fixes the point of passage at eighteen miles distance, and from thence right across the ocean depths to the Eastern side of the sea, is supported by the unanimous tradition of the people, whether Christians or Mussulmans, and is consistent with Holy Writ: 'the waters were a wall to them on their right hand, and on their left.""

This must be our closing extract. The author conducts us next to Gaza, then to Nablous-said to occupy the site of the ancient Sychem --and through a domestic quarrel, in which he interferes for the sake of Mariam-its heroine. The Prophet Damoor-or robbing Jews made easy-is a very amusing chapter. There is much delightful writing on the beauties and gardens of Damascus, and the passes of

the Lebanon. A capital quiz, entitled "The Surprise of Satalich,” or how to escape a three weeks' quarantine, concludes "Eothen."

The book before us, politically considered, merits attention; but we have chosen rather to present it to our readers in a literary point of view. And now we would not willingly, by any qualifying clauses, detract from the pleasure with which the foregoing extracts must have been perused, but candour and truth compel us to state that there is much in "Eothen" of which we disapprove-much in its spirit that we decidedly condemn. Without condescending on many exceptionable particulars which could be adduced, we complain generally of the pervading latitudinarianism of the author-his approaches to high Churchism, when he chooses to be definite at all in his confession of faith-and the reckless levity with which he sketches off scenes the most sacred, where pious association might have caused his lips to burn with the eloquence of heaven, or, at least, hushed his contemplative spirit into awe-struck silence. These are the spots which, to a sincere Christian, mar the beauty of a book, in other respects entitled to our warmest admiration, for its originality of style, condensation of thought, and sustained vigour of conception.

ORIGINAL POETRY.

TO THE CHRISTMAS ROSE.

Welcome to thee! thou lovely rose,
Blooming amidst the winter snows,
And shedding o'er the cheerless scene,
A light as radiant and serene-
As if thy beauty smiling shone,

To answer smiles the sun had thrown,
In love upon thy loveliness.

Flinging upon the chilly air,
The incense of thine odours rare,
As freely as if Summer's wind,
Softly woo'd thee to unbind,
The veil that modesty hath press'd,
So closely o'er thy glowing breast,

To meet his fondest first caress.

Oh, beateous blossom, would that we,
School'd by thy meek philosophy,
Would learn us freely to bestow,
On life's tempestuous scenes of woe,
The kindly graces of the heart,
Which can a hallow'd joy impart,

To sorrow's saddest hour.

Thou unpretending chronicle-memorial of the past,
Of hopes born to be blighted, and of joys that could not last;
Like shadows chasing each across some calm and inland sea,
Thy tranquil page it mirrors well, how swift life's changes flee ;-
It shows how mourning follows mirth, how glee precedeth gloom,
There's here the bridal and the birth, the burial and the tomb.

No inspiration penned thy lines, yet all thy lines are true,
True as the Holy Book of which they seem a portion too:
Thrice happy thought which thus in one so fitly interweaves,
All that ancestral pity feels and piety believes!

For here is sorrow, here is hope-the wound, the cure combin'd,
The refuge of afflicted ones-the balsam of the mind.

And so-in lone and lovely spots, where trees tower to the sky,
To cast their shadows o'er the ground where dust and ashes lie,
The Churchyard leads us to the Church, and in its solemn air,
The worshipper is fitted well for penitence and prayer;
Mortality conducts to where immortal hopes are fed,
The house for living men is near the home of all the dead.

I love thee well thou little roll; if, like the Prophet's one-
Within, without thou'rt written, full of weeping and of moan.
Like it too, thou'rt sweet to taste, though sorrowful to see,
And fancy, faith, and love, behold the hand divine on thee;
From heaven it comes this holy calm, pervading all the breast,
Oft as we read the names of friends now long since gone to rest.

Oh! man, does passion rule thy soul, or pride, or pelf, or sin ?
Is all without around thee dark, is all defiled within?
Are preachers vain and meaningless-have they no word for you,
Or fail they to find out thy soul, and probe thy secret through?
Methinks a record such as this, the better sermon far,

To teach the way and tell the truth-a sure sweet guiding-star:
Be stemmed the torrent of thy guilt-each faithless thought forth-driven,
Thy heart be where thy treasure is-thy best friends are in heaven!

Yes! blessed is the communing we hold with parted friends,
Mysterious, but merciful, the rapture which it lends;

For it soothes our passing sorrows, and it dries our passing tears,
It dissipates our foolish hopes, dispels our foolish fears,

It girds us for the battle, and it nerves us for the blow,

And it gives us strength to master all the meaner things below.

I'll treasure thee, thou little page, and whensoe'er this heart,
Too keen, too kindly, or too cold, forgets its proper part,
Acutely feels an injury, unwittingly offends,

Yet proudly scouts forgiveness, and as proudly scorns amends;
I'll take thee down to learn thy love, and in that love descry,
These lived, and loved, and hated too-they died—I have to die.

W. BUCHANAN.

The High-way of Holiness. By the Rev. WALTER WEIR, Minister of Longformacus. Edinburgh: Myles Macphail.

This little work reminds us of the practical writings of some of our older divines. It is redolent of Scripture thought and language, is characterised by much simplicity of expression, and may be put with confidence into the hands of the unlettered. Many of its practical remarks are pointed and excellent; aphoristic in their turn, and accordingly likely to fix a deeper hold upon the memory. We quote a specimen of this kind from the conclusion of Chapter II:

"If this be the Highway of Holiness, alas! how few walk therein ! how few prove themselves to be the children of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation!' what multitudes so live, that were our Lord Jesus Christ to revisit the earth, and personally to inspect the internal condition of his professed Church, he would disown them, and be ashamed to call them his brethren."

Again:-The renewed nature is a celestial spark, existing amidst an ocean of difficulties; and the preservation of it depends entirely upon Him, who will not quench the smoking flax, that floats there unprotected besides."

We give the following as a larger specimen of Mr. Weir's manner of handling the subject of which he treats: