and only care; they eat exclusively preparations of it; their only companions are the cattle which yield it; money can procure for them here no luxuries; they count their wealth by cheeses."-P. 265.

The character of the inhabitants of these Châlets, we are tempted to give :—

"I have always received, both in Switzerland and Savoy, a gentle and kind, and disinterestedly hospitable reception in the Châlets, on the very bounds of civilization, where a night's lodging, however rude, is an inestimable boon to a traveller. These simple people differ very much (it has struck me) from the other inhabitants of the same valleys —their own relatives, who, living in villages during the busy trafficing season of summer, have more worldly ways, more excitement, wider interests, and greater selfishness. The true Pâtre of the Alps is one of the simplest, and, perhaps, one of the most honest and trustworthy of human beings. I have often met with touches of character amongst them which have affected me; but, generally, there is an indescribable unity and monotony of idea, which fills the minds of these men, who live during all the finest and stirring part of the year in the fastnesses of their sublimest mountains, seeing scarcely any strange faces, and but few familiar ones, and these always the same; living on friendly terms with their dumb herds, so accustomed to privation as to dream of no luxury, and utterly careless of the fate of empires, or the change of dynasties. Instead of the busy curiosity about a traveller's motives and objects in undertaking strange journeys, which is more experienced in villages, the more remote they be, these simple shepherds never evince surprise, and scarcely seem to have curiosity to gratify. Yet far are they from being brutish or uncouth; they show a natural shyness of intermeddling with the concerns of strangers, and a respect for their character, testified by their unofficious care in providing and arranging what conveniences they can produce. Their hospitality is neither that of ostentation nor of necessity. They give readily what they have, and do not encumber you with apologies for what they have not."-Pp. 266-7.

He describes the character of the other inhabitants of these valleys as strongly opposed to this, and exhibiting, even in these remote districts, that intense love of money which is usually considered an imported vice, and expected to be found in frequented roads alone. The denizens of the Châlets are highly influenced by strong religious feelings. The author states that the practice of evening prayer was kept up amongst the assembled shepherds, "a rare but touching solemnity," he adds, " amongst men of the common ranks for no women usually live in the higher Châlets -separated during so large a part of the year from the means of public worship."

The scenes in which these Châlets are placed, are of exquisite beauty and imposing grandeur. Here is a sketch from one of them-the Châlets of Abricolla :

"It was a charming evening, almost too mild to give quite a favourable prognostic for the weather. After sunset, the moon, which was almost full, rose, and threw her light over a scene not to be surpassed. These châlets, placed on a broad grassy shelf of rich verdure, overhanging, at a height of several hundred feet, one of the noblest glaciers in the Alps, are not much less elevated than the convent of the Great St. Bernard—a position sufficient in most cases to diminish the effect of the higher summits, but which here only increases it, so stupendous is the scale of nature at this spot. Rising abruptly from the glacier, at no great distance on the left, is the grand summit of the Dent Blanche, 13,000 feet high. To the south, the view was bounded by the ridge to be traversed the next day, from which the glacier descends, which presented a view of the same description, all more extensive and wild than that of the Mer de Glace from the Montanvert. As now seen by moonlight, its appearance was indescribably grand and peaceful, and I stood long in fixed admiration of the scene."-Pp. 293-4.

It is singular and fortunate, for the scientific lover of the picturesque, that it is only by moonlight or at sunset, the most striking moments in the day, that the phenomenon called "Dirt Bands," to which we have alluded as bearing so essentially on the theory of glaciers is observable.

Strange incidents befell the travellers in these wilds. On one occasion they got so near a thunder cloud as to be highly electrified by induction, with all the angular stones round them hissing like points near a powerful electrical machine; on another, whilst crossing one of the loftiest passes, the Col de Collon, they discovered a dark object lying on the snow, which proved to be the body of a man, with the clothes hard-frozen and uninjured.

"The effect upon us all," says the Professor, "was electric; and had not the sun shone forth in its full glory, and the very wilderness of eternal snow seemed gladdened under the serenity of such a summer's day, as is rare at these heights, we should certainly have felt a deeper thrill, arising from the sense of personal danger. As it was, when we had recovered our first surprise, and interchanged our expression of sympathy for the poor traveller, and gazed with awe on the disfigured relics of one, who had so lately been in the same plight with ourselves, we turned and surveyed, with a stronger sense of sublimity than before, the desolation by which we were surrounded, and became still more sensible of our isolation from human dwellings, human help, and human sympathy, our loneliness with nature, and as it were the more immediate presence of God. Our guide and attendants felt it as deeply as we. At such moments all refinements of sentiment are forgotten, religion or superstition may tinge the reflections of one or another, but at the bottom all think and feel alike. We are men, and we stand in the chamber of death."-P. 280.

These are some of the circumstances which keep alive in the simple mountaineers of the higher Alps, the genuine feelings of

piety, to which we have before referred as distinguishing them. The sense of difficulty and danger, of utter dependence on Him whom the winds and the storms obey, make a reliance on Providence an habitual feeling with these peasants. It also induces a sobriety, amounting almost to sternness, which contrasts forcibly with the gaiety of their fellow countrymen. We remember in the Oly-thal in the Tyrol, where the number of crosses marking the destruction of life caused by avalanches, give a shuddering interest to the defile, and which is distinguished by the devastation and havoc which the winter's snow causes, the inhabitants seemed of a peculiarly grave and religious character, and the dance and the song are never heard within its precincts. These exalted religious feelings, combined with the purer light of Protestant truth, have kept the noble-minded Waldenses to the Gospel-faith of their fathers. In their mountain retreats, amid the temples which the rocks and mountains build for worship, the littleness of man's inventions, the emptiness of the pomps and ceremonies of Popery are made manifest, and the Protestant mountaineer can look down with contempt on the mummeries, by which the priest-ridden inhabitants of the valleys are beguiled. A specimen of the debasing superstition of the valleys the author gives, but we have no further space for quotations. We have given, we hope, some idea of the scenery and people among whom he leads the reader. We own, however, we were disappointed when we found the total omission in the work, of any narrative of the Professor's other Alpine rambles; we know that some results of them have been presented to the scientific world, but they are enshrined in the bulky volumes of the Transactions of learned Societies, which are seldom perused by general readers. We hope that we may yet know something of the personal narrative of these wanderings, and read the author's sketches of the inhabitants of the wide range of mountains he has so thoroughly traversed, enlivening as in this work, the more recondite results of his scientific inquiries.

We express this hope, because works like the present are as valuable as they are rare. Few countries are now unexplored, and the book of travels which presents a mere personal narrative, is generally devoid of interest and use. Among those which have higher objects in view, few are entitled to more attention than those whose authors travel to make advances in some scientific pursuit-in the natural sciences especially, after having thoroughly prepared themselves by a minute study of the subject. There is something so extremely evanescent in the phenomena-the critical phenomena-which decide the fate of a scientific theory, and there is so much of actual education necessary for the growth of the power of detecting them, that in

many departments of physics, the greatest discoveries have been made by men who combined the severe study of the closet with a personal examination of the facts, whether of observation or experiment, bearing on their subject. And the remark, that these discoveries are not due to the accident of this or that occurrence taking place at this or that time, but almost entirely to their taking place before the eyes of some fit observer-some one of those spirits which are ever looking from the watch-towers of science into the dark fields of the unknown before them-that a Newton was in the garden when the apple fell-applies with great force to the case of the traveller, and makes us attach a high value to the attainments already made by the man of science who traverses other countries in its pursuit. To too many, foreign travel is but the gratification, in another form, of the spirit which crowds the promenade, the concert, and the dance; and the noblest scenes of historic interest, the sublimest monuments of nature's grandeur, are thus degraded into the shifting scenes of a panorama or a play. They travel in pursuit of excitement, and the more rapid the succession of strong impressions the better. Their rambles, therefore, are devoid of profit to themselves, and when they give them to the world, convey no instruction to others. But Professor Forbes travels in a different spirit and with higher ends in view; and, accordingly, he has earned the thanks of his countrymen for the example which he has set, and of the scientific world for the substantial contributions he has made to its treasury.

ART. X.-The Prairie Bird. By the Hon. CHARLES AUGUSTUS MURRAY, Author of "Travels in North America." 3 vols. London. 1844.

Ellen Middleton. A Tale. By LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON. 3 vols. London.

Coningsby, or the New Generation. By B. D'ISRAELI, Esq., M.P. 3 vols. London. 1844.

ALTHOUGH reviewing ephemeral works of fiction is not our principal object, any more than reading them is our usual occupation, they yet can hardly be neglected with impunity by a Review which means to do its duty by the public. No kind of writing has more influence over the daily and domestic thoughts of a people. They find their way everywhere. The indolent read nothing else, and even the intellectual do not despise their relax

ation. Young and old, grave and gay, the Bench and the Boarding-school, are alike within the realms of the novelists.

Works like these, indeed, both form and reflect the social manners of their time. They always bear the impress of the popular and everyday customs, prejudices, and principles which prevail at their dates, and far more accurately and vividly evince the characteristic social condition of a nation, than graver and more elaborate literature. It might be interesting to endeavour to write the history of the character of a people, from the image of it as mirrored in its popular tales. Thus, the real nature of that social corruption that was sapping the roots of falling Rome, is more distinctly seen in the gay, biting, though disgraceful pleasantries of her coarser satirists, than in all Seneca's philosophy, or even Juvenal's statelier verse. They are a true index of the audacious defiance of all laws of God or men, which brought the imperial city to ruins. Nor would the future historian much err if he held young France to be well portrayed in George Sand and Eugene Sue, and caught the tone and turn of ordinary English life from the exaggerated fidelity of Dickens. Even the gibes of the Charivari, and Punch's delightful chuckles, are the very form and body of the time. Indeed, the latter personage is rapidly becoming an historical character of considerable magnitude; and we could wish that writers with more pretensions had as much good sense, or were half as diverting, as our very influential and funny contemporary.

The importance of all this class of writing, to speak paradoxically, truly arises from the want of it. It deals with little things with common occurrences-ordinary goodnesses and faults -which are beneath the notice of moralists or philosophers. Yet intended merely to wile away a tedious or an idle hour, any one who reflects how great a sum of human life idle hours make up, will easily see that that which occupies them can hardly be unworthy of attention from any one who wishes well to his country. Too little has been done in the way of censorship over this very populous branch of the literary family. For while probably, take them all together, our periodical publications bespeak a better tone of principle than at many former periods of our history, yet the flood of nonsense, childishness, false morals, and infidelity that annually flows forth from this copious fountain, irrigating and saturating the whole land, surely deserves to be stemmed with more vigour than it usually calls forth. No doubt, if justice were to limp at the heels of each offender, her task would be interminable. But one or two examples, hung up for the benefit of others, might have a wholesome effect. They might be easily selected; and truly we know no character which better deserves to be mercilessly exposed to public contempt and scorn, than