Formerly, the chief strongholds of this abandoned race were to be found in Borneo, and more especially in the sultanate of Borneo Proper, or Bruni; but since the operations of the Dido, and of the squadron under Sir Thomas Cochrane, they have betaken themselves to their old haunts in the Sulus and Mindanaos. In spite, however, of all obstructions, a majority of the native traders find, ultimately, their way to Singapore, where they dispose of their cargoes at a profit for the most part of two hundred per cent. The imports into Singapore in this way are rattans, birds'-nests, bees'wax, tortoise-shell, gold dust and diamonds, trepang, pearl and raw sago, camphor, rice and paddy, motherof-pearl shells, garro and lakha woods, paper, seaweed, mats, ebony, and antimony ore. These are from Borneo. From Manilla we have hemp and ropes, cigars, sugar, tea, and sapan wood. From Celebes, sarongs (cottons) of their own manufacture, in addition to the chief productions of Borneo, which last are likewise brought to us from the other islands to the eastward and southward. From Sumatra, Java, and various other places, come bees'-wax, betel nut, coffee, cotton, raw sago, gold dust, copper, tin, rice, and spices. In return for these articles, we distribute opium, iron, British cotton goods, China cotton goods, China crockery, raw silk, and spice. ing draught. Alexander puts the warning into his hands, and even while Philip reads, the king drains the cup. When the tutor had ended his recital, he launched forth into warm eulogiums of the courage and intrepidity of Alexander. Though not at all pleased with his remarks, while sharing his enthusiasm, on different grounds, I yet avoided making any objection likely to depreciate him in the estimation of his pupil. At dinner, the boy did not fail to chatter away, his parents, as is usual with parents in France, allowing him to engross nearly the whole conversation. With the liveliness natural to his age, and encouraged by the certainty that he was giving his auditors pleasure, he uttered a thousand absurdities, not unmixed, however, with some happy traits of artlessness and good sense. At length he came upon the story of Philip, and told it admirably. The usual tribute of applause required by the mother's vanity having been paid, some discussion arose upon what had just been narrated. The majority blamed the rash imprudence of Alexander, while some, like the tutor, were loud in their praises of his firmness and courage; but amid the different opinions, I soon perceived that not one single person present had apprehended in what consisted the real nobleness of the action. "For my part," said I, "it seems to me that if there be the least courage in the action, it ought to be regarded as a mere piece of madness." Every one exclaimed at this; and I was about to answer rather warmly, when a lady seated beside me, who had hitherto been silent, bent towards me and whispered, "Save your breath, Jean-Jacques; they would not understand you." I looked at her for a moment, then convinced she was right, I remained silent. After dinner, suspecting, from several slight indications, that my young professor had not taken in a single idea from the anecdote he had told so well, I invited him to accompany me in a walk in the park; and there, availing myself of the opportunity to question that his admiration of the so highly-lauded courage of Alexander was genuine, and far exceeded that of any one else. But in what do you think he conceived the courage to consist? Simply in the fact of his having swallowed a nauseous draught at one gulp, without the slightest hesitation, or a single wry face! The poor boy, who, to his infinite pain and grief, had been made to take medicine about a fortnight before, had the taste of it still in his mouth, and the only poison of which he had any idea was a dose of senna. However, it must be owned that the firmness of the hero had made a great impression upon his young mind, and he had inwardly resolved that the next time he had to take medicine, he, too, would be an Alexander. Without entering into any explanations, which might have served rather to darken than enlighten his mind, I confirmed him in his laudable resolutions; and I returned to the house, laughing internally at the wisdom of parents and tutors, who flatter themselves that they have been teaching children history. It may be that some of my readers, not satisfied with the "Save your breath, JeanJacques," are now asking what it is, then, that I find to admire so much in this action of Alexander? Unhappy dolts! if you must needs be told, how can you understand when told? I admire Alexander's faith in the existence of human virtue, a faith upon which he staked his very life. Was there ever a more noble profession of this faith-a more sublime instance of generous, implicit trust in another, than this potion drained at one draught?' Before the rise of Singapore into importance, a considerable trade was carried on between the Archipelago and China, which is now merely confined to the few goods brought by Chinese emigrants. In like manner, the influence of the Anglo-Indians has nearly destroyed a commerce carried on with the Talingas of southwestern India; while that with the Arabs was greatly injured by the discovery of a route to India by the Cape. The intercourse with Bengal and the Coromandel coast is merely confined to the interchange of opium and cotton goods for gold, tin, and pepper. Attempts have, within the last few years, been made by the Americans, French, and Dutch, to share in the advan-him at my ease, I discovered that I was mistaken, and tages of this trade; but hitherto without much success: not that the field is incapable of being enlarged, and rendered more productive, but that the adventurers have gone injudiciously to work, partly through ignorance, and partly through their reckless and expensive habits. The native traders live in the most frugal manner, often taking along with them in their prahus nothing more than a little rice and sago, with the requisite seasoning; trusting for the rest to the fish, which may everywhere in the Archipelago be found in inexhaustible abundance, and taken with the greatest facility. Nowhere in the world is fish so plentiful, or so varied and excellent, as among the Twelve Thousand Islands, where whole races of men might derive their entire subsistence from the sea alone. The example has been set by that strange race of men the Biajus, or sea-gipsies, with whose history, character, and manners, Europeans are so little acquainted. However, as our commercial relations with that part of Asia are multiplied, our knowledge of the inhabitants will naturally increase, though the history of the world furnishes several examples of long-continued intercourse between distant countries, while each remained almost wholly ignorant of the other. A VETERAN. TEACHING HISTORY. 'WHILE in the country,' says Jean-Jacques Rousseau, on a visit for some days at the house of a lady who devoted herself to the education of her children, I happened one morning to be present when the tutor was giving a lesson in history to her eldest son. My attention was particularly attracted at the moment that he was relating to him the anecdote of Alexander of Macedon and his physician Philip. He told of Alexander being sick, and receiving a letter warning him that it 'GLASGOW, February 9, 1848. was the intention of Philip to administer poison in the GENTLEMEN-I beg to bring the following case under guise of medicine. The really honest, faithful phy- your notice. The subject of it is an old naval veteran, sician approaches the monarch's couch with the heal-whom I found on going into one of the cottages on an THE following communication respecting an unfortunate veteran has lately been received by us, and is submitted to the consideration of our readers : estate in the vicinity of Glasgow, of which I have lately had the management intrusted to me. His name is George Robinson, and he will be eighty-five years old next July, while his wife is only three years younger. How they manage to exist I cannot comprehend, except it be through the kindness of individuals in the neighbourhood. I have never heard a word of complaint from them, and they are generally the first to pay their small mite of rent of any of the tenants on the property, although they must have great difficulty in scraping it together, having no income, except the produce of a small patch of potatoes, which George cultivates in a sort of a way; but having fallen off the roof of his cottage when repairing the thatch two or three years ago, and broken his left arm, which he thinks had not been properly set, he is not able to do much. Could a trifle be got for them, I am sure it would be most gratefully received. The proprietor of the estate, much to his honour, generously agreed to remit the amount of their rent for the remainder of their lives, and placed five pounds at my disposal for their use, on my bringing their case before him. The following is George's history, in his own words: "I was born in the month of July 1763, in the town of Stirling; was sent to learn the weaving business at Latham, in the carse of Bothkenner, between Falkirk and the village of Airth, when I was ten years of age, where I continued for four years, and then went to Paisley to follow the silk gauze weaving. I left Paisley in the year 1793, in consequence of a great depression of trade, and set out for Manchester: having got as far on the way as Carlisle, I found my funds would not suffice to carry me to Manchester, I turned accordingly to Maryport, and entered the tender lying there. After remaining about eight days, was sent to Liverpool; and after a sojourn at that port of about six weeks, was sent off to Plymouth, and drafted into the Theseus, a seventy-four gun ship, Captain Calder, in which vessel I spent the first year, cruising in the Channel. Next year was sent out to the West Indies, and remained there for eighteen months. From the West Indies I returned in the Theseus to Quiberon Bay, on the coast of France, and lay there all winter. In the spring, we got orders to pursue the French admiral. We followed him as far as the Canaries, then lost him, and came back to Cadiz, where, having discovered that our mainmast was crippled, our vessel was sent to Plymouth to refit, where Captain Calder died. After refitting, set sail again for Cadiz with stores for the fleet; when lying there, two Spanish frigates hove in sight, making for Cadiz, and pursued by two English frigates, to which they very soon struck. "After lying some time at Cadiz, we got orders to capture a Spanish galleon from South America, loaded with bullion, which we expected to fall in with at the island of Teneriffe. While at this island, we were landed to attack and destroy the town (Vera Cruz), but had to abandon the attempt for want of the necessary provision having been made for victualling the troops. It was afterwards resolved by the commander, Lord Nelson, to attack the fortification next night from the gun-boats. I was drafted into one of them, called the Fox cutter, having sixteen sweeps. We left the ship about midnight, and were running right in shore, when a tremendous fire was opened from the Spanish batteries. When abreast of the fort, a shot went right through our boat, which immediately began to fill. The officer in command ordered the sweeps to be put out, and the cutter run out to deep water. On examination, the pump was found choked; and as a last resource, I was ordered to cut the jaw-rope and toppinglift with my tomahawk, for the purpose of easing the cutter; but seeing her rapidly filling, and that she would soon go down, every one endeavoured to save himself the best way he could. I stripped off my clothes, except the shirt and napkin, and jumped into the sea among the sinking and drowning sailors, one of whom got hold of me, and down we both went; but having let go his hold, I rose to the surface again, and swam out from the wreck through the clearest place I could find. I continued to swim and make for the land so long as I had strength; but having become completely exhausted, I turned myself on my back, fully expecting that my glass was now surely run, and repeated a verse from a well-remembered psalm. While doing so, I heard the sound of voices approaching, which turned out to be one of our own boat's crew that was sent to pick up any of the survivors who might be found floating on the fragments of the wreck. When the boat's crew discovered what it was they had found, one of them declared they would not save any more, as the boat was already too full: but one of my messmates thinking he knew my voice, cried, Is that you, George?' 'Indeed,' said I, it is;' and they immediately drew me to them with a boat-hook, and I was taken into the boat: it was during this night's attack that Lord Nelson lost his arm. "After this engagement, we sailed back to Cadiz, Captain Montgomery having been in charge of the Theseus since Captain Calder's death. After lying there for about six months, we sailed to Toulon, and from Toulon, through the Straits of Messina, to Malta; sailed again from this port to Alexandria, in Egypt, in search of the French fleet; but not finding them there, returned to Syracuse to take in wood and water; and sailed from thence to Aboukir Bay, where we found the French fleet lying at anchor. We had our share of the battle that was fought there: the first French ship that struck was the antagonist of the Theseus, now commanded by Captain Miller. After the battle, we sailed to Lisbon with the prizes, took in stores, and returned to Aboukir. "From Aboukir I was sent to Acre, and drafted into a gun-boat, forming part of the squadron which was to attack this strong fortress. We were ordered in this gun-boat to take up a position opposite Acre; but the wind shifting, we could not double Cape Carmel, and had to anchor for the night. Next morning, about eight o'clock, our lieutenant spied some vessels in the distance, which he supposed to be Frenchmen; orders us to put the helm hard up, and out with studding-sails, in the hope of escaping, as the French fleet was coming fast up. I was sitting on the end of the mainyard of the gun-boat, when a shot from one of the French vessels cut our yard brace through, and the yard swung round; we then struck, and were made prisoners, and drafted among the gun-boats belonging to the French fleet. The French were very desirous to learn from us what English frigates were at Acre; and on inquiry, some of our men told them there were a number of corn ships there, although they knew that the Tiger man-of-war was lying there. Next day, on the Tiger making her appearance, the French commander called me, as being the most sober of the prisoners, and asked what ship that was; and on my telling him, he turned coolly round and said, 'They prisoners to-day, we prisoners to-morrow;' which soon took place, as we were all recaptured, and our French captors made prisoners. After fourteen months spent at Acre, came home to Spithead, and the following spring was drafted into a forty-four gun-store ship at Woolwich, and sailed out to Egypt with stores; from thence we sailed back to Malta, and arrived there the same day that the corpse of Sir Ralph Abercromby came from Egypt. After spending two years about Malta, and various places in the Mediterranean, came home, and was discharged at Deptford; and from thence I made my way back to Paisley in the year 1802, having been nine years at sea. I lived in Paisley till the year 1822, when I came to Springburn, my present residence, where I have resided constantly since. I had four of a family, two of whom are dead. I have one son, a weaver, living in Glasgow, and another son, who went out to America; but not having heard from him for thirty years, I suppose he must be dead." tion. If a condensed notice of it could be made in your Such is the substance of the poor old veteran's narrawidely-circulated Journal, it might be the means of drawing a little assistance to the old couple, who cannot now have many years to live; and I shall be glad to administer such aid in any way that may be deemed most conducive to their comfort. And, apologising for the liberty I have taken, I am, &c. THOMAS M'Guffie.' Mr M'Guffie's address is 125 Montrose Street, Glasgow, and communications may be addressed to him by parties interested in the veteran, whose eventful and ill-starred life he has taken the trouble to record. SNAIL GARDENS. ON this curious subject the following paper has been translated for us from the Leipsic Illustrated Newspaper:' In Vorarlberg, the collecting and rearing of the large garden snails, which are so injurious to vegetation, forms a peculiar branch of agricultural industry, and amounts even to no inconsiderable trade. Whole cargoes of these snails are sent from Arlberg to the South Tyrol, where they are consumed as dainties. The mode of procedure in collecting and feeding them is as follows:-In various parts of Vorarlberg, from the beginning of June till the middle of August, the snails, which, as is well known, seek their nourishment at this season in damp places, and creep about gardens, hedges, coppices, and woods, are collected by boys and girls, and carried to the feeding-places, which are commonly in the neighbourhood of the dwellings of the owners. These snail gardens have usually an extent of from one to three hundred square fathoms of dry garden ground, are quite divested of trees and shrubs, and are surrounded on all sides by a stream of running water. The stream, at its exit, is made to pass through a wooden grating, in order to prevent such of the snails as happen to fall into the water from being washed away. The grating is examined once or twice a-day, generally morning and evening, and the snails found there are replaced in the interior of the garden; this is necessary, as they would otherwise collect into too large quantities, and would become weak and sickly by remaining long in the water. In the interior of the garden, little heaps of pine twigs, generally of the mountain pine, mixed loosely with wood moss, are placed on every two or three square fathoms, for the purpose of protecting the snails from cold, and especially from the scorching rays of the sun. When the pine twigs become dry, and lose their leaves, they are replaced by fresh ones. Every day, and particularly in damp weather, the snails are fed with the kinds of grass found most suitable for them, and with cabbage leaves. In harvest, at the return of cold weather, they go under cover-that is, they collect under the heaps of twigs, and bury themselves, if the ground under these has been previously dried, two or three inches below the surface, and there they seal themselves up for the winter: when this is completely accomplished, they are collected, packed in suitably perforated boxes lined with straw, and sent off. Careful foddering, and a good harvest season, are essential to the thriving of the snails; and even in spite of this a great many are lost. Wood snails are larger and more savoury, but are more subject to casualties. In each garden there are generally fed from 15,000 to 40,000, and these are sold at about three florins per 1000. This manner of making use of the snails is of double advantage-freeing, on the one hand, fields and gardens from burdensome guests; and affording, on the other, to those so employing themselves, a considerable source of profit. RUSSIAN GOLD MINES. an imperial ukase having lately forbidden the sale of public estates in the region of the auriferous sands of Siberia, justifies the inference that the government have made successful surveys in that direction, and anticipate a further profitable development of the gold-washings which have been so fruitful during the last four years. Under these circumstances, it seems reasonable to expect an increase of supply, of which, however, it is quite impossible to estimate either the proportion or the continuance.-From a Statement drawn up by Sir E. Baynes, English consul in Russia. THE FOOL'S SONG. [From 'Der Templer und die Jüdiun' ('The Templar and the Ir will go better yet-it will go better yet! CHAMBERS'S M. S. J. INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. Or the new edition of this work lately commenced, four monthly With few exceptions, each number or sheet is a distinct and comprehensive treatise, containing the substance of a volume; and the whole are written in a style suitable, it is believed, to popular apprehension. Care has also been taken to arrange the subjects as nearly as possible in a natural order, all treatises of a kindred character following each other. The following are the contents of the four monthly parts now issued: During the ten years ending with 1846, the total quantity of fine gold produced in the dominions of the Emperor of Russia was 8,387.96 poods, or 368,063.69 British pounds troy, the value of which, at the rate of 113-001 grains troy weight per pound sterling, will be L.18,761,310. In 1837, the quantity produced was 402-68 poods, or 17,669-60 British pounds troy, the value of which is L.900,673. In 1838, the quantity was 448-93 poods, or 19,699-06 pounds troy, and its value was L.1,004,120. In 1839, the quantity was 448-61 poods, or 19,685-00 pounds troy, and of the value of L.1,003,403. In 1840, it amounted to 498.52 poods, or 21,875-06, pounds troy, of the value of L.1,115,037. In 1841, the quantity was 588-66 poods, or 25,830 40 pounds troy, and its value was L.1,316,653. In 1842, the quantity was 826-58 poods, or 36,270-33 pounds troy, and its value was L.1,848,808. In 1843, the quantity amounted to 1,178-25 poods, or 51,781 61 pounds troy, and of the value of L.2,635,386. In 1844, the quantity was 1,220-84 poods, or 53,570-46 pounds troy, and of the value of L.2,730,647. In 1845, the produce was 1,248-34 poods, or 4,777-16 pounds troy, of the value of L.2,792,156. In 1846, the quantity produced amounted to 1,586-55 poods, or 66,985 01 pounds troy, and of the value of L.3.414,427. The above return comprises the whole produce both of the public and private mines. The Russian government levy a duty of from 12 to 24 per cent. on the produce of the private mines; the rate being subject to no rule, but varying according to localities and other circumstances. During the ten years ending with 1846, the return of produce shows-first, that there has been scarcely any difference in the supply from the Oural Mountains; secondly, that the produce of Siberia has increased more than tenfold; Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh. Also and thirdly, that there has been an augmentation of nearly four to one in the total annual supply. It is said that new mines have been discovered in the Oural; and the fact of Part 1. Astronomy - Geology - Meteorology Physical Geo- Part 2. Vegetable Physiology-Systematic Botany - Animal Part 3. Zoology-a comprehensive treatise, in four numbers. Electricity will follow; and so on. The work will be completed in 100 numbers, or 25 parts, forming two handsome 8vo. volumesa densely-packed Cyclopædia of Useful and agreeable Information. **The work is sold by all booksellers. Price of a single number 14d., of a part 7d. sold by D. CHAMBERS, 98 Miller Street, Glasgow; W. S. ORE, 147 Strand, London; and J. M'GLASHAN, 21 D'Olier Street, Dublin.-Printed by W. and R. CHAMBERS, Edinburgh. CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c. PAY AND DECORATIONS. GIL BLAS tells us that Don Hannibal de Chinchilla, after trying for years in vain to get some consideration for his warlike services, in the course of which he had been reduced to a very fragmentary state, was like to go mad when a poet was gratified with a present of five hundred ducats for an ode on the birth of an Infanta. In sober reality, in our own time, we have seen a painter of undoubted merit pass into a fatal insanity on seeing the exhibition of his pictures neglected, while unreckonable wealth was poured upon one whose sole merit consisted in his being about two-fifths of the ordinary stature of mankind. These are types of a whole host of cases. Literature, history, and common conversation are full of the disproportion of dignity and reward to desert. It is a system, after all, not without some redeeming traits; but on the whole, the unsoundness and injustice are its prominent features. Among authors, who are the honoured and the rewarded?- not the writers of laborious instructive works, not the profound students who develop new and beneficent ideas for the regeneration of society, not even the bards who excogitate that which is to purge the soul with pity and terror unto all time. Well off are these if they escape persecution and starvation. The coin and cheers of mankind are reserved, in great measure, for those who merely amuse their passing hours. The lighter, the more superficial and evanescent the literature, the better the remuneration; the more certain the ovation. Even in the division of results, the immediate bit of bread is usually the author's share, while in the event of the speculation being successful, there is reserved for the bookseller the felicity of battening on the long-drawn copyright: The court awards it, and the law doth give it.' Perhaps this is an extreme way of stating the case; but undoubtedly the temptations presented to the man of letters are not to great, but to trivial works, and the book tradesman has ten chances of thriving for one within the hope of the mind-devoting author. Mankind have a perfect sense of the absurdities involved in such anomalies, but they seem helpless to remedy them. Since ever we can remember, the small gains of teachers, as contrasted with the immense utility of the men to society, have been heartily and universally acknowledged.. It has been a case like that of Dolph Heyliger's mother, for whom people always said that something ought to be done, but yet never did anything. The point of credit and dignity seems to be in as sad a state. All admit that the teacher should be held in honour; but nobody ever acts on the idea. There is an inveterate tendency to look on schooling as something necessarily connected with PRICE 14d. charity (nobody ever scruples to beg for a school), and the poor pedagogue suffers by the association. Snubbed by the parson, patronised by the squire and his daughters, interfered with at every turn by both papas and mammas, who would be a schoolmaster that could be anything else? But is the schoolmaster the only sufferer by this anomaly? Not likely. The public is tenderer towards the armed force of the country, perhaps from the sympathy we naturally feel for those who expose themselves to danger. Yet here, too, there are anomalies. Our partiality goes all in the form of empty honour; in point of pay, the case of the soldier is not greatly different from that of the teacher. Perhaps the case is all the worse of the honour, since it unavoidably leads to falsity of position. If not endowed with independent means, there must always be an unpleasant contrast between the external pretensions of the poor officer and his actual circum stances! View him in the management of his little income. Study his lady,' if he unfortunately has one. The army, we suspect, is only sustained by an endless series of individual delusions, concluding in disappointment. Always looked forward to as a position of distinction; always found, in reality, a routine of meaningless duties and a struggle with sordid circumstances; terminating at the best in something only a little above penury. Grant that money ought not to be an exclusive object, the poor officer cannot help contrasting his own life with that of his prosperous mercantile brother, whose spendings throw ridicule on his own empty purse, and whose ultimate fortune makes half-pay sound like a byword and a reproach. It would be better to have humbler ideas as to a red coat at starting-to know that the brilliancy of a military career means guarding carts of corn to the mill or the port in Ireland, serving as an armed police over refractory operatives at Birmingham, and becoming constables to protect New Zealand settlers from the unruly natives. Were it regarded as simply a position of usefulness, like that of the professional man or tradesman, it would call forth a different class of minds; and there is no reason to suppose that these would be less fitted for the purpose. It is one of the good traits of the system that the productively useful, as a class, and as against the classes which are not productively useful, are, when they confine themselves to practical objects, well rewarded. The world has never known such wealth as industry has within the last century brought to England. Even the landed aristocracy have derived their noted wealth, and consequently no small part of their importance, from the value which the industry of the country has conferred on land. This is so far gratifying. In the case of the individual, our sympathies will sometimes prevent us from seeing the matter clearly; but when the general case is presented, and we find that services tending to a practical and positive good are more sure of high remuneration than services which merely gratify the violent passions of mankind, or at best remedy their consequences, we feel as if a great requirement in the fitness of things were yielded to, and a great law observed. Perhaps the triumphs of all occupations and professions could be shown as founded remotely in a principle of philanthropy-the thriving being in proportion to the good design kept in view with regard to the public, or the good actually effected towards the community. Thus a mass of manufacturers who should, by their ingenuity and industry, cause clothing to be twice as easily obtainable by the masses as it had formerly been, would have a good chance of exceeding all their compeers in prosperity. And such would relatively be the case with the practisers of a system of agriculture causing two blades to grow for one, and thus cheapening food. It is essential, however, to all such benefactors of their kind, that they see to their own special remunerations in a purely commercial spirit, and in accordance with commercial methods; for society has as yet no regular or consistent means of rewarding great benefactors of the disinterested species, and no one can doubt of it as a possible event, that a man who had devised the saving of annual thousands of lives, should yet be allowed to breathe out his own in hopeless penury. Bating this drawback, it is so far satisfactory that lines of vocation which clearly and directly contemplate the wellbeing of mankind, are those which it is safest and most profitable to have to do with. means, is an astounding consideration for modern men. For the warlike fame and force which made one master over others in the middle ages, there now comes the power of Capital, the command of the lockers and storehouses in which the food and raiment of mankind are accumulated. The possession of a key to these receptacles is what makes thousands fall under the will of one, helping him to store still more and more up in reserve, till his puissance attains a pitch almost fearful to look upon, by reason of the contrast it presents with regard to the laggard fortunes of those who daily spend the daily gain. How far the actual merit can be said to go hand in hand with the increased power, need scarcely become matter of discussion. The two things are notoriously independent of each other. If absolute merit be little regarded in the distribution of pay, it is no better kept in view in the matter of honours. A man is more apt to fall at the feet of a dog which has saved his own life, than to pay homage to the greatest of sages, who never conferred on him any particular obligation. The army is here in luck; for we appreciate, as matter for approbation and honour, the services of those who take risks in our behalf; and accordingly no small portion of the honours which the state can confer, is reserved for the military, while sages and gentlemen of the pen are left to obtain, if they can, distinctions wanting the government stamp. It were foolish to rail too violently at such things, since it must be a deep-seated tendency of human nature to be actuated more by its feelings-we might almost say its instincts-than its intelligence; and who is to arbitrate between a writer and his race? Let us live in hope, nevertheless, that something like a regulation of the impulsive by the reasonable will come in time, and that decorations, as well as pay, will be distributed more in accordance with justice towards real, though not immediately operative or significant merit. It is, on the other hand, distressing to consider, that within the range of these productive and useful occupations, the success, in special cases, does not depend on the highest and noblest of human qualities, but partly on a group of faculties and feelings which are no more than secondary in the great scale of humanity, and partly, and perhaps in a superior degree, on mere good fortune. Many men of very noble qualities are undoubtedly engaged in industrial pursuits; but they GOSSE'S BIRDS OF JAMAICA. would all acknowledge that, for the transaction of business, they have to place in abeyance both their best in- THIS is the work of a minute and faithful observer of tellectual faculties and their loftiest moral aspirations, nature.* Mr Gosse appears to have studied the birds of and call forth into exercise mere sharpness or clever- Jamaica in their woodland homes; like Wilson, he has ness, and consult acquisitiveness and love of approba- shot and described for himself; or at the most, he has tion somewhat more than benevolence or justice. We only accepted the assistance of one or two enthusiastic have known many successful men who had the grace to resident naturalists of his own stamp. The result is a acknowledge that it was even so. We have known book composed wholly of original observation, and more others who had the manliness to admit how much they readable and entertaining than books of natural hisfelt to be owing, in their case, to chance, even while the tory now generally are. Jamaica possesses, besides a world gave them credit for an unusual display of the moderate show of the swimming and wading birds, and personal qualities which are most likely to promote a small group of the accipitres, a great variety of the prosperity. Such being the determining conditions, it perchers and climbers-comprising not merely the crows, is not to be presumed that the most successful are the starlings, thrushes, finches, and swallows, which are commost worthy, or the least successful the least worthy. mon with us, but sundry species of parrots, fly-catchers, The fact is, that all occupations call for a modification honey-suckers, and humming-birds, which we only know or adaptation of human nature for their own needs or as strangers, or from their appearance in museums. duties. The requirements of mercantile life are some-garding the last of these families, Mr Gosse presents a thing not perfect as to absolute human nature, but perfect as to mercantile life. There must be good, but not brilliant ability; enterprise, but not rashness; and so forth. Often, too, it must happen that the dullest qualities, exercised with quiet perseverance and caution, make in time that result which even more perfect mercantile character will forfeit by one false or unfortunate step. So, then, distribution may be faulty as to persons, even where it is most just as to classes. There is even an inequality with respect to the different portions of one career. Commencements are usually attended by immense difficulties. The saving of the first sovereign costs a fearful struggle, not merely with appetite for expense, but with necessity. The first few years may be passed in the greatest prudence, but they only serve to overcome the general disposition to fear and suspect the untried. Afterwards, money almost saves itself, and character flourishes, although the primary brightness of virtue may have been dabbled a little in the muddy ways of the world. The might that lies, for the control of human destiny, in the first savings of Re great deal of new information. He has discovered that, while devotedly fond of the juices of flowers, and will eagerly suck dissolved sugar, they look chiefly to minute insects for their sustenance. The fine woods of the Bluefields range of mountains are a favourite haunt of the long-tailed humming-bird (Trochilus polytmus). To pursue our author's description, 'Not a tree, from the thickness of one's wrist up to the giant magnitude of the hoary figs and cotton trees, but is clothed with fantastic parasites: begonias with waxen flowers, and ferns with hirsute stems, climb up the trunks; enormous bromelias spring from the greater forks, and fringe the horizontal limbs; various orchidea with matted long lianes, like the cordage of a ship, depend from the roots and grotesque blossoms droop from every bough, and loftiest branches, or stretch from tree to tree. Elegant tree-ferns, and towering palms are numerous; here and there the wild plantain or heliconia waves its long flag Richard Hill, Esq. of Spanish-Town. London: Van Voorst, The Birds of Jamaica. By Philip Henry Gosse; assisted by 1847. Pp. 448. |