THE most interesting objects of atten- | ancient architecture which were connect- | whose dilapidated walls and moss-grown tion at Malmesbury (says Britton, in his ed with the religious institutions once so towers at present serve to give only a faint Beauties of Wiltshire) are those relics of numerous and flourishing in this country, idea of their former magnificence. Among these, the Abbey Church is the most pro- | minent and important. The present remains of this once spacious and noble edifice consist of a part of the nave and aisles of the church, the grand southern porch, and a wall belonging to the south transept. Imperfect and decayed as this structure is, enough is left to show the peculiar character of its architecture. The prevailing style is Norman, with an intermixture of the English, or pointed. The western front, the original lower tier of windows, the massive pillars between the nave and aisles, and the southern porch, display the semicircular arch, exemplifying the earliest species of architecture in this building. The next variety occurs in the intersecting arches which ornament the lower part of the wall on the western and southern sides. The arches springing from the pillars which divide the nave from the aisles are pointed. Above them is a tier of broad semicircular arches, each of which includes four others, with an open colonnade to the roof of the aisles; and over these is a series of long, narrow, pointed-arch windows, with mullions and tracery. tions. Winona had at from the history of the Old and New hunter, would spend his life with her, and Testaments; and though many of them secure to her comfort and subsistence, while are distorted and ill-designed, yet, as the warrior would be constantly absent, intent specimens of early art, they are very were, however, of no avail; and her parents, upon martial exploits. Winona's expostulations curious. The inner doorway, without having succeeded in driving away her lover, columns, is also ornamented with sculp-began to use harsh measures, in order to comture. Below the arch is an impost, on pel her to unite with the man of their choice. which is a basso-relievo, which seems to To, all her entreaties, that she should not be have been intended for a representation forced into an union so repugnant to her feelof the Deity, supported by two angels. ings, but rather be allowed to live a single On the left hand of the door is a large all times enjoyed a greater share in the affeclife, they turned a deaf ear. piscina in the wall. On each side of the tions of her family, and she had been indulged porch is an arcade, above which are more than is usual with females among Inseated six large sculptured figures, sup- dians. Being a favourite with her brothers, posed to be designed for the apostles, they expressed a wish that her consent to this with human figures over their heads in the union should be obtained by persuasive means, attitude of flying. The western front is rather than that she should be compelled to it much mutilated; but enough of it remains against her inclination. With a view to remove some of her objections, they took means to proto show that it must have had an im-vide for her future maintenance, and presented posing effect in its original state. In to the warrior all that, in their simple mode of 1732, the doorway appears, from draw-living, an Indian might covet. About that ings, to have been perfect; but at present time, a party was formed to ascend from the only one side remains. One of the capi- village to Lake Pepin, in order to lay in a store tals which support the arch is charged and which is used by the Indians as a pigof the blue clay which is found upon its banks, with a figure of Sagittarius, and it is pro- ment. Winona and her friends were of the bable that the other signs of the Zodiac company. It was on the very day that they were continued round the arch. The run-visited the lake that her brothers offered their ning scrolls are gracefully formed, and presents to the warrior. Encouraged by these, Such are the great characteristic fea- resemble some Grecian and Roman orna- he again addressed her, but with the same ill tures of this edifice, which, whether con- ments. The only ancient sepulchral success. Vexed at what they deemed an unsidered as a whole or examined in detail, monument remaining is an altar tomb, justifiable obstinacy on her part, her parents affords ground for some interesting reflec-placed within the chapel; upon it is a used threats to compel her into obedience. remonstrated in strong language, and even "Well," said Winona, "you will drive me to despair; I said I loved him not, I could not live with him; I wished to remain a maiden, but you would not. You say you love methat you are my father, my brothers, my relations; yet you have driven from me the only man with whom I wished to be from the village; alone he now ranges I have compelled him to withdraw through the forest, with no one to assist him, none to spread his blanket, none to build his lodge, none to wait on him; yet was he the man of my choice. Is this your love? But even it appears that this is not enough; you would have me do more; you would have me rejoice in his absence; you wish me to unite with another man-with one whom I do not love-with whom I never can be happy. Since this is your love, let it be so; but soon you will have neither daughter, nor sister, nor relation, to torment with your false professions of affection." As she uttered these words she withdrew, and her parents, heedless of her should be united to the warrior. While all complaints, resolved that that very day Winona were engaged in busy preparations for the festival, she wound her way slowly to the top of the hill. When she had reached the summit, she called out with a loud voice to her friends below; she upbraided them for their she, "were not satisfied with opposing my "You," said cruelty to herself and her lover. union with the man whom I had chosen; you endeavoured, by deceitful words, to make me faithless to him; but, when you found me resolved on remaining single, you dared to threaten me. You knew me not; if you thought I could be terrified into obedience, you shall soon see how well I can defeat your dirge; the light wind that blew at the time designs." She then commenced to sing her wafted the words towards the spot where her friends were; they immediately rushed, some The earliest notice relative to this Abbey Church appears to be the statement of its dimensions, contained in the "Itinerary of William of Worcester," who wrote in the reign of Henry the Sixth. The account given by Leland of the state of the building, in the time of Henry the Eighth, is more interesting. He says, the Abbey was "a right magnificent thing; where were two steples, one that had a mightie high pyramis, and felle daungerously, in hominum memoria, and sins was not re-edified. It stode in the middle of the transeptum of the chirch, and was a marke to al the countre about. The other yet standith: a greate square toure, at the west ende of the church." Both the towers which Leland mentions have been long since destroyed, leaving no traces of their forms or architectural characters. Indeed, so great has been the dilapidation of this building, that not more than a sixth part of it remains standing; and the preservation of this was owing to its being fitted up for the use of the inhabitants of the town after the Reformation. At that period it probably underwent some repairs; the east and west ends were walled up, some of the windows enlarged, the area pewed, &c. The exterior and interior portals of the grand southern porch are elaborately decorated with sculptures. The former displays eight enriched mouldings, continued all round from the base on each side. The subjects of them are apparently taken recumbent statue in royal robes, said to THE MAIDEN'S ROCK ON THE THERE was a time (our guide said, as we united; you towards the summit of the hill to stop her, others to the foot of the precipice to receive her into their arms, while all, with tears in their eyes, entreated her to desist from her fatal purpose. Her father promised that no compulsive measures should be resorted to. But she was resolved; and, as she concluded CHINA. in Europe; excepting that it is monarchical and hereditary; that the power of the chief THE following very comprehensive and ruler or emperor is absolute; and that he deinteresting article, illustrative of the pre-legates it to viceroys in the several provinces, sent condition of the Chinese, has been some of which provinces, it may be observed, contain each of them more inhabitants than the whole of the British empire in Europe; handed to us by Mr. Fisher, the gentle man to whom we are indebted for our the words of her song, she threw herself from former articles on this subject, and forms and that all the viceroys are accountable im part of one inserted in the last number of the Gentleman's Magazine. the precipice, and fell a lifeless corpse near POMPEII. THERE are few things so strange as a walk through the silent streets of a town which, for 1700 years, has been hid from the light of the world, when the manners and every-day scenes of so remote an age stand revealed, unchanged, after so long an interval. It appears that, sixteen years before the shower of sand and ashes from Vesuvius occurred, an earthquake had nearly ruined the town; so that the houses are roofless, partly from this cause, and partly from the weight of ashes which fell, otherwise they stand just as they were left. The streets are narrow, but paved, and the marks of the carriage wheels in the lower pavement are evident. In Murat's time, 4000 men were employed in excavating; and so a great number of houses, perhaps one-third of the town, have been uncovered. The houses were small, generally of two stories, but beautifully painted, and the figures of horses, peacocks, &c., are as bright as the day they were painted. There are two theatres standing, and one amphitheatre, all nearly perfect. At one time we walked up a street, called the Strata de Mercantis. On either side are the shops of Mosaic sellers, statuaries, bakers, &c., with the owner's name painted in red, and the sign of the shop rudely carved above the door. The mill in the baker's shop, and the oven, amused us much. At another time we passed through the hall of justice, the temple of Hercules, the villa of Cicero, and the villa of Sallust. The only villa of three stories we observed, belonged to a man called Arius Diomedes (this name was at the side of the door); and in the cellar, beside some jars of wine still standing, was the skeleton of this poor fellow, found with a purse in one hand, and some trinkets in his left, followed by another bearing up some silver and some bronze vases. From the ticket of a sale, stuck upon the wall of a house, it appears that one person had no less than nine hundred shops to let. The street of the tombs is the most impressive; one for the gladiators has a representation of the different modes of fighting carved upon it; and from this it seems that they occasionally fought on horseback, which, before the discovery of Pompeii, was unknown.-Edinburgh Philosophical Journal. CORPOREAL IDENTITY. SOME have considered a change of corporeal identity to be effected every three, others every seven years. Letters marked on the skin, however, last during life; and there are some diseases of which the constitution is only once susceptible. As the relations of Great Britain with the subjects of the Emperor of China are now about to undergo parliamentary revision, a few statistical notices of the population, govern religion, and jurisprudence of the immense dominions of that potentate, may not be altogether unacceptable to your readers. mediately to the emperor for the whole of their conduct. LANGUAGE. The language written and spoken by the inhabitants of this region differs, in its whole form and structure, from the languages in use in other parts of the world. For many years this peculiarity of language interposed, although not an insuperable barrier, a very great obstacle in the way of European intercourse with the Chinese; an obstacle which, to the honour of our country, has been removed by the industry and exertions of the individual already referred to, who, as a Christian missionary, felt himself stimulated to the necessary exertion by a conscientious wish to fulfil his important trust. To him the literary world is indebted for a grammar of the Chinese language, a dictionary of the same in six volumes quarto, together with other philologiThe following is a statement of the POPULATION cal writings. There is nevertheless reason to of China and its Colonies, according to a believe that but very few either of Europeans Census taken in the 18th year of the reign of or Americans are qualified, even at the present Kea-king, A. D. 1813, and under the autho-hour, for personal communication with the rity of his Imperial Majesty. natives of China in the language of the latter. They are derived chiefly from the communications, either written or printed, of that eminent Chinese scholar and valuable Christian missionary, the Rev. Robert Morrison, author of the Chinese Dictionary, &c.; or of his son, Mr. John Robert Morrison, who is with his father in China. Keangsoo Ditto, ditto, Sze-chuen Ele and its dependencies Individuals . No. of Individuals. 27,990,871 28,958,764 14,004,210 23,037,171 37,843,501 34,168,059 30,426,999 14,777,410 1,748* 26,256,784 27,370,098 18,652,507 10,207,256 15,193,125 161,750 21,435,678 19,174,030 7,313,895 5,561,320 5,288,219 942,003 307,781 Families. Of that language, so little known to the natives of other regions, Dr. Morrison observes that it is "read by a population of different nations, amounting to a very large proportion of the human race, and over a very extensive geographical space; from the borders of Russia on the north, throughout Chinese Tartary in the west, and in the east as far as Kamschatka; and downwards through Corea and Japan; in the Loo Choo Islands, CochinChina, and the Islands of that Archipelago, on most of which are Chinese settlers, till you come down to the equinoctial line at Penang, Malacca, Singapore, and even beyond it on Java. Throughout all these regions, however dialects may differ, and oral languages be confounded, the Chinese written language is understood by all. The voyager, the merchant, and the traveller, as well as the Christian missionary, if he can write Chinese, may make himself understood throughout the whole of Eastern Asia." LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.-The Chinese appear to have been a literary and, to a certain extent, a scientific people for several ages. It 2,398 is now known that they have possessed the art 7,842 of printing books from wooden blocks during more than 800 years; that is, long before the 26,728 invention of printing and revival of letters in 72,374 Europe. "During the tenth century, the art 4,889 of taking off on paper an impression from an 69,644 engraving was discovered in China, and hence 700* 2,551 the Chinese acquaintance with the art of print1,900 ing arose." This art of printing from wooden blocks is now practised by the Chinese with so 361,693,879 188,326 much facility, that a MS. Gazette or newspaper, transferred to blocks or plates of wood, is, in the course of a very few hours, prepared 753,304 for printing by the expert use of gouges or 361,693,879 chisels, employed in removing the wood from the blank parts, so as to leave the characters standing up, in precisely the same way as they would appear in this country in wood-cuts. in this country; the one in the library of the East India Company in Leadenhall-street; the other, which is the property of Dr. Morrison, in the Mission House, Austin Friars. The following sketch, abridged from the doctor's notes, may afford some idea of the character of Chinese literature; which comprehends books of the following descriptions: Writings deemed sacred, or held in high veneration, including a compilation of the works of the ancient moral philosophers of the age of Confucius (B. C. 800 years), with numerous notes, comments, and paraphrases on the original text, and "with controversies concerning its genuineness, the order of particular words or phrases, and the meaning of obscure passages," as follows:-"The text of the Woo King, which name denotes Five Sacred Books; and of the Sze Shoo, or Four Books, which were compiled by four of the disciples of Confucius, and from which circumstance the books receive their title; these contain the doctrines and precepts which their master, Confucius, approved and communicated to them. In respect of external form, the Five Books (Woo King) of the Chinese, correspond to the Pentateuch of Moses; and the Four Books (Sze Shoo), in respect of being a record of the sayings of a master, compiled by four disciples, have a slight resemblance to the Four Gospels." But the contents of these sacred writings of the Chinese are described as altogether dissimilar to the Christian Scriptures; containing, "with the exception of a few passages in the most ancient part of the Woo King, which retain seemingly something of the knowledge which Noah must have communicated to his children," nothing but "personal, domestic, and political moralities, without the sanction of an eternal and Almighty God, arrayed with every natural and moral perfection-wise, good, just, and merciful; and without presenting the fears and the hopes of immortality, or revealing the grace of the Saviour." Such is the character which Dr. Morrison has given of the sacred writings of the Chinese. Histories.-Those of the Chinese are described as voluminous, containing, of course, accounts of their domestic and foreign wars, especially with the Huns and Tartars; often tracing, with great gravity, effects to their supposed causes in the operation of the dual system of the universe, which the Chinese historians assume to be true," and by which system of materialism they imagine both the physical and moral world to be influenced." The Chinese historians place their deluge about 2200 years before Christ, and carry back their antediluvian traditions, concerning a great ancestor of the Chinese nation, "who melted stones and repaired the heavens," to about 3200 years before Christ; but these historians are described as not professing to be very correct in dates, and the principal facts stated by them are regarded as mere traditions. In every other department of literature, Dr. Morrison represents the Chinese press as having been for ages prolific, and the accumulations vast. Historical Novels appear to constitute a favourite department; but, owing to the licentiousness of some of them, they have been made the subjects of legal, although ineffectual, prohibition. feelings of men, and that "none can govern well, or durably, but those who win the people's hearts, by an adherence to the principles of equal rights and a clement justice." The Chinese have nothing that can be called epic poetry. The most ancient poetical compositions were a collection of popular songs, made at the request of government, in order to ascertain the popular feeling, which it is stated the Chinese monarchs have generally thought it right to consult. Although the ladies of China are not usually literary, there are exceptions; and, in an educated family, the writing of verses, from a theme given at the moment by one of the party, is practised as an amusing trial of skill. Geographical and topographical works abound in China; together with a species of law, denominated Collectanea, consisting of collections of appeals and remonstrances, and opinions of philosophers, and controversialists, with the endless et cætera of compilers. will be satisfactory to most of your readers to learn that the lithographic art seems destined to be instrumental in promoting a happy change. That invaluable invention, in_the success of which, on its first arrival in England, I ventured, as may be shown by a reference to your pages, to feel and to express a strong interest, and to advocate it when the artists of this country thought fit to reject it, has not only surmounted the opposition of prejudice here, but has been at length introduced into China; and its first effort there has been the circulation of Christian truth, in connection with a new, and, compared with that with which the Chinese were previously acquainted, a very superior mode of diffusing knowledge by the multiplication of copies of books. This association I regard as a most happy one for the interests of religion. The first work printed in Chinese at a lithographic press, and of which I have a copy, is entitled "Good Words to admonish the Age," published in nine volumes by Leangafa, a native convert, and now a Christian missionary. Astronomy.-In China, this branch of science and literature extends to a correct calculation of eclipses and some other celestial pheno- The ARTS OF DESIGN (which are in England mena; but it is greatly mixed up with the denominated the Fine Arts) appear to be dreams of astrology, calculating, with weari- among the Chinese in an immature state. All some minuteness, lucky and unlucky, felicitous their productions, and particularly their sta and infelicitous, days and hours for bathing, tuary, manifest great care and neatness of for shaving, for commencing a journey, or be- execution, with ingenuity; but in their paintginning to sow, or to plant, or to make a bar-ings they display very little, and in some of gain, or to visit a friend, &c. them not any, acquaintance with the rules of drawing in perspective. Medicine. In the science and practice of this art the Chinese appear to have acquired great proficiency, and much acquaintance with natural history, whether belonging to the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdoms. "The theory of the pulse is in China carried by practitioners to a degree of exactness that baffles the most careful attention of European surgeons to discriminate. When Chinese and English practitioners have been seated at the same table, and felt the pulse of the same patient, the one has professed to ascertain symptoms, of which the other was unable to ascertain any thing. The Chinese are not at all convinced, by the reasoning of the west, that pulses, being simultaneous in all parts of the body, the feeling of one pulse is therefore equal to the feel of more than one; for they suppose that local disease may make a difference." The MECHANIC ARTS appear to be in very considerable perfection among the Chinese, who work in metals with ease; and their long acknowledged superiority to the natives of Europe in earthen wares is a fact which cannot be forgotten by any persons who have possessed or who possess China. It is scarcely necessary to add, that they have bridges, and houses, and halls, and palaces, and other con veniences and contrivances for domestic and social life, in great variety, very much like our own; and that these things they have had for many years, and that they import none of them. RELIGION. As is notorious, the Chinese are addicted to the grossest idolatry; worshipping, with great cost and parade of public processions, the statues of their deceased emperors, with such creatures of their imagiThere are other departments of Chinese nation as the following:-the Gods of the literature; a sort of family record called Wau Southern, Northern, Eastern, Western, and Chang, consisting of the prize essays of many Central Mounts; the God of Furnaces, with a generations, which are preserved and published thank-offering on the day of his ascension ; with care; also the moral and religious essays the Budhi, on their days of ascent and descent; of different sects; those in particular of the the God of Spring; the Gods of Wealth and Confucian school of atheistical materialists; Wine (in which, perhaps, a few British Christhose of the visionary alchymic school of tians may sympathise with the Chinese); the Laoukeun; and those of the Hindoo Polythe-Gods of Learning, of Happiness, of Land and istic school of Buddha; in addition to which may be named the essays of a sort of eclectic school, which picks and chooses from, and sometimes blends, the other three. "The Mahommedan and Christian writers in China have been too few to produce any very sensible impression, beyond now and then a little scorn and philippic, such as is conveyed in the political sermons, read by an official person on the days of the new and full moon, in the several provincial imperial halls, before the governor, deputy-governor, and magistrates in each province." Such is the brief sketch which I have been Dramatic Works and Poetry.-In these the enabled, by reference to the respectable auChinese abound; and we are informed that the thority already named, to offer you of the litecandidates for public employment are ex-rature of the Chinese. In the last-mentioned amined in poetry, on the ground that poetry and the most important department of that leads to an acquaintance with the passions and literature, viz. that connected with religion, it Grain, of the Small-pox, of Thunder, War, and Fire; also of the Southern and Northern Seas and of the South Pole; the Queen of Heaven, who is considered the Goddess of Sailors; the Goddess of Childbirth; and the God of Carpenters. These gods are worshipped on their several days in the Chinese calendar, which is replenished with them; together with the anniversaries of the airing of clothes, the exhibition of paper lanthorns, and the births and deaths of their deceased emperors, to which they add the birth of Confucius, and the decease of their own respective ancestors, whom they commemorate by offerings at their tombs. JOHN LOCKE, F. R.S., was the son of November, 1684, he was deprived of his Mr. John Locke, of Pensford, in Somer- place of student in Christ Church. In setshire, and was born at Wrington, near 1685 the English Envoy at the Hague Bristol, in 1632. He was sent to Christ demanded him, and eighty-three other Church in Oxford, and here became ac- persons, to be delivered up by the States quainted with the works of Des Cartes, General, upon which he lay concealed which first attracted his attention to phi- till 1686, and during this time formed an losophy. He applied himself with vigour acquaintance with Limborch, Le Clerc, to his studies, particularly to physic, in and some few other learned men at Am which he gained a considerable know-sterdam. In 1689 he returned to England ledge, though he never practised it. In in the fleet which brought over the Prin1664 he went to Germany as secretary to Sir William Swan, Envoy from the English Court to the Elector of Brandenburgh, and some other German princes. In 1665 he returned to Oxford, where he applied himself to natural philosophy, and became acquainted with Lord Ashley, who introduced him to some of the most eminent persons of that age. In 1670 he began to form the plan of his Essay on Human Understanding. About this time he became F. R.S. In 1672 his patron, Lord Ashley, now Earl of Shaftesbury, and Lord Chancellor of England, appointed him secretary of the presentations. In 1673 he was made secretary to a commission of trade, worth £500 a-year; but that commission was dissolved in 1674. The Earl of Shaftesbury, after his discharge from the Tower, retired to Holland in 1682, and Mr. Locke followed his patron thither. He had not been absent from England a year when he was accused of having written certain tracts against the government, which were afterwards discovered to have been written by another; and in cess of Orange. Being esteemed a suf- 1695, which engaged him in the immediate business of the state. With regard to the church, he published a treatise the same year, to promote the scheme which King William had much at heart, of a comprehension with the Dissenters. This, however, drew him into a controversy, which was scarcely ended when he entered into another, in defence of his essay, which continued till 1698; soon after which, the asthma increasing with his years, he became so infirm that, in 1700, he resigned his seat at the board of trade, as he could no longer bear the air of London sufficiently for a regular attendance upon it. After this he continued constantly at Oates, where he employed the remaining years of his life entirely in the study of the Holy Scriptures. He died in 1704, aged seventythree. Whoever is acquainted with the barbarous state of the philosophy of the human mind, when Mr. Locke paved the way to a clear notion of knowledge, will be able to appreciate this great man's abilities, and discover how much we are indebted to him for the improvements that have since been made. His Discourses on Government, Letters on Toleration, and his Commentaries on some of St. Paul's Epistles, are justly held in the highest esteem. PRISON DISCIPLINE. We shall extract, for the sake of an instructive contrast, two accounts from the last report of the Prison Discipline Society-the one of prisons in the West Indies, the other of prisons in America. The latter must, from its length, be inserted in our Supplement. In Jamaica, an act was passed by the legis lature in January, 1830, for the better regulation of the prisons. There is a public gaol in island has a particular place of confinement each county, and almost every parish in the for offenders who are to be tried at the Quarter Sessions and Slave-court. Many of the prisons are of a temporary nature, and very incommodious and insecure. For want of room, untried prisoners are frequently confined with convicts, and males and females are placed together. There is no labour or employment in any of the gaols, and no means of solitary confinement. The limited space, and want of ventilation, the neglect of inspection, and, above all, the entire absence of public interest with which these prisons seem to be regarded, render confinement in them a grievance of no ordinary character to such of But to the slave the imprisonment is one of the free population as are committed to them. aggravated cruelty. Slaves, seized in execution of their masters' debts, are dragged, for no criminal offence whatever, from the plantation to the gaol, and there kept crowded together-men, women, and children-until liberated for sale. Slaves charged with slight house for personal chastisement. The ordinary punishment on these occasions is thirty-nine lashes; and it is frequently inflicted with great domestic offences are also sent to the work |