of William Herbert's death: the subject of his calculation, perhaps its victim, died in 1630; and Allen himself followed, two years after, at the great age of 90. What he knew of astronomy, mathematics, and natural philosophy, may be estimated from the praises of Selden and Camden. But judicial astrology was his "favourite and first pursuit," and he left a manuscript commentary upon the 2d and 3d books of Ptolemy de astrorum judiciis, which fell into the hands of William Lilly.

Thus, by a most extraordinary concurrence indeed, the Sonnets seem to have only graced with verse the biographical sketches of à Wood and Clarendon; and the character of Lord Pembroke in prose only establishes him to have been the hitherto concealed friend and patron of Shakespeare's muse.

I have been unwilling to multiply quotations, by which my essay would have been merely dilated; for when a point is clearly established, enough has been done. The inquiry, now brought to its close, will I think be found to have proved

1. That in the bookseller's dedication

of the Sonnets to Mr. W. H. the object of them, and not their bringer forth, is certainly intended. 2. That the person to whom the initials were first applied, could not be the object of them, either as to age or rank.

3. That it is impossible Queen Elizabeth could ever have been the object of Shakespeare's Sonnets, even though Spenser had addressed his Amoretti to her.

4. But that Spenser never did so; but to the lady whom he married ; whose name was also Elizabeth. 5. That Shakespeare's Sonnets do not

at all apply to Lord Southamptoneither as to his age, character, or the bustle and activity of a life distinguished by distant and hazardous services to some of which they must have alluded, had he been their object.

6. That they were really addressed to Mr. William Herbert, in his youth, to whom the initials do apply; and that he was a patron and friend of Shakespeare.

7. That the two biographers of Mr. William Herbert, afterwards Lord Pembroke, establish his right to the Sonnets, by echoing the contents of them. That they display the same merits, and the same faults in the person, and thus prove the identity in the most remarkable manner. 8. That the poet Daniel, and not Spenser, was the better spirit, of whom Shakespeare expresses his jealousy in the Sonnets. That Daniel also dedicated to William Herbert, and that Shakespeare literally alludes to such dedication in the Sonnets themselves.

9. That even the astrologers DEE and others, whom Shakespeare mentions in those Sonnets, were, like Daniel, retainers of the Pembroke family; and that Allen, who calculated Herbert's nativity, as his biographer informs us, was one of that set of impostors.

So that it is conceived, from these united proofs, the question to whom Shakespeare's Sonnets were addressed, is now decided, and that, in future, W. H. as William Herbert, subsequently Earl of Pembroke, will be deemed, as Mr. Thorpe says, fully entitled to

"THE ETERNITY PROMISED BY OUR EVERLIVING POET." J. B.

internal commotions, and the spread of Christianity.

In this region are comprised the vast deserts and solitudes spread around the north-western limits of China Proper, which begirts the Great Wall; it has been also the cradle whence issued those swarms of warriors which, under Zinghis and Timour, conquered the East; and it is the celebrated region, by which all land trade and intercourse into China has proceeded, from the earliest ages, under the same system of watchful jealousy, as her commerce is now regulated at Canton with Europe.

It must, therefore, be an object of interest to inquire into the character and peculiarities of such a track, especially when we learn that it combines not merely the geographical details of this solitary inlet to the great empire of China, but that this identical region of Tangût has, for the last half century, formed the chief sphere of activity for the Church of Rome, in its laudable endeavour of evangelizing China; and that, at the periods last on record in the correspondence with that Church, the number of professing Christians fell very little short of one hundred thousand souls. While pondering over these facts, and weighing and classifying the pages of "Les Lettres Edifiantes" for their details, a Chinese sketch or map was brought before my notice. It evidently gave a sketch of the towns of the districts of Western Tartary, and referred to some domestic disturbance. The real facts were, that a rebellion had long existed at Ele, of a very sanguinary nature; and that the Viceroy of Ele sent the sketch, from which the map in p. 318, has been taken, to the Viceroy of Canton, to enlighten him as to the real extent of the rebellion.* The document appeared both curious and deserving attention; and as this portion of Asia is unknown

* Recent intelligence from China states that a dangerous rebellion had broken out, at the head of which was a young chieftain, named Le-te-ming. The position of the rebel forces was very strong, being a species of amphitheatre surrounded by mountains, and only accessible through narrow passes among the hills. Reports were abroad of an engagement having taken place, in which the troops of the Emperor were defeated, and twenty Mandarins said to be among the slain.

to us, I have, therefore, endeavoured to illustrate it in the following details, and to determine its sites. Should the subject appear worth pursuing, I may hereafter transmit to you the particulars (to me highly striking), how such a body of Christians have grown up, unknown and unnoticed, in this remote portion of the Chinese empire. Yours, &c. E. UPHAM.

SCYTHIA, although perfectly understood in its geographic application in the 4th century, as is demonstrated by a reference to Ammianus Marcellinus, was however forgotten in the 5th, when Moses of Chorene, the Armenian annalist, applies the name of D'janistan to these regions. Six centuries later they were all comprised under the title of Cathay. All Northern China, with a portion of Mongolia and of Tangût, were comprised in this powerful state, which occupied a distinguished rank in Eastern geography and history. The impression made on Europe by the sketches received of these regions, may perhaps be in no way more fully illustrated, than by the consideration of how constantly and elaborately the Emperor of Cathay figures in all the romances and literature of those times.

It was, however, reserved for the 13th century to display the phenomenon of the hordes of these vast regions issuing forth from their interminable plains, and, with the rapidity of winged coursers, breaking down all the monarchies of Asia, and threatening to deluge Europe with their desolating bands. The progress and conquests of Zinghis Khan and of Timour might well alarm and terrify the Western world, who were not then very well calculated to weigh the seeds of disunion and dissolution inherent in the baseless fabric of power, the work of these Conquerors, and co-existent with themselves.

Equally a source of surprise and of interest must be, to the reflecting mind, the consideration of how the great states of Europe guided themselves (in such a crisis) to meet or to avert the impending storm. Instead of a mutual bond of union; an Amphictyonic Council to regulate and require the contingents of all Europe, the Pope, in the plenitude of his prerogative, dispatches some friars (humble individuals educated for and in the cloisters) to meet the Tartarian armies, and to exhort

and command, in the Sovereign Pontiff's name, to stay their progress, to sheathe their swords, and to forbear any longer to slay Christian people. It is to these unexampled proceedings; to men who, imbued with the infallibility of the Pope, boldly went forward against the Eastern swarms-men strong in enthusiasm and in their cause-1 -that we are indebted for much interesting and valuable information on the geography and character of Central Asia, as it was under these princes; and still preserving enough of comparative character, to aid in the examination of these regions at the present day. Rubruquis and Goertz are worthy of our attention; and the Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, whom a well-directed spirit of enterprize brought, at a somewhat later period, into the heart of China, under the fostering hands of Mr. Marsden, throws a clear and distinct light upon the manners and geography of this portion of Central Asia, which will be adverted to in the investigation of the Chinese sketch. But it was about the era of Zinghis Khan, if not by the will of that conqueror, that the well-known term of Mongol was applied to this race of Tartars. A powerful and independent kingdom arose from the ruins of his empire, comprising Cashgar, Tourfan, and Hami, and of which the city of Cashgar and Bish-balig were the capitals. It became highly flourishing, until the Tangûtian or Elath State absorbed the principal portions of Mongolia; at length, however, the vast empire of China, swayed by the Mandtchou dynasty, extended its views, and carried its arms into independent Tartary; and Kiaung Loung (who has been termed the Trajan of the Chinese annals) completed, in 1759, the entire conquest of the country. Russian Siberia, and the outskirts northward of Mongolia or China, now Tartary, meet; and it is a curious fact, that each state, both Russia as well as China, appropriate their respective slopes of the mountainous districts of these regions for the exile and detention of their criminals; the Russian place of banishment being the mines of Nirtshink, in the province of Irkutz; and the Chinese site at Ele is also situate on the same range of the Thian Chan, or Celestial Mountains.

The sketch of the Chinese route from the point of Ele, and also the

route from Kotan to Hami, and thence into China, cannot fail to call forth our interest, after the former state of these countries has been thus briefly detailed; for it clearly exhibits the same track as the commerce of the East passed over in the time of Herodotus, and every investigation of ancient writers confirms it to have remained so through each successive era. But when we see what value the products of these distant marts have ever held in the estimation of man from the earliest of times; how very strikingly nature seems to allot to the East the monopoly of ivory, precious gems, gold, and perfumes, so much the desire of the opulent in all ages; it must excite wonder that so little is known of a portion of the earth, supplying what has always been most coveted by the rich and luxurious. The voluptuous patrician of Rome depended for his pomp on the silks and essences of Serica; so does the noble of the 19th century; and commerce has conferred wealth and national grandeur on every state which has (for however short a time) engrossed the commerce of the Eastern world. Once become an entrepôt of her trade, no matter whether the ste rile granite rocks of Elephantine, or the sands of the Cobi, or the deserts of Palmyra are the spot, the spirit of commerce, fostered by the wishes and desires of man, soon transformed ste rility into abundance, and the solitary wilderness into the magnificence of stately courts and palaces. It is not only to the pride of man that these regions hold out temptations, but the natural features of this portion of our globe supply materials of unequalled interest and grandeur. The Himmaleh Chain is depicted to the wondering eye in the astonishing scenes it presents, through the exertions of Mr. Fraser; the Boloo, the Emodian, the Altai chains surely require their his torian.

It cannot be supposed that we seek only the gold and the precious stones of these giants of the earth, while there remains, unknown and unsought for, such stores of nature's wealth. No geologist or botanist has ever curiously regarded these extensive tracts; no traveller has sketched, with the exception of the Himmaleh, any features of their impressive scenery. We cannot but lament that such ardour of enterprise should be

lavished on the pestiferous burning wastes of Africa, while these mountains and valleys, the locale of such interesting record, should be unvisited, unsought, and comparatively unknown. The rapid and romantic enterprise of Cochrane, through the frozen Siberian regions, extending to the Northern Icy Sea, seizes most powerfully on the mind, although the supply of information must be deemed scanty, in comparison with the novelty and magnitude of the undertaking; what would not then result from the energy and science of many of our enterprising travellers, examining, with their scientific research, the mountains of Central Asia? The recesses of their valleys, taken graphically, in the utmost extent of this portion of the earth, combine every climate, and contain, doubtless, numberless species of the vegetable world unknown to science. "Here," Malte Brun observes,

are found to exist every animal useful to the purposes of man:-the horse, the wild ass, the camel with two humps, the yak, the wild sheep, the goat, the chamois, the antelope, roam in herds; here are found the musk animal, whose odoriferous perfumes were probably the incentive to the laborious journeys of the ancients; here also are the fine and valuable furs to be procured as plentifully as in Siberia; for in the central plateau of Asia nature has congregated, as in a corner of the world, the largest quantity of those species, which her bounty usually distributes to far distant climes.'

As all we know of these regions is principally to be collected from the reports of early travellers, and chiefly of Marco Polo, connected with local accounts from Chinese and Mongolian sources ; so the present sketch of some important points of this very interesting section of Central Asia, will be found, on comparison, to accord in all essential points, in their detail and itinerary, with the accounts given by each traveller. The conformity of position, and regularity of their itineraries, are very material; inasmuch as the geographic site of Kotan, the most westerly point of the Chinese map, in reference to Hami, suggests the difficulty of the city of Yarkun being necessarily seated in the line of route; as Kotan is marked not only on our maps, but on a general Chinese map of China, at least three degrees to the south and east of Yarkun, and there

fore to the eye, on the map, much nearer to Hami. Each route, however, of every traveller to China, takes consecutively Kotan, Yarkun, and Hami, in their relative positions. Just as the Chinese route, the subject of this paper, exhibits them, so also does the Chinese itinerary of the general of Kiaung Loung, in the conquest of these towns in 1759. There are ample reasons to rest this circumstance on, in the physical obstacles which seemingly interdict any other track, from Hami towards the northwest of Kotan, than through the line of towns which follow the Celestial Mountains. It is known that there are active volcanoes in this chain; numerous rivers flow from its flanks, and form unwholesome swampy tracts; the Great Desert also spreads in every direction around its dreary sands. Knowing then these obstacles, and perceiving that the same route, at such distant eras, is always taken, we cannot but rest satisfied, in our present ignorance of the geography of this portion of Asia, with the fact as it stands before us.

East to west.-First route. 1. Suh chow. Soutcheou. The frontier city within the great wall, on the north-western frontier of China.

2. The Kea yuh Gate.

3. Yuh mun heen. Probably the Khya yu quan of Goertz, close to the great wall.

4. Gan se chow. Whence a line to the S. marks the isolated town Tungkwang.

5. Hami.