has been materially altered, and in great part rewritten. The work gives an account of the remains of two of the most celebrated topes, or sthûpas, raised in honor of Buddha and his doc trines-one being at Sanchi, near Bhilsa, in Central India, the other at Amravati, near the mouth of the river Kistnah. Our readers are no doubt aware that a tope is a solid circular dome-like construction, enshrining the ashes or relics of some Buddhist saint, the lower portion being surrounded by a pathway for peregrinating worshipers, inclosed by a stone railing, pierced by four gateways at right angles to each other. The ruins of two such buildings are illustrated in the book before us, one, as we have said, at Sanchi, the other at Amravati. The latter is considerably posterior in date to the former, so that a comparison of the magnificent sculptures with which both buildings are elaborately adorned, reveals much of the change in sentiment that had passed over the Buddhist community in the interval. The Buddhist religion is certainly one of the most remarkable emanations of the human mind, and this becomes especially apparent when we reflect upon its feeble beginning, its peaceful course, its stupendous development, and its tenacious hold upon the affections of the immense majority of mankind. It is also most remarkable for the singular parallel its history presents to that of the Christian faith. Both originated in members of royal races; both won their way by preaching and by the practice of manly virtues, honesty, and truth; both firmly established themselves after 300 or 400 years, by becoming State religions; both gradually corrupted for about a thousand years until a revolution reconstructed them; both were driven from the lands of their birth, and are now professed by aliens and strangers to their founders. Yet it is most certain that the growth of each was distinct from the other; there never was a point of union between the two creeds until modern missionaries sailed for the East. Buddha died 477 years before the birth of Christ, and his religion was adopted by King Asoka 600 years before Constantine the Great. Inscriptions on pillars and rocks, and ancient gâthâs, or poems, beside the direct statements of the Mahawanso, attest the originality and priority of Buddha's work; at the same time the light of history shines clearly on the origin of Christianity, and places its perfect independence of extraneous suggestion beyond all cavil. The Buddhist religion, therefore, is a subject alike interesting to the antiquary, the historian, the scholar, the philosopher, and the theologian, and every thing tending to elucidate its history throws light upon a remarkable phasis of human developments. Oriental.

ALEXANDER POPE.-Nature seems to have purposely designed him for giving trouble to his fellow-creatures. Assistance was as necessary to his physical weakness as ink was to his thoughts.

Be

His personal charms were few, but his defects many. He had clear, sparkling eyes, a long, handsome nose, a smile at once sweet and melancholy, and a voice exquisitely sweet and musical. But he was born with a form so weak as to demand, throughout his life, the support of stays. He was so small that at table his chair had to be greatly raised in order to bring his mouth to a level with his plate. His legs were thin as straws; and in order to give them the resemblance of bulk, he wore three pairs of stockings. His head was bald; and, whenever he could, he wore a white cap in preference to a tye-wig. cause he once fell asleep at his own table when the Prince of Wales was talking of poetry, he was charged with being deficient in good manners, or with a snobbish desire to show how little he valued the society of royalty; but the truth was he was like a baby. He was so weak that he obeyed the dictates of nature as implicitly as an infant obeys her. When she made him weary, he fell asleep. When he had any demands to be satisfied, he querulously cried for them, as a spoiled or peevish baby would do. Wherever he went, his helplessness was complained of by his host, and resented by the servants. True to his boyish nature, he neglected to provide himself with an attendant when he paid his visits; although it would have been reasonable to suppose that an attendant, who was accustomed to his habits, and who could anticipate his wants, would have suggested itself as a necessity to him. The consequence of his helplessness was, that at every house he staid at a large retinue of domestic servants was found unequal to the duties of waiting on him. One had to pull on his three pairs of stockings, whilst another sewed him up in his buckram suit; one had to lace his stays, whilst another shaved him. And when once they were about him they dared not abandon him; for he was so frail that they dreaded, should he be left alone, that he would tumble to the ground and lie without the power of rising. Nor did they so much fear his falling down as his tongue; for this was an instrument he could wield among them to as good a purpose as he could wield his pen among the crowd of hungry poets. But the labors of the servants were light in the daytime compared to what they were at night. If he was troubled with headache, he would rouse them out of bed to make him coffee, inhaling the steam of which he declared was the only means by which he could obtain relief. In the bitterest January nights he would ring the footmen out of their warm blankets, to despatch them on the absurdest and most aggravating errands: to fetch him a pin, or to look for an envelope he had dropped, perhaps in the garden. When in the rhyming mood, which came upon him with troublesome frequency, he would keep a servant throughout the night running in and out of his room twenty times to bring or to remove his desk, to find better pens, to procure better ink.

The servants got at last to know him so well that they avoided m. Some of them flatly refused to obey his orders. Many of them who heard of his intended visit, would demand their dismissal. But if he was a troublesome, he was, at least, a liberal invalid. Some of the servants declared that they would not ask for wages during the time they had to wait upon Mr. Pope.—Colburn's New Monthly.

MACDUFF AD MACBETH.-Macduff was an historical character, and the claims of the Earls of Fife and Wemyss to be descended from him are tolerably well authenticated; but the witches' prophecy to Banquo, "Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none," was not verified by events. Early authorities show no such persons as Banquo and his son Fleance, nor have we reason to think that the latter ever fled farther from Macbeth than across the flat scene, according to the stage directions. Neither were Banquo or his son ancestors of the house of Stuart." In

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stead of being a usurper, Macbeth was a legitimate claimant of the throne: instead of being the victim of a midnight and treacherous murder, Duncan was slain in fair fight at a place called Bothgowan, near Elgin, in 1039: instead of being a tyrant, Macbeth was a firm, just, and equitable ruler instead of being killed at Dunsinane, he fell, two years after his defeat there, Lumpha

nan.

"The genius of Shakspeare having found the tale of Macbeth in 'The Scottish Chronicles' of Holinshed, adorned it with a lustre similar to that with which a level beam of the sun often invests some fragment of glass, which, though shining at a distance with the lustre of a diamond, is by a near investigation discovered to be of no worth or estimation."-Biographical and Critical Essays. By A. Hayward, Esq., Q.C.

COUNT BISMARCK.-At two o'clock repaired to Count Bismarck's, a large, plain-fronted housebut for the porte-coc ère very like the residences in which the Irish nobility delighted to dwell when they honored Dublin by their presence. There was no outward state, no sentries at the door, no bustle in the passages; but a grave gentleman in black led me up-stairs, along a passage, put me in a small room, and, returning in a minute, said, "His Excellency will see you," and in another moment I was face to face with the great man. He was seated at a table covered with papers when I entered, and there was an odor of tobacco in the room which showed that the great Count was fond of good cigars. He rose, and advanced to meet me with outstretched hand and a most charming frankness of manner. He was dressed in a military frock-coat, the lapels turned back, showing his military stock, and certainly bore more resemblance in his outward aspect to a soldier than to a statesman. The face is one that can never be mistaken. The coarsest caricatures are like, just as the finest photographs or most delicate engravings fail to convey an idea of the

infinite subtlety of expression, the play of the mouth, and-need it be said—the varying expres. sion of the eye.—My Diary during the Last Great War.

JUDGES OF CHARACTER.-Some are of opinion that the surest judge of youthful character must be the tutor, and there is a passage in Isocrates on this head not without interest. He was an accomplished instructor, and he tells us he always studied to discover the bent of those who attended

his lectures. So, after due observation, he would say to one, "You are intended for action, and the camp is the life that will become you;" to another, "You should cultivate poetry;" a third was adapted to the passionate exercitations of the Pnyx; while a fourth was clearly destined for the groves and porticoes of philosophy. The early Jesuits, who were masters of.education, were accus. tomed to keep secret registers of their observations on their pupils; and generations afterwards, when these records were examined, it is said the happy prescience of their remarks was strikingly proved by the subsequent success of many who had attained fame in arts and arms. But the Jesuits, gentlemen, whatever they may be now, were then very clever men; and I must confess that I am doubtful whether the judgment of tutors in gene

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ral would be as infallible as that of Isocrates. the first place, a just perception of character is always a rare gift. When possessed in a high degree, it is the quality which specially indicates the leader of men. It is that which enables a General or a Minister to select the fit instrument for the public purpose, without which all the preparations for a campaign, however costly and complete, may be rendered fruitless, and all the deliberations of councils and all the discussions of Parliament prove mere dust and wind. Scholars and philosophers are, in general, too much absorbed by their own peculiar studies or pursuits to be skilled in the discrimination of character; and if the aptitude of a pupil is recognized by them, it is generally when he has evinced a disposition to excel in some branch of acquirement which has established their own celebrity.-Mr. Disraeli's Inaugural Address at Glasgow.

ATHENIAN TRAINING.-The early training of the Athenian boys in grammar and music (as the words were at that time understood) developed a refinement of taste which became instinctive ; the close and constant study of the poets of their country filled their minds with noble thoughts and beautiful fancies; and the assiduous practice of gymnastics shaped and moulded frames of manly grace and vigor. But that which made the Athenian intellect what it was, which lent it its unrivaled suppleness, and created its unfailing versatility, was not so much the formal training of boyhood as the daily intercourse of the youthful citizen with acute and disciplined philosophers.— National Education in Greece.

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