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Another time the ladies of the royal harem contrived to feign fevers in order to obtain a sight of the great Hakim, and I was introduced to a collection of the most beautiful and delicate hands and arms in nature, that I might feel their pulses and prescribe; but I could not obtain the sight of a single face, though I heard the malicious creatures laughing at my embarrassment through the veil between us. Then, at a great entertainment, where the loveliest dancers and the sweetest singers were assembled, my state as favourite forbade my speaking to any. Such was my visit to the Persian Court, where, though I enjoyed the favour of the sovereign, the applauses of the courtiers, and the admiration of the multitude, my health suffered from new customs, my mind from continual restraint, and my heart from disappointed affection and misplaced friendship, for I was too closely surrounded and too carefully watched to be able to distinguish between real worth and well masked villany, or to discern pure esteem from the fawning of flatterers.

Such is here, and must be every where, the condition of a lion. Who can therefore wish for fashionable celebrity? Not certainly your friend,

JOHN JENNINGS.

If we may hazard an observation upon this last letter, we think Mr Jennings concludes too seriously. The state of lion is so transitory, that we

submit to our readers whether it be not desirable to pass through it, in order to see the panorama, the raree show of society. For our own parts, we have seen so many bright smiles, so many approving glances, lavished on the lions we have occasionally beheld, that as we know that statues, pictures, medals, and books, do sometimes undergo that state of trial, we have no higher ambition than that this our valuable miscellany should figure as the lion of our native town, even for a longer time than poor Mr Jennings suffered at Ispahan.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE AGAMEMNON OF ESCHYLUS, ILLUSTRATED WITH TRANSLATIONS.

(Continued from Page 306.). IN submitting to the reader some observations on this very interesting

drama, it was chiefly in view to point out the skill of Eschylus in the delineation of character; and particularly in the manner in which he gradually unfolds the character of Člytemnestra, it was remarked, that he seems to have set an example of admirable management, which has scarcely, however, been followed by any succeeding poet. We are, in most dramas, made acquainted with the characters, almost in the first scenes in which they are presented to us, and even the greatest hypocrites, however they may be supposed to impose upon the rest of the Dramatis Persong, always take care in their soliloquies, and speeches aside, which are, in fact, speeches to the audience, to make us perfectly intimate with the most secret workings of their minds. Shakespeare himself falls very much into this method; and, were it not that the reflections and reveries which, on these occasions, he puts into the mouths of his characters, are, for the most part, very natural, and such as, we may easily suppose, to be passing through their minds, we should be as much shocked with the clumsiness of the contrivance even in his hands, as we invariably are when we meet with it in less highly-gifted poets. There is something, however, infinitely more skilful in bringing out a character by dialogue and of the incidents. Why degrees in the natural course of the should it all be made plain at once? It is much finer to drop, as if by accident,

its peculiar traits in our way, inexplicable as they may be at the moserving to rouse our attention, come ment of their occurrence, but which, afterwards to be perfectly understood when the whole tissue of the character is laid before us.

An instance of this occurs in that singular silence which Clytemnestra observes for some time after the enher the information of the immediate trance of the messenger who brings the violent protestations, which, upon approach of her husband; and then, in being awakened from her reverie, she instantly makes of her attachment to him, and which she scarcely would have made, if she had not been conscious that she deserved to be suspected. These traits, though perfectly natural, are not explained at the moment; and, accordingly, they may somewhat startle us; but their very

peculiarity keeps our attention fixed on the elucidation of the character, and they recur to our minds again with that kind of satisfaction which attends a discovery, when we come to see clearly how they are to be accounted for. As far as we have yet seen Clytemnestra, nothing has appeared that could justly excite any strong suspicion of her intentions. We left her receiving her husband in a strain of great apparent affection, and urging him with what seemed to be mere female vanity, (though, in truth, with the fanatical idea of calling down upon his head the vengeance of insulted heaven,) to enter his palace with much triumphant display. Agamemnon, though greatly averse to it, at last yields to her fancy; but, before he goes in, he gives us a proof of the kindness of his nature. Cassandra, the prophetic daughter of Priam, accompanied him as a captive, (a personage whom we shall afterwards find acting a very great and terrific part in the tragedy,) and he says to the queen, Be kind, I pray thee, wife,

To this poor female stranger: the good Gods Look down with favour on the conqueror, Who with no harshness loads the captive chains,

Heavy in themselves to bear-She follows

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Tis very true,—yet blood
From a man dying,
Gushing in purple flood,
If once it reach the ground
Will ne'er be found

Again to course the veins :-One trying
Life to restore, received a check
From Jove, and made a wreck

Of all such vain attempts !-Fate ties my tongue

But O my thoughts are black, and my heart's strings are wrung.

These forebodings of the Chorus, however, appear to be merely prophetic, and not founded upon any observation; and although, in the scene which follows, and which, as we shall

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see, lays open, by a most poetical and astonishing machinery, the deep mystery of wickedness which we have hitherto been contemplating, in its concoction, almost without a suspicion of what it is to be-although, in this scene, we are referred to former looks and gestures on the part of Clytemnestra as being full of meaning and signification, yet these dumb signs would very naturally be misinterpreted by the spectators until the explanation was suggested. In all this contrivance, there seems to be a delicate observation of nature, of which, perhaps, there is no other instance in dramatic poetry, in any degree, so perfect.

(To be Continued.)

REGALIA OF SCOTLAND.

MR EDITOR,

As the fate of these emblems of the ancient independence of this part of the island, has given rise to many conjectures; and as many of your readers cannot fail to partake of the national anxiety, to ascertain what has become of them, I beg leave, through the medium of your valuable Journal, to offer a few remarks on this interesting subject.

The regalia of Scotland consisted of a crown, a sceptre, and a sword of state, each of them enriched with a profusion of precious stones of various descriptions. These were complete in 1578; at least an inventory of King James the Sixth's jewellery, taken in that year, states the crown as "without any appearance of inlaik or diminishing." And it is not said, that the sword and sceptre were in any particular defective. These, our readers know, were, by the 24th article of the treaty of Union, provided "to be kept as they are, within that part of the united kingdom called Scotland, and that they shall so remain in all time coming." This provision was formally complied with, and it is on record, that, on the 26th March 1707, Mr William Wilson, depute-clerk of Session, the deputy of Earl Marischal, heritable keeper of the regalia of Scotland, did, in the presence of a number of persons of the highest respectability, convened within the Castle of Edinburgh, deliver over the crown, the sceptre, and the sword of state of Scotland, to the

Lord Treasurer, protesting, that they should on no account be removed without due intimation given to the family of the Earl Marischal. From the instrument taken on this occasion, it appears that the regalia, together with a particular description of the parts, were then deposited in a chest in the Crown-room of the Castle, to be there kept agreeably to the act of Union. It is now upwards of a century since these procedings took place, and we are still utterly in the dark as to whether Mr Wilson's protest has been duly regarded; though, it is well known, that many doubts and unfavourable surmises have been long prevalent on the subject.

An incomplete, and, we will be pardoned for saying, a very unsatisfactory search of this apartment took place in the year 1794. The records of Scotland having at one time been kept in the Castle of Edinburgh, it was supposed that valuable papers might be recovered, by a search in the Crown-room. A royal warrant of scarch was accordingly obtained, authorizing the Lord Lieutenant of the county, the heads of our Supreme Courts, and other eminent individuals, to investigate this mysterious apartment, and to report the state of it; and, in consequence of this, an expectation was excited, that the scepticism of the people would be speedily removed. This investigation took place, and the report of the search is very full and very precise upon every point, save that one, on which it was anxiously hoped some light was about to be thrown. The report expresses, that the eminent personages specified in the warrant, did, with the assistance of his Majesty's wright and smith, break open the well-secured door and window of the Crown-room, by which laborious operation they were enabled to survey the interior of the apartment; that the apartment was found to be so many feet long, and so many feet broad; that the roof is arched; that it measures a certain number of feet from the floor to the spring of the arch, and so many more feet from the spring of the arch to the roof; that no records were found in the room; but that a chest, six feet three inches long, two feet six inches and a half wide, and two feet six and a half inches deep, was there discovered. That the searchers felt diffident

of their power, under their warrant, to rummage this repository; that they left the chest untouched; and that they, on taking leave of the Crownroom, put the door and window of the apartment in a state of security equal to that in which they found them. The report concludes with a very ingenious supposition, that this chest contains the regalia of Scotland, because Mr Wilson's instrument bears, that they were deposited in this apartment.

Now, without intending to say any thing in the slightest degree disre spectful of the honourable and eminent persons who returned this report, I will take the liberty to assert, that it is utterly inconceivable that they should have hesitated about opening the lid of this chest, after breaking up the door and window, unless upon the supposition, that they were themselves infected by the prevailing popular doubts respecting the fate of the regalia; and that from a feeling of delicate expediency, they preferred questioning the extent of their powers to the exertion of them in a way which might have exposed "the nakedness of the land," and perchance have led to unpleasant consequences. Whatever may be in this, however, it is evident that this report could have little tendency to settle the popular doubts on the subject. These doubts have in fact since that time become still more inveterate; and without exercising any undue mistrust, or pretending to estimate the matter above its real importance, the people of Scotland may certainly be allowed, after the lapse of a century, to demand a more thorough investigation, and to have it fully ascertained whether this clause of the treaty of Union has been duly complied with. Edinburgh, Oct. 1817.

J. W.

In addition to the observations of our patriotic correspondent, we are enabled to mention a curious fact, upon the authority of the late Major Drummond, the officer on duty in the Castle at the time of the above search. Major Drummond having, in the exercise of his duty, accompanied the commissioners into the Crown-room, assisted in the examination that then took place; and he afterwards mentioned, that he himself repeatedly mov.

ed and shook the chest above described, in order to ascertain if it contained any thing, and that he was convinced by the experiment, that it was quite empty. He stated further, that though the chest was not opened, a box lined with velvet, which he conjectured to have once contained the crown, was found lying open beside it, the lid of which appeared to have been wrenched off by violence at some former period, and carelessly thrown to another corner of the apartment.

The vulgar belief, we know, is, that the regalia were removed dur ing the troublous times that succeeded the Union, and that they were either then carried abroad, or are still in the possession of some of the great Highland families. We do not well see how such an extraordinary circumstance could take place since the Union, without something definite being known about it. But the matter certainly appears worthy of investigation, and it no doubt does seem somewhat curious that so simple a search should have been so long delayed. We have, however, the satisfaction of informing our readers, upon good authority, that a more complete and satisfactory search for these interesting national monuments is understood to be now in contemplation, and may be expected ere long to take place.-Edit.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE IGNEOUS ORIGIN OF THE AGATES OR PEBBLES. FOUND IN THAT SPECIES OF TRAP NAMED AMYGDALOID.

THIS rock is one of those belonging to the trap series, and which, according to Jameson, occurs most abundantly in sandstone and coal districts. In many places it is named pebble rock, from the silicious nodules or pebbles which it contains. The substance of these pebbles or agates is most commonly a matter analogous to flint, nearly equalling it in hardness, and commonly remarkable for the variety and beauty of its colours. To the circumstance of their colour, we are indebted, in a great measure, for the history of their formation. Sometimes, however, where colour is wanting, the different hardness of their different parts, serves us equally well as an indication of their natural structure. But it is not merely when we find

these substances enclosed in rocks, that we can thus judge of their formation, but every one of them taken individually, contains its own history within itself, and herein lies the difference between such, and those fortuitous collections of bodies rounded by water, which are also called pebbles, whether they are the remains of stratified bodies, or any other whatsoever. Such are dug from gravel-pits, and found in the beds of rivers ;such are the rolled masses upon the sea shore, with which we pave our streets. But, though the term pebble was at first exclusively applied to those hard silicious substances which have obtained the name of agate, onyx, &c. yet any substance whatever is capable of being similarly formed, whether it be hard or soft, provided only that it shall have been in a fluid form, as will appear necessary from the structure of these stones, when more particularly examined.

Jameson, in his System of Mineralogy, and also in his public lectures, maintains that these agates are of aqueous formation. The new views he has proposed on this subject, the connections he has traced between the structure of these silicious substances, and the strata of the globe in general, are important, and may form the subject of a future communication. But my present object is to endeavour to render it probable that the amygdaloid rock and the agates it contains, are of igneous origin.

The particles of any two fluids mixed together, would, on their separation, assume a form more or less round; such is the appearance of fluids distinguished by their colours on marbled paper, and such would be the surface presented by a section of amygdaloid, showing either hollows, or hollow, partly or entirely filled with a substance different from the rock, and all of these approaching to the round form, and rarely angular.*

It is known that when many layers or ecats of paint of different colours are laid upon each other, that the different particles, in the course of time, assume a variety of globular and oval forms, thus presenting an appearance very much resembling agates. There is a specimen of this description in the possession of that distinguished surgeon Mr Russell.

Now, if we can prove that these bodies do not owe their rounded form to attrition, (the only other conceivable way,) they must have derived it from that cause which we supposed, namely, their having been left more or less at liberty to separate themselves from the general mass when in a fluid state. Indeed, were these hollows only found in these rocks, their appearance would be sufficient to demonstrate the softness of the surrounding rock, by showing, that the rock had been impressed by the action of a fluid, were it only of air; and that the matter which fills these has been itself in a fluid form, is demonstrable from their peculiar structure. These pebbles or agates consist in general not only of numerous coats, but those coats are generally distinguished by as great a variety of colours. It is indeed possible, from what has already been observed of the colouring matter of flints, that these different coats of colour, as well even as the coated structure itself, might have been produced by the action of decay, working upon a substance more or less penetrable, and producing such different degrees of hardness in the different coats, as should make them readily separate from one another; and thus a substance, originally homogeneous in its structure, would become coated, and as the decay could proceed only from the outward surface inwards, all the changes of colour would follow the same direction, affecting the centre last and least of all. But it must be observed, that though colour seems to be thus produced in some flints, decay has not produced that change in their structure, but the conchoidal fracture remains, and fracture always follows structure. But neither of these circumstances can possibly apply to those instances in which we find the hollow but half filled, and not only half filled, but containing a variety of substances which have crystallized in succession, one upon the other. And there are many instances where there is only a thin coating of matter lodged within the hollow; these hollow agates, of themselves, afford a sufficient refutation of the idea of a nucleus, round which coats have been successively formed, for here is no centre, and the regular disposition of the few coats that there are in these agates, which are hollow at the cen

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