that it is a custom among them to respect the chastity of the handsome female slaves: on the contrary, the traders do not observe the slightest decorum in their intercourse with the slave girls." pp. 332-336.

"Slavery, in the East, has little dreadful in it but the name; male slaves are every where treated much like the children of the family, and always better than the free servants. It is thought a mean action to sell a slave after he has been long resident in a family. If a slave behaves ill, he is generally sent into the country to work as a labourer in the fields of his master. Female slaves who are servants in families are not so well off as males, because they generally suffer much from the jealousy of their mistresses. It is only by the Turkish soldiers that slaves are illtreated." pp. 341, 342.

Mr Burckhardt, now crossing the Atbara, proceeded through the district of Taha, and the country of the Bisharien Arabs to Souakin, the port on the Red Sea, by which Sennaar and Soudan carry on their direct communication with Jidda and Mecca. This is ground rarely trod by modern travellers; and the particulars related by Mr Burckhardt cannot, therefore, but be interesting.

He did not, however, obtain much information respecting the interior of Africa, as he found it impossible to make inquiries without exciting the suspicion of the slavedealers. He heard of a great country to the east of Darfour, called Dar Saley; it is said to be fertile, populous, and productive in grain. Being three days from Fittre and the capital called Kanka, it is probably the same called by Brown Dar Cooka. A large country was also described to him under the name of Katakou, which, though now subject to Bornon, on which it borders, had formerly extensive sway over it and the neighbouring countries. It may probably be the Kuker of Edrisi.

The travels of Mr Burckhardt in Asia must be, at least, as interesting as his African journeys; and we are happy to find it announced, that the Association will, in due time, give them all to the public.

ON THE DEATH OF GEORGE THE
THIRD.

In all ranks and conditions of life, the death of an individual connected

with us in friendship, or linked by the ties of blood, is an event which calls for a temporary pause in the avocations of life. We go back, in imagination, to the years we have spent together;-the objects in which we were in common interested,-the sentiments which we felt in unison; the endearing recollections of past existence, recur, unbidden, to the mind, and throw over the memory of those we have loved the charm of distant and affectionate regret. The trifling differences which may have existed between us, the angry feelings by which we may both occasionally have been actuated, the distance which may sometimes have divided our opinions, are forgotten when Death has drawn its veil over the dissensions of the world. We remember them only in their moments of our common happiness, and, passing over the years of sorrow or age which have since intervened, revert at once to the time when our friendship began in the sunshine of youth or beauty, and feel, with the intensity of present enjoyment, the ardent feelings which then arose in the spring of life, and for the loss of which the acquisition of maturer years have afforded no adequate compensation.

In such moments the mind reposes with satisfaction on the sympathy of others. We find a consolation in reflecting that we are not single in our mourning,-that there are others who, at the same-moment, are pierced with the same feelings of anguish, or animated by the same undecaying affection, which we ourselves experience, and that the memory we cherish is embalmed in many hearts, where it will find a secret but undecaying monument. In the indulgence of such feelings we are subjected to a purifying and ennobling discipline; from the weight of our own misfortunes we cling to our brethren for support, and the little circle of domestic life is drawn closer together from the loss of one which had shared in its brightness.

If misfortunes of a domestic kind add to the intensity of the feelings of domestic affection,-if the mind is withdrawn from the selfishness of individual objects by the recollections and the emotions which spring from private sorrow,-it is the effect of pub

lic misfortunes to awaken sympathies not less valuable in social life. We feel then that we are bound by the relations of a common country,-that there are calamities in which a whole nation is participant,-and that the grief which overspreads our own family is felt, at the same instant, under every roof in the land. There is something magnificent and animating in this consideration. If it is a consoling and cheering thought that individual distress is shared by a circle of sympathizing friends, how animating is the recollection, that public misfortunes have touched the heart of a whole people, and that millions whom we never can know, and to whom we shall be for ever unknown, are warmed by the same emotions which have sprung from the sorrow of our own minds.

It is the tendency of such feelings to wean us from the selfishness of private life, to rouse, for a time at least, the more generous and social feelings of our nature, and to awaken, under the pressure of public sorrow, those benevolent and disinterested affections which the pursuit of private objects is so apt to obliterate. To share in such feelings is itself happiness. To feel in common with our fellow-creatures is the most animating as well as the most delightful employment which the heart can know. The cheering of an army, the applause of a theatre, even the huzzaing of a mob, awaken in every country the profoundest emotions of the human heart; and, as the tendency of ordinary life is to concentrate our affections too much on the cares of our own being, it is ordained by Nature that the deepest and most touching emotions we can ever experience should be those in which our own anxieties are forgotten in the intensity of the feelings which we share with others. Compared with such feelings, the enjoyments of our individual existence, how powerfully soever they may act upon us in our ordinary moments, sink into insignificance; and, in looking back upon our past life, we forget the years in which we acted for our private gratification, and dwell only on those brighter moments when the enthusiasm of social affections extinguished for a time the cares of our own being.

Nor is the recurrence of such occasions of public anxiety or distress less

essential towards the preservation of the patriotic feelings on which the fortunes of the state depend. In the republics of antiquity these feelings were kept in continual agitation by the intense interest which was excited by the personal service of the citizens in the armies of the state, and the dreadful fate which awaited those who were made captives in war. When the Syracusan expedition sailed from Attica, we are told by the contemporary historian that the whole population of Athens attended the embarkation, and when the gallies left Peiraeus there was not a dry eye in all the multitude that was assembled. When the news of the destruction of the same armament reached the republic, the people were assembled at the public theatre. For a few minutes they covered their faces with their robes, and wept aloud at the irreparable loss which every family had sustained; but, soon remembering what they owed to their country, they resumed their former composure, and continued in their places during the remainder of the spectacle, disdaining to show before the allies of the state the loss which its fortunes had sustained. When the Carthagenian army, under Asdrubal, was attacked by the Roman, under the consul Nero, the fate of Rome depended on the conflict, and for three days and nights, says Livy, the senate never departed from the capitol nor the people from the forum. It was from these intense feelings of public interest that the fortunes of these celebrated republics arose. They alone enabled the Athenians, immediately after, notwithstanding the loss of thirty thousand of their citizens, to make head against the combined forces of Lacedæmon and Persia at the battle of Arginuse, and nothing but this enthusiastic patriotism could have led the Roman armies to victory under the walls of Carthage. The comparative security of the European monarchies,-the milder form which war has at length assumed,

and the vast extent of the population which is here combined together into a single kingdom, have diminished the interest which is now felt in political events; but these very circumstances render it more essential that some other cause should operate to stimulate and rouse our patriotic feeling.

many years of almost unexampled distress. Posterity will not fail to observe, that during all these eventful changes, he preserved the same magnanimous resolution; and that the youthful monarch whose moderation gave peace to Europe at the conclusion of the triumphant war of 1756, presented in the close of his political life in 1810, an undaunted front to the hostility of combined Europe. With the origin or conduct of that war he had little connection; it was dictated to him by the voice of the country, and, however consonant it may have been to his own wishes, in his political character, he had no alternative but to obey the impulse. It was his duty to sit at the helm, when the vessel was in the tempest; and but for the magnanimity with which he weathered its fury, who can answer for the consequences which might have ensued? Had a monarch of less political firmness been at the head of the state during that eventful period; had his choice fallen on less upright ministers, or less able commanders, who can say that the fate of Europe might not have been changed? How often, during the progress of that dreadful contest, was England left alone to struggle with the world in arms; and it she had sunk in the conflict, what hope remained that the glimmering light could be preserved which she alone kept alive in the horizon? And while every other capital in Europe has been profaned by the arms of hostile troops, what honour is due to the sovereign who alone preserved the virgin purity of his throne, and enabled the women of England to say with the Spartan matrons, that they never beheld the smoke of an enemy's camp?

But it was chiefly in the domestic government of England that the virtues and the inestimable benefits of his reign were conspicuous. Edward may have gained immortal renown on the field of Cressy: Henry may have vanquished a nation on the plains of Azincour; but the triumphs of these monarchs ceased with themselves, and the succeeding generations beheld all the conquests which their valour had achieved, perish under the rule of an unworthy successor, or decay from the exhaustion which they themselves had occasioned. It was the glory of George the Third to have sub

ducd the desire of military fame so natural to noble minds; to aim not at conquering himself, but of affording the means of conquest to others; to have sought not to give a transient brilliancy to his reign, but to secure the prosperity of his country in every succeeding age. The laws which in his reign have been passed, the institutions which have been formed, the habits which have been acquired, are those which are fitted to give permanent stability to the glory of England, and to provide in every age for that continual succession of great and good men, on which the future fortunes of the state must depend. The admiration of the vulgar is rivetted on the heroes who themselves achieve glorious exploits, and acquire a transitory eminence for themselves, by exhausting the resources from which the prosperity of their people must spring; but a nobler praise is due to those who are content with sowing the seeds of future and undecaying happiness; and who leave to others to acquire that glory which is really due to the beneficial consequences of their own exertions.

While the other sovereigns of England have successively devoted their attention almost exclusively to the encouragement of manufactures and commerce, he first set the example of espousing the cause of agricultural industry; and foreseeing the calamitous consequences of the unfortunate bias which the policy of the government had taken, collected the rays of royal favour on the simple labours of the husbandman. From his earliest youth he encouraged this useful art by his favour, and promoted it by his example; and it was during his reign that England made such unexampled progress in this hitherto neglected branch of industry, as to overcome the disadvantages of climate and situation, and give "to a barren land a splendour unknown to the regions of the sun." Nor were the ordinary habits of this monarch less favourable to the prosperity, and less important in maintaining the character of his country. "Even in his amusements," says Burke," he was a patriot;" and the gaiety in which he indulged was that which had a beneficial effect on the manners, and important consequences on the loyalty of the people. While the other sovereigns of Europe were