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Quarterly, whenever its wziard conductors turn their eyes toward the western world. Their protégés travel as wildly, under their patronage, as Thalaba under that of the Laureate. Existence sees them spurn her bounded reign,

And panting time toils after them in vain.

To speak seriously, we think that it must have long appeared evident to evey one, that the best way to receive the rhapsodies of the Quarterly about the barbarism of the United States, is with laughter at their blunders, if made ingenuously, and with commiseration, if they proceed from malice. Indignation is worn out, if it ought ever to have been indulged and we confess we have always been unable to understand the use or policy of recrimination. For it admits that those who condescend to retaliate, have had their own pride or vanity touched; and, if it does not also admit, by no means disproves the assertions, that have provoked its employment. Besides, as it can never be temperate, it can never be just; and almost necessarily runs into errors and misrepresentations, corresponding with those which it would censure. Thus, while it can only mislead those at home, it can only irritate those abroad. After that cap-sheaf of all monstrous, all prodigious things,' Fauxes 'memorable days,' and the renowned review of it in the 58th number of the Quarterly, a good natured burlesque in the Munchausen vein seems the only suitable commentary in which we can properly indulge. We would rather laugh with John Bull in America,' than wade through the ponderous octavo of Mr. Walsh; not that we would underrate the talents or extensive information of the latter gentleman, but that we cannot perceive any good end that can be answered by our attempts to expose the abuses of the English government.

After the sanction given by the Quarterly to Faux's Mirabilia, it is obvious that no burlesque could be too extravagant. On the contrary, the difficulty is, that the marvels related by that 'liar of the first magnitude' are, so much in the 'Ercles' vein, that it is difficult to mount into a higher region of hyperbole. How far our author has succeeded, every one will best judge for himself, as his risible faculties are more or less excited. As the book is in every one's hands, it is unnecessary to make extracts, and we must defer for want of room, all remarks upon its particular merits, until another opportunity.

SONNET.

Gli occhi di ch'io parlai si caldamente.
PETRARC. P. 2. SON. XXIV.

The eyes that once my ardent verse controlled,
The lovely form, the features whose sweet wile
Me from myself afar could once beguile,
Estranging me from all of human mould;

The tangled tresses of pure radiant gold;

The sweet swift flashing of that angel smile,

That once could win Heaven's joys to earth awhile,
Are now but lifeless dust, obscure and cold!

And I must live-though life I loathe-though cast
Without my light of life, alone and dark
On perilous seas, and in dismantled bark.

Of my love-breathing lays be this the last;
Quenched is the current of my wonted fire,
And turned to wailings my neglected lyre!

O. P. Q.

[We return our sincere acknowledgments to the gentleman who has furnished us the following interesting account of Champollion's recent discovery of Egyptian archives, some of which, it appears, were written several ages before the Trojan War.]

DISCOVERY OF VERY ANCIENT EGYPTIAN ARCHIVES.

The learned are well acquainted with the important discoveries made by Young and Champollion in the art of decyphering the sacred writing of the Egyptians. The latter is still engaged in pursuing this interesting object, as will appear from the following detail.

The collection made by Drovetti, one of the most successful explorers of Egyptian ruins and tombs, has become the property of the King of Sardinia, and is deposited in the Royal Museum of Turin. In this collection are a great number of manuscripts written upon papyrus. Champollion was at first attracted by a number of them remarkable for their size and beauty, and for their fine state of preservation. Nearly the whole of them were written in hieroglyphics, and adorned with paintings; but contained nothing but extracts from the funeral ritual of greater or less extent. The most complete copy of the funeral ceremony previously known, is in the

royal library at Paris; and was regarded as containing the entire formula, whence the other hieroglyphic manuscripts found upon mummies, had been extracted, in greater or less proportion, according to the importance of the person for whom they were intended. Champollion had, however, remarked upon some of the finer coffins, figures and texts that were not to be found in the Paris papyrus, although the largest of all the manuscripts that had previously been brought from Egypt, being twenty-two feet in length. He had thence concluded that a more complete form of the funeral ritual existed, which was confirmed by his researches at Turin, where he found a papyrus sixty feet in length; he considers this as complete.

He found but few papyri written in the vulgar character. Among them were a few of the times of the Ptolemies; one as old as the time of Darius; and he at last discovered one of great length, containing a series of receipts for an annual pension, dated in the reign of Psammiticus I. thus conveying us back to the time of the Pharaohs.

Having made this remarkable discovery, he was led to the examination of some papyri which from their perishable state he had at first neglected. He had laid aside about twenty of these, folded in a square form, blackened and eaten by time, and without illuminations. He found them written in the hieroglyphic or sacred character, and the first line he perused, offered to his view the name and prenomen of Sesostris. These he found repeated eight or ten times in the course of the manuscript, and he has from his examination inferred that the papyrus contains either a portion of the history, or a public act of the reign of that monarch. In the other manuscripts he found the names and dates belonging to the reigns of eight other kings of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties of Manetho.

While pursuing these investigations, he accidentally heard that some other fragments were to be found in a garret, to which they had been consigned, as being in too bad a state to be worthy of a better location. He insisted upon seeing them, and was the next day admitted to the chamber, where, to his grief, he found a table ten feet in length, covered to the depth of six inches with mutilated fragments of papyri, Had they been no more than copies of the funeral ritual, he would have felt but little emotion, but the first fragment he took up presented him with a portion of a public act of the date of the 24th year of the Pharaoh Amenophis Memnon. He thus de

scribes his feelings at this discovery of a million of leaves, the mutilated remains of books written thirty centuries since.

"To describe the sensations I have experienced in dissecting this great corpse of Egyptian history, would be difficult; there was subject for moralizing to the very extreme of patience. I found myself carried back to times of which history had hardly preserved the faintest recollection, in company with gods who for fifteen centuries have been without altars, and in some little fragment of papyrus I have saved the last and only record of the memory of a king, who, when alive, found the vast palace of the Theban Carnac too small for him."

The oldest fragment is dated in the fifth year of the reign of the celebrated Moris, and is of course the oldest public act in existence.

From a careful examination Champollion has inferred, that whoever has discovered these manuscripts, has had the rare good fortune to stumble upon the entire archives of some temple or public office, that had remained closed and forgotten since the time of Cambyses. What has been saved, and which Champollion will probably succeed in decyphering completely, will probably leave us ever to lament, that so many precious documents have been lost, that might have been preserved by a little care on the part of the persons who first found them.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

The American Militia Officer's Manual, bring a plain and concise system of Instruction for Infantry, Field and Horse Artillery, Cavalry and Riflemen, as adopted by law for the standard of discipline in the states of New-York and New-Jersey; with an Appendix, containing forms for Orders, Returns, &c. and Directions for Holding Courts Martial: by J. G. Dyckman, formerly Major of Light Infantry in the service of the United States. The plan of Major Dyckman's Manual seems to be, to render plain, and easy to be understood by those militia officers who have but little time to devote to military study, as much of military duty as they require to be made acquainted with. To judge of the correctness of the discipline described, it is necessary that one should be a disciplinarian;

but any man is competent to judge of the propriety of attempting to discipline militia, like regular soldiers, in the few days allowed by law for training them. Even if it were possible, nothing would be more dangerous to our Republic, than to have all our militiamen accustomed to camp regulations and under perfect discipline. Militia should always be regarded as partisan soldiers, and not as regulars; and all attempts to make them such, until they are encamped, will prove utterly unavailing. But, independent of this, in giving instruction to a maman, it would be of more serve to him were he taught how to inju e his enemy than to be made acquainted with all the formula of the military exercise.

This work, we believe, received the approbation of every military man in

the late legislature of this state, as well as of the state of New-Jersey, and has been highly spoken of by gentlemen of high military standing in the state of Massachusetts. An uniform system of discipline for the ma of the United States has engaged the attention of congress for many years. This book appears to us to embrace every thing to effect that purpose, if generally adopted by the several states. It has already been adopted by the states of NewYork and New-Jersey, and it is hoped the other states in the union will see the propriety of following their example.

The exercise, we perceive, is strictly in conformity with that of the United States' army.

Seven Lectures on Female Education, inscribed to Mrs. Garnett's pupils at Elmwood, Essex County," by their very sincere friend James M. Garnett. Second Edition, with corrections and additions by the Author. Richmond, T. W. White. 1824. pp. 261. We are sorry that this work does not answer our expectations, and candor requires us to declare that it contains many faults, as well negative as positive. Among the former may be included the deficiency of any novel views of the very interesting subjects of which it professes to treat. This deficiency we are disposed to believe exists less in the nature of the subject than the abi

lity of the writer. We do not recol-' lect of a single idea (which ought to be there) in the whole work, that is not much better expressed by Gregory, Chapone, or Bennett, to say nothing of Miss Edgeworth. As to the positive faults, they are many and glaring. Will it be believed that the author of Seven serious Lecturcs on Female Education has introduced into the same volume twenty-nine pages of silly, ironical maxims, which would be discreditable to Blackwood's Magazine; and which at best are intended to raise an idle laugh? Besides this, there are frequent colloquial phrases and instances of vulgarity scattered through the work, which are particularly objectionable on such an occasion: such for instance, as “blind as bats," "tickle your fancies," bugbear books," "poor poll," "she-devils." "The itch to snatch food from each other, and your attendants, if once practiced, would often be at your fingers ends, &c. p. 146." The better plan, therefore, certainly is, to depend (as the mariners say) upon plain sailing; and never to forget that striking and admirable characteristic of our good mother Eve, whom Milton describes, as one who would not unsought be won." "It is a hard case perhaps, that these vile men will be so insensible to female attractions of such general currency; but it is the nature of the beast who must be taken," &c. p. 161.

SONNET.

Se lamentar augelli, o verdi fronde.

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PETRARC. P. 2. SON. XI.

Where on the car the nightbird's wailings rise,
Where greenwood leaves, soft summer breezes lave,
Where gently murmuring, each enamoured wave
Upon the young bank's rosy bosom dies;

Musing, 'mid thoughts of love, before my eyes

Floats that bright form, whose spirit (since the grave
Stole from the world what Heaven in pity gave,)
Still to my prayer from her far home replies.
Ah! why, she says with angel voice, why flows
This stream from thy sad lids? why leave to fade
Thy flower of life in early grief away?

Oh, weep not thou for me; for Death has made
My days eternal,-I but seemed to close
These eyes in Night, and woke to endless Day!

O. P. Q.

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