there was ever such a description of the song of a bird as his description of the soaring of a lark in "Buckthorn ;" and the poor old widow in the Sketch Book who, the first Sunday after her son's burial, comes to church with a few bits of black silk and ribbon, the only external emblem of mourning which her poverty allowed her to make, is a picture that we can never look at through his simple and graphic periods without sobbing like a child. Poet he is, and that too of the best and noblest kind, for he stores our memories with lovely images and our hearts with humane affections. If you would learn to be kinder and truer, if you would learn to bear life's burden manfully, and make for yourself sunshine where half your fellow-men see nothing but shadows and gloom-read and meditate Goldsmith and Irving. And if you too are an author, at the first gentle acclivity or far upward on the heights of fame, learn to turn backwards to your teacher with the same generous and fervent gratitude with which Irving at the close of his preface addresses himself to Goldsmith in the noble language of Dante :

Tu se' lo mio maestro, e 'l mio autore;

Tu se' solo colui da cu' io tolsi

Lo bello stile che m' ha fatto onore.

Thou art my master, and my teacher thou;
It was from thee, and thee alone, I took
That noble style for which men honor me.

ART. IV. GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON THE LAND OF

GOSHEN.*

NEXT to Herodotus, the Roman geographer Strabo furnishes valuable hints in reference to that portion of Egypt comprised in ancient Goshen. Living in the age of Augustus, the Roman subjugator of Egypt, visiting the country about B. C. 25, when the recent conquest gave a freshness of interest to the field of inquiry, traversing the length and breadth of the land with the rare facilities for investigation which his intimate friendship with the Roman governor of the province furnished, his researches might be supposed to be minute and accurate. From his 17th Book, which is chiefly devoted to Egypt, the following items may be

*Concluded from Vol. XIV. p. 460.

gathered. He says: "Between the Pelusiac and Tanitic branches are lakes (aiuva) and great and extended marshes, (,) having many villages (xuas);" the very appearance which the country at this day bears. Speaking of Pelusium (Sin) he says: "At this point, Egypt is difficult of access. from the region of Phoenicia and Judea. But from Arabia of the Nabateans, which is adjacent, a road is open into Egypt." By this road, far south of Pelusium, the Greek translators of the Pentateuch indicate that Jacob entered Egypt. "Between the Nile and the Arabian Gulf (xóxñov) lies Arabia; and at its extremity Pelusium is situated. The whole region is desert and impassable by an army. The isthmus which is between Pelusium and the gulf adjacent to Heropolis (τοῦ μυχου του καρ' Ηρώων πόλιν) is in breadth 900 stadia, as Posidonius thinks; and it is indeed less than 1,500 stadia; in addition to which it is without water, and sandy, and infested with serpents which conceal themselves in the sand." In Strabo's day, the part of Egypt east of the Nile seems to have been called Arabia. Again he says: "Above Pelusium in Arabia are other lakes, and canals leading into them, beyond the limits of the Delta, (w roù Dikta.) Into the same lakes other canals come. There is yet another canal emptying into the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf, and at the city of Arsinoe, (εἰς τήν Ερυθρὰν καὶ τὸν ̓Αράβιον κόλπον, καὶ πόλιν 'Apoóny,) which some call Cleopatris." As will be seen from Pliny, the canal flowed past Arsinoë. Strabo afterwards distinguishes between Arsinoë and Cleopatris. "It flows also through the so called Bitter Lakes; which indeed were formerly bitter, but when the canal just mentioned was excavated, by the mixture with the river, they were changed, and now they are full of fish and aquatic birds. This canal was first cut by Sesostris before the Trojan era, (προ των Τρωίκων ;) though some say it was not commenced until the reign of the son of Psammiticus, (ὑπὸ τοῦ Ψαμμιτίκου παιδός,) death having taken him off. Afterwards, under Darius the first, the work was prosecuted, but he left it unfinished. The Ptolemies, cutting it through, made the canal-lock, (xorov Tóν Evρinov, literally, "made closed the canal,") so that when they wished they could pass into the sea without impediment." If it be remembered now, that Herodotus visited Egypt during the Persian sway, nearly 200 years before the canal was cut through into the Red Sea, we must conclude, that when he says, "the canal emptied into the Red Sea at Patumos, the Arabian city," he meant by sea" the expanse of the Bitter Lakes when filled by the waters of the Nile through

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the canal; and there is suggested the probability, more and more confirmed by examination, that as the modern Arabs call the bed of those lakes, though dry, "Bahr," (sea,) so in all ages has this bed been called, by the Hebrew Moses, by the Grecian Herodotus, and by the Roman Strabo himself, as well as by the Arabian chroniclers. Strabo continues: "Near Arsinoë is Heroöpolis and Cleopatris on the arm of the Arabian Gulf towards Egypt, (Πλησίον δὲ τῆς ̓Αρσινόης καὶ ἡ τῶν Ηρώων εστὶ πόλις καὶ ἡ Κλεοπατρὶς ἐν τῷ μυχῷ τοῦ ̓Αραβίου κόλπου τῷ πρὸς "Ayuntov;) also harbors and habitations and very many canals and lakes adjacent to it." The remark last suggested removes the difficulty of placing Heroöpolis where all modern writers seem to agree to place it, on the western border of the expanse of the Bitter Lakes; Strabo probably meaning this expanse by "the arm of the Arabian Gulf towards Egypt,' as is indicated by the statement, that there "are canals and lakes adjacent," which could be true only of the region of the Bitter Lakes. He adds: "At the same place is the Phagroripolitan province and the city Phagroripolis, (Paypopióronis.) The canal going out into the Red Sea has its commencement at the city Phaccusa, (Paxxovons,) which is contiguous to the village of Philo. The canal has a breadth of 100 cubits, and a depth sufficient for a large ship. These places are in the vicinity of the head of the Delta. There also is Bubastis and the Bubastic province; and above is the province of Heliopolis" of which city he afterwards says, " The city is now entirely deserted ;" and again, "We saw at Heliopolis the houses where the priests formerly dwelt." The village of Phaccusa, (at which Strabo says the canal began,) though mentioned as in the vicinity of Bubastis, (at which Herodotus fixes the commencement of the canal,) was nevertheless considerably distant from it, as we shall soon see. There were however, as at this day, various branches of the canal within the Delta, all centring at the mouth of the eastern valley. The distinction which Strabo makes between Cleopatris and Arsinoë is worthy of note. There were several towns bearing the general name Arsinoë (or cities of Venus) mentioned by Strabo; and his two statements above quoted seem to imply that near the Red Sea there were two towns, one of which all called Arsinoë, while the other was generally called Cleopatris, though sometimes also Arsinoë.

In his 16th Book, Strabo makes three or four allusions to the position of Heroöpolis, all of which agree with the extract already made.

From the history of Diodorus Siculus some valuable par