too exclusively occupied with business and political ambition. The station of each man being undefined, and the means of rising in each one's power, there is an incessant turmoil, a constant struggle going on among our citizens to raise themselves above the rank in which they are born. Our condition in this respect, is wholly different from that of the inhabitants of Europe. There a man's station for life is commonly fixed by his birth, and having little hope of essentially improving it, he labors only to make it agreeable.

Hence the means of intellectual gratification, the pleasures of a refined taste, are sought after with avidity, and the fine arts receive an abundant share of attention. We, on the contrary, reject pleasures which occupy the time that we wish to devote to the furtherance of our ambitious views. It may be fairly made a question, whether this constant, anxious exertion to better our condition, does not on the whole diminish the happiness which free institutions seem at first sight fitted to afford, and reduce the enjoyment of life in this country nearer than we should willingly admit, to a level with that of the subjects of European governments. It has a marked influence in abridging our public amusements. The holidays, the cessation from labor in which the natives of Europe so much indulge, are almost unknown here. The same circumstances tend to render us callous to the attractions of the fine arts. In proportion, however, as men are born to the possession of wealth, instead of being obliged to be the artificers of their own fortunes, the operation of these circumstances will become less general, and we shall see a taste for the elegant arts springing up among the higher classes. In fact the time has already come. Great fortunes have been made. Young men now inherit, with large estates, exemption from labor, and the means and disposition to add to the embellishments of society. They travel, visit the collections of Europe, bring back specimens of their beauties, and a desire to naturalize the same at home.

And it is well that it should be so. The happiness and wellbeing of a large part of our community is thus promoted. We have it is true as yet, no order of gentlemen in the European sense of the term, distinct from the working classes, fruges consumere nati. But it must necessarily grow up amongst

us.

That prosperity in which we exult brings a flood of wealth into our land. The sons reap the fruit of their fathers' labors. They inherit their fathers' estates without their industry. They are bred in affluence, their wants are supplied; they do not form the habit, they feel not the need of labor. Released from

the care of providing for the support of life, they seek for its gratifications. But amusement has not yet been reduced into a system here, and they feel out of place in the bustling scene. around them. They must have excitement. If the means of decent intellectual pleasure are not supplied, they will seek the stimulus of gross dissipation. Such men have generally received an education tending to refine their minds. If the means are offered, they will prefer to indulge the taste, rather than the appetite. It is better that their leisure and wealth should be employed in fostering the arts which embellish life, than squandered in gross sensuality. It is better that they should become in a certain sense the ornaments of society, rather than its disgrace. For reasons like these,-the adaptation of the fine arts to raise the standard of taste and manners among us, to afford elegant and intellectual gratification to a people, hard-working from the very principle of their institutions, and to furnish occupation for a class whom peculiar circumstances exempt from the general lot,we are pleased to see the interest which is now felt about them in our principal cities, as shown in the exhibitions to which we have already alluded. The one at the gallery of the Athenæum in Boston, is composed, as we have said, of pictures loaned by individuals in the city, and its vicinity. It has been very fully attended and received no small share of praise. Our limits will not allow us to go into a minute examination of its merits. can only say that it consists of more than three hundred pieces, about a hundred of which are originals by old masters of eminence; among the rest are many good copies of celebrated pictures, and many originals of doubtful origin, some of which have much merit. The remainder is composed of the works of living artists, mostly our own countrymen. Allston and Stuart have each a large number of pieces here. The works of Newton, Sully, Harding, Cole, Doughty, Fisher, Rembrandt Peale, and many others of our distinguished artists, are also to be found in the gallery. Among our countrymen, though not among living artists, we should mention Copley. Several of his beautiful portraits adorn the collection. We cannot doubt that this exhibition will increase a taste for the arts in Boston, and quicken the seeds of talent in many a young mind.

We

INTELLIGENCE.

Dogs in Egypt. From the "Recollections of Egypt," lately published by the Baroness von Minutoli, we extract the following passages.

Dogs, which, according to the Mahometan law, are unclean or impure, are not used in Egypt as domestic animals. They are seen in great numbers in the environs and streets of Cairo; they are often very mischievous, and obstinately pursue passengers; but there is not a single instance of a mad dog, which is very extraordinary, considering the excessive heat and the privation of water to which they are exposed; from which it might be inferred, that their madness must be ascribed to their being domesticated. It is curious to see the dogs of Cairo divide the city among them into quarters, like officers of police, and not permit any dog belonging to another quarter to pass the boundary. Such a violation of the established rules generally produces a bloody war; and I have seen these animals, in spite of the laws of hospitality, cruelly bite an unhappy deserter who dared to transgress his limits."

The Baroness devotes several pages of her work to the ruins of Thebes. We shall only copy from them the following account of a battle between some of the wild dogs and vultures, which abound in that part of the country. It will remind the classical reader of the nova prælia with the harpies in Virgil.

"On the following day I witnessed a curious scene; it was a war between the wild dogs, which inhabit the ruins of Thebes, and the great hawks which abound in Upper Egypt. Our cook had just killed a sheep, and had thrown the intestines on the bank of the river. I was sitting with my eyes fixed on the magnificent ruins of Luxor, when I saw a crowd of hungry dogs issue from them, which, desiring to have their share of the feast, immediately fell upon the refuse of the animal; but their appetite was not to be gratified so easily as they had expected; for other creatures, hovering in the air above us, had previously seen all that had passed, and the moment that the cook withdrew, and the dogs approached, a swarm of hawks and vultures, rapidly cleaving the air, rushed upon their prey, and disputed it with their rivals. A very curious battle then began; the bird of Osiris, by turns attacking or attacked, sometimes succeeded in snatching the booty from the jaws of the savage dog, which yelped and barked after it, while the victor, rising into the air, seemed to mock at his impotent cries."

Revolution of a Comet. The zeal with which the interests of science were forwarded in New Holland, by Sir T. Brisbane, deserves the warmest acknowledgements of every liberal mind. Among the most curious results obtained under his patronage, by Mr. Dunlop, at the observatory of Paramatta, may be considered the one arising from the observations on the comet of August, September, and October, 1825, and on the changes which took place in the figure of the tail, tending to establish the existence of a rotation round its axis. The periodic variations in the appearance of the tail, seemed to indicate the time of revolution to be about nineteen and a half hours. Similar appearances

were observed, by Le Père Cyrat, in the tail of the comet of 1618; by Helvetius, in the tails of the comets of 1652 and 1661; and by Pingré, in the tail of the comet of 1769. Month. and Eur. Mag.

Transparency of the Ocean. Experiments were made during the voyage of Coquille, to ascertain at what depth in the sea an apparatus became invisible, composed of a plank two feet in diameter painted white, and weighted, so that, on descending, it should always remain horizontal. The results varied very much; at Offale, in the island of Waigiou, on the 13th of September, the disc disappeared at the depth of 59 feet, the weather calm and cloudy; on the 14th, the sky became clear, it disappeared at the depth of 75.3' feet; at Port Jackson, on the 12th and 13th of February, it was not visible at more than 38.3 feet in a dead calm; the mean at New Zealand, in April, was 3.28 feet less; at the isles of Ascension, in January, under favorable circumstances, the extreme limits, in eleven experiments, were 28 and 36 feet. Lond. Jour. of Science.

On the Powerful Effect of Burning-Glasses at great Heights. The extreme transparency of the air on high mountains, which hinders the calorific rays, which traverse it, from heating it directly, gives rise to several effects different from those we observe on the surface of the earth. The heat of the ground, for example, which absorbs the solar rays on those summits, is often, as M. Ramond observes, out of all proportion to that of the atmosphere. When these rays, therefore, are collected in the focus of a lens, they have much greater power than when they traverse a thick and less transparent atmosphere. He found that a lens of very small diameter was sufficient to set fire to bodies, which a lens of double the diameter would scarely heat in lower regions. M. Ramond supposes that the temperature of the different colors of the spectrum might be well ascertained on lofty summits.

The memoir of M. Ramond, which contains these two notices, is entitled, On the Meteorology of the Pic du Midi, and was read at the Academy of Sciences, on the 13th of March, 1826. Edin. Jour. of Science.

Arabic Periodical Publication. A work of an entirely novel nature will be commenced in July next, at Paris, and will be continued monthly, namely, a Journal of Science and the Useful Arts, in the Arabic language, for the benefit of the East. It is to treat of mathematics (comprehending astronomy), geography, natural philosophy, chemistry, geology (comprehending mineralogy), medicine, surgery, anatomy, agriculture, &c. Asiatic Journal.

Sir Hudson Lowe's Memoir. Sir Hudson Lowe, it is stated in the newspapers, has sent for publication to this country, a memoir of all the transactions at St. Helena, while he was governor of that island, and the custodian of Bonaparte. Ibid.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

ARTS AND SCIENCES.

A Treatise on the Nature and Effects of Heat, Light, Electricity, and Magnetism, as being only Different Developements of one Element. Cambridge. Hilliard & Brown. Svo. pp. 91.

A System of Astronomy on the Principles of Copernicus. By John Vose, A. M. Concord. J. B. Moore.

BIOGRAPHY.

Biography of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence. Vols. VII. VIII. IX. Philadelphia. R. W. Pomeroy. 8vo.

EDUCATION.

A Grammatical Chart, or Private Instructer of the English Language. By Seth P. Hurd. Second Edition, with corrections, additions, and improvements. Boston. John Marsh.

A Grammar of Astronomy, with Problems on the Globes; to which is added, a Glossary of Terms and Questions for Examination, designed for the Use of schools and Academies. By J. Fowle. Second Edition. Philadelphia. Towar & Hogan.

The Latin Reader; chiefly from the Fourth German Edition of F. Jacobs and F. W. Doering. Second Edition. Boston. Hilliard, Gray, & Co. 12mo.

Beauties of the Children's Friend, for the Use of Schools. By the Author of the "Child's First Book." Boston. Lincoln & Edmands. 18mo. pp. 252.

HISTORY.

History of the War of the Revolution in the Southern Department of the United States. By Henry Lee. A New Edition, with Corrections made by the Author, and with Notes and Additions by II. Lee, Author of the Campaigns of '81. 8vo.

Collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society. Volume II. Concord. J. B. Moore.

The History of Dedham, from the Beginning of its Settlement in September, 1635, to May, 1827. By Erastus Worthington. Boston. 8vo. pp. 146.

LAW.

An Introductory Lecture upon Criminal Jurisprudence, delivered in Rutgers College, March 5, 1827. By J. D. Wheeler, Esq. Counsellor at Law. New York.

MEDICINE.

American Journal of Foreign Medicine. Conducted by an Association of Physicians. No. 1. Vol. I. Boston. Bowles & Dearborn. 8vo. pp. 48.