"The removal of the statue of Ceres has been attempted by the French, upon a former occasion, without success. The Eleusinians also relate, that once, being brought to the shore, she returned back to her station, by a miraculous flight, like the virgin of Loretto. had, for once in his life, a flash of taste, and wrote to the ambassador to remove it, as I have since learned, but they gave it up in despair. At last come two demi-semi-travellers, from Jesus College, Cambridge, and whip it off in a trice. I'll tell you how it was done.

"After we returned from the Morea, I found the goddess in a dunghill buried up to her ears. The Eleusinian peasants, at the very mention of moving it, regarded me as one who would bring the moon from her orbit. What would become of their corn, they said, if the old lady with her basket was removed? I went to Athens, and made application to the Pacha, aiding my request by letting an English telescope glide between his fingers. The business was done; the telescope, and the popularity of the English name at present in Turkey, determined the affair; and, leaving Mr. Cripps in Athens, I set out for Eleusis, attended by a Turkish officer, Chogodar of the Pacha. But how to move a statue, weighing sundry tons, without any wheeled machine, ropes, levers, or mechanical aid! I made a triangle of wood, so~

(Here he gives a description of the machine)

the

on which I laid the goddess, with her breasts upwards, and by means of cords made of twisted herbs, brought from Athens, and about sixty peasants, she vaulted into the Acropolis of Eleusis, and from thence to the sea-side, and at length into our little Cassiot vessel; moving over the space of a mile, almost as fast as a snail. "Behold the goddess then bound for England, and touching at the Piræus, to take leave of the Athenians.

"The statue of Ceres is entire to the waist, being originally, as it is now, a bust; but of such enormous size, that I know not where the university will place it. On her head is a coronet, or basket, adorned with all the symbols of her mysteries. Her hair is bound with fillets, and her breasts are crossed with bands, supporting in front the mask, described by D'Hancarville and Montfaucon, as found on the Greek vases.

"The tomb of Euclid consists of a single column of marble, exactly answering the description given by Pausanias of the tomb of Epaminondas, at Mantinea, in Arcadia. It contains a bassrelief, representing Euclid in the long robe, which the Greeks in their sculpture particularly adopt to distinguish the philosopher, with his scroll in his hand; and above, this inscription—

ΕΥΚΛΙΔΑΣΕΥΚΛΙΔΟΥ
ΕΡΜΙΟΝΕΥΣ

"It is more interesting in showing that he was a native of the town of Hermione, in the Morea; and may account for his having

founded the school of Megara. But here you have the start of me, for I know nothing of his life, and am only occupied in thinking how interesting such an antiquity must be for the University of Cambridge, where the name of Euclid is so particularly revered. We have many things besides; the statue of Pan, that was in the grotto of that deity in the Acropolis, at Athens; part of a bass-relief from the Parthenon, the work of Phidias; a whole coluinn of verd antique, from the temple of Minerva Polias; and many other bass-reliefs, inscriptions, &c. I have collected above a thousand Greek medals, bronze, silver, and gold; of plants, I will not now speak. The manuscripts I have already made you acquainted with. Our minerals we completed at Constantinople, and have hardly found any since.

"In the Morea I obtained several Greek vases, which will be a discovery highly gratifying to Sir W. Hamilton, who had before great reason to believe that these vases were found in Greece, by a specimen brought from the isle of Milo, by Messrs. Berners and Tilson. I have enclosed for you and your friends, two or three crocuses, which I plucked in the plain of Marathon, for the express purpose of sending you, in a letter, to England. At Delphos we found several inscriptions, which, I believe, have not been known to travellers; at Orchomene many more, and very interesting.

"We have hardly a rag to our backs, and know not how we shall make our wardrobe hold out to Constantinople. Clean shirts upon Sundays, like the Russians, and coats out at elbows. As for Antoine, he is dressed in the blankets of the Albanians, and, perhaps, the best off of all; your Macedonian raiment laughs at a modern frock. Cripps has let his beard grow these six months. I want no such marks of sanctitude. Certainly, you would not recognise either of us. We have just heard the news of a general peace, so we shall abbreviate our journey, by a cut through France, and a visit to Paris.

“I know you will pay heavily for this letter, and that is perfectly indifferent to me. If you will make me write, you should be taxed to help government to patch up accounts at the end of the war. The tomb of the Athenians still remains in the plain of Marathon, as well as those of the Thebans at Cheronea. (We found the tomb of Hesiod, at Orchomene, and of the Spartans, in the defile of Thermopyla. This note I have added since.) The little dog you left me, is with us still. But I lost the most beautiful animal in Thebes; a dog like a lion, that I had brought from the temple of Esculapius, in Epidauria, in the Morea. He was my companion by day, and our guard by night. The thievish Thebans decoyed him, and I saw him no more.

I cannot see to write more.

Our

little cabin is filled with smoke, and my eyes stream with tears of acknowledgment for a fire so near the seat of Apollo. Parnassus VOL. II.

16

affords us sensations at our fingers' ends, to which we have long been strangers. Adieu! God bless you! Cripps sends many earnest wishes for a speedy meeting." pp. 348-351.

He was three years on this tour, and returned to England with his health considerably affected by the labors he had undergone. His mother had died just before his arrival, his sister had married, and, on visiting his late home at Uckfield, he found scarcely any traces of the family but his mother's grave. He then went to reside at Cambridge, where, soon after, he married very happily, entered into holy orders, obtained a couple of livings, and began to deliver lectures on mineralogy and prepare his travels for publication. He obtained so much credit by these lectures, that a new professorship, that of mineralogy, was established in the university on his account, and he was promoted to the chair. The activity of his mind seems now to have taken a different direction from that of his early life. His passion for travel had been fully gratified, and his mind had laid up materials for the employment of the rest of his life. His duties as parish priest, the immense labor, for such he made it, of preparing his travels for the press, his devotion to the study of mineralogy, and his assiduity in the duties of his professorship, made his life a scene of vehement and unremitting labor. This, together perhaps with too little bodily exercise, gradually destroyed his constitution and brought on his death. He published the last volume of his travels in 1819, and died in the beginning of 1821. He had directed to his studies the same impetuosity of mind, which the conquerors of the world have directed to the art of war, and he experienced a common fate with them, cut off prematurely in the midst of his triumphs. We have room only for a part of the summary of his character, given us by his biographer.

"The two most remarkable qualities of his mind were enthusiasm and benevolence, remarkable, not more for the degree in which they were possessed by him, than for the happy combinations in which they entered into the whole course and tenor of his life; modifying and forming a character, in which the most eager pursuit of science was softened by social and moral views, and an extensive exercise of all the charities of our nature was animated with a spirit which gave them a higher value in the minds of all with whom he had relation or communion.

"His ardor for knowledge, not unaptly called by his old tutor, literary heroism, was one of the most zealous, the most sustained, the most enduring principles of action, that ever animated a human breast; a principle which strengthened with his increasing years, and carried him at last to an extent and variety of knowledge

infinitely exceeding the promise of his youth, and apparently disproportioned to the means with which he was endowed; for though his memory was admirable, his attention always ardent and awake, and his perceptions quick and vivid, the grasp of his mind was not greater than that of other intelligent men; and in closeness and acuteness of reasoning, he had certainly no advantage, while his devious and analytic method of acquiring knowledge, involving, as it did in some of the steps, all the pain of a discovery, was a real impediment in his way, which required much patient labor to overcome. But the unwearied energy of this passion bore down every obstacle and supplied every defect; and thus it was, that always pressing forward without losing an atom of the ground he had gained, profiting by his own errors as much as by the lights of other men, his maturer advances in knowledge often extorted respect from the very persons who had regarded his early efforts with a sentiment approaching to ridicule. Allied to this was his generous love of genius, with his quick perception of it in other men; qualities which, united with his good nature, exempted him from those envyings and jealousies which it is the tendency of literary ambition to inspire, and rendered him no less disposed to honor the successful efforts of the competitors who had got before him in the race, than prompt to encourage those whom accident or want of opportunity had left behind. But the most pleasing exercise of these qualities was to be observed in his intercourse with modest and intelligent young men; none of whom ever lived much in his society without being improved and delighted-improved by the enlargement or elevation of their views, and delighted with having some useful or honorable pursuit suitable to their talents pointed our to them, or some portion of his own enthusiasm imparted to their minds." pp. 463, 464.

Among the services rendered to science by Dr. Clarke, his biographer has classed the discovery of the gas blow-pipe. This is wrong; the credit of the invention is due to an American chemist, Professor Hare, of Philadelphia, whose experiments were made fifteen years before those of Dr. Clarke, and were already before the world. The claims of Mr. Hare to the invention of of this instrument have been stated, and vindicated, in the second volume of Silliman's "Journal of Arts and Sciences;" and, after this, it argues either disingenuousness or want of information in his biographer, to speak of certain "experiments" performed "in America, by Mr. Hare, by a different method, but not with the same results."

MISCELLANY.

ON CRANIOLOGY.

THE knowledge of mankind, as it is commonly called, or an accurate acquaintance with the characters, propensities, and ruling passions of our fellow-creatures, is, by common consent, admitted to be most desirable. But the acquisition of any considerable amount of this, requires a degree of experience, observation, and coolness, which belongs to few. It has been a characteristic of those, who have, at various times, made themselves great among mankind; and has been usually shown, in the most striking manner, in their choice of officers, ministers, or coadjutors. The eye of a Cæsar, a Cromwell, a Bonaparte, or a Washington, could single out, almost with a glance, from among the herd of ordinary men, that surrounded them, the master spirits, whose aid was to be secured at any price, or whose opposition was to be crushed at any hazard.

To make this knowledge easier of acquisition, has accordingly been, at all times, a favorite project among mankind. It is now about half a century since the appearance of the celebrated work of Lavater, which professed to teach the art of discovering the character, from the form and marks of the countenance. This was received with uncommon avidity, and all Europe longed to believe in it. But it could not stand the test of experience. The science of physiognomy was outlived by its ingenious author; and his book, once so common, is now confined to the libraries of the curious.

When the celebrated Dr. Cullen was reproved by some of his professional brethren, for encouraging among the students, at the university of Edinburgh, a discussion upon some subject that was purely speculative, and seemed unlikely to answer any practical purpose, his reply was; "My friends, there must be a tub to amuse the whale." This maxim has heen practised upon, by more persons than Dr. Cullen; and hardly had public curiosity become satiated with physiognomy, when a new tub was thrown to the whale, with the imposing title of craniology.

This science proposes to substitute a mechanical examination of a man's skull, for a long and tedious course of examination of his actions and probable motives; and to settle, by the application of a graduated arc, or a pair of calliper compasses, what we find