beast. It would seem that himself, his wives and offspring were half dead with hunger when they came into the camp. The favourite wife," the huge-mouthed Nomah," devours pounds of nearly raw beef, seasoned with wood-ashes, at a sitting :The very infants, like the ravenous whelps of wolves, appeared to have an innate relish for blood; and whilst these royal imps, in a state of pot-bellied repletion, were disputing with hungry curs the possession of a few morsels cast to them by their affectionate parents, the followers outside the shed were equally busy with the more disgusting offal, which had been rejected from the regal repast: at the conclusion of which the royal paws, covered with the greasy residue of the feast, would be purified by ample ablutions of cow dung. It is curious to notice the confidence with which the writer of this book looks forward to the speedy conclusion of the Kaffir war under the energetic rule of Sir Harry Smith. He has not the shadow of a doubt but that the hero of Aliwal will settle the whole business in a few weeks by the utter subjugation of the rebels. We all know the value of this confident prophecy. In another respect his penetration is more creditable to him. He recommends in his second volume the very measure which General Cathcart has lately adopted; that is, the destruction of the cattle as fast as they are captured; and really since the ox, in this strange battle-field, seems to be the casus belli, there appears some chance of terminating the strife by removing him out of the way. The author has an interview with Gordon Cumming, the mighty hunter of the desert, of whom some strange things are narrated, which we have not space to quote. The following passage on the subject of Jan Tzatzoe we recommend to the friends of missions, as being probably susceptible of a modifying commentary. "Agonistes" prevents, it may be, a candid judgment of the modern ballad. We should like to see the second poem of the series; and we trust the encouragement afforded to the first will be, as it ought to be, sufficient to induce the author to proceed with his design. Helen of Innspruck; or, The Maid of the Tyrol. A Poem, in Six Cantos. London: Hamilton, Adams and Co. Bristol: Henry Oldland. 1852. WE are informed in a short prefatory notice that this poem was originally composed for the amusement of a child-that it was hastily conceived and It bears, however, but as promptly executed. few marks of hastiness in its composition. The verse, which is in the Spenserian measure, is fluent and melodious throughout, and is the vehicle of much true poetic sentiment. The plot, though simple, is ingenious and not improbable. Helen, the heroine, is a Perdita whom Hofer has rescued in her infancy from perishing in the snow, and who has grown into a lovely woman at the period when the action of the poem begins. After the betrayal and murder of Hofer, her parentage is discovered, and she marries the object of her choice, a young Englishman who was the companion of the patriot martyr in his gallant struggles for freedom. The principal events of that mountain warfare are well pourtrayed in vigorous verse, and justice is done to the memory of the great man whom France so basely slew. This little volume will be read with much pleasure by the young and enthusiastic, while those who are neither the one nor the other will gather from its perusal the conviction that the writer, if he will abandon hasty conceptions and prompt executions, and give his muse a fair chance, possesses the power of producing something of far greater value. It may perhaps not be generally known to the religious British public, that this pretended convert to Christianity, who, under the auspices of a certain reverend doctor, was a few years since smuggled from the Cape, The Course of Faith; or, the Practical Believer paraded at Exeter Hall, and excited such ill-directed sympathy in England, appeared foremost in arms against us during the late Kaffir war. This may be true, for aught we know, and Jan may have been as good a Christian as Lieut. Col. E. Napier, notwithstanding. Lays of Ancient Israel. By a Loiterer in the Holy Delineated. By JOHN ANGELL JAMES. London: Hamilton, Adams and Co., Paternoster-row. Birmingham: Hudson and Son; and R. Matthison. 1852. THE name of John Angell James, and the practical character of all his writings, are so well known in the religious world that it would be superfluous in us to do more than direct the attention of the reader to the fact that a new publication from his pen has made its appearance. This volume, we are told, is the substance of a course of week-day sermons preached in Birmingham a few years THE author of the "Last of the Judges" possesses since. We are not forbidden, however, to suppose considerable power as a versifier. We do not in- that they have been carefully revised and finished tend to signify by this faint praise that there is no since their delivery from the pulpit. Both in poetry in the composition before us; there is, on point of style and in point of matter they bear the contrary, a great deal of poetic imagery in evidence of carefulness and deliberation. Though these pages, and we have read them with a certain the volume be but small the subject is comprehendegree of pleasure. But there is a want of vigour sively treated, and we need hardly say to those and of climax, and of something else which it is who know anything of the author, that it is treated not very easy to define; the reader feels at times as in a manner perfectly intelligible to the mass of though he were on the very verge of excellence, readers. Had we space to spare we should feel which yet he never arrives at. Perhaps the sha-tempted to extract the definition of Faith which dow of Milton haunts the mind while one reads a will be found in the first discourse of the song about Samson. The classic grandeur of the series; but it is too long for our columns, and we fear our patrons would be inclined to think it something too serious for a periodical devoted to general literature. There is no doubt but this volume will make its way-not so rapidly, perhaps, as some popular productions of the same pen, but as surely. It may be that it will last the longest of all this author's performances. Domestic Memoirs of a Christian Family resident in As a family book, for use among young people, we think the "Domestic Memoirs" likely to be well received. They supply unexceptionable matter for Sunday reading, matter well adapted for that class who rarely read on any other day. The only drawback to this application of the book are the various scraps of Latin quotations, which should have been omitted. Michele Orombello; or, The Fatal Secret. A Tragedy 66 The T. Hatchard, 187, Piccadilly. 1852. MR. TUDOR is the Honorary Secretary of the Grosvenor District of the Church Missionary Society, and he dedicates the profits of this work to the Or these two dramatic poems published in India, furtherance of the interests of that society. The Michele Orombello" is by far the cleverer producsale of the first edition realised a considerable tion. The character of Beatrice di Tenda, the misersum, and the author hopes, by the sale of another able wife of the ruffian Duke of Milan, is delineated impression at a reduced price, further to augment with considerable power; and the last scene, where his contributions to the Society's funds. The pur- she is made to witness the death of her long-lost chaser, therefore, of the "Domestic Memoirs" will son, and exposes the infamy of her husband, is one have the satisfaction of doing a little towards aiding of fine dramatic effect. "The Assassin,” the longer a good work. This is an inducement we should piece, in five acts, is less to our taste. The author not think of proffering to public acceptance were informs us that the incidents upon which it is based the volume before us an indifferent or unworthy are founded in fact; but it is easy to see that the production; because we have no notion of buy- foundation must be exceedingly narrow. By some ing a bad book to promote a good object. But Mr. strange misapprehension, the deeds of Mocenigo Tudor's book is upon the whole a good book, and and Rinaldo are at the outset jumbled together. one which, being calculated to be useful, deserves One or other of them has gathered laurels in a to be extensively read. We do not agree with all recent war, but which of them is not so clear ; but, the views of the writer, and, in some instances, as Rinaldo is preferred by the heroine, we suppose cannot recognise the force of the arguments by it must be he, though the other is lauded as the which he defends even those with which we do successful warrior in the opening scene. agree. It further appears to us that the chief per-villain Luigi triumphs up to the last moment, sonages of this ". Christian Family" are models of when his punishment is secured by the clumsy a perfection by far too complete for humanity. If artifice of a written confession, which he claims their prototypes are to be met with in Cumberland, from the confessor in the face of the tribunal which certain we are they are to be found nowhere else has acquitted him. The versification of these upon the face of the earth. We would climb Skid- dramas is correct and energetic-to poetry, in the daw through a November fog to get a glimpse of feeblest sense of the term, they have little claim. such a couple as Mr. and Mrs. Gracelove. There Clara is a namby-pamby bread-and-butter heroine is not a single character in the whole of the Old of the boarding-school class, fit only for the wife Testament worthy to associate with them-and of a milk-sop, or to figure in finery in the front but one, whom it would be irreverent to name in this place, in the New. This is a fault in the book, three dashing fellows with long swords daring and row of an opera-box; and one wonders to see but it is a venial one, and may be passed over in dying for her milk-and-water preference. consideration of its various compensating merits. Some of our social usages and their moral tendencies are discussed with considerable force and acuThe Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon: A History of men: among other subjects, the Sabbath question the early Inhabitants of Britain, down to the Conis handled in a manner which admits of no appeal, version of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. Illus if the Bible is to be taken as an authority. There trated by the Ancient Remains brought to light by are nearly two chapters on the subject of Popery, recent research. By THOMAS WRIGHT, Esq., M.A., its absurdities, blasphemies and Mariolatry; and F.S.A., M.R.S.L., &c. London: Arthur Hall, Virchapter the twelfth gives a translation of Pope tue and Co, Paternoster-row. 1852. Gregory XVI.'s Encyclical Letter on the subject EXPERIENCE has taught us to look upon the literary of the Bible societies, a document with which Pro-productions of the antiquary and the archaeologist testants ought to be well acquainted. with a certain amount of suspicion and mistrust. Not the least pleasant parts of this book are the So much nonsense has from time to time been said descriptions of the lake scenery, where the author and written on the subject of ancient remains, and appears to be quite at home. These descriptions so many strange and preposterous notions have are interspersed through the several chapters, being been pushed into temporary acceptation by the aid introduced in the course of the narrative, the events of nondescript rubbish dug out of the earth, that of which take place mostly in the district of the lakes. we have grown instinctively sceptical on the sub[ject of antiquity, and came long ago to the resolu tion to believe no farther than we were fairly warranted in believing by the evidence of the facts set before us. Mr. Wright, to whom the world is largely indebted for his extensive research and cautious judgment, seems to be very much of the same way of thinking. Though an enthusiastic antiquary and collector, he goes zealously in search, not of marvels and miracles, but of simple truths and the facts of history. He has no favourite notions to bolster up-no startling theory to establish; but he reads, and enables the student to read, the records of the past in the relics which yet remain. A writer of solid scientific attainments, labouring in such a spirit, could not fail of producing a work of value; and, accordingly, the volume before us is one of sterling worth, calculated to be of great practical utility to all students of British history. The writer says, in his preface, that his object is "to give a sketch of that part of our history which is not generally treated of, the period before Britain became Christian England; the period, indeed, which, in the absence of documentary evidence, it is the peculiar province of the antiquary to illustrate." We are inclined to think that Mr. Wright has done this as perfectly as it was possible to do it within the compass of a single volume, with the means, still very imperfect, which the antiquary, whose documents are rocks and stones, coins and weapons, vases and vessels, pots and pans, and fragmentary inscriptions, &c., &c., has at his command. We would refer to the second chapter, which treats principally of the cromlechs, stone circles and stone monuments, with the huge barrows that one sees in some parts of the country, as evidencing the judicious spirit in which this volume is written. Let the reader compare the contents of that chapter with the bloody Moloch sacrifices which have been sung by poets, bewailed by divines, and painted by Martin; and unless he have a morbid taste for the diabolical and the horrible, he will be thankful to know that those wholesale murders never were perpetrated save in the imaginations of a class with whom remoteness is mystery, and mystery must needs be full of horror. The young student of English history will do well to procure a copy of this book. It is not a volume which can be read once, and then laid aside as done with. It contains a mass of information upon subjects familiar only to the accomplished archeologist, and must be referred to again and again in the course of a man's general reading. It is profusely illustrated with capital wood-engravings-in fact, as the author hints, its value would be greatly prejudiced without them—and no expense appears to have been spared by the publishers in order to render the book worthy of a place in any library. LIFE ASSURANCE COMPANIES. Scottish Equitable Life Assurance Society.-| From the Report by the Directors of this Society to the twenty-first annual general meeting, held on 4th May, 1852, we learn that in regard to the business transacted during the past year, the number of policies issued from 1st March, 1851, to 1st March, 1852, is 614. The sums thereby assured amount to £290,850; and the premiums and entry. money thereon to £10,231. The policies lapsed by death during last year are 73 in number, assuring £50,175, the bonuses on which amount to £10,006. The number of deaths which have occurred is seven more than in the preceding year, and the amount payable exceeds it by £10,010. But the rate of mortality is greatly under that upon which the Society's calculations are founded. The business of the year just concluded exceeds that of the year ending 1st March, 1850, by 132 policies and £39,500 of assurance. The following is the position of the Society's affairs at 1st March, 1852, after deducting all emerged and surrendered policies, and all claims of whatever kind sub sisting against the Society : Looking to the progress and situation of the Society, the members have, upon the whole, abundant reason for congratulation. The Report goes on to state that the Directors have seen cause to make policies indefeasible, after the lapse of a certain time. This great boon was pressed anxiously on the attention of the Directors; and they have come to be of opinion that they can grant this without injuring in the slightest respect the interests of the Society. Parties now, who are able to answer certain questions, to the effect that they have no immediate or probable intention of going abroad for any purpose, will obtam an indefeasible policy; so that in five years they will be able to go to any part of the world they like, without the expense of any extra premium. London Indisputable Life Policy Company.The report of this company, read at a meeting of the members held at the London Tavern, on the 9th of June shows that, at the date of the last annual meeting, the company had issued 1,015 policies, assuring the sum of £303 779; and in the course of the last twelve months there have been The sums remaining assured amount to......... £3,737,560 received 513 proposals for the assurance of £186,907 5s., The annual revenue amounts to......... 136,960 of which 428 have been accepted and completed, asAnd the accumulated fund has increased to... 688,531 suring £127,812 19s., and yielding in annual premiums £1,702 3s. Od., being a considerable increase over the business of the previous year, and making the number of policies issued since the establishment of the company, 1,443, assuring £431,591 19s. After deducting the policies that have become claims, those that have expired, and those that have dropped, there remain 1,184 policies, yielding an annual income of £13,796 3s. ld. From the balance-sheet to 31st December last, it appears that, after providing for the payment of the sums assured and outstanding debts, including the whole preliminary expenses attending the formation of the company, there was at that period a balance of £28,504 103. 1d., applicable to the reduction of premiums as provided by the deed of constitution. The claims of last year amounted only to £1,742 14s., making the total amount of claims, from the commencement of the company, £3,941 14s. The premiums received upon expired and lapsed policies, which no longer continue as obligations on the company, have amounted to £1,703 14s. quarterly system, and therefore the absolute new income represented by the above amount is £7,380 17s. 1ld. During the year 1851, the gross sum proposed to the company was no less than £426,380 2s. Nearly the whole of the insurances completed are on first-class lives, and the principal reason of so large a proportion of the whole sum proposed not being completed arose either from the premiums demanded by the directors being too high, or that the risks in the majority of cases were deemed so great, that the proposals were either absolutely declined, or the parties requested to withdraw them. During the past year claims have been paid upon thirty-eight policies, insuring thirty-three lives, twelve policies have been surrendered, six policies have expired, and forty-seven policies have become forfeited by non-renewal. In all, 103 policies have lapsed during the year, insuring £87,162 7s. 5d.; and upon which the company have paid for claims and surrenders £27,668 10s. 5d. During the same period, eight annuities have lapsed, upon which the company were paying £574 3s. 10d. per annum. The present value of this sum is £2,008 18s. 4d. to the credit of the company. The directors then recommend that an alteration should be made in the rules and regulations of the company as to the declaration of future dividends, and that the dividend for the next half-year should be increased from 10s. to 15s. per share. Kent Mutual (Life) Assurance Society.-At the annual meeting of this society, held on the 19th May last, Mr. Cumming, the Manager, read a report, from which we extract the following:-"At the last annual meeting (7th July, 1851) the directors had the satisfaction of reporting to the members the very gratifying result of the transac tions of the society since its formation in the previous year. And from the statement which the directors are now The Times Life Assurance and Guarantee Comenabled to add to that furnished to the members at the last pany.-The following extracts from the third report of annual meeting, it will be observed that the amount of this company show its present state and prospects. After business transacted continues to be of an encouraging cha- premising that the business transactions of the year racter. In all, since the formation of the society up to the 1850-51 doubled those of the preceding year, the first of 31st of March last, there have been received 540 proposals the company's existence; the directors submit the folfor the assurance of £134,839 0s. 5d. Of these proposals | lowing statement, showing the business of the company for 420 have been accepted and completed, assuring £103,739 the year which is closing: 14s., and yielding in premiums £3,663 17s. 11d. The remainder have either been declined, not taken up, or now await completion. Upon the subject of the deaths which have occurred-the claims consequent upon which, amounting to £1,325, having been promptly met-the Directors are called upon to say that great care has been evinced, both upon their part and on that of the medical officers, in the examination and selection of lives. It appears from the balance-sheet that the utmost economy in the management has been exercised by the Directors, and the expenses of management continue to be unusually small. The state of the advances made on loan by the Society is, in every view, satisfactory; and the Directors are of opinion that the success of the Society has been as rapid as could have been reasonably expected." European Life-Assurance and Annuity Company. At the sixty-second annual general meeting of this company, held on the third of May last, the directors submitted a report, from which we select the following particulars:-The directors have much pleasure in referring to the continued prosperity which has attended their efforts, and which has far exceeded their most sanguine expecta tions. The accounts, as certified by the auditors, show that, during the year 1851, new policies were completed insuring the sum of £223,005 3s., and representing new premiums to the amount of £7,085 16s. 7d. Many of these insurances have been effected upon the half-yearly and Number of proposals made tion . No. Agg. amount. Income. £ s. d. 1,247 349,874 7,614 1 7 843 196,563 4,000 6 1 206 87,631 2,125 0 4 132 31,670 813 11 9 The above shows a large increase of business, especially in the number of policies issued, which is the best test of the estimation in which a society is held by the public, and the best guarantee for its prosperity. The policies have increased from 217 in the first year to 619 in the second, and to 843 in the third-the amount assured from £196,563 in the first year to £421,879 in the third-and the annual income from £1,180 in the first year to £7,700 in the third the business of the last year having exceeded, in every particular, that of the two preceding years taken together. The directors rightly conceive that these "facts and figures" require no comment. LONDON: SALISBURY AND CO., PRINTERS, BOUVERIE-STREET AND PRIMROSE-HILL, FLEET-STREET. TAIT'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. AUGUST, 1852. THE GOVERNMENTS OF CONTINENTAL EUROPE. V. PRUSSIA. FREDERICK WILLIAM III., of Prussia, died on the 7th of June, 1840. No king was ever more beloved, or departed from the world more regretted by his subjects. The purity of his private character, which was not stained by a single vice, rendered him the most virtuous, and by far the most respectable, sovereign in Europe. He left his kingdom to his successor in a condition of general prosperity and formidable power. The Congress of Vienna did not restore to him the Duchy of Warsaw, but that duchy was taken from the King of Saxony with more than half of his hereditary dominions. The former was given to the Emperor Alexander; the latter, with all the former dominions west of the Elbe, Westphalia, and the country west of the Rhine, to the frontiers of the Netherlands and Belgium, France, and of the Mayence section of Darmstadt, were added to the kingdom of Prussia. Frederick William III. had experienced in his latter days a perplexing, because a religious difficulty, with respect to his authority. In his Rhenish provinces, where the Code-Napoleon has, until the present time, remained in full force, and by which marriages are not considered religious sacraments, but civil contracts, an overbearing and ambitious prelate, the Archbishop of Cologne, obtruded his ecclesiastical assumptions and spiritual influence in defiance of the law of his sovereign, and de facto excluded or excommunicated from the Romish Church all Catholics who married Protestants. In 1837 and 1838 the terrors of the Church became more formidable than the power of the king or the authority of the law. Frederick William, who never acted but with Christian charity towards his Catholic subjects, resolved that the Romish priest should not usurp the civil power, and subvert the laws by the damnatory force of spiritual terror. He therefore arrested the archbishop and carried him to the fortress of Minden, where, though deprived of personal liberty, he was other wise respectfully treated. All rational and impartial men justified the king. Yet the imperial family of Austria, who seldom allowed the Pope to exercise VOL. XIX.-NO. CCXXIV. (CONCLUDED.) any real ecclesiastical authority within the Austrian dominions, were, in the other states of Germany, the pontiff's and archbishop's devoted supporters. The King of Prussia persevered amidst perplexing difficulties, and was so far triumphant that the question was settled afterwards by a compromise. It will, we fear, be resuscitated by the Romish priests, who have ever, secretly or openly, hated civil authority, especially in Germany. The other difficulty which he experienced was more natural. It was the natural right of man deferred by delaying to grant the promised representative constitution. We believe that he was governed, in procrastinating the fulfilment of that promise, by his fear or apprehension that, in operation, it might, from the inexperience of his people in self-legislation, disturb the tranquillity of the lat ter years of his reign; and that when granting the constitution became prudent and expedient, its adjustment to correspond with the necessities of the state required a younger and more vigorous sovereign. He believed that his eldest son and successor possessed all the administrative ability and vigour required in a constitutional monarchy. The late King of Prussia never overcame the sorrow which oppressed him on the death of his queen, and which affected him afterwards through life. Those only who have travelled over, and lived in Prussia, can justly appreciate the love which to this day prevails among all classes for the memory of that charming, lovely, and virtuous personage. It is true that he some years after her death married a subject, the Princess de Leignitz. But the latter never effaced the king's af fection for the memory of his queen; each year the anniversary day of her death was spent by him in retirement, sad and alone, usually in some wild solitude near Teplitz. At all other times the Princess de Leignitz was his affectionate wife and companion; but it appeared the affection of friendship for her personal kiudness and attachment at all times to himself, and an esteem that he evidently entertained for her mental accomplishments, which, in companionship, dispelled much of the sadness which afflicted him when alone. 2 G |