To the geologist, Great Britain offers an epitome of the world. With the exception of actual volcanic formations, and certain subordinate members in the series of rocks, few points of geological illustration are wanting to us; and some, as in the case of the coal, oolitic, and chalk formations, are more abundantly afforded than in almost any other country. Our mining districts are remarkable for their number, and the variety of their products. Within the limits of the island, nearly twenty separate coal districts are known, and in actual working. The vast, we might almost say, vital importance of these mines to the prosperity of England, is too well known to need remark. Our mines of copper, iron, lead, tin and rock-salt have also an extent and value in the national economy, which render them well worthy of observation and we may further add, that no country has contributed more to enrich with the animal organic remains of former worlds, that great field of discovery, first brought to the character of a science by Cuvier, and since so zealously and successfully cultivated by British geologists.

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To those interested in the mechanical sciences, and their application to manufactures and the arts, England offers larger scope of observation than any other country in the world. Throughout the vast establishments of our cotton, woollen, linen, silk, and hardware manufactures, there is even less to create astonishment in the multitude and variety of the products, than in the exquisite perfection of the machinery employed-machinery, such in kind, that it seems almost to usurp the functions of human in

cord of miles and furlongs, of market towns and country seats; and sundry neat volumes, which treat of the wells, and other wonders, of each of our many watering places; but a fair index to England, in its present state, we do not yet possess; although more objects, worthy of note and research, present themselves on this small surface, than on any equal extent in the world. If a young Englishman desire to see thoroughly his native country (a desire we would fain render more frequent), or an intelligent foreigner arrive with the same intent, we know no single work, scarcely any set of works, to which we could conveniently refer them, as aiding their object. The many volumes of tours, English, Scotch, and Irish, which appeared during our exclusion from the continent, even if possessing more original merit than they generally did, are already antiquated and useless. The growth of England in arts, manufactures, agriculture, and public works, has been far too mighty to be kept within the compass of these ephemeral writings; which, indeed, had chiefly concern with the natural beauties of the country. The works of an eminent foreigner, M. Dupin, which we have had occasion formerly to recommend to our readers, form, in fact, the best modern guide to the scientific tra veller in England; limited, it is true, by the particular purposes of the author; but still affording a body of useful information, accurate for the most part and well ar ranged, such as cannot readily be found elsewhere. This reproach ought, on every account, to be removed from us. Not, however, by a mere bookseller's compilation, the crambe recocta of obsolete volumes, but by an enlightened and scientific work, the fruit of intelligent observation, and collected from the best sources. We should desire to see a book, having the same excellence as a general English Guide, which Conybeare and Philips's Geology of England possesses in its particular department.

telligence.

telligence. No one can conceive its completeness, who has not witnessed the workings of the power-loom, or seen the mechanism by which the brute power of steam is made to effect the most minute and delicate processes of tambouring. Nor can any one adequately comprehend the mighty agency of the steam-engine, who has not viewed the machinery of some of our mining districts, where it is employed on a scale of magnitude and power unequalled elsewhere. In Cornwall, especially, steam-engines may be seen working with a thousand horse power, and capable (according to a usual mode of estimating their perfection as machinery) of raising nearly 50,000,000 pounds of water through the space of a foot, by the combustion of a single bushel of coals.* No Englishman, especially if destined to public life, can fitly be ignorant of these great works and operations of art which are going on around him; and if time can be afforded in general education for Paris, Rome, and Florence, time is also fairly due to Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, and Sheffield.

Nor, speaking of the manufactures of England, can those be neglected, which depend chiefly or exclusively on chemical processes. It may be conceded, that the French chemists have had their share in the suggestion of these processes; but the extent, variety, and success with which they have been brought into practical operation in England, far surpass the competition of any other country. These are, perhaps, from their nature, and from the frequent need of secrecy, the least accessible of our manufactures to common observation; yet they nevertheless offer much that is attainable and valuable in research to the intelligent traveller.

Connected with our manufactures, are the great works of the civil engineer, which cover every part of England; the canals, roads, docks, bridges, piers, &c.; works which attest more obviously than any others the activity, power, and resources of the country. Amidst their multitude it would be impossible to pursue even the slight sketch we are now giving; and the less needful from the greater familiarity of the objects themselves. Yet even these, though more familiar to observation, are much less generally known than they merit to be. They are for the most part seen rather as matter of chance, than studied as monuments of

It is a remarkable proof of the amount of improvement effected in some of the Cornish steam-engines, that the result obtained from a given quantity of coal, estimated in the manner alluded to above, is nearly three times as great now as it was twenty years ago. Nor will the spectator find more cause for astonishment in the magnitude of these engines, than in the order, or even beauty, of every minute part pertaining to them. The furniture of a drawing-room is not more scrupulously arranged, or preserved in a state of higher polish, than are those huge representatives of human power.

art,

art, or as ministering largely to public utility. Our system of canal navigation, with all its great works of reservoirs, tunnels, aqueducts, locks, and embankments, might alone form the subject of long and interesting study; and has, in fact, been made so by M. Dupin, whose writings have done so much to illustrate the superiority of England in this and all other modes of internal inter- course. If called upon to propose any summer's journey for a young English traveller, (and it is a call often made with reference to continental tours,) we might reasonably suggest the coasts of Great Britain, as affording every kind of various interest which can by possibility be desired. Such a scheme would include the ports and vast commercial establishments of Liverpool, Bristol, Greenock, Leith, Newcastle, and Hull; the great naval stations of Plymouth, Portsmouth, Chatham, and Milford; the magnificent æstuaries of the Clyde and Forth, and of the Bristol Channel, not surpassed by any in Europe; the wild and romantic coasts of the Hebrides and Western Highlands; the bold shore of North Wales; the Menai, Conway, and Sunderland bridges; the gigantic works of the Caledonian Canal and Plymouth Breakwater; and numerous other objects, which it is beyond our purpose and power to enumerate. It cannot surely be too much to advise, that Englishmen, who have only slightly and partially seen these things, should subtract something from the length or frequency of their continental journies, and give the time so gained to a survey of their own country's wonders of nature and art.

To the agriculturist, and to the lover of rural scenery, England offers much that is remarkable. The rich alluvial plains of continents may throw out a more profuse exuberance and succession of crops; but we doubt whether agriculture, as an art, has anywhere (except in Flanders and Tuscany alone) reached the same perfection as in the less fertile soils of the Lothians, Northumberland, and Norfolk. Still more peculiar is the rural scenery of England, in the various and beautiful landscape it affordsin the undulating surface-the greenness of the inclosures-the hamlets and country churches-and the farm-houses and cottages dispersed over the face of the country, instead of being congregated into villages, as in France and Italy. We might select Devonshire, Somersetshire, Herefordshire, and others of the midland counties, as pre-eminent in this character of beauty, which, however, is too familiar to our daily observation to make it needful to expatiate upon it.

Nor will our limits allow us to dwell upon that bolder form of natural scenery which we possess in the Highlands of Scotland, in Wales, Cumberland, and Derbyshire, and which entitles us to speak of this island as rich in landscape of the higher class. In the scale of objects, it is true that no comparison can exist be

tween

tween the mountain scenery of Britain, and that of many parts of the continent of Europe. But it must be remembered, that magnitude is not essential to beauty; and that even sublimity is not always to be measured by yards and feet. A mountain may be loftier, or a lake longer and wider, without any gain to that picturesque effect, which mainly depends on form, combination, and colouring. Still we do not mean to claim in these points any sort of equality with the Alps, Apennines, or Pyrenees; or to do more than assert that, with the exception of these, the more magnificent memorials of nature's workings on the globe, our own country possesses as large a proportion of fine scenery as any part of the continent of Europe.

We have entered thus far into detail on these subjects, because we feel solicitous to revive the taste for travelling in our own country; and to call back from the continent that excess of time which is so often idly and superfluously spent there. We might, however, be fairly charged with neglect on our own part, were we to omit including Ireland in the recommendation we have been earnest to give. It is unhappily true, that many of the arguments wwe have used, in reference to England, are not equally applicable to that country; but other and not less powerful reasons might be given why Ireland ought not to be so much neglected, as it actually is, by the English traveller. In a country so important as an integral part of the British empire, presenting such striking peculiarities, physical and moral, in the condition of its people, and offering at this moment so many difficult and disputed questions in legislation, it is the duty of every man actually engaged in, or rising into public life, to become himself a personal observer, as far as circumstances make it possible. The direct good that might accrue to Ireland from such more intimate intercourse, would stand in some account. The indirect results of a more general and correct knowledge of this country may be estimated as of much higher value. Nor is it on public considerations merely, that we strenuously urge the fitness of including Ireland among the various schemes of travel, which the fashion of the time is calling forth. The island, in almost every part of its circumference, abounds in objects of natural grandeur or beauty; and though the interior is comparatively tame and uninviting in landscape, the peculiar character and situation of the people in these districts must deeply excite the interest of an intelligent observer. It is true, that various inconveniences attend the present state of Irish travelling. These, however, are such, for the most part, as would be lessened or removed, were the country more habitually visited by strangers, and better tenanted by its own native proprietors; and that time may eventually produce such changes, is our fervent desire, and, we trust, not unreasonable hope.

We

We must now hasten to bring this article to a close. The subject on which we have been engaged, might have been handled with ridicule, had we thought fit to do so. But we have designedly preferred, at the risk of being more tedious, to treat it with seriousness and candour, on the fair presumption that we should in this way gain more effectually upon those whom it is our object to persuade. Our intent has been, to point out and reprehend certain abuses of a custom, in itself laudable. It has been our especial object to show, that the man who makes his native soil his chief home, brings to himself more dignity and respect to his family more peace and virtue-to his dependents more happiness-and to his country more usefulness, than he who, with his family, becomes an absentee on a foreign soil, and squanders in a vague and idle life elsewhere the time and the talents which might have been employed well and honourably here. 'Plus habet hic vitæ, plus habet ille viæ.'

ART. VII.-Historical Outline of the Establishment of the Turks in Europe. London. 8vo., 1928.

THIS Outline, which is clearly and elegantly written, and which is commonly ascribed to the pen of Lord John Russell, may be recommended to the attention of readers who want leisure or opportunity for referring to the bulky works from which the author has drawn his statements. The subject is one, we need not say, of special interest at the present moment.

Fifteen years have nearly elapsed since the great conflict which terminated the struggles of the revolutionary war, and the federal interests of Europe are yet in a condition in which it is impossible that they should continue, destitute of any orderly combination, and, in many particulars, portending considerable changes. For an orderly combination of federal interests, which should afford security to the independence of the several states, it would be necessary that alliances should have been formed, the distinct object of which should be the protection of that independence against some specific danger, and that these alliances should be strengthened by a community of concern in some common arrangement. In the federative system which has perished, the Barrier Treaty constituted such a combination; and the situation of the Netherlands, as determined by that treaty, afforded the common concern, which connected the Empire with the two maritime governments of Great Britain and the Dutch provinces, in opposition to the ambition of France. In the present state of Europe no arrangement of this kind is discoverable; the several states are connected