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    ~ TE D BEAiDIBi . [ Ite 288 | ^ ME ^ kjXA . y £ "

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    « : <>««* . « m W « faKfdiiu ^ havin £ ^ been assaxed at Saratoga a invariaWy ctmir ^ Se ^ SS ^ S ^ M ; and , after a little growling , he mounted , his box «« L ^ s « fc off Th a acoad was wretchedi The planks had not been renewed for many ^ SsTahd W flo andftxed aB out * in a m anner more ludi c rous than pleasant . When we hSccampH ^ e ***^ " * the distance * and' the nigW ^ d set in , we came to ^ waoden , teWce ^ at thejapproacfc to which , the dnve » pansed * What is the matter ?" rdSS '" m ^ igaessthere ' a aLdarn'dholein , tM 3 ' ere bridge , ! ' waslus reply . At tSintellig-dnce I suggested , as it was very dark , he shouldget out andlead his horsesV TBteTllow ^ r , dtd-not meet hfe approbatibirf and before I could alight he wMppetf tie-aaJmalfl fnribmsly } and ; over we went ; clearing hole and ; bridge at' a bound . . ¦ ' - . ' . _•__ .. . ,. . landlord of the Burnet took

    Acting on . the instructions I received from the House , I an omnibus to a place about a mile from Spring Grove , where Buggies were waiting toconvey parties to the cemetery-. " Efarej T-om / ' said 1 the driver , at whose side I wasisttatedi' " take' thi » maitto the cemetery ,. andvbBing . himibac& . afeiseven for-the last . ^ bosiV Thesa w . ord&were , addressed to , a youth in charge- o £ a buggy ,, who replied by nodding , assent , and discharging a cataract of brown saliva among a lot of hens . As 4 hei « was no time to lose , I was soon en route , " Tom" urging his horse afc the top of his speed ; . I am- not * nervous man , so , although we went at a break-neck rate , careering oveustonea and tihrougb deep ruts , I made no remonstrance , having faith in the springs . But -when , on turning a corner , we came suddenly in sight of a board , with the well-known notice , Eooh outjbr the locomotive when the bell rings , " which was made more impressive by hearing the signal , and seeing the line of steam andriver did not

    nouncing , the . proximity of a train ,, I waa somewhat anxious , as my manifest the slightest disposition to stop . As usual , the road and railway crossed on the same level , wtticn did not , lessen my anxiety . " Hold hard ! stop , stop ! " I cried ; and ay these words Teceived no attention } IT rose from my seat and grasped the driver ' s aiin ^ fdr-the-pmpoBe ^ of arresting' our progress ; bufc m- vain > Lashing the horse with redoubled energy , rhe -replied to my entreaties to = stop , by the assurance that ; he would ^ oa-headsofraie en-gine ; andi to my horror , onr we went ,, buggy and train approximatingirap idlyj afc right angles ; : the locomotive ' s bell meanwhile ringing furiously whftt-seemedj to-be , my death-inelL . Finding , all efforts to avert an . anticipated collision . wese-fufcile ,. I , resumed- my seat , and resigned myself to my fate . What I did or BaiftidwaJOftihe ^ n ^ &t few moments I know not ; but I remember a feeling of sickness camaoverinei . ' as . we dashed , across the line , and I beheld the iron horse rushing onwardsv and almost felt the hot blast of its steanvjets . said driver tfie

    " "There , ttoTAyotil'd clear the darn'd thing , ? ' my , chuckling over aeMevensentr ; f . " feutf 'forasa cIosb shave . " T&e . author BacTsimSai ? railway experiences of a like : hair-breadth nature . Fancy a whole train ascending , a mountain 2400 feet high , the cars zigzaging , and the engine sometimes taking ; a totally different direction from the cars Kafla worjito ribbons , arid carriages running o'flT the line are common occurrences ; , t $ B : worst of xt is when an accident , does occur , as of course must frejauent ]^ Bie- the case , no redress can be obtained ; remonstrance is useless , and not uncommonly passengers who are most injured , who have " damages " staring : tKem in the face , have the frightful * inconsistency to sympathise with the reckless officials . whose fault it generally is . Fancy an Englishman with -every bone of him more or less broken , delighting in the exertions of the conductor to make up-for , lost time and to get the train " on . " At the very commencement of his tour , Mi * . Weld had on opportunity of « stfmat 7 ng . the progress of that vast and powerful organisation , the Know-NotUihes * who then proposed to accomplish a partial revolution in the laws hiein

    or the tfniied" States . ; but so rapid is political as well as social ^ America , that we have already passed beyond that era , and the Know-Nothing influence approaches its end ! ,,..,. Ktr » " Weld mixed in other circles than those agitated by social and political discussions . At a cottage at Nahant he visited Mr . and Mrs . Longfellow , and ; independently- of his limited time , planned' an . excursion into the backwoods , where , as the guest of Major Strickland , he joined in the hunting , fi ^ hing ^ , aad , duQlirsUooting expeditions , visited the Indians , enjoyed the excitement of running the rapids , and , in fact , saw as much of the Canadian interior in a few . days aa some settlers would do in as many yeara . Mr . Weld accomplishes distances in fifty-four hours which took hi » brother several' w « eks ; he finds cities firmly established' whose foundation -at theid ' me of his relative ' s visit hardly existed , and he enjoys the refinements , of ' Social intercourse where fifty years ago it was unsafe to pass the night . This parallel' of" eras is almost of itself sufficient to recommend A Vacation Tour .

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    BffSTOIlimili COMMTENTARTIF' OiNP THE OM > TESTAMENT . A JKiatoricaliand ' Critical Commentary on tHe Old' Testament . Wifch a New Translation . llty ty . . Kalisch ; PM 1 ' . Dk , IE . A . English Edition * Longman and Co , W « . discover , in tuia work ; avast extent of minute and various learning ; The commentary oC'JDr , Kalisch is more practical than dogmatic . It is a laborious analysis , conducted ' for the most part upon historical principles , of the institutions and manners of the ancient Jews . Entering profoundly into the spirit and meaning of the Hebrew ! Laws , Dr . Ealiach illustrates their intention and ! character from the known usages of Eastern races , the necessities of Eastern cUmatea , and the incidents of al ^ pastoral life . To the existing body of criticisms on the Old Testament he" has applied the test of a new translation , with notes from the Rabbinical writers , as well as from thoso numerous travellers who , in modern times ,, have explored the social antiquities of the East ; So far , the method ' of the work is satisfactory . Dr . Kalisch steers between a literal ; and a fantastic interpretation . He neither reduces all narratives to allegory , nor insists upon the mechanical strictness of every ¦ Scriptural imago . But want of precision is the sin ; of his style . He perpetually congratulates hi ' m ^ el ^ by implication , upon his- own success , and 1 loves wifctt triumphant rhetoricto * confute and ! confound hia predecessors , whereas many episodea of Jewish History , au explained , by him , remain in the mythol'ogicaji ' twilight of metaphor . We •• mil" consider- two subjects of paramount intereafc ,. to the eTuoidafcion- of which Dr . Kalisch has brought all his learning and aUhispositiviBm-r-the plagues of Egypt , and the passage of the lied Sea . The profane writer * who have given an account- ofT the exodus arq Ifianetnb , Chaeremon , Lysiinachus , Artonunus , Strabo , Diodbrua * Apian' , Tacituaj , and Jtostfmis . Theiir versions , difHuriuff ; in ; circumfitfenife , are ail more or less ^ inconsistent with the Biblical' narration' a » wellas ^ i ^ ribr to it' in . order and lucidity . Manetho , who is beMeved to- have

    been a priest of Hehopolis , three centuries before the birth of Christ , states that Amenophis , king of Egypt , urged * byr an oracle , desired to rid his eountry of eighty thousand leprous Jews , who were sent to the quarries on the east of the Nile , and afterwards- to- Avaris . They chose Osarsiph , a priest of Osiris—subsequently called Moses- —to be their leader , and he , giving them new rites and' laws , encouraged them to resist the authority of the Pharaoh . From the war which thus arose , the defeated Israelites fled , and were pursued to the borders of Syria . Chaeremon , like Manetho , associates , though he does not confound , the annals of the Hyksos with those of the Jews , who are again represented as having heen driven to- Syria . Lysimachus , the Alexandrian , carries on the narrative to the apocryphal foundation of Jerusalem ; but Artapanus is the first who speaks of the miracle of" the Red Sea . Strabo differs from the other profane historians in describing-the exodus as voluntary , but Diodorus affirms that the Jews were violently expelled . Apian alludes to their leprosy , though Tacitus merely says that , a pestilence- having , desolated Egypt , the Jews were cast forth to purify the land and appease the . gods . In Justinus also , we find mention of the leprous people . Dr . Kalisch treats this as a fable , and is satirical upon those modern writers who have repeated the myth . The satire of Dr . Kalisch , however , is not always philosophical . The history of the ten Egyptian 1 plagues , which preceded the exodus , has in all ages furnished to scriptural students a subject of curious inquiry . Numerous scholars—Eichhorn among others—have sought to prove that those visitations were natural phenomena . Dr .. Kalisch declares that all . such endeavours nave been unsuccessful and futile , while many of them have been ludicrous . This is a lofty spirit in which to write the preface of a disputed proposition ; but the commentator soon narrows the space between himself and his antagonists * After a characterisation so supreme we anticipated nothing less than an absolute contradiction . The distinction , however , between ^ Kalisch- and Eichhorn amounts to this : —Eichhorn says that the plagues of Egypt were natural phenomena ; Kalisch says they were miracles " based upon" natural phenomena . It has been demonstrated that the Nile , at certain times , assumes a dark-red colour ; that generally , immediately after , this occurrence , the slime of the river breeds prodigious multitudes of frogsj while the air swarms with tormenting insects . In effect , as the Doctor allows , the succession of plagues could not be understood by any one unacquainted with the natural history of Egypt . But ,, he adds , their miraculous character was evident from the following circumstances : — They happened at an unusual time ; they succeeded one another with unparalleled' rapidity j through the discolouration of the Nile the fish of the river ' died ; the visitations came at the command of Moses , and ceased at his prayer ; they afflicted only the Egyptians , while the Jews escaped unhurt . It is not our object to discuss the nature of the events themselves ; but such assumptions ought not to be accepted upon reasonings so inconclusive . No part of the text " warrants any further belief than that the water of the Nile became of a bloody colour , and , from its corrupted condition , of a bitter taste . The Tigris has been similarly dyed ; the river Adonis , of the Lebanon , has turned the sea near its mouth to crimson . In the annals of Leipsio it is related that in 1631 the Elster ,. duringr four days , flowed of a bloody hue . The Red Sea owed its name , in the opinion of many writers , to the partial staining of the waters near Mount Sinai by certain cryptogamic plants . These circumstances , not ignored by Dr . Kalisch , might have induced him to hesitate before he asserted that the Nile , which has frequently been of a red colour , was literally , in the time of Moses , converted into blood . What is blood ? And what more probable than that , in the diseased condition of the stream , its fish should die ? Wheu he finds in the Bible that the sun and the moon shall be turned into blood , will Dr . Kalisch assume the literal fact ? Possibly , in such a case , he would maintain that the sun moved in the days of Joshua , for the merit of believing that at Joshua ' s command it stood still . This transubstantiating theory is in no sense * ' based upon natural circumstances or phenomena . " ' That the plagues occurred successively , at the instigation of Moses , though some of them are of very rare occurrence , is a circumstance adduced in proof of their miraculous origin . But Dr . Kalisch has said that " immediately after" the discoloration of the Nile , frogs swarm in the mud , and insects in the air—circumstances which , in themselves , might testify to the , presence ; of a taint in the atmosphere and in the water ; and , indeed , it resulted that the river became loathsome ( what wonder that the fish died ?) and " the whole atmosphere infected with a foetid smell" ( what wonder that sickness arose out of the universal pollution ?) . Moreover , gjnats have been the scourge of Egypt from the age of Moses to our own time . They are described by Philo , by Herodotus , by AugUstin , by Theodoret—we purposely keep within the circle of Dr . Kalisch s authorities—and their ravages were so far from being preternatural , that they are celebrated as having , upon various occasions , driven men and horses to frenzy . No very wide distinction ia to be observed between them and the beetle-flies ^ described by Moses in harmony with tho » accounts of innumerable travellers . The cattle murrain is a natural plague in all regions where the receding floods leave swamps and pools , and where hot winds parch the ground . Indeed , the only miraculous attribute ascribed to this visitation was its excessive seventy , its unseasonable occurrence , and the immunity of the Jews . The same remark applies to the , ulceus , or black leprosy , which assailed the Egyptians and left . tlxe Israelites unscathed ; to the hailstorm—not an unfrequent phenomenon in Egypt ; to the swarming of the locusts ; to the mysterious darkness , usual in April when the Khamsin blows ; and to the epidemic among children—among " the first-born , " according to the text—in which , however , says Djp . Knliscn , " pootical hyperbole" is employed , as when the writer declares that there was " not a house where there was not one dead . " I " the first place , it wo * i ld be irrational to afficm that ia every house throughout the . densely-peopled Land of Egypt there was a first-born child . Noxfc , the expression , must be used in a general sense ; because there wore no persona' to check the catalogue of deaths by visiting from liouao to house ; and'wUile this mighty panio lasted , who could telL whether all tha entitle which-dieds were- ** the first-born of every beast ?" M the plagues were natural phenomena ( Dr . Kalisch says they w « ro

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 29, 1855, page 942, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2108/page/18/