degree during a lifetime. Again and again the idea arose, "Can we ever forget the sensations of this moment?" And yet there was little mingling of fear or nervous apprehension, though surrounded by objects that might well have caused such. We were conscious rather of an elevation of spirit corresponding in some degree with the sublimity of the scene, and the vastness of the power whose operation we witnessed-a more than ordinary realisation of the presence of Him to whom earth and air, fire and water, yea, all the powers of heaven and earth, are but ministers of His will! Yet it were presumptuous to say that there is no danger to spectators in such a position-danger there must always be from the perfect uncertainty at what moment or in what place the volcano is next to find a vent. We were made to feel this especially as we stood on a little mound of lava near the mouth of the crater. On one side of this mound, and not above eight or ten feet from us, the eye looked directly into a cavern of fire-not of flame, but of clear, quivering, glowing fire, like the heart of a fierce furnace seven times heated. This aperture might be about six feet in diameter;-its depth-that of the mysterious world of terrors below! It was not a little appalling to discover, by looking at the ragged edges of this opening, how thin and slight is the crust interposed between the foot and the abyss over which it treads. Indeed, this had already been evident from the innumerable rents and chasms that seamed the surface over which we had passed, and through which the red fire was often visible at the depth of not more than two inches; and yet so firm and metal-like feels the resistance to one's step that without this awful proof the fact could scarcely be believed. From somewhere between this mound and the foot of the volcanic cone, although invisible for a few yards from what must have been its actual source, oozed forth, slowly and quietly, with a motion and consistency not inaptly likened to that of thick honey, the deep red glowing river of lava, winding its deliberate but irresistible way over the black rugged surface of the large old crater, which, as already explained, forms the whole table summit of the mountain-creeping over the precipitous ledge-and then down, down-far into the thick darkness of the world below. No description, no painting can give an idea of the intense and glowing red of this molten lava as it issues fresh from the bowels of the earth. Liquid metal flowing from the furnace of an iron-foundry is the only thing that conveys an idea of it, yet falls short of its vivid glare. A thin white vapour rose from the surface, and the light reflected from it, and colouring its ascending wreaths with a deep, rich, ruddy tint as it rose into the darkness, marked its downward course, rendering it visible from a great distance, and lending a strange wild awful character powerfully affecting the imagination. One can approach as near the running lava as the overpowering heat will permit, without the slightest apparent danger. We approached quite to the edge of it, and, holding the ends of staves, with which we were provided, to the lava, they flamed even before touching the liquid fire. One of our party availed himself of it to light a cigar-another did his best to roast an apple, but found the heat too great to complete the operation. Of course, in our cautious movements over the crackling surface, surface, we were implicitly led and assisted by our guides, who bore flaming pine torches to light our footsteps-little needed, indeed, while the artillery of the mountain was flashing in the sky, but very necessary in the deep darkness of the intervals. Strangely picturesque were the figures of these men, seen in the flickering torchlight, standing in various attitudes upon the little eminences around, leaning on their long white staves, or grouped together round some fiery chasm, the ruddy glare of the fire thrown upwards on their swarthy visages and strange dresses. At times, too, one of them would start the first notes of a simple air, and then those around would catch it up, and conclude each verse with a burst of one of those wild and most musical choruses which characterise the old native airs of Italy.'-p. 154. Nothing can take from the impressiveness of this description, the reality of which gives only a wider field for the imagination: we may, therefore, venture to wind it up with a finale in a very different key—namely, the descent from the mountain on an earlier and that a daylight visit: Every one knows there is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and this every one must have experienced who has made the usual descent from Vesuvius. The guides conducted us to a place where there was no lava or cinders, but only loose sand, in which the feet sank deep, and which yielded under the step. It is as nearly perpendicular as the place of ascent. The manner in which we set off, by the direction of the guides, who must have all done according to use and wont, was more like the act of casting one's self headlong from a stupendous precipice than anything else; yet, in truth, it is an act of wisdom, and of some degree of pleasure too. One has but to throw the feet forward, and the downward impetus of the body does the remainder of the work. The soft yielding sand completely breaks the shock. The fresh exhilarating air seems half to bear you on its wings. The sensation is one something between skating and flying, and, while strength and breath endure, decidedly a pleasant one. This is the poetical part of the proceeding to those actually engaged in this Rasselas-like adventure. But to a looker-on-the foolish, frantic, headlong pace the involuntary, but most lunatic-like gesticulation of arms and legs the breezy fluttering of ladies' dresses, dishevelled hair, and bonnets with cracking strings straining to be left behind-the giant strides, streaming coat-tails, and clenched teeth of the sterner sex-all laughing, shouting, leaping, and anon precipitated helplessly on each other's shoulders, forms a picture of the most unmingled absurdity.'p. 112. As a describer of 'Nature under an Italian sky,' our authoress is sufficiently vindicated. The refreshing difference between Nature and Art, in the mental power of judging of each, is that with the first no one can admire amiss. All that glitters with her is gold. She has nothing meretricious to mislead the eye. We may not admire enough enough we never can admire enough; but though our homage reach but to our great mother's commonest gifts, they are sure to be more than worth the tribute. Knowledge, therefore, though it may immeasurably increase our pleasure by widening our view, yet can never be called strictly necessary in a study where there is no wrong road. But where the judgment is to be applied to Art, education becomes indispensable because discernment is so, for, wherever man has part the false is sure to mingle with the true. Here there are traps for the ignorant, delusions for the ardent, and false coin for the rash. We are caught at first with that which we learn afterwards to despise; and though a fine natural taste may frequently discriminate those objects deserving homage, yet, as a rule, whatever the ignorant admire in art, and all its branches, is generally, if not the wrong, the inferior thing. The lady's Art beneath an Italian sky' is therefore not to be compared with her Nature,' though by no means without its merits for the gallery at Hamilton Palace, and doubtless other opportunities, had not left her totally untaught. Nor will her taste be arraigned for having been caught by a style of art which has recently attracted great popularity here. We allude to those two examples of what Eustace calls 'the patient skill of the sculptor'-the Pudor and the Disingannato, by Corradini, at the chapel of S. Severo at Naples. The Pudor will be recognised as the original of those 'veiled figures' so much admired in the Great Exhibition, though those have carried what may be called the trick much further than their model. Where the effect is so pleasant to the eye it is difficult to persuade ourselves that it requires no great art, and therefore presumes no high merit, to produce it--but whoever observed these heads very attentively will have discovered that the apparently mysterious process is a very simple one. A head is modelled by the sculptor in a general form, and strips of clay in the shape of folds disposed at intervals over it,leaving cavities between, through which portions of the features are seen, but which the eye, carrying on the idea suggested by the folds, imagines to be covered with the most transparent medium; whereas they are covered with nothing at all, but only duly deficient in sharpness. A highlyfinished and well-expressed head thus concealed would be labour lost;-in point of fact, therefore, instead of overcoming the difficulties inseparable from a fine work of art, the sculptor has only avoided them: the veil is much easier to execute than the human countenance divine. The 'patient skill' is more properly attributable to the other figure-a man enveloped in the meshes of a net; yet this again is only intended to conceal the absence of a higher artistic power, for the sculptor was not capable of modelling a figure correctly, and therefore cast this covering of mere labour over his ill-understood forms. The covering, it is true, is a marvel of labour and manual dexterity, but, if this be art, the workman in Bacon's studio who carved a bird in a cage has as high a claim to the title of artist, and the Chinaman who sends us a nest of balls, one within the other, and each with a surface of the most exquisite fret-work, a better claim still. In treating of pictures tourists would do well to acquaint themselves a little with the usual phraseology. The Madonna Seggiola' has no meaning whatever, and The Ascension of Mary,' instead of 'The Assumption of the Virgin,' is a needless novelty, and might be called a profane one, since the word Ascension is only applied to our Lord. A little attention to correcting the press also is not beneath such an able writer's notice. The lingua Toscano in bocca Romano' might induce an ill-natured reader to think she did not know better. We would remind a tourist also, that nothing requires greater discretion than the introduction of private persons and affairs into a narrative intended for the public. Individuals may be very interesting and dear, but unless they are famous for something more than rank they should never be directly paraded, but treated rather as abstract beings, with no more of personality attached than just to whet the curiosity of the reader. But these errors in judgment will be soon forgotten by this lady's readers :—not so the vivid impressions of reality which she well understands to conjure up. ART. II.-History of the War in Afghanistan. By J. W. Kaye. 2 vols. 8vo. 1851. UPON PON several recent occasions we have expressed a very decided opinion as to the publication by private individuals of official despatches; and now, we must at once say, we should have been disposed to comment upon the use made of similar documents by Mr. Kaye, but that we have understood that the Court of Directors, soon after the appearance of his History, ordered forty copies of it. Supposing such to be the fact, we do not consider it necessary to dwell severely on the licence assumed by a writer whom his former employers have, on whatever special grounds, forgiven. It may, however, be very safely stated stated in limine that the work is one in which, after all our vast series of blue books, the reader will find many important particulars disclosed which had hitherto been wholly, and peradventure studiously, concealed. The country which was the scene of the events described is one of great and particular interest. In geographical position Afghanistan bears a resemblance to Switzerland, and there is even in the political condition of these mountainous regions as close a similarity as any parity in outward circumstances can possibly bring about between two nations, the one of European and the other of Asiatic race. The grouping of the Afghan tribes, and their distribution under chiefs, ruling independently of each other, and yet held together by the ties of a common origin, a common faith, and in some respects a common interest, gives to their internal economy a sort of rude likeness to that of the Helvetic Confederacy; while, with regard to external politics, the Afghans, like the Swiss, have preserved themselves by their own energies from permanently sinking under either of the great powers between whom they have for so many ages stood. Looking back to the early history of the two countries, we may perhaps find that, notwithstanding the advantage enjoyed by Helvetia in having Cæsar for its first chronicler, Afghanistan has more in it to excite and reward the diligence of the antiquary. We confess that we should but recently have feared to incur ridicule by even alluding to the opinion of those who find in the Afghans the descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel; but we must say that we think no man need feel sensitive on that head since the appearance of the late statement of the arguments pro et contra by the Right Hon. Sir George Rose. We cannot go into his details at present; but, to glance merely at a few leading points, the fact of their own universal tradition, their calling themselves collectively bin Israel,' children of Israel (though they repudiate with indignation the name of 'Yahoudee or Jew), the to us new fact that one particularly warlike tribe style themselves Yousufzie-or the tribe of Joseph-and several others, taken together with the strongly Jewish cast of the modern Afghan physiognomy, seem to rebuke the levity hitherto prevalent in essays alluding to this conjecture about their origin.* As * We are very sensible that an apology may seem due to Sir G. Rose for such a merely passing reference to his work (The Affghans, The Ten Tribes, and Kings of the East, &c. London. 8vo. pp. 162. 1852); but his own pages contain many allusions to points of the highest importance, which he admits not to have been as yet properly |