wretch to perish by the fury of wild beasts." "Peace!" said the angel," and observe."

He looked again, and behold a vessel arrived at the desolate isle. What words can paint the rapture of the starving merchant, when the captain offered to transport him to his native country, if he would reward him with half the jewels of his casket. No sooner had this pitiless commander received the stipulated sum, than he held a consultation with his crew, and they agreed to seize the remaining jewels, and leave the unhappy exile in the same helpless and lamentable condition in which they discovered him. He wept and trembled, entreated and implored in vain.

"Will Heaven permit such injustice to be practised ?" exclaimed Bozaldab. "Look again, said the angel," and behold · the very ship in which, shortsighted as thou art, thou wishedst the merchant might embark, dashed in pieces on a rock: dost thou not hear the cries of the sinking sailors? Presume not to direct the Governor of the Universe in his disposal of events. The man whom thou hast pitied shall be taken from this dreary solitude, but not by the method thou wouldst prescribe. His vice was avarice, by which he became not only abominable, but wretched; he fancied some mighty charm in wealth, which, like the wand of Abdiel, would gratify every wish and obviate every fear. This wealth he has now been taught not only to despise but to abhor; he cast his jewels upon the sand, and confessed them to be useless; he offered part of them to the mariners, and perceived them to be pernicious; he has now learned that they are rendered useful or vain, good or evil, only by the situation and temper of the possessor. Happy is he whom distress has taught wisdom! But turn thine eyes to another and more interesting scene."

The Caliph instantly beheld a magnificent palace, adorned

with the statues of his ancestors wrought in jasper; the ivory doors of which, turning on hinges of the gold of Golconda, discovered a throne of diamonds, surrounded with the rajahs of fifty nations, and with ambassadors in various habits, and of different complexions; on which sat Aboram, the much lamented son of Bozaldab, and by his side a princess fairer than a houri. “Oh,

4

"Gracious Alla !—it is my son," cried the Caliph. let me hold him to my heart!" "Thou canst not grasp an unsubstantial vision," replied the angel: "I am now showing thee what would have been the destiny of thy son had he continued longer on the earth. "And why," returned Bozaldab, "was he not permitted to continue? Why was not I suffered to be a witness of so much felicity and glory? "Consider the sequel," replied he that dwells in the fifth heaven. Bozaldab looked earnestly, and saw the countenance of his son, on which he had been used to behold the placid smile of simplicity and the vivid blushes of health, now distorted with rage and now fixed in the insensibility of drunkenness; it was again animated with disdain, it became pale with apprehension, and appeared to be withered by intemperance; his hands were stained with blood, and he trembled by turns with fury and terror; the palace so lately shining with oriental pomp changed suddenly into the cell of a dungeon, where his son lay stretched out on the cold pavement, gagged and bound, with his eyes put out. Soon after he perceived the favourite Sultana, who before was seated by his side, enter with a bowl of poison, which she compelled Aboran to drink, and afterwards married the successor to his throne.

"Happy," said Caloc, "is he whom Providence has, by the Angel of Death, snatched from guilt! from whom that power is withheld, which, if he had possessed, would have accumula

ted upon himself yet greater misery than it could bring upon others."

"It is enough," cried Bozaldab; "I adore the inscrutable schemes of Omniscience !-From what dreadful evil has my son been rescued by a death which I rashly bewailed as unfortunate and premature; a death of innocence and peace which has blessed his memory upon earth, and transmitted his spirit to the skies!"

"Cast away the dagger," replied the heavenly messenger, "which thou wast preparing to plunge into thine own heart. Exchange complaint for silence, and doubt for adoration. Can a mortal look down without giddiness and stupefaction into the vast abyss of eternal wisdom? Can a mind that sees not infinitely, perfectly comprehend any thing among an infinity of objects mutually relative? Can the channels which thou commandest to be cut to receive the annual inundations of the Nile, contain the waters of the ocean? Remember that perfect happiness cannot be conferred on a creature; for perfect happiness is an attribute as incommunicable as perfect power and eternity."

The angel, while he was speaking thus, stretched out his pinions to fly back to the Empyreum; and the flutter of his wings was like the rushing of a cataract.

Caliph was the title of certain dynasties of Mohammedan sovereigns regarded as successors and representatives of the prophet. There were reigning at the same time the Abasside Caliphs in Bagdad; the Fatimide in Egypt, and the Omayyade in Spain. The first Fatimide Caliph,

Obeidallah, assumed the sovereign power A.D. 910, and Adhed, the last of that dynasty, died A.D. 1171. The name of Bozaldab is, of course, imaginary; no Caliph so designated appears. Moez, the fourth Caliph, who was the most renowned of the Fatimides, conquered Egypt, removed his court there, and founded Cairo. He conquered the whole of Palestine and Syria; his son Aziz, who succeeded him, married a Christian woman, and he made her brothers patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem. The Caliph was at the same time the supreme pontiff and temporal sovereign of the empire; and, in this twofold capacity, there may be said to be five principal duties incident to the office, viz, prayer, the administration of justice, the decision of matters not provided for by the laws, conduct of the war against infidels, and the maintenance of order and security in the state.

V.

The Hall of Silence.

CARCELY any country on the globe affords so much scope for the imagination as Tibet, where is laid the locality of this tale. It is an anonymous production, and appeared in a forgotten periodical, some thirty years since. It is a good picture of the habits of the country, as far as we are acquainted with Tibet: certainly that knowledge is but slight, for, being under the vassalage of the Chinese, whose jealous exclusion of foreigners is a bar to all improvement of manners and customs, it is a rare circumstance to hear of an European traveller from Tibet.

The aim of the author is to set forth the advantages of knowledge, as, by means of his acquirements in foreign lands, the slave Ackbar was eventually restored to his parent and his home. Ackbar found the physicians to be mere empirics, who practised from experience only, and not from well-grounded theory; and hence he was enabled, by the light of science, to achieve a cure. Even at the present day, the ignorant in Britain, as well as the Orientals, have a great tendency to patronise quacks, and this is not a little increased by the mystery with which their proceedings are shrouded. They delight to surprise and astonish by results, but conceal the process: one accidental recovery out of a hundred cases of failures is sufficient for their purpose. Now the character of science is the direct contrary of this: it delights to lay itself open to inquiry, and is not satisfied with its conclusions, till it can make the road to them broad and beaten ; its whole aim being to strip away all mystery, to illuminate every dark recess, with a view to improve them on rational principles.