the representation is over. This spectacle excited general enthusiasm; but, for ourselves, who had seen rather better mechanism, we regarded these mannikins, that moved on the stage and then moved off it without stirring a limb, as decidedly flat. One representation of the play, therefore, amply sufficed for us, and we went about admiring the bas-reliefs.' "Vol. ii. p.39-43.

The reader who has been at Rome on Easter Saturday will not fail to remember a singular parallel for this curious festival, in the fantastic decorations of the provision dealers' [pizzicaroli] shops upon that day, the last of the season of Lent, which is so adverse to their trade, and the close of which is therefore to them a season of special jubilation. The windows, shelves, and counters, are decorated with groups modelled, like the Lamas' flowers, in butter, a material more appropriate to the profession of the pizzicarolo. "Daniel in the Lions' Den," "Jonas and the Whale," " Joseph sold by his Brethren,' appeared, from whatever cause, to be favourite subjects; and the execution of the figures, the classic elegance of the design, the grace and expressiveness of the attitudes, are in almost every case worthy of a less perishable material. Certainly the analogy with the similar festival of the Tibetian Lamas struck us, in reading M. Huc's account of this curious Feast of Flowers, as exceedingly singular, the more remarkable, too, as the material is in both cases apparently so inappropriate, that the very coincidence in its selection can with difficulty be conceived to be the result of pure accident.

But we must draw to a close, and we will confess that it is with great reluctance we take our leave of M. Huc. We had noted many curious particulars which we regret to be obliged to leave unrecorded-the social and religious ceremonies of Tibet; the rites of marriage; the various forms of sepulture, from embalmment, as in the case of the Talé Lama, down to the being devoured by the sacred dogs, maintained as the living sarcophagi of the ordinary faithful; the studies and preparatory training of the Lamas; the singular forms of medical treatment in various diseases; the exorcisms and miraculous cures; the games and amusements of the people; and, in a word, the miscel laneous, social, and religious observances which prevail among this singular people. For all these we can but refer to M. Huc's lively and interesting, as well as most instructive narrative. Even as a mere book of travel, we

have not met for a long time any work which approaches it in interest. There is a simple grace and liveliness about the narrative, which charms even for itself; while there is a freshness and vigour in its tone that cannot fail to excite the interest even of the most palled and sated appetite for adventure. It reminds us forcibly of old Father Dobrizhofer's book on Paraguay. With but little of scientific pretension, it is full of facts to interest the zoologist,* the mineralogist, and the lover of botanical science; while the sketches of scenery, of costume, of manners, characters, and institutions, are indiscribably vivid and forcible. It is impossible to mistake the impress of truthfulness which all this bears. Indeed, the absence of everything like searching after sentiment, of straining for effect, and of every other form of literary ambition would in itself disarm the suspicion even of the most sceptical reader.

There is a slight promise held out in a postscript, that we may yet here more from this graceful and lively writer. We cannot but express our earnest hope that it may be soon and often.

*We regret that it is impossible to find space for the account (ii. 245-9.) of the animal long deemed fabulous, but whose existence is now demonstrated beyond all shadow of doubt-the unicorn, called in the language of the country, serou or tchirou, and seen in the naturalist's nomenclature, known as the Antelope Hodgsonii from Mr. Hodgson, the British resident at Nepaul, by whom its existence has been established.

We may add here also, for the benefit of our Scottish readers, that the well-known device of the stuffed calf (Scotticé Tulchau) so famous in Scottish Reformation history, is in use among the shepherds of Tartary and Tibet.

ART. II.-1. Von Babylon nach Jerusalem. Von IDA GRAFIN HAHN HAHN. Mainz, Verlag von Kirchheim und Schott. 1851. [From Babylon to Jerusalem. By IDA COUNTESS HAHN HAHN. Mayence.] 12mo. pp. 247.

2. Unsrer Lieber Frau. Von IDA GRAFIN HAHN HAHN. Mainz, Verlag von Kirchheim und Schott. 1851. [To our Blessed Lady. By IDA, COUNTESS HAHN HAHN. Mayence.] 18mo. p. 142.

3. Aus Jerusalem. Von IDA GRAFIN HAHN HAHN. [From Jerusalem. By IDA COUNTESS HAHN HAHN.] Mayence, Kirchheim und Schott. 1851. 12mo. p. 179.

4. Babylon and Jerusalem. A Letter addressed to Ida, Countess of Hahn Hahn. From the German, with a preface by the Translator. London: J. W. Parker and Son, 1851. 18mo. p. 116.

WE E are passing through a period of remarkable religious changes, and, we may add, of extreme religious fanaticism in England; and so deeply are we engaged in religious controversies, that our attention is wholly concentrated at home, while the great changes taking place in other countries are hardly noticed, even by the Argus eyes of the press. At all events, if conversions occur on the other side of the channel, they rarely excite much interest, unless they come from some far away and almost fabulous land, from the wilds of Patagonia, or the voluptuous isles of the south seas. Of Catholicity in Germany little is known in England: many times we have heard it affirmed, that the inhabitants of the Prussian states, and of all North Germany, were exclusively Protestant; and by some it is thought that our holy religion is as little tolerated there as it is in the more northern kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden. Yet German literature is at the present day not unknown, nay, we may venture to assert that a knowledge of the German tongue is now deemed almost a necessary accomplishment in many families, while a host of translations, good, bad, and indifferent, have introduced German authors to the English fireside. To many, therefore, the name of the authoress of the books here noticed will not be unknown, though she now appears before us in far different guise from all former occasions.

In this age of extraordinary alterations of religious views,

when unexpected conversions of some of the bitterest enemies of our faith have astonished the world, few have created more surprise in Germany, and wherever her former writings were known, than has the Countess Ida Hahn Hahn, by her entering the bosom of the Church. As soon would we have expected to hear that Madame Dudevant had taken the veil, and had avowed herself a Christian, as that the gay but petulant and sarcastic spirit of the authoress of the Letters of a German Countess, had submitted itself to the authority of the Church. We can in some measure understand how the earnest but bigoted Calvinist or Lutheran is rewarded for his sincere correspondence with the dim lights afforded by the religion he professes, and is led by a merciful Providence into the true path, we know how the remorse engendered by an illspent life has conducted many within the pale of salvation; but of all whose conversion seems the most distant, the vain egotistical literary female, seeking a reputation in society by outraging its conventional rules, in her writings, if not by her personal conduct, would appear to us the furthest removed from the hopes of heaven. We can ourselves hardly recall an instance of this kind; and even where great and remarkable conversions have taken place it has rarely happened that the world has been favoured with an account of the convert's feelings and experience of the Catholic faith, especially in the case of lady authoresses, whose previous writings had exhibited a bold and somewhat doubtful morality. The retiring and penitent convert seeks then to escape the eyes of the world, the pen is laid aside for the crucifix and the rosary, and seldom are the workings of the heretofore perverted and demoralized mind presented to our view, so that we are enabled to study the wondrous operations of God's mercy in reclaiming the erring soul.

But the Countess Hahn Hahn was even, in her unbelieving days, remarkable for the boldness with which she supported and illustrated her doctrines, and now that she has become a Catholic the ancient courage seems not for an instant to have deserted her, and tempered but not blunted by religion, she resumes her pen, and lays bare to the astonished Protestant world the innermost recesses of her soul, candidly avowing her former errors, seeking not to palliate them, but exulting beyond measure in being at length relieved from their thraldom. With the Countess Hahn

Hahn writing is now a second nature, her pen flows with all the ease and grace that characterise the conversation of an accomplished woman, and though some may blame the haste with which she has brought her experiences of Catholicity before the world, she has, in reality, done no more than the fervent convert, who in the circle of her acquaintances and friends, cannot remain silent, but wishes all to partake of her happiness. The world of literature is the Countess's circle, she has gained the entrée by her former writings, she resumes her pen to counteract and, if possible, to efface the evil her works may have occasioned, and we ourselves are convinced, after an attentive perusal of the volumes before us, that they are not composed in the spirit of pride and arrogant assumption, but are so characterized by candour, sincerity, and truth, that it is impossible to deny that the authoress is speaking from the inmost depths of her heart. From the calm haven wherein at length she has moored her soul's long-tossed bark, from the rock of Peter, whereon she has fixed her dwelling, she looks back in sadness and grief on her former path, she exposes the errors into which she fell, she traces with a delicate but unerring hand the troubled workings of her awakening conscience, concealing nothing that may disparage her in the eyes of the world, solicitous only that the truth may be known, and careless of the judgments of her former admirers and associates.

As a writer of fiction, the talents of our authoress have, we think, been somewhat overrated. In these there was an obvious straining after effect, or rather to accomplish something the writer was not equal to, coupled with a deification of herself and of her own ideas, alike repulsive and tedious to the reader. As a descriptive traveller she is far above the average, as a novelist she is much inferior to her fatal prototype, George Sand. Both ladies * are, or at least were, most vehement upholders of the rights of women; both believed and maintained that the fair sex was kept in bonds of durance vile by the lords of the creation, and both devoted all their energies to the emancipation of woman from the trammels of conventional life, to which she had been unjustly and arbitrarily condemned from the beginning of the world.

George Sand is the name assumed by Madame Dudevant in her writings.