nity, is in her temple, and that her countless works are around her. Yes, she is, indeed, the true "Venus Genitrix," more fruitful in all lovely things than the ideal goddess of Grecian my. thology, the fair mother of a thousand beautiful children which she has borne to the Vulcan of toil-he of the sinewy arm and hot brow. These two have been given to man, and they have walked with him ever from the day that the cherubim with his flaming sword barred his return to Eden; and they have sustained him in his sorrow, teaching him bitter lessons of knowledge-not pleasant, indeed, to the eye, as was that fruit which grew upon the tree in Paradise, nor sweet to the mouth as was the scroll to the seer of Patmos-yet wholesome, and good, and elevating, leading him day by day back again towards the land of his birth and the golden age of his creation, when knowledge was intuition, when art was heaven-taught, and science filled his soul-a divine light flowing unobscured from Deity. In all ages men have honoured Labour and Industry, and hymned their praises; have acknowledged that, without their aid, neither the good nor the beautiful can be achieved. The poet, Menander, thus exhorts man to honourable toil

Εργοὶς φιλόπονος ίσθή, μη λογοις μόνον. Εν μυρίοις τα καλα γίγνεται πονοις. Μοχθεῖν ανάγκει τους θέλοντας εντευχειν. Φιλόπονος ίσθη καὶ βίον κητση καλον.

"Love thou to labour, not in words alone,

But ever with a constant heart and hand.
Out of much labour all things lovely spring;
And they that would be prosperous and great
Must toil incessant. Love thou labour, then,
So shall thy life be full of loveliness."

And Claudian shows us by a figure that without risk and toil neither that which is grateful to the senses, nor useful for the sustentation of life, can be attained:

"Non quisquam fruitur veris odoribus,
Hybleos latebris nec spoliat favis,
di fronti caveat, si temeat rubos,
Armat spina rosas, mella legunt apes."

And here shall you see around you the grandeur and the nobility of Industry; here you shall see how man has won back again, by the ordinance of God, what the great principle of Evil had ravished from him, drawing forth from the now niggard earth her fruits, her metals, her jewels, even in an abundance that exceeds all that she spontaneously poured forth ere the curse came

upon her; here shall you see the elements and the powers of nature subjugated to the indomitable energy of man

fire and water, the ambient ether, and those subtler essences which permeate creation, and yet cannot evade the strong will of man-the Prospero, whose knowledge has discovered those "delicate spirits" imprisoned within their material dungeons, and frees them by his art, teaching and compelling them, Ariel-like, to

be correspondent to command,
And do their spiriting gently.

to tread the ooze of the salt deep :
To run upon the sharp wind of the North;
To do his business in the veins of the earth,
When it is baked with frost."

Here shall you see, as it were, new creations from the combinations of primal matter, moulded and modified in endless variety by the power of those mighty mechanic agencies, till beautiful things rise up before you— beautiful beyond the dreams of poets, or the wildest fancies of the speculators of olden times. Yes, look around you on every side; fill your heart with these marvels that crowd upon you; then pause a while, and meditate upon them. And when you acknowledge the potency of man when he toils the elevation which he has painfully climbed up to, as Titan-like be piles up the material world to reach the intellectual heaven-forget not to recognise, in all these things, in the art and the artificer, a greater than man- He who breathed into his nostrils the breath of lifeforget not that "the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof." So shall you spiritually find in those thronged courts all the mute, insensate things around you become vocal; so shall you spiritually hear them uniting in a canticle of praise, as sublime and universal as that which the three Children sang in the furnace flames upon the plain of Dura: "Oh, all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever."

Passing, after a time, from con. templations such as these, when the enthusiasm of the mind has abated, one strays about through ball, and court, and aisle, and gallery, not as yet minutely inspecting anything, but endeavouring to acquire a superficial acquaintance with the location and classification of the various objects that

solicit his attention. Then he most probably begins to speculate upon the influences, moral and social, which exhibitions of this nature are calculated to exercise over mankind. Unquestionably such influences must be very great and very beneficial. When nations far removed from each other, and enjoying but little intercourse, pursued each the arts and sciences, the progress of knowledge was comparatively slow and limited. The discoveries and inventions of one country were not, for a considerable time, made known to other nations, who had often to work out for themselves what was previously known to others. Familiar examples of this, such as the mariner's compass, and various applications of mechanical powers, will occur to every one. But as the facilities of intercommunication were increased, knowledge became generalised, and every nation contributed its quota to the general stock. One step still remained to be taken, to enable man to investigate the acquisitions-natural, artistic, and scienti fic-of his fellow-men, throughout the world; not by the slow process of visiting every land in succession, but by bringing men and things of all climes together, at a given day and place; thus, as it were, crushing time into a moment, and space into a locality of a few acres. A great step, indeed; one which required the mind of a giant age to conceive-the stride of a giant age to accomplish. A mighty step; and yet it has been taken. Henceforth one may expect and surely it is no wild speculation-that the advance of knowledge shall be accelerated beyond what has heretofore been witnessed. A thousand intellects are applied-not desultorily, and in perhaps opposing directions to direct the progress: a thousand strong arms pull all together to speed the movement. To exhibit objects in juxtaposition, enables mankind to estimate the relative positions which the industrial and scientific works of the nations of the world have attained to, and thus to ascertain their abstract advance, in a manner which nothing but juxtaposition could effect; while a personal Congress of the great intellects of the age, amid the great productions of the age, may be looked upon as a vast lecture-room of an œcumenical university—an university, to adopt the

felicitous thoughts of Dr. Whewell, in relation to the Exhibition of 1851, of which the colleges are all the great workshops and workyards, the schools and societies of arts, manufactures and commerce, of mining and building, of inventing and executing in every landcolleges in which great chemists, great mechanists, great naturalists, great inventors are already working in a professional manner to aid and develop all that capital, skill, and enterprise can do. Coming from such Colleges to the central University, may we not well look upon it as a great epoch in the life of the material arts, that they have thus begun their university career; that they have had the advantage of such academical arrangements as there have been found, and still more, that they have had the greater advantage of intercourse with each other?

And who shall say what emulation shall be excited in such a place, and upon such an occasion as that which we have now offered to us?-who shall say what knowledge shall be interchanged, what great thoughts shall be evoked by some stimulated intellect; what great incipient scientific discoveries or artistic applications shall be consummated by the operation of many minds in combination? Who shall say what the polished and scientific European may learn from the simple Polynesian, what the gorgeous East may teach the more energetic and practical mind of lands that lie far west of Europe! what lessons uncultured life may give to those who believe that they are thoroughly civilised! "May we not expect," to quote the words of Dr. Whewell again," from this time, the eminent producers and manufacturers, artisans, and artists in every department of art, and in every land, will entertain for each other an increased share of regard and good-will, of sympathy in the great objects which man's office, as producer and manufacturer, artisan and artist, places before him— of respect for each other's characters, and for the common opinion of their body?"

Such are amongst the most obvious benefits which one may safely calculate must result from a great international Exhibition; and these we may hope that our Irish Exhibition will share with that which preceded it. But there are other advantages still peculiar to our condition, which, without

being over sanguine, we may expect to follow in the train of a Great Industrial Exhibition in Ireland. We deem it of the last importance to the prosperity of this country, that her resources should be known and investigated, that her lovely regions should be explored, that her people should be understood, that her manufactures should be encouraged, that the wealth of other countries should find its way into Ireland and remain there; not passing her from east to west, and from west to east, in the constant intercourse of commerce. This can never be the case till Ireland be visited-not by a casual tourist to prepare a guidebook, or an occasional man of literature to partake of her hospitality, to rush through a portion of her romantic scenery, and to eke out his ignorance of her people, their capabilities, and their wants, by gross caricatures, or libellous and ungenerous misrepresentations, as some have done in recent times. No; she must be seen and explored in a philosophic and philanthropic spirit by the man of science, the man of art, the trader, and the capitalist.) When

Ireland becomes like other countrieslike Scotland, like Switzerland, like France-an European thoroughfareand ceases to be a terra incognita, then, and not till then, will she have her fair chance of rising as other lands rise, of taking her legitimate place amongst the nations of the earth. (In this Great Industrial Exhibition we believe that an opportunity for Ireland

is now afforded, such as never has been, never may be again, presented. Hundreds have come from England and the Continent, to witness the inauguration; they have seen that Ireland is not behind-hand in many of the arts that civilise and beautify life; they have beheld a great structure raised by the patriotic energy and ge nius of one large-minded citizen; they have seen our city and its fine edifices; they have associated with our people, and can estimate their genius and their worth; and many of them have penetrated into the interior of the country, now no longer a difficult task, and carried away with them, we believe and hope, memories of its loveliness and its capabilities, that will not readily pass away. Thousands more, we trust, will daily and weekly follow their example during the summer and the autumn. Let them but do so, and we have no fear for Ireland-no distrust of the impression which her visitors shall receive; and so, when at length this vast structure which stands upon the lawn of the Royal Dublin Society shall be removed when it shall have passed away, even as it arose, like a beautiful vision, still may its influences be permanent and beneficial; may it have served, like the exquisite invention of modern science, to gather together the images of every beautiful and luminous object that came within its field, and so fixing them by the light of truth, leave an enduring pic ture of itself upon our native land.

*

Ir was already evening-one long line of melancholy light was stretched out wild and wide upon the distant hilltops; and, over head, the first stars, few and faint, and one by one, were brightening over the darkened and solemn valleys below us.

The old man, who seemed tired, paused, and, drawing his cloak closer about him, sat down upon one of the long shelving ledges of the rock, motioning me to do the same. I did so, and we remained silent for some time, both, perhaps, wrapt in similar reflections.

Never had Melchior appeared to me more brilliant or more eloquent than he had been that day. This extraordinary man, whose research seemed to have exhausted every branch of human knowledge, infused into whatever subject he touched on the most abstruse or the most trivial-a profound and varied erudition, and the clear and vivid common sense of genius. But Nature seemed chiefly to have absorbed his attention, and when he spoke of her, he was eloquent.

From the star to the clod-from the belt of Saturn, and the path of the Pleiades, to the fringes of a fern-no knowledge, however vast or however humble, had been unattempted or unfathomed by his daring and comprehensive intellect; and his learning no less embraced the healing laws of the sinallest simple which we crushed beneath our feet, than the wizard teachings of the antique strata over which it blossomed.

Yet through all that Melchior said there flowed a vein of such profound and unutterable melancholy, and so apparently crushing a sense of the utter nothingness of that learning, which so astonished me by its scope and accuracy, that, musing over our past conversation, I exclaimed, half unconsciously, aloud:—

"Alas! how transcendent, and yet how impotent, is human knowledge! In the measureless distances of space,

what more than a mere point of light is even the orbit of the world? I doubt if Galileo, blind with gazing into heaven, was, in the eyes of Originative Wisdom, much nearer to the secrets of the moon, than the peasant who still believes she shines to make beautiful the fields he knows."

"Yes," said Melchior, with bitterness, "our knowledge is like those thieves whom the Egyptians call Philetes, and she tickles and caresses, only to strangle us at last."

"At least," I answered, "she is but the warden of the outer gate. We scale heights on heights, we descend precipices, we traverse gulfs; but the fortress of wisdom would seem to be an enchanted one, and looks further off the nearer we approach it. Yet to me is it, indeed, both dear and natural to cherish the belief, that human energy is never in vain exerted in the pursuit of what is great. If it fail in one object, does it not obtain others in the effort, and sometimes no mean prizes? The athlete who has been trained for the Olympic goal may never attain it; but he, at least, gains strength and vigour for a lifetime. Surely it is not in vain that we hunger for the unknown. Is it for nothing that Science already stretches out her arms into the future?-for nothing that we have levelled the hills, and bound the earth with an iron girdle, and tamed the lightnings to be our messengers ?"

"Ah," replied my companion, "we are only moving in a circle; and if human intellect could illuminate the world, still as dark and as fathomless would lie the spaces beyond. We trace effects to causes, and link from cause to cause the chain of speculation; but the most daring research drops at last, baffled and paralysed before that my s terious and inscrutable First Cause, of which the worlds are but the mystic expressions!"

Again we sat silent for many moments, till Melchior suddenly exclaimed

"Look me in the face, young friend:

you see my hair is thin and white, and my features ploughed with wrinkles, and my step feeble, and my back bowed. What age do you take me to be of?"

"You cannot,' ," I said, be less than sixty; but, in the full possession of a most rare and gifted intellect, many years of life are, I trust, yet before you. Why not devote to some generous and practical purpose your declining years? What a noble heirloom might not such a mind bequeath to the world of thought."

He shook his head. "You take me," he replied, "for sixty, yet it was but yesterday that I entered on my five-and-fortieth year; and seven years ago my head was wellnigh as erect, and my step as firm as your own."

"Impossible!" I could not help rather rudely exclaiming.

My friend passed his hand convulsively over his heart.

"Have you not read," he replied, in a voice broken by some strange emotion, "of men in cells, condemned to death, whose hair has whitened in a night; of Eastern dreamers who have fed on opium, and grown unnaturally old before their time; of criminals, haunted by the knowledge of some haggard crime that palsies their hand, and wrinkles their brow, and makes them falter in their walk ?"

"But you," I answered, with surprise," are neither a criminal, nor an opium-eater."

"Yet, perhaps, worse," said he, "than either. You, young aspirant after knowledge-you, who still struggle to the Far, and would grasp the unattainable-who, consuming the rushing years of youth in earnest and solemn meditations, still believe in the imbodyment of that type of Perfect which has alike allured and baffled the wisdom of your forefathers, listen to the strange and marvellous history of the being who is now beside you; and, if it may be, while yet spared the suffering, learn wisdom from that blighting lesson which experience has seared and graven here."

I could scarcely contain the curiosity with which these words inspired me; for everything connected with this singular person-his strange and reserved habit of life, the impenetrable mystery, the wild rumours which were afloat in the neighbourhood-all combined to surround him with unusual interest.

I therefore urged him eagerly to begin the tale, and, while the night stole downward through the silent and starlit spaces above us, and the glow. worm lighted in the weeds his goblin lamp, Melchior thus began :—

What loiterer on the Rhine is unfamiliar with the little university town of B-? Do you remember its white walls and houses, glimmering through the purple shadows of the distant mountains, below the quiet river banks? Its quaint roofs, and picturesque and narrow streets, its merry market-place, its venerable scholastic gardens? It was here that the early years of my life were passed. Here, young as yourself-like you, I thirsted for knowledge, and foolishly dreamed to trace it to its mysterious sources. With this ardent desire, I was not long in making myself familiar with all the general branches of science; and, as I was constantly reading books and attending lectures, I soon acquired a reputation in the university both greater and graver than that of any of my fellow-students.

My professors, especially the venerable Herr Inkleman, who was my

tutor, were charmed with my proficiency. Every one prophesied for me a brilliant future. Great thoughts then agitated the German mind, and events which have since shaken the whole of Europe had already cast their shadow upon the time. Not a few looked to the young student of B to play a prominent part in the opening drama of the future; for learning in Germany leads oftener to power than is the case in your land.

Far otherwise did I myself regard my own attainments and my own fate. Science and metaphysics, which seemed to me to open the noblest paths to the human intellect, chiefly interested me; but in these, as in every other branch of knowledge, all that I had learned dissatisfied and saddened me—so much was yet to know, so little really known. The understanding of those laws which unfold the leaf and suspend the globule brought no nearer to my com