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in Goethe's writings-to quote one example only, by the sublime Sie ist gerettet,' which ends the First Part of Faust. One word on Sir Archibald's account of Schiller, and we have done. At p. 109. he tells us that 'Schiller was a mannerist, but his mannerism is that of the Iliad!' At p. 110. however, we learn that his mind was not graphic like that of Homer; nor profound like that of Shakspeare; nor tender like 'those of Virgil and Racine; it is simply heroic.' At p. 111. after having been told that the creator of Thekla and Mary Stuart was not tender, Sir Archibald adds that Schiller's

powers of the pathetic are of the very highest kind.' And here we leave him. We are weary of slaughter. Every page in these bulky volumes teems with fallacies so gross, inaccuracies and misstatements so audacious, and contradictions so palpable, that it would require infinitely more space than we are willing to bestow on such a labour, to expose them as they deserve. The book might well be adopted by the Civil Service Commissioners at competitive examinations; they could not do better than call upon candidates to point out the false reasoning, false statements, and false grammar, with which every chapter of it abounds.

To reduce Sir Archibald's blunders to the standard of truth and common sense would indeed be a Herculean task, and we are not disposed to pursue it. But we have said thus much, because the sort of popularity which even this book has acquired is in the highest degree mischievous. Attractive to minds of an inferior or half-educated class by the very defects of its style, it inoculates them with antiquated delusions, and distorts the vision of the mind. Nor is it creditable to English literature that the most voluminous and the most accessible history of our own times should be written in so narrow and perverse a spirit. Sir Archibald Alison has come forward as the spontaneous assailant of the policy which, in its first principles, we advocated before it was carried out, which in actual operation we have since laboured to promote, and which we have not ceased consistently to defend. If this criticism appear unfriendly in spirit, it will be seen that at least it is just in fact; if the language be harsh, it is the language which the author himself has challenged. The distaste with which we recoil from pernicious doctrines, supported by a ridiculous display of incorrect facts and incomplete statistics, is not greater than the sympathy with which we contemplate fair abilities and vast labour so deplorably wasted.

ART. VI. 1. Guide to the Gardens of the Zoological Society of London. By D. W. MITCHELL, B.A., F.L.S.; and P. L. SCLATER, M.A. Third edition. London: August, 1859. 2. Zoological Sketches. By JOSEPH WOLF. Edited by D. W. MITCHELL. London: 1858.

3. Annual Reports of the Zoological Society of London: 1859. 4. Bulletin de la Société Impériale Zoologique d'Acclimatation. tom. 1-4.: 1854-1859.

5. Animaux

Utiles, Domestication et Naturalisation. ISIDORE GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE. Paris: 1854. 6. Gleanings from Knowsley Menagerie. 2 vols. 18mo.

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AMONG the inventions of the island Atlantis, the prescient mind of Bacon shadowed forth in the following remarkable words, spoken by the Father of Solomon's House, an experimental Zoological Garden:

'We have also parks and inclosures of all sorts of beasts and birds, which we use not only for view or rareness, but likewise for dissections and trials, that thereby we may take light what may be wrought on the body of man; wherein we find many strange effects; as, continuing life in them, though divers parts, which you account vital, be perished and taken forth; resuscitating of some that seem dead in appearance and the like. We try also poisons and other medicines upon them, as well of surgery as physic. By art likewise we make them greater or taller than their kind is, and contrariwise dwarf them and stay their growth. We make them more fruitful and bearing than their kind is, and contrariwise barren and not generative. Also we make them differ in colour, shape, activity, many ways. We find means to make commixtures of divers kinds, which have produced many new kinds, and them not barren, as the general opinion is. . . . . We have also particular pools where we make trials upon fishes, as we have said before of beasts and birds. We have also places for breed and generation of those kinds of worms and flies which are of special use, such as are with you, your silkworms and bees.'

The scheme which Bacon suggested has been in some measure fulfilled in the menagerie attached to the Museum of Natural History in the Jardin des Plantes, whence Cuvier derived most of the materials for his immortal works, and in the Zoological Society's establishment in London, whence Professor Owen has in the same way matured many of his discoveries. In the date of its origin, the Menagerie in Paris far precedes the other collections of Europe, having been commenced in the year 1809, under the direction of its projector, the celebrated Geoffroy St. Hilaire.

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That great advantage has been derived from these collections is a fact acknowledged by physiologists on all hands, and there is scarcely a volume of transactions published in Europe without indications of their usefulness as trial places.' The development of the mammalian embryo, the germ of life in every stage of its progress in the ornithic ovum, the transition of form from class to class, and all the recent revelations of the archetype, could never have been demonstrated without the aid of these collections. Comparative anatomy in its modern condition of advancement has grown out of them, and with their extension the investigation of other mysteries will similarly expand. When some new agent affecting life dawns upon the world, the inventor resorts to the vivarium for his first essays. Chloroform commenced fatally upon the little rodents to which it was adminis tered; but its manipulation having been gradually ameliorated and made certain by the sacrifice of these animals, it has conferred on mankind the universal blessing of an ægis against pain. Bacon's idea of tracing the seat of life, is curiously illustrated by Mr. Waterton's account of the tortoise he dissected at Rome, which being accidentally left in an unfinished state one evening, after abstraction of the brain, was found alive when he returned to his work in the morning. The reproduction of limbs in insects, and even of heads in the lower organisations, with a multitude of other curious phenomena, have been detected by the agency of the vivarium; and, in short, there is no end to the revelations of the great mystery of life which may be deduced from the future management of these schools of nature.

That animals may, by judicious selection of the parents and the perpetuation of accidental variations, be brought to an almost ideal perfection, is very well proved among our domestic animals, the finest races of which have all been produced since the time at which Bacon wrote 'by art likewise we make 'them greater or taller than their kind is: '-' Also we make them differ in colour, shape, activity, many ways.' The words might serve for the motto of the Smithfield Club.

Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, Marseilles, have followed the greater establishments of Paris and London, with similar though smaller results; and could the spirit of Bacon glide through their alleys green, it would luxuriate in the abundant material for testing the practicability of his theories, which the modern extension of natural science has gathered together in the series thus presented to examination within the last thirty years. All these institutions, however, have addressed themselves to the typical illustration of principal forms or to

mere exhibition rather than to reproduction and acclimatisation. These practical results have in fact been so entirely lost sight of for ages, that the turkey in 1524, the musk duck in 1650, the gold pheasant in 1725, and the silver pheasant in 1740, are the only additions to our catalogue of domesticated animals since the Christian era.

Although the Zoological Society had among its primary objects the introduction and acclimatisation of exotic animals. both for ornament and use, the original scheme was frustrated or postponed by the force of circumstances or by errors in management. The farm at Kingston was abandoned several years ago; and with the exception of the introduction of the Sandwich Island goose, the ashy-headed goose, and a few other minor species of birds, nothing was done until 1852 or 1853, when the acclimatisation of the eland, now considered a fait accompli, may be said to have commenced. Their next successful effort was the introduction of certain species of Himalayan pheasants in 1857; and as there is sufficient evidence of the favourable result of that experiment, it is probable that they will make efforts to complete it.

The peculiarly utilitarian impulse given to natural science in France, aided in no small degree by the Report on certain questions relative to the naturalisation of useful animals by M. Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire, published at the request of the Minister of Agriculture, gave birth to the Imperial Zoological Société d'Acclimatation, which has been so universally received and supported, that its muster roll is now perfectly cosmopolite, and includes already fourteen sovereigns, with working members in every country in Europe, and many beyond its limits. The activity which has affiliated half a dozen branch societies throughout the departments of France; the introduction of the yak, by M. Montigny; the acclimatisation of two species of silk moth and the production of a fertile hybrid between these species; and the introduction of the igname and the sorgho rapidly following each other, made the necessity of establishing a vivarium, specially adapted to the purposes of acclimatisation, to contain a collection of acclimatised species, and to become a centre from which the operations of the Society could be extended in every direction on a large and solid scale, so apparent, that at the end of the season of 1858, it was determined to carry out the scheme which had been foreseen and provided for from the foundation of the Society. A section of the Bois de Boulogne, comprehending nearly forty acres of salubrious soil, has been appropriated by the city of Paris to the purposes of this vivarium and garden, and we may presume that all the

appliances which experience and ingenuity can bring to bear upon the undertaking will be made available for its completion. The great defect of all existing vivaria is the total want of plan with which they have been commenced. Taking their origin in very small beginnings, buildings have been huddled together without any arrangement or without any consideration of the possibility of future development, so that at last when they have assumed larger proportions, everything is in the wrong place. If Bacon had practically realised his Atlantic trial place,' he would have divided it into regions for each of the principal divisions of the animal kingdom as far as they were known to him; and in each region he would have had an arrangement complete in itself, forming part again of the harmonious whole. The projectors of the Paris Garden of Acclimatisation have seen the error of their predecessors, and the different groups of insects, fish, birds, and mammalia, will be placed in an orderly sequence. Their series being limited to acclimatisable species of utility or ornament, is necessarily limited in extent, and will present great lacunæ, if erroneously looked at as a representation of the whole zoological system. But the principle of order even in this restricted application is infinitely more instructive to the public, as well as more convenient in management, than the miscellaneous chaos which assimilated the earlier zoological establishments to the wandering menageries that used to perambulate the country.

One of the most remarkable impressions created by a visit to our own well stocked Zoological Garden is the wonderful capacity of certain groups of animals individually natives of many climates, to adapt themselves to one which differs so essentially from any of their own. We have, for example, the Polynesian Sandwich Island goose, the Australian swan goose, the South African shieldrake, the East and West African spurwings, the South American chloephage, the North American summer duck, and the Chinese mandarin, all living side by side and most of them breeding there. In the little Guide Book, drawn up by the late and present secretaries, we find a list of forty species of water-fowl, which seem to be subjected to nearly the same treatment, regardless of their origin. And large as is this list, it might, doubtless, be greatly increased. We have all the ostriches, the South American, Australian, Malasian, and African; we have the little Australian grass parrots, living with the Bengalee copsychus and the North American quail; the New Zealand flightless weka, by the side of the tiger bittern from Nicaragua; we have the Australian bower bird, and the Honduras turkey in the same aviary; we have the South American tapirs in the