We extract a portion of Professor Schlegel's very interesting remarks on astronomy.—

"Through the consecration of one day of the week, which two most extensively prevailing religions have borrowed from the Mosaic Law, though with a different choice of days, this practice has spread over all the earth. It may at an early period have been adopted in common by the Semitic nations, as they are called, and among these the Babylonians alone can contest the credit of the invention with the Egyptians. Among the Greeks and Romans the observation of the days of the week was introduced very late: although the custom had made some inroads even before the Christian era through the influence of Egyptian and Chaldee astrologers, and also of the Jews, who were dispersed here and there throughout the Roman empire."-p. xliv.

"The naming of the days of the week after the planets has an astrological signification, and the process was quite systematic. Two assumptions must be made; the seven planets must be supposed to follow one another according to the ancient system of the universe, in which the earth was conceived to be at rest in the centre, and the arbitrary division must be made of nychthemeron into four-and-twenty hours. The astronomical doctrine was, that a planet presides over each of these hours according to the natural order from Saturn down to the Moon, and that that planet, to which the first hour belonged, was also regent of the whole day. If now we count over the hours upon this plan, we shall find that the regents must always have followed one another with an interval of two planets, which were omitted. Bailly was not able to solve the riddle, although Dio Cassius has clearly explained it. We perceive that the whole arrangement, resting, it is true, upon an astrological conceit, could only have been contrived by a people who had made some scientific acquisitions. Ideler remarks, that the week was used by the most remote nations, the Chinese and Peruvians. But we are not authorized to lay any stress upon this circumstance in the earliest history of astronomy, until we have explored the way by which and the time when this custom reached those lands. Ideler passes over the Indians, and with good reason; for they had not the week, and could not have had it, since they divided the nychthemeron into thirty hours, which by following out the same method would give rise to an entirely different series of planetary regents.

"On the other hand, the Indians had from the most ancient times another division of the synodical month, into the light and the dark balf. The first was calculated from the new moon to the full moon, and the second to the new moon again. This Indian division we find recurring in the distant west, viz. in ancient Italy. The Roman calendar, borrowed from the Tuscans, exhibits it, only with the difference that the Calends indicate not so much the new moon, as the first appearance of the lunar crescent."-p. xliv—xlvi.

"Besides the twelve signs of the zodiac the Indians had also from early times another division of it, into the seven-and-twenty Nakshatras, or Houses of the Moon. These smaller constellations, comprised in all

sorts of figures, evidently referred to the periodical month, and corresponded to the full number of the days of its duration. In order to fill up the breach, which had been neglected, they were increased, as often as was necessary, to eight-and-twenty by an intercalation. It is easy to see that they could be of no practical use; but importance was ascribed to them for astrological purposes. The Arabs adopted the Nakshatras from the Indians, calling them Houses of the Moon; and not the reverse, as Montucla asserted at random. In ancient times, as far as I know, not the slightest trace of them is to be found either in Asia Minor or in Egypt.

"These proofs are sufficient to show that in the two countries essentially different methods were employed in the application of astronomical knowledge and the fancies of astrology to the reckoning of time."

Professor Schlegel alludes to the chronological portion of Dr. Prichard's book in terms of praise, limited only by the adherence of the English notions to the scripture chronology. If indeed he himself could have supplied us with anything better than a sneer against "the traditions deemed sacred" we might have given importance to his remark: but till the Professor or any one else, can prove that the fantastic follies of the Chaldean, Indian, and Egyptian systems, and their impossible periods, deserve greater respect, we need not be very uneasy at his wit.

He thus concludes :

"Time has conveyed to us many kinds of chronology; it is the business of historical criticism to distinguish between them and to estimate their value. The astronomical chronology changes purely theoretic cycles into historical periods; the mythical makes its way supported by obscure genealogical tables; the hypothetic is an invention of either ancient or modern chronographers; and, lastly, the documentary rests upon the parallel uninterrupted demarcation of events according to a settled reckoning of years. The last alone deserves to be called chronology in the strictest sense; it begins, however, much later than is commonly supposed. Had this been duly considered, we might have dispensed with many an air-built system."--pp. xlix. 1.

We must now close this notice with a sincere tribute to M. Schlegel's talents and judgment, so favourably developed in the short work before us, referring our readers to this for various points of interest not reducible to our space. It is an advantageous companion to Dr. Prichard's volumes, and we are glad to hear it has been translated and added to that truly useful work, which is one instance the more of its author's candour and liberality of spirit.

ART. IX.-Voyage du Maréchal Duc de Raguse en Hongrie, en Transylvanie, dans la Russie méridionale, en Crimée, et sur les bords de la mer d'Azoff, à Contanstinople, dans quelques parties de l'Asie Mineure, en Syrie, en Palestine, et en Egypt, 1834, 1835. à Paris, 1837, 1838.

THE wide extent of the Russian dominions and the impression of their vast expansion, working through the eye upon the sense, may not be among the least of the causes why, when once attention has been turned to it, the Russian Empire occupies so large a portion of the public mind: this too especially in England, whose own foreign possessions, so little proportioned to the size of the dominating country, extend like radii connecting every part of the Russian circumference with her central point of existence. The position also of Russia, geographically equivocating between the barbarous laxity of Turkish and Tatar rule, and the definite concentration of European governments, gives thereby a double character to that one sovereignty: the separate portions of the aforesaid character, being so strongly contrasted as to interfere necessarily each with the other, coufuse the judgment that has elsewhere been accustomed to regard each only in its separate state.

It cannot be denied that this unusual position requires also for its maintenance a system totally distinct from those of other European powers, were it only as a case of the simple defensive; of civilization guarded from barbarism: but it is no less unquestionable that the position entails also, with novel duties, novel desires; and that the boundary or line of contact is no longer, as once was the case on the same soil, and far more recently in the United States also, in the keeping of the ruder party: wheu the white or civilized mau, even with right to the soil conceded, was yet exposed to the injuries of uncultivated and revengeful natures wielding an irregular power.

On the contrary it is clear that the tables now are turned upon the nomade tribes in both, and in all other instances of the kind. It is the hand of civilization that sways the rod and bears the truncheon; and wherever a wilder race would urge on to assail it, it is but as the viper, wearing itself out upon the file; the hopeless wrath of him who would but be broken by falling on the stone, but who would be crushed to powder if it fell upon him.

With such means of mischief and good in the hands of one party and such hopelessness of resistance on the other, it can freely be conceived that if the former has, as undoubtedly is the case, every inducement of impunity to extend its sway, and is thus temptingly exposed to the assaults of cupidity and the desire of

aggrandisement even through unjust means; the weaker party on the other hand is liable to those feelings of mortification engendered by the sense of loss and the despair of any thing like successful resistance. The constant contrast into which they are forced, and not only the suppression of actual injuries but the want of a defence against future ones, embitters their spirits. Misunderstandings are aggravated by this feeling, and a fierce and lasting hatred generated and inflamed, not only by the collisions we have referred to, but also by the desire, so common and inherent in barbarians, of possessing whatever is desirable among their richer neighbours; coupled with the equally fixed reluctance to obtain it by the legitimate means of labour, which nomadic tribes abhor.

We must farther observe that though among civilized states the weaker will seldom or never wantonly provoke the resentment of their more powerful neighbours, because the resources of both are known to both, and the means of each may be fairly calculated upon as efficient and certain; in irregular governments these means, even if developed, are so obscurely employed, and so little understood in their proper lands by the native population or even the best informed individuals; and their mode of exertion too is impeded by so many obstacles of every kind, private passions, intrigues, peculations, jealousies, and ignorances, that their efficiency is a mere chance; and thus the weaker has not unfrequently succeeded, even to overturning a formidable antagonist. Nomadic nations, destitute of history, and without means therefore of deducing the simplest practical lessons, have no power of discriminating between the degrees of civilization, and fancy that what they have rudely and imperfectly heard of in one quarter may happen in another. Their passions too are headlong, and thus they rush into offences, in spite of repeated failures and castigations.

These, the natural conditions of two different stages of cultivation, require to be carefully borne in mind in every view we take of the subject and it is by omitting this needful precaution that we so often commit those strange errors of reasoning which incessantly lead us astray. By ignorantly perverting facts whilst trying them by an improper standard, we obtain results possibly correct in themselves, but so utterly inapplicable to the particular question, that we have no means of understanding the causes of the discrepancy; and charge the fault upon some secret workings in one or other of the parties concerned, and which we cousequently load with all the odium and reprobation that stilted virtue so freely deals out to its foes, real or presumed.

To apply this reasoning: the Russian government stands in

this difficult relation of offensive impunity towards weaker nations along the whole limits of that extensive frontier-nations too for the most part engaged in hostilities one with another at some or other portions of the globe and periods of time, and whose hostilities are not so fierce nor their principles so settled as to spare an intermediate party, if rich and unprotected.

The energy necessary to preserve any thing like effective administration at so vast a distance from the seat of central power, is, farther, actuated by a despotism: and the principle of despotism, we need scarcely say, is to rule (even though with reason) yet by the exercise of private will and not by external appeals. Its acts therefore, if not secret, are yet silent: the internal differences of these two may be great; the outward distinction is nothing.

The difficulty of judging is increased by the absence of authentic documents on the other side also. Nomade tribes and Eastern nations have had no public vehicles of information. The only intelligence obtainable from these has consequently been partial, and perverted by want of judgment in the views, narrowed by interest or prejudice or exaggerated from various causes, of individuals accidentally sojourning in the countries; and who have often been satisfied to take the first information they could get, without sifting it.

But if we are thus prevented from searching into causes, and compelled to confine our attention to the surfaces of things, it is on the other hand clear that these, when examined upon a large scale, are in themselves capable of affording ample grounds for judging, if not on minor points or on principles of action, yet upon their tendencies and probable results. Without knowing the proximate or immediate cause that loosens the avalanche or ejects the lava we still can calculate destruction from their course. Without ascertaining the source of the stream we can tell if its waters are fertilizing; and if we cannot judge the structure of a government, we can see if its force approach and menace others. But even to draw right conclusions from the sight it is necessary to keep in mind the general constituent principles of the parties. We have dwelt upon this subject at a very considerable length because it is the indispensable preliminary to a candid view of the most important political question of the day; and which is the more complicated inasmuch as it has not only called into review the strength and efficacy of all previously existing relations, but also has assisted to create, and peremptorily accelerated the connection of new interests and new systems, that without it might scarcely have been heard of.

These later systems of government, though framed with views