unison, tramping in one consent like the simultaneous steps of an approaching army; the "Ante omnia secula" is an awful self-sustainment of the music in regions separated in time and space from all we ever conceived in heaven or earth. Beethoven out-Beethovens himself in a sublimity of imagery no musician ever before attempted; but as to the pure religious feeling, we neither fall on our knees as with Mozart, nor rise on wings as with Handel.

Where will the flight of musical inspiration next soar? It has been cleverly said by Reichardt that Haydn built himself a lovely villa, Mozart erected a stately palace over it, but Beethoven raised a tower on the top of that, and whoever should venture to build higher would break his neck. There is no fear of such temerity at present. Weber, Spohr, and Mendelssohn have each added a porch in their various styles of beauty, but otherwise there are no signs of further structure. The music of the day has a beauty and tenderness of coloring which was never surpassed, but all distinction of form seems crumbling away. It is like fair visions in dreams, or studies of shifting clouds, or one of Tennyson's rhapsodies; the strain delicate, the touches brilliant, but the subject nothing if the finish were taken away. They cannot be stripped to the level of a child's exercise and still show their beauty of form, like a chorus of Handel or an air of Mozart.

It is impossible to say what resources remain still undeveloped in the progress of music. Fresh forms of nationality may arise. The Italians may form a grand instrumental school; the father or grandfather of some sublime English composer may be now fiddling waltzes in one of our ball-rooms; the Greek church in Russia may foster some Palestrina of its own; new instruments may be invented; the possibility of this may be conceived, but the probability not hoped in, for earthly music must share the mortality of all things here, and Mozart's "Requiem" is above fifty years old.

We have not mentioned the modern opera -the subject has been too well treated but the other day in a contemporary journal* for us to venture on the same ground. Nor does it square with our endeavor to prove the exclusive value of music as the only one of the arts exempt from the trail of the serpent. There are few recent operas that do not give

"A Few Words on the Opera," in Frazer's Magazine for October, 1847.

this theory somewhat the lie; not only in the pomp and vanity of their luxurious accessories, but in a suspicious fascination in the music itself, leaving impressions on the mind that we have been rather listening to the Syrens of the "isle perilous" than the Muses of snow-peaked Olympus.

DRUDGERY OF LITERATURE.-We present our readers with a picture, from the pen of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, of the life of a popular author, which is as true as it is graphic, and may serve to show that the wit, and imagination, and liveliness which sparkle upon paper, may after all be draining the lifeblood from a trembling heart and weary brain. It is a sketch of Laman Blanchard. "For the author there is nothing but his pen, till that and life are worn to the stump; and then, with good fortune, perhaps on his death-bed he receives a pension-and equals, it may be, for a few months the income of a retired butler! And so, on the sudden loss of the situation in which he had frittered away his higher and more delicate genius, in all the drudgery that a party exacts from its defender of the press, Laman Blanchard was thrown again upon the world, to shift as he might, and subsist as he could. His practice in periodical writing was now considerable; his versatility was extreme. He was marked by publishers and editors as a useful contributor, and so his livelihood was secure. variety of sources thus he contrived, by constant waste of intellect and strength, to eke out his income, and insinuate rather than force his place among his contemporary penmen. And uncomplainingly, and with patient industry, he toiled on, seeming farther and farther off from the happy leisure in which the something to verify promise was to be completed.' No time had he for profound reading, for lengthened works, for the mature development of the conceptions of a charming fancy. He had given hostages to fortune. He had a wife and four children, and no income but that which he made from week to week. The grist must be ground, and the wheel revolve. All the struggles, all the toils, all the weariness of brain, nerve, and head, which a man undergoes in his career, are imperceptible even to his friends-almost to himself; he has no time to be ill, to be fatigued; his spirit has no holiday; it is all school-work. And thus generally, we find in such men that the break-up of the constitution seems sudden and unlooked-for."

From a

2547.

[The following article condenses the latest results of investigation and reasoning in this new but important science in a style so lucid and pleasing that the general reader will be wearied with neither its length nor its statistics. It is by far the briefest and ablest exposition of the science we have met with.—ED]

AMONG the new sciences which the progress of human knowledge is calling into existence from time to time, and which find devotees no less earnest and sincere than those who continue to worship at the older shrines, Ethnology, or the Science of Races, is not the least interesting nor the least practically important. It may be difficult to assign the period when the investigations with which the ethnologist is concerned, first began to assume a really scientific form, instead of presenting their results as a mere chaos of disjecta membra-crude materials, waiting the hand of the architect to work them up into an edifice worthy of the object for which they were collected. As yet, we fear, we must satisfy ourselves with the design, rather than boast of its execution; and please ourselves with the anticipation of what is to be accomplished, rather than dwell with complacency on what has been already effected. When we look, indeed, at the amount of toil which ethnological investigations require for the development of even their least extended results, and the small number of laborers who are professedly devoted to their advancement, we might doubt whether Ethnology would emerge in our own time from the lowest

grade among the sciences, the place with which its votaries must be at present content, and where indeed they may think themselves fortunate that they can secure a place at all.

But we may well take courage, when we reflect not merely upon the industry and enthusiasm of its votaries, but also upon the fact that the number of those who are indirectly contributing to the progress of Ethnology is far greater than that of its professed followers. For whilst the traveller who examines into the physical characters and the mental condition of the new races of men with whom he comes into contact, who studies their vocabulary and inquires into their grammar, who is a spectator of their religious observances, and pries into the dark mysteries of their traditions and superstitions, who watches their habits of life and acquaints himself with their laws and usages,-furnishes the most important quota to the accumulation of materials: scarcely less valuable are the materials collected by him, whose tastes lead him to attend rather to the physiognomy of the country than to that of its human inhabitants, to its climate and its soil, its products and its capabilities, rather than to their faculties and actions. For in the determination of the important problem, how far the characters of particular races are dependent upon those of the countries they inhabit, the latter set of data are as useful as the former; and no satisfac

tory result can ever be anticipated, until both have been ascertained with equal accuracy. So, again, the philologist who is working out, in the solitude of his study, the problems involved in the history and science of language, though he may little think of connecting his conclusions with the affinities of nations, is an invaluable ally. In the same manner anatomists and physiologists, in scrutinizing the varieties which the typical form of humanity undergoes, and contrasting the extremes of configuration, of color, and of constitutional peculiarity, as observable among the inhabitants of distant climes, cannot enlarge the boundaries of their own sciences, without at the same time rendering the most essential assistance to the ethnologist.

In thus drawing within its grasp, and converting to its own purposes, the results supplied by the investigators of various and widely dissimilar branches of science, Ethnology bears a striking analogy to Geology; an analogy of which Dr. Prichard has dexterously availed himself, in vindicating the claim of Ethnology to rank as one of the departments to which the attention of the British Association should be primarily directed. They are both histories of the past, and depend for their successful cultivation on the unconscious co-operation of many minds, often ignorant of each other's labors.

Of all the problems of Ethnological Science, the relation in which the various races of mankind stand to each other and to ourselves, is perhaps the most attractive. The determination of this relation is, in fact, the ultimate aim to which its departments severally converge, however widely they apparently divaricate. The Anatomist examines the configuration of the body, and compares together the peculiarities of various tribes, with the view of determining how far structural differences prevail over resemblances, and of ascertaining whether these differences possess that constant and intransitive character which the naturalist requires as a justification of specific distinction. The Physiologist searches into the history of the vital functions in the several types of humanity, and seeks for information with regard to the permanence of anatomical differences, the effect of external agencies in modifying the configuration or constitution of the body, and the tendency to spontaneous variation in the forms presented by individuals, families, or tribes, known to be of the same stock. The Psychologist has a most interesting subject of investigation, in the

study of the psychical constitution of the several races; in the extraction of their respective mental and moral characters from their habits of life, their languages, and their religious observances. It is his business to inquire how far one common psychical nature is to be inferred from such diverse manifestations: that is, how far the differences which he cannot but observe in intellectual capacity, and in moral and even instinctive tendencies, are fixed and permanent, or are liable either to spontaneous variation, or to alteration from the modifying influence of education and other external conditions. The Physical Geographer lends his aid by bringing to bear upon the inquiry his knowledge of the outward circumstances under which these variations in bodily and mental constitution are most constantly found. And it is from the materials which he contributes, that the physiologist and the psychologist have to determine the degree in which these circumstances can be justly considered to be the causes of variation; more especially, whether the coincidences between particular bodily configurations or mental constitutions, and certain combinations of climatic and geological conditions, are the result of induced differences among the human races which are respectively subject to them, or are to be attributed to original dissimilarity of stock.

But in order to carry on these researches, historical information is continually needed, on the actual descent, migrations, conquests, &c., of the nations whose physical and mental characters we are comparing. The question of the fixity of all or any of the characters by which the races of mankind are at present distinguished from each other, requires for its solution a comparison of the present with the past. No valid proof of their permanence can be drawn from the limited experience of a few generations; and no evidence of change can be reasonably looked for, except from the long-continued agency of modifying causes. The required information is sometimes supplied by direct historical testimony; but this is frequently insufficient. And here it is that the comparative study of languages becomes so important to the ethnologist as an auxiliary to history; extending, combining, and confirming the evidence derived from sources which the historian has exhausted.

Independent of the aid which philological research affords to other departments of Ethnology, it directly bears upon the great problem of the unity or identity of mankind. Since it not merely answers a common pur

pose with historical testimony, in establishing the genealogical relations of tribes long since dispersed from their original centres and separated at present by strongly marked physical and psychical differences; but it also furnishes a powerful argument for the common, or at least the similar origin of all races. For it shows that an articulate language, relating not merely to objects of sense, but to our spiritual nature-capable of describing the phenomena of the external world, as well as of giving utterance to the thoughts and feelings which constitute our internal existence-and susceptible, too, of decomposition into a limited number of elementary sounds, which may be expressed by written signs applicable alike to all tongues-not only now exists among all nations, but has everywhere existed from the earliest period of which we have any knowledge. From this it is reasonable to infer an original similarity in the endowments of which language is the manifestation; and the inference is confirmed by the fact that the thoughts, which are capable of being expressed in one language, may be translated into any other found in use among a people equally advanced. Any two barbarous languages, or any two that are highly cultivated, are so pervaded by a sameness of character, notwithstanding they may not have a word in common, that the identity of the internal nature, whose states of consciousness they serve to express, can scarcely be doubted by any one who attends fairly to the evidence.

To give our readers an idea of the present range of Ethnological Science, we must bring under their notice a summary of the labors of these several inquirers. The differences between different races, in form, features, and complexion, have naturally attracted most attention. Accordingly, we will begin by examining, with the Anatomist and Physiologist, the most striking variations in bodily structure;-with the view of ascertaining how far they possess that fixed and definite character, by which alone the hypothesis of a diverse origin, in the races that now exhibit them, can be sustained. The first attempt to establish such distinctions on a scientific basis, was made by the celebrated anatomist Camper, whose name is preserved in connection with the "facial angle," so commonly appealed to as a test of the relative elevation or degradation of a race or individual. This angle included between two lines, one of them drawn from the orifice of the ear to the base of the nose,

the other joining the most advanced points. of the forehead and of the upper jaw-bonewas thought to afford a measure of the capacity of the anterior part of the skull, and of the size of the corresponding lobe of the brain. And, with the large dimensions of these parts, common consent seems to have connected the idea of intellectual power, even from remote times. Thus, whilst the facial angle in the skulls of living Europeans averages 80°, in the ideal heads of the Grecian gods it is increased to 90°. Camper, too, inferred from his measurements, which were made upon a small number of skulls, that a regular gradation is exhibited by the different races of men, connecting the highest European type with the Apes: the facial angle in the skull of a Kalmuck being 75°; that of a Negro only 70°; and that of different species of Apes being 64°, 63°, and 60°. So that, by this test, the Negro would stand in as near a relation to the higher Apes as to a Kalmuck, and a great deal nearer than to a European. But he committed an important mistake in his estimate of the facial angle of the Apes; for his measurements were all taken from young skulls, in which the forward extension of the jaws, which takes place on the second dentition, had not yet occurred. In the adult Chimpanzee, the facial angle is no more than 35°, and in the great Ourang it is only 30°, as we learn from the measurements of Professor Owen. However, under any circumstances, this method of comparison is of very little value; for the facial angle is too much affected by the degree of prominence of the jaws, to afford any certain information concerning the elevation of the forehead or the capacity of the cranium.

It was by the venerable Blumenbach that this department of Ethnology was first cultivated in a manner worthy of its object. He collected, with immense labor, a vast mass of materials for a systematic account of the anatomical peculiarities of the different races of mankind; which he arranged into five primary groups-chiefly according to the configuration of the skull-designating them by the names either of the people comprised in each form, or of the regions of the world where each was supposed to have originated. These divisions and their designations having been adopted by Cuvier, and having passed into our ordinary forms of expression, require a brief notice; although they are no longer scientifically appropriate. 1. The Caucasian form, which prevails

among European nations, was so termed from Mount Caucasus, to which ancient traditions refer the origin of many celebrated nations; and in the neighborhood of which live the Georgian and Circassian tribes, commonly regarded as displaying the highest type of human beauty in shape and feature. There is not, however, any sufficient reason for regarding the Caucasian tribes as the ancestral stock of the Indo-European nations, whose cranial conformation places them under this category:-the Greek skull might be selected with as much propriety for its type. 2. The Mongolian form, characteristically seen among certain races inhabiting High Asia, was improperly named from a single and subordinate nation of that continent; one, too, which does not happen to possess the distinctive type in any remarkable degree. 3. The term Ethiopian, as applied to the great mass of African nations, is faulty for a similar reason; since the Ethiopia of the ancients is but a small part of the African continent, and the people inhabiting it are not those among whom the peculiarities of the African conformation are most strikingly displayed. 4, 5. The terms American and Malayan are much less objectionable, as collective designations of groups of nations. It has been found impossible, how ever, to assign to them any very definite types of cranial configuration, on account of the varieties which abound in the tribes inhabiting the several portions of the great American continent, and the remote islands of the vast Malayo-Polynesian Archipelago.

This distribution was as complete as the ethnographic knowledge of the time permitted it to be; but to hold it up as the system under which all subsequent observations were to be marshalled and arranged, would be about as absurd, as if we were to take the primary divisions of the animal kingdom, according to Linnæus, for the groundwork of our present zoological classification. Dr. Prichard has shown that there are but three leading types of cranial conformation; of which all others are variations or combinations. Minute anatomical descriptions of them will be found in Dr. Prichard's works. We must content ourselves with their most striking characteristics.

The oval or elliptical form of skull, corresponding with that which Blumenbach termed Caucasian, is distinguished by the symmetry of its form-there being no excess either of prominence or compression. The cranial cavity is large, the forehead full and

elevated, the face small in proportion; thus indicating the predominance of the intellectual powers over the instinctive propensities more directly connected with sensation. The Greeks are probably the most favorable examples of this symmetry; but other instances of it may be found in almost any of the great group of nations now termed IndoAtlantic. These nations extend over the surface of the globe in a north-westerly direction, from India and Persia, through Syria and Asia Minor, stretching along the portion of Africa north of the Great Desert, and covering almost the whole area of Europe. Nearly all of them have acquired a certain amount of civilization, living by agriculture, and possessing settled habitations; and among them, or among the offsets which have proceeded from them, we find all the nations which have been most distinguished by intellectual advancement.

The form described by Dr. Prichard as the pyramidal skull corresponds with that termed Mongolian by Blumenbach, but which is most characteristically seen in the Esquimaux. The striking peculiarity of these skulls is the great lateral prominence of their cheek-bones and zygomatic arches, together with an extreme flatness of the upper half of the face, whilst the forehead rapidly narrows at its highest part; so that, on a front view, the portion of the skull above the line joining the cheek-bone has an almost pyramidal form, that line serving as the base. The orbits of the eyes are large and deep; and the bones surround them in such a manner that, in most instances of this conformation, the opening of the lids has a decided obliquity, the inner angle being directed downwards. The whole face, instead of approaching the oval as in Europeans, is of a lozenge shape and the larger proportion which it bears to the capacity of the cranium indicates in the pyramidal skull a more ample extension of the organs of sensation. The greater part of the races of this type are nomadic some of them wandering with their flocks and herds over the vast plains of High Asia; whilst others creep along the shores of the Icy Sea, supporting themselves by fishing. It is a remarkable fact, however, that we encounter the type again in a remote part of the globe, and in a race apparently of a totally different descent-the Hottentots and Bushmen of Southern Africa. They also were formerly a nomadic people, and wandered about with herds of cattle over the extensive plains of Kafirland. The Mongolian character of their skull and physi