The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-19 00:00:00

is a mere question of money, in the counties a mere
question of influence. But Lord -PALMERSTON'S
ideas of public virtue are somewhat peculiar. Ile
thinks the Ballot would be highly immoral in, its
effects, because a man would be tempted to promise
his landlord or employer that he would vote one
way and really vote the other. If the friends of the
Ballot believe that such a promise would be broken,
they pronounce, says the noble Premier, the
strongest condemnation of the voters, because they
would promise one thing to-day and do a different
thing to-morrow. But Lord PALMERSTON is
troubled by no such scruples about the sudden
change of opinion occasioned by a sudden change of
landlord, as in the case of the worth Riding, where
the habitue's of the clubs are now betting five to four
on Milhauke against Morritt, and that from no
failure of duty on the part of the present member,
but because the late Duke of CLEVELAND was a
Tory, and the present Duke a Whig, so that a
change in the opinions of the electors may be confi-
dently expected. A similar change has actually taken
place in the political views of the electors of Ripon,
but such transitions as these give Lord PALMRESTON
no uneasiness. They are merely part of the inherent
nature of things, and quite consistent with political
honesty and the British Constitution.
The whole truth of the matter was very briefly
and forcibly stated by Mr. COBDEN in a speech he
made in favour of the Ballot many years ago :—" I
look upon the Ballot," said that honest and straight-
forward statesman, " as the primary step of all reform ;
but of all the points of what is termed the People's
Charter there is none so odious to the aristocracy
and the moneyocracy who govern the elections as
the vote by Ballot." If, as Mr. BERKELEY said on
Friday, we could believe that the upper classes have
become politically virtuous and the electoral classes
politically honest; we need not trouble ourselves
about secret voting ; but so long as human nature

is what it is, so long will it be necessary to provide
men with a protection against temptations which
are likely to be too strong for unaided morality.
The present House is not likely to be convinced by
any argument ; but the electors, thanks to Mr.
BERKELEY, know their real friends, and will not
fail, we hope, to remember them on the hustings.

The close of the Prussian Chamber is significant
of the course which has been so eagerly pursued by
the Government since the commencement of the
session. No scruples of conscience, and no fear of
future consequences, seem to deter these self-willed
politicians from pursuing their reckless way. The
Speech from the Throne was read by Herr BB-
MARCK to the Chambers, and its tone is anything
but conciliatory. On the contrary, the Minister
seems to go out of his way to inform his hearers of
the unsettled state of affairs, and the misunderstand-
ing that continues to exist between the Sovereign
and the Chambers. A more gloomy and ungracious
discourse could hardly have been concocted, and its
whole tenour seems to imply that the powers that
be are glad of the opportunity thus afforded them
of having the last word. The speech begins by
stating that the combined efforts of the representa-
tives of the Government could only have led to
satisfactory results if the supreme object of all par-
ties had been the welfare of the country. "This
has not been the case," however, we are informed,
and it remains, therefore, to determine whose fault
it is that such a sad and shameful state of affairs
should have supervened. Of course Herr BB-
ltio.cx and his coadjutors will say that it is all
the fault of the Chambers, and yet impartial judges
may well inquire if some large share of blame may
not be laid to the charge of those unscrupulous
Ministers who have held fast to their own determi-
nation, despite all obstacles that interposed and all
counsels that wisdom suggested. It is important
to study this speech, in order to glean therefrom
some notion of the meaning of the Government, and
to catch a faint glance of the ultimate wishes of the
authorities. After a preamble of platitudes we
come to something of import, for we find this pas-
sage, that is replete with intelligence, " The clearly
expressed intention of the majority of the Lower
House to place difficulties in the way of the Minis-
try has proved detrimental to the material welfare
of the country." Allowing, for the sake of argu-
ment, that such a disastrous result has followed
upon the constantly recurring strife between the
Government and the Chamber, why have not the
former made some greater efforts to put a stop to
the altercations, and shown some disposition to meet
the disputants half-way ? Far from this being the
case, we find that on every possible occasion there
has been no lack on the part of Ministers to exhibit
their determination not to yield an inch of ground
or to swerve one hair-breadth from their predeter-
mined course of procedure: It would almost have
seemed in some cases as if they had gone out of
their way to produce discord and occasion strife.
However, it is, of course, very convenient just now
to give all the blame to these obnoxious members
who have made patent to the world that Prussia is
not a household at unity with itself, and who
have rendered, what should have been a
sort of triumphal march of foreign and
domestic policy, a period of angry debates, and an
episode of angry, unwelcome plain-speaking, and
the delinquents are informed of the special vices
that are laid to their charge in the most grandilo-
quent manner and would-be impressive style. The
Chamber of Deputies has refused " demands which
the Government were compelled to make," then the
Chamber has completed the measure of its iniquity
by " adopting resolutions which the Government
cannot carry out." The list of these offences seems
to comprise nearly all the Government measures
which the audacious Deputies have dared to reject.
It is a melancholy computation for a Ministry to
make at the close of a session, and surely it may be
said to point a moral to other unscrupulous states-
men. Among the rejected measures we find the
" Bill for the Expenses of the War with Denmark."
This is a very suggestive and significant item, and
speaks trumpet-tongued to tell of the insincerity of
the course planned and practised last year. While
all the world was told of the wondrous unity that
existed respecting this Dane-German affair, lo and
behold there was rottenness at the core of the
transaction, and now we find that the winners
cannot agree, and the spoilers are not of one
mind. For some reason or other this Speech
from the Throne is singularly explicit. It
doubtless sets down a great deal in malice, but
it certainly extenuates nothing, and the wondering
world is informed of the astounding fact that, "in-
stead of the desired understanding having been
arrived at, the session closes with the impression of
mutual estrangement." This is perfectly true, but
why is this put forth ? Perhaps some more daring
and desperate schemes are in concoction, and the
Government wishes to pave the way for their com-
ing-attack on the Constitution. At any rate, be
the matter what it may, we are listening to plain
speaking with a vengeance, and see not through a
glass darkly, but find ourselves face to face with
the mighty and momentous charges that are being
oifn
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The Government it seems are quite equal to the
emergency that has come up)n them, and in this
dearth of patriotic politicians they can and will

supply the deficiency, aud, Atlas-like, support the
entire weight of the Constitution themselves. Very
earnest and energetic is the programme briefly but
emphatically sketched to the recalcitrant members.
" The Governmemt will continue to conduct public
affairs according to the wants of the country, and
will vigorously represent the interests of Prussia
both at home and abroad." What can be more
definite and decided than this intimation. But the
speech closes with another impressive passage. It
hoped that the day is not far distant " when the
nation, through its representatives, will express to
the KING its approval and thanks f.)r the course
which has been pursued." This is adding insult to
injury, and no mistake. The Prussians have de-
teriorated greatly of late years in public spirit, but
they have not yet fallen so low that such a depth
of degradation should be expected of them as this
last expression implies.
Herr GRABOW, the President of the Lower House,
made a short speech after the ceremony was over,
in which he very properly reviews the circumstances
of the case as regards the altercations existing be-
tween the Chambers and the Government. Thus,
he says that what the Government requires is
" the submission of the Chambers." Can any-
thing more effectually sum up the epitome of the
affair than this explanation of it. The efforts to
transform a constitutional into an absolute police
and military state have, says Herr GRABON,
" reached their utmost liirit, but they will wreck
upon the loyalty of the people to the constitu-
tion, manifested by thrice electing their re-
presentatives." Altogether a more gloomy
or ominous ending of the session could
hardly have been arrived at ; it has more than ful-
filled the worst fears of the doubtful, and com-
pletely dashed to the ground the hopes of the more
sanguine concerning the fair prospects of Prussian
politics. For a brief period Herr BISAIARK may
proceed on his way, proud of his triumph over the
rights and liberties of the people, but his success
will be short lived, and his daring and defiant career
must eventually come to grief. It would be well if
the mischances went no further than the fall of a
reckless and unprincipled statesman, but before
Prussia can at all regain the ground she has lost
many must be sacrificed and great the sufferers.
The alliance with England, from which so much
good was acquired, seems to have been only pro-
vocative of evil, for instead of our influence pre-
vailing in the right cause, it appears that our German
ally believes she can sin with impunity safe under
the shelter of our lame acquiescence, and secure in
the conviction that neither in thought, word, nor
deed will we presume to interfere. with their
designs.

At length all the elaborate and anxiously pre-
pared arrangements are completed, and the great
work of laying down the Atlantic cable is to be
commenced on Midsummer day. That it may
prove successful, and serve to maintain that prompt
and rapid communication between the two hemi-
spheres which has been so invaluable between the
different parts of Europe and Asia, is the universal
wish, although the difficulties of such an undertak-
ing are commensurate with its importance, and
although one failure has taught us to shrink from
over-confidence. There is good reason to hope
that this time the great work will be carried to a
successful termination. Every danger that could
be foreseen has been avoided ; every risk that could
be anticipated has been guarded against, and every
possible precaution to secure the highest standard
of excellence in the cable, the paying-out apparatus,
and every other department, has been taken. The
only thing to be feared is the occurrence of a vio-
lent tempest, which is extremely rare at the mid-
summer season ; and, in fact, the present time has
been selected on the authority of Captain ANDER-
SON, whose lengthened experience in Atlantic navi-
gation gives great weight to his opinion. It is of
course quite within the range of possibility that
a violent hurricane may disarrange all these
well-laid schemes ; but, as far as human
wisdom and foresight can guard against disaster,
they have done their part. Should no catastrophe
of the kind occur, we may hope for telegraphic com-
munication with the great continent of the Western
World by the end of next month.
A good deal of valuable information respecting
the submarine route of the telegraph has been gained
since the last attempt. The steep decline a hun-
dred miles off the west of Ireland has been proved
to be less dangerous and sudden than was feared.
The change from 300 fathoms to 2,000 occupies
nearly 60 miles, so that the rapid descent which
gave so much alarmis nowhere steeper than Holborn-
hill. The route of the cable varies in depth from 1,500
to 2,500 fathoms ; but it must be remembered that if
the difficulties of laying down a deep-sea cable are
great, and any accident almost irreparable, when it
is once down it is far less liable to damage than
those in shallow water, unless the ocean bed is liable
to volcanic disturbance, which is not the case in the
Atlantic. The line from Malta to Tripoli in
the deep sea has never given an hour's un-
easiness, while that in the shallow water near
Alexandria is constantly needing repair. So that
the doctrine of compensation finds its way even to
ocean telegraphy. The successful termination of
this vast work is a consummation devoutly to be
wished, and its influence upon the political and
social relations of the two great peoples will be most
important. We hope that the news of its arrival
will be conveyed by itself without let or hindrance.

CRYSTAL PALACE.—The usual Saturday after-
noon concert and promenade took place at the
Palace on Saturday, and was attended by upwards of 9,000
persons. The screens which have been erected across the
Transept for the Handel Festival added greatly to the dis-
tinctness with which the voices of the solo singers were
heard. After the concert the whole of the great fountains
were played.

COLLEGE OF PRECEPTORS.—At a meeting of the
Council of this Corporation on the 17th inst., the
Diploma of Associate was granted to Mr. P. F. Stalker, of
Paris.. The following gentlemen were elected members of
the college :—Mons. A. Blouet, Christ College, Finchley ;
Mr. T. A, Blyth, Commercial School, Bedford ; Mr. G. K.
Courthorpe, A.C.P.. Grosvenor-park, Camberwell; Rev. J.
G. H. Hoernle, 8.A., Brunswick-road, Brighton.

It is stated, with what truth we cannot precisely
define, that England will lose and America gain two addi-
tions to the force of the stage. Mr. John Brougham and
Mr. Widdicombe are said to be leaving this country for the
New World.—Orchestra.

THE NEW COURTS OF JUSTICE AND OFFICES.-
On Saturday a return was issued showing that the total
estimate for the purchase of land and houses for a site for
the new courts of justice and offices is £703,000. The sum
required to be voted for the year ending March 31, 1866,
is £200,000.

THE NEWSPAPFR PRESS FUND.--A meeting of
tho committee of this fund was held on Saturday. The
Duke of St. Albans, the Earl of Cardigan, Lord Taunton,
the Right Hon. Spencer Walpole. M.P. ; Sir John Hay,
M.P. ; Professor Owen ; Mr. Silaolefleld, M.P.; Mr. David
Keane, Q.C. ; M. Octave Delapierre, Mr. T. 11. Allen,
Poynder, Mr. J. Laird, M.P. ; Rev. Charles Merivale, Mr.
Baillie Cochrane, M.P. ; Mr. S. Butler, M.P. ; and the
Rev. Herbert Randolph, were elected vice-presidents 'of
the fund. Several members were admitted, and additional
honorary agents appointed throughout the country.
CHARLES LAMB, LEIGH HUNT, AND GILBERT
ATECKETT.—Some more autograph memorials of
Charles Lamb and Leigh Hunt have been disposed of
during the week by Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson, and
Hodge, together with a very extraordinary gathering of
heraldic and topographical MSS., formed many years by
the Rev. Dr. Wellesley. Next week, the library of Gilbert
Abbot a'Beckett, famous as one of the first contributors to
Punch in its most flourishing days, and as the author 'of
those humorous books, the " Comic Histories" of Rome and
England, Till be sold by the same gentlemen.

LITERATURE.

Mr. Hepworth Dixon's New Work.

The Holy Land. By William Hepworth Dixon.
Two volumes. Chapman and Hall.

Frankly—let us acknowledge the fact at once—we
can hardly contrive to speak of this work dispassion-
ately. For—because of his having written it—we owe
Mr. Dixon a debt of gratitude. And we do so for a
simple reason enough, for a reason, as it appears
to us, that is pretty plainly indicated by the very
title selected by our author for this his honest,
manly, earnest, eloquent record of his recent wan-
derings through the plains and cities of Palestine.
Thither he went, thence he has returned, with a
sense above all things that it is, essentially and
unmistakably, the HOLY LAND. A region sacred
alike to Jew, and Moslem, and Christian. A
country consecrated to the veneration not only of
the People of God, but, yet more peculiarly, yet more
essentially, to the veneration of the whole human
race, of the chosen Peoples of God, under their
one comprehensive title of the Gentiles. From the
moment of his disembarkation upon the shores of
Palestine, down to the moment of his re-embarkation
upon his return voyage homewards, Mr. Dixon has
so far trodden lightly, by reason of his ever-present
consciousness that it was indeed a sacred region he
was traversing, that his narrative breathes through-
out a spirit of profound and unaffected reve-
rence. Lightly though he treads, however, he
treads firmly. As if adopting (might we so express
it) the Oriental token of respect by the doffing of
the shoon or the sandal upon the very threshold, he
permits us here to note, not once, as it were, the
mere conventional outline of either shoon or sandal,
but, in lieu of that, step by step, as we follow him
in these wanderings of his to and fro upon the sacred
soil of Palestine, the delicate and sensitive in-
dentation of the human footprint. He has written
in his time many works more highly elaborated.
He has written none more beautiful. He has vindi-
cated the character of Bacon the Philosopher. He
has vindicated the character of Penn the Philan-
thropist. He has contended in the lists of histori-
cal controversy with a literary athlete as redoubt-
able as Lord Macaulay. But he has done nothing
worthier of his powers, he has achieved nothing more
honourable to his nature, to his heart as a man, to
his brain as a student, to his soul as a Christian,
than the composition of these two noble volumes
about the Holy Land. The spirit, moreover, in
which he has penned them is nothing less than
exquisitely refreshing to us in this age of Kinglake
and Renan. Diametrically opposed, in the general
tone of it, to the detestable cynicism of " Eiithen,"
the work here under review is, rather than that,
conceived somewhat after the charming manner in
which "The Crescent and the Cross" was penned by
the graceful and scholarly hand of Eliot Warbur-
ton. With thit difference, however, that far more
distinctly than is anywhere recognisable in that
picturesque record of travel in the regions peopled
promiscuously by the Aloslem and the Christian,
Hepworth Dixon's record of his travels in the Holy
Land are coloured, are suffused, flavoured, saturated,
are, in a manner, radiant throughout with distinct
evidences of his earnest sincerity as a Believer.
Nevertheless, it should be premised at once, if only
in simple justice to our author, that in all this there
is no ostentation of devotional fervour on his part.
There is, so far as we can appreciateic, no affecta-
tion whatever of a sense of religious awe, such
as in writing about the localities, such as in
visiting them, he has not actually himself experi-
enced. In one word he has penned these pages not by
any means as a zealot. While, let us add, in another
word or two, that he has returned from Palestine to
describe to us all that he has there seen and visited and
thought in that Holy Land as a Christian—not the least
atom in the world, so far as we have read his pages,
not for one single instant, as a Controversialist.
Throwing aside for a while his " Bradshaw" and his
" Murray," he has, so to speak, taken with him
into Palestine as his single but all-sufficient guide-
Book, the Bible—the Old and the New Testament.
At every turn, too, he shows himself to be perfectly
familiar with its record, with all those sacred words of
Holy 'Writ about the Holy Land. So far as we have
been enabled to estimate, through these volumes,
the author's general character or temperament as a
believing Christian, not as a Christian merely by
name, but as a thoroughly believing Christian, wo
have been unable to detect in him anywhere the in-
dications of his being in any way a bigoted sec-
tarian. Far asunder may be our views—far
asunder, most probably, are our views—upon many
points of a purely doctrinal character, upon points,
too, the majority of them of the most vital im-
portance as affecting the whole framework of our
common Christianity. Yet, seizing upon those other
grand root-points of belief which are acceptable, so
to speak, to all Christians indiscriminately, our
author reveals an almost instinctive aptitude in
theavoidance what
of those who are
might otherwise have
the avoidance of what might otherwise have
outra
ged
the
susceptibilities o f
not precisely or absolutely of the same way
of thinking as himself—telling us, for the most
part, all that he has to tell us, less as a
Protestant, less as a member of the Church of
England, than, purely and simply, in a far
larger and more comprehensive sense, as a
Christian. It is this sedulous avoidance of all
controversy in these volumes, coupled with
their earnest sincerity throughout, that will,
or we are much mistaken, tend to render them
very widely acceptable. Together with all this, more-
over, the work is wonderfully realistic as a delinea-
tion of the Holy Land. It is full of word-painting.
Its pen-and-ink sketches of the sacred localities
visited are in truth like so many mental photographs
reflected-upon page after page, from the retina of
the author's clear, minutely observant, exquisitely
sensitive organ of vision. As if bent upon carrying
out literally the old Horatian precept,
he plunges—
and with the grapple of an anchor too—in medias res.
The monosyllable " Plash," is in effect the first
word of the first sentence of the first page of this
goodly book of his about the Holy Land. That
word being simply the intimation of the droppin?
of the anchor off Jaffa, the ancient Joppa, from the
Austrian boat, with the Ragusian captain, the
Smyrniote crew, and the Italian name (11 Vapore);
the boat that had carried our traveller from. the
shores of Europe to those of Palestine. As signifi-
cantly indicative at the very outset, it might
be
.said at the very 'threshold of that Morning
Land, of his keen-witted observation of" everything
about him—of things at once so old and yet so new,
so old to the knowledge and yet so new to the
sight—we would direct attention to the casual
mention upon page 20 of the first of these two
volumes, to the purely casual, and yet, as it seems to
us, the especially significant mention there made of
the Aga who sits at the Water Gate of Jaffa, the
gate that faces the sea, watching with imperturbable
gravity all the odd sights, scenes, faces, and figures
that pass in through that narrow entrance, through
that mere slit in the wall, through that small cut-
ting in the rampart, through which everything
coming into Palestine from the West, from all the
countries, and climates, and peoples of Europe must
pass, after being hoisted up from the canoes bringing
them to land from ship-board ! Articles as miscel-
laneous, we are told, as pachas, bitter beer,
cotton cloth, negroes, antiquarians, dervishes, Mus-
covite bells and Circassian shoes, French clocks
and English damsels, monks and Jews and Bashi-
Bazouks ! After having described very whimsically
the manner in which all these motley things and per-
sons are hoisted up from the canoes into the gateway,
in the sight, under the very nose of that imperturbable
Aga, our author mentions his having, one hot and
idle day, witnessed a Seraskier's hareem hoisted
thus out of the boat into the town, adding
thereupon—" If yon Aga in the white turban and
flowing skirt had been blessed with any sense of
humour, he would have died of his duty, perhaps
years ago." The significance of this incidental
morsel of whimsicality lying simply in the fact of its
betokening so very plainly, at the outset, that, while
our author goes there, so to speak, with his head
uncovered, he goes there, too, with his eyes wide
open. He sees and notes all the things around
-him just exactly as they are. He puts no
adventitious gloss upon them. He beholds
them, he describes them, exactly as they ap-
pear to him, invested with all their ineffable and
divine associations—yet he observes them and
depicts them, at the same time, fox all that, exactly

as they are in themselves. The squalid, the gro-
tesque, the ruined, the arid, he has a glance for,
quite as watchful, as any directed by him to the
fertile, the beautiful, or the sublime. His descrip-
tions are uncompromisingly truthful, while, added
to all this, his mere manner as a narrator has
a freshness of its own. Depicting one of his
Oriental followers, Yakoub, he speaks of him
as he knew him, first of all superficially and
then afterwards when he " came to know him
worse." Just as, later on, in the same whimsical
fashion he makes mention of his cavalcade winding
across the desert—" man, horse, ass, and camel
forming a caravan about seventy weak." So un-
compromising is he in his honest outspeaking that
he blurts forth, in despite of his own loyal Protes-
tantism--after mentioning the circumstance that in
Palestine equals salute each other, if MoSlem, by
the soft Syrian phrase of " Peace be with you ;"
if Christians by " the sign of the cross"—adding
thereto, " This salutation (the sign of the cross)
is made with singular grace by the beggar in his
rags" —he blurts out, we say, the blunt
acknowledgment —" An English traveller
making no sign of the cross when he greets
a brother, is commonly supposed by the Syria ns.to
be a Turk." It is, however, when he comes to the
delineation of the principal scenes of the Holy
Narrative that the vivid and picturesque eloquence
of his manner attains its most obvious excellence.
At his earliest mention of Jerusalem he observes
very impressively that that ancient capital of Judea
is a holy place to nearly all the children of men !
" The Jew," he there writes, " is going up to Zion
that he may die in the city of his fathers, and
mingle with the dust of patriarch and seer ; the
Christian that he may kiss the stone of redemption,
and light his taper at the sacred fire ; the Moslem
that he may gaze on the seat of judgment and
write his prayer under the dome of the Rock."
By a single phrase sometimes he pictures a whole
region—as where he talks of the city of Ramleh, in
the sandy wilderness, as " surrounded by empty
cisterns and teeming cemeteries." Occasionally, too,
he casts down for a er into the dust, simply by proving
them to be erroneous, some of our most dearly-
cherished imaginings in regard to the East. Instance
this, his mention of the native Syrian as no horse-
man ! We hear so much, he says, of the Arabian
horses, and we know so well about the Bedouin's
flights that we are apt to consider those Orientals as
a nation of horsemen. All which, he tells us, is
in truth no more than a dream. The
Bedouin rides for his safety in the Desert,
and depends on his speed ; but the Arab of
towns and of settled life never mounts a horse. When
he does not care to walk he mounts an ass." Yet
we cannot but think that Mr. Dixon goes just a trifle
too far when he adds, almost immediately after this,
that even " the warriors of Pharaoh, though they
yoked their horses to chariots, never (sic) got upon
their backs !" Surely that immortal chaunt of exul-
tation, " the horse and his rider are thrown into the
sea" is proof positive to the contrary, in reference
to those very warriors of Pharaoh, those haughty
squadrons of the cavalry of the Egyptians ! Some
among his intimations of surprise, again, as an
European traveller in Palestine have been already
notified by earlier excursionists from the West into
the East. Eliot Warburton, we think it was, who
anticipated Hepworth Dixon's humorous naivete in
marvelling over the reversal of all our national con-
ventionalities, yonder in Syria, by reason of all the
women there wearing the trousers, while their hus-
bands and sons wear the skirts ! Stranger, however,
than even this to the later traveller's eyes was
the fact that yonder in Palestine the prettiest and
youngest damsels might often be seen with their
faces covered to the eyes and their bosoms naked
to the waist—the yelek being worn open while the
chemisette beneath it was often cut away from the
bust completely ! Many a time by the simple apt-
ness of a comparison, our author brings home to
our western apprehension, upon the instant, a truth
that could hardly have been so vividly realised by
any more lengthened or highly elaborated description.
Speaking of the glory of Babylon when in its pride,
he says that a poor Hebrew loitering then and there
through its streets was like a Savoyard in the
Rue Royale or a Shetlander at Charing-Cross. Just
as immediately before that, he has enabled us Lon-
doners to form some proximate notion of the mag-
nificence of the Babylonian architecture by observing
that there are ruins there of palaces, to which St.
James's would be a kennel for dogs and lions !
Or, again, when discriminating among the various
sects, or castes, or classes, or however they
may be the more correctly designated, among the
Jews of old—does he not realise them to us,
instantaneously, by the touch of one felicitous com-
parison ? Likening the Pharisees to the early
Puritans, and referring, in so many words, to those
staunch old Hebrew Tories, the great body of the
Sadducees ! It is seldom that Mr. Dixon permits his
forcefulness of manner, we mean in the mere empha-
sis of composition, to run him into anything like
extravagance, as where in depicting the almost mad-
dening thirst produced by the drought of a journey
through the desert, he would have us believe that
" a gulp of fresh water, even though it be warm and
putrid, cools the burning tongue !" In him we have
no untravelled Cockney relating to us his foreign
experiences with evidences—at every turn (of the leaf)
—of what might be termed a wholly unsophisticated
bewilderment ! Calabria, Granada, Morocco, the
wild regions above Smyrna, have already been
traversed by him before this his latest excursion
abroad into the holy regions of Palestine. Whither-
soever he goes among those sacred localities, he is
always equally alive, as it seems to us, to their
natural peculiarities, and to the lovely and awful
sanctity of their sublime associations. The village
of Emmaus, described by him as one of the most
beautiful spots in the hill country of Judea, he
passes through, as a matter of course, with the
thought that there it was that the Master
walked with Caiphas and His disciples. When
he pauses before the convent of Ain Karm,
it is to remind us that it is built upon the
site of the dwelling-place of Elizabeth and of the
birth-place of John the Baptist. Nearer and nearer
as he draws towards the Holy City—" Rock," he
tells us, "white and blinding, rock broken into frag-
ments, rock burnt into powder, stretches before and
behind !" We are tempted, however, to give the
whole of this picturesque paragraph complete, pre-
cisely as it is written, as it will then afford the
reader some juster notion of its strange and weird
impressiveness :

The road goes zigzag over the limestone rock, the
waste and stones increasing as you approach the Holy
City. Vegetation almost ceases ; in a cleft you may find
a bramble, and in some happy hollow you may descry
an olive ; but the rule is otherwise. Rock white and
blinding, rock broken into fragments, rock burnt into
powder, stretches before you and behind. At length,
when the long reach of wall, twining gloriously rugged
and picturesque round the bases of cathedral, synagogue,
and mosque, appears in sight, the eye clings fondly to the
figure of a single palm, shooting gracefully up from a
garden in the city near the Bethlehem Gate ; and on the
right, in a deep natural trough, to an olive plantation, in
the midst of which nestles the Convent of the Cross. The
aspect of the land is stern and desolate, and the great city
itself seems to spring from the centre of a rolling plateau
of stones and graves.

In this awful manner it is, that first breaks upon the
Pilgrim's vision the holiest spot in all that Holy
Land, the City of the Judgment, of the Passion, of
the Redemption, of the Crucifixion. Conspicuous
—austere—venerable—Jerusalem there reveals
itself to the eye in the midst of a region to all
appearance scarred, and riven, and withered, and
blasted into an everlasting sterility by the stupen-
dous and portentous events of which it was the
arena, events removed from us now by a distance
very nearly two thousand years. In touching upon
themes like these, our traveller writes—it is high
praise. to say so, doubtless, but it is praise that he
eminently well deserves—always befittingly. With
the solemnity of a believer, with the fervour of a
Christian, with abundant evidences of his familiarity
with the biblical history, and beyond all this with
the eloquence of one who shows himself to be
throughout completely master of his own language.
Sometimes, and not unnaturally, his style seems
to be coloured by that of Holy Writ, or by that,
again, of the inhabitants of the Orient regions
he is traversing. In this mood it is, for example,
that he remarks upon the fact of no law being
acknowledged in the vast countries lying between
the Jordan and the Euphrates, countries, as he te-