then no laboratories, no alembics, no crucibles. All was crude and rough, as furnished by the hand of nature; and medicaments were taken, herbal, mineral, or fluid, as they could be found. Still drugs were known from the earliest time, and, where procurable, were extensively applied. The practice of embalment must have familiarised the Egyptian physicians with the properties of certain drugs, and led them to further researches. We know that, by their chemical art, they imparted durability, not only to the fragile tissues of the human frame, but also to the shroud in which they were enveloped, so that, after an interval of four thousand years, it still exists. The frequent reference in the Scriptures to incense, precious ointment, and spices, to myrrh, frankincense, and balm of Gilead, from the time of Moses downwards, indicates some knowledge of chemical preparations among the Jews; and, in the Roman era, we find that the compounders of the famous love philters were usually Jewesses. Those noxious draughts comprised the most singular ingredients, such as an infusion from the forehead of a foal, with deleterious drugs and spices; and were

10 Plin. viii.

always prepared with magical incantations, directed at the person to whom the philter was to be administered. The Romans appear to have been only too skilled in the art of Borgia; and Juvenal draws a terrible picture of the prevalence of poisoning in the imperial city, admonishing wives to beware of their husbands, and opulent parents of their children." Poisoning, indeed, was widely practised at an earlier date, under the republic; and Livy records the execution of nearly two hundred Roman matrons, who, during the consulates of Marcellus and Valerius, were convicted of this fearful crime.12 But whatever knowledge was acquired of certain drug and minerals, the medicinal riches of nature were unsuspected, even by the most erudite practitioners; and, as already remarked, it was reserved for the alchemists of the middle ages, while pursuing their own delusion, to eliminate the principles of Chemistry, and give them the form of a science.

11 Juv. Sat.

12 Liv. XXV.

V.

THE FINE ARTS.

We have arrived at a point in man's social progress when it becomes necessary to inquire what was his acquaintance with the fine arts, to which society owes so much, and civilization everything. The arts in their operation not only embellish life, but they, at the same time, elevate the faculties and ennoble the affections. They present to the eye the most beautiful conceptions of the imagination, in a chaste, eloquent, and symmetrical form. If science is the light of the mind, the arts may be called its atmosphere, since it is from them it receives expansion, elasticity, and inspiration. Under their magic hand, the crude marble is moulded into exquisite figures, swelling with emotion and life; animation and action are imparted to the painter's canvas; and the architect, by his skill and cunning, rears a fabric that embodies alike the luxuriant suggestions of the fancy and the practical laws of mechanics.

Architecture is the parent of the arts, as Astronomy is of the sciences. It first raised the imagination from the dust to the beautiful and sublime, to ideas of grandeur, elegance, grace, and symmetry, forming the taste and maturing the power by manifold but rapid gradations, which imperceptibly merged in each other. What a gulf divides the later epoch from the first! Standing in the midst of the Louvre, let us look back to the time when man grovelled on the surface of the earth, in habits, as in instincts, but little removed from the worm; and we shall then appreciate the miraculous transformation accomplished by the arts. And in this result architecture has borne a mighty part. We see the Indian in his wigwam, and wonder that humanity can tolerate the discomfort, the hardship, and the inclement exposure of such an abode. But in its capacity as in its structure, and still more in appearance, the wigwam is a material improvement on the original dwellings of man. In the remotest times nature was indeed untutored-naked and helpless in proportion as she was benighted, and without moral attributes or aspirations. Job has left us a terrible picture of the Troglodytes, who dwelt in the caves of the

earth and in the rocks: Among the bushes they are born; under the nettles they were gathered together: they are viler than the earth.' But in comparison with primeval savages, the Troglodytes had made some approaches to civilization. The earlier races had no permanent or settled dwellings. The skin of the animal slaughtered in the morning for food, and yet reeking with clotted gore, served at night as a tent to shelter the wearied huntsman from the dews of heaven. Gradually hides would accumulate; the tent would be enlarged; and, in fact, these dwellings of skins, subjected to no preparatory process, are still found among the nomade tribes of the East, perpetuating one of the first types of primeval architecture.' The next step was to take advantage of natural fissures in rocks, or to excavate artificial caverns in the sides of hills. Such was the residence of Lot, after the destruction of the cities of the plain, when, flying to the mountains, 'he dwelt in a cave, he and his daughters.' Soon boughs of trees, meeting overhead, suggested the erection of wooden pillars, roofed with umbrageous branches, which afforded a refuge from the sun by day, and from the humid atmosphere at 1 Macintosh's 'Military Tour.'