With all due deference, I am inclined to the opinion that the cradle of civilization was Northern Africa, most probably its birthplace was in a tribe now non-existent. Let us not be prejudiced against the African race as lower in the scale of development than will admit of exalted acquirements. Hannibal, according to the judgment of the late Duke of Wellington, was the greatest general of whom we have record, not excepting himself. There is one very curious circumstance, that wherever we find the figure of Bhud, even in China, it represents the form and curled woolly hair of the African. But, be this as it may, it is certain that civilization never existed but in close alliance with the Fine Arts; and a collection of all the earliest notices proving that fact, or rather that Art alone testifies to a very remote civilization, shall close the present dissertation.

The book of Genesis, I think, is the earliest record we have of mankind. As in every country and among every people which have arrived at the first degree of civilization we find the arts, with music, dancing, poetry, and eloquence, it is to be presumed the ancient people of antideluvian times were not without them, though they cannot be supposed to have made much progress. Sanconiatho says "that fishing was one of the earliest inventions which the ancients attributed to their heroes." Moses relates only those grand events which it was the interest of posterity to know. The first presumptive mention of art is the description of the building of the ark, though long previous to that it is recorded that one of the great grandsons of Cain was the first to work and grave on metals, and another was the inventor of musical instruments, evidences of the early cultivation of the arts. It is clear from the knowledge exhibited in the construction of the Ark of Noah, a work which sets itself in competition with the floating castles of our own time, that constructive architecture at that period must have made great progress. Josephus writes, "The children of Seth erected two pillars, one of brick and the other of stone, on which they engraved the principles of astronomy." The making of bricks, the building with hewn stone, and the art. of sculpture here shown, are proofs of a high degree of civilization and something like proficiency in the arts and sciences.

Within two centuries after the flood the Arts, and especially Architecture, were cultivated in Chaldea, China, Egypt, and Phoenicia; there are names of several cities preserved in the book of Genesis. The Assyrian is reported to have been the first empire established, at the commencement of which was the building of the Tower of Babel, and the partly executed building of a

city in the plains of Shinar. De Goguet says, that the first families of men did not intend to separate permanently, though they were often obliged to part to seek subsistance; they, therefore, formed the design of building a city and raising a tower of great height, as a signal or point of re-union. To this purpose he attributes the erection of that vast edifice called the Tower of Babel. Belus, or the scriptural Nimrod, the first King of the Assyrians, was, according to most historians, the projector of this structure. He also built the celebrated city of Babylon. Ninus, his son, erected to him the first known temple, consecrated a statue to his memory, and ordered it to be worshipped; this is the first recorded instance of idolatry.

Babylon was a large and beautiful city. Pliny states it to have been sixty miles in circumference, that its walls were two hundred feet high and fifty thick, and that a magnificent temple of Jupiter Belus was standing there in his time. Herodotus says that it was full of magnificent structures, and celebrated for its temple of Belus; that it had a hundred gates of brass. The statue of Belus is the same idol mentioned in the Scriptures under the name of Baal and Baal Phegor. Ninus was also the founder of the city of Nineveh, which Diodorus says was fifty miles in circuit, and is described in the book of Joshua as an exceeding great city of three day's journey.

Tradition mentions Terah, the father of Abraham, as a maker of images; and that the worship of them continued in his family for nearly two hundred years, notwithstanding the call and conversion of Abraham, is proved by Rachel's theft of the images of Laban. But more than a century before the call of Abraham, a colony had been planted at Sicyon, by an Egyptian leader, Ægialeus, who brought with him the knowledge of sculpture and painting, and founded the earliest and purest school of Greek art. Books and letters must have been ancient in Falestine even in Joshua's time; and there is a command given in Numbers to destroy the pictures and molten images of the natives of Palestine.

The walls of Babylon, the tower of Babel, the extent of Nineveh, spreading over an area nearly six times the size of that of London, the existing pyramids of Egypt, and the great wall of China, a work of high antiquity, measuring one thousand five hundred miles in length, forty-five feet in height and eighteen in thickness, with towers of corresponding proportions and reasonable distance, are examples, founded on the most authentic historians, that architecture flourished in a splendid manner even in those ancient days. When we reflect on Babylon's hundred gates of

brass, the image of Belus, the engraving on stones and metal, all which imply the knowledge of the fusion and mixture of metals, and the practice of the other arts dependant on design, we perceive that the Fine Arts are of the remotest antiquity, being amongst the earliest acquirements of the most primitive humanity, and we are led to consider that, rather than being the mere relaxation of the superior mind, they are in close relation to the. history of human progress, and, as I trust to prove, not only conducive to philosophy and enlightenment, but are one of the main instruments to our happiness.

A LAY FOR ST. VALENTINE.

AGAIN thou comest, sprite of mirth
Of laughing eye, and sparkling smile,
Again thou gladdenest for a while
The sons and daughters of the earth.

'Tis said, in all things there is truth;

Whose grains prevail against a host,
And e'en where falsehood blendeth most
Her subtle power,-in age or youth;

And though some falsehood mists are here,
Which seem to brood around thy wings,
We see that they are earthly things,
Such as pervade our atmosphere.
The tempest clouds sometimes diffused
So far and wide, obscure the sun.
Our brightest pleasures every one
Will wane and sink whene'er abused.
I wonder not that some should say
They never care to see thy face.
The blind man knowing not the grace
Of colors in the glowing day,

May trace them o'er with fingers light,
And know by touch their excellence,
Not wishful for a further sense;
But, would we wish to give up sight?
He that has seen thee shrouded o'er

With useless foolish words alone,
Such mockery rightly may disown,
And wish to hear of thee no more.

But if we are not half asleep,

And when we look at thee aright,
Takes not the soul a bolder flight,
Surprised into a vaster deep?

A shadowy deep of doubts and fears,
A maze, a labyrinthine ground,
With teeming wonders circled round-
And shades that whisper in our ears

And say,

"We bring thee real views
Of earnest tenderness and ruth,

Of mighty love, abiding truth,
And hopes as bright as rainbow hues."
And thou, fair spirit, who can burst
Those icy chains, that often bind
The purest feelings of the mind—
Slaking the long and fiery thirst
Of those who, all unsatisfied,

Would still without a token be;
And doubt if love or constancy
Doth yet in human hearts abide :
How dear art thou to such as these,
How like the brilliant morning light,
Breaking the shadows of the night,
The sun uprising from the seas!

The sun, commanding where he shines,
That all things brightest tints display.-
And so, where falls thy gladsome ray
More noble seem our faltering lines.

IOTA

TOM SUFFRAGE'S VOTE.

BY SHAGGYQUILL.

CHAPTER

III.

WE left Tom where the kind persons who took him home left him, namely, on his own bed, outside the counterpane, with his clothes on; one boot hanging on his foot by the leg part only, and the other under his shoulder for a pillow in company with his hat; with his hair over his face, with his mouth wide open, snoring and asleep.

After making her knuckles raw with thumping at the door, the little scrub of a girl who "did for him," came in with her loose shoes, playing a tune on the floor as she walked, and gave her master a hearty shake the only result was a deep groan. Another shake followed-" Hear!-hear!" muttered Tom. Another -“Well, but Ada, my d-dear!" mumbled Tom again. Another and a savager shake-" Hey !—oh, what the deuce !—oh, it's you, Sally!—and Mr. Thomas Suffrage opened his eyes, lifted his head, gave one blank stare, then, laying his cheek on his boot and hat, prepared for another doze; this the girl would not permit; she shook him again, and pulled the boot from under him—" I heard you; go down little devil, you!"

you

"If you please, Sir, breakfast is ready this hour, Sir, and your

egg is as hard as bricks, and Mr. Sniggers has eat it; and your coffee is as cold as a stone, and Mr. Sniggers is a-drinking it."

"Oh! Mr. Sniggers is here, is he? Then I'll be down directly."

And Tom tumbled off his bed, with his head as rough as a sweeper's broom, one cheek blackened with his use of his boot for a pillow, and, to crown all, a splitting head-ache. He had never

felt half so miserable before; so miserable, indeed, he felt, that all his energies departed from him; instead of immediately setting to work like a christian and giving himself a good hearty wash, he plumped down on the side of the bed, ran his fingers through his hair, (which didn't want it, heaven knows!) and began to speculate within himself whether all democratic societies were the same, and whether it was absolutely necessary for a man to be top-heavy before he made a stand for liberty, or to be a beast before he became a patriot. Tom rubbed his hands through his hair trying to understand it, and the more he rubbed his head, the harder it was to bring his mind to the scratch. Just as he had a glimmering, and was about to reconcile very satisfactorily hard drinking with true freedom, the voice of Sniggers rolled up the stairs like artificial thunder at a theatre, and demanded as to whether he should finish the breakfast or wait for him to come down.

Coming," said Tom, gloomily.

“Oh, I see you arn't, by your voice," said Sniggers, "I'll come up to you ;" and he sprang up. "By Jove, I never saw such a mess in my life-do make yourself look like a human being!"

"Do I look like a patriot so very much?" asked Tom, with a melancholy satire.

66

Come, Tom!-none of that;" said Mr. Sniggers, with an austere and offended look, 66 come, Tom! don't rail against the noble institution of which you are a member; but get your face washed, while I tell you what I am come about."

“Well, I'll wash my face," said Tom, in a moody tone, “butbut I think I shall cut it."

"Cut what?"

"Cut this patriotic-democratic associat❞—

"Tom! Tom!-don't go on—I am ashamed of you—I thought you was a man. Because you got drunk for once, must you be unsteady to your solemn vows? What! will you desert the banner round which you have so nobly rallied? No, Tom, I did not think it of you!"

66 Say no more about it, Sniggers," said Tom, "I suppose I must stick by it now I've began-but!"