robing an idol-asserts that "woman has in our day attained a false elevation;" that "she is not morally accountable for the imperfections that have assailed her,"-that she is not "given to man for a counsellor." After "unrobing an idol," this precious moralist declares woman not an accountable creature, nor capable of being the "counsellor" or friend of man; consequently, she is only a fit object for sensual gratification or household drudgery; this is only too ridiculous-positively too absurd for criticism-to make such assertions at a time when female talent and female industry are so conspicuous, has at least one charm to recommend it-the charm of novelty!

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Our ingenious author waxes warm as his pages multiply. He is enraged with the " 'ceremony of wedlock;" complains that "women are no longer cyphers beyond the sphere of domestic life." He becomes sublime, quotes Byron, and, further on, assures us that in " Africa and America women are little more than upper domestics;" that civilization is to be blamed for this! He weeps our pseudo-civilization as a beacon of a nation's" corruption and decline! "Did not," he says gravely, "wives turn away the heart of Solomon, God's chosen servant?" Verily we do believe that Master Solomon was just as guilty of "turning the hearts of the wives!" "After ruminating mischief against the Israelites, with what refined invention Balaam at length makes choice of woman"- -we might have given Balaam's ass credit for this argument against the fair sex, for what does it prove, after all?—simply that Balaam appreciated their cleverness.

But the gentleman is not content with citing examples and quoting opinions: he proceeds to scurrility, he calls them "the rot of power;" and declares that "no woman breathing ever knew how to govern herself!"

We have lived many years in the world, and many years in society, and the perfect falsehood of this last passage strikes us so forcibly that we must pause to comment upon it. Almost the first lesson taught a female infant is the art of governing herself: if she has brothers, she is taught to yield to their whims; and, in all well-regulated families, she sees the respect paid which is due to its master. A woman's life is a perpetual lesson in self-restraint, and it is owing to this circumstance that women bear misfortunes with so much firmness. We cannot condescend to bestow any further notice upon a book written with so much acrimony,-penned from first to last with the evident purpose of degrading women, and making use of the whole opinions of Deists and Atheists, and quoting half-sentences from Christian authors whose names and opinions we respect. We owe it to ourselves to state, that we are not wild tilters in the field of gallantry, we perceive many faults, and a still greater number of imperfections in the present system of female education; but we observe that the education of our young men requires as much amendment, though in a different way. We would make women more rational,—we would bestow additional culture upon their reason, and an additional curb upon their imagination,—we would put the author of this two-volumed libel to the torture, by fitting the female "species" to be still more the companion and friend of man. The education of our young children is in their hands, and unless our wives possess cultivated minds, our offspring must become degenerate. We cannot educate a woman, enlarge her mind, cultivate her understanding, give her fine tastes, and then expect her to sink back at our command into the slave, while she possesses the qualities of the friend. The more highly a woman is educated, the more truly will she see what her duties are, what her station is; it is only fools who are obstinate and men in choosing wives will do well to remember this.

As to the two volumes which Mr. Cochrane has had the hardihood to publish, (we hope not on his own account,) we recommend them very sincerely to the grocer and cheesemonger, as the paper is white and strong, and the "metal" so unattractive, that the apprentices will not be seduced into loitering by perusing the " stray leaves.'

A Visit to Constantinople and some of the Greek Islands. By John Auldjo, Esq., F.G.S.

Here is an Oriental traveller of a very different character indeed from our sentimental, classical, and intelligent Frenchman, Chateaubriand. He seems to despise the first quality as all sentimentalibus lachrymæ rorum, to the second he makes slight pretensions, and the third he displays sometimes in a curious manner. He was allowed a passage in the Actæon frigate, which took Lord Ponsonby from Naples to the Turkish capital, and returned in a steam-boat by Smyrna and Malta. He gives us the result of his travelling experience for four months in the year 1833. It was his good fortune to meet distinguished characters in his tour. He was in contact going out with the British Ambassador, and on his return home with the Prince of Bavaria. He met on his way Otho, the actual King of Greece, and Madame la Duchesse de Berri, the possible Queen of France, and he has given some lively sketches of them all. He was, moreover, at Constantinople while the Russian army were encamped there, and he hates them, in the true spirit of John Bull, for daring to interfere with his views of politics. Every little incident is exhibited as part of their plan of aggrandisement and intention of dismembering Turkey, and of their studied insults to England for daring to prevent it.

But the most remarkable incident in his book is a long and interesting communication he had with Lord Ponsonby on the subject, which he does not think it right to let the public into the secrets of yet. His Lordship communicates to him, truly, all his plans, but being confidential he will not repeat them. "Thus far, however, I am at liberty to observe, that to me they appeared sound, judicious, and suited to the exigency. His plan for the maintenance of the Turkish empire may not suit Lord Grey's views, but I will say no more, for my own ideas appear so identified with those confided to me, that in giving them utterance I might unconsciously betray a trust, and make known that which for the present ought to be a secret!" We have no doubt of the kindness and urbanity of Lord Ponsonby, and the statement of those attentions Mr. Auldjo says he received from him might be true; but if a British Ambassador thought it a part of his hospitality to confide to an accidental acquaintance, and to such an acquaintance, the important secrets confided to him by his government, we can only say it exceeded even the indiscretion of a Whig. We imagine, however, our talkative traveller rather overrates his intimacy with the representative of his Britannic Majesty, as Mr. Lofty did his with the King of Poland, and we presume he now speaks of Ponsonby as his prototype did of Poniatowski, by the familiar abbreviation of "Honest Pon."

For the rest, Mr. Auldjo, like all travellers in a hurry, took his information from the first person who gave it, and set it down in his journal as he received it, without having an opportunity of making further inquiry. Many of the names of persons and places which he caught from mere sound are incorrect. He mentions the tomb of Esachus, on the plain of Troy, twice. We never heard of such a tomb, and suppose he meant that of sites, where the Trojans sent Polites to watch the movements of the Greeks, and which forms a conspicuous tumulus in the centre of the plain. He says the Janissaries were destroyed at the Atmeidan or " Hippodrome;" the scene of carnage was the Etmeidan, or "place of meat," a Janissary barrack, in a very different part of the city. Other inaccuracies of a similar kind occur.

With respect to the style of Mr. Auldjo, it is that of a gay bon vivant, who was not altogether particular. He talks with great gusto of the English porter, ale, and soda-water he met with, and never loses an occasion of describing a ball or a banquet. He is introduced to a Turkish lady, who was invited, he says, for the express purpose of his seeing her; and after a graphic but somewhat warm description of her beauty, he ex

claims "No wonder the Turks sigh for Paradise when they believe heaven peopled with such Houries as these. Egad! it requires the exertion of all our philosophy and self-denial to resist the temptation of turning Turk too."

The book is embellished by some sketches by Cruikshank, an artist not inappropriate to illustrate the details of our lively, flippant author.

Hydraulia; an Historical and Descriptive Account of the Waterworks of London. By William Mathews, Author of "The History of Gas-lights."

The very sound of this work is music to us, and we were never more disposed to say with Pindar, apicтov μèv vowρ. We were sitting without our coat, panting in an arid atmosphere, with the thermometer 96° in the shade, the sky not blue, but red like molten brass, the earth not green, but brown like baked pottery; we were trying to recollect Virgil's description of hot weather, beginning with

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and ending with

Jamque rapidus torrens sitientes Sirius Indos
Ardebat cœlo-

-cava flumina siccis

Faucibus ad limum radii tepefacta coquebant."

And we had just come to the conclusion that he was a vates as well in prediction as poetry, and had not only described what did happen in Peloponnesus some thousand years ago, but what would happen in England in July and August, 1835, when just at this moment a book on Waterworks was laid on our table, and the very cadence of the word Hydraulia, and the liquid letters that compose it, refreshed us like the gurgling of a fountain. We owe Mr. Mathews good will, if for nothing else, for the timely appearance of his book, and the name he has given it.

It seems that five companies who monopolize the privilege of supplying the city of London with water have excited in no small degree, according to his account, the envy of those who think they ought to share in this profitable concern. Various attacks, therefore, have been made upon them, but their most vulnerable point is the source from whence they derive their supply-the water of the Thames. We remember when Father Thames was a sacred character, and there was a specific property almost miraculous attributed to his water, and amongst other qualities of high importance, that it was the only fluid that would make porter. It is true that the Anna Liffey now divides the palm with him, and the Messrs. Guinness, who use her water, vie with Whitbread and Co.; still he was allowed many excellences. But his merits are now all forgotten-he is assailed with all manner of abuse, and he is represented as a vile compound of the most villanous materials that ever could disgust and poison the inhabitants of a city. The great works of one of the water-companies were at Chelsea, and the structure enclosing the ends of the pipes called "The Dolphin," from which the water of the River was taken up, was unhappily just opposite a great sewer, so that all the impurities of Cloacina were conveyed a second time into the stomachs of the good citizens. A book called "The Dolphin" was published, stating this and a variety of other horrors; the attention of the public was roused, meetings were called, Parliament was petitioned, and a Commission was appointed to inquire into the facts. The evidence, of course, was not very consistent; one man exhibited a bottle of water so turbid and filthy that the sight of it turned the strong stomach of Abernethy; another, on the contrary, found only three grains of extraneous matter, held either in solution or suspension in 10,000 grains of the water. But the most extraordinary part of the evidence was with respect to white bait: it seems that while roach, place, flounders, salmon, shad, eels, and dab all died by the deleterious

ingredients lately introduced into the stream of the river, the white bait became more plump and plenty than ever. Now if this omnivorous little fish fattened and increased not only on the draining of sewers and the overflowing of soap-boilers, but also on the off-scourings of gas-works, the runnings of dye-houses, and all the multifarious poisons of chemists' elaboratories, it accounts, in the most probable manner we have yet heard, for the death of poor Mr. Canning, whose "last speech" was made, we believe, at a dinner of this fish.

It is to defend the calumniated Father Thames from all the attacks of his adversaries, that Mr. Mathews takes up his pen and lays about him right and left. He enters into details of the manner in which mankind have been supplied with water since Noah's flood; describes the canals of Egypt, the wells of Athens, the baths of Rome, and the cisterns of Constantinople, including the fountains and reservoirs of London, from the earliest times to the present day, and in his progress he has certainly collected a curious mass of information. His book is embellished with sketches, and plans representing the manner in which the eastern and western parts of London and the city of Constantinople are supplied with water. The latter, we observe, is an exact copy of the curious map prefixed to Dr. Walsh's book, though Mr. Mathews has not acknowledged, as he ought, from whence he has taken it. We are friends to the circulation of knowledge, and see no reason why one author should not borrow from another, but reddere suum cuique is a fair maxim.

Two Journeys through Italy and Switzerland. By William Thomson, Assistant Commissary-General to the Forces.

We experienced much pleasure in perusing this small volume of travels. Mr. Thomson shows himself a man of taste in the arts, an enthusiastic admirer of the beauties of nature, and rather a good judge of statuary and painting. He tells us that he has written an account of two journeys through Switzerland and Italy; the first made in 1824, when on his way to join the British forces stationed in Malta; the second in 1826, when he returned to England. Going out, he entered Switzerland in spring, by Geneva and the Jura mountains. He crossed the Simplon, and went to Malta by the route of Milan, Florence, Rome, and Naples: he returned by Ancona, Venice, Milan, and over Saint Gothard. In each town, he visited the churches, picture-galleries, and other principal sights; and he gives a pleasing and instructive sketch of the specimens of painting and sculpture, and of the style of architecture of the different buildings. He adds his view of the political situation of each state; and the best hotels in each town are not forgotten. Indeed, his book is exactly what he seems to have designed it for a volume calculated to be an useful pocket-companion for the Italian tourist, though it will interest the general reader who is fond of travels where well-described views of nature are interspersed with accounts of pictures and living manners, with the ruins of ancient times. Naples and its bay seem to be his beau ideal of a picturesque landscape, as viewed from the Hermitage on Mount Vesuvius on an early cloudless morning. He gives a glowing delineation of the prospect of the town and its environs. Though much has already been written about Italy, and we cannot consider that our author has found out any thing new, yet his book is so entertaining, that, well known as are the places he speaks of, still we found great pleasure in again wandering over these classic shores with him; and we recommend the "Two Journeys to all persons who wish to profit and be amused by the journal and remarks of an intelligent traveller.

LITERARY REPORT.