occasionally disturbing and destroying them; I saw naked savages feeding upon wild fruits, or devouring shell-fish, or fighting with clubs for the remains of a whale which had been thrown upon the shore.  I observed that they had no habitations, that they concealed themselves in caves, or under the shelter of palm trees, and that the only delicious food which nature seemed to have given to them was the date and the cocoa-nut, and these were in very small quantities and the object of contention.  I saw that some few of these wretched human beings that inhabited the wide waste before my eyes, had weapons pointed with flint or fish-bone, which they made use of for destroying birds, quadrupeds, or fishes, that they fed upon raw; but their greatest delicacy

appeared to be a maggot or worm, which they sought for with great perseverance in the buds of the palm.  When I had cast my eyes on the varied features of this melancholy scene, which was now lighted by a rising sun, I heard again the same voice which had astonished me in the Colosæum, and which said,—“See the birth of Time!  Look at man in his newly created state, full of youth and vigour.  Do you see aught in this state to admire or envy?”  As the last words fell on my ear, I was again, as before, rapidly put in motion, and I seemed again resistless to be hurried upon a stream of air, and again in perfect darkness.  In a moment, an indistinct light again appeared before my eyes and a country opened upon my view which appeared partly wild and partly cultivated; there were fewer woods and morasses than in the scene which I had just before seen; I beheld men who were covered with the skins of animals, and who were driving cattle to enclosed pastures; I saw others who were reaping and collecting corn, others who were making it into bread; I saw cottages furnished with many of the conveniences of life, and a people in that state of agricultural and pastoral improvement which has been imagined by the poets as belonging to the golden age.  The same voice, which I shall call that of the Genius, said, “Look at these groups of men who are escaped from the state of infancy: they owe their improvement to a few superior minds still amongst them.  That aged man whom you see with a crowd around him taught them to build cottages; from that other they learnt to domesticate cattle; from others to collect and sow corn and seeds of fruit.  And these arts will never be lost; another generation will see them more perfect; the houses, in a

century more, will be larger and more convenient; the flocks of cattle more numerous; the corn-fields more extensive; the morasses will be drained, the number of fruit-trees increased.  You shall be shown other visions of the passages of time, but as you are carried along the stream which flows from the period of creation to the present moment, I shall only arrest your transit to make you observe some circumstances which will demonstrate the truths I wish you to know, and which will explain to you the little it is permitted me to understand of the scheme of the universe.”  I again found myself in darkness and in motion, and I was again arrested by the opening of a new scene upon my eyes.  I shall describe this scene and the others in the succession in which they appeared before me, and the observations by which they were accompanied in the voice of the wonderful being who appeared as my intellectual guide.  In the scene which followed that of the agricultural or pastoral people, I saw a great extent of cultivated plains, large cities on the sea-shore, palaces—forums and temples ornamenting them; men associated in groups, mounted on horses, and performing military exercises; galleys moved by oars on the ocean; roads intersecting the country covered with travellers and containing carriages moved by men or horses.  The Genius now said, “You see the early state of civilisation of man; the cottages of the last race you beheld have become improved into stately dwellings, palaces, and temples, in which use is combined with ornament.  The few men to whom, as I said before, the foundations of these improvements were owing, have had divine honours paid to their memory.  But look at the

instruments belonging to this generation, and you will find that they are only of brass.  You see men who are talking to crowds around them, and others who are apparently amusing listening groups by a kind of song or recitation; these are the earliest bards and orators; but all their signs of thought are oral, for written language does not yet exist.”  The next scene which appeared was one of varied business and imagery.  I saw a man, who bore in his hands the same instruments as our modern smiths, presenting a vase, which appeared to be made of iron, amidst the acclamations of an assembled multitude engaged in triumphal procession before the altars dignified by the name of Apollo at Delphi; and I saw in the same place men who carried rolls of papyrus in their hands and wrote upon them with reeds containing ink made from the soot of wood mixed with a solution of glue.  “See,” the Genius said, “an immense change produced in the condition of society by the two arts of which you here see the origin; the one, that of rendering iron malleable, which is owing to a single individual, an obscure Greek; the other, that of making thought permanent in written characters, an art which has gradually arisen from the hieroglyphics which you may observe on yonder pyramids.  You will now see human life more replete with power and activity.”  Again, another scene broke upon my vision.  I saw the bronze instruments, which had belonged to the former state of society, thrown away; malleable iron converted into hard steel, this steel applied to a thousand purposes of civilised life; I saw bands of men who made use of it for defensive armour and for offensive weapons; I saw these iron-clad men, in small numbers

subduing thousands of savages, and establishing amongst them their arts and institutions; I saw a few men on the eastern shores of Europe, resisting, with the same materials, the united forces of Asia; I saw a chosen band die in defence of their country, destroyed by an army a thousand times as numerous; and I saw this same army, in its turn, caused to disappear, and destroyed or driven from the shores of Europe by the brethren of that band of martyred patriots; I saw bodies of these men traversing the sea, founding colonies, building cities, and wherever they established themselves, carrying with them their peculiar arts.  Towns and temples arose containing schools, and libraries filled with the rolls of the papyrus.  The same steel, such a tremendous instrument of power in the hands of the warrior, I saw applied, by the genius of the artist, to strike forms even more perfect than those of life out of the rude marble; and I saw the walls of the palaces and temples covered with pictures, in which historical events were portrayed with the truth of nature and the poetry of mind.  The voice now awakened my attention by saying, “You have now before you the vision of that state of society which is an object of admiration to the youth of modern times, and the recollections of which, and the precepts founded on these recollections, constitute an important part of your education.  Your maxims of war and policy, your taste in letters and the arts, are derived from models left by that people, or by their immediate imitators, whom you shall now see.”  I opened my eyes, and recognised the very spot in which I was sitting when the vision commenced.  I was on the top of an arcade under a

silken canopy,