golde made into fine powder, blow it thorow hollow canes upon their naked bodies, untill they be all shining from the foot to the head, and in this sort they sit drinking by twenties and hundreds, and continue in drunkenness, six or seven dayes together. Upon this sight, and for the abundance of gold he saw in the city, the images of gold in their temples, the plates, armour, and shields of gold which they use in the warres, he called it El Dorado." A strange story enough, we say, yet Mr. Prescott can tell us stranger ones, which have the additional merit of being true. Here, then, was a mighty empire in the heart of the tropical forests, about the head-waters of the Orinoco and the Amazon. If England could possess it, she would be far richer and more powerful than Spain. If she could go to these Indians as a protector from the cruelties of the Spaniards, she would be the foremost nation of the world in humanity and mercy. To find this empire, and to carry promise of protection, was Raleigh's scheme, which he tried to execute, not once only, but twice and thrice, and even oftener, and which at last proved the snare in which he lost his life, his eldest son and his best captain having previously laid down their lives in the enterprise.

But Raleigh was by no means the first who ventured upon this undertaking. The path had been travelled by weary and bloody feet. The golden phantom was the lure which had led many a brave man to his destruction. Many a captain, "with valiant comrades at his back, had vanished into the green gulfs of the primeval forests, never to emerge again." Tales of suffering and woe, sometimes of crime, are connected with all the names of that long list of adventurers who went to seek Manoa. Diego Ordas, slain in a mutiny; Orellana, for eight months sailing down the Maranon in a small brigantine, exposed to many dangers and fighting with Amazons; Juan Corteso, Pedro de Silva, Pedro Hernandez de Serpa, Alonzo de Herrara, killed, driven back, or lost in the wilderness; Antonio Sedenno, assaulted by tigers; Augustine Delgado, requiting the courtesy and kindness of the Indians by manifold wrongs; Pedro de Orsua, basely murdered, with his wife, by mutinous followers; - these are a few only of Raleigh's predecessors. A less courageous man would have quailed at the

prospect. Yet Raleigh made the attempt, all the more excited to it by the prospect of dangers in the way. The tale of his misfortunes is but another added to the catalogue of woes which mankind have suffered in the pursuit of gold.

"Quid non mortalia pectora cogis,

Auri sacra fames!"

It is but due to Raleigh to say, that his desire for treasure was secondary to his love for England's glory and his regard for England's queen.

It is not our intention to give an account of Raleigh's voyages to Guiana, or of his proceedings while there. They better deserve a paper by themselves, and our narrowing limits warn us against an attempt to present them here. Suffice it to say, that he pursued this object with more constancy, perhaps, than any other of his adventurous life. His first voyage was made in 1595, his last in 1617. In the mean time he sent out several expeditions, all of which were unsuccessful. El Dorado was not reached, and the city of Manoa and the country of the Amazons remain undiscovered to this day. Poor Raleigh receives but little credit from the historians for his enterprise in this direction, and less for the narrative which he gives of his discoveries. Hume declares that his account of the country is "full of the grossest and most palpable lies that were ever attempted to be imposed on the credulity of mankind." Lingard is scarcely less severe, making the remark, that his narrative "proves him to have been a master in the art of puffing." We do not indorse the truth of Raleigh's stories, but we do not believe that he attempted to palm off upon his countrymen what he himself knew to be falsehood. He simply told what he had heard from the Spaniards, from Berreo, and from the Indian caciques. And in an age when the most marvellous accounts of the New World were in circulation, when the truth itself was almost incredible,when this unexplored continent lay before the mind and imagination of Europe, and every fresh discovery excited that imagination more and more, such stories as these of Raleigh are no more than were current, and received with full credit, at the time. If John Davis, with his good sense, could write a book to prove that the inhabitants of the North Pole occu

pied the place of greatest dignity on the globe, and, if they were only converted to Christianity, would be the happiest, because the most favored, people in the world, Sir Walter Raleigh, with his vivid fancy, could be pardoned for statements, which, if fictitious, were not so strange as many which were known to be true. Then, too, it cannot be proved that there is no El Dorado in the interior of South America. It is not at all improbable that a portion of the Peruvians fled thither from the rapacity of the Spaniards. It is certainly true that there is gold in abundance in that territory. And it may be that some American Layard will yet lay bare, in the depth of Amazonian forests, a buried empire. When we remember, also, that Indian women might have become desperate, and, flying from Spanish lust, have changed their gentle nature for rough and warlike habits, the story of the Amazons may not appear to us altogether improbable. If the reports of African travellers are correct, women can be trained to rival the hardier sex in valor and fierceness. But, true or false, Raleigh's "Discoverie of Guiana" still stands, a narrative of charming description, of delightful freshness, and of unsurpassed interest.

Westward Ho! Elizabeth, her merchants, her courtiers, her warriors, have long since passed away; but the spirit which animated them lives in their descendants. The West is still the land of promise, of hope, of enterprise and adventure. Ever towards the setting sun the nations look, and take their way, as though the golden clouds he leaves behind him were the tokens of substantial treasures on which his rays yet fall. It was not for the men of that glorious time to give the New World its impulse towards civilized life. Those who sought gold, even though it might have been for England's greater glory, were not the men to found a state, whose work it was to carry forward providential plans for the welfare of all the human race. The Spanish colonies have become insignificant nations; Guiana is an inconsiderable province of Great Britain. It was reserved for those who left their country in obedience to convictions of duty, -duty to God and Humanity, to lay the foundations of the new England upon the western continent. That other England, now an empire

richer than El Dorado itself, mightier than Spain in her most powerful days, contesting with the old and parent England the peaceful supremacy of land and sea,- what a glorious destiny awaits her fidelity to God, her own history, and the interests of mankind! Not by tyranny over the weak, not by insane thirst for gold, but by justice and generosity, by patient industry and steadfast righteousness, shall a great state grow up into its full proportions, and " Westward Ho!" shall be to all the nations of the earth the watchword of freedom, of civilization, and of progress.

ART. II.—1. Euvres Complètes de VICTOR HUGO. Pariş. 1843. 2 vols.

8vo.

2. Napoléon le Petit. New York. 1852.

3. Euvres Oratoires de VICTOR HUGO. Genève. 1853. 2 vols.

4. Châtiments. Par VICTOR HUGO. Genève. 1853.

On the western coast of France lies a group of islands, lifting their rocky cliffs above the sea, and washed on all sides by the Atlantic. The three principal members of this group, known as the "Channel Islands," are Alderney, Guernsey, and Jersey. These islands, though seeming to belong, by geographical position, to France, being but twelve or fifteen miles from the coast of La Manche, and nearly a hundred from the nearest British port, are politically a part of the territories of the British crown. The remains of Roman forts, and the discovery of coins of the Emperors, prove them to have once been military stations. In the ninth century they were invaded by the Normans, and under William the Conqueror they became a part of the Norman demesnes of England. Notwithstanding repeated attempts on the part of France to recover possession of them, they have ever since continued an integral portion of that vast empire, whose conquests by sea and land almost justify the metaphor, that the sun never sets upon her flag.

The island of Jersey, the largest of the Channel group, is defended on three sides by bold, precipitous rocks, rising 250 feet above the level of the sea. While in nearly the latitude of Paris, its insular position softens the atmosphere to such a degree that its climate, though damp, is wonderfully mild, the mean temperature being 62° in summer and 42° in winter. The population of Jersey is about 50,000, of whom 5,000 only are of English extraction. The remainder are either natives of the soil, or immigrants from the neighboring French main. The vernacular language of the island is French, which is used in the churches and courts of law. To this island, drawn by its salubrity, its close proximity to France, and the predominant French element in its population, have flocked a multitude of the political exiles whom the last unsuccessful French Revolution has scattered abroad. Among this band of republicans, and distinguished alike by literary eminence and political zeal, stands prominent and remarkable the subject of the present article.

Victor Hugo was a member of the Constituent Assembly of 1848, and of the National Assembly of the Republic, which was dissolved by President Louis Napoleon by the proclamation of December 2, 1851, commonly called the Coup d'Etat. Born in the year 1802, at the village of Besançon, he was cradled among the stirring scenes of martial glory which preceded the establishment of the empire. His father was a colonel in the army of Napoleon, and the young Victor, born almost amid the roar of cannon, followed, with his mother, the steps of the conquering army. This wandering and adventurous infancy, fruitful in all the emotions which varied scenery and events can inspire, nourished his imagination with poetic fancies. "I traversed Europe," says he, "almost before I began to live"; and in fact, at five years of age, he had already been carried from Besançon to Elba, from Elba to Paris, from Paris to Rome, from Rome to Naples, had played at the foot of Vesuvius, and with his father had chased Italian brigands across the mountains of Calabria. On his return to France, in 1809, his education, already commenced by so large an experience of the world, was continued by the aid of books. He learned the rudiments of the classics NO. 169.

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