This long range of edifices presents an imposing aspect to the stranger, as he passes up the Thames, and turns his eyes to the spot so long occupied by the old Parliament Houses, depicted and noticed in the last number of our second volume. They were accidentally destroyed by fire on the 16th of October, 1834. The present enlarged edifice soon rose from the ruins, and affords much more ample and convenient accommodations to the two Houses of Parliament, the Library, and the various minor purposes connected with them. The origin of the conflagration is a matter of much uncertainty; but it was supposed to be accidental. A large quantity of old and useless papers had been burnt in the Exchequer, which, it was supposed, might have been too hastily crowded into the fire-places, and over-heated some of the chimney-flues. The mere destruction of the main building itself might not have been much regretted, as it made room for the present superior structure: but numerous valua ble documents were consumed, and the admired old Painted Chamber, the tapestries, &c., in the House of Lords, and, above all, the adjoining ancient chapel of St. Stephen, were also ruined. This last had long stood as the most perfect specimen of the highly ornamented Gothic style of architecture in the kingdom, and was respectable and valuable also from its historical associations.

Westminster Cathedral, which stands in this vicinity, was the first of the ancient edifices which are here clustered together. The superstitions inculcated. by the Romish priesthood have always filled the heads of all people, foolish enough to listen to their fictions, with ideas of the superior sanctity of the ob jects, buildings and places which the pretended miraculous power of themselves or others has distinguished. There, as in many other places and countries, consequence was given to the place where the ground was called holy, and a host of

images were congregated, and daily worshipped. King Canute, though a Dane, became a dupe of the priesthood, and in his later days, fixed his residence under their wing, being the first king who occupied this site. The building which he inhabited was destroyed by fire in the time of Edward the Confessor, who, a bigot of the blindest kind, built another palace near the same spot; and his successors continued to occupy Westminster Palace, until the reign of Henry VIII. in 1529, when another fire occurred by which it was destroyed, and Whitehall became the royal residence.

The origin of the Parliament of England is lost in the gloom of the Dark Ages, like many other important events, which would have been preserved if men had not been degraded by a system of false religion, the fertile source of a thousand evils, which nothing but the truth can remedy. The people, in all ages, felt that desire, so natural to man, to govern themselves, and which ever will show itself just in proportion to the liberty allowed it to express itself. It is believed that the representatives of the people fomerly met with the lords in the great national hall of legislation; and that the body was first divided in the year 1377. Conflicts innumerable were waged, from the earliest days of English history, between the people, the nobles and the monarchs, often influenced, instigated or directed, more or less covert. ly by the priesthood, to whose interierence in public and private affairs, directly, or indirectly, a great part of the history of England was materially affected, in almost all ages, as every intelligent reader must plainly see. The Reformation put an end to the old system: but some of its evil features were retained, which have ever since exerted unhappy influences in Parliament and on the nation. Among these are the church establishment and the civil power of eccles'astics. Under the dispensations of Di

vine Providence good often results from evil; and the dictatorial spirit of the English Bishops, proceeding to persecution, soon commissioned the Pilgrims to lay the foundation of a new republic on Plymouth rock.

Such reflections as these, and others, in an endless train, naturally crowd into the mind of an American, as he stands to contemplate the site of the British Parliament.

Many writers have laid much stress on the antiquity of the English Legislature, and on some of its forms, which they were inclined to regard with veneration on that account; while others have not pretended to trace the origin of the House of Commons farther back than the appointment of Burgesses, or near the date of the Norman conquest. To us Americans it can hardly be a point of much importance, to pursue the question far in our enquiries, amidst the degree of uncertainty which exists. It is of greater importance to us, that the rules and precedents which have been established in the course of its existence, so far as they are applicable and salutary to our legislative assemblies, should be honored by careful adherence. We have too often had reason to lament the disregard of order, propriety, and even decency, in some of our state legislatures, and still more in Congress, where some men occasionally are sent to take their seats, not properly prepared to appreciate the value and necessity of established rules. The long experience of the Parliament of Great Britain led to the adoption of a system, which is embraced in all its details in a volume familiarly known as the Red Book; and this we have found it not only convenient, but indispensable, to adopt, as the general guide of our forms of proceeding in deliberative assemblies, even down to the town-meetings and the sessions of literary, scientific, philanthropic and religious associations.

The general principles and most com

mon forms of what we call "parliamentary usage" thus become well known to multitudes of our people, even in early life; and the habit of acting in submission to them is a very salutary one, as the occasional disregard of them which we witness most emphatically proves. Order is indispensable to the decent and even the possible transaction of business; and to secure it should be a primary object. The English failed egregiously in two points, the oversight of which, as observation has strongly impressed upon our minds, has had many bad effects on both sides of the Atlantic. We allude to the permission of members of the House of Commons to sit with their hats on, and to viva voce' voting. Men will not feel like gentlemen when they act unlike them; and the habit of silence in public assemblies will cherish. a repugnance to noise. The House of Representstives of Massachusetts, consisting of above 400 members, is never disturbed even when taking a vote in the most contested cases: for they express their opinions by the mere raising of the hand. Total silence prevails, and yet the speaker is far better able to decide on the vote than when it is expressed by the voice.

We could not but reflect, while look. ing upon that impressive and gratifying scene a few years ago, that we might have been greatly the gainers, as well as the English, if the latter had originally adopted this most civilized habit. It would naturally have been copied by our state and general legislatures; and si. lence would have been a characteristic trait of all our deliberative assemblies. It seems to be an object not unworthy of serious attention, that the young at least should be trained to respectful behaviour, especially in public and on grave occasions, that they may be prepared to avoid such scenes of disorder, which now form one of the threatening aspects of our national affairs.

Great Eruption of the Volcano

of Kilauea in 1840.

"Since our return from Oahu I have made a thorough exploration of the tract of country where the eruption occurred, having found its source, and traced the stream through most of its windings, to the sea. Some of the principal facts which have been collected from credible testimony, and from personal observation, I will now give you. For several years past the great crater of Kilauea has been rapidly filling up, by the rising of the superincumbent crust, and by the frequent gushing forth of the molten sea below. In this manner the great basin below the black ledge, which has been computed from three to five hundred feet deep, was long since filled up by the injection and cooling of successive masses of the fiery fluid.

These silent eruptions continued to occur at intervals, until the black ledge was repeatedly overflowed, each cooling, and forming a new layer from two feet thick and upwards, until the whole area of the crater was filled up, at least fifty feet above the original black ledge, and thus reducing the whole depth of the crater to less than nine hundred feet. This process of filling up continued till the latter part of May, 1840, when, as many natives testify, the whole area of the crater became one entire sea of ignifluous matter, raging like old ocean when lashed into fury by a tempest. For several days the fire raged with fearful intensity, exhibiting a scene awfully terrific. The infuriated waves sent up infernal sounds, and dashed with such maddening energy against the sides of the awful caldron, as to shake the solid earth above, and to detach huge masses of overhanging rocks, which, leaving their ancient beds, plunged into the fiery gulf below. So terrific was the scene that no one dared to approach near it, and trav ellers on the main road, which lay along the verge of the crater, feeling the ground tremble beneath their feet, fled and passed by at a distance. I should be inclined to discredit these statements of the natives, had I not since been to Kilauea and examined it minutely with these reports in view. Every appearance, however, of the crater confirms these reports. Everything within the caldron is

new.

Not a particle of lava remains as it was when I last visited it. All has

been melted down and re-cast. All is new. The whole appears like a raging sea, whose waves had been suddenly solidified while in the most violent agitation.

Having stated something of the appearance of the great crater, for several days previous to the disgorgement of its fiery contents, I will now give a short history of the eruption itself. I say short, because it would require a volume to give a full and minute detail of all the facts in the case.

On the 30th of May the people of Puna observed the appearance of smoke and fire in the interior: a mountainous and desolate region of that district. Thinking that the fire might be the burning in some jungle, they took little notice of it until the next day, Sabbath, when the meetings in the different villages were thrown into confusion by sudden and grand exhibitions of fire, on a scale so large and fearful as to leave them no room to doubt the cause of the phenomenon. The fire augmented during the day and night; but it did not seem to flow off rapidly in any direction. All were in consternation, as it was expected that the molten flood would pour itself down from its height of four thousand feet to the coast, and no one knew to what point it would flow, or what devastation would attend its fiery course. On Monday, June 1st, the stream began. to flow off in a north-easterly direction, and on the following Wednesday, June 3d, at evening, the burning river reached. the sea, having averaged about half a mile an hour in its progress. The rapidity of the flow was very unequal, being modified by the inequalities of the surface, over which the stream passed. Sometimes it is supposed to have moved five miles an hour, and at other times, owing to obstructions, making no appa. rent progress, except in filling up deep valleys, and in swelling over or breaking away hills and precipices.

But I will return to the source of the eruption. This is in a forest, and in the bottom of an ancient wooded crater. about four hundred feet deep, and proba bly eight miles east from Kilauea. The region being uninhabited and co ered with a thicket, it was sometime before the place was discovered; and up to this time, though several foreigners have attempted it, no one, except myself, has

reached the spot. From Kilauea to this place the lava flows in a subterranean gallery, probably at the depth of a thousand feet, but its course can be distinctly traced all the way, by the rending of the crust of the earth into innumerable fissures, and by the emission of smoke, steam, and gasses. The eruption in this old crater is small, and from this place the stream disappears again for the distance of a mile or two, when the lava again gushed up and spread over an area of about fifty acres. Again it passes under ground for two or three miles, when it re-appears in another old wooded crater, consuming the forest, and partly filling up the basin. Once more it disappears, and flowing in a subterranean channel, cracks and breaks the earth, opening fissures from six inches to ten or twelve feet in width, and sometimes splitting the trunk of a tree so exactly that its legs stand astride at the fissure. At some places it is impossible to trace the subterranean stream, on account of the impenetrable thicket under which it passes.

After flowing under ground several miles, perhaps six or eight, it again broke out like an overwhelming flood, and sweeping forest, hamlet, plantation, and everything before it, rolled down with resis less energy to the sea, where, leaping a precipice of forty or fifty feet, it poured itself in one vast cataract of fire into the deep below, with loud detonations, fearful hissings, and a thousand unearthly and indescribable sounds. Imagine to yourself a river of fused minerals, of the breadth and depth of Niagara, and of a deep gory red, falling, in one emblazoned sheet, one raging torrent, into the ocean! The scene, as described by eyewitnesses, was terribly sublime. Two mighty agencies in collision! Two antagonist and gigantic forces in contact, and producing effects on a scale inconceivably grand! The atmosphere in all directions was filled with ashes, spray, gases, etc.; while the burning lava, as it fell into the water, was shivered into millions of minute particles, and, being thrown back into the air, fell in showers of sand on all the surrounding country. The coast was extended into the sea for a quarter of a mile, and a pretty sand beach and a new cape were formed. Three hills of scoria and sand were also formed in the sea, the lowest about two

hundred and the highest about three hundred feet.

(To be Concluded.)

The Citizens of Athens.

A citizen could only be such by birth or adoption. To be a natural denizen of Athens, it was necessary to be born of a father and mother both free, and Athenians. We have seen that Pericles restored this law to all its force, which had not been exactly observed, and which he himself some short time after infringed. The people could not confer the freedom of the city upon strangers; and those whom they had so adopted, enjoyed almost the same rights and privileges as the natural citizens. The quality of the citizens of Athens was sometimes granted in honor and gratitude to those who had rendered great services to the state, as to Hippocrates; and even kings have sometimes obtained that title for themselves and their children. Evagoras, King of Cyprus, thought it much to his

honor.

When the young men attained the age of twenty, they were enrolled upon the list of citizens, after having taken an oath; and it was only in virtue of that public and solemn act that they became members of the state. The form of this oath is exceedingly remarkable, which Stobæus and Pollux have preserved in the following words: "I will never dishonor the profession of arms, nor save my life by a shameful flight. I will fight to my last breath for the religion and civil interests of the state, in concert with the other citizens, and alone if occasion should require. I will not bring my country into a worse condition than I found it, but will use my utmost endeavors to make it most happy and flourishing. I will slways submit myself to the laws and magistrates, and to all that shall be ordained by the common consent of the people. If any one shall violate or make void the laws, I will not disguise or conceal such an attempt, but will oppose it either alone or in conjunction with my fellow citizens; and I will constantly adhere to the religion of my forefathers. To all which I call to witness Agraulis, Enyalus, Mars and Jupiter." I leave the reader to his own reflections upon this august ceremony, well adapted to inspire the love of country into the hearts of the young. Hist.