riddle was solved; she proved to be Cuvier's favourite daughter-inlaw, accompanied by her husband, Admiral Ducray.

Professor Owen proposed to accompany me to the Zoological Gardens in the Regent's park, an offer which I cheerfully accepted. On our way thither, which is a considerable distance, I had an opportunity of seeing many new localities. In the middle of the town, and in the neighbourhood of the squares on the north side of London, we came several times to gates of cast-iron railing, which were only opened on special application. This peculiarity arises from the vast extension of London, which embraces all the immediate neighbourhood in its giant arms. Large fields and gardens, formerly held by individuals as landed property, have been progressively absorbed, and are now covered with streets and squares. The ground still belongs to individual proprietors (such as the Duke of Bedford and Lord Portman), who, in such cases, have erected these gates, both to mark the limits of their estates and their rights over the property. This extension of London has led to the growth of vast estates; these lands have been generally let to builders and others, at low ground rents, for a specified term of years, at the termination of which the whole falls into the possession of the landowner or his heirs. I was informed, that in a short time some of these districts will fall in, and become the property of families already enormously rich; and it may be easily supposed of what great value such squares and streets in London really are!

The Zoological Gardens, like almost all the institutions and societies of modern England, were created and exist by means of private subscriptions. These gardens occupy a considerable space on the northern side of the Regent's park, are of great extent, and admirably laid out. They resemble the Jardins des Plantes, in Paris, in having a great number of single and neatly-built habitations for individual animals or families, but have a great advantage over the Paris gardens in a more abundant supply of water and numerous pretty ponds for water-fowl and water Mammalia. I met with many things here which were new to me. For the first time, I saw a living specimen of the orang-utang, and the saying of old Linnæus was immediately suggested to my mind: "Homini quam similis bestia turpissima nobis !" This specimen was, indeed, small, and somewhat dull; but notwithstanding that, its form and habits displayed something in the highest degree repugnant. The creature was dressed in a jacket, and thus the whole of his actions and movements, his gestures, climbing and petitioning for food, closely resembled the mien and conduct of a neglected, idiotic, illshaped, scrofulous child. His English education, too, was honourably exhibited by his having been taught to sit at table and to drink a small cup of tea with milk in it. Not far from the orangutang, a sloth (bradypus tridactylus) stretched himself out on the stem of a tree, placed in his compartment for his convenience, and it must be admitted that his appearance had something much more

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consistent in it, and was much more endurable than that of his neighbour. The family of giraffes, those yellow-brown swans of the desert, was charming. It consisted of two females and two young ones, one only thirteen days old. The male was very large, full eighteen feet high. Then two elephants-one, a young female, trotted about with a large saddle on her back, fitted so as to hold several persons, perfectly obedient to her guide, and furnishing immense delight to the boys who were favoured with this novel species of ride; the other was a male, thirty years old. There, too, the almost antediluvian colossus of the rhinoceros raised his heavy head, with his small, malicious eyes, over the barrier of his peculiar compartment. The wild cats, lions, tigers, and bears, had a particular building appropriated to themselves, and another house was admirably fitted up with a number of trees with bare boughs, as a suitable domicile for an immense number of monkeys. This presented almost a South American picture in the bright sunshine-for the day was throughout beautiful and warm-to see a great number of these wonderful creatures chasing one another, and performing their evolutions among the branches. Not far from the monkey-house, there were kangaroos and other marsupials, whilst the animals of the deer species (among them the cervus hippelaphus), and those of the horse family, and the rarer descriptions of sheep and goats, were pasturing in open grass plots, separated from one another by iron or wooden fences. The arrangements for keeping the birds were also beautiful, and the collection comprised some of the rarest species. Several were new to me, as the beautiful gray vulture (vultur leuconothus), and the polyporus vulgaris, from Brazil. Rare water-fowls breed in the little ponds appropriated to them on small artificial islands made for the purpose, and carefully protected from the assaults of water-rats, by being surrounded by a small wire fence. The cercopsis of New Holland has already bred regularly for several years in the Zoological Gardens. I had never previously seen a living specimen of the trumpeter (psophia crepitans), from South America. It would be endless to enter upon a description of all the rarities contained in these gardens, and I must, therefore, pass over the splendid parrots, collected, like the monkeys, in their separate house, the great condors, and the ostriches, walking about in the open air, within their peculiar enclosure, &c. &c. I cannot, however, omit an especial mention of one of the rarest animals, which, for the first time, has been brought alive to Europe for this collection-the siren lacertina-the black siren, which has its habitation in the marshes of Central America, of the size and form of an eel, and only distinguished from this fish by its small salamander feet. It is kept in a small reservoir of turbid water, and was only brought upon dry ground with great difficulty, and for a short

time.

In addition to the living animals, the Zoological Gardens also contain a very rich gallery of stuffed beasts, in which there are

many rare and ornamental creatures to engage the attention and form subjects of remark.

We passed out of the gardens into the public walks of the park through a gate which is so constructed by means of a revolving mechanism as to allow all to pass freely out, but to prevent any from entering in. There are many cases in which such doors would be very desirable elsewhere as well as in the Regent's park. Here, its object is to facilitate the collection of the shillings from those who go to view the collection and promenade in the gardens.

On this sunny evening the Regent's park was full of walkers; it is for the most part uniform, and the broad pieces of green turf with fine, short, and well-rolled grass, form by far the most attractive of its charms. Places of public refreshment, coffee gardens, and the like, without which a German can scarcely form an idea of a promenade, do not exist here, at least in the places frequented by good society. This is quite to my taste, as among us the most delightful places are completely destroyed by being made assembling places for smoking cigars and drinking beer. Some of the streets adjoining the park, such as Portland-place and Regent-street are splendid. The latter terminates in what is called the Quadrant, a short street bent in the form which the name denotes, with a colonnade on each side, the top of which reaches to the first floor, and is perfectly uniform in its structure. This excessive uniformity is very far from pleasing, and it clearly convinced me how dreadful a city would be in which such uniformity of architecture prevailed throughout. The deep interest of humanity and its high significance are grounded upon the immense diversities which the individuals of which it is composed exhibit, and therefore, in all that relates to man, uniformity ought to be most carefully avoided: for this very reason war may be characterised as irrational, and calculated to bring shame upon humanity because it has produced, preserved, and even in peace made a plaything for princes out of this system of uniformity.

In these magnificent streets it is a peculiarity of the recent architecture that it gains a basement story, which, however, is not really subterranean, because open spaces are preserved, separated from the streets by iron railings, and over which a small bridge leads from every door to the public footway, merely in order to secure sufficient light and air for the kitchens and domestic offices, which are in the basement. Thus, every possible means is adopted to save room, and this crowding and pushing together of the living renders it daily more difficult to find places of sepulture for the dead. The grave-yards in, and immediately around London are nearly all filled, and a company is being formed in shares for the construction of cemeteries at some distance from the city; it forms a part of their plan to fix the cemeteries in districts through which railroads pass, in order to afford facilities of sending out trains of dead bodies to their final resting-place. Oh, Sir Jacques! what stuff is here for deep, sad, melancholy reflections! Such a train with coffins behind

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a locomotive! What a mode of proceeding to the house of rest for all living, with more than the rapidity of a storm!

It was sunset when I returned to the palace, and I had little more than time to make a few notes, as the time had arrived to dress for dinner, at which, to-day, the Emperor of Russia, the Duke of Wellington, and Sir Robert Peel were to me the most remarkable persons. To-day, also, I had an opportunity of making the acquaintance of a man to whom the royal pair of England are peculiarly attached, in consequence of the share which he has had in the education of both-Baron Stockmar, a man of really scientific mind and education, and a well-known admirer of Göthe.

XIII.

Windsor Castle, June the 3rd-Evening.

EACH day furnishes new elements for intellectual development! The most important for me to-day, was my first visit to the British Museum, and a view of the marbles of the Parthenon.

Early in the morning I had an opportunity of forming a nearer acquaintance with a London practising physician. I paid a visit to Sir James Clark, who has published a work on the climate of Italy, and is regarded as one of the first physicians in the metropolis,-often consulted by the queen. Physicians of this description are, generally speaking, obliged to remain at home to receive patients till twelve or one o'clock in the day. Their patients are shown into an antechamber, whence they are in due order admitted to an interview, receive advice, and pay their sovereign. This practice is attended with many conveniences, and before the doctor drives out to visit his other patients at their respective homes, his receipts may have been more valuable than the receipts which, after examining his patients, he prescribes for their relief. Moreover, I myself had my first medical consultation in London to-day, to which several others will succeed.

I was now free, and had something more than an hour at my disposal before our departure for Windsor, from which I write. This hour I appropriated to a hasty visit to the British Museum, which on this day has been fully opened to the public. The exterior of the building is old and unsuitable, but so much the richer are the treasures preserved within-the most extraordinary of all are the Elgin marbles. Immediately afterwards I wrote what follows in my pocket-book: "Have my eyes then, indeed, seen this too? Never shall I forget the view which opened to me as I stood in the room of the Phigalian marbles, and the wide hall appropriated to those of the Parthenon lay open before me! In what a different situation lay here the remains of the three goddesses of destiny be

F

fore me! Immense, and yet so beautiful; superhuman, and yet so soft! How well the truly perfect forms a suitable centre from which, right and left, in all directions, every thing declines into the imperfect, is here made most obvious by comparing the originals with casts in plaster of Paris; the slight difference between the cast and the original, has in such circumstances an extremely powerful effect! This does not depend merely on the form, but is a question of substance also, in which the beautiful material of the marble, even although so much weather-beaten and injured, is to be considered."

The friezes of the temple of Phigalia were already well known to me from Stackelberg's casts; but these are not to be named in the same day with the works of Phidias. They are, besides, very small, scarcely one-fourth the size of life, and frequently rude and imperfect in execution, but in liveliness and naïveté of conception, still genuine Greek. Still more interesting are the statues and relievos from Lycia. But what is there which after all appears any thing more than a mere attempt, in comparison with the primitive grandeur and perfection of the Parthenon? The great works of Egypt alone maintain their ground in their own sphere, even when compared with those of the Parthenon! And the power which an iron and thoroughly enduring character exercises-from whatever it arises can only be completely comprehended on entering the great hall, in which the colossal sphinxes, the statues of Memnon and Osiris, the canephora and the sarcophagi stand!

I should almost say, if the whole of the phenomena of the world really present us with two sides, that of perpetual fluctuation and movement in individuals and of infinite permanence and endurance in the whole, two rays are reflected from these sides, both upon the whole course of human life, and upon the domain of poetry and the arts. In the perfect works of the Greeks, and especially in those of the Parthenon, the principle of motion is seized and delineated in the most admirable manner; whilst in the Egyptian works of art, the power of firmness and endurance is wonderfully realised. If I cast my eyes upon the drapery of those magnificent recumbent female figures, which are masterpieces of Grecian art -look away, and then again return to their contemplation-it is as if a breath of air had passed over them, and the folds of the drapery were changed, or the loose garments had been somewhat displaced by the heaving of the bosom or the breathing life of the body; but look as often as one will upon the statues of Osiris or Anubis, not a fold or a feature undergoes in imagination the shadow of a change, and centuries seem to pass over them as if they were hours. This completely corresponds with the magnificent ideas put into the mouth of the sphinx by Göthe, in the second part of "Faust:" We, of Egyptian race, have long been accustomed to reign for centuries; when we are left alone, we regulate the solar and the lunar day; we remain sitting before the pyramids like judges of