gnawing at trees, which without being gnawed into were too strong even for their attempts. It evidently knows the strength of its muscular arms, and therefore always attacks with them.

The Negroes hold an opinion that these teeth have been broken in combats between the males for the possession of a female. Such a combat would be an exciting spectacle, and would exceed in thrilling interest any exhibited on the floor of Roman amphitheatres, or the modern Spanish bull-fights. If one must be present at a fight of wild beasts, give us a couple of contending male gorillas! Imagine their fearful roar resounding through the cavernous space under the amphitheatre, and their long, muscular arms beating madly upon their drum-like breasts, as they approached each other, 'grinning horribly a ghastly grin!' 'I find,' says our traveller, that I do not get accustomed to the roar of the gorilla. Notwithstanding the numbers I have hunted and shot, it is still an awful sound to me. The long reverberations coming from his portentous chest; the vindictive bark with which each roar is begun; the hollow monotone of the first explosion; all are awe-inspiring, and proclaim this beast the monarch of these forests.'

At the close of this volume, in an Appendix, the author has given a list of the animals comprising the Fauna of Equatorial Africa, in which he places by themselves the new species, as being those discovered by himself. In the list of new species we observe seventeen mammalians and fifty birds: a number which would, if admitted, fairly entitle M. Du Chaillu to the honours of a discovering naturalist. In order to invalidate this title, any opponent must of necessity discuss with him the claims of every individual species. We do not suppose that any one will attempt this; and therefore must be content to accept the traveller's assertions.

The reader's attention will be drawn to the illustrations which adorn this volume, and which are more than seventy in number: it is with reference to some of these, especially those of the gorilla, that the author has been more particularly assailed by Dr. Gray. That gentleman affirms that one of the portraitures of the gorilla is taken, not from nature, but from a photograph of the Museum specimen. This assertion he endeavours to establish by particular details. He also disparages some other illustrations, and points out their defects. For a time these objections, made by an eminent naturalist holding a public appointment of importance, made the public hesitate in yielding implicit confidence to this new and remarkable traveller.

On the other hand, in this matter of the engraved illustra

tions, M. Du Chaillu has given the following explanatory

statement:

'Four out of the seventy-four plates in this work have been copied with slight alterations from other works. I regret that the original sources were not stated on the plates themselves, but I have repeatedly referred to the works in my text. The skeleton of the gorilla (p. 370) is not copied from the English photograph from Fenton, but is from a drawing of my own large specimen, and differs essentially from the other, as any comparative anatomist or careful observer may detect.'

With this explanation and affirmation of the author we must leave the question as it now stands. Granting, however, that four or possibly five of the plates are not original, the general credibility of the traveller seems to be scarcely affected; even if it were to be admitted that he may have slightly overcharged some of his descriptions and narratives. Nevertheless our general confidence in him remains unshaken, grounded as it is on the verisimilitude of his style and manner. So also say Sir R. Murchison, and several Fellows of the Geographical Society, together with Professor Owen, while the public at large are at this hour demanding the tenth thousand of his volume, within a short period after its publication. Both publisher and author will appreciate this mark of general approval.

As to Dr. Gray, we do not agree with those who attribute his criticisms to a malignant spirit. We believe he is an honest assailant. He has suffered, however, no light punishment at the hands of some zealous friends of our traveller.

M. Du Chaillu has only occasionally touched upon religious topics, and principally in the expression of such opinions as the following:

'On Sunday I rested, and had a talk with the people, trying to explain to them something about the one true God, and the absurdity of their superstitions. They have always one answer to everything a white man says against their customs, and these were brought forward this day as usual. An old man said, "You are white, we are black. The God who made you did not make us. You are one kind of people, we are another. You are mbuiri (spirits), and do not need all the fetiches and idols that we have: we are poor people, and need them. God gave you the good things, to us He has not given anything."

It is difficult to meet this point of difference of race, which is asserted in all good faith by every honest Negro you meet in Africa. You cannot convince them that they and we are all men and

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brethren. And till you do this, they remain strong in their superstitions.'

Notwithstanding these discouraging habits of mind, we have a full confidence in the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to reach even the dark avenues of thought and emotions in the barbarians of Equatorial Africa; and probably one chief purpose to be answered by the travels of this adventurous white man is to awaken an interest on behalf of these benighted races in the breasts of Europeans; and, through the attention excited by the ethnology and natural history of a country so remote and so little visited, to draw the notice of Christians to far higher objects, perhaps to the founding of a Mission Station in the very midst of the cannibal tribes, and in the very borders of the dark forests inhabited by the wildest and strangest animals known to

man.

ART. IV.—Historical Collections: or, an Exact Account of the Proceedings of the Four last Parliaments of Queen Elizabeth of Famous Memory; wherein is contained the Complete Journals both of the Lords and Commons, taken from the original Records of their Houses, &c., faithfully and laboriously collected by HEYWOOD TOWNSHEND, ESQ., a Member in those Parliaments. The like never extant before. London. 1680.

Ir is among the things not generally known, that when an increased provision for the Princess Victoria was made by Parliament, an honourable member suggested that her name should be changed to one 'more accordant to the feelings of the people.' He stated his own preference for 'Elizabeth.' Lord Althorp, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, did not treat the proposal with much respect, and 'could only hope that the name of Victoria would be as glorious as any other in the history of this country.' This hope has been realized more fully than such hopes usually are; and the name of Victoria has become endeared to millions of British subjects scattered over lands undiscovered or dimly known when Elizabeth was queen. Still, while we have no desire to exchange one name for the other, that of the Tudor Sovereign retains a charm and a celebrity in no danger of being lost; for she was actively associated with those great events which make the period of her reign a crisis-era in the civilization of the world.

It may be thought that the relations she sustained to

her Parliaments, ten of which were convoked and dissolved by her command, do not present her to posterity in a favourable light. That there was a good deal of 'old Harry' in her, she showed by many and indubitable signs; and it would be absurd to pretend that she had any coyish partiality for the high court of Parliament, or was disposed to brook more of its direct interference with State affairs than she could well avoid. Probably, had she been 'put to the question,' she would have admitted that her own inclinations were rather in favour of ruling without any Parliamentary inquisition and control. But Elizabeth had a sagacious eye for the times and the seasons. She knew that the English monarchy was not absolute, but limited; she knew that it was as much the legal right of the Commons, and theirs only, to grant taxes, as it was hers to apply them; and being a really patriotic sovereign, she was solicitous to ward off all constitutional quarrels which could facilitate the treasonable designs of those who hated English liberty and the Protestant succession.

The last Parliament called together by Elizabeth existed but a few weeks; yet there are numerous circumstances in connexion with it, both interesting and remarkable, which recommend its proceedings to modern review. And this review we are fortunately better able to bestow, owing to the fact that one of its members, a Mr. Heywood Townshend, took daily notes of things said and done. These were published in 1680, after extensive appropriations by the sedulous, self-complacent Sir Simonds D'Ewes, in his voluminous history of Queen Elizabeth's Parliaments, without any other acknowledgment than that he had derived the information from a 'private journal.' Mr. Townshend was a young lawyer of Lincoln's Inn, and figures on several occasions in his own report, not forgetting the time when he was complimented by Mr. Francis Bacon,'-the Bacon of Pope and Macaulay,-as having given the best advice on a controverted point, though the youngest member in the House. Mr. Townshend had no ambition to do the work now divided among a staff of newspaper reporters. His narrative is sketchy, and professedly fragmentary, but abounds in touches which impart to it a naturalness and vivacity unknown to the scraggy formal records of the official journalist; and so copious at times are his reports, that we can imagine him, note-book in hand, rapidly tracing those stenographic symbols which help to give the expiring word a life that may see no end.

October 27th, 1601, was the day on which the queen went in procession to open her tenth and last Parliament. She rode,

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we are told, in a chariot open at the sides, but covered with a canopy of gold cloth; and, having attended Divine service in the abbey,-a part of the ancient programme which has dropped out of the modern ceremonial,-she resumed her state progress to the House of Lords, where eight-and-forty temporal and spiritual peers were in attendance; a number which reveals the reduced condition of the old nobility, not yet recovered from the murderous effects of the wars of the Roses. The lord keeper, Sir Thomas Egerton, speaking in the queen's name, explained the difficulties with which she had to contend, principally proceeding, he said, from 'the bishop of Rome and the king of Spain,' the latter of whom had sent a large body of troops into Ireland. He deprecated in her behalf all waste of time in idle talk; her wish being that the laws in force might be 'revised and explained, and no new laws made.' Money was wanted, and that there might be no superflous delay in providing it, he stated her majesty's desire that Parliament should end before Christmas. One part of this speech is too curious to be omitted, bearing in mind when, and before whom, it was delivered. 'I have seen,' said the lord keeper, her majesty wear at her girdle the price of her own blood. I mean the jewels that have been given to her physicians to have done that unto her which God will ever remove her from, but hath worn them rather for triumph than for price, that hath not been valuable.' As the lords had no one of their order to perpetuate their debates, and as their proceedings appear to have been then, as they are now, subordinate in importance to those of the Lower House, we shall restrict ourselves to the course of events which agitated the popular branch of the legislative body. At this time the Commons held their sittings in St. Stephen's chapel, to which they had removed in the reign of Edward VI. from the chapter-house of Westminster Abbey. This chapel, lying across the upper end of Westminster Hall, and stretching towards the river, continued to be thus used till the fire of 1834 led to its demolition, and the erection of the New Palace; where, with its nine hundred rooms, the old complaint of want of space in their own apartment is ever and anon raised by the straitened Commons. The list of members returned to serve in the last Parliament of Elizabeth is composed of four hundred and forty-six names, not reckoning thirty-four blanks where representatives are not assigned. In glancing over the favoured towns and boroughs we recognise, of course, dear old Sarum and venerable Grandpound, with a train of others,-to wit, Tregony, Michael, Gatton, Haselmer, Ortford, Estringstead, &c., &c; and after making all allowances