sure the effect produced upon his entertainers. That effect was most extraordinary. The quiet, simple expression of content had vanished from their countenances, and, in its place, the strange, longing expression of avarice sat there. Suddenly their tongues were loosened, and, as though with one accord, they all exclaimed"Where did you find them?"

"I found them," replied the traveller, in measured accents, allowing each word to distil from his lips like water dropping from a rock; "I found them, I think, in the treasures of the Twelfth Imam, in—"

"Where? where?" eagerly vociferated the whole troop.

"In the moon, or somewhere thereabouts," coolly rejoined Habakkuk, raising his body deliberately from his seat, and continuing, "Where am I to sleep? It waxes late. To bed, sirs, to bed!"

But the avarice-stricken hermits were not satisfied, but poured prayers and intreaties upon him to tell them where the treasures lay.

"Go to Jericho!" said he, waving his "Where shall I sleep? Go

thin hand. to Jericho!"

They showed him a nook in the wall, where he instantly stretched his long limbs, and was soon, to all appearance, fast asleep. Not so our hermits. Not a wink did they sleep for hours. The treasure of the Twelfth Imam engrossed all their thoughts, though not so entirely and undividedly but that Abd-el- Atif once fancied that he spied one of the stranger's eyes looking intently at them. A second glance, however, seemed to convince him that he was mistaken, for that long, lank, inanimate visage was evidently the property of a sleeper.

dream

At length the gold-smitten hermits crept one by one, each to his separate nook, and leaving their speculations proceeded to but still of that infernal portmanteau. The sacred love of gold had taken possession of their hearts, and there sat dominant. Gold! gold! gold! nothing but gold, gleamed before the eye of their imagination, as their bodies lay entranced in slumber. Their fancy, like Midas's fingers, turned all into the Peruvian metal. Avarice had completely mastered them. Their hermitage, their coarse food, and still coarser apparel, excited nought but loathing in their minds; and it was with heart-felt gladness that they turned from the world of reality to the dreamy regions of sleep, where, for a time, they revelled in all the extravagances of easily acquired wealth; doomed, however, on waking, to experience an almost equal pang of sorrow at the quitting of their imaginary treasures, as a rich man feels when he is really leaving this world and all its vanities behind him.

Such were their feelings when the golden visions faded away. Reluctantly, and with a sickly feeling of discontent it was, that they rose and turned their eyes as if drawn by some all-powerful attraction, to the place where the stranger had lain the night before. He was gone. Not a trace remained of him. They called-they searched-they shouted again and again; but in vain. They proceeded to the little cave where they kept their own aged horse, for bearing their provisions from market once a month. The mare was gone, and not a hoof-mark was left on the path around the hermitage to tell whither it or its owner had departed.

CHAPTER IV.

I will not attempt-neither would it be possible to describe minutely how the resolution which our hermits adopted gradually unfolded itself, and came to matu. rity. Suffice it to say, that every incentive that avarice could use was exerted to de

termine them to quit their peaceful cell, and enter upon the wide world in search of a treasure, the existence of which even they were not, and could not be, certain. But the words and whole manner of the merchant of Jericho had so impressed the minds of the simple inhabitants of the glen with the idea that the treasure must exist, that it never once entered their hearts to doubt his veracity. Besides, they had seen the jewels he bore with him; which, by the bye, would have tempted any other set of men to a breach of at least one of the ten commandments.

Another circumstance also had materially tended to dissipate any doubts they might have entertained. The very next morning after the unlucky visit of the merchant, Yousouf, who was sweeping the floor with rather less care than ordinary. perceived something sparkling in a corner. Having convinced himself by a second glance of the value of what he had found, he dropped down upon his knees with marvellous devotion, fell to kissing a little ruby as though it had been a nail from Mahomet's coffin. His companions soon crowded around him, and each handled and examined the gem with great care, until it was deposited in Mustapha's capacious pouch, aud was never heard of more. This must have been obtained somewhere (the obvious inference being, that it had been dropped by old Habakkuk in his hurry), and from whence was it so probable that it, along with the gorgeous array of still more valuable stones they had seen, had been procured, as from a hidden treasure? This was perhaps the secret, though not very cogent train of reasoning, that passed through the minds of the new gold-lovers

and was probably what'determined them to enter upon the wild-goose chase I am about to describe.

On one fine morning, then, not a month after the above incidents, Mustapha ascended to the top of the ancient house be fore mentioned, and, flanked by his holy brothers, turned his back upon the roof which had so long sheltered him, and began a search whose result was entirely hidden by the dark veil of futurity, and the consequences of which, even if successful, they had not calculated, nor even thought of. One of them, as they left the place, fixed a paper on the door-post inviting all travellers to enter, and then all, with tears in their eyes be it remembered, moved away. For the place that had harboured them for so long a space of time was not to be quitted dry cheeked. No; the drops of sorrow rolled down through furrows that had been graven by the hand of Time since they last shed a tear; and often did they linger on their way until the closing hills hid from their sight the place where they had spent so many happy hours, breathed so many prayers, and where they once hoped their bones would have been laid together.

Soon, however, the lust of gold, now the dominant passion of their hearts, caused them to dry their tears, and then these yet but half sophisticated beings proceeded onwards, they knew not whither, in joyful expectation and good fellowship with one another. They toiled slowly along the unfrequented road. One hill after another was crossed; the coming harvest waved around them; all nature looked gay; and had not their thoughts been contracted by the selfishness of avarice, their hearts would have beat joyfully at the manifest goodness of their God.

The passion of avarice, like most other passions, often produces extremely contrary effects. Some abandon great oppor tunities for present and little advantages, others sacrifice their present moderate but certain happiness for doubtful and distant hopes; not reflecting that riches teach not to despise riches, but that commonly much wealth imparts not half the happiness that he can boast of who learns at first to despise it; to despise lucre being, perhaps, one of the most exorable of moral qualities, and consequently one of the most difficult to inculcate. For I am afraid that many who pass for philosophers have affected this contempt for worldly things, merely to have their revenge on fortune, by holding cheap those good things of which she has deprived them. This is the secret whereby we may protect ourselves from the contempt that falls upon poverty, the bye-road by which to reach and secure that estimation NO 1853.

which we cannot gain by means of the riches we have not.

The seven pilgrims in search of the treasures of the Twelfth Imam, had wandered on their way for several hours beneath a scorching sun, when their spirits began to flag. Tired were they, and sore oppressed with heat, covered with dust, yet now rejoicing in the ample shade afforded by a long avenue of over-reaching cedars, which they reached about two hours after noontide. Slackening their pace by degrees to a stroll, they at length stopped short, and looked around them for a place of rest. They stood in the skirts of a forest. Behind them lay many ridges of mountains, rolling backwards to the place where their hermitage was seated, over which they had hitherto been toiling. Now, however, having turned to the left, they were about to enter the woody passes of those mountains leading towards the sources of the Arerzy, and up through which the road, or rather track, ran, until its termination became obscured by trees through which at intervals fell some broad gleams of sunshine, gilding the grass beneath.

"Faith, brothers," cried Mustapha, after gazing wistfully around for some moments, "we shall scarcely find the treasure this day, I begin to suspect; for I have been looking about me for these three hours, and have seen nothing like one."

"Nor I!-nor I!-nor I!" ejaculated several of his weary companions.

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Pretty treasure-seekers!" cried Abdel-Atif, who had acquired a certain ascendancy over his companions, due to his superior experience; "do you think treasures fall from the trees, like rotten dates; or leap out of the hedges like grass-hoppers? Besides," he said, we must go to Jericho, which I've a confused notion lies some leagues to the south."

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"This same treasure, then, will scarcely fall to our lot, I fear," quoth Mustapha, who was interrupted in a rather disagreeable manner; for just as he spoke, four or five horsemen emerged from the wood, and after bestowing a cursory examination on the holy conclave, were about to return the way they came when the word "treasure" struck their ears. This arrested them, and they accordingly trotted out and snrrounded the astonished hermits so closely, that they kept them in bodily fear of the hoofs of their horses.

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"Brethren," began one of them, with a half burlesque, half sanctified air, we entertain so much respect and reverence for holy men, that we are resolved instantly to remove temptation out of your way, by delivering you from that same treasure."

It instantly occurred to the somewhat confused faculties of the hermits, that the

merchant in passing that way must have indulged his loquacious propensities with these gentlemen, and that these were in all likelihood to be sharers in the spoil. They accordingly resolved with one accord to set the others on a wrong scent, by exclaiming

"It isn't in Jericho!"

"Come now, holy dervishes, no palavering there! Out with the money! We will take care of it, and build a khan with it to spare."

The hermits began now to have some very unpleasant suspicions; and accordingly glances of great import passed between them, but none ventured an answer, unless a simultaneous "Wallah!" and an equally general dropping of the lower jaw, may be accounted as such. The spokesman of the other party, which evidently enjoyed their confusion, seemed now to wax angry, and unpleasant consequences might have ensued had not one of his companions exclaimed

"Yonder come the merchants of Hamah!"

And true enough, a small caravan was seen crowning the plain in the distance. The whole mounted party galloped off towards them, and having scoured the open ground for a while, soon plunged into a hollow way and disappeared, leaving the hermits quit for their fright.

The treasure-seekers would have deemed themselves happy in this occurrence had not one of the robbers-for that was evidently their profession-indulged his mischievous disposition in parting, by inflicting on the buttocks of the staid old animal that supported Mustapha, a worrying blow with the shaft of his spear, which the honest beast resented by rearing violently, and using certain familiarities with the hermits which were not very pleasant. Not contented, however, with this, he set off and deposited his burden on a sloping bank about a hundred yards in front. The astonished travellers, at least such as did not imagine themselves maimed for life by the kicks they had received, bounded forward in pursuit, and on reaching the place where the lost rider lay, they found him insensible, with the horse standing by and hanging his ears, as though he knew that he had not acted perfectly right. Enraged at his conduct, four of his owners, for two were lagging behind holding their hands on the parts that had been hoofassaulted, four reverend hermits, I say, in order to avenge the wrongs of their superior-whom they left to recover as he might-four reverend hermits, fell upon

the poor animal with their staves, cursing his beard and calling him son of a burntfather, and in three minutes brought his unresisting carcase to the ground, where they continued to belabour it until their companions arrived. These, also, as if animated by a legion of devils, fell upon the miserable animal, and with such unexampled fury, that at length, without a kick imploring look in their faces-he laid his head upon the ground and gave up the ghost. Yet still did they continue to dance upon his lank and hollow sides, and would perhaps still continued drumming, had not a deep groan drawn their attention to their stunned and neglected brother on the turf beside them. They crowded round him. One seized his nose and wrung it with most vehement kindness—one thumped his breast-a couple his hands—and the two who had been kicked, danced round in all the extremity of grief, rage, and despair.

One murder had just been committed, and another seemed threatened, for the remedies applied to poor Mustapha were less likely to revive than to make a mummy of him, when a violent fit of sneezing came upon him, as though brimstone had been burned under his nose, and he very shortly opened his eyes, and looked wildly around.

"For God's sake," he cried, thinking, perhaps, of his youthful days, or else imagining that he was under the discipline of Moûkir and Neller, "don't beat me any I'll never do it again."

more.

His half distracted companions now ceased, and raised his aching body to its basis.

Oh, holy Prophet!" cried he, after some pause, "I thought I was in Gehannan, for I smelt brimstone, I'm certain. Oh! oh! what will become of me! Oh my bones! Oh! oh! oh dear!" His eye here rested on the deceased horse beside him. "What is this?" cried he, his jaw dropping at the sight.

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"Oh!" replied one of his friends, have merely been correcting old Wakif's hide; that's all. We'll teach him to run away again!"

He never ran away again. His eye was closed-his limbs stiff-his sides flat-in fact, he was dead; and of this misfortune his former masters were convinced upon a minute examination. Their old affection for the animal revived, now it was useless; and the forest resounded with their lamentations. Those of the senior hermit sounded the loudest, perhaps because he now saw that the rest of his journey must be performed on foot.

Whilst they were thus employed, a horseman appeared slowly advancing along the

road. His monture seemed to be proceeding entirely without his guidance, for the bridle was upon its neck, and its master's head was leaning upon his breast. One of Mustapha's eyes fell upon this figure, and he stopped his exclamations to reconnoitre it. His companions imitated his example, and they were soon collected into a silent group, occupied in an intense examination of the traveller.

“'Tis that villainous merchant!" at length roared he who had first observed him, shaking his fist and sneezing violently. The adventures of the last two days now passed swiftly in procession before the minds of the seven hermits, and they beheld before them the first link in the chain of misfortunes they had undergone. The loss of their peace of mind, and their newborn love of riches-the half satisfaction he had given them-his betrayal of the secret to the robbers-their advent and the misfortunes consequent thereon, concluding with the loss of their horse-all combined to raise a certain malevolent feeling in their hearts towards the quiet old gentleman who now approached; and, raising his eyes, saluted them, and wished them a good day,

This coolness was provoking. "You old scoundrel!" cried Abd-el-Atif, in whom a love of the camp still remained, you shall pay for this horse."

"I don't deal in dead horses," replied Habakkuk, deliberately examining what had been a very serviceable animal.

It was no departure from their philosophical meekness that induced the hermits to do what they now did, but merely the consideration that they were seven to one, which would be enough to turn seven quakers into heroes. Still I am loath tɔ relate that the idea presented itself to their minds to treat the merchant as they had treated Wakif, and appropriate Fatima to the purposes which he had previously served. Mustapha, who had the greatest interest in the matter, accordingly began operations by stooping slily down and seizing a huge stone that lay at his feet. Not one such as men can now lift in these degenerate days, but one which had formerly been a boundary stone. This, poising in both his hands, he let fly at Habakkuk, who, seeing destruction approaching in the shape of a fragment of rock, shrewdly eluded it and escaped his intended fate; not, however, without being denuded of his turban, and left with his bare skull exposed to the storm of blows that was now preparing to rain upon it. But, being not a very valiant old fellow, he, quick as thought, turned back, and trotted away under the shady sycamores, in the direction of a green woody valley that seemed to wind among the mountains.

I of

Not to be disappointed. the infuriated hermits pursued. Away flew Habakkuk, and away flew they down a road that narrowed and sloped as they went, intersected in all directions by horrible ruts, and shaded by lofty banks, crowned by still loftier trees. On they went; on-on-increasing their irregular volubility to a glide and a roll; pushing and shoving with the most exemplary determination. ten wonder how they could have run so fast! Certain it is, that the speed of old Mustapha was tremendous. He vowed, not by a saint, to be in at the death, and yet would have been left behind had he not been every moment violently propelled by the shoulders of his brother hermits, who bounded along like antelopes around him. At length all human shape and modes of progression were lost, and as the merchant coolly turned his skull round, and looked over his shoulder, he beheld nothing but seven black balls, rolling with irregular gyrations, like burnt-out planets loosened from the spheres, behind him.

"My conscience!" no doubt exclaimed he internally; "what agility! How spry and active!

They had proceeded in this manner for about a mile, when the road became so sloping and precipitous, that even the nature of the ground precluded all attempts at a halt. But nothing was farther from the thoughts of the holy men than such a design. They seemed, indeed, to have lost all guidance over their own motions, but each kept his eye fixed on the object of their resentment, and continued the almost inconceivable velocity of his progressionhe scarce knew how-still nourishing certain unlawful intentions in their hearts. Now, however, the old merchant evidently gained upon them-the mare was putting out her mettle-the hermits gnash their teeth with rage, and redoubled their exertions; glancing, and rolling, and jumping, and hopping; now in a group, and now in a file; here spreading over the glade, there crowding through a narrow pass, higgledy piggledy on their feet, their heads, their hands, their backs, their bellies-but all in vain; old Habakkuk's spurs were buried rowel-deep into the flanks of his mare, and he plunged still downwards, and at length disappeared, not before, however, he had waved his hand and bowed to them as courteously as his equestrian position would permit him to do with his back turned. He disappeared, I say, and his pursuers rolled into a thicket, and down an almost perpendicular precipice, until they at length found themselves in one huge wriggling heap of flesh bones, hair, cloaks, shawls, red visage, and cud gels, on a green and damp flat at the bottom of a valley.

The night had closed in, almost imperceptibly, around them. It was now dark, though the surrounding slopes, and woods, and crags might have been faintly seen through the obscurity. But the pilgrims had not leisure, neither had they inclination to admire the picturesque. Afraid for a considerable time to move, lest they should be precipitated into some yawning abyss, they lay as they had fallen, and began to make pitecus moan over their misfortunes. Doleful sighs, dismal murmurs, desperate groans, devilish grimaces, dark scowls, and some deep curses were emited and made by these unfortunate beings. And now comes the consummation of their day's disasters. Up to this time they had gone on at least, wonderful to say, in the most perfect harmony and good fellowship together; but now, as was to be expected, angry criminations and recriminations took place; one accused and another retorted; this bitterly complained, the other as bitterly replied; until at length the quarrel proceeded to such a height that Abd-el-Atif assaulted his aged friend Mustapha with such a blow on the stomach, that, had not his ribs been covered with four inches of good old Moslem fat, they would most assuredly have given way. This was the signal for active contention. The wrath of the poor treasure-seekers boiled over with redoubled fury, and each laid violent hands on his next neighbour; while Mustapha, in the centre, was a butt to all the chance blows that were dealt in the scuffle. red faee, in fact, glared like the sun at noon-day, and around him revolved his contending friends, animated and urged to the strife by a kind of supernatural wrath; these formerly meek natures were now wrought up to such a pitch of fury, that regardless of all consequences, heedless alike of the past and the future, and thinking of nought but glutting their present vengeance, they flung around them a shower of dead-doing blows, with a perseverance worthy of a better cause." Now were added to the bruises already received (as well from the hoofs of the late Wakef, as from the inequalities of the ground over which they had so swiftly perambulated), now were added, I say, contusions and bloody coxcombs without numbers. Their superhuman efforts made the forest ring with echoes, and yet the demon of contension within them was not appeased until, wearied with their performances, they one by one shrunk away, each to some adjacent bush, leaving the patriarch alone to his glory. Nor was it long before sleep had sealed their eyes, in spite of their bitter temper of mind and aching bones-the inevitable consequences of so ferocious, indiscriminate, and hitherto unheard of fray. (To be continued..)

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His

for

The History of Philosophy.

No history perhaps is more difficult to write than that of philosophy, which undertakes correctly to represent all the remarkable endeavours made by man to ex plain the intellectual, moral, and physical phenomena of the universe. Accordingly, none of the attempts yet made have completely succeeded. The subject is much too vast to be comprehended by a single mind, on what point of view soever it may take its stand. A particular class of motives prevents contemporaries from judging accurately of each other; and another class, far more powerful, stands in the way of a correct appreciation of the philosophers of past ages. Meu speculating in primitive times, are necessarily distinguished by many qualities from those who succeed them after long intervals in the career of thought. There is a ripening process going on in the whole mass of society, which, though it may not be designed to terminate in perfection, necessarily confers many advantages on those who enter late on the field of philosophy, at least in forms and modes of expression, which become clearer and more precise in proportion as language is subjected to a complete analysis.

The older philosophers had for the most part to deal with untried subjects, and were comparatively new in the art of adapting words to ideas. The vocabularies at their command moreover were for a long time very imperfect, and terms had constantly to be translated from a popular into a recondite dialect, in which they necessarily assumed some novelty of signification. Besides, the almost universal practice was to employ highly figurative language, symbols, mythes, and allegories, which, standing between the public and notions and opinions in themselves imperfect and obscure, inevitably gave rise to continual misapprehension. For the modern historian of philosophy, these difficulties are greatly increased. A complete body of ancient opinions and systems is far from having come down to us, so that we are left to form our judgment from fragments, which often appear incoherent, simply because we know not how to arrange them, or what relation they originally bore to each other.

We put little faith, therefore, in any of the current interpretations of the ancient philosophies, which rather reflect the mental peculiarities of the interpreters, than those of the ancient sages of whose ideas they are said to be the exposition. The obstacles are here insurmountable. We know not, and never can know, what Thales of Miletus, Anaximenes, or Anaximander, believe or taught. Their systems have been dragged with them into the gulf