THE WORKS OF LADY BLESSINGTON, complete in Two Volumes.

Messrs. Carey and Hart, of Philadelphia, seem determined to give the reading public a standard library of popular authors in extra large octavo size. Lady Blessington is the fourth writer of the present day whose works have been published by the above firm in editions of a couple of good sized volumes of excellent appearance and completion. "The Two Friends," a novel of untiring interest-" The Repealers," a national work of deserved popularity-"The Confessions of the Elderly Lady and the Elderly Gentleman," we have elsewhere noticed with favorable intent-" The Conversations with Lord Byron," the most characteristic and interesting of all the Byronian pendants-"The Victims of Society," with its awful disclosures and severe denouncings—the shorter tales of "The Honey Moon," "Galeria, or the Deserted Village," the "Flowers of Loveliness," and the whole of the contents of the poetical "Gems of Beauty" for the years 1837 and 1838 -all these works are included in the two volumes announced by the Philadelphia publishers, and are to be as obtained for about half the price asked in England for one of her ladyship's productions.

WOOD LEIGHTON; OR, A YEAR IN THE COUNTRY., By MARY HOWITT. Three Volumes. Carey, Lea, and Blanchard.

In the early days of the European Quarterly Reviews, the excellent work, above titled, would undoubtedly have felt the deep damnation of the critic's ban. The senseless cry of "cockney carols," and the supposed ridicule attached to the "Lake School," were indiscriminately applied to the effusions of the poetasters of the day; many a bardling was stifled in his birth, and the present melancholy hiatus in the department of poesy may be attributed to the undue severity of the snarlers who formerly presided over the pages of the Reviews. Even warm-hearted Christopher North ran a muck at the rural fledglings of Apollo, and ridiculed the chirpings of the metropolitan rhymesters, who scrambled forth from their smoky dens, on a fine spring morning, and sang the praises of nature's God in the browny-green fields, vicinal to the hugcous town; yet the old boy, in the centre of the dingy streets of "auld reekie," perpetrated whole sheets of poetic prose in praise of "Streams," and gave us the experiences of "Christopher in his Shooting Jacket,” a series of the finest gems that ever graced the cabinet of Ebony.

It has too long been the fashion for the witling Aristarchs of the day to descry the pastoral and sun-shinyside of-the-way writers of the age-the misanthropy of Byron and nebulosite of Shelley have clouded the wells of the Helicon ian fount; the weeds of humanity have attained a meretricious rankness, and stain the bright waters with their un wholesome juice. Let us then cordially welcome the exertions of the sylvan laborers who are endeavoring to restore the taste of the fountain to the bright simplicity of by-gone days. Miss Mitford gave up her " Village" to our use, and a knowledge of its virtue imbued us with unmixed delight. Elliott, the corn-law thymer, has sown the good seed, and Miller, the basket maker, strings his withes in harmonious blending. The quakers are displaying the potency of their literary aid, and Bernard and Lucy Barton, and Richard and Mary Howitt, in mellifluous prose and verses, honey-sweet, " babble o' green fields,"

and

In contemplation of created things,
By steps ascend to God'.

The Howitts are our especial favorites. But few of their productions are as yet very general in America, but we trust the time is not far distant when an edition of their works will be deemed saleable, and therefore be executed by our booksellers. "Wood Leighton" is full of Mary Howitt's peculiar beauties of description; woodland scenery and country life were never more accurately or more delightfully painted. The sylvan wonders of old England are charmingly described, and events of powerful interest and characters of strange but natural formation, give life to the beauty of the scenes. Junius, the celebrated political writer, figures in one of the tales under the name of Marcus. The mystery attendant on this personage is very agreeably but not satisfactorily explained.

We cannot give a better specimen of Mary Howitt's powers of description, than the following account of the eccentric beggars and respectable vagrants, who are said to haunt the neighborhood of a provincial city in England.

One day, when Mr. Pope was at the Vicarage, we were talking of beggars; we were remarking that even in so retired a place as Wood Leighton, where old usage seemed of such universal acceptance, the race of picturesque, nay, respectable beggars, if one may be allowed a phrase which in these days of vagrantlaws appears somewhat incongruous, seemed extinct. There were no longer, even here, any remains of that privileged race of mendicants, common in the beginning even of the present century, who, having a fixed residence in some town or village, under a roofless hovel, or tumble down shed perhaps, which nobody else thought worth owning, wandered up and down the country in all seasons, welcome and authorized visiters, carrying news from one retired district to another, and claiming, year after year, the same cast-off article of wearing apparel from the same family, which was never refused, and by which means they always retained the same uniform characteristic appearance. They had an ancient family-look about them; and, when death at length put an end to their wandering, they were missed from their accustomed haunts in many ways, and

were long talked of and remembered with regret. Such objects as these are excellent adjuncts to a landscape, beautiful in their picturesqueness as an ancient and shattered oak or an ivy-clothed ruin.

We had known Tam Hogg, the pilgrim wire-worker, who wheeled in an immense barrow, at a snail's pace, his portable forge, his manufactured goods, and his raw material, from town to town, throughout the length and breadth of merry England. We had stood beside him as children, marvelling much at the wise old man, grave and sarcastic, who read much, talked little, kept a tame hedgehog in his barrow, never slept in a house, and who, chained to his moveable workshop, then closed, stood reading his Bible during the whole Sabbath; and, lastly, who made verses, and curious witty acrostics and anagrams on people's names, and epitaphs on the dead, some of which, in his own handwriting, we still possess.

We had known Bettsy Bolsover, the travelling pedlaress, who came once a year to the home of our childhood, a welcome guest, in her long blue cloak and man's hat; a big bony woman, of near six feet high. She carried a flat basket divided into compartments, containing thread tied in hanks, white and whitey-brown; combs and buttons; bodkins and bodkin-cases, turned both in bone and wood: she sold ferreting for shoestrings, and smart-colored worsted garters; pins and Whitechapel needles, warranted with gold eyes and not to cut the thread; Whitechapel sharps, which, as she averred, would sew of themselves: then, too, she had bobbin flat and round, and tapes fine and coarse, all good linen-thread tapes. But of all Betty's wares, none equalled, in my childish fancy, the beauty of those tin tea caddies, some vermilion, on which golden shells laid among bronze seaweed, were figured; some yellow, round about which went a march of peacocks shining in red and purple and green; and some black, on which were set forth united hearts, united hands, Cupida with torches and Cupids without, a very valentine of a tea caddy, bordered round with intertwined wedding. rings, and on the front this legend in golden letters,

When two in hymen's bonds agree

To live a life of amity,

Let me be chose their tea to keep,

My lock is good, my price is cheap.

Besides these, had she not boxes of horn, and boxes of tin; boxes japanned, and adorned with cross pipes on the top for tobacco, and others of an approved fashion for snuff? and had she not shoeing-horns, and, wooden spoons, and cabbage-nets, and skewers, and bottle-brushes, and bone-spoons; and spoons tied up half a dozen together in brown paper, with a pattern-spoon on the outside, which she never displayed without rubbing on the inside of her cloak to make it look like silver? Had she not little tin cans at the low price of twopence-such things are sold now-a-days for a penny-painted and unpainted, and adorned with red and green and black flowers, or lettered, "A prescut for my dear boy," or "For a good girl," or "A present for Sarah," or simply with the name "Hanrah," James"? Had she not all these, and many things beside; knives, and scissors, and nut-crackers--round wooden nut-crackers that worked with a screw, and which, in my childish imagination, bore some relationship to the wine-presses of which we read in Scripture? and had she not apple-scoops made out of mutton shank-bones, fearful things which always looked yellow and charnelhouse-like? What a treasury of a thousand things was that basket! How in the world she could stow them all away into it, was more than I could comprehend: she was a walking Store, according to the American word.

But big Betty was welcomed for something beside the multifarious contents of her basket. Hard-featured, weather-beaten woman as she was, what could equal the kindliness of her eye, the bland, winning tones of her voice! Then, too, there was something mysterious about her: she wore a broad silver hoop-ring as a charm against the ague; carried double, triple, and even quadruple nuts in her pocket; and tested the goodness of all the silver money she took by scoring it on a large cabalistical-looking black stone. She had silver pennies, and always many of those heavy, ungainly coin, copper two penny-picces, about her; and her money she carried in a skin purse. Oh, she was an awful woman, though she spoke sweetly and looked kindly! Then what could be more thrillingly delicious than the narrative she was always ready to tell of an adventure which befel her once upon a time. How she had been belated one November night, and took shelter from the storm which came on, in a deserted, way-side house, thinking to take up her quarters there, since none better were at hand; and how, a little past midnight, her first sleep was broken by thieves coming in; and how, unconscious of her presence, they had talked over their intended next night's attack on the squire's house; how they had talked of fearful things, and she scarce dared to breathe lest they should find her and murder her; how they had at last all gone to sleep in the place, and she, at day-break, on tip-toe, had stolen out unperceived, and made the best of her way to the squite's; how the squire had set his house in order to receive the robbers; how they had come at midnight and cut away a casement to effect their entrance, and then stealing on, with a dark lantern, along dismal, dark passages to the butler's pantry, had secured the plate which was laid out for them, and then proceeded to the housekeeper's room, where the squire and seven servants, and Betty Bolsover herself, armed with weapons offensive and defensive, stood ready to receive them; and then how the thieves, finding themselves fairly taken, fell upon their knees and prayed for mercy, but were conveyed the next morning to the county jail: how she had appeared on the trial as evidence; had been complimented by the lord judge; and had heard sentence pronounced on the thieves-transportation for life to Botany Bay; and, lastly, how the squire had settled forty shillings by the year on her for life.

What a tale of breathless interest and wonder was this to be told to a child! Never shall I forget Betty Bolsover! I love all wandering pedlars, with their flat baskets, for her sake!

There was Tony Collett, the wandering cork cutter; a fine figure of a man was he, tall and straight, setting down his feet as if he had been web-footed, without a joint below the knee. Tony spoke in nasal tones, and used a Somersetshire dialect; still he was a well-grown figure of a man; his costume too of an ample, antique cut, such as William Penn, or any of the old Quaker worthies, might have put on, beaver and all.

Then there was old Henry Hiller, or Healer, as he chose to call himself, as being indicative of his pro

fession.

Henry was a son of Galen," continued Mr. Pope, "a peripatetic philosopher, who read no works inferior to Aristotle, Pedacius Dioscorides, Paulus Egineta, Serapion the younger, Albucasis or Averrhoes the Arabian. He was what is vulgarly called a quack doctor, but to my knowledge performed more cures with his vervain ointment, and clary or clear-eye, his elecampane and assarabecca, than half a college of M. D's. A great nostrum with him for the stanching of blood was pounded nettles; and a pretty instance of its virtue I saw in

the case of old Simeon Davis, who cut his tongue and was bleeding to death: Henry came by and saw him; when what does the old fellow but cut up some nettles, pound them between two stones, clap on a poultice and the blood stanched presently!"

"But," said I, "none of these people belong to the class we set out by speaking of the genuine beggars, who carried nothing to sell, professed no art or calling, but gave the passing news of the country, or a hearty benediction, in return for the alms they received."

"Of this class was Peter Clare," said Elizabeth Somers, "a well known mendicant, who claimed kindred with all the best families in the country as a plea for asking their charity! He was a wonderfully fine old man; nor would his face and head have belied his claim, however high he might have aspired to kinship. There was not a genealogy in the county but he had it by heart, and pretended to be allied to all families alike." "There was doctor Green," said Charles Harwood," that mad beggar; who, till within the last few years, used to make his periodical incursion on the town-a little, thin, electrical sort of being that sent off everybody at a tangent; he cleared the streets like a troop of cavalry; people used to look at him from their windows or behind doors; I remember, very well, my own terror at his small, fiery red eyes. And even now, there's poor Tommy Garland, a sylvan, savage creature; a Caliban; who appears in the town every now and then, drawing a troop of women and children about him-the very reverse of doctor Green."

"We have an Alsatia too in the town, the seventh heaven of beggars; a lane eschewed by the townspeople, but which I perambulate occasionally for my own divertisement. In it you shall see, on one time, all the ills that flesh is heir to; as many maimed and miserable as peopled the mountain of misery itself; then, again, you shall see the lame walking, the blind seeing, and hear the dumb singing aloud. I have a most vivid notion of what would be the effect of a visit from one of those healing saints in the days of miracles, from witnessing this renovation of human bodies.

"It is inhabited by a sort of circulating population; all the rag gatherers, the match-makers, the mop and besom makers, the chair and umbrella menders, the fashioners of iron skewers, the wandering tinkers, musicians, and ballad singers of the next five counties. There you may see some rare specimens of the animal creation: grotesque and squalid old crones, banditti-like men, boys the very images of Flibbertigibbet or of rib-nosed monkeys, brown, shaggy imps, the personification of mischief and grimace: dogs, too, of every possible kind and degree of ugliness, felonious-looking quadrupeds that seem made to be hanged; others, oneeyed, snarling, and with turned up noses; some, lank and gaunt, like skeleton dogs, who sit on their haunches shivering even in summer; and some, overgrown and apoplectic, waddling, with short fat tails and shorter legs and their asses too! sometimes stabled in the lower rooms of uninhabited houses, sometimes tied to the door-post, at others to a stake on the opposite side of the lane, for the houses are but on one side; strange, nondescript animals, many of them with cropped ears and tails to personate horses."

"Perhaps," said Mr. Somers, raising himself in his large leather-covered reading-chair, "one of the last of the old-fashioned and more respectable class of mendicants was Daniel Neale, the Irish beggar, who died near a hundred years old, and who lived, when at home, with his mother, a very ancient woman, in the Pinder's Lane. Why he and his mother had fixed their residence there, for they were Irish and Roman Catholics, nobody knew; and there was no reason why they should know, for why an old Irish beggar should not have a spice of mystery about him, and possess a secret of his own, as well as anybody else, I can see no reason. Old Daniel was exactly of my way of thinking; and so, if he had a secret, or a particular reason for fixing his abode, he kept them to himself. One thing was evident enough-he was very fond of the old woman. Whilst she lived, he maintained her by the fruits of his rambles; and, at her death, he performed the wake for her with great ceremony, and many a time, in the darkest and most tempestuous nights, to the amazement of the neighbors, would be heard howling and lamenting at her grave."

DIARY, ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE TIMES OF GEORGE THE FOURTH; interspersed with ORIGINAL LETTERS, from the late QUEEN CAROLINE, and from various other distinguished Persons. Two Volumes. In the last numbers of Frazer's (English) Magazine, a series of articles entitled "The Yellow Plush Correspondence," has attracted general attention. The success of the many fashionable novels and the vulgar misrepresentations of the various scribblers who pretend to depict the peculiarities of the elite, are supposed to have excited a "littery man," a member of the yellow-plush breeches fraternity, to "putt penn to payper, not for the looker of gayn"-to use the author's own words-" but in the saycred caws of the exolted class which we have the honor to serve, which has been crooly misreparysented. Authors have profist to describe what they never see. Pepple in Russle Square, and that vulgar nay brood, bankers, slissitors, merchints' wives, and indeed snobs in general, are in their ideer of our manners and customs, misguided, delooded, HUMBUGGED -for I can find no more ellygant expression-by the accounts which they receive of us from them authors." We are inclined to believe that this "littery gentleman" or one of his kind, is the perpetrator of the "Diary" announced above. A more impudent or ignorant imposture has seldom been attempted-it is either the work of some domestic, who has supplied from the pruriency of her or his imagination the deficient matter in the scandal of the antichamber, or it is the production of some cast-off courtezan, who, emulating the example the notorious Harriette Wilson, but without her tact or talent, has repeated the conversations of the supper table, and given the public a second-hand and garbled edition of the sentiments of the creatures of her "times," upon matters which all decent people have agreed to refrain from using as topics of discourse.

Several of the London papers have given, as a popular surmise, the authorship of these precious volumes to Lady Charlotte Bury; a more outrageous insult could scarcely have been designed. Her friends have publicly disavowed her connexion with the "Diary" aforesaid; an act of supererogation, for no reader dared imagine that the accomplished lady could frame the bestial nonsense contained in the pages of this work. The most revolting portions of the latter part of the Georgian era are canvassed with a freedom which is

now uncalled for; the improprieties of queen Charlotte have been established beyond a doubt; the mad profligacy of the Regent, which continued till age sobered its violence, and the drunken and lascivious prince changed into an obese and sensual king, is scarcely an excuse. We know that he liked not the reflection of his own habits in the public infamy of his wife; and George the Fourth, surrounded by titled prostitutes, prosecuted the mother of his child for an amour with an Italian courier. The horrible nature of the crimes imputed to the duke of Cumberland-the incestuous parentage of captain Garth-the reputed cause of the death of the young princess Augusta-the unexplained stain upon the character of the princess Elizabeth, and the shameful expenditure of the public money in the support of the crowds of royal bastards and their profli gate mothers, have stamped that portion of the annals of the British crown with an indelible brand of infamy and sin-more than sufficient to account for the madness of the warm-hearted George the Third, without recurring to hereditary disease. We care not for the welfare of any work professing to rake up the particulars of any of these events-events unfit for public discussion, and blotches upon the page of history; but when a grossness of execution is blended with a foulness of material, it becomes the critic's duty to denounce the dangerous attempt.

The authorship of these volumes will most likely remain a secret. They are undoubtedly the product of a female, although the masculine person is used by the writer. The editor of the papers and letters contained in the "Diary," has appended a variety of notes, containing as large a portion of Sir-Oracle wisdom as we remember to have met with; his dictatorial inanity and egotism are amusing.

WALSINGHAM; OR, THE GAMESTER. BY CAPTAIN CHAMIER, R. N. Two Volumes. Carey, Lea, and Blanchard.

Captain Chamier has written several novels, of marine propriety, with much success and some considerable skill. He had better go to sea again, for he is abroad on land, and his craft thumps and bumps about as wofully as a stranded barque on a lee shore. There is nothing very new in his details of the gambler's life; and the characters of the novel are neither original nor well drawn, excepting the sailor valet, and there is nothing very tigerish in his deportment. The scenes of “ les trois jours" are good as far as they go, but the captain has not sufficient vivacity in his style to give effect to the description either of a Parisian salon or a revolutionary émeute. There is no doubt but that the disgraceful exposure of Lord de Roos, an English peer, who, about a year since, was convicted of foul play in his gambling transactions, furnished the idea of "getting up" a novel upon the subject of gaming-but it is a worn-out subject, and the execution bears evident marks of haste and incompletion. There is some novelty in the following arrangement of communication between gamblers, confederates, and we present it to our readers with its explanation, hoping that it may put them upon their guard, in their dealings with unknown mer. The calculations and references apply to the game of Ecarté-a piece of information which the author has unaccountably forgotten to furnish his readers with.

“I think—Ah, Rosendal, you are come to the moment! Here is my new plan; it must succeed. Now listen, and remember, the first-named thing or being. denotes the horizontal line in which the answer is to be found; the second, the perpendicular lines. Thus, supposing you want to inform me not to give cards,' you, after betting a five-franc piece against me, would of course look over my opponent's cards and then turn to a person who is known strictly honorable-never mind the term, my worthy German; honor and dishonor are merely words, and all we require is honor amongst ourselves, we need not use the general monosyllable. You would in low accents, just sufficient to reach my ears whilst I am pondering what to do, and my adversary is proposing,' relate that a beautiful child was nearly killed by a man, who drove his cab over it, or against it.' Here you see, my worthy German, that the child marks the lower line, and that the man marks the fourth perpendicular space; and there you find, Do not give cards. By your silence I should infer that I was to give cards-Stop; I know what you are going to say, Rosendal, just as well as if you uttered it;-you were going to remark, that the eternal talking would not do amongst people of our avocation; it is only fools we must find, or innocent old gabies, who play in public rooms-there you may chatter. Now, I propose to try this plan upon my bosom friend Douglass: he has just got a brother-in-law over, who is one of those strict, honorable, upright men, who like conversation, and who are so blind as to the dishonesty of the world, that they do not believe in pickpockets, and think a new coat cannot conceal a doubtful person. We must leara the table by heart, and practise it to-morrow at Madame la Rose's: she has always one or two old fools who

weary out life in playing for francs. But mind, the paper must be destroyed: like free-masons, we must not commit any thing to writing. I dare say we have both learned more unprofitable lessons, and harder to be remembered, at school-Now, let us practise. That is a beautiful emerald, count: I wonder you do not give it to your wife!'"

"No trump whatever," answered the count.

"All right, my dear count: you see how easy it is to turn words into gold. Again: My horse has thrown my groom."

"The ace."

"Good, my worthy pupil, good!-never did man instruct a more willing scholar. You know the principle; the effort of memory is nothing."

A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD; INCLUDING AN EMBASSY TO MUSCAT AND SIAM, IN 1835, 1836, AND 1837. By W S. W. RUSCHENBERGER, M. D. &c. &c., AUTHOR OF "THREE YEARS IN THE PACIFIC." Carey, Lea, and Blanchard.

This national work deserves a more extended notice than we can afford to spare-notwithstanding we have increased the number of pages devoted to the Reviews, in accordance with the expressed wishes of many of our friends. Dr. Ruschenberger's "Voyage round the World," contains an extensive variety of information respecting the customs and manners of some of the portions of the globe, with which the general reader is imperfectly acquainted. His narrations are given with an agreeable distinctness, interspersed with much pleasant vivacity of remark; he has avoided the general error of travellers, who assume their own conclusions from foreign evidences imperfectly witnessed or partially understood; he has not indulged in the vulgar use of technicalities, for the purpose of exhibiting a superficial knowledge in matters uninteresting to his readers. Good sense and candor are his guiding stars-the Castor and Pollux of his navigation; he is proficient in plain sailing, although his log satisfies us that he never neglected making an observation; and we may confidently assert that he has completed his "Voyage" with credit to himself and honor to his country. Our readers are doubtless aware of the success of the negociations of the embassy; we shall avoid noticing the matters of business, and select a few of the "graphic bits" interspersed through the work.

About four P. M. we were boarded by an Arab pilot in a crazy canoe, paddled by a negro slave, entirely naked, except a string about the waist. The Arab was rather more decently attired, wearing, in addition to the waistband, a large turban. He climbed the ship's side very agilely, and touching his breast with a finger, exclaimed, "Me Pilot," and delivered from a corner of his turban a paper box, which, though labelled " Lueifer Matches," contained several testimonials from English and American ship masters, stating that “Hassan Ben Sied was a safe pilot both in and out of the port." Without pausing to replace his turban, he stalked aft, and squatted upon the tafferel, in the attitude of a frog, where he remained chewing tobacco, and by gestures directing the course of the ship.

Wandering near the beach, to the northward of Metony, we found numbers of human bones, and even entire skeletons, exposed upon the surface of the ground. We were told, they belonged to persons who "did not pray" when alive. On the eastern side of the island, there is a spot where the dead bodies of slaves are carried and cast upon the sea shore, to become the prey of beasts and carrion birds.

At the end of the pavement, opposite to that at which we entered, was a sort of hut, covered with branches and thatch, beneath which sat a Bramhun devotee. Excepting a very small allowance of langotee, he was entirely naked. His hair, beard and face were matted and smeared with mud, and his body and limbs covered with dust. He appeared to be sixty years of age, and looked more the demon than the saint. His left arm was shrivelled and bent at the elbow, and on the outspread palm, which was turned upwards, rested an earthen pot, in which was growing a small plant. Around it were placed sticks; a wooden spoon to receive alms was secured across it, and a string of brass bells ornamented the bottom. The whole was attached to the hand by a cotton bandage. The devotee was sprightly. He has a pair of cunning dark eyes, and his face is free from that sullenness of expression, which, in general, distinguishes religious enthusiasts. He reports that he has held the flower pot, in the position above described, for twenty-five years; nor has he in that time, cut either his hair, his beard, or his nails. By the practice of such austerities he hopes to attain absorption into nature, the perfection of Hindoo beatitude, while he secures in this world the respect and homage of all who approach his temple. The finger nails were very long and twisted like rams' horns. I attempted to measure that of the thumb, but he would not allow me to touch it, but permitted a Bramhun to do so for me. It was ten inches and three quarters in length. I bestowed a piece of silver in the alms' spoon, for which he returned thanks, or perhaps invoked Shivu's blessing.

To attain a state of perfect apathy of the feelings and of the passions is the great aim of the Hindoo devotee. A gentleman told me, that one of these wretches, who was entirely naked in the street, was pointed out to bim by a native triumphantly, as the most pious man in India; because, forsooth, he was so destitute of shame, that covering for his body was rejected; the earth was his bed, the sky his canopy, and the food he consumed was bestowed in charity-" But," inquired my informer, "suppose the charitable were to refuse to feed him, what would he then do?"

"That is supposing an impossibility, for no man would so far risk offending the gods as to refuse his mite to a Bramhun so truly pious."

A few yards farther on, was another devotee, smeared with mud, but of not more than thirty years of age. He was standing near a fire, resting one foot on a stone, and blowing a great conch-shell trumpet. His swelled cheeks, and red, starting eyes; his posture, the fire and the crowd standing near, dappled with the light of the flame, for it was now past sunset, and they were lighting up the temples; the almost deafening roar around us, added to a horrible stench, rendered the whole scene more like what one would imagine pandemonium to be, than a temple of worship. Every moment seemed to increase the crowd and the noise, and we quitted the orgies in feelings of deep disgust.