unique in character, and the largest of them is fortunately the most perfect, and it preserves the illustrations of one of the most in. teresting and important of the Royal campaigns, and one of which the sculptures had as yet afforded no information. It attests, as had been previously deducted from the records of other Assyrian campaigns, that the highway of the Assyrians to the west lay by the Biblical Haran and Serug (at both of which sites Assyrian lions have been found),* over the Euphrates at the pass where the Khalif, Al Mamun, erected the fine old “castle of the stars," which is still standing; and by Carchemis, the Hierapolis of the Romans, and Mambej, or Jerabolus of the present day, across the A pre, or Afrin, and by the upper valley of the Orontes and Hamath, the capital of the Hittites, and thence by Baalbek, to the Nahr-el-Kelb (where tribute was taken)—the Lycus, or Dog river, also of the Romans—where the monarch came face to face with the “great sea of the west.” Six Assyrian tablets, cut in the face of the rocks-records of royal conquerors who have passed through the gates of the west, and exactly similar to the one portrayed in the bronze of Imgur Bel, are still to be seen at this point, with the figures above them : “An image over against the great sea I caused to be made."

The illustrations of this compaign are, as we have before said, replete with interest, The "great sea' is illustrated by an aquatic monster representing an hippotamus or leviathan, as also crocodiles, which were met with in the rivers of Syria in early times. There are representations of various religious services and ceremonies, and even of the actual work of cutting the inscriptions, an act attended by sacrificial offerings : “ Victims I offered; an image of my royalty I caused to be carved." The Tyrians and Zidonians are also represented with their tribute offerings, as also many military acts and events—marches, sieges, and executions.

There is also a representation of a sacrificial scene in a valley or glen in a mountainous district, in the open ground of which are seen arranged four conical stones "resembling the Baalim or figures worshipped by the Syrians.” But the cone was a peculiarly favourite object of illustration with the Assyrians, and equally so, as Loftus has shown, with the Chaldæans; and we have it on the authority of Tacitus (“ Hist.” xi., 3) that Aphrodite of Cyprus was, like the Semitic Astarte (Istar), worshipped under the form of a conical stone.

Mr. Rassam, acting under the orders of the Trustees of the British Museum, also carried on further excavations in the mound

*"An Excursion to Haran and Serug."-COLBURN's New MONTALT Jan, 1878, p. 71 and 73.

of Koyunjik, the largest mound at Nineveh (Nebbi Yunus will, we imagine, never be ceded to the excavator, so long as Muham. medans remain in the ascendant); and he obtained over 1400 portions of inscriptions from the palaces of Sennacherib and Assurbani-pal. He also found a terra-cotta cylinder, covered with more than 12,000 lines of writing, recording the events of twenty years of the reign of the last-named king. This record will greatly increase our knowledge of the zenith period of Assyrian history.

THE LAMENT OF JOHN KEATS.

O! let me live, if but to dream,
Beneath the thin, delirious gleam
Of quiv'ring stars; whose liquid dance
Throws all my soul in solemn trance;
Uplifts my eyes to courts of light,
That breathe the hymns of mystic night,
Mingled with love's sleep, peace, and rest,
And perfumes fresh from Luna's breast.

Oh let me stay amid the shades
Of drowsy woods, where nightingales

Shall chant my death when life's leaf fades:
Then let me wake within the halls

Of distant isles; where ether skies
Stretch tremulous, where nothing dies;
Where fruits and flowers of rosy hue,
On throbbing breasts their beauties strew.

ALFRED HENRY BROMILOW.

PERSONALITIES OF THE HOUSE OF

COMMONS.

XXI.

MR. MACDONALD. The stranger who, during that dreary parenthesis in a long debate called “the dinner hour," finds his way into the lobby, for the double purpose of stretching his legs and refreshing himself at the buffet, may chance to witness a little tableau, the main outline of which will be something like this : He will first of all notice a rather stout gentleman of middle height and of somewhat plebeian appearance, either standing stationary and looking about him, or else pacing the lobby with an air of perfect self-satisfaction and of no little consequence. He will probably remark that this gentleman's cheeks are without whiskers, but that from his chin depends a greyish beard, which ripples like a goat's and is cut something like a Yankee's; and, moreover, that he is conspicuous generally by a seal-skin waistcoat, liberally bespangled with gold chains. Altogether, the stranger's mental comment upon this personage will be that he is a showy and self-complacent individual whom it would be impossible to put out of conceit with himself.

Presently, through the door of the lobby which opens into the corridor leading to the House of Lords, approaches a gentleman of very different appearance.

His figure is tall, slenderly (though perhaps wirily) built, and excessively angular, and attention will be at once attracted to the singular length of his face proportionately to its breadth; indeed, the remarkable length of the chin alone will hardly fail to be noticed. The expression of the countenance is in sharp contrast to that of the gold-chained gentleman : it is serious, anxious, and a little nervous. He advances immediately towards our portly friend, and the two engage in an earnest confabulation.

The first of these personages is Mr. Macdonald, one of the so-called " working-men's candidates," who, along with Mr. Burt, has had the good fortune to be returned to Parliament ; the second is my Lord Shaftesbury. As the pair continue their conversation the stranger will notice that their respective demeanours are as strikingly contrasted as their respective physiognomies. The manner of the working-man's representative seems to be an odd mixture of deference and elation, and he expresses himself with a certain showy animation which appropriately corresponds with the slightly ostentatious apparel ; while the philanthropic peer speaks with the same intense seriousness and nervous anxiety which are the prevailing characteristics of his features. Mr. Macdonald and Mr. Burt were the first genuine working men's candidates to obtain seats in the Imperial Parliament; by virtue of their

being so, they are, of course, distinctive personalities of that assembly. Their presence (especially that of Mr. Burt) is of real value and service to the House, because, in the first place, they possess special information relating to their own class; and in the second place, their political tendencies are towards constitutionalism, not towards revolution. It would have been a very different matter had representatives of English Jacobinism found their way into the House of Commons; for instance, rebellious shoemakers like Odger, or “lewd fellows of the baser sort," like Bradlaugh. Of the two members Mr. Burt is decidedly in highest favour with the House. He rarely speaks, but when he does he speaks upon subjects upon which he is fully informed, he goes directly to the point in plain and direct language, and though he expresses himself in a somewhat uncouth dialect, he is always listened to with the utmost respect and with interested attention.

Mr. Macdonald, on the other hand, decidedly talks too much ; his talk is, oftener than not, a little too barren, and a little tov redundant, and a little too consequential for the House to pay any heed to it, or, indeed, to tolerate it with any degree of patience. Besides which Mr. Macdonald invariably suggests the idea of a person who, while speaking in the character of the self made man, wishes you to believe at the same time that he is a very fine gentleman; while his confrère, on the contrary, is simplicity itself, and ventilates his provincial patois without a vestige of false shame. In a word (though it seems a little harsh to write it), there generally seems about Mr. Macdonald just a touch of that vul. garity which will distinguish the parliamentary parvenu as well as other parvenus.

The subject of this sketch was selected by Mr. Cross to sit on the Labour Laws' Commission, and specially to represent the interests of labour. That Commission rendered excellent service to the country by enabling the Home Secretary to introduce a measure which practically and triumphantly settled the questions at issue between master and servant; and in that good work Mr. Macdonald, notwithstanding his parliamentary failings, must not be denied the credit due to his individual share.

XXII.

LORD JOHN MANNERS.

“But leave us still our old nobility." Such is the line by which the brother of the present Duke of Rutland, while still a romantic-looking young man, with light, wavy hair, and disposed to a pretty violent flirtation with the Muse, in a measure immortalised his name. In his early days Lord John was one of the most devoted members of that “Young England Party" whose moving spirit was Benjamin Disraeli, and the chief characteristic of which was that it claimed for true Conservatism that its chief cornerstone was its sympathy with the people. While uncompromising in its maintenance of the aristocracy as an institution, the Young England propaganda, at the same time, asserted that the possession of property entailed the performance of duty, that the rich and the poor were mutually dependent, and that there existed a natural bond of sympathy and interests between the two orders, which was immemorial and which ought to be inalienable. With Lord John Manners were associated, in addition to Mr. Disraeli, Henry Hope, of the Deepdene, and the brilliant George Smythe, who could "promulgate a new faith with graceful enthusiasm," and the premature close of whose gifted existence left a blank in the band of parliamentary young men of promise, which, we fear, has never been filled up. Full of youthful and generous enthusiasm, and infected with a touch of that rage for verse-making, which seemed part of the spirit of the age, Lord John, as we have said, paid court to the Muse, and, as a proof of his homage, gave to the world a political creed, expressed in lofty-sounding heroics. So far as we know, this was the be-all and end-all of the young patrician's poetical career, and doubtless his lucubration died an early and an easy death; but, nevertheless, that "leave us still our old nobility," has remained embalmed, and will be perpetually associated with the present Postmaster-Gen eral.

Lord John Manners, it may be observed, was not alone in his poetical predilections, for two of his most distinguished political contemporaries- Mr. Disraeli and Lord John Russell - had, for a time, followed the same alluring path ; the first having written the “Revolutionary Epic" and " Alarkos ;” and the second "Don Carlos," which we believe was actually brought out, and had a short run, at one of the theatres. “Young England," however, discovered that its true end in the creation was politics, not poetry; and so, by degrees, each memher of it, who originally had attempted to "lisp in numbers," came to recognise his real element, and, sooner or later, found a seat in the Parliament of his country. Mr. Disraeli, it is well known, after bidding good-bye to the Muse, began to express his views, political or otherwise, through the medium of the novel ; and in “Coningsby” his early friend, Lord John Manners, figures as Lord Henry Sidney.

In the House of Commons Lord John (if we perhaps except Mr. Bailie Cochrane) is probably the sole survivor of the original " Young England" party. He always held office of some kind in the late Lord Derby's Administrations; and Lord Beaconsfield, who alluded at Edinburgh to the "interesting friendship” which had so long subsisted between himself and his noble friend, has not omitted to include him in his Cabinet. It is sufficient to say that the noble lord has invariably fulfilled, with much administrative ability, the duties which have been committed to his charge. In the House he is universally popular from the gentle courtesy and quiet tact which distinguish bim; and then, too, it may be that a gleam of the old romantic halo still lingers around the wavy locks which are now of a delicate silver hue. He is the personality of the House, the interest in whom is tenderly brightened with a half-poetic tinge. Lord John Manners is not a powerful debater