and London, are examples. From the Picton Sun we learn that Dr. Whitley's lectures on Education, as local Superintendent, are creating some interest in his township. His re-appointment is hailed with much pleasure. ―The examination of the Carleton, Leeds and Grenville, and Wentworth and Halton County Grammar Schools are reported as highly satisfactory. -The Rev. Alexander Luke, of the Prescott Grammar School, has been lately presented by his pupils "with a beautiful and costly pencil case with a gold pen, as a token of their high regard for him." How grateful to a Teacher must be such a tribute of esteem and affection on the part of his pupils!--The examination of Mr. D. Watson's school, London, C. W., on the 24th Dec., exhibited the result of much solicitude on the part of the Teacher, and proficiency on the part of the pupils.-John Kirkland, Esq. local Superintendent at Guelph, is writing an excellent series of articles for the serious consideration of persons at the Annual School Meetings. -Various papers in the Province extract liberally from our Educational and Literary Summaries without the slightest acknowledgment !

New Professorships, Toronto University.-A Lectureship on Hebrew and Oriental Literature has been established in the Toronto University, and Mr. J. M. Hirschfelder, so well known amongst us for some years past, has been appointed to the office. This appointment has given general satisfaction. An important bill is now be ore the Senate of the University, for the establishment of a Professorship of Agriculture, and an Experimental School, in connection with the Provincial Board of Agriculture. It is supposed that the fees in the several University Classes will be reduced, and means will be taken to increase the number and value of the Prizes.-[Patriot.

Education in Brockville.-Our Town Schools are becoming very efficient. The Principal of the Grammar School, James Windeat, Esq., A. B. of Cambridge University, well sustains, in this distant land the character of his Alma Mater. We believe there is not in the Province a better or more eminent seminary of learning than the Brockville Grammar School; nor is there one in all the Districts of Upper Canada, that has been more successful, in obtaining for its pupils prizes, and other rewards and promotions, in the University of Toronto. The Common Schools are also in an efficient state, and the Teachers, Messrs. M'Kerris, Cosgrove, Miller, and Shaw, appear to give general satisfaction to the Board of Trustees, in their respective wards. In addition to the Public Schools there are many Private Seminaries, both Male and Female, in which the rudiments of a sound literary education are being communicated to the youth of the town. There are Private Schools taught by Miss M'Kerris, Miss Kelly, Miss M'Clean, Miss Miller, and Miss Glass, and by Mrs. Campbell, Mrs. English, and Mrs. Drummond, in all of which young Ladies are sure to have their morals attended to, and their taste for literature, music, drawing, and polite accomplishments improved. In the school of Miss M'Kerris we observed some really elegant flowers and other specimens in wax, which are highly creditable to the young lady artists.-Statesman.

[The Recorder, of the 20th Dec., reports the examination of several of the foregoing schools as very gratifying and satisfactory. Several essays by pupils of the Common School were read, and elicited much interest and applause. Ed. J. of Ed.]

Convention at Queen's College, Cork.-The interesting ceremony took place in the spacious and beautiful Examination Hall of the College, which was completely filled by a most respectable auditory, who manifested the liveliest interest in the proceedings. Every seat was occupied, whilst many who were unable to obtain any better accommodation stood around the room.

Thurles College, Ireland.-The Pope has conferred the diploma of D. D. on the Rev. P. Leahey, President of Thurles College, whence emanated the recent memorable Protest of the Roman Catholic Bishops against the Queen's Colleges.

At York £1,400 have been raised by a bazaar, for ragged schools.

Items.At the anniversary New England Dinner lately held in New York. the following toast was proposed and eloquently responded to. "The Common School-the tree of Knowledge originally planted in New England-its seeds are wafted over the continent."-Two gentlemen have recently made a douation of $4,000 to the Wesleyan Wyoming Seminary.- -At the recent convention for revising the Constitution of New Hampshire, the recommendation of the Committee on Education was adopted, providing permanent provision for Free Schools throughout the State. Jenny Lind gave a free concert to the children of the Puble Schools at Baltin ore, on the evening of the 13th ult.

Literary and Scientific Intelligence.

-

Items. The distribution of Prizes of the American Art Union took place on the 20th of December. The Receipts for 1849 have been $36,492. 1,000 works of art were distributed, many of them rare and beautiful pictures. But one prize reached Toronto, and that to the Honorary Secretary, Mr. Rowsell. Mr. Simmonds of Hamilton obtained another. -The Christian Socialist, the organ of the new liberal and reforming class of things spiritual and temporal, has appeared. In this journal will be found" clergymen and the friends of clergymen, openly avowing they will fight for the cause they hold as true, yea, even in the ranks of chartists and infidels; recognizing truth even when propounded by their antagonists, and resolved to merge differences in the broad union of agreement "-a beroic age we live in, trul,!-Henry Mayhew's "Pictures of London Life," as Commissioner of the Morning Chronicle, are to be enlarged, and published in weekly numbers, with the title, "London Labour and London Poor: a Cyclopædia of the Social Condition and Economy of those who Will Work, those who Cannot Work, and those who Will Not Work.". Mr. D'Israeli is writing the life of Lord George Bentinck, late Leader of the Protectionists of England, at the request of the Duke of Portland, his father. -The original MS. of Waverley has been presented to the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, by Mr. I. Hall, brother of Capt. Basil Hall, who had paid forty guineas for it in 1831.—Sir Jn. Herschell will succeed Mr. Shiel as Master of the Mint.- -Her Majesty has granted a pension of £10 a-year to Mr. John Payne Collier, editor of Shakspeare, and author of the History of the English Stage.. -According to the will of the poet, the collection famous in Germany, as the Goethe Inheritance, is to be sold. It is proposed to buy the house in which the collection is, but the heirs-his two grandsons-refuse to turn the old homestead into a show-room. -The Goldsmiths' Company of London offer a prize of £1,600 for the best samples of design and workmanship in gold and silver by British artists. Smaller prizes in other departments are given by other parties. The proprietors of the London Art-Journal offer a prize of 100 guineas for the best essay "On the best mode of rendering the Exhibition of 1851 practically useful to the British manufacturer." The Essay will be published in the Art Journal, in July. The crystal palace is to be enlarged to the extent of 45,000 superficial feet, to make room for extra exhibitions.—The Pearl, from Canada, has arrived in England, with ninety packages of the productions of Canada for the Exhibition.—Mr. A A. Applegarth, the eminent machinist, has received a commission to erect a great printing machine, on his latest principle, for the Exhibition of 1851. It is intended to be used to throw off copies of the Illustrated London News, in three languages, before the visitors. Mr. Funnell, of Brighton, is constructing a watch smaller in circumference than a threepenny piece, for the Exhibition of 1851; Mr. John Burton, of Bradford, is also constructing a beautiful little tea-kettle, made from a fourpenny piece. This curiosity is complete in every particular, possessing spout, hanger, and lid with a hinge on, the whole fitting compactly into a common Brazilian nut, mounted with a single hinge.— Germany has lost one of her most popular poets, Gustavus Schwab, at the age of only 58. Schwab was the friend of Uhland.La Nacion says that the tomb of the "Cid" has just been found at Burgos, in an antechamber of the ayuntamiento. The remains of Don Rodrigue Campeador and Chimene his wife, immortalised by ancient legend and the poem Guilhon de Castre and Corneille, were deposited in an old trunk. On this trunk, placed as rubbish, was the chair on which the ancient counts of Castile, Diego, Panello, Nuno, Rasura, and Lain Calvo rendered justice. The history of the two lovers has been greatly embellished by romancers. Chimene was the daughter of Don Diego Alvoras, and not of a count of Gormas who was killed in a duel by the Cid.—A good translation of the late Rev. Henry Coleman's book on Agriculture in France, Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland, has just been published in Brussels. It is from the pen of the Baron Hector le Bailly de Tilleghem Mortier, who has added a great variety of interesting and useful notes. An exposition of the products of national industry is now going on at Madrid.The London Athenæum says, that all information from travellers in Africa affords reasonable grounds for believing that the interior of that continent consists of an immense table-land, extending from the mountains of Meridefy, south of Lake Tchad, as far as the Cape of Good Hope, and inhabited by nations less barbarous than the other Africans. It is more of a European than of a tropical country.

Canadian Antiquities.-A Quebec paper mentions that in laying bare the foundation of the old French Episcopal Palace, preparatory to the completion of the Legislative Assembly Buildings, the remains of human bones were discovered, as well as a tomb carefully built in masonry. More recently the workmen have come uron the corner stone of the Chapel attached to the palace, in which was found a leaden plate, bearing the inscription which appears below:--

Anno Domini MDCXCIV INNOCENTII Papæ XII anno III. LUDOVICI XIII Francorum Regis L1, primum palatii Sui Episcopalis lapidem posuit JOANNES de Cruce de St. Valliere Ecclesia, Quebecensis Episeopas, Deipara Et Divo Ludovico Eius lem Ecclesiæ pationis, auspicibus.

OXYGEN MAGNETIC.-Mr. Faraday, at the last monthly meeting of the Royal Institution, announced to the members present his discovery (the subject of a paper sent in to the Royal Society) that oxygen is magnetic, that this property of the gas is affected by heat, and that he believed the diurnal variation of the magnetic needle to be due to the action of solar heat on this newly discovered characteristic of oxygen-the important constituent of the atmosphere. We do not mean to give the above as the terms of Faraday's announcement, or as the exact facts of the conclusion drawn from his last experimental researches, but only as a foreshadowing of the new result and views of one of our most eminent British philosophers. We must add, however, that Bequerel also has recently directed attention to a somewhat similar conclusion; he communicated to the Academy of Sciences at Paris, that oxygen is magnetic in relation to the other gases, as iron is to the rest of the metals, and inferred that it is probable or possible (we have not the paper by us to refer to) that the diurnal variation may be connected with this property of oxygen.- Laterary Gazette.

Newspapers and Periodicals.-One hundred and fifty years ago there was not a single newspaper in England: and it is not two hundred years since the first idea of a regular newspaper was conceived in that island, to rouse the people to resist the Spanish Armada. Now in the United Kingdom there are 547 newspapers. In the year ending January 5th, 1849, 90,928,408 newspaper stamps were issued in the kingdom, of which 76,180,832 were in England alone. After full and careful examination, it is estimated that the aggregate yearly issue of newspapers, magazines, and reviews, from the City of New York alone, in the year 1849, was 72,810,257, of which between nine and ten millions were periodicals.

Editorial Notices, &c.

LOCAL SUPERINTENDENTS of Schools are required by the 10th clause of the 31st section of the School Act, to transmit their Annual Reports for 1850 to the Chief Superintendent, "on or before the 1st day of March." It is possible that the Legislature will meet in February. It is therefore important that those Reports should reach the Education Office with the least possible delay, as very little time will remain to prepare the Chief Superintendent's General Annual Report, to lay before the Legislature before it rises. The Session will probable be a short one. We earnestly request that the Superintendents will add up each column of their Report before transmitting it to the Educational Department.

PROGRESS OF FREE SCHOOLS.-We take the following resolution from the last number of the Examiner, illustrating, as it does, the progress of enlightened views upon the subject of Education in the rural School Sections. The resolution was passed at the annual school meeting of Union Section, No. 3, Mariposa and Cartwright: "Resolved,―That this meeting regards the present School Act as an important improvement on former legislation for the support of Common Schools; and we are of opinion that it only requires the addition [of other funds] to the Common School fund to make it a blessing to the youth of our land; and to enable our patriotic Superantendent to realize what he so ardently hopes to see,-the light of a Free School emitting its splendour and imparting its blessings to every child of every school section in Upper Canada '"

Our acknowledgments are due to JAMES W. DAWson, Esquire,

in the United States, we hope to be able to avail ourselves in a future number of the Journal. Monthly meteorological returns have been made to the Institution by various gentlemen in each of the American States, as well as from HER MAJESTY'S Magnetical Observatories in Canada, Nova-Scotia, and Newfoundland. From the explanatory synopsis given by the Secretary of the "memoirs" of the forthcoming second volume of "Smithsonian Contributions," we anticipate a deeply interesting and valuable work.

ANNUAL REPORT OF THE NEW-YORK CITY AND COUNTY SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS:

To the Hon. CHRISTOPHER MORGAN, State Superintendent of Common Schools, for the year 1849. New-York, 1850. 8vo., pp. 24.

We beg to thank Mr. McKEEN for his Annual Report, from which we hope to select for our next number, some valuable and interesting facts and statistics relating to the progress of popular education and free schools in the City and County of New-York.

WATER CURE JOURNAL,

And Herald of Reforms. New-York: FOWLER and WELLS. 4to., pp. 24. $1 per annum.

A very interesting looking publication. Upon its professional merits we can express no opinion, but it appears to be a valuable and spirited periodical. Several of the more important articles and reviews are illustrated with neatly engraved wood cuts.

METHODIST QUARTERLY REVIEW.

Rev. J. M'CLINTOCK, D.D., Editor. Published by LANE and
SCOTT, New-York. January, 1851. 8vo., pp. 186.

per annum.

The literary papers in this number of the Quarterly are most interesting and valuable. They are: "Divine Agency in Material Phonomena;" "Present State of Astronomy;" "Campbell's Life and Letters," and "Neander." The papers on CAMPBELL and NEANDER are written with much genuine sympathy with the peculiarities and characters of these distinguished men. The "Literary Notices" and "Intelligence," &c., evince much industry and ability on the part of the Editor.

KUHNER'S LATIN GRAMMAR;

With Exercises, Latin Reader, and Vocabularies. Translated and Remodelled by Professor J. T. CHAMPLIN, of Waterville College. Boston, PHILLIPS & Co. 12mo., pp. 435. This work seems to have been remodelled with great care. The arrangement and division of subjects are very good. The Grammar may be regarded as a production of Professor CHAMPLIN rather than of KUHNER, as it embodies Prof. C.'s own views and modes of teaching the rudiments of the Latin language. It will prove an admirable assistant to a student of the grand and stately language of CICERO and VIRGIL.

a copy of his Preliminary Report" on Schools; and also for a copy of his Tract on "SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE, abridged from Bar

Concession Scarboro'. A liberal Salary will b given. Apply to JOHN ELLIOTT, JOHN TEADZEL, or M. MACKLEN, Trustees.-20th Jan., 1851.

this Tract has been furnished to each School District in Nova

Scotia,

usual branches of a plain English education. Salary £50. Apply to WM. HEPBURN; Secretary, School Trustees, Chippewa.-20th Jan., 1851

sent in to the Education Office will be executed on the completion of the stitching and binding,

FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.

To the Senate and House of Representatives, showing the Operations, Expenditures, and condition of the Institution during the year 1849, Washington, 1850. 8vo., pp. 64. A most valuable official document, for which we beg to thank the Officers of the Smithsonian Institution. Of the Report of the Secretary (Professor HENRY) on the general operation of the Institution, and of the Assistant Secretary (Professor JEWETT) on Public Libraries

Erin. He must be competent to teach Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Bookeeping, Grammar, and the outlines of Geography. Salary £50 per annum. Apply to JAS. TAYLOR, WM. McDONALD, and ALEXANDER LAIRD, Trustees, Erin.-18th January, 1851.

WANTED immediately for Section No. 8, Township of Stanley,

County of Huron, a good TEACHER. None with less than 2nd class certificates need apply. Address the Trustees, Bayfield, Post Office.16th January, 1851.

TORONTO: Printed and published by THOMAS Hugh Bentley. TERMS: For a single copy, 5s. per annum; not less than 8 copies, 4s. 44d. each, or $7 for the 8; not less than 12 copies, 4s. 2d. each, or $10 for the 12; 20 copies and upwards, 3s, 9d. each. Back Vols. neatly stitched supplied on the same terms. All subscriptions to commence with the January number, and payment in advance must in all cases accompany the order. Single numbers, 7 d. each.

All communications to be addressed to Mr. J. GEORGE HODGINS,
Education Office, Toronto.

CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER.

I. Division of Time among various Nations-Mystical Numbers.-Westminster Review,....

II. School Architecture, (Four Illustrations,)
III. MISCELLANEOUS. 1. The Better Land. 2. The Child's Laugh. 3. The
Image of the Dead. 4. Time's Changes. 5. Appeal to Teachers.
6. First Half of the Nineteenth Century. 7. History of Algebra. 8.
Poetry of the Steam Engine. 9. Genius-Education-A Gentleman in
Ancient Times-The German Character-Burke-Faith-Characteristic
of Grattan's Oratory-The Veil of Futurity-Character of Hamlet-
National Character-Democracy-Echo-Friendship-George III, ..
IV. EDITORIAL. 1. Progress of Free Schools in Upper Canada. 2. Ditto in
England. 3. Comparative Expense of Large and Small Schools in
Towns. 4. Opinion of the Judges upon Separate Schools. 5. Educa-
tion in New York and Upper Canada in 1850, compared. 6. Education
in New South Wales. 7. Municipal Orders for the Journal of E duca-
tion, 1851,

V. Hints on the best Modes of Conducting Recitations in Schools,
VI. EDUCATIONAL INTELLIGENCE. 1. Canada. 2. Eastern Provinces. 3.
British and Foreign. 4. United States, ...

VII. LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE, .....
VIII. EDITORIAL AND OFFICIAL NOTICES. 1. To Trustees and Teachers. 2.
To Local Superintendents. 3. School Registers. 4. Official Docu-
ments and Pamphlets received. 5. Advertisements,......

PAGE.

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24

28

28

30

32

DIVISION OF TIME AND DAYS OF THE WEEK AMONG VARIOUS NATIONS.-MYSTICAL NUMBERS.

We have rarely met with so instructive and interesting a summary of the history of the various national divisions of time as the one in the October number (1850) of the Westminster Review, entitled Septenary Institutions. We select those parts of the paper which embody the historical view of these institutions, omitting the learned disquisition on the Observance of the Sabbath, and the many ingenious theories of the writer as regards the original design in instituting that day of rest.

The Romans had neither decades, nor the week of seven days, but divided their months into three irregular intervals, named after three fixed epochs in each month, called the calends, the nones, and the ides. The days of the calends were the first of every month, originally the first day of a new moon, when it had been customary to call or summon the people together to mark the event by sacrifice or other religious service, and to regulate by it days for other public business; hence the term calenda, call days, from calo (Greek kaleo), to call or summons. The nones (from nonus, the ninth) were the nine days before the ides; and the ides (derived it is said from an obsolete verb iduare, to divide) were the middle days of every month. When the Calendar was reformed by Julius Cæsar, the civil year so little corresponded with the seasons, that the summer months had advanced into the autumn, and the autumn months into the winter. Cæsar, following the advice of the Chaldean astronomer, Sosigenes, put back the 25th of March 30 days, to make it correspond with the vernal equinox, and fixed the lengths of the months as they now remain; but he did not alter the designation of the days of the months, or introduce in respect to them any new division. The additional day given to February every fourth year (our leap year) was added to the calends, which had then 16 days instead of 15, reckoning from the ides, or middle of February to the 1st of March. It was introduced, not at the end of the month, as with us, but between the 6th and 7th of the calends, and called the bis-sexto calendas, whence our term bissextile, as applied to leap-year-the year of 366 days.

Many years, however, elapsed before the Roman people became fully accustomed to the Julian calendar. The progress of conquest about this period made the Roman people acquainted with the calendars of other nations. The people of India, Syria, Arabia, and probably Egypt, observed weeks of seven days. When these countries, or portions of them, became provinces of the Roman empire,

* More probably from Io, whose worship was connected with the full moon.

their governors learned to count days in the same manner as the Eastern people they governed; and the superiority of the hebdomadal method to the Roman being obvious, when once understood, it gradually made its way from the provinces to Rome. In the third

and fourth centuries, we find weeks everywhere substituted for the calends, nones, and ides: and the days called by the planetary names of dies Solis (day of the Sun), dies Luna (day of the Moon), dies Martis (day of Mars), dies Mercurii (day of Mercury), dies Jovis (day of Jupiter), dies Veneris (day of Venus), and dies Saturni (day of Saturn).

The astronomical character of these terms shows that the adoption of the seven-days week by the Romans was quite independent of the Jewish or Christian religion, although the progress of Christianity may have, to some extent, promoted the change. The Hebrew names of the days of the week are yom achurd, day one; yom sheni, day two; yom shelishi, day three; yom rebii, or aruba, day four; yom shamishi, day five; yom shishehi, day six; the seventh day, yom shaba, or shebang, and sabbath, or shabbath.

The Roman names were borrowed, not from the Jews, but from the Indian, Chaldean, or Egyptian calendars; and it is curious to trace the influence of the mythology of Western Asia and Africa, through the Teutonic races, down to our own Saxon ancestors, from whom our present nomenclature was immediately derived. By them the seven days of the week were called Son-daeg, Moon-daeg, Tuis-Daeg, Wodnes or Woden's-Daeg (in the old German, Odinstag), Thurres-daeg, or Thor's-day, Friga's-daeg, and Seterne'sdaeg.

Of the Egyptian week little is known, and the scanty historical references made to it belong to a late period. Herodotus merely says (lib. ii. c. 82), that the Egyptians assigned their months and days to differentdeities. Pliny says that every hour in the day was consecrated by the Egyptians to one of the planets, and in such an order that the first hour of each day would, once in every seven days, belong to the same planet. The order was that of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. The hours consecrated to Saturn, at the beginning of the week would be midnight, seven a.m., two p.m., and ten p.m. On the next day they would be five a.m. noon, and seven p.m.; following the same rotation, they would return to midnight, seven a.m., two p.m., and ten p.m., on the eighth day, and so of the rest. This rotation would make the sun to follow Saturn, the moon to follow the sun, &c., in reference to the first hour of every morning; whence, according to Dion Cassius, the present order of the week, Sunday following Saturn's-day, Moon-day, Sunday, &c., each day being named after the planet presiding at its birth.

Christmannus, a modern Latin writer, attributes the momenclature to the Babylonians. Herodotus says it was the Chaldeans that taught the Greeks to divide the day into twelve parts, and Ptoleiny refers to the accuracy of their observations of eclipses in the reign of Nabonassar, 730 years B.C. But the Indian origin of the seven-days week appears, on the whole, to be better established than any other hypothesis that can now be found on the subject. Indian astrology observed the same custom noticed by Dion Cassius, of consecrating different portions of the day to different planets, and the order of their consecration gave the first hour of the morning to the same planet by which the day itself has been subsequently called.

In the ancient Sanscrit-the language of the holy writings of India (from san, the sun, or sacred fire; whence the Latin, sanctum scriptum),* the week of seven days is recognized under the following names :

Aditya-var
Soma-var
Mangala-var

Budha-var
Vrihaspate-var

Subra-var

Sani-var

Sun-day. Moon-day.

Mars-day.

Mercury-day.

Jupiter-day.

Venus-day.

Saturn-day.

And, according to the late Mr. Godfrey Higgins, shan scrief, the Scottish name for Gaelic. Both in Hebrew and Gaelic, san or scan means the sun, and that which is venerable or holy; san script is, therefore writing of the sun, or holy writing. Sean-nach, in Irish, means a high-priest, that is, a priest of the sun: sean-achar was a feudal judge, whence, probably, the word senate.-Anacalypsis, pp. 264, 290.

The same terms may be traced through all the dialects of India:* and throughout Hindostan we may notice that the word seven is a mystical number, to which superstition continues to attach a hidden meaning. Professor Wilson, writing on the Hindoo festivals, tells us that, while fasting is held to be meritorious on the day consecrated to Aditya, or Ravi (the sun), every seventh lunar day is also considered sacred, especially the seventh day of the moon's increase, one of which, the Bhhaskaria Saptami, a winter festival, is celebrated with great solemnity. In the form of prayer used in the temples, the word seven occupies a conspicuous place. Saptami, or the great seven, is one of the names of the deity addressed: and the worshipper says, on presenting his offering, "Mother of all creatures, Saptami, who art one with the lord of the seven coursers, and the seven mystic words, glory to thee in the sphere of the sun." On prostrating himself before the image of the sun, the worshipper adds, "Glory to thee who delightest in the chariot drawn by seven steeds, the illumination of the seven worlds; glory to thee, the infinite, the creator, on the seventh lunar day.

In the Rig-Veda-Sanhita (a collection of sacred hymns of great antiquity, held by the Hindoos in the same veneration as the Psalms of David among the Jews), the word seven frequently occurs in passages like the following:

"Divine and light diffusing Súrya, thy seven coursers bear thee bright haired in thy car.

"The sun has yoked the seven mares that safely draw his chariot, and comes with them self-harnessed."

This may be an allusion to the seven prismatic rays, or to the seven days of the week; but again we meet with the "seven hills" -the "seven difficult passes"-the "seven days of initiation”— accomplished by Indra-the "thrice seven mystic rites," and the seven pure rivers that flow from heaven." The caste of the Brahmins is also divided into seven sections, which have their origin in the seven Rishis or Penitents, sacred personages mentioned in the Vedas.

66

Seven, it will not be forgotten, was the perfect number of the Hebrews. We read, not only that creation was the work of seven days, and of a s venth day Sabbath, but of a seventh month Sabbath, a seventh year Sabbath, and of a sev n times seven years Sabbath, or years of jubilee. We read of animals entering the ark by sevens ; of seven years of famine; of seven years of plenty; of seven priests with seven trumpets, surrounding the walls of Jericho seven days; of Balaam commanding seven altars to be prepared for the sacrifice of seven oxen and seven rams; of silver purified seven times; of seven women taking hold of one man; of a man possessed by seven devils ; and in the Revelations, of seven churches, seven candlesticks, seven spirits, seven stars, seven lamps, seven seals, seven angels, seven vials, seven plagues, seven thunders, and of a dragon with seven heads, and seven crowns upon his heads.

The Hebrew seven, ya (S.B.O.), written Saba or Shaba, and by modern Jews shebang, signifies also age. Sab (2) is grey-headed. Sabbath, (naw) which we translate by the word "rest," also means old age, and is doubtless derived from the same root. S.B.O., in the Egyptian Coptic, signified erudition. Sabe, in Coptic, is a sage; (French, savunt.) The Druidical priests were called Sabs. Sabaanism was the religion they taught. The Celtic Sab-aith was the day on which the Subs assembled, whence the term sabbat, an assembly; in modern history a name confined to the nocturnal assemblies of witches and sorcerers.

The Saba day was, therefore, the day on which the "greyheaded men," or "aged fathers" of a tribe were in the habit of assembling for council or sacrifice. The intervals of their meetings, if hebdomadal-and they would necessarily be so for the observance of the lunar festivals of India-would be Saba-day periods. Saba, therefore, became a term of computation, standing for the numeral

seven, just in the same way as the moon became identified with the period of a lunation, which we still call a moon, or month.*

The names given to the days of the week in modern Arabic, answer to those of the Hebrew: yom-ahad, day one; yom-thena, day two; yom-tulta, day three; yom-arba, day four; yom-hamsa, day five: Juma, mosque-day, or day of the congregation (for the Mohammedans, like the Christians, have changed the original day of worship); and Sabt, seventh. But in ancient Arabic, the names, as given by Mr. Prinseps, were Bawal, Bahun, Jabar, Dabar, Femunes, Aruba, and Shiyar.

The fact that the modern Arabic names of the days of the week do not correspond with the ancient, leads us to the conclusion that the Hebrew names are also of comparatively recent date; and the change probably took place when Moses altered the calendar, and commanded the Israelites to regard their Exodus from Egypt as the commencement of a new era.

"And the Lord spake to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, this month shall be unto you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year unto you."-Exod. xii. 1, 2.

The month referred to was Abib, or March, and was reckoned from the first new moon near the vernal equinox. The Egyptian year commenced in August, with the first appearance at sunrise of Sirius, the dog star.‡

In Persia, the days of the week are now called Yak-shambe, Doshambe, Si-shambe, Char-shambe, Panj-shambe, that is, first day, second day, third day, fourth day, and fifth day. Friday is called Juma (Mosque day); and Saturday, Hafta, the seventh. But the ancient Persians are said not to have had the institution of weeks, but to have called every day in the month by a distinct

name.

Pythagoras, who is said to have travelled in Egypt, Chaldea, Assyria, and India, imported from the East into Greece the symbolical mode of illustrating the properties of numbers, and from his time (500 B. C.) we read in Greek authors of seven as the "venerable" or sacred number. But the number which the followers of Pythagoras revered the most was the tetract or four, as forming a square, and the root of an universal scale of numeration, the influence of which was shown in the four seasons, the four elements, the four intervals of the tetrachord, the four cardinal points, &c.; and in consequence of which it was proper to divide mathematics into four branches, and arrange every subject into four divisions. We may trace the same idea in the symbolical imagery of the prophots. Ezekiel describes four living creatures, with four sides, four wings, four faces, four horns, and altars of four cubits, four tables, &c.; and the term forty or four tens, presents itself throughout the Jewish records as a perfect number, rather than as a term used in a strictly arithmetical sense. The flood was upon the earth forty days. Moses was in the mount forty days. Forty days and Nineveh was overthrown. Christ was in the wilderness forty days. The Israelites were forty years in the wilderness. "The land had rest forty years," &c., &c. In modern times forty days composed the philosophical month of the Alchymists, and forty days was held to be the proper period for quarantine.

The triad, also, was a sacred number with the Pythagoreans. The monad was held to represent creative power, or the great first cause; the duad, matter; and the union of the two was regarded as the proper symbol of the beginning, middle, and end of all things, —the hidden meaning, perhaps, which they had discovered in the triune divinity of India, composed of Brahma, the creator, Vishnou, the preserver, and Siva, the destroyer.

Five, or the pentad, had also its mystical signification with the Pythagoreans, as composed of odd and even numbers, which they

The Greek unv, men, and μŋvn, mene, a month, and the moon, -the Latin mensis, and Sanscrit mâs, month, môs or mûsa, moon, are from the same origin. See Plut. Tim. p. 498, transl. Taylor. In Hebrew, moon and month are both expressed by the same word, nirah, commonly called jerah.

+ Corrupted into yawmu'l ahadi ; yawmu'l isnayn; yawmu'l salaso; yawmu'l arbad; yawmu'l khamis ; yawmu'l jumat; yawmu'l sabt.

The Egyptians, in watching for the annual overflowing of the Nile, had noticed it to be preceded by the rising of Sirius just before the sun; whence Sirius obtained the name of Thoth or the watch-dog, and the mouth of August came to be called the Thoth month, or Thoth days; whence also the English term of the dog days.

The Turkish names for the week have principally the same derivation. They are Bazar-guni, market day; Bazar-artasi, day after market; Sali, Tuesday (its etymolozy unknown); Char-shambah, fourth day; Panj-shambak, fifth day; Jama, Mosque day; Jama-artasi, day after Mosque day.

symbolized as male and female; and it is curious that the Chinese adopt the same notion, and, in its application, carry it out further than the Pythagoreans. With the Chinese, even numbers partake of the feminine principle yin, and odd numbers of the masculine yang. The sum of the first five even numbers, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10, which is 30, they call terrestrial numbers; the sum of the first five odd numbers, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, which is 25, celestial numbers. Five also represents the heart; and they reckon five planets, five viscera of the human body, five elements, five primary colours, and five tastes.* At their spring agricultural festivals they sow five sorts of grain. The new year commences with them, not on the 1st of January, but when the sun has entered fifteen degrees of Aquarius. They have a great public festival on the fifth day of the fifth moon, and they have fifth day markets. And this leads us to observe, that when we pass the Himalayan range, or in proportion as we recede in any direction from India and Egypt, and the countries lying between them, we lose all traces of Sabbaths.

The Chinese not only consider five a more perfect number than seven (with the exception of the followers of the Indian Budhists, who, in China, are only a tolerated sect), but they have no weeks or weeks of only five days, if the customary interval between one market day and another in country districts may be so called. The year, with the Chinese, is divided into two descriptions of monthslunar months, and short solar months-the latter dividing the solar year into twenty-four periods, which may be called half months, each having a distinct name, and comprising an average of about fifteen days.

Passing from the Old World to the New, we discover a curious, and it must have been at one time, a most unlooked-for coincidence, between the customs, in this respect, of Western Asia and the aboriginal population of Central America. The ancient Mexicans, conquered by Hernando Cortes, had a week of five days, and a corresponding cycle of years to that of the Tartars and Chinese, but of 52 years, instead of 60. Their months were composed of periods of 20 days; and they reckoned eighteen months in the year, with five supplementary days. They had also, astrological months of 13 days, 1461 of which composed their cycle of 52 years; and it is remarkable that this number should be the same with that which composed the great Sothic period of the Egyptians,-of 1461 years, when the annual seasons and festivals returned precisely to the same point of time.

The antiquarian is sometimes preplexed by the ancient druidical names of places in the British Isles, showing an eastern origin, such as the islands of Arran, Ila, Bute, Skye, Iona, and the rivers Isis, and Cam, or Granta;† but there are ample reasons for concluding that, not only England, Scotland, and Ireland, but even countries as far north as Iceland, have been many times visited and overrun by numerous primitive tribes, strangers to each other, but swarms from the same parent hive; the original seat of which, in many cases, but not in all, appears to have been the high table lands of the tropical regions.

Passing from America to the numerous groups of islands in the Pacific, comprised, in the term Polynesia, we still search in vain among their aboriginal inhabitants for septenary institutions. Everywhere has been found a calendar of months, commencing with the first visible new moon, but nowhere the Hindu and modern European week of seven days. The days are reckoned from sunset to sunset, and every day has a distinct name. In the Feejee Islands a solemn festival is held in the month of November, which lasts four nights and three days, during which time the whole population remain shut up in their houses, and no work is performed; and throughout the Polynesian chain there are festivals connected with the seasons, corresponding more or less with those of the Western hemisphere, but no Sabbaths nor seven-day weeks. New Zealand and Australia, as far as the customs of the tribes of these countries have yet been examined, have been found equally destitute of these institutions.

1.-Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury. 2.-Stomach, liver, heart, lungs, kidneys. 3.-Earth, wood, fire, metal, water. 4.-Yellow, green, red, white, black. 5. -Sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, salt.-Davis's Chinese, p. 295.

† Bute is supposed to be derived from Buddha; Arran and Ila were the names of the consort of Buddha: Skye is probably from Sakya; Man from Man-arran, Maki-man, or Menu; Iona (Hebrew for a dove) from the Io and Isis of Egypt and the Venus of Cyprus, one of whose symbols was the dove, whence the island is also called Columba; The river Isis at Oxford, and its coat of arms, a Bull, or Ox, show the very close connexion of Druidical and ancient Eastern mythology. Cam and Granta of Cambridge are both Indian names of gods.-Anacalypsis, vol. ii., p. 287 and 295.