'Visible and tangible products of the Past, again, I 'reckon up to the extent of three: Cities, with their 'Cabinets and Arsenals; then tilled Fields, to either or to both of which divisions Roads with their Bridges may belong; and thirdly-Books. In which third truly, 'the last-invented, lies a worth far surpassing that of the 'two others. Wondrous indeed is the virtue of a true Book. Not like a dead city of stones, yearly crumbling, 'yearly needing repair; more like a tilled field, but then 'a spiritual field: like a spiritual tree, let me rather say, it stands from year to year, and from age to age (we 'have Books that already number some hundred-andfifty human ages); and yearly comes its new produce of 'leaves (Commentaries, Deductions, Philosophical, Poli'tical Systems; or were it only Sermons, Pamphlets, 'Journalistic Essays), every one of which is talismanic ' and thaumaturgic, for it can persuade men. O thou 'who art able to write a Book, which once in the two 'centuries or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy ' not him whom they name City-builder, and inexpressibly 'pity him whom they name Conqueror or City-burner! 'Thou too art a Conqueror and Victor; but of the true sort, namely over the Devil: thou too hast built what 'will outlast all marble and metal, and be a wonder'bringing City of the Mind, a Temple and Seminary and 'Prophetic Mount, whereto all kindreds of the Earth will 'pilgrim.-Fool! why journeyest thou wearisomely, in 'thy antiquarian fervour, to gaze on the stone pyramids ' of Geeza, or the clay ones of Sacchara? These stand there, as I can tell thee, idle and inert, looking over the 'Desert, foolishly enough, for the last three thousand ' years: but canst thou not open thy Hebrew BIBLE, then, 'or even Luther's Version thereof?'

No less satisfactory is his sudden appearance not in Battle, yet on some Battle-field; which, we soon gather, must be that of Wagram; so that here, for once, is a certain approximation to distinctness of date. Omitting much, let us impart what follows:

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'Horrible enough! A whole Marchfeld strewed with shell-splinters, cannon-shot, ruined tumbrils, and dead men and horses; stragglers still remaining not so much as buried. And those red mould heaps: ay, there lie 'the Shells of Men, out of which all the Life and Virtue 'has been blown; and now are they swept together, and 'crammed down out of sight, like blown Egg-shells!— 'Did Nature, when she bade the Donau bring down his 'mould cargoes from the Carinthian and Carpathian Heights, and spread them out here into the softest, 'richest level,-intend thee, O Marchfeld, for a corn'bearing Nursery, whereon her children might be nursed; 'or for a Cockpit, wherein they might the more com'modiously be throttled and tattered? Were thy three 'broad Highways, meeting here from the ends of Europe, 'made for Ammunition-wagons then? Were thy Wagrams and Stillfrieds but so many ready-built Case' mates, wherein the house of Hapsburg might batter 'with artillery, and with artillery be battered? König 'Ottokar, amid yonder hillocks, dies under Rodolf's 'truncheon; here Kaiser Franz falls a-swoon under 'Napoleon's within which five centuries, to omit the others, how has thy breast, fair Plain, been defaced 'and defiled! The greensward is torn up and trampled 'down; man's fond care of it, his fruit-trees, hedge-rows, ' and pleasant dwellings, blown away with gunpowder; ' and the kind seedfield lies a desolate, hideous Place of 'Skulls. Nevertheless, Nature is at work; neither shall

'these Powder-Devilkins with their utmost devilry gainsay 'her: but all that gore and carnage will be shrouded in, absorbed into manure; and next year the Marchfeld 'will be green, nay greener. Thrifty unwearied Nature, 'ever out of our great waste educing some little profit of 'thy own, how dost thou, from the very carcass of the 'Killer, bring Life for the Living!

What, speaking in quite unofficial language, is the 'net purport and upshot of war? To my own know'ledge, for example, there dwell and toil, in the British 'village of Dumdrudge, usually some five hundred souls. 'From these, by certain "Natural Enemies" of the 'French, there are successively selected, during the 'French war, say thirty able-bodied men: Dumdrudge, at her own expense, has suckled and nursed them; she 'has, not without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to 'manhood, and even trained them to crafts, so that one 'can weave, another build, another hammer, and the 'weakest can stand under thirty stone avoirdupois. Nevertheless, amid much weeping and swearing, they ' are selected; all dressed in red; and shipped away, at 'the public charges, some two thousand miles, or say only to the south of Spain; and fed there till wanted. And now to that same spot in the south of Spain, are thirty 'similar French artisans, from a French Dumdrudge, in 'like manner wending: till at length, after infinite effort, 'the two parties come into actual juxta-position; and 'Thirty stands fronting Thirty, each with a gun in his 'hand. Straightway the word "Fire!" is given: and 'they blow the souls out of one another; and in place ' of sixty brisk useful craftsmen, the world has sixty dead carcasses, which it must bury, and anew shed tears 'for. Had these men any quarrel? Busy as the Devil

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