phial containing a quantity of meiron or consecrated oil which is furnished to the church of Abyssinia by the Patriarch of Alexandria. The attendant priests stood round in the form of a semicircle, the boy being placed in the centre and our party in front. After a few minutes interval employed in singing psalms, some of The priests took the boy and washed him all over very carefully in a large bason of water. While this was passing a smaller font called mak-te-mak (which is always kept on the outside of the churches, owing to an unbaptised person not being permitted to enter the church) was placed in the middle of the area filled with water, which the priest consecrated by prayer, waving the incense repeatedly over it, and dropping into it a portion of the meiron in the shape of a cross. The boy was then brought back dripping from head to foot, and again placed naked and upright in the centre, and was required to " renounce the devil and all his work," which was performed by his repeating a given formula four separate times, turning each time towards a different point of the compass. The god father was then demanded and on my being presented, I named the child George in honour of his present majesty, when I was requested to say the Belief and the Lord's prayer, and to make much the same promises as those required by our own church. The head priest afterwards laid hold of the boy, dipping his own hand into the water and crossed him over the forehead pronouncing at the same moment, "George, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost:" The whole company then knelt down and joined in reciting the Lord's prayer.

Here, as I was given to understand, the ordinary ceremony of baptism concludes; but as the boy had been a mussulman, he was in addition crossed with the consecrated oil over joint and limb or altogether thirty-six times in different parts of his body. After this, he was wrapped in a clean white linen cloth, and placed for a moment in my arms, the priest telling me that I "must henceforth consider him verily as my son." The high priest did not take any active part in this ceremony, but the whole was conducted with great decorum and a due degree of solemnity. The boy afterwards, according to the custom of most of the eastern churches, was admitted to partake of the Holy Communion.

On our return from church, the high priest accompanied us home, and continued with us nearly an hour. He paid me many com. pliments on what had passed, and declared that "I had done an act which would forever be recorded in their books, as the baptism of the boy most clearly proved that the English were not "Franks," (alluding to the conduct of the Jesuits about baptism,) but that we adhered to the pure religion of the Apostles." After some conversation of this kind in which he expressed the highest opinions of our doctrines, he ended by repeating nearly the same words which he had before used to the Res, "we go on in the dark not knowing what is right or what is wrong, but I believe we shall do no good until we get a lesson from you; and now," he added, rising from his seat, "at the desire of the Res, and from the friendship I bear you, I have to pray to God for your future prosperity," he then recited a long prayer for our safe return, to which we with great sincerity answered, amen.

FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

MANNERS OF THE ATHENIANS.

Ar the eve of the downfal of Athens, the private life of her corrupted citizens is thus described by Athenæus.-A love for public spectacles was the first thing which the youth were taught. There every object which could inflame their passions, was presented to their view: they hung with an effeminate pleasure on the musical airs, with which women were employed to enervate and captivate them: they wasted their important hours which should have been devoted to discipline and instruction, in wanton dalliance with the performers; and lavished their fortune and their vigour in the pursuit of licentious pleasures. The schools of their philosophers were in vain open for their instruction; and possibly these might have been held in some contempt, as fitted only for the formal and recluse, and beneath the notice of the man of business, destined to the exalted and active scenes of life. Thus the younger men entered into the world, ignorant and corrupted; and already accustomed to regard selfish and sensual gratifications as

their chief happiness, and prepared to acquire the means of these gratifications by the most iniquitous practices. Their love of money, or their incapacity for more rational entertainment, engaged them in gambling. Magnificent and costly feasts were now also become honourable distinctions at Athens. The sordid gratifi. cation of their palate became the study and exercised the invention of its inhabitants. Thus was their wealth lavishly and ignobly wasted, while the public exigencies were sparingly and reluctantly supplied. An extraordinary instance of the prostitution of the honours of their commonwealth is recorded. They conferred the freedom of their city,-the highest compliment usually paid to kings and great men,—on two persons whose only merit was that their father had been eminent in the art of cookery, and was famous for having introduced some new sauces.-———— -Who would not suppose that he was here reading a description of the manners of one of the great European capitals?—Who does not anticipate that the description may be applicable at a future day to some of our opulent cities, if the utmost care be not employed to counteract their growing luxury?

FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

A new prose translation of Homer has just appeared in France, from the pen of M.Dugas Montbell. The critics place it above those of Dacier, Bitaubé, and Lebrun -The celebrated Millin has been labouring in the same field, in an attempt to ascertain" the Mineralogy of Homer;" and he has certainly produced much curious matter respecting the gems mentioned by the great poet.-The historical poems or ballads, so well known at the bar, by those whose reading is not confined to the books of practice, under the title of the "Mirror for Magistrates," have lately been edited by John Hazlewood, Esq. with various readings from all the preceding editions and numerous illustrative notes.-M. Ouvaroff, counsellor of state to the emperor of Russia, has published an Essay on the Eleusinian Mysteries.-M.Abel Remusat has transla

ted from the Chinese," the Book of Rewards and Punishments," a small treatise on morals, compiled for the tao-tse, which possessed so much merit that the emperor Chum-tchi, caused it to be incorporated into a work published under his royal notice, with a preface from his imperial hand. According to the doctrine of WANG-SIANG, the author, whose days were lengthened to a century that he might complete this treatise, there are Spirits whose business it is to watch over the actions of man, and record his good and evil deeds, and to render an account at certain periods, to a council of superior spirits, where the rewards or penalties are dispensed. We select a few extracts from this

mentor.

"To follow reason, says the wise man, is to advance; to avoid her, is to fall back.

"We follow reason when we are sincere, pious, a good friend, a good brother; when we have a heart that feels for all created beings; when we are full of tenderness for orphans, and commiseration for widows; when we avoid doing injury to insects, herbs and trees; when we forgive injuries and return good for them; when we give aid to our fellow-men, deliver them from perils; regard the good luck that falls to them with as much pleasure as if it had been our own lot, and sympathize in like manner in their losses."

The moralist, not satisfied with these general ethics proceeds to enjoin specific performance. To become immortal in heaven, he says, we must have performed one thousand three-hundred good actions; to be immortal on earth, he thinks three-hundred will be sufficient. Wang-siang having laid down a model for the conduct of a good man, next undertakes to enumerate the faults and vices of the wicked, and the reader will find that in China, as it is in all other countries, this catalogue is much longer than that which exhibits the favourable side of human nature. "Not to honour those," says this writer, "who are older than ourselves, is a rebellion against those whom we ought to obey." "To receive favours without being grateful, and to nourish implacable resentments; to bestow rewards on the unworthy; to punish the innocent; to make men perish in order to get their wealth; to intrigue against those who are in office that we may get their places;"

(vid. Port Folio for June 1816, p. 526) "to cast an arrow at the beings that fly through the air; to pursue those which run on the ground; to destroy the holes of insects; to frighten birds when they are perched upon the trees; to stop up the places where they build nests, or destroy those that have been built; to wound the females that carry, and to break their eggs; to wish the death of those to whom we owe any thing; to forget old things for new, and to say yes with our lips and no in our hearts," (Jilts beware!) "to be fond of boasting and be continually devoured by envy," &c. &c. "these are actions which deserve punishment according to their attrocity. He who presides over the life of man, retrenches from the life of him who may be guilty of them a dozen years or twelve days only. His appointed number having expired, death comes; and after death if there is any part of the punishment not yet inflicted, it falls upon his son, grandson," &c. These extracts we imagine will give the reader a sufficient idea of the Chinese moralist.

The 13th vol. pp. 650, 4to. of the Literary History of France has just appeared. This compilation holds a respectable rank among those works of erudition which were undertaken, in the last century, by the holy benedictines of St. Maur. Dom Rivet, the first and principal author published the first volume in 1733, and died in 1749, after completing the 9th volume. It may be well to explain the plan which was pursued by the projector of this valuable performance. Each article contained the life of an author and an analysis of his works; then a list of the editions; their order assigned, not by the matter nor by the date of publication of their writings, but by the time of the death of the authors; if this date was not known, then the last known act of his life, or the time when he flourished. At the beginning of each volume where a century commenced, or which included many, there was an historical discourse on the state of letters during the period, chronological tables, &c. These preliminary discourses are very interesting, and are not so well known as they deserve to be.

Lord Sheffield has published a new edition, with many additions, of the Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon, Esq. Time has opened the eyes of the majority of the public to the fascina