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FOR PLUNDER AND SPOIL.

restitution instituted; but its blessings did not extend to all.

The light of some communities that had once blazed through the world, was put out for ever. The republic of Venice was crushed. She did indeed receive back her bronze horses, which in the plenitude of her power she had snatched from the lofty portals of Constantinople; and the deathless touches of Titian and other of her old painters, were restored to the walls where they had hung for centuries before. But it was only that a foreign prince might possess them. They received the sword and crown of the Emperor of Austria with them. They were never to revive again as a nation: the black league of Europe had otherwise decreed. They were to become, an insignificant appendage to the Austrian empire; and the spoils which the French had collected in the course of their invasions of Egypt, were deemed honourable and worthy plunder with which to enrich the British Museum. The acquisition of these only kindled a national taste for the more extensive pillage of the defenceless states of the Levant.

While the resident English ambassador at Constantinople was engaged in the work of demolition and robbery of the Grecian temples, the English consul-general at Alexandria was no less assiduous in the destruction of those of Egypt, and in emptying the graves of the dead. Tombs that had rested in silence, and which had been respected as sacred through the long centuries of Persian, Grecian, Roman, and Turkish oppression, were now wantonly

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broken into. Coffins were emptied of their dust, and sent into a distant land, to gratify the vanity of an English lord. The old monuments of Egypt were torn up and broken into fragments, to swell the lumber in the British Museum. A double robbery was committed by the British nation: first, in pillaging Egypt, and again in the extortions inflicted upon their own oppressed people, to pay dearly the unworthy hire of the robbers themselves!

Who is benefited by all this? Are not the beauty and interest of many gems of art greatly diminished-many of the noble achievements of the genius and munificence of ancient nations nearly or wholly destroyed? Is science advanced by it? Has it been the means of establishing free schools in England? Has it opened her cathedrals to public inspection without a fee? Is there more political or religious freedom enjoyed by the people on that account? Has the window-tax been diminished-the monopoly of printing the Bible-the duty on bread, received any modification on account of this pillage among the antiquities of the East? If not, what then has been the advantage derived from this reckless plunder and spoil among the venerable remains of ancient nations?

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PLAGUES OF EGYPT.

CHAPTER XII.

"Plagues of Egypt."-An Evening with Mr. Firkins.His Opinion of Mehemet Ali and the Diplomacy of the "Great Powers."-Jealousy of the Allies, and Mehemet Ali's Check upon their Diplomatic Intrigues.- Subtlety of the Pacha, and the Promises of France. The Pacha's Government, and its Effects upon the People.

THIS, though the last day of December, has been like May in New England; really most delightful weather. Yet, with all the sunshine, dates, flowers, and delicacies of the season, there is a chilliness in the evening breeze; though it is not quite cold enough to stiffen the musquitoes, thousands of which are buzzing about my ears; and now and then a flea drops in to disturb the monotony of their music.

"The plagues of Egypt' are not quite all out of Alexandria yet," said I to Mr. Firkins, who came in just at the moment-" although Mehemet Ali has had the whole Turkish fleet riding at anchor so near the door of his palace, that the smoke from his pipe mingles with that from the cannon of the fine seventy-fours and hundred-and-twenty-gun-ships that cut such a capital figure here just now."

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True," said Mr. Firkins, "Egypt has plagues enough in all conscience, decidedly; and the Eu

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ropean plagues are among the most annoying of them all. These ships are decidedly some of the most splendid in the world; and-"

"Well they may be," said I, "for they were built by an American: the Americans make some things well, and scarcely any thing better than their ships." "Or worse," said Mr. Firkins, " than speculations.”

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True," said I, "Mr. Firkins; then you have heard of some of our whims and follies, even here in Egypt?"

"In Egypt!" replied Mr. Firkins; "that blue bubble of painted cities in the woods, and lots in the bottom of the sea, is the jest of the whole world. My friends in India make a standing joke of American speculations. In all their letters to me, they seem to chuckle over them like a cobbler over his beer."

"But-,"

But," rejoined Mr. Firkins, "you have not heard me through."

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Pardon,"

Well, then," continued Mr. F., "these fine ships are not among the most annoying 'plagues of Egypt,' nor are they plagues at all; what a really brilliant display they make !"

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True," said I," they do make a fine display; but

But," replied Mr. Firkins, "Mehemet Ali dined on board one of these monsters of the deep to-day, in company with about three hundred guests, including all the great men of the country."

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MR. FIRKINS'S OPINION OF MEHEMET ALI.

"Indeed!"

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Yes," continued Mr. Firkins, " and a most capital time they have had of it too. What a thundering of guns, and burning of gunpowder! what a rattling of champagne-glasses and coffee-cups! and above all, what a cloud of smoke ascended from the fragrant fumes of three hundred pipes put in active blast by Mehemet Ali and his three hundred guests! It was a famous time. No one here supposes that the Pacha will give up this splendid fleet; and, as matters now stand, he is a great fool, in my opinion, if he does. However, Mehemet Ali is no fool; and France will endorse his protection of the Turkish fleet and the brave old admiral, who has thrown himself and the Sultan's ships into such fine winter quarters."

"Do you really think so?"

"Think so!" replied Mr. Firkins, "I not only think so, but I know so. The Pacha has already told me as much not in the same words, to be sure, but the same thing."

"Really!"

"Certainly he has," continued Mr. Firkins, "and all this long-winded, diplomatic, nonsensical entanglement will end, if it ever end at all, in no good. England has emancipated her slaves in the West Indies, and greatly tightened the chains and fetters with which she cruelly tyrannizes over and oppresses her millions upon millions of slaves in the East. She starves her myriads of peasants at home, and keeps her odious corn-law system to fill the pockets of

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