near him to claim my part, he made great haste to devour it, having his eyes all the time directed towards me. By the distance I had to go before I could approach him, he judged of the time that he had to eat it alone; and I, indeed, arrived too late. Sometimes, however, when he was deceived in his calculation, and when I came upon him sooner than he expected, he instantly endeavoured to conceal the morsels from me: but by means of a blow well applied, I compelled him to restore the theft; and in my turn becoming master of the envied prey, he was obliged to receive laws from the stronger party. Kees entertained no hatred or rancour; and I easily made him comprehend how detestable that base selfishness was of which he had set me an example."

This is all very fine, but we confess that we think poor Kees hardly used in this matter; nor are we aware of any law, written or unwritten, human or Simian, by which the conversion of the root, which he had sagaciously found, to his own use could be made a theft, or by which the prize could be ravished from him, except indeed by the "good old law" that "sufficeth" people in such cases

"the simple plan,

That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can.”

But to return to Le Vaillant's entertaining narrative.

"To tear up these roots, Kees pursued a very ingenious method, which afforded me much amusement. He laid hold of the tuft of leaves with his teeth; and pressing his fore-paws firmly against the earth, and drawing his head backwards, the root generally followed: when this method, which required considerable force, did not succeed, he seized the tuft as before, as close to the earth as he could; then throwing his heels over his head, the root always yielded to the jerk which he gave it. In our marches, when he found himself tired, he got upon the back of one of my dogs, which had the complaisance to carry him for whole hours together one only, which was larger and stronger than the rest, ought to have served him for this purpose; but the cunning animal well knew how to avoid this drudgery. The moment he perceived Kees on his shoulders, he remained motionless, and suffered the caravan to pass on, without ever stirring from the spot. The timorous Kees still persisted; but as soon as he began to lose sight of us, he was obliged to dismount, and both he and the dog ran with all their might to overtake us. For fear of being surprised, the dog dexterously suffered him to get before him, and watched him with great attention. In short, he had acquired an ascendancy over my whole pack, for which he was perhaps indebted to the superiority of his instinct; for among animals as among men, address often gets the better of strength. While at his meals, Kees could not endure guests; if any of the dogs approached too near him at that time, he gave them a hearty blow, which these poltroons never returned, but scampered away as fast as they could.

"It appeared to me extremely singular, and I could not account for it, that, next to the serpent, the animal which he most dreaded was one of his own species: whether it was that he was sensible that his being tamed had deprived him of great part of his faculties, and that fear had got possession of his senses, or that he was jealous, and dreaded a rivalry in my friendship. It would have been very easy for me to catch wild ones, and tame them; but I never thought of it. I had given Kees a place in my heart, which no other after him could occupy; and

I sufficiently testified how far he might depend on my constancy. Sometimes he heard others of the same species making a noise in the mountains; and, notwithstanding his terror, he thought proper, I know not for what reason, to reply to them. When they heard his voice they approached but as soon as he perceived any of them he fled with horrible cries; and, running between our legs, implored the protection of everybody, while his limbs quivered through fear. We found it no easy matter to calm him; but he gradually resumed, after some time, his natural tranquillity. He was very much addicted to thieving, a fault common to almost all domestic animals; but in Kees it became a talent, the ingenious efforts of which I admired. Notwithstanding all the correction bestowed upon him by my people, who took the matter seriously, he was never amended. He knew perfectly well how to untie the ropes of a basket, to take provisions from it; and, above all, milk, of which he was remarkably fond: more than once he has made me go without any. I often beat him pretty severely myself; but, when he escaped from me, he did not appear at my tent till towards night."

"Milk in baskets!" why, truly, the term "basket" as applied to a vessel for holding milk appears to require some explanation; but it was really carried in baskets woven by the Gonaquas, of reeds so delicate and so close in texture that they might be employed in carrying water or any liquid. The abstraction of the milk, &c. we consider as a kind of set-off against the appropriation of Kees's favourite root by his master.

The pertinacious way in which Kees bestrode Le Vaillant's dogs will recal to the remembrance of some a monkey that was, and perhaps still is, riding about London, in hat and feather, with garments to match, upon a great dog, with the usual accompaniments of hand-organ and Pan's pipe. Upon these occasions the monkey evidently felt proud of his commanding position; but ever and anon we have seen him suffer from one of those sad reverses of fortune to which the greatest among us are subject. In the midst of the performance, while the organ and pipe are playing, and the monkey has it all his own way, and, elevated with the grandeur that surrounds him, is looking rather aristocratically at the admiring crowd, some good-natured but unlucky boy throws the dog a bit of cake, in his zeal to pick up which the latter lowers his head and shoulders so suddenly as infallibly to pitch his rider over his head. We have thought more than once that there was a sly look about the dog as he regarded the unseated monkey, utterly confounded by his downfal and the accompanying shouts of laughter from the bystanders.

We must now, for the present, bid our readers adieu; but, if they like such reading, we promise them at some future period a sketch of the most remarkable species of monkeys in the Old World as well as in the New; merely observing, en passant, that though zoologists declare that there is but one European species,* another, at least, is to be met with in our quarter of the globe. The Demopithecus of Aristophanes, "qui vel fraudatione vel adulatione erga populum simiam se exhibet," is, assuredly, not yet extinct; on the contrary, it still is, and seems at all times to have been, common in Ireland; nor is it by any means of rare occurrence in Great Britain, especially about the period of a general election.

*Macacus sylvanus, Lacépède-the Barbary Ape which has established itself on the rock of Gibraltar,

MEMOIR OF B. D'ISRAELI, ESQ.

BY A CORRESPONDENT. (WITH A PORTRAIT.)

MR. B. D'Israeli is the eldest son of the celebrated author of the "Curiosities of Literature," a work which has called more thought out of gratification than almost any that we know. We are not however among those who believe in the influence of circumstance over mind, and are not therefore about to dwell on any probability of the father's pursuits having biassed those of the son. We hold that the writer of "Vivian Grey would have written anywhere that he could have found pen, ink, and paper; or that if he had been native of an Indian forest, he would, with agitated face, and eloquent arms, and appeals that reach the heart, have riveted the attention of the whole dark circle gathered around the red fire-light of the pine-boughs. What are youths in general at the age when "Vivian Grey" was produced? Nonentities, as regards thought or creation. Pleasure has taught them no moral-sorrow has given no strength and judgment is an impulse, not an impression. Now the chief characteristic of "Vivian Grey" was insight into motive; it was only the work of a boy in its freshness-a freshness that gave its own excitement to the narrative. The sarcasm was not merely amusing, it was reflective,-the mockery had a purpose, and purpose is that in which the young writer is generally most deficient. Years hence that work will be a literary curiosity,-it will be an interesting subject to investigate by what process a mere boy could look so closely into the springs of action, and paint so true a picture of the shifting sands of society. No young man, with one touch of the eager or ambitious in his career, ever read that work without strong excitement; and the effect it took was what power ever takes,-it made enemies, because it made, envy, and also because satire, take what shape it will, is always unwelcome. Even while enjoying a laugh at others, people have a little secret fear of the laugh coming home,—their turn may be the next; and we are all cowards at the bottom. Moreover, irony is always misunderstood; and the many would disdain Vivian Grey's velvet slippers, and petted greyhound-to whom his keen sarcasm was a sealed book. There is also an odd feeling about the generality which delights in being ill-used,-complaint has a small temporary consequence, which is just equal to their calibre. When Gay in his exquisite opera said of his caricatures

"Each cries that was levelled at me,"

he perfectly understood the general feeling. To apply a sneer to ourselves, is a distinction, particularly when there is the right to grumble at it. This was a luxury fully enjoyed on the first appearance of "Vivian Grey." In that work there were one or two characters complete moral investigations;-the Marquis, whose very existence was a ceremony-the Marchioness's, an indolent indulgence-and Cleveland's, one of those secrets which this world can never solve. On the other side of the grave, we may learn why the glorious mind, the noble purpose, the lofty eloquence, are given-and in vain. Here, we know not why the intellectual harvest should spring up-yet no season of reaping ever arrive. "Mrs. Felix Lorraine" was another sketch strange for the conception of youth. Rochefoucauld says truly, le moindre défaut d'une femme galante est d'être galante; and here the truth is worked out to its last severity. The succeeding series did, however, the female world full justice. Madeline Trevor is noble as a statue, instinct with spirit;-Violet Fane breathes of her name; but the Arch