No sooner does the year shake off its robe of snow, and the sun begin to glimmer again, than the whole tribe are in motion; no matter where, all places are alike to their pens--the North Pole or the Antarctic. One of them thinks America an unexhausted subject, and we find her instantly on board the good ship Columbia, flying in the teeth of wind and tide, to caricature New York. Another puts on her wings for that unknown spot called Vienna; sends in her card to nobles and ministers; caricatures them too; talks of faces which she had never seen, describes fêtes to which she would never have been admitted, and quotes conversations which she never heard. Another takes a sweep of the French coast, and showers us with worn-out romance and modern vapidity, till we are sick of the art of printing, and long for the return of that happy period when the chief occupations of the fair sex were cookery and samplers. To all this, however, there _are_ exceptions; some of the sex, modest, well-informed, and capable of informing others, indulge the world, from time to time, with works which "it would not willingly let die." But our _horror_ is the professional tourist; the woman who runs abroad to forage for publication; reimports her baggage, bursting with a periodical gathering of nonsense; and with a freight of folly, at once empty as air and heavy as lead, discharges the whole at the heads of a suffering people. Miss Martineau, however, deserves to stand in another category. She is a lively writer; if she seldom enlightens the reader of her pages, she seldom sends him to sleep; she prattles amusingly; and by the help of Wilkinson and Lane for the antique, and her own ear-trumpet and spectacles for the modern, she makes out of an Egyptian ramble a very readable book. And this book is by no means a superfluity; for, excepting Palestine, there is no country on earth which possesses so strong an interest for the Biblical student; or will, within a few years, possess so strong an interest for the whole political world. France, Russia, and Italy, are probably at this moment alike speculating on the changes which threaten Egypt. The death of Mehemet Ali cannot be far off. Ibrahim is sickly. The succession of eastern dynasties is the reverse of regular; and if by any chance war were lighted up at one end of the Mediterranean, it would be sure to burst out at the other. Egypt would be the prize of battle. To England the possession would be of little value; she has colonies enough, and she certainly will not be guilty of the crime of usurpation; but it will be of first-rate importance to her that Egypt shall not fall into the hands of a hostile power; for she cannot suffer her road to India to be barred up. Her natural policy would be to see it restored to the Ottoman. But how long will the Ottoman himself last? A Russian fleet at the mouth of the Bosphorus, with a Russian army encamped on the plains of Adrianople, would settle the occupancy in a week. In the