appeared to be made of iron, amidst the acclamations of an assembled multitude engaged in triumphal procession before the altars dignified by the name of Apollo at Delphi; and I saw in the same place men who carried rolls of papyrus in their hands and wrote upon them with reeds containing ink made from the soot of wood mixed with a solution of glue. "See," the Genius said, "an immense change produced in the condition of society by the two arts of which you here see the origin; the one, that of rendering iron malleable, which is owing to a single individual, an obscure Greek; the other, that of making thought permanent in written characters, an art which has gradually arisen from the hieroglyphics which you may observe on yonder pyramids. You will now see human life more replete with power and activity." Again, another scene broke upon my vision. I saw the bronze instruments, which had belonged to the former state of society, thrown away; malleable iron converted into hard steel, this steel applied to a thousand purposes of civilised life; I saw bands of men who made use of it for defensive armour and for offensive weapons; I saw these iron- clad men, in small numbers subduing thousands of savages, and establishing amongst them their arts and institutions; I saw a few men on the eastern shores of Europe, resisting, with the same materials, the united forces of Asia; I saw a chosen band die in defence of their country, destroyed by an army a thousand times as numerous; and I saw this same army, in its turn, caused to disappear, and destroyed or driven from the shores of Europe by the brethren of that band of martyred patriots; I saw bodies of these men traversing the sea, founding colonies, building cities, and wherever they established themselves, carrying with them their peculiar arts. Towns and temples arose containing schools, and libraries filled with the rolls of the papyrus. The same steel, such a tremendous instrument of power in the hands of the warrior, I saw applied, by the genius of the artist, to strike forms even more perfect than those of life out of the rude marble; and I saw the walls of the palaces and temples covered with pictures, in which historical events were portrayed with the truth of nature and the poetry of mind. The voice now awakened my attention by saying, "You have now before you the vision of that state of society which is an object of admiration to the youth of modern times, and the recollections of which, and the precepts founded on these recollections, constitute an important part of your education. Your maxims of war and policy, your taste in letters and the arts, are derived from models left by that people, or by their immediate imitators, whom you shall now see." I opened my eyes, and recognised the very spot in which I was sitting when the vision commenced. I was on the top of an arcade under a silken canopy, looking down upon the tens of thousands of people who were crowded in the seats