"A similar firm grasp of special features, without impairing the general impression, or depriving the external materials of the free and animating breath of poetic imagination, characterises in an even higher degree the ingenious and tender author of "Atala," "René," "the Martyr," and the "Journey to Greece and Palestine." The contrasted landscapes of the most varied portions of the earth's surface are brought together, and made to pass before the mind's eye with wonderful distinctness of vision: the serious grandeur of historic remembrances could alone have given so much depth and repose to the impressions of a rapid journey." ------------------ MYTHOLOGY OF SCIENCE. M. Arago, in his brilliant _eloge_ on Fourier, observes:--"The ancients had a taste, or rather a passion, for the marvellous, which made them forget the sacred ties of gratitude. Look at them, for instance, collecting into one single group the high deeds of a great number of heroes, whose names they have not even deigned to preserve, and attributing them all to Hercules. The lapse of centuries has not made us wiser. The public in our time also delight in mingling fiction with history. In all careers, particularly in that of the sciences, there is a design to create Herculeses. According to the vulgar opinion, every astronomical discovery is attributable to Herschel. The theory of the motions of the planets is identified with the name of Laplace, and scarcely any credit is allowed to the important labours of D'Alembert, Clairaut, Euler, and Lagrange. Watt is the sole inventor of the steam-engine, whilst Chaptal has enriched the chemical arts with all those ingenious and productive processes which secure their prosperity." To countervail this error, Arago continues: "Let us hold up to legitimate admiration those chosen men whom nature has endowed with the valuable faculty of grouping together isolated facts, and deducing beautiful theories from them; but do not let us forget that the sickle of the reaper must cut down the stalks of corn, before any one can think of collecting them into sheaves." ------------------ EL DORADO OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH. The term _El Dorado_ is commonly considered to have reference to the sovereignty teeming with precious metals, which had long been sought for in vain by Spanish adventurers. Their expeditions in quest of it were directed to the interior of the vast region lying between the Orinoco and the Amazon, or Guiana. The rocks were represented as impregnated with gold, the veins of which lay so near the surface as to make it shine with a dazzling resplendency. The capital, Manoa, was said to consist of houses covered with plates of gold, and to be built upon a vast lake, named Parima, the sands of which were auriferous.