libraries. Bills were also introduced by him, for the first time, for the establishment of public walks and gardens, for the recreation of the working classes in all large towns, and of literary and scientific institutions for the diffusion of useful and entertaining knowledge among the people; both of which are now highly popular, though at first rejected; while he advocated at the same time the interests of India and Africa; took his full share of labour in all the great questions of humanity, and of moral and social improvement, brought before Parliament; and was ever ready to give his voice and vote for the advancement of civil and religious liberty. Having, however, been invited to visit America (where his wrongs had awakened a wide and lively interest), and having long contemplated an extensive tour through the Western World, he, in 1837, resigned his seat, and proceeded there.

Mr. Buckingham sailed from England in September, 1837, for New York, accompanied by his wife and youngest son, who continued with him during all his travels in the Western World; and, after a stormy and perilous passage of six weeks, they reached their port in the month of October. On landing in this populous city, Mr. Buckingham, being anxious to make the object of his visit widely and generally known, issued an address through the journals of the States, which was subsequently published in his Travels in America, and from which the following extracts are made. After narrating some of the earlier events of his life and the leading features of his Indian history, which need not here be repeated. Mr. Buckingham says:

"The reform of Parliament being accomplished, I was invited, under circumstances of the most flattering nature to myself, but on which I will not dwell, to become the representative of the town of Sheffield, in which, and to which, I was then personally an entire stranger; but its invitation was founded on a knowledge of my public life and labours alone. I was successfully returned to the first reformed Parliament as its member, and had the happiness to advocate, in my place, in the British House of Commons, the views I had maintained in India-for maintaining which, indeed, I was banished from that country-and which I had since, by the exercise of my pen and tongue, for ten years, spread so extensively in England. The triumph of these principles was at length completed by the accomplishment of all my views. The India monopoly was abolished, and free trade

to India and China secured. The liberty of the press in India was established, and trial by jury guaranteed. The political as well as

the commercial powers of the East India Company were curtailed. The horrid and murderous practice of burning the widows of India alive on the funeral piles of their husbands was put down by law. The blood-stained revenue derived from the idolatrous worship of Juggernaut was suppressed. The foundation of schools-the promotion of missions—the administration of justice-were all more amply provided for than before-and to me, the sufferings and anxieties of many years of peril and labour combined, were amply rewarded by the legal and constitutional accomplishment of almost every object for which I had contended, and the gratification of all the wishes I had so long indulged.

“The period came, however, in which it was necessary, for the interests of those who are dear to me by blood and family ties, and for whom it is my duty, as it is my happiness, to provide, that I should quit my senatorial duties, and, after nearly thirty years devoted to the service of the public, devote the few remaining years of health and activity that might be spared me, before old age should render exertion impracticable, to providing a retreat for the winter of life, and acquiring the means of making that retreat independent as well as honourable. I accordingly announced this intention, and the reasons on which it was grounded; and at the close of the last session of Parliament in July, 1837, I paid a farewell visit to my constituents at Sheffield, where, though all our previous meetings had been cordial, hearty, and affectionate in the extreme, this was more cordial, more affectionate-though tinged with a new element of sorrow and regret -than any that had gone before.

"These, then, are the circumstances, and I have narrated them with as much brevity as possible, which have led me to quit the land of my nativity, and go, with my family, to other shores. The motives which have induced me to prefer those of the United States, as the first, at least, to be visited in my course, and the objects which I hope to accomplish among you, still require to be explained.

"While others visit your shores charged either with merchandise to sell or gold and silver to buy, I venture to come among you freighted with no cargo of goods for your consumption, or with the precious metals for purchase or exchange. In the midst, however, of all the

bustle and animation that fills your crowded marts there will be room, I hope, for one who brings only the knowledge and experience acquired by years of travel in the Scriptural and Classical countries. of the East, to communicate to those who may have leisure and disposition to hear, and taste and education to enjoy, whatever can illustrate the history and poetry of early days, and, above all, whatever can tend to unfold the beauties, confirm the prophecies, and give strength and force to the sublime and important truths contained in the Sacred Volume of our common faith.

"This is the first object which I hope to accomplish by my sojourn among you, and this alone would well justify my visit to your shores. If, at the same time, there be others not incompatible with this prominent one, but auxiliary and subordinate to it, that I may be permitted to pursue such as a careful and impartial examination of your own resources, institutions, literature, and manners-so that while diffusing information for the gratification of others, I may be adding to my stores of knowledge for my own delight, I doubt not that I shall find among you all the kindness of aid for which you have so long been renowned.

"The mode that I have chosen for the communication of the interesting details with which the past history and actual condition of the Scriptural and Classical countries of the East abound, namely, that of oral discourses or extemporaneous lectures, may appear to some to be less dignified, as it is undoubtedly less usual, than the diffusion of this class of information through printed books. But it may be defended, first, on the ground of its greater practical utility, being at once more attractive and more efficient; and, secondly, on the ground of its high antiquity, and of the sacred and classical, as well as noble and historical precedents in its favour.

"For precedents or authorities it is not necessary to go far in search -so profusely do they abound in ancient and in modern annals. In Scriptural ages, the oral mode of communication was almost the only one in use, from the days of Abraham, who, according to the testimony of Josephus, thus taught the Chaldean science of astronomy to the Egyptians, down to the time of Solomon, who discoursed so eloquently of the productions of nature in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and from whose lips the profoundest maxims of wisdom were poured into charmed ears; and from thence again to the days of Paul, who

stood before Festus, Felix, and Agrippa, at Cesarea, and who, clothed in all the majesty of truth, addressed assembled thousands at Antioch, at Ephesus, at Athens, at Corinth, and in Rome.

"In classical countries the custom was universal, and there are many who conceive, with the great Lord Bacon, that one of the causes of the superior intellect of the Greeks was the method in use among them of communicating knowledge by oral discourses, rather than by written books; when the pupils or disciples of Socrates, of Plato, and of Epicurus, received their information from these great masters, in the gardens and the porticos of Athens, or when the hearers of Demosthenes, of Eschylus, of Sophocles, or Euripides, hung with rapture on their glowing sentences, as pronounced in the Areopagusthe theatre-the gymnasium-or the grove.

"Of classical authorities, the memorable instance of Herodotus will occur to every mind. This venerable Father of History, as he is often called, having been first banished from his native country, Halicarnassus, under the tyranny of Lygdamis, travelled, during his exile, through Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia, to the borders of Media and Persia, in which he was engaged for several years. On his return from his travels, he was instrumental in uprooting and destroying the very tyranny under which his banishment took place; but this patriotic deed, instead of gaining for him the esteem and admiration of the populace, who had so largely benefited by his labours, excited their envy and ill-will; so that he a second time left his native land, and then visited Greece. It was there, at the great festival of the Olympic Games, about five hundred years before the Christian era, being then in the fortieth year of his age, that he stood up among assembled myriads of the most intellectual auditors of the ancient world, to narrate in oral discourses, drawn from the recollection of his personal travels, the subject-matter of his interesting history and description of the countries of the East; and such was its effect upon the generous hearts and brilliant intellects of his accomplished hearers, that while the celebrated Thucydides, then among them as a boy, shed tears at the recital of the events of the Persian war, and his young bosom was, perhaps, then first fired with the ambition which made him afterwards one of the most accomplished historians of Greece, the people received Herodotus with such universal applause, that, as an honour of the highest kind, the names of the Nine Muses

were bestowed upon the nine books or subdivisions of his interesting narrative, which they continue to bear to the present hour in every language into which they have been translated.

"Pythagoras, of Samos, is another striking instance of a similar career. Disgusted with the tyranny of Polycrates, he retired from his native island, and having previously travelled extensively in Chaldea and Egypt, and probably in India, he also appeared at the Olympic games of Greece, and travelled through Italy and Magna Grecia, delivering, in the several towns that he visited, oral discourses on the history, religion, manners, and philosophy of the countries of the East; and their general effect was not less happy than that produced by the narrations of Herodotus-for it is said that 'these animated harangues were attended with rapid success, and a reformation soon took place in the life and morals of the people.'

"I might go on to enlarge the catalogue of precedents, for both ancient and modern history is full of them Marco Polo, Columbus, Camoens, Raleigh, and Bruce (all, too, treated with the deepest injustice by their countrymen) will occur to every one - but it is unnecessary. May I only venture to hope, that as some similarity exists between my own history, in suffering from tyranny and the ingratitude of contemporaries, and that which marked the career of those great men whose names I have cited - Herodotus and Pythagoras as well as in the countries we each traversed, and the mode of diffusing the information thus acquired by oral discourses among the people of other lands the similarity may be happily continued if not in the honours to be acquired, at least in the amount of the good to be done; and that, in this last respect, the Olympia and Magna Grecia of the East may fairly yield the palm to the more free and more generally intelligent Columbia of the West, Is my most earnest hope and desire-my most sincere and fervent prayer.

"I will say no more, except to add, that should my humble labours among you be crowned with the success which I venture to anticipate, and should Providence spare me life and health to follow out the plan I have long meditated and designed, it is my intention, after visiting every part of the United States of America, to extend my tour through the British Possessions of Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the West Indies; to visit from thence the Isthmus