and physical strength than any other speaker in the House.  Although blunt, and careless of the feelings of others, there is a certain elegance in every sentence, which softens the rude sentiment into a vigorous anathema.  Accurate in fact, naturally easy in delivery, bitter in irony, and ingenuous in argument, few are ready to meet him on the floor of the Commons.  He is a fair specimen of what we hear called ‘the fine old English gentleman,’ without the ignorance, the bigotry, the awkwardness, and the peevishness, which go to make up the characters of a large proportion of the country baronets and gentry; that is, he is hearty, cordial, and merry, entering with enthusiasm into whatever he proposes to do, and determined to leave no stone unturned to accomplish it.  If he should live to see the day when his countrymen shall adopt the views of which he is the foremost champion, no honor of the state will be denied him, and his name will rank with those of William of Orange, and Lord Grey, as the regenerators of the British Constitution; and if he does not, he can not but be respected, as Milton and Sidney are, by future generations, for his honesty, his patriotism under difficulty, and his fearless spirit.

* * * * *

THE ANTE-NORSE DISCOVERERS OF AMERICA.

(CONCLUDED.)

THE CHINESE IN MEXICO IN THE FIFTH CENTURY.

The reader who would ascertain by the map whether it was likely that at an early period intercourse could have taken place between Eastern Asia and Western America, will have no difficulty in deciding on the geographical possibility of such transit.  At Behring’s Straits only forty miles of water intervene between the two continents, while routes by the Aleutian Islands, or through the Sea of Ochotsk, present no great difficulties, even to a timid navigator.  And the Chinese and Japanese of earlier ages were by no means timid in their voyages.  It is only within two centuries that their governments, alarmed by the growing power of the Western world, and desirous of keeping their subjects at home, prohibited the construction of strictly sea-worthy and sea-faring vessels.  Even within the memory of man, Japanese junks have been driven to the California coasts.

Impressed by the probability of such intercommunication, Johann Friedrich Neumann, a learned German Orientalist, while residing in China, during the years 1829-30, for the purpose of collecting Chinese works, after investigating the subject, published its results in a work, subsequently translated by me, under his supervision.  Among the first results of his inquiries, was the fact that ’during the course of many centuries, the Chinese acquired a surprisingly accurate knowledge of the north-east coast of Asia, extending, as their records in astronomy and natural history prove, to the sixty-fifth degree of latitude, and even to the Arctic Ocean.’  From the Chinese Book