been brought to a high state of perfection, and has become varied in kind to a great extent. The ass, the dog, and cat, are also believed to have an eastern origin. The ox, one of the most valuable of nature's gifts to man, appears to have existed in a wild state over the whole of Europe, but whether as a distinct species or a mere variety, is still uncertain. At what time this breed was exterminated from the open forests is not known; but it was confined to parks, in Britain, long before the Reformation. The race is still preserved in the north of England; they are wholly white, with a black muzzle.

The domestic quadrupeds which administer so much to the necessities and happiness of the human race, have been (particularly in Britain) improved to a high degree of excellence. Of the ox, the sheep, and the hog, there is a vast variety, each of which possesses some valuable peculiarity which renders them so essential in supplying food and clothing to man; while the horse, the ass, and the dog, assist him in his labours or protect his property.

In the extreme northern parts of the continent, the great white bear, more truly perhaps than any other antarctic animal, inhabits the shores of Nova Zembla, and is occasionally seen in other parts: it is the same as the American quadruped of the same name. The only two European species of this animal, the brown and black bear, are natives of the northern and temperate regions of the continent. The latter differs from that of America in many essential points. The wolf and the fox, under different varieties or species, appear generally distributed over Europe. To these may be added the lynx and wild cat, as the only rapacious or carnivorous animals of this region. The lynx, once common in central Europe, is now only known in some parts of Spain, the Apennines, and in the northern kingdoms. The wild cat is still said to be a native of Britain, and is spread over many parts of the continent. The elk and the reindeer are wellknown inhabitants of the northern countries; the latter giving place to the fallow deer, the stag, and the roebuck, in the midland parts of Europe. In the lofty mountains and inaccessible precipices of the Alps and Pyrenees, the chamois, ysard, and ibex, still live in partial security, notwithstanding the daring intrepidity of their hunters. The musmon is another European quadruped, deserving notice as being generally considered the origin of all our domestic breeds of sheep. It appears still to exist in a state of nature among the high mountains of Corsica and Sardinia, and although extirpated upon the continent, is well ascertained to have formerly been common in the mountains of Asturia in Spain, and other parts. The beaver is found in the vicinity of the Rhine, the Rhone, the Danube, and other of the larger European rivers. It is, however, uncertain whether it is precisely the same as the American species.

The domesticated birds of Europe, brought from other quarters, are the turkey from America, the peacock and common fowl from India, the Guinea-fowl from Africa, and the pheasant from Asia Minor. The rapacious birds, as in other regions, are the smallest in number, but the most formidable in strength. The golden, imperial, white-tailed, and sea eagle, are found in various parts of the continent. On the highest summits of the Alps, and in the vast forests which clothe their sides, in Switzerland and the Tyrol, are found all the four species of the European vulture, of which the most formidable is the bearded vulture, or vulture of the Alps. It is the largest of European birds, being four feet and a half in length, and its strength is so great that it attacks sheep, lambs, and young stags, and even the chamois and ibex fall victims to its rapacity. It builds in such inaccessible precipices that its nest is very rarely seen. The vulture is seldom found north of the Alps, and is most numerous in the southern parts of the continent.

The goshawk is found in Scotland, France and Germany. Great use was formerly made of this bird in falconry. Many species of owls are known in Europe; also, crows of various kinds, many species of woodpecker, snipe, grosbeaks, bullfinches, buntings, finches, linnets, larks, &c. The grouse, of various species, are highly prized as game: the largest, the cock of the rock, the size of a small turkey, is found in Russia: the cock of the wood is a fine bird, found in the high

mountainous parts of the continent; it lives mostly in pine forests and upon the leaves of fir trees. The partridge and quail are universally diffused.

The bustard, among the largest of European birds, being four feet long, is common in Spain, Italy, and Turkey. These birds run with great rapidity, but fly with difficulty, and are oftentimes hunted by greyhounds. The beautiful wallcreeper, with its bright rosy wings, the golden oriole, the bee-eater, the hoopoo, and the roller, four of the most beautiful European birds, are common in Italy and Sicily; also the pelican, the spoonbill, and the flamingo, although from their large size attracting the attention of sportsmen, they are never seen in any considerable numbers.

The seas and coasts of Europe abound to a great extent with fish and marine animals of various kinds, some of which exist in vast numbers, and are of great importance in a national point of view, affording food and employment to thousands of fishermen: this is especially the case with the codfish on the shores of Norway, and the herring of the British coast. The countless myriads of these fish which visit annually the northern shores of Europe, migrate from the Arctic Seas, and appear off the Shetland Isles in April and May. These are only the forerunners of the grand division, which comes in June; and their appearance is marked by certain signs, and by the numbers of birds which follow to prey upon them; but when the main body approaches, its breadth and depth are such as to alter the very appearance of the ocean. It is divided into distinct columns of five or six miles in length and three or four in breadth, and they drive the water before them with a kind of rippling. Sometimes they sink for ten or fifteen minutes, then rise to gain the surface, and in bright weather reflect a variety of splendid colours, like a field of the most precious gems.

The pilchards, on the southern coast of England, and the sardines, on that of France, are fished to a great extent. The herring is but little if at all known on the Mediterranean; a substitute, however, exists in the enormous shoals of anchovies found on the coasts of Spain, France, and Italy, which employ annually in their capture and preparation a great number of persons, and the exportation of this highly-flavoured little fish to all parts of the world creates an important branch of permanent commerce. The tunny fishery is peculiar to Sicily and Malta, but is not pursued to the same extent as formerly.

Europe, considered in regard to its languages, comprehends the whole globe, through those immense colonies which have been founded by the nations of this continent in every other quarter of the world.

The present European languages may be referred to four stocks: the Teutonic, the Celtic, Sclavonic, and Latin. The English, German, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Iceland, are of Teutonic origin.

The Celtic languages are the Gaelic, spoken in the Highlands of Scotland, the Hebrides, a great part of Ireland, and the Isle of Man; the Cymbric, used in Wales; the Low Breton, in France; and the Basque, in the south of France and the north of Spain.

The languages of Russia, Poland, Bohemia, and parts of Hungary, are all dialects of the Sclavonic; and those derived from the Latin are the Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and French.

The Spanish or Castilian language is spoken nearly all over Spain, and the present and former colonies of that nation in various parts of the world. It is very rich, harmonious, and dignified. The written and polished language is almost identical with the Portuguese, and differs but little from the Italian. The latter is esteemed the most melodious language of Europe, and is superior to any other in music and poetry. There are several dialects of it; in Tuscany it is found in its greatest purity; in Naples it is said to be the most corrupted; and Venice has its own peculiar dialect, which excels in softness.

The French language is considered the most refined of any in Europe. It is well adapted for conversation, and has gradually become the language of courts and of diplomacy, and is understood by the superior classes of society in greater extent than any other. Its dialects are numerous.

The English, spoken in England, parts of Scotland and Ireland, the British

Colonies in different quarters of the world, and in the United States, is the simplest and most monosyllabic of all the European idioms, and it is also that of which the pronunciation differs most from the orthography. The English language occupies one of the most eminent places in European literature. It is comparable with any of them in elegance, and perhaps surpasses them all in energy. It is no less graceful than concise; its poetry is at once manly and harmonious; and, like that of the cognate languages of the north, is admirably adapted to depict the sublimities of nature, and pourtray the stronger passions. As the language of political and parliamentary eloquence, it is without a rival. It is spoken by the greatest number of the inhabitants of the New World.

The German language prevails in all the German States, in Switzerland, and also in some parts of Russia. It has a number of dialects, and is divided into the Upper German, spoken in the southern parts, the Low German of the northern parts, and the High German, which is exclusively the language of books and refined society, and is common to all well-educated Germans; it ranks also as the learned language of the north and great part of the east of Europe. The literature of Germany, in regard to the quality of its productions, rivals those of France and England, and surpasses them in abundance. The German is the richest in words of any language in Europe; and this distinction it owes to the great number of its monosyllabic roots, with which it creates new terms ad infinitum, by derivation and composition. The Dutch, a derivative from the German, is the language of Holland and of her colonies.

The Ruski, or Modern Russian, is spoken throughout the Russian Empire, also in parts of Galicia and Hungary. It is only since the reign of the Czar Peter that it has become the language of literature and of business: it has several dialects. The Polish is the national language of the nobility and the commonalty in all the countries formerly belonging to Poland; its dialects are various. The preference given to Latin in the latter country long retarded this language.

Europe is politically divided into 61 independent States, of which some of the smaller are only nominally so, being in a measure more or less controlled by the larger and more powerful States in their vicinity. Of these, three are styled empires-Austria, Russia, and Turkey; sixteen kingdoms-Bavaria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain and Ireland, Greece, Hanover, Holland, Naples, Portugal, Prussia, Sardinia, Saxony, Spain, Sweden and Norway, and Wirtemberg; seven grand duchies-Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Oldenburg, Saxe Weimar, and Tuscany; one electorate-Hesse Cassel; eleven duchies-Anhalt-Bernburg, Anhalt-Cothen, Anhalt-Dessau, Brunswick, Lucca, Modena, Nassau, Parma, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and Saxe-Meiningen-Hildburghausen; one landgraviate - Hesse-Homburg; eleven principalities-Hohenzollern-Hechingen, Hohenzollern-Segmaringen, Lichtenstein, Lippe-Detmold, Lippe-Schauenburg, Monaco, Reuss-Greitz, Reuss-Schleitz, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, and Waldeck; one lordship-Kniphausen; one ecclesiastical state-The States of the Church; and nine republics-Switzerland, Ionian Islands, San Marino, Andorra, Cracow, and the Free Cities of Germany, Hamburg, Bremen, Lubeck, and Frankfort.

SWEDEN AND NORWAY.

SWEDEN and NORWAY, now united into one kingdom, form an extensive region, stretching from the utmost verge of the temperate zone far into the frozen range of the arctic circle. Along the north and west stretch the wide shores of the Frozen Ocean, so far as yet known. The south-west point of the kingdom borders on the North Sea or German Ocean. The Baltic and the Gulf of Bothnia enclose it on the south and east; so that it forms an immense peninsula. The isthmus by which it is joined to Russia is above 200 miles broad, but so closely barred by mountains and frozen plains, that the kingdom is nearly inaccessible,

except by sea. Sweden, Norway and Denmark, were anciently known as Scandinavia.

This kingdom is of vast extent. Its length, from the extreme point of Scania to the North Cape, is 1550 miles. Its breadth, from the extreme points of the provinces of Stockholm on the east, and Bergen on the west, will little exceed 350 miles. Its area is 297,000 square miles. Of this large territory, scarcely a half can be considered as belonging to the civilized world. The Laplander, who derives his whole subsistence from the rein-deer, can hardly be included within the pale of civilized society. Even the southern districts have a rugged and repulsive aspect, when compared to almost any other European state. Forests of tall and gloomy pine stretch over the plains, or hang on the sides of the mountains; the ground for five months in the year is buried under snow; cultivation appears only in scattered patches.

The mountains consist chiefly of the dark and lofty chain of the Dofrafields, which were for ages a barrier between the two separate and hostile states of Sweden and Norway, but are now included within the united kingdom. In passing through Norway, some of its pinnacles exceed 8000 feet. Chains of secondary elevation run through Lapland; but, in approaching the North Cape, they again rise as high as before, and face the polar seas with cliffs of prodigious magnitude.

The rivers are numerous, Sweden being a country profusely watered; but, as they rise in the Dofrafields, and traverse the divided breadth of the peninsula, they seldom attain any material length of course. The largest is the Dahl, which falls into the sea at Geffle, after a course of 260 miles. The most important as to navigation are those which form the outlet to the lakes, particularly the Gotha, reaching from the lake Wener to Gottenburg. The Glommen and the Dramme are pretty considerable rivers, running from north to south, and down which considerable quantities of timber are floated. Lapland pours a number of large streams into the head of the Gulf of Bothnia; but these are usually chained in ice, and at no time can be subservient to the purposes of agriculture or navigation.

Lakes form the grand depository of the surplus waters of Sweden. The Wener bears almost the character of an inland sea, and the completion of the canal of Trölhätta, by enabling its coasts to communicate by the Gotha with Gottenburg, has given them almost the full advantages of a maritime site. The Wetter, though equal in length, covers not nearly so great an extent of ground. Mäler, or Malar, is a narrow, winding loch, or, more strictly, a bay, running sixty miles into the interior from Stockholm, to whose environs its variegated and rocky shores give a beautiful wildness. Small lakes, enclosed between hills, are of very frequent occurrence, both in Norway and Sweden.

The constitution of Sweden is one of the few in Europe, which has always preserved some portion of that representative system which had been formed in remote ages. Towards the close, indeed, of the last century, it was reduced by Gustavus III. to little more than a form. Bernadotte, however, an elected monarch, without any national claim, was obliged to court the favour of the nation, and, with that view, to re-establish the rights of its ancient diet. This is now rather an antique and cumbrous form of legislature, consisting of four orders; the nobles, the clergy, the peasants, and the burghers; who sit and vote in separate houses.

In the division of powers, the royal prerogative is ample. The king appoints to all offices civil and military, and he is obliged to convoke the diet only once in five years, and to continue its sittings three months; but he may make the meetings more frequent, and longer. He has also a negative upon the laws proposed by the diet. In regard to the diet itself, the division rests with a majority of the houses; but if they be two against two, the balance is struck by the committee of state, a body composed of a certain number of members from each. No tax can be levied, or loan obtained, without the consent of the diet.

The storthing of Norway, restored by Bernadotte, is possessed of much higher privileges than the Swedish diet. It assembles more frequently, and at its own

time, without any control from the king; and it allows to him only a suspensive veto, obliging him to accept any project which has been three times presented by the storthing. These rights having been once granted, Bernadotte, who found them pressing somewhat hard against his prerogative, has in vain made several attempts to abridge them. A highly republican spirit prevails in Norway, and the influence, and almost existence, of the nobles, is nearly annihilated.

The revenue of Sweden is about $5,000,000 a year. The military force is at present 138,559: regular army, 45,191; landwehr or militia, 93,368. Of the former, Sweden furnishes 33,201, Norway 11,990; and of the latter, the share of Sweden is 83,368, and of Norway 10,000. The troops are raised by conscription: they only receive pay when on actual service; remaining, at other times, in the provinces, where they employ themselves in cultivating lands assigned to them for their support. Sweden seems doomed by nature to be rather a poor country. Her scanty harvest consists solely of rye, bigg, and oats, scarcely accounted as food in more favoured climates. Scandinavia is described generally as one unbroken boundless forest, varied only in its aspect by little patches of cultivated land.

The commerce of this region is greater than its unimproved agriculture and total want of manufactures might lead us to suppose. But nature has gifted these bleak territories with an almost inexhaustible store of timber and iron, two of the prime necessaries of human life. These articles are indeed also the produce of North America; and Britain, which affords the best market, has lately sought to favour her colonies in that quarter by a great inequality of duties. Yet the superior quality of the Scandinavian commodity always secures it a sale. The entire exports of Norway are estimated at 1,800,000l. sterling. The commerce of Sweden is not on so great a scale; her surplus timber being not nearly so ample, though her iron is superior. The total number of merchant vessels belonging to the different towns of Sweden, in 1829, was 1178, of the burthen of 61,000 tons. The manufactures of Scandinavia are inconsiderable, unless we should class their mines as such. Even in the common trades, the work is lazily and ill performed, and charged at a high rate, which renders this the most expensive country in Europe for those who live luxuriously. It is a curious fact that some great merchants in the western towns send their linen to be washed in London.

The mines of silver, copper, lead, and especially iron, constitute the chief wealth of this country. In 1738, a gold mine was discovered near Adelfors; but it is now nearly exhausted. The principal copper mines are in Dalecarlia that of Falun has been worked upwards of 1000 years, and produces from 1,425,000 to 1,500,000 pounds of copper annually. Sweden likewise produces porphyry, rock-crystal, cobalt, alum, and antimony.

Agricultural industry till of late had not done much to remedy natural deficiencies; it is now, however, pursued with considerable assiduity, especially in the southern parts of the country. The peasants are very industrious, but owing to the deficiency of the soil, they are hardly able to raise enough grain for home consumption. Hence Sweden has sometimes to import grain to a considerable extent; and such is occasionally the scarcity, that the peasantry often grind the bark or even wood of the fir-tree into flour.

Sweden comprises three general divisions, Gothland, Sweden Proper, and Norrland, which are subdivided into 26 lans or governments.

The population of Sweden, according to the latest census, made in 1825, amounted to 2,771,252; of whom 20,499 were nobles; 13,977 ecclesiastics; 66,604 citizens: the remainder belonged to the class of peasants. The population of Norway, by a census made in November, 1826, amounted to 1,050,132.

The religion of Sweden is Lutheran, and the church Episcopal. This country, which stood long at the head of the great Protestant confederacy, is animated with an ardent zeal for the reformed religion. The Catholics, till of late, scarcely enjoyed common toleration, and they are still excluded from the diet and the higher offices of state. The Swedish people are commended for their regularity in performing the duties of their religion: at the same time it has been remarked that the dissenters from the established church are much fewer than in other Pro