effected according to the covenant of grace; it is not to be wondered at, that God should peculiarly own this his gracious and exalted work by more than ordinary degrees of his presence and power. "My life is not my own (says the believer); for I am not my own, but my Lord's. He freely gave it to me, as well as my new and better life from the dead. He doth not rob me: he only takes what belongs to him, and was lent to me for my good. My times, I bless him, are all in his hand; and I rejoice, that they are lodged there for my true welfare and safety. The world and its vanities, with my own weakness and infirmities, are all passing away, and will soon come to an end; and now is the day coming on, which shall intro duce me into a glorious world, and a blissful eternity. It is my Lord's appointment, and therefore must be well. He hath loved me with an everlasting love, for the purpose of drawing me, and at this very period of time, to himself and to his glory, All is well, because ha hath done it. I am, and I desire to be, perfectly satisfied. My flesh shall rest in hope; and my soul shall soar above all corruption and O! blessed be my God, and my Father, for bringing me to this issue! To him be ascribed all the glory, through my dear and gracious Redeemer !'

sorrow.

Our next extract is, on the word' Sabbath, Rest, xalaravos. Quiet.' It may be given as a specimen of the critical obser

vations.

We which have believed do enter into REST.- Heb. iv. 3. How Ittle is the Sabbath of the soul, this quiet resting in and upon Christ, understood or enjoyed! Indeed, to be understood it must be enjoyed. The soul to cease from man, to cease from creatures, to cease from self, and to rest with quiet faith and patience upon Christ, in lively apprehensions of the most awful kind, and under the impression of the most pungent and alarming difficulties, proves, that God is in such a one of a truth. To this believer every day is a Sabbath, because he finds a Sabbath of rest every day in his soul. Not that he doth not honour the Lord's Day particularly; but he finds the intention and spirit of that day, or aims to find it, all the week in his soul. He hath been taught and enabled by the Holy Spirit to cease from his own works, from dependence upon his own carnal activities, from the natural turbulence of his own spirit, its impatience, its fro ward will, its own wisdom; and to lean upon the Beloved in passing through the wilderness, and to be desirous of resting upon Him for wisdom to guide, for strength to support, for pardon and peace, for justifying righteousness, for true and genuine holiness, and, in a word, for all things to endure and carry on the business of life and of grace here, and for the full and eternal enjoyment of Christ hereafter. In this way, he becomes one spirit with the Lord, has communion with him, feels his sacred influence in heart and life, and is raised in divine expectation, in proportion, above miserable and ever-perplexing anxieties of this lower world. As all things are of God to him, so his faith labours to receive, to use, or to bear them. He prays that his will may be absorbed in his Redeemer's, trusting to his truth, and aiming to trust to that truth most firmly and entirely, that every

thing shall work together for his good. He would measure all pro vidences by the Lord's promises, and not his promises by providences, many of which may not be within his comprehension or desire. This is the constant life of faith; and so far as it is known and enjoyed by the Christian, he enters into rest and that quietness of spirit, which is connected with assurance for evermore.

All this is the prelude, or foretaste, of that high and holy Sabbatism, which remaineth for the people of God in the world eternal. There is the on the height of holiness and happiness; and there is the Dipp the place, where God's special honour and glory dwell; a Sabbatism of holiness without deviation, of bliss without interruption, of activity without weariness, of praise incessant, of delight ineffable, of unity with the Redeemer, of perfect likeness to him, with the everlasting fruition of JEHOVAH Most High, Most Holy, and Almighty. O the ravishing satisfactions of this eternal state! O the blissful capacities of a refined and sublimated nature to enjoy it!'

We have only room for one further extract. It was the last composition of the author, and was written only two days previously to the final attack of his disorder.

2

'I know not when, where, or by what disease I shall die. This I leave, with entire submission, to the will and disposal of my heavenly father, who hath engaged himself to do the best for me; who hath promised to make all my bed in my sickness, and who hath conquered death for me, through my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is, however, no slight affair to be dissolved from the body, and for the spirit to fly into an unknown world. It requires no ordinary degree of faith and patience to meet it well, and as becomes a Christian. May I never presume upon my own strength, wisdom, or righteousness, but depart hence, as he hath enabled me to live, upon the mercy, help, and righteousness of my Lord and Saviour, who hath engaged himself to me by a thousand ties, not one of which, I trust, shall ever be broken. Lord, help me to believe, and help thou my natural unbelief! Stand by and support me, by thy Holy Spirit, in my dying hour. Let not Satan prevail over the weakness of my mortal frame, but strengthen me with especial might by thy Spirit, in the inner man, that, while the outward man verges to decay, I may meet what is terrible to nature with holy calmness, and with such composure of soul, as may glorify thee, and encourage my Christian for friends to rejoice in thy goodness towards me, and to be encouraged themselves! O let me depart in peace; for mine eyes have seen, and my soul hath tasted, thy precious salvation! Be with and uphold me, and then all shall be well, and I shall have nothing to do or say, but, Blessed be God! who giveth me the victory, through our Lord Jesus \ Christ! Amen! Hallelu-JAH for evermore! Amen!

'I write this with a trembling hand; but blessed be God! with an undismayed heart, through the love of Christ vouchsafed to me. Blessing, glory, honour, power, to HIM that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever! Amen! Hallelu-JAH!'

(July 14th, 1812.

Art. XI. A Treatise on Diamonds and Precious Stones, including their History, natural and commercial. To which is added some account of the best methods of cutting and polishing them. By John Mawe, pp. 166. 8vo. 3 plates. Longman and Co. price

12s.

DIAMONDS and precious stones are substances with which Reviewers are much better acquainted by hearsay than actual inspection. The few rough specimens which serve to occupy the place of this mineral in a collection, and to exhibit its principal crystaline configurations, and the models which supply the forms of the varieties, these samples of the gem are far from conveying even an idea of the costly morsels to which Mr. Mawe's description refers. We do not, however, affect to despise information on a subject with which there is little chance, we fear, of our ever becoming practically familiar. The mineralogist will be interested by the great variety of forms, the singular physical and chemical properties, and the rarity of the substance; while the immense value attributed to it in commercial intercourse, makes it important as an article of trade, and the avidity with which it has been sought after in all ages, must attract the attention of those, who, in contemplating the emotions of the human mind, are curious to become acquainted with their exciting causes. Diamonds not only serve to render monarchs illustrious,' or create envy in a ball-room, but have had their share in directing the efforts of heroes, and the energies of nations.

Who is ignorant that the Czar Peter, with his whole army, when surrounded by the Turks, owed his safety to the fascinating splendour of the Diamonds of his empress? Nor is it less notorious, that the jewels of the princes of India have, on certain occasions, shone with unconquerable charms in the eyes of Europeans, both in the East and nearer home. The Regent Diamond of France, if report says true, was played with such success by the wily Seyez before the Sovereign of Prussia, as to produce for the service of France forty thousand horses with their equipments.

That the most absolute and despotic monarchs, such as those of India and of other eastern countries, should have what appears to us an almost insane passion for Diamonds, is not to be wondered at. To a sovereign, who can command the lives and property of his subjects by a word, the ordinary objects of human desire soon lose that stimulating interest which rarity of occurrence, and difficulty of acquisition can alone keep up. The gratifications of the senses and of unresisted sway, soon pall upon the appetite, and war and Diamonds are the only objects that engross the attention; the former, because it is attended with some hazard, and is the only kind of gambling in which the stake is sufficiently exciting to banish the ennui of an illiterate despot; the latter, because the excessive rarity of large and at

the same time perfect specimens of this gem, supplies a perpetual object of desire, while each new acquisition feeds the complacent vanity of the possessor. Even Prince Potemkin himself, who beyond every individual of modern times, exhausted by turns, the sensualities of high and low life, and revelled in the unbounded possession of military command, of rank, and of political influence, amused the tedium of the latter years of his life, by sitting whole hours at a time, feasting his eyes with the brilliant display of his magnificent collection of Diamonds.' pp. 7-10.

A little volume on the subject, collecting from the narratives of travellers, the natural historians of different ages and countries, and the memoranda of chemists, scattered in Journals and Transactions of Societies, the most important and well authenticated particulars relating to the gem, would be an amusing and useful addition to the libraries of many. We regret that Mr. Mawe with much good will to serve the public-and himself-was no better qualified for the undertaking. He certainly, as we had the pleasure to inform our readers a twelvemonth ago, has seen the very holes out of which the diamonds are grubbed in the Brazils; he has also formerly been in India: he "has seen and sure he ought to know." Yet there is very little in his work beyond the general information to be found in our encyclopedias, and that little is of no great consequence. However, if the information which he conveys in his treatise is rather meagre, we doubt not he will be perfectly willing to make up for it by verbal information to such as choose to become more intimately acquainted with the subject by studying— and purchasing part of his collection at 149, Strand.

Mr. Mawe's account of the knowledge possessed by the ancients concerning this gem,' is not very ample. It consists in a quotation from Pliny, and another from Boetius de Boot. The physical and chemical characters, however, are laid down very distinctly the colours, which comprize shades of all the prismatic tints, are carefully enumerated: and the crystalization minutely described. The usual form in which the gem is found is that of a regular octohedron with polished surfaces. One of the more remarkable modifications is the spheroidal, with 48 convex triangular faces, six being arranged on each of the sides of the primitive crystal. These globular specimens however cannot be cut on account of the curvature of the laminæ, and are therefore only objects of curiosity. The hardness of the diamond powerfully resists the effect of friction, and it has been generally supposed that all the forms in which it is found, have been produced by crystalization: but Mr. Mawe informs us that he has a globular diamond on which no facets are discernible, the figure of which he attributes to abrasion. The

fracture of the Diamond is lamellar, parallel to the planes of its original crystalisation, and, contrary to what has been asserted, it is known to be easily split in the direction of its lamine by a blow with a small hammer. Its decomposition by heat commences at 13° of Wedgewood's pyrometer, when it lustre begins to fade, and it assumes a milky appearance its complete combustion is effected at 15° of the same scale.

The Diamonds of Brazil, like those of India, are found in a loose gravel-like substance immediately incumbent on the solid rock, and covered by vegetable mould and recent alluvial matter; this gravel consists principally of rounded quartz pebbles of various sizes, mixed with sand and oxide of iron, and enclosing rounded topazes, blue, yellow, and white, and grains of gold. In some parts of the Diamond territory of Serro do Frio, which I visited, the gravel is cemented by means of the oxide of iron into a considerably hard conglomerate, forming rocks and low hills; on the sides of these are water-courses produced by the torrents during the rainy season, the beds of which are very unequal and excavated. In these hollows Diamonds are not unfrequently discovered. The usual and regular method of searching for Diamonds is to collect the disintegrated conglomerate in which they are found at the bottoms of rivers and of ravines, and by a laborious process of washing as long as the water comes off discoloured to separate the mud from the distinct grains, The residue thus cleaned is subjected to an accurate examination for the Diamonds which it may contain. If this conglomerate is not the real matrix of the Diamond, its true geological situation is unknown, for it has never as yet been discovered in any other rock.' pp. 29-32.

The particular diamonds noticed and described are that of the Grand Mogul, noticed by Tavernier, weighing 297 9-16 carats; one in the possession of the Russian monarch, of 193 carats; a Brasilian diamond in the collection of the Prince Regent of Portugal, weighing rough nearly an ounce troy; the Pitt diamond, of 136 carats; and a blue diamond among the crown jewels of France, weighing 67 carats.

The European market is now supplied with diamonds, almost wholly from the Brazils, through the medium of the government of that country and by contraband trade. The Dutch formerly had a monopoly of the Brasilian mines, and most of the East Indian stones passed through their hands. At present the government diamonds are consigned to the Portuguese Ambassador in England, and by him deposited in the Bank for sale.

The art of cutting and polishing diamonds is enveloped in much mystery; the best artists, according to our author, are in England, but they are more numerous, and work at lower prices in Holland. Mr. Mawe's account of the process, is, however, sufficient to give a general idea of the manner in which it is performed.