bout this change, that the order
for it was countermanded twice in four hours; however, what with
gratuities to the troops, and the discreet distribution of promotion
among the officers, everything went off very quietly. There was also
a rumour that Mehemet Ali intended immediately to assume the title of
_Caliph_.

This piece of information is necessary to explain the following striking
observation of Ibrahim Pasha.

'Effendi, do you think that a man can conquer Syria, who is not called a
caliph? Will it make 40,000 men 80,000?'

I replied, that I thought the assumption of the title would have a
beneficial effect at foreign courts.

'Bah! before the Yahoos hear of it, I shall be at Damascus. Up there,
they are always busying themselves with forms. The eagle in his flight
does not think of his shadow on the earth!'

MUNICH

THE destiny of nations appears to have decreed that a society should
periodically, though rarely, flourish, characterised by its love of
the Fine Arts, and its capacity of ideal creation. These occasional and
brilliant ebullitions of human invention elevate the race of man; they
purify and chasten the taste of succeeding generations; and posterity
accepts them as the standard of what is choice, and the model of what is
excellent.

Classic Greece and Christian Italy stand out in our universal annals
as the epochs of the Arts. During the last two centuries, while manners
have undergone a rapid transition, while physical civilisation has
advanced in an unprecedented degree, and the application of science to
social life has diverted the minds of men from other pursuits, the Fine
Arts have decayed and vanished.

I wish to call the attention of my countrymen to another great movement
in the creative mind of Europe; one yet young and little recognised, but
not inferior, in my opinion, either to that of Athens or of Florence.

It was on a cloudless day of the autumn of last year, that I found
myself in a city that seemed almost visibly rising beneath my eye. The
street in which I stood was of noble dimensions, and lined on each side
with palaces or buildings evidently devoted to public purposes. Few
were completely finished: the sculptor was working at the statues
that adorned their fronts; the painter was still touching the external
frescoes; and the scaffold of the architect was not in every instance
withdrawn. Everywhere was the hum of art and artists. The Byzantine
style of many of these