wondrous horse of brass,
On which the Tartar king did ride.

Edmund Spenser, with due reverence for

Dan Chauser (well of English undefiled),

has indeed done his best to supply the defect,[C] and has told us that

Cambello's sister was fair Canacee,
That was the learnedst lady in her days,
Well seem in every science that mote be,
And every secret work of nature's ways,
In witty riddles, and in wise soothsays,
In power of herbs and tunes of beasts and birds:

but we learn from him no more of the ring than 'Dan Chaucer' tells us:--

The vertue of this ring, if ye woll here,
Is this, that if she list it for to were
Upon her thombe, or in her purse it bere,
There is no foule that fleeth under heven
That she no shall understand his steven,[D]
And know his meaning openly and plaine,
And answer him in his language againe:

as Canace does in her conversation with the falcon in _The Squires Tale_.
Nor is the 'vertue' of the ring confined to bird-intelligence, for the
knight who came on the 'steed of brasse,' adds,--

And every grasse that groweth upon root
She shall well know to whom it will do boot,
And be his wounds never so deep and wide.

But we must return from these realms of fancy to a country hardly less
wonderful; for Australia presents, in the realities of its quadrupedal
forms, a scene that might well pass for one of enchantment.

[Footnote C: _Fairy Queen_, book iv. cant. 2, _et seq_.]

[Footnote D: Sound.]

* * * * *

The French Society of Geography have just given their grand gold medal to
two brothers, Antoine and Arnaud d'Abadie, for the progress which
geography has received from their travels in Abyssinia, which were begun
in 1837 and finished in 1848. This period they spent in exploring
together, not only Abyssinia, but the whole eastern part of Africa. Their
enterprise was wholly at their own expense, and was undertaken from the
love of science and adventure.

* * * * *

The French Government are now publishing at Algiers the History of the
Berbers, by Ibn Chaldun, the greatest of Arabian historians. It is
printed in quarto form, with the types of the National Printing
Establishment, sent from Paris for the purpose. The French translation
will appear as soon as the second volume of the original, which is now
in press, is completed.

* * * * *

[F