his voice thick, rough, and inharmonious; his stature short, not exceeding five feet three inches, French measurement; his figure stout and ungraceful, his gesticulations abrupt and angular. But he bore within him an innate power of conception, with an energy of soul and feeling which carried him triumphantly over every intervening obstacle. In his private character he was honest and upright, of warm friendship and steady integrity, full of noble, elevated sentiments, and equally destitute of pride or ridiculous vanity. He left memoirs, afterwards edited by his son. The biography of Le Kain, which bears the name of Talma, was not written by that eminent tragedian. When asked to undertake this office, he modestly declined, saying, "I have no ideas of my own - I have lived too constantly on those of others. Perhaps I have some knowledge of my business; I will converse of it as long and as often as you like, but I will write nothing; if I did, I should in all probability run into contradictions and absurdities. My memory serves me better than my inventive genius."

A consummate mastery of his art enabled Le Kain, despite the niggardly endowments of nature, to develop with adequate expression the strong feelings which burned within him, animated and expanded his whole person, suggested to him the most attractive attitudes, strengthened his voice, endowed it with flexible intonation, and impressed on every motion of his body, every variation of his features, the overpowering character of true passion. In Achilles he appeared the offspring of the gods; in Tancred and Bayard, a noble French chevalier; in Mahomet, a false prophet; in Seïd, a blinded enthusiast; in Gengiskhan, a cruel tyrant; and in Orosmanes, a sultan and a lover. In each and all these characters

he eclipsed every object by which he was surrounded, and fixed the attention and interest of every spectator. Nevertheless, Le Kain had not only to conquer natural defects, but to subdue the efforts of envy, the intrigues of the green-room, and of the fashionable habitués of the theatre, together with the biassed opinions of incompetent or venal judges. Amongst other bitter opponents, he had to encounter the untiring enmity of the wasp Freron, self-elected into the chair of

public criticism; and who, as he hated Voltaire with the antipathy of a rival author, launched his venom against his favourite protegé with persevering, although unsuccessful malice, which would be almost incredible, were it not that we are familiar with similar instances in our own (as they are supposed) more improved and enlightened days. During a long trial of seventeen months in inferior parts, Le Kain sustained a protracted debút before he was admitted into the ranks as an estalished actor and rising favourite. At length, disgusted with his subordinate position, and rendered heart-sick by delay, he went in search of the haughty Grandval, at that time manager as well as leading tragedian, and without being intimidated at the uncivil reception he met with, addressed him abruptly thus:" I come, sir, to request that you will let me play Orosmanes before the King." "You!" exclaimed the astonished potentate; 66 you, sir! Orosmanes before the Court? Surely you are not serious. Do you mean to rush on your own ruin, and finish your career almost before it has begun?" "I have weighed everything, sir," replied the young tragedian; "I know the risk I run, and am prepared to encounter it; it is time, in short, that my fate were decided." "Very well, sir," said Grandval, "I consent to this rash step; but remember, should the result turn out contrary to your wishes, you have only yourself to blame." Le Kain withdrew, and hastened to study, with the attention due to the important task he had undertaken, the arduous character, on his performance of which his future prospects in life would entirely depend.

The day arrived; the new actor appeared on the stage, his failure being loudly and almost universally foretold. His figure and height at first produced considerable disappointment, and even the women, accustomed to the grace and imposing person of Grandval, suffered a slight murmur of disapprobation to escape them. Le Kain had expected, and was prepared, for this; he was not taken by surprise or discouraged, but the little vexation he felt gave him additional energy, and the success he experienced in the first act prepared the way to his triumph in those which succeeded. In proportion as the scene advanced, his soul expanded itself over, and beamed through

his features; and soon the eyes of every spectator, dimmed with tears that they were unable to restrain, could no longer distinguish whether the actor was handsome or ugly, and he left nothing upon the minds of the audience but the most powerful impression of the feelings which had so thoroughly mastered him throughout his whole performance. After the play was concluded, the first gentleman of the chamber asked his Majesty what he thought of him? The King, Louis XV., had been strongly prejudiced against Le Kain; but he possessed judgment, intelligent perceptions, with a natural taste that nothing could pervert, and appeared astonished that any person should have formed so ill an opinion of the new actor. He said—“Il m'a fuit pleurer moi, qui ne pleure guere." (He has drawn tears from me, who seldom weep.) This expression of the royal pleasure was sufficient. Le Kain was admitted without further delay as a leading member of the company, and a brilliant future opened before him. This reception, so novel in its nature, astonished his brother performers; but they were obliged to yield to his superiority, and Grandval, who reluctantly acknowledged his error, no longer hesitated to put Le Kain in possession of the first characters in tragedy.

Soon after his success, Le Kain published an account of his first acquaintance with Voltaire, containing a grateful acknowledgment of the obligations he was under to that celebrated writer. To this he prefixed an expressive motto from the play of Edipus:

:

"L'amitie d'un grand homme est un bienfait des dieux."

Le Kain modelled his style on the great masters who had preceded him, studying closely the peculiar merits of his most eminent contemporaries. It is well known that he and Mddlle. Clairon cast off the ridiculous dresses of the old actors, and consulted the costume of each individual character, which they were the first to establish on the French stage. Le Kain himself designed dresses suitable to his parts; he spared nothing to render them as brilliant as he judged necessary, at a time when these accessories were very indifferently attended to. paid equal attention to all the minutia of the performance. It was never his practice to reserve himself for a par

He

ticular scene or effort, he threw his whole strength into every portion of his character, and was often as eloquent in silence as when he uttered the most impassioned harangue. "Why don't you speak? What are you doing?" he whispered once to an actor in the same scene, who ought to have replied immediately. "I cannot speak; I am admiring you !" was the almost unconscious answer.

Le Kain was well versed in history, general literature, and every branch of knowledge connected with his art. He was passionately fond of poetry, and recited verses with a power and pathos that few could equal. He carried into society much simplicity of manner, a vast fund of information independent of his professional knowledge, good sense, a modest deportment, wit, and sometimes gaiety, although his demeanour was in general inclined to melancholy, in consequence of being so incessantly employed in conceiving and expressing the higher passions. He was less an actor than an exact identification of the person he represented. His last performance was in the part of Vendome, in Voltaire's Adelaide Du Guesclin, only eight days before his death. Just as he was going on the stage, he said he felt an ardour that he had never experienced before, and that he hoped to play his character well. On this occasion, he appeared to surpass himself; he astonished and charmed the whole audience, and at the end was unable to refrain from an indulgence which he seldom gave way to. He appeared to give out the play, and received the loudest applause from all parts of the theatre, which was continued long after he had quited the stage.

This fine actor, it is said, from an imprudent exposure of his health, was seized with an inflammatory fever, which in four days brought him to his grave. He met the approaches of death without alarm, and, surrounded by his friends, resigned himself cheerfully to his fate. He died on the 8th of February, 1778, being then in the forty-ninth year of his age. Garrick expressed the warmest admiration for Le Kain, with whom he became intimately acquainted in France, and afterwards kept up a constant correspondence with him. During the temporary disgrace of the French Roscius, owing to the affair of Dubois,

THE wonderful improvement in the art and practice of navigation which so distinguishes the last few centuries from all the rest of the history of the world, has wrought a curious reversal of the progress of geographical knowledge and research. Formerly it was the great ocean spaces that were the most unknown portions of the globe, now they are the central parts of the great continents. Commerce formerly followed long overland routes through the three continents of the old world, and avoided sea passages as much as possible.

In the times of the Roman Empire, the communication with the vast regions of Central Africa was much more active than at present, through Egypt and the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, although on the other hand there was no Gold Coast trade, and no communication with the Atlantic sea-board.

Similarly with Asia, there was little, if any, sea trade with India and the East, even by way of Alexandria and the Red Sea, or, at least, but little of it came directly from the Indian Ocean, though much indirectly, perhaps, through Persia and Arabia.

It may well be doubted whether the civilisation of China was ever wholly without its effect on Western Europe, even during the middle ages, as they are called, although the channel of communication, instead of being a free and direct one as now, was then a slow and tortuous one through the vast regions in the heart of central Asia, known generally as Tartary. In the thirteenth century Marco Polo and his father and uncle travelled through and resided in, as honoured guests, countries that scarcely any European has of late years dared to penetrate into. Every one knows the disastrous fate of Stoddart and Conolly at the court of Bokhara, and though MM. Huc and Gabet succeeded in penetrating well into Thibet

from the east, and though they were not put to death or ill-treated, yet they were compelled by the Chinese authorities to return as soon as their presence in the country became generally known.

There is actually in central Asia, between the Caspian Sea and China, and between the Himalayas and the southern part of Siberia, a space of ground as large as the whole of Europe, of which our knowledge is miserably scanty, deficient, and fragmentary. What is called Independent Tartary, including Khiva and Bokhara, forms one portion of this great region. Chinese Tartary, stretching from Bokhara to Mongolia, and including the latter province, forms another great portion, and south of this, between it and India, though still forming part of the great Empire of China, is Tibet.

The latter country, Tibet, is a most interesting one in many ways. In the first place, it is interesting to the mere politician as being conterminous with a large part of our Indian Empire, or separated from it only by small states, such as Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhotan; it is interesting, secondly, to the moral philosopher, as being the head-quarters of one of the most singular, one of the most abstract and pure, and one of the most widelyspread of the great forms of religious belief among men; and, in the third place, it is most interesting to the natural philosopher (whether physicist or biologist), from its position, its structure, and the animals and plants that inhabit it.

Of many of the principal great mountain-chains on the globe, the prevalent direction is meridional, or nearly north and south; to this, however, there is one grand exception in the great chain that stretches through Europe and Asia, from Cape Finisterre into the heart of China. This great and almost continuous chain is