unequivocal evidence supplied by these precious documents, backed by the Doctor's learned authorities, that the reader is forced to acknowledge, this history of the origin of the Americans excels those of the Greeks, the Romans, and the most celebrated nations of the world, and is even worthy of ⚫ being compared with that of the Hebrews themselves.' Thus, at one blow, the venerable traditions or ingenious hypotheses which would deduce the aborigines of the New World from the Phenicians, the Philistines, the Carthaginians, or the Ten Tribes, to say nothing of Captain Del Rio's notion of their Roman connexions,-are all swept away as falling far short of their remote antiquity. But then, happily for the credit of Moses, and to the utter confusion of Isaac Peyrere and other infidels, who have denied that all the human race are the descendants of Adam and Eve, Dr. Cabrera has proved the Americans not to have been Pra-Adamites.

We had intended to offer a remark or two on these remains, on the supposition that they might have a somewhat less remote origin. It seems that there are similar ruins in other parts of Mexico. According to the testimony of a holy father of the Convent of Merida, who gave the account to Captain del Río, about twenty leagues from that city southward, are the remains of several stone edifices, one of which is said to be large and in good preservation: the natives know it by the name of Oxmutal. Eight leagues to the northward of Merida are the ruined walls of several other houses, which are stated to increase in number in an easterly direction. At Mani on the river Lagartos, we are told, there is a very ancient palace' resembling that at Palenque, which was for some time inhabited by the Franciscans while their convent was building; and in the middle of the principal square is said to stand a conical pillar or pyramid, built of stones. Lastly, on the road from Merida to Bacalar there occur many other buildings. Hum boldt refers to the ruins of an Azteck city to the north of Mexico, on the banks of the Rio Gila; and these Stone Houses would probably be referred, by persons not possessed of Doctor Cabrera's learning, to the same people. Admitting this supposition for a moment, these traces of an extinct nation would still be highly interesting; for, in these rude structures and decorations, even though we should conclude them to be the productions of a post-Christian era, we should still have, in all probability, the fac-similes of the works of their ancestors. Savage nations,' remarks Humboldt, and those civilized people who are condemned by their political and religious institutions always to imitate themselves, strive as if by in⚫stinct to perpetuate the same forms, to preserve a peculiar

type or style, and to follow the methods and processes which ⚫ were employed by their ancestors.' This remark he considers as peculiarly applying to the Hindoos, the Tibetians, the Chinese, the ancient Egyptians, the Aztecks, and the Peruvians, with whom the tendency of the body towards civilization, has prevented the free development of the faculties of individuals. The actual date, then, of the particular specimen of art which may be brought to light, is, according to this view, a matter of subordinate importance, since it may be considered as a cast from a far more ancient mould, as the traditional imitation of a primitive model. All the figures are beardless. The protruding under-lip is so much out of nature, that it must be attributed to artificial means. Some of the Indian tribes are known to wear pieces of wood, or bone, in their under-lip. We should have remarked, that one of the figures has, suspended from the neck, a very pretty ornament, which seems meant for an image of the sun. Other drawings are referred to in the Report, though they did not find their way with the MS. to the Publisher, representing serpents, lizards, statues of men with palms in their hands, others beating drums and dancing, &c. &c. These might possibly have thrown further light on the national character and filiation of the Palencians, had not Doctor Cabrera settled the question. He has actually solved the grand historical problem,' without them, and further data would only have detracted from the merit of his achievement. What more can be desired than sufficient evidence, such as shall leave incredulity without excuse? If our readers are not by this time as wise as Doctor Cabrera, it is not our fault.

Art. V. Memoir of the Life and Character of Walter Venning, Esq. a Member of the Committee of the London Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline. By Richard Knill. With a Preface by Robert Winter, D.D. 8vo. pp. 102. (2 plates) Price 7s. 6d. London. 1822.

WE have adverted in a former article to the subject of this highly interesting Memoir; and if any of our readers should hitherto have been unacquainted with the name of Walter Venning, they will now learn, that it is not without just reason that we have ranked him in the illustrious company of saints and philanthropists.

Walter Venning was born of pious parents, at Totness in Devonshire, on the 15th of November, 1781. Before he had completed his eighteenth year, he left England for St. Peters burg, where a near relative of his was established as a merchant, with whom he remained for nearly nine years. In that

splendid and dissipated city, removed from the restraints of the parental roof, and surrounded with allurements to vice, in the midst of irreligious associates, his educational prejudices retained a happy hold upon his mind. The instructions and holy example of his father operated as a constant check upon his passions; and after he became a Christian, he has often said to his friends: I can never praise God sufficiently for a religious education: it restrained me from vice, and kept me from ruin.' But during his stay in Russia, though he often felt the unsatisfying nature of worldly pleasures, he remained a stranger to the power of religion. He left St. Petersburgh in 1807, and soon after his arrival in England, his venerable father died; a circumstance which is believed to have tended very powerfully to recal him to a sense of the importance of religion. He now read the Scriptures with real solicitude, and sought after truth like a man in earnest.

A beloved sister still recollects with what emotion he one day said to her, "What good thing must I do, that I may inherit eternal life?" She instantly replied, in the language of the Saviour, "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." He paused, and meditated, and appeared astonished at the simplicity of the plan of salvation: and from this period, he gradually embraced the truths and consolations of the Gospel."

In the autumn of 1811, he became a member of the Dissenting church in London, under the pastoral care of the Rev. Dr. Winter, to whom he always expressed a sense of deep obligation. With all the ardour and zeal of his character, he now engaged in the Society for visiting and relieving the sick poor, connected with that church; and the habit of relieving the poor, and praying with the sick and the dying, thus acquired, no doubt laid the basis of those more extensive exertions on behalf of the guilty and the miserable, which distinguished the latter years of his life.

In the year 1815, he became a member of the Society, then just formed, for the Improvement of Prison Discipline, and the Reformation of Juvenile Offenders. The first object of that Society was, to discover the causes of the alarming increase of juvenile delinquency, with a view to suggest some means of checking the evil; for which purpose, a personal investigation of the cases of youthful offenders became necessary. Accordingly, every prison of the metropolis was visited once or twice a week during a very considerable period; and the case of every culprit under a certain age, was searched out in all its details. The parentage of the offender, his means of honest subsistence, what education he had received, the apparent

origin of his delinquency, the length of time he had been in the commission of crime, his accomplices, places of resort, and moral behaviour since imprisonment, were all carefully elicited; and the information thus obtained, formed an invaluable mass of evidence, on which the future plans and recommendations of the Society were founded. In the prosecution of these inquiries, many instances came to the knowledge of the visiters, of lads whose cases called for benevolent interference; and a very considerable number have been ultimately restored to the community, by what may be called a collateral effect of these prison visits, their ulterior object being rather the prevention of crime by attacking the growing evil in its source, and the reformation of prison discipline. Mr. Venning, during his residence in England, was one of the most indefatigable and persevering in these benevolent investigations. Much of his time was spent in visiting the prisons of the metropolis; and he availed himself of his access to their wretched inmates, to impart religious instruction, when he could administer no other solace to the offender. One singularly happy instance of success in these labours, which greatly encouraged him, is related in this Memoir.

In one of the visits to the Prison in Cold Bath Fields, he perceived amid the culprits, a fine lad of engaging manners and prepossessing countenance. Being struck with his appearance, he inquired particularly into his case, and found, after the most minute investigation, that he was imprisoned for the first offence. Anxious to snatch this juvenile offender from the jaws of ruin, he paid particular attention to him, giving him instruction, watching his conduct, and looking for marks of contrition. In this he happily succeeded, and the lad was afterwards placed with a respectable tradesman in the Metropolis. His conduct with his master, has invariably proved that Mr. Venning was not mistaken. During his last stay at St. Petersburg, he received a letter from this youth, expressing all the feelings of a grateful heart to his benefactor and deliverer. The circumstance operated on Mr. Venning's mind in the most powerful manner, and so encouraged him, that when he was once inviting a young gentleman to engage in the same benevolent labours, he said to him, "Only succeed in reclaiming one offender, and it will make you a prison man for life." "

In May 1817, Mr. Venning returned to St. Petersburgh, partly and ostensibly, we believe, for commercial purposes, but having chiefly in view those higher objects which now occupied the supreme place in his regard. When formerly a resident in that gay capital, he had mixed in the circles of fashion and dissipation, and he wished for an opportunity of shewing, in the face of his former associates, that he was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ," and,

it might be, of reclaiming some of those friends whom he remembered with painful interest, from thoughtlessness and infidelity. Ten years had not effaced the recollections which attached him to a country where he had passed the first years of manhood; and what strengthened the impulse he felt to return for a short time, was, his desire to carry into operation there, if possible, the philanthropic plans of the Society in England. He He had for a fellow passenger the Rev. Edward Stallybrass, going out as a missionary to the Mongolian tribes in Siberia.

Various circumstances conspired to protract his stay in Russia, beyond his original intention.

'One reason was, the cordial reception which he met with from a near relative, whose mind he was most happy to find encreasingly open to those great truths which he himself had received. Another was, the greatly improved state of religious society in St. Petersburgh. A third in connexion with this, was the enlarged opening which he there perceived for all plans of promoting religion, through the wonderful exertions of the Bible Society, and the fourth was, the opportunity of active usefulness which he found in his favourite employment of visiting prisons, both in the metropolis and in other parts of the Empire.'

Mr. Venning met with the warmest encouragement from his Excellency Prince Galitzin; and on receiving his assurances of favour and support, he resolved to decline all commercial business, and even to avoid the appearance of it by not attending the exchange, in order that he might devote himself entirely to his philanthropic plans, and think of nothing besides prisons.' When the Imperial Court removed for a season to Moscow in the beginning of 1818, Prince Galitzin invited Mr. Venning thither, to explore the prisons of that city, with which he readily complied. He was there introduced to the Princess Mestchersky, who entered most cordially into his views, accompanied him in his first visit to the prisons of Moscow, and remained his warm supporter in all his benevolent labours. She also translated into Russ, the memorial drawn up by Mr. Venning on the subject of prison discipline, together with the plan of a proposed society for the care of prisons in the Russian capital, which were laid before the Emperor by Prince Galitzin, and obtained the Imperial sanction. A letter from Mr. Venning to Sam. Hoare, jun. Esq. the chairman of the Prison Discipline Society, dated St. Petersburgh, Oct. 15, N.S. 1819, announces the first General Meeting of the Society for the Care of Prisons, at the residence of its President Prince Galitzin.

The day of our meeting,' he says, was very remarkable, it being