Mrs. Austin. These Patagonians seem to have been about as tall as the giants that are occasionally exhibited amongst ourselves, but more robust. There is one very remarkable difference, they seem neither to have been unhealthy nor imbecile. Our giants are generally the one or the other, like the unfortunate dwarfs

we see.

Charlotte. Dear mamma, papa has told us of giants, you must tell us about the unfortunate dwarfs: I dare say there is a people of them too somewhere or other in this great world.

Mrs. Austin. Perhaps there may be; papa shall help me to find it out, and I will tell you all about them when it comes to my turn. But where is Gerald all this time?

Gerald. Here I am, behind the Indian screen, finishing Woodstock.

Mrs. Austin. Then I can almost forgive you: the interest of the Waverley novels is so overpowering; but you must not desert us again; it is contrary to all rule and good manners.

Gerald. I have done now. Rednosed Noll is inimitable! But I wish the account of Charles's escape was more historical.

Mrs. Austin.

To atone for

your absence

without leave this evening, you shall give us the historical account of Charles's escape to-morrow.

Mr. Austin. You will find Boscobel and Clarendon in the library, and you may prepare your account for us by Monday evening: your mother forgets that to-morrow will be Sunday, when you will be engaged in more appropriate reading.

Mrs. Austin. It is strange that I should have forgotten the day of the week; the assembling of all our party for the holidays should have reminded me of Saturday evening.

CHAP. II.

SUNDAY EVENING.

Charlotte. What do people mean by saying that we are in the third age of the world? I thought an age was a century, or a hundred

years. Is it not a great deal more than three hundred years since the world was made? Mr. Austin. Yes, silly child! it is nearly six thousand years since the creation. By the three

ages of the world we sometimes designate the three great religious eras: namely, the era of the natural or unwritten law from Adam to Moses ; the written law from Moses to our Saviour; and the law of grace at our Lord's coming, under which we now are. You will also sometimes hear of the seven ages of the world, which are marked by the most important events in Scripture:1. The age of the creation, from Adam to Noah. 2. The age of the deluge, from Noah to Abraham. 3. The age of the covenant, when God, by the calling of Abraham, chose a peculiar people to preserve the knowledge of himself and the promise of the Messiah revealed to Adam: this age of the covenant was from Abraham to Moses. 4. The age of the delivery of the written law to the Jewish nation by Moses. 5. The building of the temple by Solomon. 6. The restoration of the Jews, and the foundation of the second temple, under Cyrus; and, 7. The birth of Christ.

Florence. Until the restoration of the Jews under Cyrus I think I have a clear idea of Scripture history; but from that time to the commencement of the New Testament I am not acquainted with the history of the Jews.

Mr Austin. That period does not fall within the canonical books of Scripture, which is the reason you cannot read of it in the Bible; but as I think it very important that you should be acquainted with it, I will, next Sunday evening, give you a slight sketch of Jewish history, from the building to the destruction of the second temple. As I think one branch of knowledge is always more firmly fixed in our minds by its connection with another, I will now tell you the periods of profane history, which accord with those I have mentioned of the Scriptures:-Of the first age of the world there is no record except from the book of Genesis. In the second age Nineveh was built, and the kingdom of Egypt established. The pyramids of Egypt were built at this period, and those astronomical observations of the Chaldeans were made, which were given to the companions of Alexander when he conquered Babylon. In the third, or the age of the covenant with Abraham, the ancient kingdoms of Greece, Phoenicia, and Tyre were founded. The fourth, or age of the written law delivered to Moses, [B. c. 1184,] was also the epoch of the taking of Troy, and of fabulous history generally, when heroes and demi-gods were supposed

by the ancients to have ruled the earth-as Hercules, Theseus, Castor and Pollux, &c. In the fifth age, or the building of the Temple, we find the foundation of Carthage, [869,] the first and second Assyrian empire, and Rome, [750,] within little more than a century of each other. Sardanapalus and Nebuchadnezzar flourished at this time. The sixth age is the age of the union of the Medes and Persians under Cyrus, who destroyed the Babylonish empire [538]. This is about the period of the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome. It is from this time that I am to give you the sketch I have promised of the history of the Jews, and as I do not wish to give you too much chronology at once, I shall only now observe, that Semiramis and Jephtha were contemporaries, and lived at the period of the siege of Troy; that the seven sages of Greece flourished about the time of Cyrus; that Isaiah, Hesiod, and Homer were nearly contemporaries, and that Herodotus, the father of profane history, wrote about the time that Ezra and Nehemiah arranged the books of sacred history from Moses to their own times.

During the seventy years of the Jewish captivity the ancient Hebrew language was nearly