had been observed from that time to neglect
his labour, and to loiter about from hut to
hut, while others were at work, was at last
convicted of breaking into a house and
plundering it, for which he suffered death. Before
he was turned off, he confessed that he had
committed several thefts, into which he had
been induced by bad connections."

Here is an end of James Daley, his misfortunes,
his discoveries, and his crimes. His
secret, if he had any, died with him. It is
doubtful whether he discovered gold or not.
It is certain that he broke into a house, and
that he was rewarded for his ingenuity by a
hundred and fifty lashes and a gibbet. He
was whipped like a dog, and hanged like a
dog, according to law. The only question is,
whether he deserves a niche in the temple of
the martyrs of discovery by the side of
Christopher Columbus, Salomon de Caslæ,
and Galileo; or whether I myself ought to
be put in the pillory (supposing such a
machine to exist), for desecrating these
respectable pages with the apotheosis of an
unmitigated rascal. Perhaps, after all, it does
not matter much whether the Australian
gold-fields were in reality first discovered by
James Daley. We as seldom see the right
amount of praise given to the right man, as
the right man in the right place. I dare say
Cadmus didn't invent letters himself. I
imagine that he bought the patent right for a
few drachms from some poor wretch who lived
in an attic and had no soles to his sandals.
"That man is not the discoverer of any art,"
writes Sydney Smith, "who first says the
thing; but he who says it so long, and so
loud, and so clearly, that he compels mankind
to hear him."

               SARDINIAN FORESTS AND
                            FISHERIES.

As the time for over-sea excursions
approaches, it may be a charity to give a short
account of an island that has hitherto
almost escaped that British invasion which,
corrupting the cookery of France, and raising
the tolls of innkeepers, postboys, muleteers,
donkey-boys, and camel-drivers, has extended
from the Straits of Dover to the Pyramid of
Cheops: from the snows of Lapland to the
hot sands of Algeria: and spreads all over
the world.

With so much of the kingdom of Sardinia
as consists of what the islanders call terra
firma, English travellers are tolerably familiar.
But, the island which has given the
best known European name to the territory
which includes such famous cities as Turin
and Genoa, has been ventured upon by few
except antiquaries of the true Dryasdust
order—careful, industrious, fearfully
historical, and perfectly unreadable. A reputation
for marsh fevers and absence of decent inns,
and a more than ordinary richness in
entomological specimens of the more disagreeable
kind, have, we presume, protected Island
Sardinia from the barbarians who wear
mackintosh and plaids, and walk like mad
dogs in the heat of the day.

And yet it is the largest island in the
Mediterranean—as long as from London to
Liverpool, and as broad as from London to
Southampton; with mountains eight thousand
feet high; torrents and waterfalls on a
proportionate scale, swarming with delicious
trout; groves of orange and lemon trees in
full bearing; forests of oak and chestnut,
alive witli great deer, wild sheep, and fierce
wild boar; a people as yet uncorrupted by
alms or soap, hospitable and dirty, in
costumes of picturesqueness and brilliancy
which would make the fortune of a ballet-master.
The men armed to the teeth,perpetrating
poems and murders (not of strangers),
on the slightest provocation. The women
beautiful, fierce, faithful, and quite unspoiled
by writing or reading. There are also
antiquities; but, as no one knows what they
mean, or by whom or for what purpose the
rivals of the Round Towers were built, we
will say nothing about them: especially as
our present notions are rather vulgar,
commercial, and sanitary, than romantic or
antiquarian.

For the same reason we say nothing about
the history of the island, or its line of
sovereigns, but recommend it to melodrama writers
as full of assassinations, abdications,
love-matches, monks, Jesuits, armour, plumes, and
velvet jackets.

Government steamers run between Genoa
and the two ports of Sardinia. In fine
weather, whole fleets of the nautilus, and
shoals of dolphin, sail and sport upon and in
the really blue Mediterranean: affording to
those who have previously only known the
seas of Holyhead or of Folkstone, visible
signs of the sunny south. Besides these
ornamental denizens of the Sardinian shores,
there are also to be found, in season, shoals of
tunny that we do not eat in England, except
a few choice spirits, tempted to patronise
Fortnum and Mason's pickled specimens by
Brillat Savarin's celebrated story of the
Abbé's Omelette au Thou; also sardines,
which we do eat in quantity, thanks to Sir
Robert Peel's tariff. Then there is
abundance of the finest coral, in symbol of which
the town of Cagliari has from time
immemorial borne as its arms, a tower sprouting
with a branch of coral. Also the Pinna
Marina, a silk-producing bivalve of vast size,
sometimes three feet in length; not born
wrapped in silk like the China worm, but
endowed with a sort of beard, or bunch of
lines, which, having first allocated himself to
a rock by his hinge end, he throws out,
like a fly-fisher, until some small fish,
attracted by the floating brilliancy, approach,
nibble, are caught in the gigantic trap of the
open valves, and silently absorbed. But, by
the retributary or reactionary law of nature,
the pinna himself at times falls to an enemy