of England, his peculiar and sacred call is, to stand as a link of union between the two extremes of society; to demand of the highest in the land, with all respect, yet firmly, the performance of their duty to those beneath them; to soften down the asperities, and to soothe the burning jealousies, which are too often found rankling in the minds of those who, from a position full of wretchedness, look up with almost excusable bitterness on such as are surrounded with earthly comforts."-P. 6.

One of the features of the Brighton Institute is a reading-room with a plentiful supply of "newspapers and periodicals of varied character." An English ecclesiastic not many years ago said, "the people have nothing to do with the laws but to obey them." In a far wiser strain does Mr. Robertson speak on the right of the people to engage in political discussion.

"If there be a man in the country to whom politics are of personal consequence, it is the labouring man. A man in the higher classes may turn his attention to them, if he likes; nothing forces him to do so. It is to him a matter of amusement, a speculation—a theoretical curiosity-not necessarily any thing more. The difference of a penny in the price of a loaf makes no perceptible change on his table, but it may make the poor man's grate empty for a fortnight. If an unfair tax be imposed, a man in the upper ranks will scarcely be compelled to retrench a luxury in his establishment; but to the poor man it is almost a matter of life and death. Therefore a labouring man will be, must be a politician; he cannot help it; and the only question is, whether he shall be an informed one or an uninformed one."-Pp. 13, 14.

Mr. Robertson is not blind to the inconveniences and difficulties that attend every plan of reformation; but he has a loyal, faithful spirit, and foresees a happy issue, and the triumph of right and truth in every moral conflict.

"There is but one distinct rule that we can lay down for ourselves, and that is, to do the good that lies before us, and to leave the evil which is beyond our control to take care of itself. In this world, the tares and the wheat grow together; and all we have to do is, to sow the wheat. If you will increase the rate of travelling, the result will be an increase in the number of accidents and deaths; if you will have the printing press, you must give to wickedness an illimitable power of multiplying itself. If you will give Christianity to the world, He who knew what his own religion was, distinctly foresaw-and yet, foreseeing, did not hesitate to do His work-that in giving to the world inward peace, it would bring with it the outward sword, and pour into the cup of human hatred, already brimming over, fresh elements of discord, religious bitterness and theological asperity. Our path is clear. Possibilities of bad consequences must not stand in the way of this work. I see one thing clearly-the labouring men in this town have a right to their reading-room and library, just as much as the higher classes have a right to their clubs, and the middle classes to their athenæums. Let no cowardly suspicion deter from generous sympathy. Give them their rights. Let the future take care of itself."

Thus earnestly did this good clergyman give expression to his faith that there are better times coming:

"Who can look on this entangled web of human affairs, in which evil struggles with good, good gradually and slowly disengaging itself, without having a hope within him that there are better times to come? Who can see this evil world full of envy and injustice, and be content to believe that things will remain as they are even to the end? Who can see the brilliancy of character already attained by individuals of our race, without feeling that there is a pledge in this that what has been done already in the individual will yet be accomplished in the nation and in the race? If I did not respond with all my soul to that, I would close the Bible to-morrow. For from first to last the Bible tells of better times."-P. 36.

We must not go on quoting, or we would gladly insert in our pages the amplification of this idea, and his manly, true and noble interpretation, both negatively and positively (p. 37), of the expression "better times."

To return to a thought already in part expressed. Who can for a moment suppose that Mr. Robertson diminished his proper influence as a clergyman by the delivery of a noble Address like this? What intelligent and generous-minded workman of Brighton, who listened to him on that occasion,

but would feel disposed to hear him elsewhere and on other topics? For our own parts, we should be unwilling to let an opportunity pass unimproved of hearing Mr. Robertson; and sturdy as we are in Nonconformity and Unitarianism, if it were our good fortune to listen in "Trinity Chapel" to a discourse from him, breathing the wisdom and the catholic spirit of this Address, we should probably feel our Dissent no less a duty than before, but it would be not unaccompanied with many regrets.

The Educational Monitor. Part. I. By William Hill. London-Whittaker and Co.

MR. HILL is the inventor of a system of educational mnemonics, based on the principle of the association of ideas. The peculiarity of his system is, that it begins at the very commencement of a child's instruction, and that none can make use of it unless they will begin as children do with the alphabet itself. We have had no opportunity of seeing the system applied or its merits tested; but the little work before us gives a variety of testimonials of some weight, which prove that the system is entitled to the dispassionate examination of those engaged in education. The first part of the Educational Monitor, besides these testimonials, gives an explanation of the system, and a series of lessons in which Mr. Hill's principles are applied to education from its earliest ages.

PERIODICALS.

British Quarterly Review, No. XVII., February, 1849.-This, though we shall be obliged to take some exceptions to it, is an excellent No. Mr. Macaulay's powers as a thinker and a writer are discussed in a long and clever article. The first portion of it is devoted to the Essays, the latter to the History of England. The critic will probably appear to others besides ourselves unduly depreciatory in his analysis of Macaulay's intellectual powers. Varied learning, a retentive memory and charming rhetoric, are no doubt sufficient to give popularity to a writer, but they would scarcely have given to Mr. Macaulay his extraordinary hold on the public mind of England. The reviewer tells us of Mr. Macaulay and his books, that there are no new ideas, no revival even of old principles undeservedly neglected, no new facts, no discoveries; that there is a deficiency of speculative power, and a constitutional unfitness for meditation. A contrast is drawn between Macaulay and Carlyle, very much in favour of the latter. On the reviewer's own principles, exactly the contrary result might have been worked out, for Mr. Carlyle is as incapable of writing the "History of England" as Mr. Macaulay is of reproducing the "Sartor Resartus." Is this a legitimate style of criticism? We think not. In the same way, it might be argued that Pope wanted genius because he could not have written Price's "Essays," and Dr. Price was dull because he could not produce the "Essay on Man." But the greater part of the review is in a better spirit, and gives Mr. Macaulay large praise. The notice of the recently-published volumes is sufficiently hearty, and is in our view a confutation of some points of the criticism that precedes. A writer without speculation, without the power of meditation, incapable of realizing to his mind a high civilization, could not have produced a "splendid performance" and a "classic work" like the "History of England." He could not have painted an epoch, because he could not have understood it.-The second article, on Sanitary Reform, is written by one who is well versed in his subject; somewhat too full of figures, perhaps; but it will furnish abundant materials for discussing ventilation, drainage and other kindred subjects. There follows a very curious and interesting essay on Illuminated Manuscripts. The generous spirit in which the whole is written will appear from the closing passage, which we extract:

"While justice is now being done to the beauties of medieval art, it is impor tant that these exquisite manuscripts, which enshrine so many of its highest characteristics, should be vindicated from the charge, even until lately, so often preferred, of being mere text-books of a superstitious age. To ourselves, their contemplation has awakened a widely different opinion; and when we have seen with what patient care, with what earnest feeling, the illuminator illustrated Scripture history; how diligently he set about his task, in how noble and legible a hand he wrote the text; how he bent over it day by day, adding finishing stroke to finishing stroke, it has been a delightful thought to us that, in the midst of much error and superstition, so eager a thirst for the true water of life' prevailed. There were saintly legends, from whence many a later artist derived his subjects; but the illuminator of the middle ages, even when illustrating the missal, turned aside from these, to place before the reader-and with how much deep and earnest feeling-the scenes of gospel history. And great was the influence of the Pictorial Bible' in an age when books were scarce an age when painting took hold of the young and fervent imagination in a way, to us, almost inexplicable. How did the pictured page feed the growing desire for the pure Word of God, and prepare the way for the teaching of Wycliffe, for the advance of those principles of religious freedom which have now become our heritage!"

The reviewer of Baptist Noel's book, in the fourth article, writes calmly and judiciously. He likens the position of Mr. Noel, previously to his leaving the Church, to that occupied by the late Dr. Arnold:

"It has been the fate of both these distinguished men to be denounced as enemies to the Church in which they officiated, because their intellect was too independent, and their charity too expansive, to be wholly bound by it. They have refused to surrender to a party, powers entrusted to them for man, and the usual consequence-the hatred of mere partizans-has followed."

The reviewer of "Mary Barton" states the case of the cotton-manufacturers of Manchester against that very interesting book. Art. 6, entitled, "Modern Millenarianism," gives us nearly seventy pages of theological disquisition of no very great interest. A good article follows on the life and character of Robert Boyle. This is the description of the noble-minded man as a philosopher:

"We know no natural philosopher with whom, in quality of intellect and habits of working, Boyle can exactly be compared. We could compound him, however, pretty well out of Dr. Joseph Black and Dr. Priestley. He had the versatility, energy and unsystematic mode of carrying on researches, of the latter. Priestley and Boyle were constantly experimenting on all kinds of things, and made many trials without a definite object, or precise expectation as to the result. Both stood before the oracle, putting endless unconnected and isolated questions to the priestess, anxious for an answer, but without preconception what the answer would be. Boyle, however, paid much more attention to the reply than Priestley did, and understood its meaning a great deal better. Both were equally ingenious in devising experiments and successful in performing them, but Priestley often totally misunderstood the phenomena he brought to light, and was led completely astray by his own experiments. Boyle resembled Black in the accuracy with which he observed results, in the caution with which he drew conclusions, and the skill with which he interpreted the phenomena he witnessed. He had the energy and versatility of Priestley, and the caution and logic of Black; but he was less versatile than Priestley, and more incautious and less logical than Black. Boyle, however, was something more than a philosopherhe was a Christian philosopher."

It could scarcely be expected that in this particular the reviewer would find a parallel in Priestley, striking as it would in many respects be. We can by no means congratulate him on his success in finding a substitute for Priestley in the parallel. Our readers will smile when they are told that Boyle was the prototype of William Wilberforce! The points of resemblance are not very important, and the dissimilarity of the philosopher from the orator is vast. Spite of our general appreciation of the reviewer's talent and temper, we can't resist smiling and finding the prototype of his reasoning in Fluellen and his

VOL. V.

2 B

comparisons between Macedon and Monmouth: "The situations, look you, are both alike. There is a river in Macedon, and there is also, moreover, a river at Monmouth." The writer of the article on the Duke of Argyle's Essay on the Ecclesiastical History of Scotland need not proclaim his own enthusiastic admiration of Thomas Carlyle. It stands revealed in thought and style. Like other imitators, he has, however, in straining after a likeness, produced a caricature. Caricature, too, is the proper description of the reviewer's attempt to classify the different elements that compose the religious and anti-religious world. We quote a passage, and ask our readers to amuse themselves with the labour of translating it into sense:

"The Pantheist sheds himself into nature as the drop into the stream below, and is willing to merge his destiny with that of leaves, bubbles and beams. One vulgar class of spiritualists, more on account of their petty personnel than of the thoughts, feelings and ideas within it, walk mincingly along the brink of annihilation, and fear more the destruction of their own idiosyncrasy than of the essence of God. Some classes of sectarians having, in feebleness or despair, dropped their telescopes, have lifted theodolites instead, and in place of inspecting the heavens, with their dim immeasurable heights, their eternal newness, their fires unfolding themselves, are wholly occupied in measuring the earth for the present possession and future encampments of party. Some poets and novelists are coining a creed for a certain soft sentimentalism, as if God were such an one as themselves. Peace to them and their new romances on the God of feeling'!"

We think we perceive whom the following extravaganza is designed to portray. We can assure the reviewer they will only smile at his laborious

humour.

"Others * have an intense dislike to the Bible's mode of thought. That is intuitive, theirs is ratiocinative; that is synthetic, theirs is analytic; that is general, theirs is minute and mole-eyed. The Bible speaks from above, they examine from below; it speaks with authority, they, from a thousand inductions, can hardly reach one authentic-thus saith nature. Such men would analyze an ærolite, ere it had fully burst; ask the order and degree of an angel, ere they permitted him to tell his tidings; try the 'burning bush' by the tests of the electric light; and were they transferred to the sun, would inquire into his statistics before they admired his scenery. We can wish them no worse future fate than that of standing for ever and waiting for the transformation, by natural development, of horse-hairs into eels."

Is it quite consistent with social propriety (we are sure it is inconsistent with the dignity of this excellent periodical) to report Mr. Carlyle's private talk (see p. 268), especially when his talk respects a living person? An article on the State of Opinion and Parties in France, and some criticisms on the "Fine Arts," follow. The number closes with a Notice to Correspondents, which, as it is designed as a reply to some remarks we made on a portion of the last No. of the Review, we now insert, without one word of rejoinder, in token of our respect for its accomplished Editor:

"The Christian Reformer should bear in mind that a man's wish to stand fair with his neighbours may arise from very opposite causes-from mere vanity, or from a catholicity and kindliness of spirit; and we thought we had said enough in praise of Dr. Channing to shew that we were far from regarding him as much influenced by the former feeling. His home was not in strife; and that his temperament in this respect should have given the appearance, and something of the reality, of timidity to his conduct, is not surprising. As to his hesitancy to connect himself with the Loyd Garrison sort of associations that abound in the States, we should have wondered if he had felt otherwise. No man of just views, and of charitable and delicate moral feeling, can ever be mixed up with such organizations without subjecting himself to much pain. On the whole, we think we must have come pretty near the truth in our estimate of Channing; for while some of his Unitarian admirers think we have not done him justice, some of our Trinitarian readers think we have shewn him rather more favour than became our orthodoxy."

INTELLIGENCE.