From The Press.

BISHOP-MAKING.

A DIALOGUE.

THE PREMIER, LORD SHAFTESBURY.

THE Premier.-Pass the wine, Anthony. Well, I wonder whether you will have to make any more Bishops for me.

Lord Shaftesbury.-I should be sorry, as a Christian, to say that I trust so; but there are several dioceses

The Premier. Which you would be glad, as an Evangelical, to see vacant.

Lord Shaftesbury.-No, not vacant, but occupied by serious characters.

The Premier.—I take your word for the new man being all right. I only look to the horse's pedigree; you must answer for the running.

Lord Shaftesbury (deprecatingly). — My dear Lord, we are talking of the Heads of the Church; you speak as if they came out of stables.

The Premier.—They come out of stalls, anyhow. So I'm not so far wrong, after all.

Lord Shaftesbury.-Eh?

The Premier.—I say bother; you'll excuse a familiar phrase in a poor Irishman?

Lord Shaftesbury.-Well, it is not exactly. the sort of reply one expects to a religious observation, made in all humility. The Premier.-Neither humility nor religion in the matter, excuse me. You are an excellent fellow, and nobody more sincere. I'm an outsider, and care for none of these things like what's his name-Gallipot Lord Shaftesbury (groans).-Gallio.

The Premier.-Him's the nigger. Well, but I can see a little that you can't or won't see. You'll have a Free Kirk. That is to say the other side in the Church will not stand being handed over to your sectarian Bishops. You'll have an émeute.

Lord Shaftesbury.-I can only repeat what I have said.

The Premier.-Don't-you are told to avoid vain repetitions. I wish, in earnest, that before the next mitre tumbles off you'd consider whether one of the other side ought not to have it. I am certain that my old plan of giving the bishoprics sandwich

Lord Shaftesbury.-I can only wait and hope that one of these days you may take a fashion-alternate slice of Clapham and graver view of the subject. Pusey-was the real secret of preserving the peace of the Church.

The Premier.-If I did, I might get appointing my own men. Now you have it all your own way. Let's see, Villiers, Baring, Langley, Bickersteth, Pelham-that's a pretty good haul for your net, St. Anthony. Lord Shaftesbury.-All worthy men, and it's a great privilege to be able to help them into places where the good work may be done.

Lord Shaftesbury.-Insincero in the highest degree.

The Premier.-Insincere as far as regards doctrines, and all that, which is of minor importance, and which no two people can agree upon; but very sincere as regards friendship for the Establishment, and its permanence, a matter which you sectarians seem to consider very little indeed.

Lord Shaftesbury.-I fully comprehend

The Premier.-As I said, I suppose it's all right. But if I cared about the matter, you know, I would as soon think of arrang-you, my dear Lord, but we are not to do ing the Bishops in your fashion as, if I were evil that good may come. driving a donkey to market, I'd put all his load into one pannier.

The Premier.-Who wants you to do evil? All I suggest-mind, I don't care a Lord Shaftesbury.—What an illustration! | farthing about it, the row won't come in The Premier.—I swear it's highly Clap- my time, but I suggest that it is worth hamite, and, what's more, it's to the pur- while to, remember that there is a large pose. One of these days-not in my time, perhaps, but in your's-you'll have a Free Kirk in England, if you go on as you are now doing.

Lord Shaftesbury.-We are, I humbly trust, in the plain path of appointed duty, and if pleases Providence that offence should come, it is out of our hands.

The Premier -Bother.

party in the Church as zealous as yourselves, and with a great deal more learning (to say nothing to you, a non-worldly man, of in'mense wealth and influence), and that it seems a blunder to turn these people into enemies of the Established Church, as your tactics are doing.

Lord Shaftesbury. - Without departing from my original ground, that there is a

right and a wrong, I assure you that you are in error in detail. About zeal I say nothing, but as for learning

The Premier.-Come, out of your new batch is there one who knows Cyprian from Origen?

Lord Shaftesbury.-Well-yes-I dare say Dr. Bickersteth does, because there was a commentator in his family: but that is of small consequence. Who was Cyprian and who was Origen, that in the nineteenth century a Bishop ought to be acquainted with them?

The Premier.-I'm glad to hear it, but the other side have some able men. I don't believe one of our new lot would pass the Bishop of Exeter's examination.

Lord Shaftesbury.—I trust not.

The Premier.-There you are, you see, wrapped up in spiritual pride, and regardless of Christian charity. You are a Dissenter, and you are splitting up the Church! But if you say it's all right, and the matter is in your line, I've done, and you may give the next mitre to Baptist Noel if you like.

Lord Shaftesbury.-He has seen his way clear to leaving the Establishment, dear fellow.

The Premier.-Nay, if you put it to me with that serious face, I can't tell you. Perhaps the less a Bishop knows of Cyprians The Premier.-He'll see it back again, the better; and Origen invented original perhaps, if you hold up a mitre; but, if sin, which you know I have abolished-not, there's Spurgeon. there don't look shocked. What I mean is that you Evangelicals are held to be very deficient in theological learning; and as a Bishop ought to be able to defend his Church, your ignorance is thought to be a little scandalous.

Lord Shaftesbury.-Entirely a mistake.

Lord Shaftesbury.—Well, well, all will be overruled for good.

The Premier.-I don't know about your ruling, but your lines will fall in very unpleasant places if you don't mind. But it's your business. Pass the wine, Shaftesbury the bishop-maker. Ad te, Domine.

...

PERSIAN MANUSCRIPTS." The art of cali-passage in a Persian author which they are ungraphy is carried by the Persians to the highest able to comprehend, they make no scruple of perfection, and they are allowed to be the best altering the original text to suit their own penmen in the East. Their beautiful character fancy or limited knowledge. When a work thus affords the greatest scope for a fine writer to garbled is put into the hands of an ignorant display his skill-so different from our ugly, copyist, one may imagine what a mutilated prostiff, up hairstroke and down backstroke char- duction will be the result of his labors. I have acter, in which to make any writing look ele- rarely seen a copy of any well-known Persian gant is almost impossible. To write really work, written in India, which did not abound well, is here considered a great accomplishment; in almost every page, with the grossest misand it is a pretty sure way of making a liveli- takes. Persian ink never loses its color hood. Many persons earn their subsistence by and lustre. I have in my possession some MSS. transcribing books, and a good copyist is well written more than four centuries ago-the papaid for his labor. I have heard of a famous per has turned dingy and dark, but the writing caligrapher, who lived at Ispahan in the last is as clear and brilliant as if it had been execentury, whose writin gwas so exquisitely beau-cuted yesterday. This ink, though not impaired tiful that he could obtain five tomans for every by age, is easily injured by damp, and may be line he transcribed. For the truth of this completely blotted out by a wet finger."—Binstatement I cannot vouch; but whether correct ning's Two Years' Travel in Persia. or otherwise, it will serve to show the estimation in which this elegant art is held. Copies MUGGY.-If Fuit will accept of Webster and of the works of Persian authors, written in Richardson's classification of muggy with muck, this country, are far superior to any transcribed he will also be satisfied with the explanation by in India. Independent of the handwriting be- the latter of muggy as applied to weather, viz. ing usually much better, they are always far" wet, damp, dark (dense and damp with some more accurate. An Indian scribe seldom under- degree of warmth)." stands a word of the Persian book which he is copying; and consequently makes all sorts of blunders. Besides this, the Indian moonshees or language-masters, notwithstanding their pretension and conceit, are for the most part very indifferent scholars, and when they meet with a

N.B. The etymology, and explanation given from Dr. Ogilvie, is the property of Dr. Webster.

Muck (Tooke) is the past tense and past par ticiple of A.-S. Mic-jan, meiere, mingere.Notes and Queries.

LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 686.-18 JULY, 1857.

From Fraser's Magazine. to Dewi Pershâd of schools: why, bless our BLACKEY AT SCHOOL. innocence! Dewi Pershâd knows all about WHO is Blackey? When England was schools, and his ancestors were attending a interested in redeeming the African race famed seminary still flourishing at Benares, from the slave-trade, Blackey was a negro. centuries before Eton was heard of. We The African interest has passed by; in truer have not to teach a new phraseology; we language, we have for the present done our find it all ready to our hand in two lanwork in that direction, and the brown guages. The forgotten history of Hindu native of India has succeeded to the vacant priests and Mahomedan mulvis speaks to us honors and emoluments. For the term in the technical terms which spring up so Blackey carries both with it. We English are worked upon by titles: the obscure clergyman of yesterday is the bishop of today-what a revolution takes place in our thoughts concerning that man: our stupid, uninteresting neighbor gets elected for a borough ;-he is stupid still, but uninteresting no longer. We have already in these pages pleaded for the influence which lies in the generic term of " Jack," and we now venture to assert in all soberness that a noteworthy change was effected in the relation of Europe to Asia when the phrase of "poor Blackey" took the place of its equally inaccurate and far more malignant predecessor, "those damned niggers."

Poor Blackey, then, is no other than the olive-skinned native of Hindostan, towards whom English public opinion has passed from the conquering contemptuous into the ruling patronizing phase.

We know something about Pandits, we know something about Moollahs, we know something of Brahmins, something of Sepoys, something of many kinds of adult Blackey; but perhaps our living knowledge of the Indian people will be somewhat quickened if we can catch a glance of little Blackey all alive, not seen through archæological or historical spectacles, trotting to school and learning his lessons.

soon as we begin to talk of education. All the technicalities of school phraseology are found; nay, you shall go further, and ascertain and record on paper that every district of India contains five hundred schools, more or less; and yet the English began in 1855 to introduce education into India as a new measure. And as usual the English are right. Eton, Harrow, Rugby, and Winchester have leavened the governing body in India. The governing body, with a practical sense worthy of those four great academies, comes to the conclusion that the Arabic and Sanskrit languages may contain a mine of educational history in their educational phrases; that there may be in every ten miles a thing called ́a school, but that,, nevertheless, the people of India are very uneducated.

What John Bull means by uneducated, i an ignorance of reading, writing, and arithmetic; it is precisely this ignorance which he finds existing, and which he sets to work. to cure in India.

So during the last two years an expensive educational machinery has been set on foot. throughout the Peninsula. It is not our business now to describe it; but it may be. briefly set down thus: In every Presidency an officer is appointed to control public instruction. The people are rated for their In the first place, it is not to be supposed education, and the theory is, that instruction that Shâm Singh waited for us (the English) is brought home to the door of every subject. to teach him to send his son to school. It is He is not obliged to have it, as in Prussia; one of the great puzzles which so baffle Eng- but he is not obliged to go without it, as in lish reformers in India, that, do what they England. The result is that a very great will, they find themselves anticipated to an many hundreds of schools have been opened, extent sufficient to deprive them of the credit which are regularly visited by inspectors. awarded to discoverers, not sufficient to make Deliberately waiving all discussions on moot them or their efforts intelligible. We talk theories of education, we propose to seb MDCLXXXVI. LIVING AGE. VOL. XVIII. 9

before our readers a faithful picture of an | delight, the inspector expresses his satisfacIndian Government school under inspection -in other words, Blackey at school.

tion that the ladies from the Rectory should be delighted; a practical conversation between the rector and the inspector closes the proceedings; Her Majesty's Privy Council is notified that another inspection has been accomplished; and the inspector, having done his duty at the school in the morning like a man, keeps his appointment at Long's in the evening like an Oxonian.

It so happens that we also know what an Indian school is like. Throughout a green, dust-sprinkled plain, which is India, rise at intervals, under the shade of favoring trees, knots of mud houses, having a castellated appearance, which are villages. That large village with half-a-dozen brick houses in it, is the centre of a cluster: there is a Government school there.

Some of us have seen schools inspected in England. We know what the school was like. That solid, comfortable building, that well-furnished interior, those, cheap, but excellent maps; shall we add, that boarded floor? Perhaps it is better to omit that item in the description, as we believe it trenches on questionable ground; in fact, on the great problem of flagged versus boarded floors which has puzzled Her Majesty's Privy Council for several years past, and has, we understand, been recently decided (without an appeal to Parliament) in favor of flags. We know what the boys are like: some so bright, others so dull; some wicked boys so attractive, some good boys so repulsive in appearance; all given more or less to sniffing and coughing, and other nervous indications; all, with a few exceptions, whom we misdoubt as monstrous, hating school hours with a gracious unanimity. We know what the inspector is like. This is treading on delicate ground; but we hasten to right ourselves by asserting at once that we know him for the most part as a well-bred, intelligent, accomplished, highly-educated English gentleman, and if there is higher praise to bo given to any man, it must be given by those who know it. He travels to the school in a first-class carriage, and he travels away in a first-class carriage. He is carefully dressed, for he is staying at the Rectory; he is rather in a hurry to get away, for he is engaged to dine at Long's with a party of Balliol men. We know what the inspection is like. There is the brilliant boy, whom the acute inspector detects at once, and pronounces all his answers right, and judges the other boys by his standard. There is the pertinacious boy, whom the inspector curses in his heart; who wants to know wherein that sum (which the pertinacious boy has worked out by some eccentric anti-regulation process) was essentially wrong. There is the rustic blunderer, who knows his geography lesson The inspector enters; all the boys rise, put by heart, and when asked where he himself their right hand to their forehead, and shout was born, replies confidently, "Please sir," Salaam, sahib!" The teacher, an olivein sin."

We know what the concluding conversation is like. The teacher bows to the inspector, the inspector bows to the teacher; the ladies from the Rectory express their

Let us enter the village; push by that cow; knock aside that donkey; never mind that dunghill; don't look at that woman who pretends to be veiled; if she is modest you dishonor her, if impudent you dishonor yourself; return the salaam of that old greybeard, he is the head man of the place; now get off your horse, for there is no riding down this narrow lane; walk carefully with one foot on either side of the open drain which bisects it; pray heaven that the stench may annoy you only--not smite with cholera ; then listen; what shrill clamor grows louder as we advance? louder still as we turn out of this narrow ill-drained stinking lane into one just twice as narrow, twice as ill-drained, and twice as stinking-deafening as we bow our heads to enter this tumbledown mud court-yard with a recess in one corner to be used as a room in rainy weather? It is the united outpouring of the lungs of seventy little brown lads, averaging ten years old, swinging their little bodies (such straight backs and fat bellies!) as if they were pulling in an University crew, and shouting in discordant tones at the top of their voice unmeaning sounds. This is the Government school.

complexioned man with smooth, shining black hair, with a curling mustache, with a bristling beard, with a white robe buttoned on the left-hand side, comes forward, and makes the nearest approach to Eastern pros