becomes so intelligible; when, instead of the lofty, or the deep, or the dazzling, we have the diffused and the plain, it would be idle to look abroad for those towering landmarks that once struck us, or those still loftier that shewed us glimpses of a better state. With our new age, therefore, we may so far be content; we have taken the conceit out of the old. It is always a comfort in the race-ground of knowledge (for a race-ground it ever perhaps will be) to find, that all the fine things we acquire may be acquired by others; and after all, perhaps, the great comfort of knowledge is, that the farther we advance, the more comfortable we feel in our ignorance. But this is not to stop us. We have only to moderate our pretensions; it will do us good; it will ease the breast, it will calm the brow: many a fevered pulse that has thrilled, and still thrills, from those fountains and fires within us, will then fall down, and we shall learn, perhaps, to adore better that divinity from whom the "mens divinior" has emanated, or refresh ourselves at those fonts by the road-side, like the pilgrim when he first comes in view of his blest land.

The

But we are no prophets. present is the problem. Let us look around us. The age is distinct, and yet it is tied up with the past. How is this? History is nothing more than one great circle, that we can roll up; but still, where epochs now and then seem detached, as if out of place. If the present is not so, at least we need not call it one of transition, because it would not imply the nature or character of these changes that have come upon us, or the rapidity of those jerks which we have had to undergo; for in those jerks we have sometimes gone backward, though often forward; and the very truths that have come forth have produced doubts, and these doubts have produced distrusts; and the very lights that have shone in one quarter have only dazzled in others, and this dazzle too often has ended in darkness. Now, all this is perfectly intelligible. We never see lamps so clear as on dark nights; nor did those of the old monks in their old convents, or those of Madonnas in Roman streets, do any thing but make darkness more visible in the

spaces between. The question, then, is, how far are we really advanced? how far has the conflict between ignorance and knowledge gone? how far have the contending efforts of those gone who would preserve our old prejudices, on the one hand, or those who would tear down our old institutions on the other? These are the simple questions. If we answer them with regard to our happiness, the answer is easy; if with regard to real improvement, by no means so. Knowledge, like tame, has been compared to a mountain or torrent; but it now seems plain ground, where every body can march over. This is all right under certain conditions, and we hope it will remain so; but as these conditions have not been fulfilled regularly, and as the highroad of intellect is still so full of ruts, and ever will be so, we are now dangling and dallying in the_great_march, without being able to keep the step; and as we have just learned enough to find we must unlearn much more, and yet not half enough to diminish our doubts, we seem just midway between the advance and the retreat, and yet we can neither halt nor look about us. This is perplexing, this is our position; but this is the age. We meet on the cross roads; some look backward, and bless the old times; others look forward, and curse them; each have their bright banners to enlist us, and none but feel proud in their strength. This is the age, and the age is a paradox. It is neither classic, romantic, nor utilitarian, and yet it is all three. If the picturesque declines, we are getting fonder of pictures; if smoke is smoothing us all down, we like things rough by way of contrast; if the good old times are gone, and never to return, there is something in the "nunquam redditura" always affecting; for with all the faults of these old times, they were our relatives and acquaintances; and with all their mistakes, they led to better things.

To call the age, therefore, a pure Utilitarian would be unjust-it is no such thing-it deserves not the name. If we are working our way through the Age of Iron, it is to get to the Age of Gold; and therefore, if we be falling in one way, we are rising in another. That the worshippers of

the cui bono, or rather the preferrers of the useful to the ornamental, have the majority, we admit. But what does this prove? It proves nothing, unless we come to the point of these terms themselves; it proves nothing but that we all feel called on to join in the great march, according to the views we each take. Who can call the age a pure utilitarian that sees our fine works every day? Who can see in these works a single speck to proclaim it? The end of the fine arts may be delusion, that of the plain arts detection; but in both there is truth, if we only know how to find it; and in both there is beauty, if we can only feel it. If in these works we have advanced too fast--if we have laid aside the old forms and colours of nature, and rush out into the exorbitant and extraordinary-if our artists are not content with being her handmaids, and if our dramatists must bring forward monsters on the stage, what does all this prove? Not that the ornamental must give way to the useful, but that the ornamental must seek fresh excitement. Let us not mistake the age, then. The new and old times mix. The new world is a new library, or gallery, to study from, and more concerns us; but still we porc over the old volumes on the old shelves, and in the same page worship a Bentham and a Scott. This is the constitution of our nature, and will ever remain so. The farther we advance in the real, the more we plunge into the ideal; the more we find something necessary to us which is not immediately wrapped up in that circle of time or space around us. We, therefore, look for something beyond, something without, though still referring to something within us; and though we do not always see our weakness in our wisdom, yet we often see our wisdom in our weakness. Now, the present age explains all this-at least we think so. Steam-engines are, of course, more useful than pictures, or even cathedrals; but people look both ways when they find so many disappointments, and generally look back when they cannot well look forward : for these old times, with all their faults, had their lights; and we looked up to them, and they were bright, and our hearts could worship and could weep. And though a new

Philosophy now comes across us, though the forms and figures of this worship seem fading away, though we now pass by with indifference what once we looked on with veneration, yet the great law of our nature must hold on, and a godhead be every where adored.

But it's an Age of Works, not Faith -an age of bibles, tracts, and theological learning, but any thing rather than simple faith; on the contrary, when faith seems retreating in proportion as we seek new ways of investigation—on the contrary, an age when every one says, why should we confide in so and so, when we can see and judge for ourselves? why confide in those who have so often deceived us? Truth is no mystery nowadays, no enigma, no sealed book; it secks new tracks, it breaks up old connexions; crowns, crosses, crosiers, give way to its omnipotence, and divine rights and holy alliances fall by the same fiat. Where, then, has simple faith to go to? Has it to return to its old ways? Has it to wander by the wild hills, or the lone vales, or the calm shore, where fishermen and old saints had their dwelling, and where the stormy spirits could not enter. No, say these spirits, truth is no mystery. We must seek, we must search it in other ways, we must plunge, we must soar, but we cannot be led. If it lies at the bottom of wells or ocean, we must go down; if on mountain-tops, we must soar; if in the stars, we must be stargazers. Balloons, divingbells, compasses, crucibles, scalpels, are now our everyday apparatus. The heavens above, the earth beneath, and all under the earth, sea, air, fire, and all therein, give way to our investigations. Men's bodies are submitted to new processes; men's brains are ransacked by new inquiries; the spirit of a new analysis and new anatomy is every where. The soul is no longer in the pineal gland

it is every where, and yet it is nowhere it has lost its mysteries— the miracles are gone-no man sits with folded arms at the gates of the temple--no man bows to the orthodox where all seems heterodox. The charm is broken-chivalry, charity, the church, lie cold. We ask what they did- we interrogate a new godhead-we interpret it in our own

way-it may be for good, it may be for evil-it may be a deity, it may be a demon. Still we cannot reststill we must be doing, doing, doing.

But it is an Age of Words more than works-an age of profession, of prospectuses, of protocols, of mystification an age when pen and ink refuse nothing-when language lends itself to all-and when the press is so often a prostitute, because doubting its true virtue and high mission. And yet we call it an age of genius! and yet we foul the sacred shrine with such a progeny! Why do we call it an age of genius? Because we flatter ourselves with being its creators--because we think lightning only comes with the tempest, and that we are all invested with greater powers during revolutionary strife. But what are these powers? How far do they go? How far are they permitted to go? How far are they checked and frustrated by even the excess of their own creations? Admitting that our new Mind moves on by its own momentum, admitting that it is every day giving us new forms and impressions, see the obstacles arising from its own forms of expression; see what language alone does to entangle us, and all its accidents. Philosophers tell us that we have never so much to say as when we start from doubtful terms, and never so doubtful as when we have too much to say. But, without going to philosophers, we know just as well ourselves that if increased knowledge acts on the instruments of its expression, these instruments react on the knowledge; and that, therefore, as we cannot have new dictionaries every year to lop off exuberances, there is no end to the confusion that is sure to arise. If this is not our state now, it is something very like it. We have redundant knowledge; but we have redundant language. How do they behave to each other? Knowledge is an instrument of evil as well as good. Language may correct or confuse, as it once confused at Babel. Language trips up truths -it treads them down-it treats them according to its own convenience, without caring one jot often for the abstract principle. In all this, no doubt, we are very ingenious; every man can defend his position well. But are we to confound genius

with ingenuity? Are we to confound the bright gem that lies deep with the ore shining at the surface? If we are to call it an age of genius, because an age of new literature, let us first examine what this literature is composed of let us see how our brightest schools have been in such different times. As to the press, it must work on from its own demands. Books are creations, but more recreations. We must read, we must learn, but we must unlearn; and therefore more books are wanting. They are signposts to shew us how far we have gone; they are leaves fallen from the tree of knowledge, adding to the great heap like manure, and fertilising. We must, therefore, read on. We must multiply, we must modify. But still we have no right to call it an age of genius, because an age of words. If we choose to decorate those multiplications and modifications with the name of discoveries, let each indulge his fancy as long as he likes. If we choose to strut with borrowed plumes as long as our originality is undisputed, let us do so as long as we can. But when we find, as we advance that originality is nearly a chimera when we find that discoveries are pretty nearly simultaneous results, at least links of a chain-when we find that a great man in London and Paris, when pursuing the same train of thought, hit generally upon the same idea

and that even with our greatest discoveries, such as steam, there is no saying their exact origin,-what becomes of our claims? What right have we to monopolise, or call ourselves an age of genius, rather than any that have preceded or will follow us? That more brillant and varied expressions of thought come out every day we admit, and that there is a certain air of novelty and originality about them. But what has this to say to genius? What does it arise from but what we have mentioned, the redundance of new terms and signs created, and creating in their turn, and furnished to us by those new modes and modifications which increasing knowledge presents. Words are not things. Language is but the wardrobe of our ideas; it is only the show-room; it has nothing to say to the original stock, or store. We may have twenty dresses hang

ing on the same peg, or twenty modes of letting out an idea; but still we must not confound our warehouse with our wardrobe. And yet is not this the age of such? Have we not our smart, clever, striking, original, distinguished, piquant, talented writers and idea-mongers, every day assuring us that we have quite mistaken the term genius-that it is no longer a solitary being as it used to be that it is no longer a lone gem in the earth, a lone flower in the field, a lone star in the skybut that it has come down to be sociable and agreeable with us in all our meetings, and will never go back to its old haunts? All this, of course, is very pleasant, and we hope long to keep so bright a companion. Knowledge is now sociable, and, of course, has become a new instrument, because a new medium of exchange. We can all talk about it, all write about it, and each in a different way; but as each, of course, has his own, each can differ with the other.

It's the Age of Opinion, therefore, though it calls itself the age of truth; but truth becomes matter of opinion, because every one can opine for himself. That the great cause advances we all know; but how are we to get at it? In proportion as we all get knowledge, so we all get the means of furnishing opinions; and, of course, the more we think for ourselves, the less inclined we feel to take the thoughts of others. Broad truths and axioms are safe; we all know them; there is no mistaking them; they are stuck up on the broad highways, but who cares for these? They are too old and hackneyed. We prefer byways to highways; and even opinion regulates our common faith. This is the age-it is the age of opinion; but still opinion is not the queen of the age, as so often called. The queen of the age is Mind; and Opinion seems a kind of regency till her throne is more firmly established, but where the ministry are all at variance, though still looking up to her. When nobody is ignorant, nobody can set up as a standard; and when every thing is matter of opinion, nothing is of course fixed. If we are not exactly in this state, we are at least something near it; but still ignorance and knowledge are mixed up in such strange propor

tions, and faith so often follows the former, and is ready to fight with the latter, that we need not wonder at men's hearts or heads being troubled, and that the madman Courtenay in Kent had so many followers and victims. What does this prove, therefore? How does the cause of truth become affected? Do we get it in the newspapers? Do we get it in those enormous columns which we stuff down every day, and which can scarcely satisfy our demands? What do we see in these newspapers? Where are simple facts told? Where is there accordance, even, on simple points? When nobody is exactly right, nobody is exactly wrong; and when nothing is substantively true, every thing must be an adjective and a comparison. This is our state; opinion makes it so. We are still looking through a prison where the rays cross; and though we scout the term prejudice, this prison is nothing less. When men confided in each other, the sentiment of right and wrong looked distinct; and our old oracles, like those of Delphos, shone out, though not so bright. Truth then had its dogmas, its dicta, its decisions; but now it has its doubts. Doubts, says Aristotle, are the beginning of truth; but he does not say where the end is. Locke says they are a good beginning, but a bad end. But as we are now in the middle, we must go on. Things must be moving and mingling; the figures that express them must move also. Terms and signs must change with times and seasons; and man, woman, and child, must all submit to opinion.

But if it is the age of doubt, of distrust, of uncertainty-if it is an age when the false and true are so confounded, still let us do justice to it, it is an Age of Toleration—an age of enlarged comprehension and mild sway-an age when neither bigotry, slavery, nor ignorance, can occupy their old seats. Where the night of heathenism has spread, there rush forward its new lights. Where the chain of the captive is beheld, there goes its fiat to break asunder. Where the darkness of despotism has entered, there enter its liberties. Yes! this is the age, and England is ahead, because England here gave her first lessons. Let not, then, the breaker of her old institutions tread

upon hallowed ground-let him not say that our old fathers were old fools; for what was the spirit of these institutions? what is their spirit still? Lights, liberties, laws, are all of one family. They go abroad into the wide world; they make us a family of nations; they pull down the old banner of "divide et impera," which kings, priests, and rulers, once set up; and we now see that it is by union we can understand each other and pull together. Yes! this is the age, and this is the land, that has contributed. It has upset strange mistakes; it has improved codes and creeds; it has brought in a new philosophy, because it has removed old passions. And though it goes on tearing away old ties, and though the new lights and the new landmarks are still dim, yet the night has passed away, and a purer light

may come.

It's the Age of Peace, then. The temple of Janus is shut-the bivouacs of the nations are broken up, and their piled arms scarcely gleam around. In this we generally seem agreed. We generally seem to think that we should all be on good terms; and as every one laughs at the folly of wars, or the ultima ratio regum, we all wonder how we could ever have been made such fools or such slaves of. Of old there were but two classes, conquerors or conquered, despots or slaves; and physical force was the order of the day. This has gone by. A new force comes on-a new moral force. It tells us to be united; it tells nations to be good neighbours; it tells us that national contiguity ought to be national connexion; and that instead of any thing like feudal systems, or kings or priests keeping us asunder, we ought all to unite. This is glorious! We hope it is possible; we hope it will come. We hope that Europe will at length look like a kingdom divided by provinces, rather than a continent divided by kingdoms, and that Russia will not step in to prevent the new arrangements.

But if it is the age of national union, it is that of individual strife. If the temple of Janus is shut, that of popular agitation is open, where every wind of doctrine is abroad. This is not the purchase of new peace, but the purchase of new know

ledge irregularly acquired. Bacon tells us that foreign war is healthy circulation, but civil war a gangrene. And this gangrene we must submit to till healthier feelings arise. In this, however, we are not singular. It seems now to be an understood thing between our neighbours and us that, in order to be united without, we must be divided within; and that it is only in this way that peace can be preserved, but as our neighbours take all this much easier than we do, we can easily see which has made the best exchange. During the wars we pulled together, not only from material necessity, but moral union. This union now takes another character; it embraces a wider circle, and, therefore, must be looked at differently. To say that we were happier or better off during these wars, either abstractedly or absolutely, would of course be idle, and, like every thing else, matter of opinion; for, fortunately, happiness is a sentiment that defies all abstractions, and looks solely to applications. But to say that the field of strife and competition less affected us, would be only saying what all of us must feel; for in those days people had their fixed stations in society at least, something like it. Virtue, talent, rank, character, stood for something, and we looked up to them. If they were not distinct pedestals in the gallery of our contemplation, they were at least honoured in some distinct manner. If they were not monuments to gaze upon, they were not mere milestones to tell us how far we had gone. To this, however, we now seem reduced. We are on a race-ground — winners, losers, betters, and spectators, mingle together; yet still every body tries to be somebody, though the age tells him he is to be nobody. When men had their fixed stations in society, men could afford to praise those near them, as they were praised in their turn; and the upper seats of reputation were still looked up to, because the secondary could look down upon the lower. But where is this now? Where is it that competition denies not the just rewards of merit ?—or, rather, that it is so taken up with its own claims that it has not time to attend to others. It is true we are on a new ground-it is true the stands of reputation are