THE Conductors with considerable satisfaction add another volume to the Library of Debate with which, under their efforts, English literature has been supplied. They have to acknowledge a ready response, on the part of subscribers, to their appeal for help against the commercial depression" which was making itself felt to the injury of their labours. They hope that, on their part, a similar alacrity in extending the usefulness and improving the worth of the Magazine may be observed in the new sections which have been opened, as well as in the increased vitality of the older portions. In the characteristic department of this serial-the Debates-questions of weight and moment have been brought before the subscribers in a thoughtful, impartial, and judicious manner, with a fulness and spirit equal, if not superior in some points, to the controversies of preceding volumes. The Topics presented month by month for consideration have excited a good deal of interest, and brought out some excellent specimens of condensed thought. Were our readers generally to make this monthly review of matters of passing interest a more personal affair, to devote a short time to reflection upon it, and to jot down the results in a few brief sentences, they would not only widen our choice of matter and improve the contents of the Magazine, but forward their own mental culture, while seeking to fix their ideas on public questions. The new elements, Toiling Upward and Eloquence of the Month, have scarcely yet been sufficiently developed to justify criticism; the former, however, promises to be a most interesting and useful series of encouraging papers, while the latter seems to the Conductors likely ultimately to "to supply a felt want"-an easily got-at repertory of eloquence, not of the past only, although historic, but eloquence which thrills with the very thought and feeling of our own times. Our Collegiate Course, in taking another shape, has added to its possibilities of usefulness. The annotations drawn from a wide range of reading, and brought to illustrate one of England's masterpieces of philosophical criticism, cannot fail to delight and improve, while the "Syntax" and "Logic," when completed, will be found to contain the quintessence of many treatises. The value of the series of papers on the Universities of Great Britain, one of which is included in this volume, will be appreciated by every person who wishes to know what facilities are actu ally afforded to deserving students in our great seats of learning, either for the grati fication of a legitimate curiosity or the advancement of their personal interests. Nothing of the sort has heretofore appeared in any periodical. The Essayist maintains its vigour and worth; the tone of the Reviewer has been elevated and its object extended; it will shortly include the spirit of much that is best in modern letters. The Societies' Section, though improved, is not yet so widely taken an interest in by the office-bearers of such Institutes as the Conductors think it deserves. Though the space allotted to it is small, its interest might be improved if the reports were made more suggestive. Of the Leading Papers it need only be said that they are from the same pen as has for more than fifteen years unfailingly supplied them. They show, not only a full, but a versatile mind. The Inquirer contains a large amount of miscellaneous information, suggestion, and advice. It is a good organ of mutual instruction. The Literary Notes form, it is believed, a pretty comprehensive detail of books and their authors. Of the value of impartial Controversy as a means of mental culture, and as an essential process in that sifting of thought from which Truth issues as a result, the Conductors remain as convinced as when, in May, 1850, they laid their first offering to free thought before the intelligent and reflective. ""Tis no war, as every one knows, They believed then that the British Controversialist had a work to do that could not be otherwise accomplished. They do not imagine that they "have attained, or are already perfect;" still less do they think that their work is done, or their warfare completed. They believe that there is still room for their serial, and need for their efforts. Should they ever have good ground for supposing that their occupation's gone," they will quit the field. But looking upon the response of their readers to their direct questioning upon that point, they think they have ever reason for believing that the subscribers love their own Magazine too well to allow it to go ungrievingly among "the things that were." Ought not every reader who has felt its use to pass on the lamp by which he himself has been lighted? We place the Twenty-second Volume of the British Controversialist before our readers, in the hope that they will recognize in it, not less than its predecessors, the worth at least of an earnest endeavour to do good,-or, as we said in 1856,to enlighten, elevate, and bless. THE BRITISH CONTROVERSIALIST. Modern Logicians. THE RIGHT HON. AND MOST REV. WM. THOMSON, D.D., LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, PRIMATE OF ENGLAND. IN the history of civilization, Christianity, and logic, the city of York occupies no undistinguished place. There, in 306, the Roman army proclaimed Constantine the Great sole master of the world's empire. He subsequently became the earliest Christian sovereign of the earth, and incorporated the Church among the governing agencies of human life. There, too, "Edwin of Deira," having assembled a Witena-gemote for the due consideration of the subject, renounced the idols of his people, and embraced the religion of Jesus of Nazareth. At this time Paulinus preached the doctrines of Christ to the nobles of the Bretwalda, urged upon them the abandonment of their heathen superstitions, and gave occasion to that touchingly beautiful comparison of the life of man to the flight of a sparrow across a banqueting-hall, from darkness to darkness, which has been woven into song by so many poets, but which in its rude Saxon simplicity is more effective than the most refined rendering it has ever received, though it has not been better expressed in English than in the following sonnet by Wordsworth : "Man's life is like a sparrow, mighty king! That, stealing in, while by the fire you sit Flies out, and passes on from cold to cold; The human soul; not utterly unknown While in the body lodged-her warm abode, : But from what world she came, what woe or weal On her departure waits, no tongue hath shown: His be a welcome cordially bestowed." Edwin was baptized; his priests and his nobles eagerly accepted the new doctrine. The commonalty soon followed their example, and Paulinus, as first Archbishop of York, was, by grace of Pope 1865. B Honorius I., enthroned in 627, the predecessor of that illustrious line of divines who have held the primacy in Eboracum. At York, in 735, Alcuin, the organizer of the rules and formularies of thought in the Western Empire, was born; and there, in his early days, he taught the whole circle of human knowledge, and infused his pious learning into many minds. As the adviser of Charlemagne, and founder of the University of Paris, his name is cared for by history. Not only did Dane and Northumbrian, Norman and Saxon, Scot and Englishman, fight the battles of civilization round its walls, but the tides of story beat round and near it in other ways as well. York was the birthplace of British parliaments and the scene of many regal conventions. Royal marriages, involving great issues, have been celebrated in its precincts; and the legal courts of England have given their judgments in its halls. The terrible Wars of the Roses to determine the right of sovereignty in England, and bring about some succession settlement, raged in its neighbourhood. In the " Pilgrimage of Grace" York was conspicuous, and it had the privilege of having a viceroy, who was called the President of the North. The civil wars exposed it to great harassment, and little more than a century ago the Rebellion brought armies within its walls. In 1831 York was the birthplace of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and in it, since, the question of international exhibitions was first publicly mooted by the late quiet but regal-minded Prince Albert. 66 The Archbishops of York have often been men of more than ordinary repute and power. From the days of Paulinus onwards men of mark have seldom failed to grace the fane and wear the mitre. It would ill befit our present purpose, however, to enter into details of the archbishops of the olden times, even though their number includes Wilfrid, Walter de Gray, Greenefield, Thoresby, and Shakspere's Scroope; Bowet, Savage, and Hutton. Dr. Richard Sterne, a solid scholar," author of Summa Logicæ, a work of considerable merit, might detain us had we space, if only for the sake of his great-grandson, who performed such a "Sentimental Journey" through life. Though we might not have noticed his predecessor Accepted Frewen, nor his successor Lamplugh, the leal Royalist, Sterne might plead for mention, not for this only, but also as the reputed author of "The Whole Duty of Man," which his great-grandson so strangely neglected. These and other claims. must be passed over, for we intend to devote our space to one who has but recently been raised to sacerdotal eminence, and become"The very opener and intelligencer Between the grace, the sanctities of Heaven, And to this we now unprefacedly proceed. William Thomson-who, as Archbishop of York, takes precedence of all Britons not of the blood royal, except the Reverend |