dox, or to compliment the heterodox, but to bring into the treasury whatever sums are wasted on the fat stalls of men who do not work nor do any service; secondly, to turn the attention of those who do work and do good service, to national education, the want of which is equally destroying the people and the Church; and, lastly, on all matters of orthodoxy and heterodoxy, neither to sneer nor to compliment, neither to be silent nor to profess, but just to speak the truth in all seriousness.' We have spoken a few words, (and a few words only need to be spoken, for the whole matter is clear as light to the people,) about ecclesiastical sinecures, places, and pensions. We have said a few more words, in our last Number, about the absolute necessity, and exceeding practicability of national education. The want of education is vaguely, but strongly felt by the people themselves; and, like hunger, it suggests a ravenous craving, but no definite opinion. But to all who watch the signs of the time, its unbelief, its sneering, and its unprincipledness, which are breaking up the bonds of society, it must be quite plain that an intellectual advance, namely, in strength of evidence and firmness of conviction; a moral advance, namely, in simplicity of sincerity, and in purity of truth; and a political advance, namely, in professing before God and man only what we believe, and in submitting ourselves, before God and man, to all that we profess, is the crying want of the times. We are needing a ministry, but, above all, we are wanting a statesman, who will dare to abide by the truth, whether it be for loss or gain. Such a man would be listened to when he told the people,-This sacrifice must be made by the landholder; this sacrifice must be made by the fundholder; this sacrifice must be made by the Church; this sacrifice must be made by the Dissenter; this sacrifice must be made by the aristocracy; and this sacrifice must be made by the people. The rigid noble is not such a man he stands by his order. The pliant lawyer is not such a man: he stands not to his promises. It is said there is an honester and bolder statesman rising into power. We are not worshippers of the rising sun: but if, indeed, the sun is rising to pour light and heat equally on all, we will bless God for that useful light. It is quite impossible to look round without being convinced that we want moral power to guide and controul mere physical force. There is a flaming gulf in the forum, which will not close till many sacrifices have been offered. If these sacrifices are made freely, it may be hoped they will be accepted. But there is a retributive justice abroad which will demand them if they are not freely given. The people say, you have heaped upon us eight hundred millions of debt, what will you contribute to its payment? You have betrayed us into anarchy, what will you do to bring back peace? 6 The re-edification of a nation is not the coup de théâtre of a French constitution, sworn to vehemently by all, to be trodden under foot by each. It implies truth, and conviction, and obedience. It cannot be denied that there is such a thing as moral truth, as well as physical truth. The questions, What is truth?' who will show us any good?' imply that we know not truth, not that there is not truth. The question, Who will show us any good?' would be more difficult to answer, if it were not coupled with the question, What is truth?' In establishing what is truth, we may hope to establish, who will show us good? This is what the world needs. The word of truth and power must go forth into the moral chaos: Let there be light.' Let us not be so foolish as to mistake what is only darkness visible, for too much light. We have it not in our power to return, either for good or for evil, to complete darkness. It may then be wise to increase the light, which at present is gloomy, and portentous, and threatening, till it is sufficient to light every man on his way. We had hoped the Chancellor, at least, with his power of place and patronage, would have said to the chaos, Let there be light. He need not have sneered, he need not have complimented, he need not have professed: he should have expressed a deep and solemn conviction that there is darkness, thick, fearful darkness over all the people, the moral darkness of discord and anarchy, which there is just sufficient intellectual light to render visible, but not to show the remedy. Opportunities of education, are what is wanted. It is wanted to soften men's hearts, even more than to enlighten their intellects. Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros. CRITICAL NOTICES The Book of Penalties. THE penalties imposed for the protection of the public revenue, for the purposes of police, and for the security of individual transactions, are extremely numerous, and not unfrequently ruinous in operation. Hardly a pursuit of civil life, whether of pleasure or profit, can be entered upon without being liable to penal visitation. We cannot travel on the highway, swing a gate, read a newspaper, buy a pair of stockings, receive or pay money, take medicine, nor even engage in religious worship, without being obnoxious to some overt or latent enactment, scattered through the wide waste of the Statutes at large.'-Preface. And so the Author has made a dictionary of them, where we may find, in alphabetical order, the pocket-traps which beset us. We cannot recommend his book to nervous persons of limited incomes. It is better to die than to live in the hourly dread of death. And liability to penalty is as inevitable as mortality itself. Nor ought the book to be sold to informers. We fear it may tempt many into that profession. It might be titled 'the Informer's Way to Wealth;' or the 'Rascal's Ready Reckoner,' or Receipts for Robbery prepared by Parliament.' If any, like Ajax, prefer to perish in the light, here may they see the countless perils of the most cautious path. 'I'll gaze no more, lest my brain turn. Even the little which a poor reviewer has is dear to him, and only think of one's only shilling going half to the king and half to the informer.' Report on the State of Public Instruction in Prussia, by M. Victor Cousin. Translated by Sarah Austin. WE English are great haters of compulsion-except in those affairs in which we have been used to it. There it seems the most proper and natural thing in the world. To compel a man to toil and fight on board ship, is a camel which we can swallow: to compel a parent to have his child instructed, is a gnat at which we strain. Habit reconciles us to the one, and our sense of property makes us hate the other. My children shall be taught or not as I please.' In a very judicious preface, Mrs. Austin treats this prejudice most gently and winningly. The admirable document which she has translated contains material for the removal of almost every doubt and difficulty on the subject of national education. Moreover, it has the important recommendation of not being at all theoretical. It is fact, detail, actual experiment. We heartily thank the translator for the essential service which she has rendered to the cause of popular instruction in this country. An Essay on the Moral Constitution and History of Man. Edinburgh, Tait; London, Fox. The CONSIDERABLE portions of this Essay have appeared in the Christian Pioneer; we are glad to see it entire; and hope that the author will not long withhold the speculations referred to at its conclusion. He has traced the intellectual and moral progressiveness of mankind in the spirit of Christian philosophy, and laid a good foundation for the communication of his views as to the ultimate form which society is destined to take, and the means by which that state will be realised. His work is an illustration of the providential education of the human race, and points towards the objects and results of that education. We cannot better complete our brief description, than by an extract from the plain and unpretending preface by which the Essay is introduced. author is not a theologian in the common acceptation of the term, that is, he is not exclusively attached to any sect or system. He would wish rather to be considered a philosopher, if that term likewise had not undergone a change from its original meaning. In antiquity, philosophy and religion were united, and should never have been divorced; but the priests of the dark ages assumed an exclusive and baneful dominion over religion, so that when learning was revived, philosophers soon came to be disgusted at the uncouth and distorted form of popular piety. In some respects, this Essay attempts to reunite those old friends and natural allies-religion and philosophy; and the author has sanguine expectations that the fruit of such reunion will be the accomplishment of those hopes-which poets and philosophers-which wise and good men of all ages, have entertained of the ultimate destiny of MAN.' India. A Poem. By a young Civilian of Bengal. WE like this book for having a purpose, a strong purpose; which is more than most books and poems have; but we cannot think the author judicious in attempting an exposure of the misgovernment of Hindostan, through the medium of three cantos of heroic verse, however polished and nervous much of that verse may be. This sort of business is now always transacted in prose. Remarks on Transportation. A Second Letter to Earl Grey. By R. Whately, D. D. Archbishop of Dublin. SOME pamphlets published in Van Diemen's Land have occasioned this supplement to the Archbishop's work on Secondary Punishments. It acutely and conclusively exposes the inconsistency of the writers, who are shown to have employed the most opposite statements, so that those statements did but tend to keep up the supply of convicts to the colony. The doubts expressed in our note on the Van Diemen's Land almanac, in last September's Repository, are completely laid to rest by this publication, which may be considered as settling the question of transportation as a punishment. National Lyrics and Songs for Music. By Felicia Hemans. MRS. HEMANS always handles her harp like a lady; and, we may add, like an English lady. In her compositions we are always sure of propriety, refinement, grace, sweetness, and kind and pious feeling. We find also an admixture of verbiage, conventionalism, and narrow nationality. She worships chivalry and glory with the adoration of a sentimental school-girl. It would seem passing strange that one so characteristically gentle should sing so much of war and warriors, did we not know what woman's training is, how it sacrifices the strength of intellect to the pride of dependence. Young heroes, with sisters and loves at home, who fall in foreign fields, are the favourites of her muse. Remembering what sort of wars we have waged, and how our armies have been officered, we rather doubt the pre-eminent claims of this class of persons to poetical apotheosis. The old high wars of England' were mostly expeditions for plunder and slaughter on a large scale, and her recenthigh wars' have had little to recommend them to those whose delights are in the charities of home, the fondnesses of affection, the loveliness of nature, and the sympathies of religion. We regret that Mrs. Hemans should not perceive the incongruity; but we rejoice that in her it is an incongruity, an error of the intellect, and not of the heart, whose inspiration has dictated so many compositions full of truth, beauty, and pathos. The volume before us contains, besides a few poems on subjects of national tradition, all those of the author's pieces which have, at different periods, been composed either in the form of the ballad, the song, or the scena, with a view to musical adaptation.' After all deductions, such a collection must be generally welcome. In mentioning the exquisite beauty of the lines entitled the Haunted House,' we only indicate a favourite amongst many which might substantiate a claim to similar praise. NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS. A communication for C. C. P. at our office. MONTHLY REPOSITORY, NEW SERIES, No. XC. JUNE, 1834. CONTENTS. 1. Letter from an Englishman to a Frenchman, on a recent Apology in the Journal des Débats for the Faults of the English National Character 2. Songs of the Months. No. 6. June. A Summer Song for the Open Air . 3. The Seven Temptations 4. Notes on some of the more Popular Dialogues of Plato. No. 2. The Phædrus 5. National Immorality Cured in Fourteen Years 6. A Peep into Sherwood Forest PAGE 385 395 . 396 404 . 420 424 . 435 7. Notes on the Newspapers The Press and the Trades' Unions Sir Robert Heron's Motion, and Mr. Bulwer's Amendment . 437 Lord Brougham's Defence of the Church Establishment Mr. William Brougham's Bills for a Registry of Births, Deaths, The Duties of Men-The Sea-Wolf-Illustrations of Social Depra- 457 |