body to reap those rewards which the bountiful Author of all things has assigned to his industry. Neither is it any common enjoyment, to turn for a while from the memory of those distractions which have so recently agitated the Old World, and to reflect that ts very horrors and crimes may have thus prepared a ng era of opulence and peace for a people yet inJolved in the womb of time. and bring back from a residence in foreign countries nothing but the vague and customary notions concerning it, which are carried and brought back for half a century, without verification or change. The most ordinary shape in which this tendency to prejudge makes its appearance among travellers, is by a dispo sition to exalt, or, a still more absurd disposition, to depreciate their native country. They are incapable of considering a foreign people but under one single point of view-the relation in which they stand to their own; and the whole narrative is frequently nothing more than a mere triumph of national vanity, or the ostentation of superiority to so common a failing. J. FIEVEE. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1809.) But we are wasting our time in giving a theory of Lettres sur l'Angleterre. Par J. Fievée. 1802. the faults of travellers, when we have such ample Of all the species of travels, that which has moral means of exemplifying them all from the publication observation for its object is the most liable to error, now before us, in which Mr. Jacob Fievee, with the and has the greatest difficulties to overcome, before it most surprising talents for doing wrong, has contrived can arrive at excellence. Stones and roots, and leaves, to condense and agglomerate every species of absurdare subjects which may exercise the understanding ity that has hitherto been made known, and even to without rousing the passions. A mineralogical travel- launch out occasionally into new regions of nonsense, ler will hardly fall fouler upon the granite and the with a boldness which well entitles him to the merit feldspar of other countries than his own; a botanist of originality in folly, and discovery in impertinence. will not conceal its non-descripts; and an agricultural We consider Mr. Fievée's book as extremely valuable tourist will faithfully detail the average crop per acre; in one point of view. It affords a sort of limit or mind. but the traveller who observes on the manners, habits, mark, beyond which we conceive it to be impossible and institutions of other countries, must have emanci- in future that pertness and petulance should pass. It pated his mind from the extensive and powerful do- is well to be acquainted with the boundaries of our minion of association, must have extinguished the nature on both sides; and to Mr. Fievée we are inagrecable and deceitful feelings of national vanity, debted for this valuable approach to pessimism. The and cultivated that patient humility which builds ge- height of knowledge no man has yet scanned; but we neral inferences only upon the repetition of individual have now pretty well fathomed the gulf of ignorance, facts. Every thing he sees shocks some passion or flatters it; and he is perpetually seduced to distort facts, so as to render them agreeable to his system and his feelings! Books of travels are now pnblished in such vast abundance, that it may not be useless, perhaps, to state a few of the reasons why their value so commonly happens to be in the inverse ratio of their number. We must, however, do justice to Mr. Fievée when he deserves it. He evinces, in his preface, a lurking uneasiness at the apprehension of exciting war between the two countries, from the anger to which his letters will give birth in England. He pretends to deny that they will occasion a war; but it is very easy to see he is not convinced by his own arguments; and we confess ourselves extremely pleased by this amiable soli 1st, Travels are bad, from a want of opportunity citude at the probable effusion of human blood. We for observation in those who write them. If the sides hope Mr. Fievée is deceived by his philanthropy, and of a building are to be measured, and the number of that no such unhappy consequences will ensue, as he its windows to be counted, a very short space of time really believes, though he affects to deny them. We may suffice for these operations; but to gain such a dare to say the dignity of this country will be satis knowledge of their prevalent opinions and propensified. if the publication in question is disowned by the ties, as will enable a stranger to comprehend (what is French government, or, at most, if the author is given commonly called) the genius of people, requires a long up. At all events, we have no scruple to say, that to residence among them, a familiar acquaintance with sacrifice twenty thousand lives, and a hundred millions their language, and an easy circulation among their of money, to resent Mr. Fievée's book, would be an various societies. The society into which a transient unjustifiable waste of blood and treasure; and that te stranger gains the most easy access in any country, is take him off privately by assassination, would be an not often that which ought to stamp the national cha-undertaking hardly compatible with the dignity of a racter; and no criterion can be more fallible, in a peo- great empire. ple so reserved and inaccessible as the British, who To show, however, the magnitude of the provoca (even when they open their doors to letters of introduction) cannot for years overcome the awkward timidity of their nature. The same expressions are of so different a value in different countries, the same actions proceed from such different causes, and produce such different effects, that a judgment of foreign nations, founded on rapid observation, is almost certainly a mere tissue of ludicrous and disgraceful mistakes; and yet a residence of a month or two seems to entitle a traveller to present the world with a picture of manners in London, Paris, or Vienna, and even to dogmatize upon the political, religious, and legal institutions, as if it were one and the same thing to speak of the abstract effects of such institutions, and of their effects combined with all the peculiar circumstances in which any nation may be placed. tion, we shall specify a few of the charges which he makes against the English: that they do not understand fireworks as well as the French; that they charge a shilling for admission to the exhibition; that they have the misfortune of being incommoded by a certain disgraceful privilege, called the liberty of the press; that the opera band plays out of tune; that the English are so fond of drinking, that they get drunk with a certain air called the gas of Paradise; that the privilege of electing members of parliament is so bur thensome, that cities sometimes petition to be ex empted from it; that the great obstacle to a parlia mentary reform is the mob; that women sometimes have titles distinct from those of their husbands-although, in England, any body can sell his wife at market, with a rope about her neck. To these complaints he adds-that the English are so far from enjoying that equality of which their partisans boast, that none but the servants of the higher nobility can carry canes behind a carriage; that the power which the French kings had of pardoning before trial, is much the same thing as the English mode of pardon. ing after trial; that he should conceive it to be a good reason for rejecting any measure in France, that it 3dly, The tendency to found observation on a sys-was imitated from the English, who have no family tem, rather than a system upon observation. The fact affections, and who love money so much, that their is, there are very few original eyes and ears. The first question, in an inquiry concerning the character great mass see and hear as they are directed by others, of any man, is, as to his degree of fortune. Lastly, 2dly, An affectation of quickness in observation, an intuitive glance that requires only a moment, and a part, to judge of a perpetuity and a whole. The late Mr. Petion, who was sent over into this country to acquire a knowledge of our criminal law, is said to have declared himself thoroughly informed upon the subject, after remaining precisely two and thirty minutes in the Old Bailey, Mr. Fievée alleges against the English, that they have great pleasure in contemplating the spectacle of men deprived of their reason." And indeed we must have the candour to allow, that the hospitality which Mr. Fievée experienced, seems to afford some pretext for this assertion. a walk: he moves on for ten yards on the straight road, with surprising perseverance; then sets out after a butterfly, looks for a bird's nest, or jumps backwards and forwards over a ditch. In the same manner, this nimble and digressive gentleman is away after every object which crosses his mind. If you leave him at the end of a comma, in a steady pursuit of his subject, you are sure to find him, before the next full stop, a hundred yards to the right or left, frisking, capering, and grinning in a high paroxyism of merri ment and agility. Mr. Edgeworth seems to possess the sentiments of an accomplished gentleman, the information of a scholar, and the vivacity of a first-rate harlequin. He is fuddled with animal spirits, giddy with constitutional joy; in such a state he must have written on, or burst. A discharge of ink was an evacuation absolutely necessary, to avoid fatal and plethoric congestion. One of the principal objects of Mr. Fievée's book, is to combat the Anglomania, which has raged so long among his countrymen, and which prevailed at Paris to such an excess, that even Mr. Neckar, a foreigner (incredible as it may seem) after having been twice minister of France, retained a considerable share of admiration for the English government. This is quite inexplicable. But this is nothing to the treason of the Encyclopedists, who, instead of attributing the merit of the experimental philosophy and the reasoning by induction to a Frenchman, have shown themselves so lost to all sense of duty which they owed to their country, that they have attributed it to an Englishman,* of the The object of the book is to prove, that the practice name of Bacon, and this for no better reason, than that of making bulls is not more imputable to the Irish he really was the author of it. The whole of this pas-than to any other people; and the manner in which sage, is written so entirely in the genius of Mr. Fievée, he sets about it, is to quote examples of bulls produced and so completely exemplifies that very caricature spe- in other countries. But this is surely a singular way of cies of Frenchmen from which our gross and popular reasoning the question: for there are goitres out of notions of the whole people are taken, that we shall Valais, extortioners who do not worship Moses, oat give the whole passage at full length, cautiously ab- cakes out of the Tweed, and balm beyond the prestaining from the sin of translating it. cincts of Gilead. If nothing can be said to exist preexists at all in another, then Frenchmen are not gay, eminently and emphatically in one country, which nor Spaniards grave, nor are gentlemen of the Milesian race remarkable for their disinterested contempt of wealth in their connubial relations. It is probable there is some foundation for a character so generally diffused; though it is also probable that such foundation is extremely enlarged by fame. If there were no foundation for the common opinion, choisi pour maitre et pour idole un Anglais, Bâcon; ils lui we must suppose national characters formed by on fait dire tout ce qu'ils ont voulu, parce que cet auteur chance; and that the Irish might, by accident, have extraordinairement volumineux, n'étoit pas connu en been laughed at as bashful and sheepish; which France, et ne l'est guère en Angleterre que de quelques is impossible. The author puzzles himself a good hommes studieux; mais les philosophes sentoient que leur deal about the nature of bulls, without coming to succès, pour introduire des nouveautés, tenoit à faire croire any decision about the matter. Though the quesqu'elles n'étoient pas neures pour les grands esprits; et com- tion is not a very easy one, we shall venture to me les grands esprits Français, trop connus, ne ce prêtoient pas à un pareil dessein, les philosophes ont eu recours à say, that a bull is an apparent congruity, and real I'Angleterre. Ainsi, un ouvrage fait en France, et offert à incongruity, of ideas, suddenly discovered. And if l'admiration de l'Europe comme l'ouvrage par excellence, this account of bulls be just, they are (as might have fut mis par des Français sous la protection du génie Anglais, been supposed) the very reverse of wit; for as wit O honte! Et les philosophes se sont dit patriotes, et la discovers real relations, that are not apparent, bulls France, peur prix de sa dégradation, leur a élevé des statues! admit apparent relations that are not real. The plea La siècle qui commence, plus juste, parce qu'il a le senti- sure arising from wit proceeds from our surprise at ment de la véritable grandeur, liassera ces statues et l'Ency-suddenly discovering two things to be similar, in which clopédie s'ensevelir sous la même poussière.' Quand je reproche aux philosophes d'avoir vanté l' Angleterre, par haine pour les institutions qui soutenoient la France, je ne hasarde rien, et je fournirai une nouvelle preuve de cette assertion, en citan les encyclopédistes, chefs avoués de la philosophie moderne. • Comment nous ont-ils présenté l'Encyclopédie? Comme un monument immortel, comme le dépôt précieux de toutes les connoissances humains. Sous quel patronage l'ont-ils élevé ce monument immortel? Est ce sous l'égide des écrivains dont la France s'honoroit? Non, ils ont we suspect no similarity. The pleasure arising from When to this are added the commendations that bills proceeds from discovering two things to be dishave been bestowed upon Newton, the magnitude and similar, in which a resemblance might have been sus. the originality of the discoveries which have been pected. The same doctrine will apply to wit, and to attributed to him, the admiration which the words of bulls in action. Practical wit discovers connection or Locke have excited, and the homage that has been relation between actions, in which duller understandpaid to Milton and Shakspeare, the treason which ings discover none; and practical bulls originate from lurks at the bottom of it all will not escape the pene- an apparent relation between two actions, which more trating glance of Mr. Fievée; and he will discern that correct understandings immediately perceive to have same cause, from which every good Frenchman knows no relation at all. the defeat of Aboukir and of the first of June to have proceeded the monster Pitt, and his English guineas. Louis XIV. being extremely harrassed by the repeated solicitations of a veteran officer for promotion, said one day, loud enough to be heard, That gentle. man is the most troublesome officer I have in my service.' 'That is precisely the charge (said the old EDGEWORTH ON BULLS. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, man) which your Majesty's enemies bring against 1803.) Essay on Irish Bulls. By Richard Lovell Edgeworth and WE hardly know what to say about this rambling, scrambling book; but that we are quite sure the author, when he began any sentence in it, had not the smallest suspicion of what it was about to contain. We say the author; because, in spite of the mixture of sexes in the title-page, we are strongly inclined to suspect that the male contributions exceed the female in a very great degree. The essay on Bulls is written much with the same mind, and in the same manner, as a schoolboy takes *Gaul was conquered by a person of the name of Julius Caesar,' is the first phrase in one of Mr. Newberry's little books. me." ་ 'An English gentleman,' (says Mr. Edgeworth, in a story cited from Joe Millar,) was writing a letter in a coffeehouse; and perceiving that an Irishman stationed behind him was taking that liberty which Parmenio used with his friend Alexander, instead of putting his seal upon the lips of the curious impertinent, the English gentleman thought proper to reprove the Hibernian, if not with delicacy, at least with poetical justice. He concluded writing his letter Irishman is reading over my shoulder every word I write." in these words: "I would say more, but a damned tall "You lie, you scoundrel," said the self-convicted Hibernian.'-(p. 29.) The pleasure derived from the first of these stories, proceeds from the discovery of the relation that subsists between the object he had in view, and the assent of the officer to an observation so unfriendly to that end In the first rapid glance which the mind throws upon his words, he appears, by his acquiescence, to be pleading against himself. There seems to be no relation be tween what he says, and what he wishes to effect by speaking. In the second story, the pleasure is directly the reverse. The lie given was apparently the readiest means of proving his innocence, and really the most actual way of establishing his guilt. There seems for a moment to be a strong relation between the means and the object; while, in fact, no irrelation can be so complete. Whether the Irish make more bulls than their neighbours, is, as we have before remarked, not a point of much importance; but it is of considerable importance that the character of a nation should not be degraded; and Mr. Edgeworth has great merit in his very benevolent intention of doing justice to the excellent qualities of the Irish. It is not possible to read his book without feeling a strong and new dispo sition in their favour. Whether the imitation of the Irish manner be correct in his little stories, we cannot determine; but we feel the same confidence in the accuracy of the imitation, that is often felt in the resemblance of a portrait, of which we have never seen the original. It is no very high compliment to Mr. Edgeworth's creative powers, to say, he could not have but such a remark only robs Peter to pay Paul; and gives everything to his powers of observation which it takes from those of his imagination. In truth, nothing can be better than his imitation of the Irish manner: it is first-rate painting. What connection is there between pelting stones at monkeys, and gathering cocoa-nuts from lofty trees? Apparently none. But monkeys sit upon cocoa-nut-formed anything, which was not real, so like reality; trees; monkeys are imitative animals; and if you pelt a monkey with a stone, he pelts you with a cocoanut in return. This scheme of gathering cocoa-nuts is very witty, and would be more so if it did not appear useful for the idea of utility is always inimical to the idea of wit. There appears, on the contrary, to be some relation between the revenge of the Irish rebels against a banker, and the means which they took to gratify it, by burning all his notes wherever they found them; whereas, they could not have rendered him a more essential service. In both these cases of bulls, the one verbal, the other practical, there is an apparent congruity, and real incongruity of ideas. In both the cases of wit, there is an apparent incongruity and a real relation. It is clear that a bull cannot depend upon mere incongruity alone; for if a man were to say that he would ride to London upon a cocked hat, or that he would cut his throat with a pound of pickled salmon, this, though completely incongruous, would not be to make bulls, but to talk nonsense. The stronger the apparent connection, and the more complete the real disconnection of the ideas, the greater the surprise, and the better the bull. The less apparent, and the more complete the relations established by wit, the higher gratification does it afford. A great deal of the pleasure experienced from bulls, proceeds from the sense of superiority in ourselves. Bulls which we invented, or knew to be invented, might please, but in a less degree, for want of this additional zest. Edgeworth and Co. have another faculty in great perfection. They are eminently masters of the pathos. The Firm drew tears from us in the stories of little Dominick, and of the Irish beggar who killed his sweetheart: Never was any grief more natural or simple. The first, however, ends in a very foolish way; -formosa superne Desinit in piscem. We are extremely glad that our avocation did not call us from Bath to London on the day that the Bath coach-conversation took place. We except from this wish the story with which the conversation terminates; for as soon as Mr. Edgeworth enters upon a story he excels. We must confess we have been much more pleased with Mr. Edgeworth in his laughing and in his pathetic, than in his grave and reasoning moods. He meant, perhaps, that we should; and it certainly is not very necessary that a writer should be profound on the book, they are, in our estimation, amply atoned for by subject of bulls. Whatever be the deficiencies of the its merits; by none more than that lively feeling of compassion which pervades it for the distresses of the wild, kind-hearted, blundering poor of Ireland. REVIEW, 1806.) (EDINBURGH A Comparative View of the New Plan of Education promulgated by Mr. Joseph Lancaster, in his Tracts concerning the Instruction of the Children of the Labouring Part of the Community; and of the System of Christian Education founded by our pious Forefathers for the Initiation of the Young Members of the Established Church in the Principles of the Reformed Religion. By Mrs. Trimmer. 1805. As there must be apparent connection, and real recongruity, it is seldom that a man of sense and education finds any form of words by which he is conscious that he might have been deceived into a bull. TRIMMER AND LANCASTER.* To conceive how the person has been deceived, he must suppose a degree of information very different from, and a species of character very heterogeneous to, his own; a process which diminishes surprise, and consequently pleasure. In the above-mentioned story of the Irishman overlooking the man writing, no per son of ordinary sagacity can suppose himself betrayed into such a mistake; but he can easily represent to himself a kind of character that might have been so betrayed. There are some bulls so extremely fallaTHIS is a book written by a lady who has gained cious, that any man may imagine himself to have considerable reputation at the Corner of St. Paul's been betrayed into them; but these are rare and, in Churchyard; who flames in the van of Mr. Newbury's general, it is a poor, contemptible species of amuse-shop; and is, upon the whole, dearer to mothers and ment, a delight in which evinces a very bad taste in wit. into the mouths of babes and sucklings. Tired at last aunts than any other who pours the milk of science *It must be observed, that all the great passions, and of scribbling for children, and getting ripe in ambition, many other feelings, extinguish the relish for wit. Thus she has now written a book for grown-up people, and lympha pudica Deum vidit et erebuit, would be witty, were it selected for her antagonist as stiff a controversialist as not bordering on the sublime. The resemblance between the whole field of dispute could well have supplied. the sandal tree imparting (while it falls) its aromantic fla- Her opponent is Mr. Lancaster, a Quaker, who has vour to the edge of the axe, and the benevolent man re- lately given to the world new and striking lights upon warding evil with good, would be witty, did it not excite the subject of Education, and come forward to the virtuous emotions. There are many mechanical contrivances which excite sensations very similar to wit; but the notice of his country by spreading order, knowledge, attention is absorbed by their utility. Some of Merlin's and innocence among the lowest of mankind. machines, which have no utility at all, are quite similar to wit. A small model of a steam-engine, or mere squirt, is wit to a child. A man speculates on the causes of the first, *Lancaster invented the new method of education. The or in its consequences, and so loses the feelings of wit: with Church was sorely vexed at his success, endeavoured to set the latter, he is too familiar to be surprised. In short, the up Dr. Bell as the discoverer, and to run down poor Lanessence of every species of wit is surprise; which vi termini, caster. George the Third was irritated by this shabby conmust be sudden; and the sensations which wit has a ten-duct, and always protected Lancaster. He was delighted dency to excite, are impaired or destroyed as often as they with this Review, and made Sir Herbert Taylor read it a are mingled with much thought or passion. second time to him Mr. Lancaster, she says, wants method in his book; and therefore her answer to him is without any arrangement The same excuse must suffice for the desultory observations we shall make upon this lady's publication. The first sensation of disgust we experienced at Mrs. Trimmer's book, was from the patronizing and protecting air with which she speaks of some small part of Mr. Lancaster's plan. She seems to suppose, because she has dedicated her mind to the subject, that her opinion must necessarily be valuable upon it; forgetting it to be barely possible that her application may have made her more wrong, instead of more right. If she can make out her case, that Mr. Lancaster is doing mischief in so important a point as that of national education, she has a right, in common with every one else, to lay her complaint before the public; but a right to publish praises must be earned by something more difficult than the writing sixpenny books for children. This may be very good; though we never remember to have seen any one of them; but if they be no more remarkable for judgment and discretion than parts of the work before us, there are many thriving children quite capable of repaying the obligations they owe to their amiable instructress, and of teaching, with grateful retaliation, the old idea how to shoot.' In remarking upon the work before us, we shall exactly follow the plan of the authoress, and prefix, as she does, the titles of those subjects on which her observations are made; doing her the justice to presume that her quotations are fairly taken from Mr. Lancaster's book. of vice; if the associates of youth pour contempt on 1. Mr. Lancaster's Preface.-Mrs. Trimmer here contends, in opposition to Mr. Lancaster, that ever since the establishment of the Protestant Church, the education of the poor has been a national concern in this country; and the only argument she produces in village near London, where he has a school of the class A benevolent friend of mine,' says he, who resides at a support of this extravagant assertion, is an appeal to called Sunday Schools, recommended several lads to me for the act of uniformity. If there are millions of Eng- education. He is a pious man, and these children had the lishmen who cannot spell their own names, or read a advantage of good precepts under his instruction in an emsign-post which bids them turn to the right or left, is inent degree, but had reduced them to very little practice. t any answer to this deplorable ignorance to say, As they came to my school from some distance, they were there is an act of Parliament for public instruction? permitted to bring their dinners; and, in the interval beo show the very line and chapter where the King, with a number of lads under similar circumstances in a playtween morning and afternoon school hours, spent their time Lords, and Commons, in Parliament assembled, or-ground adjoining the school-room. In this play-ground the lained the universality of reading and writing, when, boys usually enjoy an hour's recreation; tops, balls, races, centuries afterwards, the ploughman is no more capa- or what best suits their inclination or the season of the ble of the one or the other than the beast which he year; but with this charge, "Let all be kept in innocence." drives? In point of fact, there is no Protestant coun- These lads thought themselves very happy at play with try in the world where the education of the poor has their new associates; but on a sudden they were seized and been so grossly and infamously neglected as in Eng-people in the street would seize a pick-pocket, and bring overcome by numbers, were brought into school just as and. Mr. Lancaster has the high merit of calling the him to the police office. Happening at that time to be public attention to this evil, and of calling it in the within, I inquired, "Well, boys, what is all this bustle best way, by new and active remedies; and this un- about?""Why, sir," was the general reply, "these lads andid and feeble lady, instead of using the influence have been swearing." This was announced with as much she has obtained over the anility of these realms, to emphasis and solemnity as a judge would use in passing oin that useful remonstrance which Mr. Lancaster has sentence upon a criminal. The culprits were, as may be begun, pretends to deny that the evil exists; and when supposed, in much terror. After the examination of witnesses and proof of the facts, they received admonition as you ask where are the schools, rods, pedagogues, to the offence; and, on promise of better hehaviour, were primers, histories of Jack the Giant-killer, and all the dismissed. No more was ever heard of their swearing; yet usual apparatus for education, the only things he can it was observable, that they were better acquainted with produce is the act of uniformity and common prayer. the theory of Christianity, and could give a more rational 2. The Principles on which Mr. Lancaster's institu- answer to questions from the scripture, than several of the tion is conducted. Happily for mankind,' says Mr. boys who had thus treated them, on comparison, as constaLancaster, it is possible to combine precept and bles would do a thief. I call this,' adds Mr. Lancaster, practice together in the education of youth: that pub-practical religious instruction, and could, if needful, give many such anecdotes.'-(p. 26, 27.) lic spirit, or general opinion, which gives such strength to více, may be rendered serviceable to the cause of All that Mrs, Trimmer has to observe against this virtue; and in thus directing it, the whole secret, the very striking illustration of Mr. Lancaster's doctrine, beauty, and simplicity of national education consists. is, that the monitors behaved to the swearers in a very Suppose, for instance, it be required to train a youth rude and unchristianlike manner. She begins with be to strict veracity. He has learned to read at school: ing cruel, and ends with being silly. Her first obser. he there reads the declaration of the Divine will re-vation is calculated to raise the posse comitatus against specting liars: he is there informed of the pernicious Mr. Lancaster, to get him stoned for impiety; and effects that practice produces on society at large; and then, when he produces the most forcible example of he is enjoined, for the fear of God, for the approbation the effect of opinion to encourage religious precept, of his friends, and for the good of his school-fellows, she says such a method of preventing wearing is too never to tell an untruth. This is a most excellent pre- rude for the gospel. True, modest, unobtrusive reli cept; but let it be taught, and yet, if the contrary gion-charitable, forgiving, indulgent Christianity, is practice be treated with indifference by parents, the greatest ornament and the greatest blessing that teachers, or associates, it will either weaken or de- can dwell in the mind of man. But if there is one stroy all the good that can be derived from it: But if character more base, more infamous, and more shock" the parents or teachers tenderly nip the rising shoots [ing than another, it is him who, for the sake of some 48.) paltry distinction in the world, is ever ready to accuse | needful a second time. It is also very seldom that a boy conspicuous persons of irreligion-to turn common in- deserves both a log and a shackle at the same time. Most former for the church-and to convert the most beau-boys are wise enough, when under one punishment, not to tiful feelings of the human heart to the destruction of transgress immediately, lest it should be doubled.'-(p. 47, the good and great, by fixing upon talents the indeli ble stigma of irreligion. It matters not how trifling This punishment is objected to on the part of Mrs and insignificant the acuser; cry out that the church Trimmer, because it inculcates a dislike to Jews, and is in danger, and your object is accomplished; lurk in an indifference to dying speeches! Toys, she says, the walk of hypocrisy, to accuse your enemy of the given as rewards, are worldly things; children are to crime of Atheism, and his ruin is quite certain; ac- be taught that there are etemal rewards in store for quitted or condemned, is the same thing; it is only them. It is very dangerous to give prints as rewards, sufficient that he be accused, in order that his destruc-because prints may hereafter be the vehicle of inde tion be accomplished. If we could satisfy ourselves cent ideas. It is, above all things, perilous to create that such were the real views of Mrs. Trimmer, and an order of merit in the borough school, because it that she were capable of such baseness, we would gives the boys an idea of the origin of nobility, have drawn blood from her at every line, and left her especially in times (we use Mrs. Trimmer's own in a state of martyrdom more piteous than that of St. words) which furnish instances of the extinction of a Uba. Let her attribute the milk and mildness she race of ancient nobility, in a neighbouring nation, and meets with in this review of her book, to the convic-the elevation of some of the lowest people to the tion we entertain, that she knew no better-that she highest stations. Boys accustomed to consider themselves really did understand Mr. Lancaster as she pretends to the nobles of the school, may in their future lives, form a understand him-and that if she had been aware of conceit of their own merits (unless they have very sound the extent of the mischief she was doing, she would principles), aspire to be nobles of the land, and to take have tossed the manuscript spelling book in which she place of the hereditary nobility.' was engaged into the fire, rather than have done it.We think these extracts will sufficiently satisfy As a proof that we are in earnest in speaking of Mrs. every reader of common sense, of the merits of this Trimmer's simplicity, we must state the objection she publication. For our part, when we saw these ragged makes to one of Mr. Lancaster's punishments.and interesting little nobles, shining in their tin stars, When I meet,' says Mr. Lancaster, with a slovenly we only thought it probable that the spirit of emula boy, I put a label upon his breast, I walk him round tion would make them better ushers, tradesmen, and the school with a tin or paper crown upon his head.' mechanics. We did, in truth, imagine we had obSurely,' says Mrs. Trimmer, (in reply to this,) 'sure-served, in some of their faces, a bold project for pro. ly it should be remembered, that the Saviour of the curing better breeches for keeping out the blast of world was crowned with thorns, in derision, and that heaven, which howled through those garments in this is the reason why crowning is an improper punish-every direction, and of aspiring hereafter to greater ment for a slovenly boy.' !!! Rewards and Punishments.-Mrs. Trimmer objects to the fear of ridicule being made an instrument of education, because it may be hereafter employed to shame a boy out of his religion. She might, for the same reason, object to the cultivation of the reasoning faculty, because a boy may hereafter be reasoned out of his religion: she surely does not mean to say that she would make boys insensible to ridicule, the fear of which is one curb upon the follies and eccentricities of human nature. Such an object it would be impossible to effect, even if it were useful: Put an hundred boys together, and the fear of being laughed at will always be a strong influencing motive with every individual among them. If a master can turn this principle to his own use, and get boys to laugh at vice instead of the old plan of laughing at virtue, is he not doing a very new, à very difficult, and a very laudable thing? When Mr. Lancaster finds a little boy with a very dirty face, he sends for a little girl, and makes her wash off the dirt before the whole school: and she is directed to accompany her ablutions with a gentle box of the ear. To us, this punishment appears well adapted to the offence; and in this, and in most other instances of Mr. Lancaster's interference in scholas tic discipline, we are struck with his good sense, and delighted that arrangements apparently so trivial, really so important, should have fallen under the attention of so ingenious and so original a man. Trimmer objects to this practice, that it destroys temale modesty, and inculcates in that sex, an habit of giving boxes on the ear. strength of seam, and more perfect continuity of cloth But for the safety of the titled orders we had no fear; nor did we once dream that the black rod which whipt these dirty little dukes, would one day be borne be fore them as the emblem of legislative dignity, and the sign of noble blood. Order. The order Mr. Lancaster has displayed in the school is quite astonishing. Every boy seems to be the cog of a wheel-the whole school a perfect machine. This is so far from being a burden or constraint to the boys, that Mr. Lancaster has made it quite pleasant to them, by giving to it the air of military arrangement; not foreseeing, as Mrs. Trimmer foresees, that, in times of public dangers, this plan furnishes the disaffected with the immediate means of raising an army; for what have they to do but to send for all the children educated by Mr. Lancaster, from the different corners of the kingdom into which they to fall into the same order as they adopted in the are dispersed, to beg it as a particular favour of them spelling class twenty-five years ago; and the rest is all matter of course Jamque faces, et Saxa volant. The main object, however, for which this book is written, is to prove that the church establishment is tutions. Mr. Lancaster is, as we have before observed, in danger, from the increase of Mr. Lancaster's instia Quaker. As a Quaker, he says, I cannot teach your Mrs. creeds; but I pledge myself not to teach my own. I pledge myself (and if I deceive you, desert me, and give me up) to confine myself to those points of Chris. tianity in which all Christians agree. To which Mrs. Trimmer replies, that, in the first place, he cannot do this; and, in the next place, if he did do it, it would not be enough. But why, we would ask, cannot Mr. Lancaster effect his first object? The practical and the feeling parts of religion are much more likely to attract the attention and provoke the questions of children, than its speculative doctrines. A child is not very likely to put any questions at all to a catechising master, and still less likely to lead him into subtle and profound disquisition. It appears to us not only practicable, but very easy, to confine the religious instruction of the poor, in the first years of life, to those general feelings and principles which are suitable to the established church, and to every sect; afterwards, the When a boy gets into a singing tone in reading,' says Mr. Lancaster, the best mode of cure that I have hitherto found effectual is by the force of ridicule.-Decorate the offender with matches, ballads, (dying speeches if needful;) and in this garb send him round the school, with some boys before him crying matches, &c., exactly imitating the dismal tones with which such things are hawked about London streets, as will readily recur to the reader's memory. I believe many boys behave rudely to Jews more on account of the manner in which they cry "old clothes," than because they are Jews. I have always found excellent effects from treating boys, who sing or tone in their reading, in the manner described. It is sure to turn the laugh of the whole school upon the delinquent; it provokes risibility, in spite of every endeavour to check it, in all but the offender. I have seldom known a boy thus punished once, for whom it was |