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To prove that I do not magnify the extremes of cold in that part of the world, I beg to refer to Mr Sauer's account of Billing's expedition, and the present Admiral of Saritcheff's account of the same, when 43 degrees of Reaumur, or 74 degrees of Fahrenheit, were repeatedly known. I will also add my testimony from experience to the extent of 42 degrees. I have also seen the minute book of a gentleman at Yakutsk where 47 degrees of Reaumur were registered, equal to 84 degrees of Fahrenheit.

to permit my sinking in the snow; in case I had. the guide with snow-shoes was near to render me assistance. We were now frequently compelled to wander about on the borders of precipices, and directing our route by the shade or appearance of the snow; habit having accustomed me, as well as the people of the country, to a pretty accurate calculation whether or not the snow would bear me. I have even seen the horses refuse to proceed, their sagacity in that case being equal to man's; nor will the leading dog of a narte, if he is good, run the vehicle into a track where there is deep snow or water. ***

We had now only one day's meat left, but were fortunate in shooting a couple of partridges which the guides brought me. We had still some rye flour, and butter, and with that hoped to cross the river without any subsequent difficulty. At four in the morning we had 13 degrees of frost by Reaumur, and at noon 73 degrees of heat of Fahrenheit. After forty miles of severe travelling we at length reached the river, which was to close this terrible journey, which was full of shoals and rapids, and may be declared useless. The islands in it abound with birches, larches, and alders, as also with the poplar, and a few pines. There is an abundance of wild berries of a fine flavour; and the pastures are exceedingly rich. The scenery was, also, in many places, highly beautiful; and the river af forded a novel spectacle, being confined by the most beautiful natural quays of crystal ice, while the river actually roared from the velocity of its

current.

of his constitution, and declare it unequal-in with two white bears bound to the north, but
Well may our author exult in the strength
As we continued our melancholy route, we fell

strange ships had appeared upon their coast, was willing to know who they were, and had accordingly sent with them, agreeable to their request, two interpreters, one of whom understood their own language as well as the Russian, while the other, meaning myself, understood the languages of most maritime nations. The commissary desired, as from the Emperor, that all due care should be taken of, and all due respect paid to us, especially to myself, who was one of the chief interpreters of the empire.' After this opening harangue was completed, the turn of which inspired me with some de- Indeed, there can be but little doubt that the local gree of hope, one of the most respectable of the situation of the Kolyma, bordering on the latitude Tchuktchi got up and said, that he was in want of of 70 degrees, and almost the most easterly part of no interpreter, and therefore would not take one.' the continent of Asia, is a colder one than MelThis laconic reply completely disconcerted us. ville Island or the centre of the American Polar The next, an old and cunning fellow, called Ka-coast. Okotsk, Idgiga, Yakutsk, Tomsk and Tocharga, said that boys and girls should not be at- bolsk, are considered equally cold and exposed as tended to in a case of such importance; that he, the mouths of the Lena, Yana, or Kolyma. Even a chief, had not demanded an interpreter, although Irkutsk, about the latitude of London, has yearly a a nephew of his had done so.' He expatiated upon frost of 40 degrees of Reaumur, or 58 degrees below the impropriety of taking from those youths a com- the zero of Fahrenheit; yet, the utmost degree of munication of such importance, as should alone cold that I have observed, I have never known athave come from a chief. I could not but approve tended by that crackling noise of the breath which the justice of the remark, and began to suspect the has been related, nor with those other strange senwhole was a hoax, and that they had not made any sations which some have described; though I have demand of an interpreter. It was therefore told seen axes split to pieces, and witnessed the ill efthem that two nartes would be of no great conse- fects of touching iron, glass, or crockery, with the quence to them, and that as the Emperor had so naked skin, which will infallibly adhere to them. sent, they ought to take us, for that we dared not However, I soon had reason to consider the coldest return to merit his displeasure.' A fresh consulta- day as the finest, because it was then sure to be tion was hereupon held by the savages, and they calm. came to a determination, that as the great Emperor himself wished to send two interpreters to Behring's Straits, of course he could have no objection to pay for the transport of such people.' Upon inquiring what demand they would make, they said fifty bags of tobacco,' a quantity equalling one pounds weight. To make such a present in adhundred and twenty poods, or near five thousand vance, was madness in me to think of, and the project appeared, as indeed it proved, to be wholly lost, for they added, that he could be no great Emperor who could not make so small a present, seeing that he could command the riches of all his people.' They also observed that I must be a poor interpreter if I could not satisfy the demand myself.'— Alas! they might as well have demanded five millions as five thousand pounds of me. One of the knowing ones observed, and I mention it as evincing the sagacity of those people, that 'he doubted whether I was an intepreter of the great Emperor's,' saying, that I could not even speak the Russian language, for that he noticed that the Russian Cossack interpreted from the Tchukskoi to Mr Matiushkin, and Mr M. again in a different dialect to me. All this was too true to be denied. They then asked, of what use I could possibly be to them, when I neither understood the Russian nor Tchukskoi languages. This last truism quite appalled the whole of us, and from that moment the point was given up. It was not a little singular that these rude people should all along have known that a third Toion, or Chief, for I was considered as one, was in the fair, and demanded who and what he was. I have, however, no idea that their refusal arose either from fear or ill will, but simply from avarice.

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The weather proved exceedingly cold in January and February, but never so severe as to prevent our walks, except during those times when the wind was high; it then became insupportable out of doors, and we were obliged to remain at home. Forty degrees of frost of Fahrenheit never appear to affect us in calm weather so much as ten or fifteen during the time of a breeze; yet to witness the aurora borealis, I have frequently quitted my bed in those extremes of cold, without shoes or stockings, and with no dress on but a parka, or

frock.

led.

fear, probably on either side, kept us apart. Still It appears that the natives on the north- along the Okota, we reached twenty-five miles, the ern coast of Asia are not less voracious horses enjoyed very fine pastures, but our proviCochrane tells us of one who "grumbled" Of the last of the rein-deer, the flesh was so far than their brothers of America, for Capt. sions entirely at an end. The rains had again overtaken us, and were rapidly swelling the rivers. because he had only twenty pounds of meat gone that I could not eat it: the Yakuti, however in a day. This was a Yakut, and our author are so fond of putrid meat, termed in England game mentions one or two individuals of that tribe for indeed it was nothing else, that they finished it, whom he saw upwards of ninety years old. regretting only that it was so little in quantity Whether they too indulged in this enor-rain, we made near fifty miles, the horses swimThe second day without food, and in a torrent of mous eating does not appear; but we who are scarcely recovered from a severe fit of dyspepsia, would give all our copy money and write reviews without stint, for a twentieth part of a Yakut's power of digestion. We have little room for any of our author's hair-breadth escapes, or details of his exploits in sliding down frozen mountains and swimming over ice-cold rivers; but in common justice to the Captain, we must insert some of them.

ming and wading through thirty or forty little rapid
streams. These are formed by the rains and the
melting of the snow from the eastern range of ele-
vated mountains: they subside and dry up about
which was carried by the stream into the Okota.
the month of September. We lost one horse,

At length by great labour we reached the fording place at the Okota. It was, however, impossible to attempt it, the guides observing, that the horses might pass the river, but not loaded. We therefore halted, and next morning found a place where was a canoe on the opposite bank. Thereupon unloading the horses, we turned them into the river, and We were now much annoyed with a considera- they all reached the opposite bank in safety. The ble fall of rain, and passed a bad night in conse- question then was how to get the canoe over; I quence. Next day there was every appearance of was the only person who could swim, but the water the rain continuing, and I reduced the allowance of was still so cold that I felt no preference to that meat one half. A hurricane coming on, we were mode. Necessity at last compelled me, and havobliged to halt, and were most unpleasantly off in ing procured a short stout piece of drift-wood, our wet leather clothes. As soon as possible, how- which was very buoyant, I crossed at a narrow ever, we resumed our journey along an elevated part of the stream, with a leather thong fast to my deep, presenting nothing for a fire, or for the sup- down above a hundred yards, but the Yakuti, keepvalley where the snow was soft and dangerously waist. The rapidity of the stream carried me port of the horses, nor a shrub of any descriptioning, by a sort of run, in a parallel line, were ready to be seen. I have scarcely ever seen a place feet reach the earth in search of food; here, howwhere the horses could not by scraping with their ever, the thing was impossible, from the depth of the snow; and indeed the poor animals seemed to know it, as they would not waste their strength in the attempt. The Yakuti put on long faces at the obstructions we met with, never having witnessed such deep and difficult roads; for, in ordinary times good pasturage is to be had in this part of the valley.

The horses having to contend with such difficulties, our journey was continued on foot. My snowshoes I gave up to one of the guides, in consideration of his being very heavy, while, for myself, with a quick motion, my weight was not sufficient

to haul me back, if necessary. I however reached took violent exercise. The breadth of the swimin safety; and, instantly throwing off my clothes, ming part might only have been fifteen or twenty yards, and across the strength of the stream possibly not more than four or five yards; yet I barely accomplished it. The feat was thankfully acknowledged by the astonished Yakuti, when I returned with an excellent canoe.

Lord Byron swam the Hellespont, and John Cochrane the Okota. Of the two feats, mine was surely the most difficult; his lordship was neither fatigued, hungry, nor cold, nor compelled to his undertaking; while I had each and all of those evils to contend with.

When the rivers were too broad or too

swift to be swum, they were passed on rafts; The Young Scholar's Manual, or Compansomewhat after this fashion.

To starve on one side of the river, to be drowned in it, or die upon the other side, appeared alike to me; and I accordingly embarked our little baggage upon the raft, composed of ten logs of trees about fifteen feet long, crossed by five others, and crossed again by two more, to form a seat for the person

danger, and keep in the centre of the river.

ion to the Spelling Book. By Titus
Strong, A. M. Fourth Edition. Green-
field, Mass. 1822. 16mo. pp. 90.
The Common Reader. By T. Strong, A.
M. Greenfield, Mass. 1824., 12mo. pp.

228.

capacities of children; and its principal claim is to revision and improvement.

Of "The Common Reader" we shall presently say some things in praise; but we must request Mr Strong to have patience, till we have done justice to his "Directions relative to the Management of a School," and his "Rules for Reading." In these, if in any thing, we should expect him to avoid errors, in both writing and sentiment. We endeavoured, in reading them, not to be hypercritical, but must say that we observed vastly more faults than should exist. Some of the errors are typographical; others relate to punctuation; but many of them are of a higher order.

Mr Strong says in his preface, that "future editions will invariably answer to the present, both in matter and form;". promise,-better broken than kept.

-a bad

He proposes that the school should be divided into classes, "the instructor being governed in the distribution by a similarity of proficiency in the art of reading on the part of the scholars." It is hard copying such clumsy sentences; but the next is not

better.

"The classes may consist of from twelve to twenty children, and of those who are able to read at all without spelling, ought not to exceed three in number." It is plain to common sense, that no such rules for classing scholars can be of any

taking charge of the baggage, which was lashed to WE should fail of performing a most imthe raft. The spars were lashed together by leather thongs, and two or three leather bags were cut portant duty as reviewers, if we neglected up to increase their length. Each spar was also con- those works which are designed for chilnected to the one on each side of it by three grum-dren. These are to sow the seeds which mets formed out of the green branches of the trees will take the deepest root, and which, on the banks of the river; and the raft appeared to when they spring up, will bear most fruit. be strong enough to resist a severe concussion. We This duty is rendered the more imperious, also provided ourselves with drift spars formed into oars, to serve to steer, and assist in gaining the from the facility with which recommendashore should an accident happen. My papers and tions are obtained for school-books possessjournals were fastened round my body, and I took ing very inferior merits. We know several my station in the bow, in order that I might avoid distinguished literary gentlemen, who will not recommend a work without examining it critically; but every day presents some work, characterized by great faults, sanctioned by great names. Their remark, that they give the works "a cursory perusal," furnishes no excuse. No man should recommend a book, merely from "looking over its pages;" and those who do, debase equally their learning and their virtue. The first of the books before us consists of twenty-six short lessons, containing questions and answers on such subjects, with a few exceptions, as children may begin to learn as soon as they can read. These occupy a little more than half of the book, and the remainder is principally a dictionary of common words. The first lesson relates to letters, syllables, and words; the second to points; the third to marks; the fourth to capitals. In the third lesson the mark for accent should have been given; The Directions seem to us equally frivoand also the figures, as used by Walk-lous and useless, except that which recomer, to denote the sounds of the vowels. mends opening and closing the school with These should have been applied to the a short prayer. At the close of the book words defined in the latter part of the book. Mr Strong has given forms of prayer for The eighth lesson relates to the sciences; these occasions. He appears to be an "orthe ninth to grammar. These should have thodox" man, and some persons will object been omitted, for they will give no informa- to several of his expressions. Cannot a tion to children at the proper age for using form of prayer be found, which will be perthis book. Several of the lessons which fectly unobjectionable as to doctrine; which follow, relate to arithmetic, and contain the will express exactly all that is always most most important tables. These are well, for proper to be said while praying; which will they can be understood. The eighteenth, relieve the young and modest teacher from on geometry, will not be sufficiently intel- all embarrassment of every kind; and the ligible. For example :length of which which will be precisely adapted to the occasion? Will it not be

It was with difficulty we moved our vessel into the main channel, from the number of eddies; but having once reached it, we descended in a most astonishing manner, sometimes actually making the head giddy as we passed the branches of trees, rocks, or islands. No accident happening, and the river widening. I began to congratulate my companions on the probability of breakfasting the next day in Okotsk, but as yet I had not got upon the proper side of the stream, the islands and shoals perpetually turning us off. The Cossack and Yakut continued in a state of alarm, not entirely without cause, for upon rounding a point of land, we observed a large tree jutting into the river, with a tremendous and rapid surf running over it, the branches of the tree preventing the raft from passing over the body of it, which was so deep in the water as to preclude the hope of escaping with life, at least impossible to avoid being wrecked. The Cossack and Yakut crossed themselves, while I was quietly awaiting the result in the bow. We struck, and such was the force of the rebound that I was in hopes we should have been thrown outside the shaft in the subsequent approach. I was, however, disappointed, for the fore part of the raft was actually sucked under the tree, and the after part rose so high out of the water that it completely turned over, bringing the baggage under water; the whole then, with the Yakut and Cossack, proceeded down the stream, and fortunately brought up upon an island about one hundred yards below. In the mean while my situation was dangerous; being in the bow, I could not hold on the raft as my companions had been able to do, for fear of being jammed in between the raft and the tree. I therefore quitted my hold, and with infinite difficulty, clung to the outer branches on the rapid side of the tree; my body was sucked under, and no part of me was out of water but my head and arms. I could not long remain in such a state; and making, therefore, one vigorous effort, on the success of which it was clear my life depended, I gained the top of the tree. I was throwing off my upper park, when the branch gave way, and I dropped down, half drowning, to the island. It was a fortunate circumstance that the raft upset, as otherwise it could not have brought up at the island; which it did in consequence of the baggage lashed to the raft being so deep in the water.

We should, did our limits permit, make some remarks on the state of slavery still existing in Russia, which appears to us as severe in some instances as that of the Indians and Negroes in the mines of South America, previous to the revolution in that country. We think the book will furnish a few hours' amusement to many besides Lord Melville, and we think too that it will instruct at the same time that it amuses. We hope that Capt. Cochrane may live to make more journeys, and tell them as agreeably as he has told of this.

use.

The author advises that those who

are learning the alphabet should read singly; but these profit at least as much by being classed, as scholars more advanced. So many may compose a class, as can conveniently read from one book.

Q. Of what does Geometry treat? magnitudes in general. A. Of the description, properties and relations of better, in the next edition, to substitute the

Q. What is an angle?

A. An angle is the inclination of two lines which meet but not in the same direction.

The twenty-fifth lesson is liable to the same objection.

Q. What are clouds?

They are vapours or fogs which float in the air from a quarter of a mile to three miles high. When they dissolve or fall to the ground, they

cause rain, and in cold weather hail or snow.

Q. What causes an eclipse of the sun?
A. The moon casting its shadow in the same
way upon the earth.

These examples will also show that Mr
Strong is not always careful as to sense and
punctuation.

The plan of this Manual is very good, but it is executed with too little regard to the

Lord's prayer for those we have mentioned? We are surprised that the author-as he undertakes to direct the religious exercises of the school-omitted to recommend the reading of the Scriptures. We are very far from wishing to encourage the use of them as a substitute for common reading lessons; but as a religious exercise, they would certainly be most proper-at least before the morning prayer.

The "Rules for Reading" are said to be selected from Murray's Introduction to the English Reader; but Mr Strong must be answerable for their correctness. He has faults enough, without copying those of others. The following paragraph appears to be original.

The two first, and indeed principal qualifications

200

necessary to form a good reader, are voice and judgment. A defect in the former may indeed be partially remedied by unwearied application and industry, but a defect in the latter will inevitably prove fatal to improvement.

What difference is there between the first, and the principal qualifications for reading? A defect in voice, it seems, may be remedied by unwearied application and industry. What is the difference between unwearied application and industry. Both, it appears, are necessary to remedy a defect in voice; but a defect in judgment will inevitably prove fatal. But cannot a defect in judgment be remedied by unwearied application and industry? We suppose the author thinks so, for he proceeds: "To cultivate this, therefore, should be the great. and leading object with every instructor."

The first Rule is, to be particularly careful to pronounce all the vowels distinctly. We think much more is gained by a constant effort to pronounce the consonants distinctly.

Rule 3. As the art of reading depends much on the proper management of the breath, it should be used with economy. The voice ought to be relieved at every stop; slightly at a comma, more leisurely at a semicolon or colon, and completely at a period. Does this mean that we should take breath at every stop? A worse rule cannot be given. Try it by reading.

the style of the lessons, both in prose and
verse, is almost invariably chaste, and is
frequently elegant; and we have noticed
no passages which are unquestionably ob-
We give Mr
jectionable as to morals.

MISCELLANY.

CUI BONO?

What's the use of't?

Trans.

Strong this praise, heartily; and will leave
him with an assurance, that we think his
book may be made highly useful, by re-bleness of the human understanding, than
formations which it will be easy to make.

NOTHING displays more clearly the feethe illiberal prejudices which men very generally entertain of their own personal pursuits. Science, which should correct the dimness of the vision, and give to it a wider scope, serves only to increase it. Or rather like the telescope, it extends the vision in the particular line in which it is directed, to the entire exclusion of every foreign object. "No author," says Montesquieu, "can hope to be esteemed by such as are not interested in the same branch of science with himself. The philosopher has a sovereign contempt for the man whose head is only stored with facts; and he is in his own turn looked upon as a visionary by the person endowed with a good memory." This tion of the truth of his own assertion, in sagacious writer furnishes an exemplificaanother passage of his Persian Letters, where he characterizes poets, as "authors, whose profession it is to impose shackles on good sense, and to bury reason under

agrémens, as women used to be smothered

under jewels and finery." Montesquieu was a wit and a philosopher, but it is clear he

A familiar Introduction to Crystallography, including an Explanation of the Common and Reflective Goniometer, with an Appendix, containing the Mathematical Relations of Crystals, Rules for Drawing their Figures, and an Alphabetical Arrangement of Minerals, their Synonyms, and Primary Forms. Illustrated by four hundred Engravings. By Henry James Brooke, F. R. S., &c.* THIS work is peculiarly adapted to the use of students in Mineralogy, and has received the unqualified approbation of the most distinguished mineralogists in Europe. The first part is devoted to the definitions of the terms employed in the description of crystals, which are given in a peculiarly distinct and intelligible manner, and are amply illustrated by neatly executed diagrams. The principle upon which the reflective Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure's smiling train; goniometer of Dr Wollaston is constructed, Hate, fear, and grief, the family of pain.' and the application of this elegant instruMr Strong tells us that the points of in- ment, are so fully and clearly explained, understood little of the uses of poetry. terrogation and exclamation "should be that all idea of its use being attended with The scholar contemns the man of business attended with a little elevation of the voice." difficulty is wholly removed. In rendering as one of "Nature's journeymen,” useful in What he means by their being attended with the first part of his work quite elementary, keeping some of the coarser machinery of Mr Brooke has enabled the young mineral-life in motion; and the man of business with ogist, even if unacquainted with the rudi-equal charity regards the student as an imments of geometry, to make very consider becile pedant, that knows nothing of the able progress in the science of Crystallog- world, and is liable to have his pocket raphy. Those who are not in the habit of picked at every turn. The metaphysician mathematical investigations, and who can- looks down upon the chemist, the mineralonot avail themselves of the theory of decregist, the botanist, as so many harmless ments in tracing the relation between the grubs, busily occupied with the outer rind secondary and primary forms of crystals, of the earth, to the neglect of the immorWe have not time to notice the other er-will derive great assistance from the "Ta- tal mind which presides over it; and these bles of the Modifications of the Primary again despise the metaphysician as a shalrors in this part of the work. On page 38, we observe the first verse of the forty-Forms," in the eleventh section. These low theorist, spinning cobwebs out of his first Psalm quoted, with one error, and one will enable them to compare all the classes brain, to entangle smaller fools than himof simple secondary forms with each other, self. The treasures of the antiquarian are interpolation. The typographical errors, and with their respective primary forms, mere rubbish in the eyes of the poet, and especially in punctuation, are very numerous throughout the book. The authors of and will present a general view of all the the creations of the latter are silly dreams former. In short, every profession recip in the matter-of-fact apprehension of the posite; and the man of pleasure, who has rocates a most cordial contempt for its opIn the Appendix, Mr Brooke has given them all, by despising them all equally, no profession whatever, puts himself above an outline of the method of applying the Even different branches of the same pur theory of decrements, to determine the re-suit inspire no great respect for each other, lations between the secondary and primary and "the player," says La Bruyère, “loll of Brown University, Dr Lyman of Hat-forms, and of calculating the laws of decre- ing in his chariot, scatters the mud in the ment. In these calculations he has sub-face of the great Corneille, to whose trage field, and Rodolphus Dickinson, Esq. stituted spherical for plane trigonometry. dies he owes his fortune. Chez plusieurs,

a little elevation of voice, is not obvious. If he means to repeat the old rule, that questions and exclamations should be closed with the rising inflection, let him adopt this inflection the next time he interrogates his neighbour, “How do you do?" We wish that those who give rules for reading, would either think and observe for themselves, or

consult Walker's Rhetorical Grammar.

the various articles should have been mentioned. We should render to every man his due. This injustice is becoming common,

but we see no excuse for it.

The errors which we have noticed, are sufficient to authorize us in saying, that they should not have been sanctioned by recommendations from the Presidents of Bowdoin and Middlebury Colleges, the Chancellor

Mr Strong's selection of reading lessons, is, on the whole, very good. Perhaps he has not fully accomplished his object of giving those only, which are accommodated to the capacities of the first and second classes in our common schools. It may also be said, that too many of his pieces assume a very grave tone of morality, and hence are unnecessarily tedious to children. But

known classes of the primary.

The fourth section contains a full explanof the secondary forms of crystals, and of ation of the symbols used in the description the method of applying them.

It was the intention of the learned author of the above work to have published an edition in this country, but being advised of the limited demand that could be expected for it, he relinquished the design, and has placed a few copies of the English edition in the hands of Dr J. W. Webster, for sale at the cost in London, viz. $3,50. Orders for the work may be addressed to Cummings, Hilliard, & Co., No. 1, Cornhill.

savant et pédant sont synonymes."

Of all these classes, none find it so difficult to persuade others of their fair pretensions, as the cultivators of the elegant arts; none are brought down with such severity to the cynical standard of the cui bono? The collector of facts, the practical man of science, nay the vulgar

"Varias mutantia formas Somnia vana jacent "

mechanic, the blacksmith, carpenter, tailor, touching upon all the sweets of miscella- | have been the theme of so much jealous &c. carry with them immediate conviction neous literature, as they were once accus- literary altercation from Plutarch to the of the object and utility of their labours; tomed to do, settle down upon some such present day? What of Dionysius, whose but in what way do the poet, the painter, dry and exceedingly wholesome topic as blackened reputation has been purified by the novelist, &c. further the great business "Tread-mill," "Arbitrary Government," the labours of successive apologists, until of life? How do they supply its wants or "Combination Laws," "Court of Chancery," the "tyrant of Syracuse" shines forth a even its comforts? What serviceable dis-"Price of Tea," "Holy Alliance," "Mine-pure and devoted patriot. What of Philip coveries have they ever made? What ralogical Systems,"" Office of Judge Advo- of Macedon, who from a perfidious oppresoperative and before unknown truths have cate," "Dry Rot," &c. &c.; all of them, sor, the character imputed to him by De-they revealed? In short, of what use are save the last, crowded into one of the very mosthenes, has been metamorphosed by they? "The Iliad and the Odyssey," said last numbers of the Edinburgh Review. Mitford into a benevolent and enlightened a worthy mathematician, "may be very In our own country, the North American sovereign. How stand the ancient foundagood poems, but, after all, what do they has still an "ample verge" assigned to tions of Roman history? Time has sapped prove?" The most enlightened sages, in purely literary discussion. But the spirit them cruelly, and the first four centuries of their esprit de corps, have not concealed of the nation runs quite in another direc- her royal and republican grandeur, which their contempt for pursuits so dissimilar tion; and the doctrine of utility is enforced have furnished the basis of so many fine from their own. Cicero, as Seneca records in its broadest extent. In our growing schemes of government, of the profound of him (Epist. 49), said, that "if his age state of society, where new relations are treatises of Macchiavelli and of Monteswere to be doubled, he should find no time constantly suggesting new wants to be quieu in particular, are now discovered to to throw away upon lyrical poetry." The gratified, it is perhaps well that it should be mere "old wives' tales." poetry of Pindar! The Roman orator be so; and yet one might join with the is known, however, to have been guilty author of a very beautiful essay on the of bad verses himself, and it was perhaps "Value of Classical Learning," in a late his ill fortune that led him to the splenetic number of the North American, in wishing The glorious self-devotion of Scævola, reflection. "We cannot attain to it," says that "a disinterested passion for the ele-Cocles, the Horatii, of Lucretia, the inspiMontaigne, "let us avenge ourselves by gant and ornamental arts, might be super it may be, and many other beautiful images, ration of Numa, the patriotism of Brutus, abusing it." Nous ne pouvons pas y attein- added to those sober and practical views of dre, vengeons nous par en médire. Pascal, utility," by which the nation is distinto which our fancies have fondly clung from earliest childhood, must all be abanin his terrible "Pensées," declares that guished. "honest people make no distinction between the trade of a poet and that of an embroiderer." Pascal was a polemic and a mathematician. Every one knows what small account Locke has made of poetry, in his valuable treatise on Education." Poetry and gaming, which usually go together, are alike in this too, that they seldom bring any advantage but to those who have nothing else to live on." "I know not what reason a father can have to wish his son a -poet," &c. Every body knows also the reply of Lord Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, upon her ordering a hundred pounds

to be given to the author of the Fairy Queen, whom the treasurer was pleased to denominate a ballad-maker. Sir Isaac Newton quotes Barrow, without dissenting from him, as having defined poetry "a kind of ingenious nonsense." But instances need not be multiplied of the bigotted partiality of the most liberal minds for their own peculiar walks, to the utter disparagement of those of others, especially when these last seem to shrink from a trial of their own worth, at the merciless ordeal of the cui bono. "Of what use is it?" said a famous French critic, on hearing a poem highly eulogized by some of his friends, "will it lower the price of grain?"

But should the man of fiction be inclined
to encounter the man of fact on his own
ground of the cui bono, the latter may not
find himself to have so decidedly the ad-
vantage as might at first be suspected.
Take the historian for example. What-
ever be his accomplishments as a fine writ-
er, his value must chiefly rest upon his ve-
racity. Now what are our chances of
meeting with a fair and faithful narrative?
Glance your eyes over antiquity and point
to the page whence we are to date the com-
mencement of a credible and consistent
chronicle of events. To pass by the enor-

mous fictions of the Asiatic and Egyptian
dynasties, and the debatable ground of
early Grecian story, the heroic ages, and
the expedition to Troy, let us come down to
the Father of History. How much do we
here find to rely upon? "All that Herodotus
has himself seen," say his advocates, "is to
be believed." And is this all! Out of this
copious chronicle, is that only to be receiv-
ed, to which the historian can personally
testify! His books," poeta mendacia dul-
cia," have indeed other claims than their
eloquence to be patronised by the names of
the Muses. Even in the account of con-
temporary transactions the reader finds his
organ of credulity (if such there be in Dr
Gall's scheme) very liberally taxed, and
one may meet with some strange incongrui-
ties in the Persian expedition and charac-
ter that would lead him to the belief, that,
had a Persian historian told the tale, the
characters of Xerxes and his nation might
have fared somewhat differently.

This disposition to estimate every thing upon the scales of the cui bono has been gaining ground in the world during the last century. Not that elegant arts are abandoned, but attention is much more strongly and widely drawn to practical pursuits (so called), to physical science, to politics, economy, statistics, &c., in short to those How are we to reconcile the contradicstudies which seem to have a more direct and tions of character imputed to some of the effectual influence upon the condition of so-leading personages in Greece, in a riper ciety. Take the leading foreign journals for instance in Great Britain, a good test of public opinion in this matter, and you will find that the critics now-a-days, instead of

period of her glory, when she became the
seat of philosophy and letters? What shall
we believe of Socrates, of Aristophanes, the
philosopher and the poet, whose principles

doned as dreams (vig, it is true) be-
fore the eye of modern criticism, which,
like the telescope-if we may call upon
this instrument to do us service once more-
sees clearest into the remotest objects.
What shall we believe of Carthage, that
strange paradox of a faithless, savage peo-
ple, and one of the most liberal and per-
Had her
fect governments of antiquity?
historians survived, think you she would
What shall we say of the Romans of a later
be registered in infamy as she now is?
date, of Sylla, the scourge or the saviour of
his country? Of Pompey, the disinterest-
the liberties of Rome? What of Tiberius,
ed patriot or the politic conspirator against
Nero, Domitian, &c. &c. the whole show of
imperial monsters, whose black reputations
Tacitus, like a righteous executioner, has
hung up in chains, to the terror of posteri-
ty? Who can gravely give credit to all
the recorded atrocities of the exhausted
octogenarian voluptuary in his isle of Ca-
prea, of the incestuous incendiary Nero, or
of Caligula conferring the consulship upon

his horse.

"Credat Judæus Apella; Non ego."

But to quote no other examples from antiquity of the perversion of historical truth, what shall we say of the accredited reports of George, bishop of Cappadocia, who, after a life of merciless extortion and gross impiety, has been canonized as a Christian martyr, as "the patron saint of England, of chivalry, and of the garter."

In modern times, however, when the press diffuses knowledge rapidly and widely, when truth may be freely and innoxiously recorded and reported, when the science of politics and government is more generally as well as more thoroughly understood, we may expect to meet with veracious testimony. "But how," says that subtle poli

path that leads to truth in despite of the many
hundreds that lead to error.

latter from personal observation and per sonal feeling. A just history represents events as they are, and men as they appear. A skilful fiction, on the other hand, represents men as they are and events as they appear probable. Which then should pro

duce the deepest effect upon the mind, upon the character of the reader?

tician, the Cardinal De Retz, "can I rely on the reports of writers who tell me of the motives and measures of the cabinet, when But supposing both the man of fact and of I, who am one of the actors, scarcely know fiction to be virtuous and able writers in what is passing there myself?"-Without | their peculiar departments, it may still be running over the inconsistencies and num- doubted whether the former makes a wider berless obliquities in modern history, obli- and more penetrating impression upon the quities which seem to have been multiplied public mind, than the latter. What history, by the extended interest, and the share for instance, can be pretended to have had In the defence which we have set up for now taken by men in the conduct of public the same intellectual, moral, and political works of fancy, we may seem to have wanaffairs, and which have added the prejudices influence upon the character of a people, as dered somewhat from the original ground of party zeal to the other sources of histori- the poems of Homer. A very discerning of discussion, which was not a vindication cal infidelity, let us simply cast our eyes critic pronounces them "the bond which of any particular profession, but an exposiupon the chronicle of our mother country, held the Greek nation together." Herodo- tion of the frequency of an undue estimaas compiled by her temperate and ablest tus informs us that "the whole theogony of tion of the practical importance of our own historian. Without reverting to the hasty the Greeks may be referred to the composi- pursuits, to the exclusion of dissimilar ones. compilation of the early floating traditions tions of Homer and Hesiod." The Greek And as an illustration of this we have enof the Saxon dynasties, look at the latest tragic drama, fashioned upon a similar ele- deavoured to show what argument could be period to which Hume has continued his vated standard, had an obvious effect of sus- offered in favour of pure fiction, as being work, and after having adopted the appar- taining that exalted tone of public feeling, a class of composition least defensible on ently dispassionate views of the philosophic for which that people were so remarkable; the score of utility. The man of fact, from historian, turn to Brodie's account of the and their comedies, from a very opposite the highest deductions of science, to the same period, and behold a new current of cause, held a more positive controul over humblest effort of mechanical ingenuity, carfacts as well as of inferences let in upon popular manners. The familiar anecdote ries with him immediate conviction of the you, that sweep away all your previous con- of Tyrtæus, the sentence pronounced upon usefulness of his labours. "No man," Voltaire clusions in an entirely opposite direction. Homer by Plato, the ordonnance of the has somewhere remarked, " is so much reveEven the gloomy characters of Richard III, Spartans prescribing the cultivation of a renced by the world as the professor of an and of Cromwell, find their advocates in certain class of poetry, all show the im- obscure and difficult science, whose results this benevolent age, and two eminent Eng- mense weight attributed to this species of are applicable to the common purposes of lish writers have endeavoured to wash them composition among the enlightened Greeks. life." An enlightened mind, however, as white as those of most sovereigns. But to descend to our own times, it may be should penetrate deeper. The positive inBut why should we go to Europe for ex-difficult to point to any one, or two, or any fluence of speculative pursuits on man, alamples in point, when they are so rife in though less rapid in its operation than that our own country, nay, at our own doors. of practical pursuits, is not less certain. Notwithstanding the many circumstantial The physical enginery of the latter (if we narrations of the first and most important may so express ourselves) furnishes the battle of our revolution, the name of the necessaries, the comforts, the luxuries of veteran who virtually commanded in it, 'for life. The moral enginery of the former he absolutely controlled the point of danworks only upon the heart and the underger, and with his own troops sustained the standing. Inventions in mechanics, diswhole weight of the attack,' the name of coveries in philosophy, researches in histoPrescott has been hardly noticed, except ry, supply the wants of human life, and in the incidental and scattering records of store the mind with such knowledge as the few last years;-Botta, in his celebratmay direct it in the conduct of human afed history of our war, has copied the same fairs. The productions of elegant art, the injustice, and our national painter, deceivspeculative creations of genius, of whatever ed by history, has assigned the commander kind, present beautiful and lofty subjects of in the redoubt the station and the appearcontemplation to the mind, that give a relance of a common private. "Oh, quote me ish to life, or rather that raise us above life. not history," said Lord Orford to his son "Because the acts or events of true histoHorace, "for that I know to be false." ry," says Lord Bacon with that nice discrimination which distinguishes him equally on subjects of taste as in philosophy, "have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical; because true history propoundeth the successes and issues of actions not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, therefore poesy feigns them more just in retribution, and more according to revealed Providence: so as it appeareth, poesy serveth to magnanimity, to morality, and to delectation. And therefore it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto the nature of things." Even inferior productions of imagination; by presenting a means of innocent recreation, wean the mind of the indolent and the vicious from grosser pleasures, and shed a

dozen regular histories that have produced a stronger pulsation of public feeling than the Waverley Romances. Exhibiting in the broad light, which they do, all distinguishing features of national character, all the local and hereditary attachments, the prejudices transmitted from their ancestors, and made dear by such a descent, all the beautiful fancies, the romantic superstitions, that have arisen out of the speculative temper of the people and the wild complexion of their scenery, all the momentous objects for which they have contended, and the principles which have animated them in the contest, in short, all those habits of thought, of feeling, of adventure, which have set them apart from all others and made them a nation,-had histories similar to these by the author of Waverley appeared at an earlier But, says the man of fact, after all this period, before the Scottish people had been stringing together of insulated instances of cemented by so many other associations, misapprehension or mendacity, there will they might have formed a bond of union as still remain behind a large mass of valua- coercive and as lasting as the fictions of ble and incontestible truths. And how far Homer. And should a novelist of equal superior, of how much greater moment to powers arise in our own country, youthful mankind, is the historian, who from uncol- and plastic from its youth, as its national oured facts draws sane and philosophic character now is, and altogether unexerdeductions, to the writer of fiction, who cised by such an impulse, it might not be spins out of his invention an ideal state of easy to predict what would be his influence things that in conduct either leads to noth-in binding together the scattered energies, ing or leads to error?

the conflicting sentiments of the people, It is true, bad works of every description and animating them with a central princiare to be deprecated; but whether an ill-ple of feeling and action. written novel or poem is as prejudicial to society as an ill-written history, may admit of a doubt. What we know to be false, can never have the same unwholesome influence upon our conduct, as what we receive as true, but which, in reality, is false. Then how difficult for the historian, with all his honest intentions, to detect the one

We have but one word more to say of those peculiarities in which history must yield to fiction. The former depicts men as they play their part in public life, that is, en masque; the latter, as they are disclosed in the unsuspicious intercourse of private and domestic life. The former copies from hearsay or written report, the

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