most unconsciously has accompanied our analysis. We could not, indeed, even if it were thought worth while, here enter into a careful and minute detail on this subject. There are some important positions which we are not at all prepared to admit; such, for example, as that our idea of the uniformity of nature is an induction from experience, that a body can act where it is not, and others of less importance. But as a whole, we take leave of the work with the confident prediction, that all who are competent to judge of the subject will allow it to be a most original, comprehensive, and thoroughly considered exposition of the subject of which it treats, and one which will bear a favorable comparison with any similar product of the English mind, in any age. None who wish to see a chart of the whole range of human knowledge, with its lines drawn by a skilled and firm hand, and with its depths and shallows accurately defined, together with an accurate determination of the true processes of human thought in the pursuit of truth, can wisely forego the thorough study of these volumes. Possessing such high claims to notice, we have been surprised at the small impression which the work seems to have made abroad. Neither of the leading Quarterly Reviews, we believe, has noticed it; while works on kindred subjects, which are not to be named in connection with it, have received elaborate attention. We sincerely hope that it will meet with a better recognition in our own land. Certain it is, that no people need such solid and profound researches more than we do; since superficialness, in all departments of study, is the crying sin of our country and age. The idolatry of wealth, and the engrossing and often unscrupulous pursuit of it; the importunate calls of active and professional life; the torrents of silliness, under the form of light reading, with which the American mind is deluged; the heat and savagery of the poor and wicked game of politics; the exclusive devotion of selfcomplacently called "practical" men to "practical" pursuits, so called, leave little time and less desire for earnest and persevering labor of the mind. We hope there are some signs that better thinkers are arising amongst us. We trust that the ingenuous youth of our country, who are pressing forward to take its destinies in hand, will feel themselves charged with the large and noble mission of extending the range of lettered acquisition, and of promoting better habits

of research. It is quite time we had outgrown the superficial modes of instruction and attainment, through which, in our national pupilage, we have been passing. It is quite time to "put away," among "childish things," those compends and abridgments, those short cuts and railway passages in the vast domains of literature and science, which are intended to supersede the necessity of mental labor, and to relieve inquirers from the "insupportable fatigue of thought." To all who are sick of such miserable pretences and labor-saving desires we confidently recommend the volumes before us, as a manly and inspiring model of a better intellectual culture, and a signally important means of carrying forward this culture to the best results.

ART. IV. Lives of Men of Letters and Science, who flourished in the Time of George the Third. By HENRY, LORD BROUGHAM. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart. 1845. 12mo. pp. 295.

THERE can be no doubt that Lord Brougham, however he may be estimated in future times as a statesman, will figure as one of the most remarkable men of the age in which he lives. He is chiefly distinguished for his restless, impatient, feverish activity of mind, a trait not common among the sons

of

men, few of whom have any quick spring of action within to drive them to incessant exertion, but generally require external inducements of interest or passion to bring forth all their powers. As an orator, he has appeared preeminent among the great, exerting a mighty influence in favor of some essential reforms in the government of his country, which, mainly because they were so necessary, were fiercely and bitterly resisted. As a lawyer, he has been popular and successful, though generally allowed to be unsuited to the high judicial station for which he was thought the very man till he had reached it. As a lover of his race, he is ever ready to exert himself in the cause of humanity, and not more savage, perhaps, than is common with the philanthropists of the day. As a man, giving no single impression of his own character, but hurrying on through perpetual changes, where neither

praise nor censure can steadily follow, he has been a willing slave to impulses of any kind, and particularly sensitive to slights and irritations; jealous of his own standing, and needlessly overbearing in defence of it; so insolent and vindictive in his usual tone, that self seems always to enter into his assertion of the right or condemnation of the wrong. It is only by an average of merits and failings that one can arrive at any consistent and satisfactory idea of this great and active, but not amiable man, who will hereafter be remembered with wonder certainly, but, if his latter days shall be cast in resemblance of the former, never with admiration or love.

It is well that he has thus put ashore from the troubled sea of politics, to walk on the quiet sands, and gather a few pearls from the beach. For it is clear that he does not require the stimulus of external excitement to bring his mental energies into efficient action. By a necessity of his nature, he must work in one way or another; and indolence and stagnation being thus out of the question, he might have done as much for the cause of reform and humanity by passionless literary labors, as by those fierce declamations in parliament in which he seems full as intent on scalping his enemies as on defending the great rights of man. No one has a broader discernment of the merits of moral and intellectual questions; no one is more fearless in battling prejudice or correcting established errors. In these biographical sketches, he states his opinions in a tone more respectful and conciliatory than ever before; and the reader feels, what indeed is everywhere true, that kindness of manner is an essential grace to open the path to conviction. But how far he might be able to lay permanently aside his former tastes and habits of thought and feeling, how successfully, after riding the whirlwind and being himself the storm, he might subside into the repose of an autumn day, how the fierce leader of the opposition would reconcile himself to the patient investigation, unexciting interest, and calm expression which beseem the literary life, it is not easy to foretell. Little was indicated by his Lives of Statesmen, which were nothing more than the history of his battles, with reminiscences of his comrades and foes. Neither are the present sketches sufficiently labored and extended to be the test of success. Proceeding from such a hand, they must of course bear marks of great ability; but they do not show that any great expense

of time or thought has been given to the subject, nor do they enable us to determine what sort of literary man the Chancellor would have made.

One is not a little surprised, on first entering his gallery of portraits, to encounter the sharp and sarcastic visage of Voltaire, with Rousseau at his side. It is not easy to see the association which connects him with George the Third, either in the way of literature or religion, save that the king was the patron of the Quaker gun with which Dr. Beattie cannonaded the skeptics, venerating it as a miraculous piece of ordnance, though it was difficult to discover what execution it had ever done. To say the truth, this collection savors of the taste exhibited in Dryburgh Abbey, where the Earl of Buchan embellished the ruin with busts of Socrates, Sir Isaac Newton, and Paul Jones. At the same time, it is certain that Voltaire did live in the time of George the Third, and, though not among the ornaments of his court or his reign, comes as near as Macedon to Monmouth; and no man can gainsay the right of the noble lord to paint what portraits he pleases. On the whole, it is as well that he did not begin with Johnson, the more natural and prominent figure of the two, and considerably more English than the other; for it is quite clear, from his occasional allusions to the moralist, that he has not that sympathy with "brave old Samuel,” which would give him power to understand him. He expresses great contempt for the sage's want of manners; a deficiency, however, not confined to that diseased and sorrowful man, since, if report speak true, it is not quite supplied in some high places in England even to the present day.

Lord Brougham is above the affectation of paradox in dealing with Voltaire. He does not, according to the taste which so great a genius as Carlyle has the merit of introducing, call upon us to do reverence to him as a Christian, saint, and martyr. But he takes an ingenious view of the subject, contending that whoever does not believe in a God cannot be guilty of blasphemy against him, however he may shock the religious sentiments of men. But Voltaire was no atheist; and in his defence, the Chancellor maintains, that, not believing in the divine mission, perhaps not in the existence, of the Saviour, he cannot be chargeable with impiety on account of his ridicule of Christ and his religion, while, at the same time, he may be guilty of insult and irreverence

towards men, by his profane abuse of those subjects which they hold most sacred and nearest to their hearts. Perhaps there is some confusion of thought generally prevailing in relation to this matter; but the feeling is sufficiently well defined, and it is in substance this; that, whether a man believes in the Christian religion or not, there are principles and affections which have claim to the deepest respect from every good heart. Of these the Author of Christianity was, as none deny, the best presentment and illustration. Whoever can find it in himself to treat this person with contempt can have no sympathy with these principles and affections; and it is on this account, not because he was not convinced by the arguments in favor of the divine origin of the religion, that Voltaire has been regarded with so much aversion in the Christian world.

At the same time, we must remember the circumstances under which his impressions of Christianity were formed. It was probably identified in his mind with a worldly and licentious priesthood, who, though notorious infidels themselves, were believed to have the power of pardoning the transgressions of others, while their own lives were passed in the lowest depths of sin. Surrounded, as religion was in his view, with doctrines the most offensive to reason, and connected with practices the most revolting, it must have been a clear mind and heart which could look through the thousand folds of corruption that bound it, and discern the basis of substantial truth and excellence which was then, and is now, the foundation of its strength and the hidingplace of its power. Sharp-sighted as Voltaire was, he was not the man, in his calmest estate, to take the broadest and most philosophical view of moral subjects. His eye was more quick to discern faults and vices, than to discover and do justice to merits and virtues; so that, supposing his life had passed in quiet, he would not have been likely to see the form and expression of Christianity through the disguise which it wore. But when we remember that his life, or rather his earlier life, was passed in storm and tempest; that he was painfully sensitive to every thing like insult and irritation; that he had the winning ways which are sure to bring a perfect shower of these blessings on his head; and that, so far from pretending to be insensible, he invited new pelting by making it manifest that every missile told, it is not very sur