and expose boundless assumption; in the case of Bayle, he had merely to lash boundless presumption. Bayle should have stuck to his unrivalled literary gossip and left the problems of the universe alone. And Locke was still more destitute of synthetic, creative genius, than Leibnitz himself. The "Théodicée" is a more ambitious work than the "New Essays," though not nearly so able, the nature of the subjects in the latter being better fitted to call forth Leibnitz's best and most distinctive characteristics. It is in reading the "Nouveaux Essais" that we become strongly impressed with the immense difference between capacity and faculty. Leibnitz was a man of extraordinary capacity, but of very ordinary faculty. It is capacity more than faculty which in all human affairs achieves success. Extraordinary faculty in conjunction with ordinary capacity usually fails. The mind of Leibnitz was a storehouse not a field, such a storehouse as for the number of its chambers and the wealth of its contents will be seldom seen on this earth again; but a mind so ridiculously uninventive, that all that he could say about God, in words sufficiently irreverent in sound, though not intentionally irreverent in sentiment, is, God is a geometer who incessantly calculates and resolves this problem, given a monad, an atom of existence, to determine the present, past, and future state of all the universe: that is to say,-God is nothing more than enormously dilated capacity, an overgrown Leibnitz, not producing any thing, but adding and measuring. Here it may be noted that it is men of capacity, never men of faculty, that perplex and annoy mankind with their "Théodicées." Faculty gladly, eagerly leaps to brotherhood with faculty. To justify that infinite faculty on which it hangs as a branch, it would feel to be like a justification of its own existence; and a justification of its own existence it would regard as tantamount to an accusation of Him through whom it exists. All "Théodicées' are in the final analysis vindications of ourselves for existing. Capacity is ever fixing the confines, mapping out the frontiers, in order to have an intenser consciousness of possession within a determined

space, which is the same thing as an intenser consciousness of itself, the possessor. Every fresh acquisition of territory is a more strenuous assertion of the claim to what is already acquired, and an insatiate avidity bursts from time to time into the insolent shriek,-Who dares dispute my right to be? So that, in addition to all the other charges we have made against the philosophy of Leibnitz, we accuse it of the most grasping egoism joined to the most radical and incurable scepticism. In truth, men of capacity should always let philosophical subjects alone: to gather together facts, to expound them, to illustrate them, to classify them, that is their province. When they venture into metaphysics, their grandest feat is to hang vapory visions round the pertinacious, monotonous, croaking appeal in favour of their own personal existence. The impulse that systematically guides them in their metaphysical attempts comes curiously forth in their continual ascription to the deity of motives. Now any one to whom motives are a leading idea is ruled in the main by ignoble motives. For, in the first instance, the motive is base that prompts to the study of motives either in ourselves or in others; and to attribute motives to God is to behold in him nothing but infinite selfishness. Even if this were not so, motive in deity is impossible. Whatever is capable of motive must stand apart from something else. But can God so stand apart? If he can stand apart from himself then he is not one but multiple, and that portion of his nature which influences the other portion must itself be God, and the rest is merely phantasmal, phenomenal. If he can stand apart from the universe, and if it is the universe that influences him, then is the material stronger than the spiritual. In either case his infinitude and his omnipotence vanish. It was the notion of motives in the Divine Being, combining with other monstrous and baseless notions, which led Leibnitz to the silly doctrine that the Almighty could, like a weak and wayward mortal, have choice in creation: a doctrine which, if it were true, would conduct to the still more preposterous doctrine that he could transform his own nature, could

broken and burdened wretch who will regard whatever you have to say on the best of all possible worlds as stupidity, sophistry, falsehood, and will

pronounce, yea, denounce, it as the worst of all possible worlds, because he feels it to be so. FRANCIS HARWELL.

THE Historian of Durham was one of those truly amiable persons who, after their departure, are looked back upon as men whom it was a privilege, and it is a pride, to have associated with; and with whom strangers and posterity are glad to make acquaintance through the pages of the biographer. Of such men the reputation is ever on the increase, nor indeed can it fairly commence (with the public) before their death: for they instinctively shrink from prominence and from display; they are wholly free from any ambition, but that of doing good in their generation; and, so long as they are alive, they elude any attempts their admirers may make to obtrude or parade them before the world. Mr. Surtees declined the wish of his friends to place his portrait before one of the volumes of his History:* he even avoided a county dinner if he suspected he should be brought prominently forward: he disliked the crowded drawing-room and the strife of tongues, and he turned ever for refreshment to his garden and his books. There was something, perhaps, in his temperament, of the impatience of genius, and the sensitive excitability of the poet: for the title of Robert Surtees to be classed as a Poet must be admitted in every point required to sustain it, except that of publishing a volume of verses. The amount of his poetical compositions outnumbers those of Gray. Their fancy, their classic taste, their

pathos, distinguish them far above the productions of the common herd of versifiers. In imitation he was excellent and so far did his success in this respect extend that he entirely foiled, in several instances, the penetration of his correspondent Sir Walter Scott, in that poet's peculiar field of the romantic ballad. More than fifty poetical pieces of various kinds by Mr. Surtees are now published in the volume before us, and they are a selection only from those which he left behind him. But, whether his poetical remains had been many or few, it was already well known that the Historian of Durham possessed a highly poetical taste, and that he infused the same into the composition of his great work. All who have made the acquaintance of the History of the County Palatine will admit the justice of the estimate made by Mr. Southey, that

Mr. Surtees was no ordinary topographer. The merest pioneer in literature could not have been more patient and painstaking. But he possessed higher qualifications than the indispensable ones of industry and exactness: few writers of this class have equalled him in richness and variety of knowledge: fewer still have brought to the task a mind at once so playful and so feeling.

At the time of Mr. Surtees's premature decease in 1834, Mr. Southey wrote the brief memoir of him which appeared in the Obituary of our Magazine.† A more extended memoir

was undertaken by his old friend Mr. Taylor of Witton-le-Wear, father of the author of Philip van Artevelde; and it was printed in folio to be prefixed to the fourth volume of the History of Durham, which was left by its author unfinished in the press. On the publication of this memoir, we hastened in our Magazine for January 1840 to introduce to the notice of our readers some of its interesting contents. We there gave a summary of Mr. Taylor's biographical narrative; we related the literary history of the History of Durham; and we made considerable extracts from the correspondence of Mr. Surtees with Sir Walter Scott. We also ventured to express a hope that this interesting piece of biography should be published separately in octavo, feeling sure that it would be gratefully received by the public. After the lapse of twelve years, and the death of the author, this is now accomplished: the extent of the work being increased by an equal amount of additional matter, which consists of three divisions,-the illustrative anecdotes and remarks of the Editor, selections from Mr. Surtees's poetical compositions, and selections from his literary correspond

ence.

The additions of the Editor, like the finishing touches of a picture, have imparted further life and completeness to the faithful portrait by Mr. Taylor. They consist chiefly of a variety of characteristic anecdotes, some of which might appear minute and trifling if they were extracted individually, but which will be duly estimated and welcomed by every reader, who, having once made acquaintance with the subject of the work, will catch at every

trait of his benevolent and chivalric spirit. We present as a specimen this pleasant picture of the historian's literary workshop.

Of that library, from which proceeded the History of Durham, let me give a brief description. It is a room of a convenient size, upon the ground-floor, and commu

nicating with the breakfast room. It is lighted by two windows to the west, opening upon the lawn through a wall, then profusely covered with gigantic old peartrees with moss-grown stems interwoven with roses and other creeping and flowering shrubs, in the spring time of the year the breeding-place of numerous throstles and blackbirds, not one of which was suffered to be disturbed. Hard by is a rookery, in an old clump of sycamores, which overhang the garden wall; and in the same wall, beneath a coping of a peculiar character, a whole tribe of starlings yearly lay their nests, and hold their mysterious converse on its top. Now and then, when a window was open, a redbreast would fly in and perch upon Dugdale or the Boldon Buke, and he, too, was welcome. Two sides of the room were

closely occupied by old-fashioned mahogany book-cases; a third book-case stood in a recess near the fire, and the cabinet of coins stood between the windows. A few portraits upon the wainscot, one of Fenelon, one of Walter Scott, and a third of Hogg the Shepherd, and an old friend upon the hearthrug in the shape of a dog, Bounce or Carlo or Nigel, completed the picture.

There are many who will thank me for bringing back this room to their memory, for along with the room will arise vividly to their mind, the most pleasing recollections of such a man as they may never know again.

We add another sketch, which leads us forth through the library window:

Mr. Surtees was no mean botanist, and he regularly made the pursuit take its part in his daily amusements. In spring, in particular, it was his habit to walk quietly every morning round his garden, and count the new flowers as they appeared in their turns, as above stated, illustrating them by their classical names and descriptions. When the dahlia was first introduced into the garden, and he saw, for the first time, its velvety bloom, he was much delighted, and going into the house came out with a medieval poet in his hand, reciting, as he walked to meet me, two or three hexameters in which he fancied the flower was described. Not many days before he died, he amused himself by

putting into rhyme the few flowers then out in his garden.

See where the tenants of the spring
Their chalic'd wreaths unfold-
Their silver rent the snowdrops bring,
The crocus pays in gold.

Of Mr. Raine's personal anecdotes we will give one, which has reference to Bishop Barrington:

This friendly intercourse was agreeable to both parties. When the Bishop was in the diocese, Mr. Surtees rode to Auckland whenever he felt inclined. The want of a frank for a letter, for which he knew he could not pay the postage without hurting the feelings of the person to whom it was addressed, and to whom he further knew that even the postage of a letter was a consideration, frequently afforded him an errand, and he was always welcome. The Bishop delighted in his playfulness. One morning he found a grave-looking personage in black closeted with his Lordship, and, notwithstanding he was earn

estly pressed to enter, as the business of

the person was not of a private nature, he retired till called for. "Why did you not come in, Mr. Surtees?" said the Bishop, "that was only my chimney-sweep with whom I wanted a minute's talk." "That a chimney-sweep, my Lord!" said Surtees, "I really believed you were engaging a new chaplain. He seem'd to me to be the very man for the job."

This anecdote affords another illustration of a remark made by Mr. Taylor, that whilst Surtees was distinguished by a sentiment of great respect for high birth and high station, it still was insufficient, in social intercourse, to repress the lively sallies of his humour. His elation in accomplishing an act of charity towards an indigent clergyman, gave rise to a memorable instance of the same propensity, which Mr. Taylor thus described:

Solomon Grisdale, Curate of Merrington, who was very poor, and had a numerous family, lost his only cow. Mr. Surtees determined to raise a subscription for another cow; and waited on the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry (the late Earl

Cornwallis), then Dean of Durham, and owner of the Great Tithes of Merrington, to ask what he would give?"Give,' said his Lordship, "why a cow, to be sure. Go, Mr. Surtees, to Woodifield, my steward, and tell him to give you as much money as will buy the best cow you can find." Mr. Surtees, who had not expected above a five-pound note, at most, exclaimed, "My Lord, I hope you'll ride to Heaven upon the back of that cow!" A while afterwards he was saluted in the College, by the late Lord Barrington, with "Surtees, what is the absurd speech that I hear you have been making to the Dean?" "I see nothing absurd in it," was the reply: "when the Dean rides to Heaven on the back of that cow, many of you Prebendaries will be glad to lay hold of her tail!"

Such was the joyous and benevolent spirit whose smiles spread happiness around the daily path of its owner; and which fed its fancy and culled its peculiar delights in that study of past ages, which brought so much that was strange and grotesque before his vivid imagination.

The memorable imposition upon the editor of "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border" of the ballad of Featherstonhaugh, and subsequently of some other similar compositions, was perfectly in character with Mr. Surtees's sportive temper, and with his various imitative compositions both in prose and verse, of which the book before us contains multifarious examples. Some recent critics have censured this matter with far greater severity than we can imagine that Scott himself would have done, had he made the discovery, even though he found himself the victim of the deception. The Author of Waverley wrote fragments of too many "Old Plays,” assumed too many literary masks, and outfaced too many appeals to his personality, to have taken offence upon this score with the kindred fancy of Surtees. Besides, Scott's eagerness to rush into the snare ** was enough to outstrip any