tham found English jurisprudence a gibberish and left it overcome the natural aversion to laboura Science.] cer The laws, in creating property, have created wealth; but, with respect to poverty, it is not the work of the laws, it is the primitive condition of the human race. The man who lives only from day to day, is precisely the man in a state of nature. The savage, the poor in society, I acknowledge, obtain nothing but by painful labour; but in a state of nature what could he obtain but at the price of his toil? Has not hunting its fatigues, fishing its dangers, war its uncertainties? And if man appear to love this adventurous life-if he have an instinct greedy of these kinds of peril—if the savage rejoice in the delights of an idleness so dearly purchased-ought it to be concluded that he is more happy than our day labourers? No, the labour of these is more uniform, but the reward is more tain; the lot of woman is more gentle; infancy and old age have more resources; the species multiplies in a proportion a thousand times greater, and this alone would suffice to show on which side is the superiority of happiness. Hence the laws, in creating property, have been benefactors to those who remain in their original poverty. They participate more or less in the pleasures, advantages, and resources of civilized society; their industry and labour place them among the candidates for fortune; they enjoy the pleasures of acquisition; hope mingles with their labours. The security which the law gives them, is this of little importance? Those who look from above at the inferior ranks see all objects less than they really are; but, at the base of the pyramid, it is the summit which disappears in its turn. So far from making these comparisons, they dream not of them; they are not tormented with impossibilities; so that all things considered, the protection of the laws contributes as much to the happiness of the cottage as to the security of the palace. It is surprising that so judicious a writer as Beccaria should have inserted, in a work dictated by the soundest philosophy, a doubt subversive of the social order. The right of property, says he, is a terrible right, and may not, perhaps, be necessary. Upon this right tyrannical and sanguinary laws have been founded. It has been most frightfully abused; but the right itself presents only ideas of pleasure, of abundance, and of security. It is this right which has VOL, VIIL-175 which has bestowed on man the empire of the earth-which has led nations to give up their wandering habits-which has_created a love of country and posterity. To enjoy quickly to enjoy without punishment this is the universal desire of man; this is the desire which is terrible, since it arms all those who possess nothing against those who possess anything. But the law, which restrains this desire, is the most splendid triumph of humanity over itself. TO THE SEA. [FREDERICK LEOPOLD, COUNT OF STOLBERG, & popular German poet, born 1750, died 1819. His poems are chiefly lyrical, although he wrote also odes, didactio poems and dramas.] Thou boundless, shining, glorious Sea, Thanks for the thousand hours, old Sea, Drunk with the joy, thou deep-toned Sea At evening, when the sun grows red, Then listens thee the evening star, Oft when the noonday heat is o'er, The poet, child of heavenly birth, Is suckled by the mother Earth; But thy blue bosom, holy Sea, Cradles his infant fantasy. The old blind minstrel on the shore Stood listening thy eternal roar, And golden ages, long gone by, Swept bright before his spirit's eye. On wing of swan the holy flame Of melodies celestial came, Rose to the music of the Sea. LITERATURE IN GAUL. tury everything is changed: there are no longer civil schools; ecclesiastical schools alone subsist. Those great municipal schools of Trèves, of Poictiers, of Vienna, of Bordeaux, etc., have disappeared; and in their place have arisen schools called cathedral or episcopal schools, because each episcopal see had its own. The cathedral school was not always alone; we find in certain dioceses other schools, of an uncertain nature and origin, wrecks, perhaps, of some an LITERATURE IN GAUL FROM THE cient civil school, which, in becoming meta SIXTH TO THE EIGHTH CEN TURY. [FRANÇOIS PIERRE GUILLAUME GUIZOT, a distinguished French historian and statesman, born at Nimes, 1787, died at Paris, 1874. From his earliest days, Guizot was devoted to literature; at twenty-two he published a dictionary of French synonyms, and in 1821 and the year following his History of the Origin of Representative Gov ernment, and a treatise on the government of France since the Restoration. He became lecturer on history at the Sorbonne, and edited two great collections of Memoirs on the English Revolution and on the history of France. His great work, History of Civilization in France, with the General History of Civilization in Europe, which introduced it, appeared in 1828-30. He wrote a life of Washington, a critical work upon Shakspeare, a history of his own times in eight volumes, besides a multitude of other works, critical, historical, religious, biographical and political. The political career of Guizot was conspicuous, although he proved rather conservative and unpopular with the country.] In studying the state of Gaul in the fourth and fifth centuries, we find two literatures, the one sacred, the other profane. The distinction was marked in persons and in things; the laity and the ecclesiastics studied, meditated, wrote; and they studied, they wrote, they meditated, upon lay subjects, and upon religious subjects. Sacred literature dominated more and more, but it was not alone,-profane literature still existed. From the sixth to the eighth century there is no longer any profane literature; sacred literature stands alone; priests only study or write; and they only study, they only write, save rare exceptions, upon religious subjects. The general character of the epoch is the concentration of intellectual development in the religious sphere. The fourth and fifth centuries, you will remember, were in no want of civil schools, of civil professors, instituted by the temporal power, and teaching the profane sciences. Towards the end of the sixth cen morphosed, had perpetuated itself. In the diocese of Rheims, for example, there existed the school of Mouzon some distance from the chief place of the diocese, and in high credit, although Rheims had a cathedral school. The clergy began also, about the same epoch, to create other schools in the country, also ecclesiastical, destined to form young readers who should one day become priests. In 529 the Council of Vaison strongly recommended the propagation of country schools; they were, indeed, multiplied very irregularly, numerous in some there were schools in the great monastedioceses, scarcely any in others. Finally, ries. Even in nunneries study was not neglected; that which Saint Césaire founded at Arles, contained, at the commencement of the sixth century, two hundred nuns, for the most part occupied in copying books, sometimes religious books, sometimes, probably, even the works of the ancients. The metamorphosis of civil schools into ecclesiastical schools was complete. Let us see what was taught in them. We shall often find in them the names of sciences formerly professed in the civil schools-rhetoric, logic, grammar, geometry, astrology, etc.; but these were evidently no longer taught except in their relations to theology. This is the foundation of the instruction: all was turned into Commentary of the Scriptures,historical, philosophical, allegorical, moral commentary. They desired only to form priests; all studies, whatsoever their nature, were directed towards this result. Sometimes they went even further: they rejected the profane sciences themselves, whatever might be the use made of them. At the end of the sixth century, Saint Dizier, Bishop of Vienne, taught grammar in his cathedral school. Saint Gregory_the Great, sharply blamed him for it. not fit," he writes to him, "that a mouth sacred to the praises of God, should be It is A SERIOUS SYMPTOM OF BIBLIOMANIA. opened for those of Jupiter." I do not power. 85 It was in an eminent degree We find in it, upon looking nearer, a world, as it were, of writings; not very considerable, it is true, and often little remarkable, but which, from their number and the ardor which reigns in them, attest a rare movement of mind and fertility. They are sermons, instructions, exhortations, homilies, and conferences upon religious matters. Never has any political revolution, never has the liberty of the press, produced more pamphlets. Three-fourths, nay, perhaps ninety-nine in a hundred of these little works have been lost: destined A still more important revolution, and less to act at the very moment, almost all imperceived, is manifested: not only did lit- provised, rarely collected by their authors, erature become entirely religious, but, re- or by others, they have not come down to ligious, it ceased to be literary; there was us; and yet an immense number remains no longer any literature, properly so called. to us; they form a true and rich literature. In the finest times of Greece and Rome, and in Gaul, up to the fall of the Roman Empire, people studied, they wrote, for the mere pleasure of studying, of knowing, in MANIA. [THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN, D. D., was born in Cal cutta, in 1776. Among his best known works are Bibliomania; The Bibliographical Decameron, or Ten Days' ·Pleasant Discourse on Illuminated Manuscripts, etc. (1817); and Reminiscences of a Literary Life. He died in 1847. Our extract is from Bibliomania.] order to procure for themselves and for A SERIOUS SYMPTOM OF BIBLIOothers intellectual enjoyment. . . At the epoch which now occupies us it was otherwise; people no longer studied in order to know; they no longer wrote for the sake of writing. Writings and studies took a practical character and aim. Whoever abandoned himself thereto, aspired to immediate action upon men, to regulate their actions, to govern their life, to convert those who did not believe, to reform those who believed and did not practice. Science and eloquence were means of action, of government. There is no longer a disinterested literature; no longer any true literature. The purely speculative character of philosophy, of poetry, of letters, of the arts, has vanished; it is no longer the beautiful that men seek; when they meet with it, it no longer serves merely for enjoyment; positive application, influence over men, authority, is now the end, the triumph of all works of mind, of all intellectual development. Lysander.-A passion for books illustrated, or adorned with numerous prints, representing characters, or circumstances, mentioned in the work, is a very general and violent symptom of the Bibliomania. The origin, or first appearance of this symp tom, has been traced by some to the publi cation of the Rev. Granger's Bio graphical History of England. It is from not having taken proper heed to this characteristic of the epoch that, in my opinion, a false idea has been formed of it. We find there scarcely any work, no literature, properly so called, no disinterested intellectual activity distinct from posi- Nor did the madness stop here. Illustra tive life. It has been thence concluded that tion was the order of the day; and Shaks this was a time of apathy and moral steril-peare and Clarendon became the next ity, a time abandoned to the disorderly objects of its attack. From these it glanced struggle of material forces, in which intel-off, in a variety of directions, to adorn the lect was without development and without pages of humbler wights; and the passion, or rather this symptom of the Bibliomania, | Rembrandt prints, to look sharply after yet rages with undiminished force. If ju- The Burr! diciously treated, it is of all the symptoms, the least liable to mischief. There is another mode of illustrating copies by which this symptom of the Bibliomania may be known; it consists in bringing together, from different works (including newspapers and magazines, and by means of the scissors, or otherwise by transcription,) every page or paragraph which has any connection with the character or subject under discussion. Lisardo.-Forgive me if I digress a little. But is not the knowledge of rare, curious and beautiful prints-so necessary, it would seem, towards the perfecting of illus trated copies-is not this knowledge of long and difficult attainment? Lysander.-Unquestionably, this knowledge is very requisite towards becoming a complete pupil in the school of Granger. Nor is it, as you very properly suppose, of short or easy acquirement. Almanda.-How so? A very little care, with a tolerably good taste, is only required to know when a print is well-engraved. Lysander.-Alas, Madam! the excellence of engraving is oftentimes but a secondary consideration! Belinda.-Do, pray, explain. Lysander.-I will, and as briefly and perspicuously as possible. There are, first of all, all the varieties of the same print to be considered! whether it have the name of the character, or artist, omitted or subjoined; whether the head of the print be without the body, or the body without the head-and whether this latter be finished in the outline, or ghostly white! Then you must go to the dress of this supposed portrait: whether full or plain; court or country-fashioned: whether it have a hat or no hat; feather, or no feather; gloves, or no gloves; sword, or no sword, and many other such momentous points. Alman. Mercy on us-what is this Lysand.-A slight imperfection only; which, as it rarely occurs, makes the im pression more valuable. It is only a sombre tinge attached to the copper, before the plate is sufficiently polished by being worked; and it gives a smeared effect, like smut upon a lady's face, to the impression! But I am becoming satirical. Which is the next symptom that you have written down for me to discourse upon? THE SCHOOL BOY'S DREAM ON THE NIGHT BEFORE THE HOLIDAYS. CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER. CHILDREN. "Heaven lies about us in our infancy," says Wordsworth. And who of us that is not too good to be conscious of his own vices, who has not felt rebuked and humbled under the clear and open countenance of a child?-who that has not felt his impurities foul upon him in the presence of a sinless child? These feelings make the best lesson that can be taught a man; and tell him in a way, which all else he has read or heard never could, how paltry is all the show of intellect compared with a pure and good heart. He that will humble himself and go to a child for instruction, will come away a wiser man. Now let us next discuss the serious subject of the background!—whether it be square or oval; dark or light; put in or put out; stippled or stroked; and sundry other similar, but most important, considerations. Again; there are engravings of different sizes and different periods, of the same individual or object: and of these the varieties are as infinite as of any of those attached to the vegetable system. I will not even attempt an outline of them. But If children can make us wiser, they surely I had nearly forgotten to warn you, in your ❘ can make us better. There is no one more to |