life; and to follow out the theorems of the senate to the daily comforts of the cottage, is a task which they will fear most who know it best-a task in which the great and the good have often failed, and which it is not only wise, but pious and just in common men to avoid.

Means of Acquiring Distinction.

It is natural to every man to wish for distinction; and the praise of those who can confer honour by their praise, in spite of all false philosophy, is sweet to every human heart; but as eminence can be but the lot of a few, patience of obscurity is a duty which we owe not more to our own happiness than to the quiet of the world at large. Give a loose, if you are young and ambitious, to that spirit which throbs within you; measure yourself with your equals; and learn, from frequent competition, the place which nature has allotted to you; make of it no mean battle, but strive hard; strengthen your soul to the search of truth, and follow that spectre of excellence which beckons you on beyond the walls of the world to something better than mau has yet done. It may be you shall burst out into light and glory at the last; but if frequent failure convince you of that mediocrity of nature which is incompatible with great actions, submit wisely and cheerful y to your lot; let no mean spirit of revenge tempt you to throw off your loyalty to your country, and to prefer a vicious celebrity to obscurity crowned with piety and virtue. If you can throw new light upon moral truth, or by any exertions multiply the comforts or confirm the happiness of mankind, this fame guides you to the true ends of your nature; but in the name of God, as you tremble at retributive justice, and in the name of mankind, if mankind be dear to you, seek not that easy and accursed fame which is gathered in the work of revolutions; and deem it better to be for ever unknown, than to found a momentary name upon the basis of anarchy and irreligion.

Locking in on Railways.

Railway travelling is a delightful improvement of human life. Man is become a bird; he can fly longer and quicker than a solan goose. The mamma rushes sixty miles in two hours to the aching finger of her conjugating and declining grammarboy. The early Scotchman scratches himself in the morning mists of the north. and has his porridge in Piccadilly before the setting sun. The Puseyite priest, after a rush of a hundred miles, appears with his little volume of nonsense at the breakfast of his bookseller. Everything is near, everything is immediate-time, distance, and delay are abolished. But, though charming and fascinating as all this is, we must not shut our eyes to the price we shall pay for it. There will be every three or four years some dreadful massacre-whole trains will be hurled down a precipice, and two hundred or three hundred persons will be killed on the spot. There will be every now and then a great combustion of human bodies, as there has been at Paris; then all the newspapers up in arms-a thousand regulations, forgotten as soon as the directors dare-loud screams of the velocity whistle-monopoly locks and bolts as before.

The locking plea of directors is philanthropy; and I admit that to guard men from the commission of moral evil is as philanthropical as to prevent physical suffering. There is, I allow, a strong propensity in mankind to travel on railways without paying; and to lock mankind in till they have completed their share of the contract is benevolent, because it guards the species from degrading and immoral conduct; but to burn or crush a whole train, merely to prevent a few immoral insides from not paying, is. I hope, a little more than Ripon or Gladstone will permit.

We have been, up to this point, very careless of our railway regulations. The first person of rank who is killed will put everything in order, and produce a code of the most careful rules. I hope it will not be one of the bench of bishops; but should it be so destined, let the burnt bishop-the unwilling Latimer-remember that, however painful gradual concoction by fire may be, his death will produce unspeakable benefits to the public. Even Sodor and Man will be better than nothing. From that moment the bad effects of the monopoly are d stroyed; no more fatal deference to directors; no despotic incarceration, no barbarous inattention to the anatomy and physiology of the human body; no commitment to locomotive prisons with warrant. We shall then find it possible voyager libre sans mourir.

A Model Bishop.

grave elderly man, full of Greek, with sound views of the iniddle voice and perfect tense, gentle and kind to his poor clergy, of powerful and commanding nce; in parliament, never to be put down when the great interests of mankind concerned; leaning to the government when it was right, leaning to the people they were right; feeling that, if the Spirit of God had called him to that high he was called for no mean purpose. but rather that, seeing clearly, and acting and intending purely, he might confer lasting benefits on mankind.

All Curates hope to draw Great Prizes.

m surprised it does not strike the mountaineers how very much the great emolts of the church are flung open to the lowest ranks of the community. Butchers, 's, publicans, schoolmasters, are perpetually seeing their children elevated to nitre. Let a respectable baker drive through the city from the west end of the and let him cast an eye on the battlements of Northumberland House; has his muffin-faced son the smallest chance of getting in among the Percies, enjoying re of their luxury and splendour, and of chasing the deer with hound and horn the Chevoit Hills? But let him drive his alum-steeped loaves a little further, e reaches St. Paul's Churchyard, and all his thoughts are changed when he sees beautiful fabric; it is not impossible that his little penny-roll may be introduced that splendid oven. Young Crumpet is sent to school-takes to his booksds the best years of his life, as all eminent Englishmen do, in making Latin s-knows that the crum in crumpet is long, and the pet short-goes to the unity-gets a prize for an Essay on the Dispersion of the Jews-takes orders-bees a bishop's chaplain-has a young nobleman for his pupil-publishes a useless ic, and a serious call to the unconverted-and then goes through the Elysian sitions of prebendary, dean, prelate, and the long train of purple, profit, and

er.

FRANCIS JEFFREY.

RANCIS JEFFREY, who exercised greater influence on the periodiliterature and criticism of this century than any of his contempoes, was a native of Edinburgh, born on the 23d of October 1773. father was a depute-clerk in the Court of Sessions. After educaat the High School of Edinburgh, two sessions at the university Glasgow, and one session-from October to June 1791-92-at een's College, Oxford, Mr. Jeffrey studied Scots law, and passed an advocate in 1794. For many years his income did not exceed 0 per annum, but his admirable economy and independent spirit t him free from debt, and he was indefatigable in the cultivation is intellectual powers. He was already a Whig in politics. His ary ambition and political sentiment found scope in the Edingh Review,' the first rumber of which appeared in October 1802. have quoted Sydney Smith's account of the origin of this work; following is a statement on the subject made by Jeffrey to Mr. bert Chambers in 1846:

I cannot say exactly where the project of the Edinburgh Review' first talked of among the projectors. But the first serious conations about it-and which led to our application to a publisher ere held in a small house, where I then lived, in Buccleuch ce (I forget the number). They were attended by S. Smith, F. ner, Dr. Thomas Brown, Lord Murray (John Archibald Murray,

a Scottish advocate, and now one of the Scottish judges*), and some of them also by Lord Webb Seymour, Dr. John Thomson, and Thomas Thomson. The first three numbers were given to the publisher-he taking the risk and defraying the charges. There was then no individual editor, but as many of us as could be got to attend used to meet in a dingy room of Willison's printing-office, in Craig's Close, where the proofs of our own articles were read over and remarked upon, and attempts made also to sit in judgment on the few manuscripts which were then offered by strangers. But we had seldom patience to go through with this; and it was soon found necessary to have a responsible editor, and the office was pressed upon me. About the same time, Constable (the publisher) was told that he must allow ten guineas a sheet to the contributors, to which he at once assented; and not long after the minimum was raised to sixteen guineas, at which it remained during my reign. Two thirds of the articles were paid much higher-averaging, I should think, from twenty to twenty-five guineas a sheet on the whole number. I had, I might say, an unlimited discretion in this respect, and must do the publishers the justice to say that they never made the slightest objection. Indeed, as we all knew that they had-for a long time, at least a very great profit, they probably felt that they were at our mercy. Smith was by far the most timid of the confederacy, and believed that, unless our incognito was strictly maintained, we could not go on a day; and this was his object for making us hold our dark divans at Willison's office, to which he insisted on our repairing singly, and by back-approaches or different lanes. He had also so strong an impression of Brougham's indiscretion and rashness, that he would not let him be a member of our association, though wished for by all the rest. He was admitted, however, after the third number, and did more work for us than anybody. Brown took offence at some alterations Smith had made in a trifling article of his in the second number, and left us thus early; publishing at the same time, in a magazine, the fact of his secession-a step which we all deeply regretted, and thought scarcely justified by the provocation. Nothing of the kind occurred ever after.'

Jeffrey's memory had failed him as respects the first number of the 'Review,' for Brougham wrote six of the articles in that number. In the Autobiography of the latter, it is stated that Jeffrey's salary as editor was for five or six years £300 a year, and afterwards £500. We have always understood that it was £50 each number from 1803 to 1809, and afterwards £200 each number. The youth of the Edinburgh reviewers was a fertile source of ridicule and contempt, but the fact was exaggerated. Smith, its projector, was thirty-one; Jeffrey, twenty-nine; Brougham, Horner, and Brown, twenty-four each

*This gentleman, distinguished for his liberality and munificence, died in Edinbargh, on the 7th of March 1859, aged eighty-one.

ellent ages for such work,' as Henry Cockburn, the biographer rey, has remarked. The world was all before the young aders! The only critical journal of any reputation was the hly Review,' into which Mackintosh, Southey, and William of Norwich, occasionally threw a few pages of literary or al speculation, but without aiming at such lengthy disquisir severe critical analysis as those attempted by the new aspi

chief merit and labour attaching to the continuance and the s of the Edinburgh Review' fell on its accomplished editor. 1803 to 1829 Mr. Jeffrey had the sole management of the Reand when we consider the distinguished ability which it has mly displayed, and high moral character it has upheld, together he independence and fearlessness with which from the first it omulgated its canons of criticism on literature, science, and iment, we must admit that few men have exercised such influs Francis Jeffrey on the whole current of contemporary literand public opinion. Besides his general superintendence, Mr. y was a large contributor to the Review.' The departments etry and elegant literature seem to have been his chosen field; e constantly endeavoured, as he says, 'to combine ethical prewith literary criticism, and earnestly sought to impress his rs with a sense both of the close connection between sound intual attainments and the higher elements of duty and enjoyand of the just and ultimate subordination of the former to

tter.'

s was a vocation of high mark and responsibility, and on the e the critic discharged his duty with honour and success. As a I writer he was unimpeachable. In poetical criticism he somefailed. This was conspicuously the case as regards Wordsand Coleridge, whose originality and rich imaginative genius ould not or could not appreciate. To Montgomery, Lamb, and young authors he was harsh and unjust. Flushed with success early ambition, Jeffrey and his coadjutors were more intent on ng fault than in discovering beauties, and were more piqued by sional deviation from old established conventional rules than fied by meeting with originality of thought or traces of true inve genius. They improved in this respect as they grew older, Jeffrey lived to express regret for the undue severity into which as occasionally betrayed. Where no prejudice or prepossession vened, he was an admirable critic. If he was not profound, he interesting and graceful. His little dissertations on the style and is of Cowper, Crabbe, Byron and Scott (always excepting the reof Marmion,' which is a miserable piece of nibbling criticism), ell as his observations on moral science and the philosophy of are eloquent and discriminating, and conceived in a fine spirit of

humanity. He seldom gave full scope to the expression of his feelings and sympathies, but they do occasionally break forth and kindle up the pages of his criticism. At times, indeed, his language is poetical in a high degree. The following glowing tribute to the universal genius of Shakspeare is worthy of the subject:

On the Genius of Shakspeare.

Many persons are very sensible of the effect of fine poetry upon their feelings, who do not well know how to refer these feelings to their causes; and it is always a delightful thing to be made to see clearly the sources from which our delight has proceeded, and to trace the mingled stream that has flowed upon our hearts to the remoter fountains from which it has been gathered; and when this is done with warmth as well as precision, and embodied in an eloquent description of the beauty which is explained, it forms one of the most attractive, and not the least instructive, of literary exercises. In all works of merit, however, and especially in all works of original genius, there are a thousand retiring and less obtrusive graces, which es cape hasty and superficial observers, and only give out their beauties to fond and patient contemplation; a thousand slight and harmonizing touches, the merit and the effect of which are equally imperceptible to vulgar eyes; and a thousand indications of the continual presence of that poetical spirit which can only be recognised by those who are in some measure under its influence, and have prepared themselves to receive it, by worshipping meekly at the shrines which it inhabits.

In the exposition of these there is room enough for originality, and more room than Mr. Hazlitt has yet filled. In many points, however, he has acquitted himself excellently; particularly in the development of the principal characters with which Shakspeare has peopled the fancies of all English readers-but principally, we think, in the delicate sensibility with which he has traced, and the natural eloquence with which he has pointed out, that familiarity with beautiful forms and images-that eternal recurrence to what is sweet or majestic in the simple aspects of nature-that indestructible love of flowers and odours, and dews and clear waters-and soft airs and sounds, and bright skies, and woodland solitudes, and moonlight bowers, which are the material elements of poetry-and that fine sense of their undefinable relation to mental emotion, which is its essence and vivifying soul-and which, in the midst of Shakspeare's most busy and atrocious scenes, falls like gleams of sunshine on rocks and ruins-contrasting with all that is rugged and repulsive, and reminding us of the existence of purer and brighter elements-which he alone has poured out from the richness of his own mind without effort or restraint, and contrived to intermingle with the play of all the passions, and the vulgar course of this world's affairs, without deserting for an instant the proper business of the scene, or appearing to pause or digress from love of ornament or need of repose; he alone who, when the subject requires it, is always keen, and worldly, and practical, and who yet, without changing his hand, or stopping his course, scatters around him, as he goes, all sounds and shapes of sweetness, and conjures up landscapes of immortal fragrance and freshness, and peoples them with spirits of glorious aspect and attractive grace, and is a thousand times more full of imagery and splendour than those who, for the sake of such qualities, have shrunk back from the delineation of character or passion, and declined the discussion of human duties and cares. More full of wisdom, and ridicule, and sagacity, than all the moralists and satirists in existence, he is more wild, airy, and inventive, and more pathetic and fantastic, than all the poets of all regions and ages of the world; and has all those elements so happily mixed up in him, and bears his high faculties so temperately, that the most severe reader cannot complain of him for want of strength or of reason, nor the most sensitive for defect of ornament or ingenuity. Everything in him is in unmeasured abundance and unequalled perfection; but everything so balanced and kept in subordination as not to jostle or disturb or take the place of another. The most exquisite poetical conceptions, images, a. d descriptions are given with such brevity, and introduced with such skill, as merely to adorn w.thout loading the sense they accompany. Although his sails are purple, and perfumed, and his prow of beaten gold, they waft him on his voyage, not less, but more rapidly and