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When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the caked snow is shuffled
From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Noon
In a dark conspiracy

To banish Even from her sky.
Thou shalt hear

Distant harvest carols clear;
Rustle of the reaped corn;

Sweet birds antheming the morn:
And, in the same moment-hark'
"Tis the early April lark,

Or the rooks, with busy caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the marigold;
White-plum'd lilies, and the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;
Shaded hyacinth, alway

Sapphire queen of the mid May;
And every leaf, and every flower
Pearled with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field mouse peep
Meagre from its celled sleep;
And the snake all winter thin
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest

Quiet on her mossy nest;

Then the hurry and alarm

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When the bee-hive casts its swarm;

Acorns ripe down-pattering,

While the autumn breezes sing,' pp. 122-125.

There is a fragment of a projected Epic, entitled 'Hyperion,' on the expulsion of Saturn and the Titanian deities by Jupiter and his younger adherents, of which we cannot advise the completion: For, though there are passages of some force and grandeur, it is sufficiently obvious, from the specimen before us, that the subject is too far removed from all the sources of human interest, to be successfully treated by any modern author. Mr Keats has unquestionably a very beautiful imagination, and a great familiarity with the finest diction of English poetry; but he must learn not to misuse or misapply these advantages; and neither to waste the good gifts of nature and study on intractable themes, nor to luxuriate too recklessly on such as are more suitable.

ART. XI. Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance. By JOHN FOSTER. 8vo. pp. 317. London, Holdsworth, 1820.

THE HE subject upon which we are now about to enter, has always appeared to us not only to be in itself of the greatest and most permanent importance of any which we have ever considered, but as that upon which it is most essential that right notions should be entertained by every class of the community. The question is as to the best practical means of Promoting the Education of the body of the People-in other words of improving, and in many cases, we might say, creating, the religious, the moral, and intellectual character of the nation. To this it is manifest that every other improvement is necessarily and intrinsically subordinate. Our individual enjoyments and our national prosperity—our freedom and our loyalty—our peace and our plenty-our comforts and our renown-all obviously depend upon the rank which we may be enabled to hold as rational and moral beings; and our eternal as well as our temporal concerns must be mainly affected, in so far as human means are concerned, by the tenor of our early instructions. We most earnestly entreat all our readers, therefore, to favour us with their patient attention, in the exposition we are now to make; and seriously to consider, whether an opportunity has not now arisen, of conferring a greater practical benefit on the country than was ever in its choice before, and whether any man can be excused for withholding his countenance and support from the plans that have now been so nearly matured for that purpose.

The great difficulty arose, as was foreseen from the beginning, from the mutual jealousy of the Established Church and the Dissenters; and our apprehensions of misconduct were certainly long directed towards the former. Its chiefs, however, have ultimately made the most liberal concessions; and the Legislature is ready to sanction a scheme, to which we sincerely think no reasonable objection can now be stated. Some of the Dissenters, however, are understood not to be satisfied; and it is from them only that any serious opposition to the scheme is now to be apprehended. We shall consider their objections by and by;-but, in the outset, we may be permitted to claim for ourselves the credit that is due to the unvarying, fearless, and zealous advocates of religious independence, and entire freedom of conscience and of worship. The members of our own National Establishment are Dissenters from the Church of England; and, in this very controversy on the subject of education, in all its stages,

as well as upon every other question, our readers must be aware that we have uniformly taken the side of the Dissenters, and fought their battles with equal zeal and constancy. We trust, therefore, that our decided and deliberate opinions will have some weight with them, even where they differ from those of some of their less temperate advisers; and think that we may reckon, at all events, upon a candid and favourable consideration of the reasons by which alone we wish to secure their adoption. We shall now proceed, therefore, to detail, as clearly and concisely as possible, the measures to which we have alluded, and the nature and result of the views and inquiries on which they are grounded. We have purposely delayed the consideration of this great subject, till the Plan, in its matured shape, should be brought before Parliament by Mr Brougham. This has now been effected; the plan has been formally introduced and expounded; the Bills in which it is embodied have been read a second time, committed and reported, with the blanks filled up; and the further consideration of them having been adjourned, for the express purpose of allowing the country to consider and to discuss them, we are naturally called upon to exercise the privilege that belongs to us.

The inquiries of the Education Committee have laid the foundation of this plan. Our readers are aware, that Queries were addressed by that body to all the parochial clergy of England and Wales, respecting the state of Education in each parish and chapelry. Their answers were given with an alacrity and fullness, which, both in the Report of the Committee, and in Mr Brougham's observations in the House of Commons, have been largely commended. So ready was their compliance with the requisition of the Committee, that the Chairman states himself to have received between two and three thousand letters in one day. From time to time new questions were proposed, and further information obtained. The defective returns were thus supplied in a great degree, and all obscurities explained. A vast mass of information being thus obtained, it was digested with great diligence and care. The unremitting labour of two years, has now produced the large printed volumes which embody the substance of the information respecting England; a third volume, of smaller size, being nearly ready for delivery, and comprising Scotland and Wales. The Scotch part of the Inquiry naturally required local assistance; and the General Assembly of our Church, in compliance with the request of the Committee, appointed a committee, at the head of which was Principal Baird, to aid the Investigation by a correspondence with the Scottish clergy, in addition to the

correspondence carried on by the Committee. The Scotch returns were then digested in the Committee, to which they were communicated by the Reverend Principal, accompanied by his own valuable remarks. It is understood that he also assisted in the work of digesting these returns; although the accuracy of the work rests entirely upon the original documents themselves, which were all transmitted to London.

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It is impossible to deny the great value of the work thus completed. As a Statistical document it is in some degree new in its kind; for, instead of mere dry figures, it contains a map of the state of society, and of the moral state of the people. It is a complete chart of the Education of the Island, in all its essential particulars. The construction of it may be shortly described-Each county has a Digest and a Table. The Digest contains the substance of the Parochial returns, arranged under three heads-1st, the particulars relating to endowments for education-2d, those relating to other institutions, or unendowed sche's-and, 3d, general observations on the state of the people in respect of education and matters connected with it. There are. two other columns added-one giving the names of the Parishes in alphabetical order-the other giving the Population of each. The Table is extracted from the Digest, and consists of as much of it as can be reduced to a strictly tabular or numerical form. It differs in its construction for England and Wales-and for Scotland. The Table for English and Welsh counties, consists of four divisions or great columns-each subdivided into smaller columns. The divisions are, 1. Parishes or Chapelries -and this is subdivided into three columns; one for the alphabetical list of Parishes, with their Chapelries, another for the Population, and a third for the Poor of each parish and chapelry. 2. Endowments-subdivided into three columns; one for the number of the endowments in each ecclesiastical district, another for the number of children educated by each, and a third for the revenue of each. 3. Unendowed Day schools-subdivided into two columns; one for the number of such schools, another for the children educated at each. 4. Unendowed Sunday Schools, subdivided into two columns for the same purposes as the division of Day schools. The Scotch Tables are differently constructed. The first division is the same as in the English Tables, and is subdivided in the same manner. But there are four other divisions-1. Schools supported by Mortifications, that is, gifts in Mortmain-subdivided into three columns for numbers, children, and revenue. 2. Parochial Schools, subdivided in like manner. 3. Unendowed Day Schools-subdivid ed into four classes, and each class into two columns, one of

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numbers of schools, the other of numbers of children.-The classes are, Society Schools-Dame Schools-Ordinary Schools -and Totals of the preceding three classes. 4. Sunday Schools -subdivided into two columns for numbers and children. In the Scotch Tables, there are no marks of reference; in the English and Welsh, there are three of importance-one indicating that, beside the sum given, the endowment has other property not specified, or which cannot be valued in money--another that the school in question is a Dame school-a third, that the school in question is one either upon the National plan, or the plan of the British and Foreign School Society.

The reader will at once perceive how completely this Digest with its Tables must exhaust the subject, and present a picture of the state and the means of education in general and in detail; for the whole Island, and for each even the smallest parish and chapelry in it-and of the education in all its branches, and in every point of view in which it may be regarded. It should be further observed, that these volumes contain the substance also of the two great volumes, the Population Returns, and the Poor Abstract, as far as relates to the number of people and of poor in each ecclesiastical district. Indeed it furnishes a statement not to be gathered from those other works without much labour, namely, a corrected statement of the inhabitants and poor for each of the ecclesiastical subdivisions; it is the first work in which the population of each chapelry has been assigned; indeed no former work ever gave even the particular townships of each chapelry, and the townships of those parts of the parishes not included in the limits of the subordi nate chapelries.

Beside the Digest and Table of each County in the Island, two General Tables are added, containing the Totals of the Counties in one view-but in a more complete subdivision. If we add the General Totals for all England, it will more satisfactorily show the construction of these Tables. The first relates to numbers educated:-And the Total is as follows-the imperfect returns having been filled up by calculating from the complete ones,

Grand Total, or General Result of a Table, showing the State of Education in England.

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