whom the consequences may prove especially pernicious, it is this. For what is the position of a governess? Educated for her vocation far beyond what her circumstances would otherwise have permitted, and consequently above her natural connexions—her mind more cultivated, her manners more refined-she probably may find their society uncongenial, and if affection be not weakened, at least pleasant intercourse may be marred and confidence checked. Not only so-she is also separated from them, and thrown among those whose minds and manners assimilate much more with her own -who have, besides, the charm which birth and breeding may give them in her eyes; but towards whom her affections must not go forth, with whom she can form no lasting ties, in whom she dare take no special interest. If ever poor mortal needed to have the imagination kept under control, and plain practical common sense largely developed, as a safeguard alike for her feelings and her conduct, it is the governess. But-not to recur to the earnest carrying out of the art and discipline of sonneteering-how will such teaching as the following effect this end? The Rev. Charles Kingsley thus delivers himself concerning the 'true spiritual History of England: That I call a history-not of one class of offices or events, but of the living human souls of English men and English women-and therefore one most adapted to the mind of woman; one which will call into fullest exercise her blessed faculty of sympathy-that pure and tender heart of flesh, which teaches her always to find her highest interest in mankind, simply as mankind; to see the Divine most completely in the human; to prefer the incarnate to the disembodied, the personal to the abstract—the pathetic to the intellectual; to see, and truly, in the most common tale of village love or sorrow, a mystery deeper and more divine than lies in all the theories of politicians or the fixed ideas of the sage. 'Such a course of history would quicken women's inborn personal interest in the actors of this life-drama, and be quickened by it in return, as indeed it ought: for it is thus that God intended woman to look instinctively at the world. Would to God that she would teach us men to look at it thus likewise! [Teach instinct!] Would to God that she would in these days claim and fulfil to the uttermost her vocation as the priestess of charity! that woman's heart would help to deliver man from bondage to his own tyrannous and all-too-exclusive brain!-from our idolatry of mere dead laws and printed books-from our daily sin of looking at men, not as our struggling and suffering brothers, but as mere symbols of certain formulæ, incarnations of sets of opinions, wheels in some iron liberty-grinding or Christianityspinning machine, which we miscall society, or civilization, or, worst misnomer of all, the Church! 'This I take to be one of the highest aims of woman-to preach charity, charity, love, and brotherhood: but in this nineteenth century, hunting every where for law and organization, refusing loyalty to any thing which cannot range itself under its theories, she will never get a hearing till her knowledge of the past becomes more organized and methodic. . . . . I claim, therefore, as necessary for the education of the future, that woman should be initiated into the thoughts and feelings of her countrymen in every age, from the wildest legends of the past to the most palpable naturalism of the present; and that not merely in chronological order-sometimes not in chronological order at all; but in a true spiritual sequence; that, knowing the hearts of many, she may in after life be able to comfort the hearts of all. . . . 'But once more, we must and will by God's help try to realize the purpose of this College, by boldly facing the facts of the age, and of our own office. And therefore we shall not shrink from the task, however delicate and difficult, of speaking to our hearers as to women. Our teaching must be no sexless, heartless abstraction. We must try to make all which we tell them bear on the great purpose of unfolding to woman her own calling in all ages-her especial calling in this one. We must incite them to realize the chivalrous belief of our old forefathers among their Saxon forests, that something Divine dwelt in the counsels of woman: but on the other hand we must continually remind them that they will attain that divine instinct, not by renouncing their sex, but by fulfilling it; by becoming true women, and not bad imitations of men; by educating their heads for the sake of their hearts, not their hearts for the sake of their heads; by claiming woman's divine vocation, as the priestess of purity, of beauty, and of love; by educating themselves to become, with God's blessing, worthy wives and mothers of a mighty nation of workers, in an age when the voice of the ever-working God is proclaiming, through the thunder of falling dynasties and crumbling idols, "He that will not work, neither shall he eat."-On English Literature. (Lect. pp. 58-66.) How would our readers like to receive into their families as a governess, one who had been taught to feel such an interest in tales of village love,'-who is prepared to take a 'personal in'terest in the actors' of the domestic life-drama,'-to offer them her'sympathy,' not as events properly and naturally call it forth, but as her chief vocation and highest duty-and to expect that 'something divine' is to be attributed to her counsels ?" We repeat that none can admire more than we do the design or the mere mechanical arrangements of this Institution. The hope of seeing all that is evil purged away, and what is good set free to work efficiently-this hope and this alone has induced us to take up a very unpleasant task. With regard to the Lecturers themselves, we deeply feel that their devotion of time and energy to the work of Queen's College has been generous:—as one of themselves expresses it 'These These gentlemen had everything to lose, and nothing to gain by it. Their position was already established; their employments, both professional and spontaneous, laborious; their time precious.' But the interests at stake are too momentous to be sacrificed to any considerations of courtesy, goodwill, or even esteem and gratitude. And if, further, it seems unfair to have quoted from the volume of Lectures only passages which seemed open to censure, and to have passed by those (and they are many) which we could have subscribed to and commended, it is because, while it would have been much more pleasant as well as easier to quote and comment upon such passages, no good beyond present gratification could have been the result. We may also plead that we have only taken our lecturers at their word. They have requested to be informed of all complaints and censures,' premising that anything favourable' may be withheld. They have acknowledged that hints even from lookers-on may do them good; just as much good, or more, when they are ill-natured as when they are civil' (p. 27). We trust that our remarks, without meriting the former epithet, may attain the desired end, and that they will be received in the same spirit which has dictated them. year. Before concluding, we must briefly allude to the older branch, i. e., the Governesses' Benevolent Institution; and here we are happy to be able to speak in terms of unqualified praise. We need not again quote from the touching histories which the list of annuitants supplies-it will be sufficient shortly to sum up the progress made in the various departments during the past Assistance has been rendered in 335 cases of temporary difficulty to the extent of 7931. 13s. The number of aged governesses receiving annuities is 32-the amount thus given, 5157. 486 governesses pay into the Provident-fund for securing deferred annuities-the payment during the past year being 92167. 2s. 8d., and the whole amount now deposited 43,5857. 6s. 2d. Connected with this fund is a savings' bank, each lady's money standing in her own name, and removable only by her own order. In the Home (66, Harley Street) which is now nearly self-supporting, there have been 200 admissions and departures. The number registered at the office during the same period is 1509, and the number who have thus procured engagements 807. The Aged Asylum, at Kentish Town, with sufficient accommodation, as a beginning, for 10 inmates, has been opened, and that number of superannuated governesses are there enjoying a quiet haven of rest. A donation of 2007. to the asylum will at any time secure the addition of rooms for two more inmates; the endowment required being 5007., or 15l. per annum. Thus varied and multiform are the channels through which this Society pours forth its benevolence! The Report last on our list is that of a more humble undertaking, little known, and therefore not so well supported as it deserves-thrown into the shade by the more aspiring Institution, yet of older date-no rival to that establishment, but from its lower terms meeting the wants of a still more necessitous class -providing amply, though in a plain way, for the comforts of its inmates, and taking care to enrol their names on the registry of the office in Harley Street. This residence for governesses while temporarily out of employment is at 19, Osnaburgh Street, Regent's Park. We trust that all the Institutions which have passed under review (including Queen's College amended as we hope to see it) will meet with liberal support. Those whom they seek to benefit are our own countrywomen, and a class of them to whom we are all in the course of our lives more or less indebted; at least, there are few even of the rougher sex in the higher orders who have not, as little boys or as fathers of families, incurred the debt equally with their wives and sisters. The scope is wide-it includes temporal relief to the sick and distressed, comfort to the aged, intellectual improvement to the young-forethought and provident habits are, moreover, stimulated and encouraged in every rank and age of Governess Life.' Not long ago we heard Prince Albert express himself as follows at an Anniversary Meeting of the Servants' Provident Society: : The object for which we have met to-day is not one of charity, but of friendly assistance and advice to a very large and important class of our fellow-countrymen. Who does not feel the deepest interest in the welfare of domestic servants? Whose heart does not feel sympathy for those who minister to us in all the wants of daily life-who attend us in sickness, who receive us on our first appearance in the world, and who extend their care even to our mortal remains ?' Just and manly thoughts could not have been more unaffectedly expressed. But-if His Royal Highness stated truly and gracefully what our feelings ought to be towards the class of domestic servants-even stronger are the claims of those to whom we intrust the objects of our fondest affections and most cherished hopeswho supply our deficiencies towards them, whether caused by the external circumstances of our lot or by our own incapacity and want of power and skill. ART. ART. IV.-History of Greece. Vols. III.-VIII. By George Grote, Esq. 8vo. 1847-1850. WE look forward with much interest to Mr. Grote's forth coming volumes-to what may be strictly called The History of Greece. Such was the hope which closed the last notice of Mr. Grote's work in these pages. That hope has been fully realized. The two volumes have swelled to eight; the disquisitions on a legendary and doubtful period have grown into a stately and heart-stirring narrative of the deeds of living men; and the author has now incontestably won for himself the title, which could then be awarded only by a dubious anticipation, not merely of a historian, but of the historian of Greece. Our readers have often seen the recent poverty of English literature in the historical department contrasted exultingly with the fertility in the same walk of our French and German neighbours. It may now be allowed to us to remark, that within the last two years the most extolled modern efforts of both have been fairly met by English pens. Those schools-as they may justly be called-have been encountered, each on its own peculiar ground; and each, in its own separate and widely separate style-we need affect no hesitation in saying-has been vanquished. The most brilliant sallies of Michelet and Lamartine grow pale before the vivid scenes of the deathbed of Charles II. and the trial of the Seven Bishops. The most laborious investigations of Müller and of Ranke-Niebuhr perhaps still stands unrivalled-look thin and blasted beside the full proportions of the long research which unfolds the rise and progress of the Athenian democracy. But this-we may also be pardoned for adding-suggests another remarkable circumstance in connexion with Mr. Grote's book. It is the third time that the history of Greece has been handled by an Englishman with such success as at once to throw all previous works on the same subject into the shade. It is a rare privilege for one generation of men to have witnessed three such steps in a single branch of historical study as are displayed in the three histories (unequal as the first may be considered to its successors) of Mitford, Thirlwall, and Grote. It is a still rarer privilege to witness such a generous rivalry in the race of knowledge as is exhibited in the almost contemporaneous essays of the two distinguished friends and schoolfellows who have won the latest laurels in this noble field. It is an encouraging reflection for those who tremble lest the increased interest in modern history and modern science should extinguish the light of ancient civilization and of classical learning, that an eminent English politician |