the wages or reward of many professions, so discredit or disgrace has the contrary effect. The most detestable of all trades, that of the public executioner, is, in proportion to the work done, better paid than any other trade whatever. The pay is greater to compensate for the disgrace.

II. The wages of labour vary with the easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of learning the business: this is evident. A scavenger and a shepherd, for instance, serve no apprenticeship, but receive a certain rate of wages from the moment they are employed. Their wages, however, will be low, inasmuch as they have lost no time and incurred no expense in learning their business. Not so with the man who has served a long apprenticeship; his wages must be such as will include a sufficient remuneration for the time he has lost, and the expense he has incurred in his education. The more time or money, or both, that it requires to learn a profession, the higher must be the wages received from it. The education of painters and sculptors, of lawyers and physicians, is both tedious and expensive; and hence their wages or pecuniary recompense must be, as it is, proportionally high; otherwise there would be a deficiency of hands in these professions (which would soon raise wages), or the professions would disappear altogether.

III. The wages of labour in different employments vary with the constancy or inconstancy of employment. There are many kinds of business in which there is necessarily great inconstancy, such as that of lawyers, medical practitioners, masons. These persons can never expect, from obvious reasons, to be employed regularly every day of the year, and they never are so employed; consequently their wages must be proportionally higher, and sufficient not only to pay them when they are employed, but to compensate them for the time-a very anxious time-during which they are destined to remain idle. This principle is directly applicable to very many professions. Suppose that I am a dentist which is a profession that requires expensive training-and to excel in which is the result of great dexterity and skill. You come to me to have a tooth extracted, for which I charge half-a-guinea. Without thinking on the real principle for which I charge this apparently large sum, you grudge it, and say that it was certainly most easily gained. You would be right if I could be employed in pulling teeth every hour of the day and every day in the year. But such is necessarily not the case. I follow a profession, employment in which is most inconstant and precarious. I do not, on an average, draw perhaps two teeth, certainly not more than three teeth a-day; and the half-guinea I charge from each customer is not more than a bare compensation, both for the time I am employed and for the time I am idle; not to speak of the anxiety and despondency that attend such idleness, and such inconstancy of employment.

The same principle may be illustrated by a minute analysis of the professions of lawyers, physicians, painters, sculptors, porters, &c. A lawyer follows a profession that requires a most expensive training, and to enter which involves great fees, as also a yearly tax to government for practising; circumstances that necessarily make the wages of a legal practitioner high. But these wages are high from another cause, namely, the inconstancy and precariousness of the employment. You pay a writer or attorney 6s. 8d. for writing a letter, and L.5 for making your will. You grudge the payment, and say that the letter might have been

written for 1s., or for nothing; and that the will was dear enough at half-a-guinea. But this opinion is erroneous. If, like a smith or a carpenter, a writer was regularly employed six or eight hours a-day in writing letters and drawing out wills, his pay (if the profession were free) would not be the half, perhaps not a fourth of what it now is. But as, on the contrary, he is not employed the half, perhaps not the fourth of the day, and runs a risk of being idle altogether, his wages must necessarily be so high as not only to remunerate him for the time he is employed, but also for the time he is compelled to be idle, as well as to cover the expense of his training and the payment of his yearly tax of L.10. By keeping these views before you, you will pay your lawyer as cheerfully as you pay your baker or butcher.

The public executioner was before referred to; and it was mentioned, that, in proportion to the work done, he was better paid than any other labourer. And why? To cover the disgrace-the great disgrace—that attaches to his work. But it may now be mentioned, that his wages are high from another cause, namely, the inconstancy and precariousness of his employment. If the public executioner were employed once every month, or once every week, and had a certainty of such employment, his wages would still be high in proportion to the work done, to cover its disgrace, but would not be perhaps a fifth of what they at present are; their present highness being owing to the uncertainty and precariousness of his employment. The public executioner, like the doctor or the lawyer, must be paid when he works as much as will form a remuneration for the time he is destined to remain idle, as also to cover the disgrace attending his profession.

IV. The wages of labour vary according to the small or great trust reposed in the workman. A lawyer's clerk, who merely copies letters, is comparatively poorly paid; but make him book-keeper, or a copier of wills, and important documents on stamp paper, his wages are doubled or trebled, owing to the greater trust reposed in him. We trust our health to the physician-our fortune to the lawyer; and their wages must be high to compensate for this trust; to make them worthy of it; to raise their condition and standard of character and respectability.

V. And, lastly, the wages of labour in different employments vary according to the probability or improbability of success in them, The probability of success in different professions varies immensely. Bind your son an apprentice to a shoemaker, and you may be sure that he will become a fair, if not a superior tradesman. But put him to study painting or the law, and it is nearly twenty to one if ever he make such proficiency as will enable him to live by his business. Now, if twenty fail for one that succeeds, that one ought to receive the retribution, not only of his own education, but of that of the unsuccessful twenty. Yet the liberal professions, such as those of the law or painting, are generally overcrowded; and for the following reasons: success in them, as so few succeed, is very honourable; and every person has confidence both in his own talents and good fortune. Every man hopes to succeed. "The overweening conceit," says Dr Smith," which the greater part of men have of their own abilities, is an ancient evil remarked by the philosophers and moralists of all ages. Their absurd presumption in their own good fortune has been less taken notice of. It is, however, if possible, still more universal; and forms the only or chief reason why men choose pro

avoided. Unfortunately, in the northern part of the island at least, such museums are rarely accessible to the mass of the community.

But the mere looking at nature will not do. Rocks and minerals have not their names written upon them, at least not in a language which can be read before we have learned the alphabet. In science as in literature, the first steps are the most difficult, and can be communicated in the easiest and best manner by a teacher. A course of lectures by an able and diligent professor, who not only shows his students specimens in the class-room, but takes them out to the mountains and sea-shore, and shows them rocks on the great scale, and in their natural relations to each other, is the true way to commence the study of geology. There is no use in disguising the fact, that a course of personal instruction thus conducted is the only speedy and effectual method of acquiring a knowledge of this, as indeed of most branches of science. A teacher who exhibits specimens of minerals and rocks in his class-room and connected museum, who expounds the theory and facts of geology by the aid of diagrams,—and who then supplements this by taking his students to the localities where the various phenomena are exemplified in nature, will do more in a few months to promote their knowledge of geology than years of private study are likely to accomplish.

But there are many of our readers who may not have the opportunity of following geology in this way, and who would yet wish to attain some knowledge of its principles. These persons may ask, are we then wholly excluded from this domain of science, and is there no way in which we may attain some slight knowledge of the structure of that globe we inhabit, of those mountains among which we live, and those rocks on which we tread? Their case is not altogether so hopeless as this. Where there is a will, as the old proverb says, there is a way. The more common minerals are not numerous, and they may come to a knowledge of them either from books, or from the information of some friend. They may find this a slow and troublesome process compared to their first steps under a proper teacher, but it may be accomplished. Only let them have their eyes and their ears open to what is passing around. Let them collect specimens, and some friend, or their own reading, may give them the knowledge of the names of these; and thus a key be put in their hand for further progress. Ten or a dozen minerals compose all the most common rocks, and there are few districts of country where more than two or three times that number are found, so that the task is after all not so very great. Where there is an opportunity of visiting a well-arranged museum, in which the various objects are properly named, much of this preliminary difficulty may be

who have studied the science only in other books, with the aid perhaps of a museum or cabinet, but have never seen rocks in nature, nor examined geological facts as exhibited in the broad pages of the universe. Such books want all impress of reality; they are at best but an imperfect transcript of the thoughts of others, and where they do not misrepresent facts, show an utter ignorance of their true import and character. The true teachers of geology are they who have studied it in the field, and applied its facts and theories to interpret the open volume of nature. Perhaps the most complete work on elementary geology in English is the Manual of De la Beche. The works of Phillips are also good, and, for the student of the English fossiliferous rocks, the more recent volumes of Ansted. To all of these, for the theory of geology, the illustrations of the Huttonian theory by Playfair, and the works of Lyell, are indispensable; and for a description of the older rocks, so important in Scottish geology, the treatises of Macculloch are still the most complete. In some of these works figures of the most common and characteristic fossils will be found, whilst a more complete knowledge of the subject may be sought in Dr Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, to which some more recent works in the French and German languages will be found useful associates.

From these books a pretty complete view of the general principles of the science may be attained. But we would again warn the reader that the mere study of books is of small value for a knowledge of geology. This must be sought in nature, and in the actual examination of the phenomena themselves. It is there alone that we learn to judge of the value of the facts described by authors, and acquire the means of forming an opinion of the theories they propose. The best places for observing the facts of geology are where the rocks have been laid bare, whether by natural causes, or by the labours of man. Hence, the mountain with its rugged and naked precipices, the deep-worn channel of the rapid torrent, the cliff on the river bank or the sea shore, are all favourite haunts of the geologist no less than of the lover of sublime and picturesque scenery. The long continuous sections furnished by the seashore, preserved in perpetual freshness by the continual wasting influence of the waves, are especially valuable. The whole structure of a country is often exhibited there, as the various beds come to the surface, and are cut off by the waves. Among what may be named artificial sections, mines are often placed in the foremost rank; but, notwithstanding all the advantages they offer for observing certain facts, as the nature of veins, and the distribution of minerals, they seldom repay the labour and trouble of descending into them. The damp, the dust, and darkness, the uncertain light of the glimmering lamp, are not the best aids in geological research. Quarries open to the light of day show often the same facts on a larger scale, and under more favourable circumstances. The cuttings of roads, railways, and canals, are also highly important situations for observing the nature of a country and its various geological formations. But it is impossible to enu

One most interesting part of geology is its application to the locality in which we live, or those we may chance to visit. This is too often neglected by those who have already acquired some knowledge of its principles; and in this way they not only forget their former attainments, but miss many favourable opportunities of increasing their amount. They thus sacrifice one of the greatest advantages of this as of all other branches of natural history, the interest which it confers on the common objects around us, and on our most common walks. The pebbles in the mountain stream or on the sea-shore receive from it a history, and tell a tale full of wondrous truth. Here is one that has come from such a wild glen, and this from yon mountain, blue on the far horizon. And this one, again, had its birthplace hundreds of miles off, across broad rivers and mountain chains, perhaps even in lands beyond the sea; and floods or ocean currents, glaciers or icebergs, are called up to bring it to its present place. Then, again, the history of the mountains and valleys, the nature of the rocks of which they consist, and the character of the plants and animals imbedded in them, are all subjects of interesting inquiry. And here, again, the student may learn much from those who have gone before him, and their researches are the best superstructure on which he can build his own. It is foolish to despise any aid in the pursuit of knowledge; and the man who will trust only to his own eyes, and rejects the advice or information of others, will frequently find that, instead of seeing what is new, he has only omitted seeing much that is old. Where the student, therefore, can procure any local guide to the country or district he means to examine, we advise him to procure this by all means. The few shillings which a work of this kind, and a good map on a large scale, may cost, will be more than compensated by the vast increase in information, and the saving of needless labour which they will effect. Even for the beginner we know no better school than to take a good guide to the geology of a locality into his hands, and to go out with it to look for the phenomena described. The whole region in which he lives then becomes to him, as it were, a richly stored museum, and the book in his hand a teacher pointing out its various treasures.*

EMINENT MEN OF FIFE.

MR BRUCE, the editor of the Fifeshire Journal, has recently issued a small volume, entitled, "Lives of the Eminent Men of Fife," and considering the variety and multiplicity of calls on the time and patience of a provincial editor, it is surprising how any sustained literary undertaking should have been accomplished by Mr Bruce at all; but still more wonderful that it should have been achieved with such an amount of laborious and minute consultation of authorities, aucient and modern. But besides industry Mr Bruce has boldness and originality;

* We cannot here mention all the various works on the geology of different parts of the country. For the district round Edinburgh we should recommend Maclaren's Geology of Fife and the Lothians, and Rhind's Geology of the Environs of Edinburgh. For Scotland in general, Nicol's Guide to the Geology of Scotland.

he believes he stoutly avows and sturdily maintains. He cares for no writer or party, and this bluntness, which borders on the reckless, and sometimes makes him harsh and censorious, will we fear detract somewhat from the popularity of his volume; for although we can conceive of a historical work written in one way finding favour in the estimation of Mr Tytler's admirers, and composed in another way, to be approved of by the friends of Dr M'Crie, we must confess that we have some difficulty in finding out what existing class will be pleased with a performance which alternately censures and praises both these writers, as well as the classes whom they respectively represent. Mr Bruce's work is a literal transcript of his own mind, and after one has been accustomed to the stilted caution of partizan historians it is refreshing to meet with an author who, in the words of the old song, cares for nobody." Many of the raciest passages touch on controverted points in politics and theology, which we can neither discuss nor quote, either for approval or disapprobation, without trenching on ground beyond what our neutral position warrants; but some passages we subjoin, and as Mr Bruce suspends his future prosecution of the work on the suc cess which this volume may receive, we trust that it will meet with ample and prompt encouragement.

ARE CLEVER MEN LEAN AND HALF MADE UP? An emaciated body has been looked on as the sort of tabernacle in which wisdom loves to dwell, and an ugly sallow countenance and lantern jaws have been regarded as the genuine livery of the learned, being the natural fruit, as is believed, of profound study. The authority of the philosopher Apuleius is generally quoted clares, that continual literary labour had taken away all on this subject. In a well-known passage Apuleius decomeliness from his body, wasted his habit, dried up his juices, destroyed his complexion, and weakened his strength, and that the hair of his head was inextricably twisted from want of attention to it. This is the description which Apuleius chose to give of his person when he had to defend himself against the charge of having seduced the widow of Pudentilla by his good looks, and yet in the same apology he tells us that Pythagoras and Zeno were the handsomest men of their times. Dr Joseph Warton, in his Essay on Pope, has made the reable for their personal beauty. In contradiction also of mark, that many of the great English poets were remarkthe vulgar notion about the spare habit of literary men, their history abounds in facts. One of the idols worshipped in Michael's time, the famous Averroes, was excessively corpulent, though his hours were devoted to study, and his table furnished the fare of an anchoret. Handel was fat, but then it may be alleged that he liked good wine and ale; and the amiable author of the Seasons could hardly be otherwise than corpulent, seeing that he would not rise out of his bed without a motive, and ate the cherries off the tree without taking his hands out of his pockets. But no such criticism can apply to the sublime Milton, nor to the laborious author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, who, it is well known, grew so fat in the pursuit of solid learning, that having one forenoon fallen down on his knees to make love to a lady, he required the assistance of her servants to raise him out of that affecting position. The ill health of literary men is a still more unfounded article of vulgar faith, for statistical facts prove that their lives are beyond the average length, and it could not well be otherwise. A life of study is a life of pleasure-of pleasure which, virtuous, brings with it no moments of regret; and its as it is not tumultuous, is enduring, and, because it is elevations have not, like less intellectual enjoyments, their corresponding depressions. It is thus that real history contradicts theories which impose upon generation after generation. To the fact, however, of the comfortable and long life of the literary man, we think that there must be an exception made in the case of poets of the