nature, and illustrate the power and the wis dom of the Providence to which man looks up as his Maker and Preserver.

39

we know as our Creator, is the Good Being by whose preserving care we are cherished, "the greatness of whose mercy reacheth unto the heavens, His truth above the clouds; and sentiments of piety and devotion arise to fill our minds which he alone can reject who has the faith of Epicurus and the feelings of a Stoic.

our nature, humbly but confidently to ascend from the universe to its great First Cause, and investigate the unity, the personality, the intentions, as well as the matchless skill and But most important, and, to our feeble mighty power of Him who made and moves nature, most consolatory, is the impression, and sustains those prodigious bodies, and all which all our study of this vast subject that inhabit them. But moral science lends leaves, of perfect wisdom being accompanied liberally the same lights, and bestows the by constant benevolence. This is declared same enjoyments. For He also created the by all the works around us, and is deeply mind of man, bestowed upon him a thinking, felt in all the sentiments of our mind. We a reasoning, and a feeling nature, placed him find everywhere proofs that we live under in a universe of wonders, endowed him with a Ruler who, unlike human lawgivers, far faculties to comprehend them, and to rise oftener proclaims rewards than denounces by his meditations to a knowledge of their punishments. Furthermore, it is a general Divine cause. The connection of attention rule, and would be found absolute and uniwith memory, the help furnished by the in-versal if our knowledge embraced the whole fluence of curiosity and the force of habit; system, that while pleasure is held out to the uses to which the feelings and the pas- induce, much more than pain to deter, the sions are subservient, as love to the contin- pleasure is beyond what would suffice; there uance of the race, the affections to the rear- is gratification more than requisite; and this ing of it, hope to encourage and sustain, fear can only be because the Giver of good deto protect from danger, all the instincts of lights in the happiness of his creatures. all creatures, in some acting with a marvel- Such contemplations at once gratify a scienlous accuracy such as reason could not sur-tific curiosity, and afford a moral indulgence; pass [Note 14], and all perfectly suited to they prove that the awful Being, of whose the position of the individuals-these are existence we are made certain, and whom not more marvels of the Divine skill than of the benevolence which pervades all creation, moral as well as material. But societies of men, man in his social capacity, is the special object of divine love, nihil est principi illi Deo qui omnem hunc mundum regit, quod quidem in terris fiat acceptius, quam concilia cætusque hominum jure sociati, quæ civitates appellantur; the same pleasing and useful consequences result from the study of man in his social as in his individual capacity, and from a contemplation of the structure and the functions of the political world-the nice adaptation of our species for the social state; the increase of our powers as well as the multiplications of our comforts and our enjoyments by union of purpose and of action; the subserviency of the laws governing the structure and motions of the material world to the uses of man in the state of society, the tendency of his mental faculties and moral feelings to further the progress of social improvement; the predisposition of political combinations, even in unfavorable circumstances, to produce good, and the inherent powers by which evil is avoided, compensated, and repaired; the singular laws, partly physical and partly moral, by which the numbers of mankind are maintained and the balance of the sexes preserved with unerring certainty-these form only a portion of the marvels to which the eyes of the political observer are pointed, and by which his attention is arrested; for there is hardly any one political arrangement which by its structure and functions, does not shed a light on the capacities of human

The thorough exposing of these truths, and dwelling unceasingly upon them, is not required for supporting the character of this famous University; but it must afford pure delight, both to the teacher and the pupil. Above all, is the necessity of making upon the mind of early youth an impression which never can wear out by lapse of time, or be effaced by the rival influences of other contemplations, or be obliterated by the cares of the world. The lessons thus learned, and the feelings engendered or cherished, will shed their auspicious influence over the mind through life; protecting against the seductions of prosperous fortune, solacing in affliction, preparing for the great change that must close the scene, by habitual and confident belief in the "King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God," and the humble hope of immortality which the study of His works has inspired, and which the gracious announcements of His revealed word abundantly confirm.

NOTES.

NOTE I.

THE case of Somerset the negro was on a Habeas corpus, in the Court of King's Bench in 1772. But it only decided that a master could

LORD BROUGHAM'S INSTALLATION ADdress.

not carry his slave out of the country. Lord Mansfield states the question to be on the validity of the return to the writ, namely, that he was kept on board the vessel to be sold abroad, and this being held insufficient, he was discharged. The clear and unhesitating opinion of York, Attorney General (afterwards Lord Hardwick), and of Talbot, Solicitor General, (afterwards Lord Talbot), had been given many years before denying that a slave became free on coming into the British dominions. The case of Knight v. Wedderburn, in Scotland six years after, first decided the general question which had been raised in the case of Shedon, a negro, eleven years before, but was not disposed of by the Court, the negro having died while the discussion went

on.

In England, therefore, it had only been determined that a slave could not be carried out of the country back to the Colonies by his master. But in Scotland it was first declared by judicial decision that he was in all respects whatever free.

NOTE II.

The early history of the universities, Oxford and Cambridge, is very obscure, and therefore matter of controversy. That of the two towns is somewhat less doubtful, though by no means certain. Oxford at the Conquest had about two hundred and fifty houses able to pay the tax to the Domesday Survey, the rest, nearly twice as many, being in a ruined and decayed state. Its first charter as a University is in 28 Henry III. A. D. 1244. But Merton College, the earliest, had been founded above two centuries earlier, in the Confessor's time. The alleged foundation by Alfred, towards the end of the ninth century, is fabulous, but there was a great resort of scholars there, and he probably patronized the schools. Cambridge at the Conquest had not three hundred houses. The first charter to the University was in 15 Henry III. 1231; and the earliest foundation of a college, that of Peterhouse, was a good deal later, in 1257. But there was, as at Oxford, a seat of learning much earlier, probably in the seventh century. The number of pupils attending these seats of learning in the more early times is quite unknown. In the times somewhat later, as in the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, there are most exaggerated accounts in some authors. Thus, Wood, altrem, Or. i. 266, quoting a M. V. chronicle, gives 30,000 as attending temp. Henry III., and 15,000 at the time of the foundation of Merton two hundred years before. But though these are manifestly gross exaggerations, it is certain that a vast many more students must have resorted thither than the village could accommodate.

NOTE III.

Barrow's method of tangents certainly was a near approach to the differential calculus; indeed, Montuila regards it as a distinct anticipation of the calculus. But Furmat and Cavalleri had preceded him on the same ground. Barrow was a profound theologian, and devoted much time to the subject. His sermons were rather treatises than discourses, but his cloquence

83

often an hour and a half, and
was remarkable. The length of his sermons was
extraordinary,
sometimes much more; and once he delivered a
Furmat, beside his method of finding the sub-
discourse of between three and four hours.
tangent, has given the rule of neglecting the pow
ers above the first of very small quantities, as
indefinitely inconsiderable compared with those
first powers. It is therefore not to be wondered
at, that Lagrange and La Place should have re-
garded him as the real inventor of the calculus.
His name stands high among the great magis-
trates of France, and his correspondence with
Gassendi, Pascal, and others, is full of acute and
profound observations on subjects of various
kinds.

Voltaire came near the discovery of latent
heat, and the composition of the atmosphere as
shown in the calcination of metals and the sup-
port of flame. In his prize memoir on fire, he
says distinctly, that heat is the cause not only of
manent elasticity; and he remarks on the temper-
the fluidity of liquids, but of gasseous, or per-
ature of two liquids mixed, being less than might
be expected from their temperatures when sepa-
rate. Upon the calcination of metals he sug-
the calx arising from some matter diffused in the
gests the probability of the increased weight of
air, and that any other operation by which the
calx receives an increase of weight, probably is
from the same source, and not from the matter
- Sec Acad. des Sciences, Prix, tom. iv.

of heat.

p. 169.

NOTE. IV.

Leibnitz's two papers in the Leipsig Acta Eruditorum, 1689, and his manner of referring to the abstract of the Principia, which he had read before writing them, clearly show that the one on the heavenly bodies (Tentamen de Motuum Cœlestium Causis), was only in consequence of Sir I. Newton's successful investigation of the subject having been previously known to him, and that even if we admit his solution not to have been taken from the Newtonian (which Sir Isaac himself believed it had), still that Leibnitz never would even have attempted it, but for his knowlledge of Newton's success and his having seen the Abstract, which is now universally believed to have been made by Sir Isaac himself.-Biot, Journal des Savans, 1852.

NOTE V.

That Bacon possessed in no degree the power of applying his own principles to physical science is undeniable. Even the inquiry respecting heat is sufficient to prove this; for it is of experiment or observation, and no conclusions only a collection of facts and some suggestions are drawn from them. The Sylva Sylvarum is thoughout a work of hasty induction, superficial examination of facts, and most fanciful theories; it shows an entire disregard of his own rules of philosophizing. But even in his great work, the De Augmentis, we find the most startling posi tions. He considers that the nature of angels and spirits may be investigated scientifically, including the nature of demons or unclean spirits, to which he assigns in this branch of science the same place that poisons hold in physics, and

vices in ethics. (Lib. ii. c. 2.) Divination from | Scotch, their judicial proceedings, their ancient dreams and ecstasies, and death-bed glimpses, history, above all, their poetry. he treats as a science deserving of cultivation, though he cautions us against sorcery, or the practice of witchcraft. (Lib. ii. c. 2; iv. c. 3.) He complains of treatises in natural history, "being swelled with figures of animals, and other superfluous matter; and of mathematics controlling natural philosophy, instead of serving as her handmaid. (Lib. iii. c. 6.)

There can be no doubt that the English language would greatly gain by being enriched with a number both of words and of phrases, or turns of expression now peculiar to the Scotch. It was by such a process that the Greek became the first of tongues, as well written as spoken. Nor can it be for a moment admitted that the Scotch has less claim to this partial adoption It must have been some extraordinary misin-than the Doric had to mingle with the Ionian, formation that could make Frederick Schlegel or the Eolic with the Attic. Indeed, of Æolic describe Bacon as having "made and complet-works there are none, while there is a whole ed many important discoveries, and apparently having had a dim and imperfect foresight of many others." (Lectures on the Hist. of Literature, Sch. xiii.) There is some truth in the latter part of this statement; in the former, absolutely none. That he suggested experiments and observations which in other hands have proved fruitful, may be affirmed, but not of the fanciful inferences which he supposed; and in a few instances, he anticipated future discoveries, as that of radiant heat plainly indicated in Nov. Org. Lib. ii. c. 12.

NOTE VI.

body of Scotch classics. Had Theocritus lived before any poct like Pindar made frequent use of the new Doric, his exquisite poems, so much tinged with Sicilian, must have given that dialect admission into the pure Greck. Indeed, Pindar, himself Boeotian, and naturally disposed to use the old Doric, had recourse to the new for its force of expression, probably as much as he would have done had he, like Theocritus, been a Sicilian, as Moschus did, who belonged to those colonies in Asia Minor, the cradle of the language and literature of Greece. It must be observed, that when we refer to the free admission of various dialects into the classical lan

guage of Greece, we should bear in mind the peculiar fastidiousness of the Attic taste, and its scrupulous rejection of all barbarisms and all solecisms-all words in languages not purely Greek, and all turns of expression arising from a corruption of that pure tongue.

Leonardo da Vinci had the happiest genius for physical science experimentally investigated, and for the mixed mathematics particularly. He almost anticipated Torricelli, and certainly was acquainted with the weight of the atmosphere. He made considerable progress in hydraulics. He came so near isoperimetrical investigations Would it not afford means of enriching and as to be aware that bodies descend quicker in improving the English language, if full and acthe arc than in the chord, though he has not curate glossaries of approved Scotch words and given the demonstration. He invented the cam-phrases- those successfully used by the best cra-obscura and the hygrometer. He states that the air which supports flame is also respirable. These and others of his anticipations are treated of in M. Libri's able and learned work, "Histoire des Sciences Mathematiques en Italie," liv. ii., and more fully in Venturi's "Essaies sur les ouvrages Physico-Mathematiques de Leonardo da Vinci," founded upon his MS. which remain, and are now in the Imperial Library at Paris. It is further to be noted that Leonardo da Vinci wrote in favor of inductive science, and on experimental inquiries as alone deserving the attention of men engaged in the study of natural philosophy.

NOTE VII.

writers, both in prose and verse-were given, with distinct explanation and reference to authorities? This has been done in France and other countries, where some dictionaries accompany the English, in some cases with Scotch synonymes, in others with varieties of expression.

NOTE VIII.

comparison of the worst offence of the Black Henry V. can only be acquitted of cruelty in Prince, for, both at the battle of Agincourt and at the siege of Montereau, his conduct was entirely reprehensible. The massacre of the pris oners at Agincourt is said by Juvenal des Ursins (312) to have been 14,000, but this is The pure and classical language of Scotland probably an exaggeration. That their number must on no account be regarded as a provincial was great cannot be doubted, because the defence dialect, any more than French was so regarded of Henry is, that they would have overpowered in the reign of Henry V., or Italian in that of him, on the expected arrival of 6,000 to join the the first Napoleon, or Greek under the Roman constable. A false alarm of their coming during empire. Nor is it to be in any manner of way the battle is said to have caused the massacre, considered as a corruption of the Saxon; on the of which Hall (70) gives a frightful description. contrary, it contains much of the old and gen- Hardynge, who was present, represents the masuine Saxon, with an intermixture from the sacre as having taken place after the battle, on Northern nations, as Danes and Norse, and a false alarm of a new enemy coming up, wheresome, though a small portion from the Celtic. upon, he says, "thei slew all prisoners downBut in whatever way composed, or from what-right, sauf dukes, and erles, in fell and cruel ever sources arising, it is a national language, wise" (375). The offence at Montereau was used by the whole people in their carly years, by truly atrocious, although the number destroyed many learned and gifted persons throughout was much smaller. Eleven or twelve of the life, and in which are written the laws of the garrison, persons of rank to whom he had given

arguments of Voltaire, to show the uncertainty of ancient history in many particulars; and on these subjects his scepticism, like Voltaire's, was most justifiable. The instances cited of Hume's carelessness, prejudices, and untrustworthiness, as an historian are too numerous and too well known to require mention. The admirable work of Mr. Brodie is decisive of his merits as an historian. There has seldom if ever appeared a more searching investigtion of the like kind.

NOTE XIII.

arrangement having been otherwise than by a great first cause, and that it is only 1,826,214 to one that the sun will rise on the morrow of any given day; and that, consequently, the improbability is above two millions of times less that the sun should rise to-morrow than that the system should have been framed otherwise than by one creating power. But so little was the law of stability suspected in former times, that we find Dr. J. Burnett (Boyle, Lect. ii. 78) arguing that the variations in the orbits are so low they may traordinary interference becomes necessary to go on for many thousand years before any excorrect the deviation, and adding that, "such small irregularities cast no discredit on the good contrivance of the whole." This subject of the stability is treated of in the Mécanique Celeste, and in the Système du Monde; and the calculation of probability, in the Theorie Analytique des Probabilités (1812); and the Essai Philosophique sur les Probabilités (1814).

NOTE XIV.

The stability of the system, or the oscillation of the form of the orbits between limits absolutely fixed, depends upon the eccentricities being small, or the orbits nearly circular, the inclination of the planes in which the bodies revolve also small, and most especially on the motions being all in one direction (from west to cast). On this last circumstance depends the equation between the squares of the eccentricities, the masses, and the square roots of the axes assuring the stability. But on the force of attraction being inversely as the square of the distance depends the fixity of the axis; no other conceivable However near an approach to reason may be proportion could produce it. Now all the cir- observed in many instincts, as in the architec cumstances are contingent not necessary truths; ture of the bee, it is remarkable how entirely all are matters of fact. Thus, any planet or sat- there is an absence of all which is called refineellite might have had a much larger eccentricity, ment and taste. Thus, the nightingale's exquior some might have revolved from west to east, site musical power is accompanied with a proneand some from cast to west. Laplace has cal-ness to imitate the least melodious sounds-as, culated, that with respect to this one circumstance of the motions being all in one direction, it is four million of millions to one against this

in the south of Europe, the croaking of frogs is often apparently preferred by her to her own usual warbling.

ROGERS' WOOD CARVING. In the Spectator of June the 11th, 1859, we noticed the restoration, then going on, of St. Michael's Church, Cornhill, and the part which Mr. Rogers, the eminent wood-carver of Soho Square, took in it. Since that date the work has been finished, and opened under the immediate presence of the prince consort. In order to perpetuate the gems of wood-carving executed with so much taste and feeling by his father, Mr. George Alfred Rogers has had the whole of the carved bench-ends photographed, and published in a book. A more beautiful book we have scarcely ever seen; for without coloring, or other adventitious aids, the objects carved stand out so distinctly, as to make the beholder think he is really looking upon the actual carved wood. Some of the carvings are particularly striking, the goat in the wilderness, the pelican, a branch of a mulberry-tree, and the agony in the garden. We. might, however, enumerate every piece of the work, for they are all excellent. And the photographic artist has done justice both to him

self and the carver. There are notes in the book touching every subject, pleasantly rendered.

MR. MURRAY is preparing for publication a work on the Volcanoes, Geysers, and Glaciers of Iceland, the result of a summer's exploration by Captain Charles S. Forbes, R.N.

MESSRS. LONGMAN AND Co., announce as forthcoming, "Port Royal: a Contribution to the history of Religion and Literature in France," by Mr. Charles Beard, B.A. The work is to be in two volumes.

A WORK on "The Origin and Succession of Life on the Earth," by Mr. John Phillips, Professor of Geology at the University of Oxford, is in the hands of Messrs. J. H. Parker and Co.