than they now are? Who has ever been assisted in the labour of 'toiling upward" by the influence of the drama ? 66 We have answered some of the arguments adduced by "F. S. Mills" to prove that the drama elevates; we have endeavoured to show that the drama, sometimes directly and always indirectly, exercises a degrading influence; and we have explained that, although the drama affords amusement, yet it does not possess the qualifications necessary to make amusement profitable. In conclusion, we must beg that our readers will judge this question by the light of experience and reason, and not suffer themselves to be wholly guided by their inclinations. SAMUEL. Education. ARE PUBLIC LECTURES PROFITABLE FOR AFFIRMATIVE ARTICLE.-II. Ir seems to me quite preposterous to adopt such a question of debate, because it is quite obvious that no reply can be honestly given except that which accords with the facts, viz., that "public lectures are profitable for instruction." This is proved by the general adoption of lectures as a vehicle of instruction in all the intellectual countries in the world. The general adoption of any scheme of teaching depends upon its general recognition as a good and proper way of effecting its ends. We cannot but believe, therefore, that as public lectures have been generally incorporated with our systems of public instruction, it has been found profitable for the purpose intended. We do not, of course, include in our category of profitable lectures those of ventriloquists, magicians, semi-playacting itinerants, &c., who are often employed in different parts of the country by committees of management who do not keep them. selves up to the current of intellectual life in this country. We refer to bonâ fide lectures, given by men of learning, position, earnestness, and ability, professional or personal. The term lecture, it may be proper to remark, has a peculiar and somewhat restricted meaning. A lecture may be described as either an analytic or synthetic exposition of some literary or philosophical subject, drawn up in rather an expanded and popular form, and interspersed with copious illustrations to assist the comprehension of the subject. The terms analytic and synthetic are here used in the common, and not in their strict geometrical meanings, as descriptive of two different paths or tracts which the mind pursues in the acquisition and communication of knowledge; that is, either when it collects particular facts which lead to more general facts and principles, where such facts or principles can be obtained; or when, being in possession of general principles, it applies them to the explanation of such particular cases as may fall under them. In lectures these two methods of investigation are sometimes separated, but much more frequently combined, according to the nature of the subject under discussion, and to the particular object which the lecturer may happen to have in view. Though lectures may be here and there interspersed with incidents or anecdotes calculated to excite interest in the minds of the hearers, and to render the acquisition of knowledge agreeable, yet they do not wholly consist of these, but commonly contain good thought and carefully gleaned information. It is not, indeed, requisite that these should always be the result of individual, original research. If due honesty be employed in acknowledging the sources of the information, and proper care be employed in working up the materials, a lecture may be regarded as a sort of shorthand reading for the public; a lessening of the absolute work of all by the judicious labour of one for the good of many, which, therefore, must be advantageous. To prove that lectures are profitable for instruction we need only recall the number of excellent works which are the product of lectures. Lowth's "Hebrew Poetry," Blackstone's "Commentaries on Law," Blair's "Rhetoric and Belles' Lettres," Niebuhr's "Roman History," Young's "Mental Philosophy," Brown "On the Mind," Sir William Hamilton's "Logic and Metaphysic," Flaxman's " Sculpture," &c., were all originally lectures. It may be objected that these were not public lectures. But we can call attention to the series of Bampton lectures, Boyle lectures, Donnellan lectures, &c., as some to which this objection does not apply; while the fact that a republication of the Exeter Hall lectures in twenty volumes has been called for, and is now being issued, is surely evidence sufficient that lectures are found profitable for instruction. Other cases in point arise. In the Philosophical Institution, Edinburgh, lectures are delivered every winter. A large proportion of these are printed, e. g., Congreve's "Roman Empire in the West," Moir's Poetical Literature of 1800-1850," Masson's "British Novels and Novelists," Dr. MacVicar's "Theory of the Beautiful," &c., Dr. Samuel Brown's "Lectures," as well as those of his friends, Dr. Edward Forbes and Dr. George Wilson, have all been published with much acceptance. Whately issued a volume of Lectures," Lord Carlisle one of "Lectures and Addresses," the Duke of Belfast "Lectures on the Poets." These are only samples noted at random, and everybody can add to these inductive particulars examples culled from their own experience. In the perusal of lectures one cannot but be struck with the general resemblance between a volume of these addresses and any of the great reviews. If review articles and magazine literature in general are profitable for instruction, we cannot see why a valid 1866. argument can be maintained against lectures; unless it be on the ground that lectures are livelier and more interesting delivered by the man himself who has thought out the matter. I am sure that if any objection can be taken to the profitableness of lectures, it may be more readily brought against the preaching of the word in such sermons as we hear. For sermons are only religious lectures, and differ only in being looked upon as being the fit and proper thing for respectable people to attend. To the interest of excellent thought, lectures add the vital interest of social feeling, and a flow of emotion from speaker to hearer, and vice versâ. 66 Randolph's" argument (p. 28) about the extra-objects of audiences is, of course, beside the point, which is not-Are there disagreeable adjuncts connected with lectures, evil concomitants, or accidental purposes, going along with them or accompanying them? but, Are they profitable for instruction ? Equally defective is his argument regarding the fewness of lecturing" stars" (p. 28). If men seek to be useful, they need not also shine. How many clerks, foremen, gentlemen, schoolmasters, shine in radiance beyond their fellows, in proportion to their numbers? As to lecturers riding hobbies, I am afraid that is a charge able to be laid at the door of most men. What are our poets, essayists, Shaksperians, political economists, &c., but men having hobbies? Who has ever done anything great-Bacon, Newton, Watt, Stephenson, Bentham, Wheatstone, &c.-without making a hobby of his object? It is the man who is earnest and intense who moves others, and blessed is the land that can produce so many men who have hobbies to deliver lectures as 66 Randolph" says there are in Britain! I am surprised to find anybody noticing as an argument "the superficiality and sciolism" of lectures. Are we never to hear the end of that terribly fallacious line of Pope's, "A little learning is a dangerous thing?" Let" Randolph" ponder the following quotation from Lord Macaulay, who was given neither to superficiality nor sciolism, and then blush that he has made use of that argument: "Some men are haunted by an unreasonable fear of what they call superficial knowledge. Knowledge, they say, which really deserves the name, is a great blessing to mankind, the ally of virtue, the harbinger of freedom. But such knowledge must be profound. A crowd of people who have a smattering of astronomy, a smattering of chemistry, who have read a little poetry, and a little history is dangerous to the commonwealth. Such half-knowledge is worse than ignorance. And then the authority of Pope is vouched. Drink deep, or taste not; shallow draughts intoxicate; drink largely, and that will sober. I must confess that the danger which alarms these gentlemen never seemed to me very serious; and my reason is this, that I never could prevail on any person who pronounced superficial knowledge a curse, and profound knowledge a blessing, to tell me what was his standard of profundity. The argument proceeds on the supposition that there is some line between profound and superficial knowledge, similar to that which separates truth from falsehood. I know of no such line. When we talk of men of deep science, do we mean that they have got to the bottom or near the bottom of science? Do we mean that they know all that is capable of being known? Do we mean even that they know, in their own special department, all that the smatterers of the next generation will know? Why is it we compare the little truth that we know with the infinite mass of truth which we do not know? We are all shallow together; and the greatest philosophers that have ever lived would be the first to confess their shallowness." I do not think there need be much more said on this topic now. It is scarcely worth while to object to "Randolph's" caricature list of subjects of lectures (p. 26), &c. They refute themselves, as burlesque always does. LEIGHTON. The Essayist. SLEEP. “Come, charming sleep, thou easer of all woes."-Chapman. "Somne, quies rerum, placidissime Somne, Deorum, Fessa ministeriis mulces, reparasque labori."*—Ovid. SLEEP is the stage on which our dreams are acted; it is a condition of physical repose during which the brain is somewhat relieved of the burden of its many functions and duties, so that the mind, which in the waking state rules through the will-the barque in which thought travels-now in part withdraws its overseership, leaving nought behind to steer the helm or work the ship except Imagination and his companions. In broad terms it may be said that whatever lives, sleeps. Even the earth, as farmers well know, requires periods of rest, in which it must lie fallow; and Isaac Taylor tells us (in one of his essays) that the annual recurrence of one or two pitch-dark nights is exceedingly fruitful in results necessary to the health of the soil, the powers then at work being probably of a chemical or electrical nature-perhaps both. Plants sleep, and at definite times. Upon the knowledge of this fact Linnæus constructed his celebrated flower clock, that made known the hours as they passed by the particular period at which each one opened or closed its petals. "O, Sleep! thou repose of all things; Sleep, gentlest of the gods, peace of the soul, from whom care flies, who soothest the hearts of men wearied with daily toils, and who recruitest them for labour." It is a curious botanical truth that the relation between the sleep of flowers and leaves is by no means definite, for they may be united or separate in the same individual. Thus De Candolle instances an acacia, cultivated in the gardens of Orotava, in which the leaves closed at sunset, but the flowers then expanded, their numerous stamens raising themselves up like tufts of feathers, and so becoming quite conspicuous; whilst in the morning, when the leaves opened, the stamens relaxed and the flowers partly closed, presenting the appearance of many bunches of silk floss hanging from the tree. An ingenious German found out that the usual hours for opening and closing may be changed in flowers as in leaves by the action of artificial light and darkness. And thus it is that through the whole twenty-four hours of each day the activity of life never ceases. When the rapid swallow rests under the overhanging gable ends, forth comes the ghostly owl, the unwitting author of so many frights and old wives' tales, following suit as twilight gives place to darkness, flits here and there the night-jar; and so the song of energy that broke forth in the six days of God's creation has never once ceased from then till now. But man as well as the lower animals tastes often of "balmy sleep, tired nature's sweet restorer," and may be said to spend onethird of life in that strange state when to the outer world we are as if we were dead, and as if all things were dead to us.* At such times the heart that never has a holiday through life beats less rapidly, the lungs expand and contract at shorter intervals, the brain is almost unimpressionable to things without, the five senses cease from their vigils, and the muscles, uncontrolled by the will, rest and repose themselves. * This view of sleep has been beautifully expressed in Thomas Warton's exquisite Latin epigram, of which Dr. Walcot has given the following equally pleasing and effective translation: "Come, genlte Sleep! attend thy votary's prayer; |