should receive the interest of the sum raised during his life, and that the principal, being placed in the hands of trustees, should be returned to the contributors at his death. We may add that, as the contributors or their heirs declined, after Porson's death, to receive the money back, it was employed to found a "Porson Prize" and a "Porson Scholarship" at the University.

Soon after the resignation of his fellowship, the Professorship of Greek in the University became vacant, and as he found that subscription to the Articles was not required for this office, he offered himself as a candidate, and no one entering into competition with him, was unanimously elected. "From every candidate for the Greek Professorship is required a prælectio, or lecture on some subject of Greek literature, to be read publicly in the schools. Porson took for the subject of his the character of Euripides, which he sketched with admirable discernment, giving at the same time a full and clear view of the comparative merits of the other two great tragic poets of Greece. This lecture is printed in his " Adversaria," filling thirty large octavo pages; yet the composition of it occupied him only two days, although the subject, as he admitted, had long been in his mind. Dr. Parr said of him in relation to this office: "If the Duke of Brunswick, at the head of his Huns and Vandals, were to burn every book of every library in Cambridge, Porson, being, as Longinus was said to be, a living library, would make the University hear without books more than they are likely to read with books." For such qualifications the salary was £40 a year! at which sum, nominally, it still remains; but there has recently been attached to the office a canonry at Ely, of £600 a year. His labours as Greek Professor do not come within the scope of this sketch. We may, however, mention that he exercised his linguistic skill upon the famous Rosetta stone, a block of black marble, engraven with three inscriptions-one in hieroglyphics, another in Coptic, and the third in Greek, all of the same import, which had been brought from Egypt and placed in the British Museum. Porson fixed his attention on the Greek inscription, a part of which is considerably mutilated, restored it in a great measure by conjecture, and translated it. "While he was exercising his sagacity on the stone he visited the Museum so often, to read and consider it, that he got from the officials the name of 'Judge Blackstone.'

There is, however, a deeply-shaded side to this remarkable life, to which we must now turn. This is illustrated very copiously, though with reluctance, by his biographer. This distinguished man was a pitiable slave to the habit of intemperance. What must be thought of the man who, on the night of his marriage, would leave his bride for the society of pot-companions, with whom he remained drinking in a cider-cellar till eight o'clock next morning? In company, of which, at the commencement, he was the ornament and delight, precautions had frequently to be taken to get him away in good time. "When Porson dined with me," said Rogers, the poet, "I used to keep him within bounds; but I frequently met him at houses where he got completely drunk. He would not scruple to return to the dining-room after the company had left it, pour into a tumbler the drops remaining in the wine-glasses, and drink off the omniumgatherum."

The effects of this habit, of which still worse illustrations are given, were very appropriate to it. It had an effect upon his temper. Lord Byron mentions his violence and reviling in his fits of intoxication. It had an effect on his appearance. He was generally illdressed and dirty, sometimes appearing even in splendid society with lank, uncombed locks, or loose neckcloth, wrinkled stockings, or as if he had been rolling in the kennel. Nor is this surprising when we are told that he would sit up drinking for two or three nights together. This terrible habit had also its effect on his bodily appearance. Of this we have his own testimony in a letter to a friend. "For some time past my face, or rather my nose, whether from good living or bad humours, has been growing into a great resemblance of I have put myself under a regimen of abstinence till my poor nose recovers its quondam colour and compass." He himself used to relate the following anecdote :-"He went to call on one of the judges with whom he was intimate, when a gentleman who did not know Porson was waiting impatiently for the barber. Porson, who was negligently dressed, and had, besides, a patch of brown paper, soaked in vinegar, on his inflamed nose, being shown into the room where the gentleman was sitting, he started up suddenly, and rushing towards Porson, exclaimed, 'Are you the barber?' 'No, sir,' replied Porson; but I am a cunning shaver, very much at your service.' And in the latter part of his life he was often to be seen at breakfast with a pot of porter and bread and cheese, in the dirtiest attire, and with black patches on his nose. Such, indeed, was the appearance of the celebrated Porson, "the most profound scholar in Europe," that he had to submit to various insults and indignities, sometimes being refused admittance by servants at the houses of his friends, and at others, as he himself expressed it, "turned out of doors like a dog;" for all the floods of Greek and torrents of various literature, which he delighted to pour out when among his friends, could not reconcile them to the disturbance of home comfort which his habits occasioned. His best friends felt the inconvenience of these habits. Thus, when Dr. Burney, with a view to editing a learned work, expressed his desire that Porson might consult some books for him, Dr. Parr replied "The books may be consulted, and Porson shall do it, and he will do it. I know his price when he bargains with me-two bottles instead of one, six pipes instead of two," &c. Of smoking he said, that when it began to go out of fashion, learning began to go out of fashion also. "Had he lived to the present day," says his biographer, "he might have seen smoking revived more than ever, but chiefly among those who have little pretensions to learning."

These lamentable habits led to such results as might have been easily foreseen. He was elected to the post of principal librarian to the London Institution, but his mode of discharging the duties of this office, or rather his neglect of them, produced deep dissatisfaction. "I once read a letter," says Mr. Maltby, "which he received from the directors of the Institution, and which contained, among other severe things, this cutting remark: 'We only know you are our librarian by seeing your name attached to the receipts for your

* "Life," p. 244.

salary," a rebuke which one of his intimate friends who, with others, signed the letter, said he well deserved. But the habit of intemperance destroys moral sensibility, and for expecting him to discharge the duties of his office he pronounced the directors mercantile and mean. Some years before this, he was offered by the London booksellers £3,000 for an edition of Aristophanes, which, it is supposed, he might have completed in six months, but he could not be induced to commence it, although he was then in the prime of working life, being little more than forty years of age. But he was then "fast falling, deeper and deeper, into habits which unfitted him for steady perseverance in any kind of mental labour," and this his biographer assigns as the true cause that he did not, to use his own expression, "complete the web he had begun to weave," and perform a life-work more proportioned than it was to his great powers.

As

On the 19th of September, 1808, as he was proceeding along the Strand, he was seized with an apoplectic fit, and was conveyed to the Institution, in the library of which, on his partial and temporary recovery, he was met by Dr. Adam Clarke, who published an account of this meeting, and of the professor's "last illness and death." giving a glimpse of Dr. Clarke and his pursuits, as well as his views of Porson, an extract or two will doubtless be acceptable :-" Having that morning occasion to call at the Institution, to consult an edition of a work to which the course of my reading had obliged me to refer, on returning from one of the inner rooms, I found that, since my entrance, Mr. Porson had walked into that room through which I had just before passed. I went up to him, shook hands, and, seeing him look extremely ill, and not knowing what had happened, I expressed both my surprise and regret. He then drew near to the window, and began in a low, tremulous, interrupted voice, to account for his present appearance; but his speech was so much affected, that I found it difficult to understand what he said. He proceeded, however, to give me, as well as he could, an account of his late seizure, and two or three times, with particular emphasis, said, 'I have just escaped death.'

When he had finished his account of the fit into which he had lately fallen, and on which he seemed unwilling to dwell, except merely to satisfy my inquiries, he suddenly turned the conversation by saying, Dr. Clarke, you once promised, but probably you have forgotten, to let me see the stone with the Greek inscription, which was brought from Eleusis.' I replied, I have not, sir, forgotten my promise, but I am now getting a fac-simile of the stone and inscription engraved, and hope soon to have the pleasure of presenting you with an accurate copy.' To which he answered, 'I thank you, but I should rather see the stone itself.' I said, 'Then, sir, you shall see it. When will you be most at leisure, and shall I wait upon you at the Institution, and bring the stone with me? Will to-morrow do?' After considering a little, he said, 'On Thursday morning, about eleven o'clock, for at that time of the day I am generally in the library in my official capacity.' This time was accordingly fixed, though, from his present appearance, I had small hopes of being gratified with that luminous criticism with which, I well knew, he could illustrate and dignify even this small relic of Grecian antiquity.

"It may be necessary here to state that, about twelve months ago, when this stone came into my possession, I took a copy one morning of the inscription to the Institution, to show it to the professor. He was not up, but one of the sub-librarians carried it up to his room. Having examined it, he expressed himself much pleased with it, observing that it afforded a very fair specimen of the Greek character after the time that Greece fell under the power of the Romans; 'for it was evident,' he said, 'that the inscription was not prior to that period.' Some days afterwards I met him in the library of the Institution, and he surprised me by saying, 'I can show you a printed copy of the inscription on your stone.' He then led me up-stairs to his study, and, taking down Menosius's 'Theseus,' showed me, in the tract 'De Pagis Atticis,' at the end, the very inscription which had been taken down from the stone, then at Eleusis, by Dr. Spon, in 1676. From this time he wished particularly to see it, as by it the existence of the village Besa, and the proper method of writing it with a single 8, to distinguish it from a village called Bissa, in Locris, was confirmed; and he considered the character to be curious." This stone, Dr. Clarke supposed, was brought from Eleusis by Sir G. Wheeler, who accompanied Spon on his travels through Greece. It was eventually found in an old house in Worship Street, and presented to the Doctor.

Shortly after this he had another seizure, similar to the first, and on the following Sunday night he died. How deeply to be deplored that such a spirit should pass away, after such a life, without appearing to approach the Saviour he so much needed, or giving any sign of preparation for the great change! Nor can we fail to regret that the life of this gifted man should have been clouded, dishonoured, and shortened, as it doubtless was, to the extent, probably, of many years, by so degrading a habit as that to which he was addicted. With the habits of good Dr. Clarke, he might, like him, have borne fruit in old age, have done far more abundant service in his generation, and left a reputation of unclouded brilliance.

It is impossible to avoid being reminded, by the review of such a life, how many other lights in the intellectual and even the religious firmament have been eclipsed, or quenched in untimely darkness, how many pillars have been overthrown, how many reputations have been wrecked, and how much precious service has been lost to the world, by the same deplorable habit. That much improvement in relation to it has taken place since Porson's day, is as undoubted as it is matter for congratulation, and many symptoms justify the hope of progressive improvement, among which we may just name the noble proportions to which the Band of Hope, in connection with Sundayschools, has grown; the increasing encouragement which the Temperance movement generally is receiving from the religious world; the opinion of its importance expressed by first-class periodicals; and the adhesion to its ranks of such ministers as Mr. Spurgeon and Baptist Noel, besides the large and increasing number of ministers, of various denominations, ascertained to be total abstainers. The old idea of antagonism between the temperance cause and the Church of Christ is happily passing away, and they are being discovered to be intimately related and mutually helpful. To conclude, however, by

referring to but one of the many advantages to be reaped from the success of this cause: If it helps to guard the fruits of education, the importance of which is admitted by all; if it assists to preserve intellect from the disturbance and enfeeblement, from the degrading associations and the untimely blight, of which Porson is so striking an example; if it conduces, as we believe it does, to the "sound mind in the healthy body," we will not doubt that it will receive from the readers of these pages a hearty "God speed." G. G.

Bradford.

CHARACTERISTICS

OF AN

EFFICIENTLY CONDUCTED AND USEFUL SUNDAY

SCHOOL.

THE influential, we might almost say the vital, relation sustained by the Sunday-schools of this country to the progress of our churches and the general interests of morality and religion, makes it the manifest duty of all who in any way share in the management of those institutions to aim at the highest point of attainable efficiency. And it will not be denied that important steps have already been taken in this direction. The Sunday-school has undoubtedly participated in the general spirit of progress which characterizes the age. Its action upon society has been beneficial from the first, but it has never worked so beneficially as at this moment. The true idea of the institution is better understood and more fully and faithfully expressed. It has thrown off many things that obscured the beauty of its character, and fettered the freedom of its operations. The purely secular element is in rapid process of elimination from its constitution. Crude and ill-adapted modes of teaching have been superseded by more sensible and suitable methods of conveying instruction. On the whole, indeed, large and rapid strides have been taken in the direction of real and acknowledged improvement. After all, however, the Sunday-school system is still far from having reached perfection. Great excellence has been achieved, but great room for further progress remaineth. A good and holy work is being done, but the manner of doing it is capable of being carried to a much higher point of cultivation, just as the precious fruits of the work are capable of being multiplied a hundred-fold. In the matters of discipline and order, of system and subordination, the progress that has been made, while the just cause of satisfaction, is still greatly distanced by the actual necessities and possibilities of the case. It is true, that in these points some schools have left others considerably in the rear, yet it is not found that there is generally that fixed and sustained attention that ready and respectful obedience to authority-that decorous and deferential behaviour to superiors which cannot but be felt as so possible of attainment and so essential to success. So essential to success, we say, for though the Sunday-school does not exist for the mere maintenance and teaching of good order, yet every experienced Sunday-school man knows well that the school in which