THE MODERN UNIVERSITY; OR, THE MEANS OF giously numerous, that they could stand together under EDUCATION IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. SINCE the princely Charlemagne strove to re-illume the flickering torch of knowledge in the West, and that torch burnt more brightly in the East, where the reign of good Haroun Alraschid' was at its 'golden prime;' since sallow monks, in their echoless cloisters, quickened by the strains of ancient eloquence and song the pace of the leaden-footed hours; since the University of Paris, mother of all European universities, first began to subject its teachers to examinations, and call them masters; since Pope Nicholas, amid his gardens and literary pleasures in Bologna, signed the charter of the University of Glasgow -what a change has passed over the face of the world! So complete, so penetrating, so pervading has it been, that our very words have changed their meaning. It becomes a difficult matter to answer the question, What is a modern university? The meaning of the word was simple enough of old. Schools there had been in various parts of Europe: Padua, Naples, Salamanca, Lyons, and many other towns could boast them; but it was in Paris only that the whole circle of the sciences was embraced in the curriculum, and it was when, in the thirteenth century, it thus extended its basis, that it obtained the name of university. Even when it proudly appealed to its studium universale, and felt itself the principal dispenser of intellectual light in the world, its range was circumscribed, its influence was limited. It ruled within its walls with a most regal and noble sway, for it attracted by its light all those who loved, and were enabled to enjoy, intellectual light: it was a power in the nation and in the world. Its decrees could influence monarchs and overawe subjects, for the intelligence which supports or overthrows monarchs was within its walls, and its breath could light the flames of persecution. Does any modern university, any single established seat of the studium universale, exercise such power? Not one. No Sorbonne can now consign its victims to the flames; no four walls can now boast, that within them alone burns the torch of knowledge. Yet the modern university, not yet recognised by that name, and able to point to no charters, has a wider range of influence, a larger number of students, a longer and more varied array of professors, a stranger variety of class-rooms, and a far more resistless power, than ever had the University of Paris, or any other single university. The ancient school of learning-be it chartered university or cloistered monastery-could truly say, 'Come hither; here alone, in this land, or this department of the land, will ye obtain instruction.' This no single seat of learning can now say. But the modern University has arisen, and built its pillars over the world, until every ancient school has become but one of its class-rooms. When the first encyclopædia was written, the name university had lost half its significance. Very various are the class-rooms of our modern University. One set of these we will acknowledge to be the old colleges; and we shall admit, too, that they are not by any means to be pronounced useless or obsolete: although, when we see them assiduously, year after year, droning out rules for the stitching together of Latin or Greek verses, and raising the ghosts of centuries, to set them right on the momentous point, whether an old Roman or an old Greek pronounced such and such a syllable long or short, unheedful of the shrill railway whistle, proclaiming that the nineteenth century is awake, and on its way, we must think that a death or a new birth is for them approaching. In every reading-room, we see an important class-room of this modern University; in every public library, we see another; in every mechanics' institute, we discern a third. The British Museum is ranked among our class-rooms; the Great Exhibition was for a season a lecture-room; the American Congress and the British Parliament are each departments of our extensive University. Who are our professors? They are very numerous, and their uniforms, their emoluments, and their subjects, are all marked by variety. One great class of professors have been styled able editors.' Their students are so prodi no canopy but that of the fathomless blue; so they dispense their instructions by a singular and ingenious mechanism, invented by John Faust, or some one else whose name has not been distinctly pronounced in the car of history. The influence of this class of professors is such, that the whole might and power of the Sorbonne, compared with it, were but the soft blow of a peevish infant to the whole power of a giant's arm. But there is another corps of professors almost as powerful as these, and which has added vastly to its numbers, and most boldly extended its range and empire, in these latter days; the technical name by which they are known is publishers.' Their subjects are universal, and their instructions are dispensed by means of the strange mechanism before referred to. From all quarters of the globe they bring the stores of knowledge, which they pour out before their students; and, by a flight more bold, although as silent, they pass over all the course of time, and snatch from every sleeping century the treasure which it broods over in the dimly irradiated vaults of oblivion. Under the patronage of these men, the Humboldts, and Leibnitzes, and Laplaces, and Newtons, and Galens, and Aristotles of science; the Macaulays, the Gibbons, the Humes, the Carlyles, the Hallams, the Xenophons, the Thucidides' of history; the Burnses, the Shaksperes, the Homers of poetry;-in a word, all the great speakers, writers, and singers of all ages deliver, in all shires and dwellings, their several courses of lecture. The walls within which this our University plies its functions are manifestly the same as those in which the winds play and pipe -the seamless walls of the world. But it differs impor tantly from the universities of other ages, in possessing a very wide organisation, which may be called the subterranean department, or even the Tartarean, for in it the instruction conveyed holds too obviously and lamentably of the lower regions. Excitement to the vilest propensities and passions: sensuality, absurdity, and, alas ! blasphemy, circulate there, in all shapes-tracts, miscellanies, prints, novels-and with every possible inducement of cheapness. To know this department, let our readers, if their nerves are strong enough, examine the weekly garbage of the low London press in any low bookseller's shop, or read a few volumes of 'mysteries.' Unless it might be the dungeons of the monastery, or the tribunal of the Sorbonne, there was no department in ancient seats of learning corresponding to this. Are there any honours or emoluments pertaining to this University? There certainly are. The man who toils nobly and well in its various class-rooms, may attain a wider range of knowledge than has been attained in any age of the world; and as sure as knowledge is power, and the intellectually weak must be ruled by the intellectually strong, he will, unless circumstances singularly prevent, attain a fellowship, in shape of a post of honour, competence, and usefulness, among his fellow-men. Once more, what is the means by which men are admitted to this University? There are no complicated examinations to be encountered, there are no matriculation fees to be paid: one thing alone is needful, one key alone is required, to open this vast and well-stored edifice-the power to read. By the use of this key, one department after another flies open; in the grasp of intellect, it will open gates of triple adamant. An Elihu Burritt found it by his forge, and in stalwart arm he grasped it; honestly, dauntlessly, toilfully he used it; it opened the gates of the world for him, and men came joyfully to hang upon his lips. A man of more colossal build than Elibu found it in the quarry; he is now one of the kings of his country, and Fame is sculpturing his statue, to be set in an honoured niche in her temple: his name is Hugh Miller. In the worskshop, in the hovel, everywhere, it has been found; and wherever it has fallen into a strong hand, backed by a valiant and honest heart, it has led to victory. What we have been saying, may sound strange in certain ears; but we venture to say, that reflection will convince all that this modern University is no product of fancy, compact of airy nothing, but a product of the ages, resting its colossal pillars on the adamant of fact. We might extend our observations to an indefinite extent, but we must restrict ourselves to a very partial and rambling survey of a few of its departments, and a few hints as to the condition of successful study in our great modern University. As our materials are extremely various, it will promote perspicuity to indicate generally the course of our remarks. We shall glance rapidly at our condition in respect of public libraries, easily accessible to the body of the people; we shall then, as briefly, direct our attention to the lecturing institutions of our country; we shall next remark cursorily on our serial libraries, the result of private enterprise; and, in the fourth and last place,' we shall venture upon a few general practical hints. In respect of public libraries, immeasurable is the difference between our state in the nineteenth century, and our state in the fifteenth; yet it must be acknowledged that Britain is here very considerably behind certain other parts of the world. In the immense Royal Library of Berlin, of which the great alphabetical catalogue, which presents a general alphabetical register of the books, amounts to 650 volumes,' and which, for one item, boasts nearly 80,000 historical portraits, every honest Prussian, from the king to the labourer, may read. Every practising physician, jurist, or preacher, every professor, teacher, and government officer, and every student in the university, has free use of the books, as a matter of right. As for other persons, the use of the books in the building is also freely given to every one-to the street labourer, who spends an hour in looking over a book of engravings, as well as to the learned man, who devotes many hours to the study of a Greek or a Sanscrit root; but, if they desire to take books away, they must receive a certificate from some one known or already receiving books, guaranteeing their safe return. The reading-room, where books are brought for consultation, is open every day from nine o'clock till four, the newspaper-room from ten till two, and books are lent from nine till twelve. To receive a book for reading in the library, you must put a note thereof into a box, and, if this is done before nine o'clock, the book is ready at elevenif after nine, at two. Notes for books to be taken home, must be deposited before nine to have them the same day. Under these rules, the daily number of works used in and out of the building, amounts to 300 given out, and as many returned, which gives a total number of 90,000 works a-year, both going out and coming in. The number of works lent out of the building amounted, in the five years, to 170,780, which were divided as follows: in 1845, 30,499; in 1846, 34,520; in 1847, 32,560; in 1848, 20,646; in 1849, 25,730; in 1850, 26,825.' Thus they manage in Germany; and, when we cast our eye to the other side of the Atlantic, and investigate the means of literary instruction and entertainment which the mighty republic of the New World provides for her sons, the spectacle presented is still more imposing, the rather that we can present it at one view. The public libraries of the United States number fully 10,199, and contain 3,753,964 volumes. The States of New York, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania, stand pre-eminent for the number of their libraries. New York has upwards of eight thousand school libraries, and more than 200 other public libraries, of various denominations. Massachusetts has 700 school, and 62 other public libraries. Michigan has 374 of the former, and 7 of the latter; while even the State of Iowa can boast of its 2660, Wisconsin of its 7163, and Minnesota of its 3200 volumes of books for public use.' And, by all accounts, the Americans make good use of the means thus put at their command. We hear of the Philadelphia Mercantile Library, containing 7000 volumes, and circulating that number four times in the year; and the following paragraph, by direct information, and indirect suggestion, sets the matter in a still more striking light:-As an instance of the effect which the apprentice libraries must have upon the rising population, we may mention that the Apprentices' Library of Philadelphia has 11,370 volumes upon its shelves, constantly accessible to apprentices (and others in want of its benefits) of both sexes, and that, too, upon the most liberal terms, being subject to no other than the single and easy condition, that the book borrowed shall be returned. We find, by the official reports, that, in the year 1849, 21,279 books were lent to boys, and 18,129 to girls, making an aggregate of 34,408 volumes circulated during the year. During the three years previous to the above date, the annual increase in the number of books was about 900 volumes, while the gross income of the institution is only about £200 a-year. The library is reported as being used regularly by about 800 boys, and 250 girls.' We lately directed the attention of our readers to the free library which, with a flourish of the first literary trumpets of the day, was lately opened in the city of Manchester. It is the first of the sort, as far as we know, in the kingdom, although Liverpool has closely followed. In London, as we are informed by the Athenæum,' which is our authority in these paragraphs, there is but one leading library of importance, and the subscription to it is too high for the means of working-men, or even of students. In our own Edinburgh, although a student is most advantageously situated in many respects, and the courteousness with which the officials in the Advocates' Library respond to any request for the inspection of a book, and its study within the walls, could not be surpassed, there is yet no public library, whence the working-man may carry away a book for perusal at his own fireside, as can the men of Manchester. And we cannot doubt that London and Edinburgh are in this respect fair, if not flattering, examples of the state of our towns in general. Libraries there are, no doubt, and perhaps in sufficient abundance; the working-man can, cheaply enough, obtain reading. But it is this very fact which resistlessly enforces the wisdom and general advisability of providing public libraries for the working classes. If it is desirable that our mechanics and labourers be led entirely to abandon the foul garbage spread out before them by the genius of cheapness-if philanthropy and patriotism may well weep to think, that the mental food most easily accessible to our toiling brethren is not such as to brace and strengthen the mental frame, to breathe new nobleness into the heart, new vigour into the arm, and new fire into the eye, but such as relaxes every sinew of the soul, pollutes, debases, depraves, and weakens; then the inference is inevitable, that we are called on, by our philanthropy as men, and by our patriotism as British citizens, to do our utmost to outbid the garbage market, and make it possible for the working-man to obtain wholesome and cheering food as cheaply as foul and unwholesome carrion. Much has been done here, we gladly allow; too much cannot be done. But this argument, though irresistible, is not the only one which can be urged in favour of public libraries. To'chain the Future under the Past' is ever a hopeless task, and to sit quiescent, in the conviction that the future can hold in its bosom no elements of turmoil, revolution, or terror, and that no wild or evil creatures can ever come abroad in the day of our enlightenment, is surely a foolish and blinded mode of procedure. We live in an era of change, and change of which the conditions are perhaps more difficult of calculation than was ever the case before. To what, then, must we look for safety and prosperity! We answer: for avoiding the fierce crises, and collisions, and tempestuous outbreakings, which have shattered and wasted other lands, and for guiding onwards, in peaceable advancement, the car of civilisation, we look, under God, to the establishment and maintenance of a kindly mutual dependence and sympathy between the various classes of the community. And how can this be more effectually or more hopefully attained than by the co-operation of rich and poor, in providing public reservoirs of knowledge? How can the rich more nobly show the poor that they desire their welfare, and wish to bear them onward with them in prosperity? How can the poor desire a more unequivocal or a more encouraging testimony of brotherhood from the rich? We abstain from the usual commonplaces upon the subject of knowledge and its advantages; we think that, gene rally speaking, they are extremely vapid and inane; there is a dark and a bright in all human affairs, and the dark is not wanting here; but what we have said we think conclusive as to the advisability and even necessity of establishing free public libraries. We hope that other cities will emulate Manchester in its late effort: London will doubtless soon follow; and we cannot but sympathise with a writer in the Athenæum,' in his wish, that the building which now so inadequately accommodates the treasures of the British Museum should be devoted to the purpose of a great national library. On the subject of the lecturing institutions of this country, we shall be still more brief than we have been in treating of our libraries. From an article in the pages of that able periodical which we have already more than once quoted, we learn that there are about seven hundred such institutions in the United Kingdom, in many of which nearly a hundred lectures are delivered annually, and in only a small number of which there are fewer than twenty five. Literary lecturers of high excellence, it appears, are very hard of attainment; and even in scientific departments there are great and glaring abuses. The amount of charlatanry now employed in lecturing on science is of the most serious magnitude; and, as a consequence, absurdities are often taught instead of truths. I have before me a pile of syllabuses, from institutions in all parts of the country; and I find in them the names of men professing to occupy educational chairs which have no existence, and having recourse to other dishonest representations to puff themselves into notoriety.' That this demands remedy and alteration, is plain enough. The writer advocates a scheme, by which a certain sufficiently-numerous body of lecturers might be permanently endowed; and we are willing to grant that his plan obviates the evils complained of above. But we must express a distrust of the lecturing system generally; men never attain accurate knowledge by attending a course of lectures, either scientific or literary, unless that attendance is supplemented by very diligent independent study; and the indubitable fact, that an extremely harmless amusement is afforded to ladies somewhat blue, and gentlemen tired of their papers —that a considerable new vent is afforded for chit-chat, and a store of commonplaces always supplied for its support-and that here and there an enthusiasm may be awakened, which will result in scientific or literary eminence, is scarcely sufficient to reconcile us to the endowment of some fifty or sixty lecturing professors. We should regard with greater hope a movement towards some important change in the constitutions of most of these bodies, leaving the lecture almost, or entirely, to such institutions as our Edinburgh Philosophical, where it is admirably and exactly in place, and substituting some more substantial and practical mode of instruction in our mechanics' institutes. In this the writer in the Athenæum' seems to entertain opinions akin to our own. He talks of classes, and hints at constant surveillance; and, though he does not assail the lecture as we incline to do, we think his suggestion, as far as it goes, a very valuable one. our serial libraries; for we shall willingly admit, that in many cases there has been patriotism at work, and that many of those men who have opened for us the hall of the past, and invited us, by such varied enticements, to enter it, have felt that they discharged a duty to their time, and have acted from nobler and loftier motives than can ever arise from the smile or the frown of Mammon. Our serials may be divided into two classes;-those which consist of standard works in all departments of science and literature, and which are devoted to the advocacy of no particular set of opinions; and those which are issued with a definite purpose, to advance certain interests, or plead certain principles. Of the former of these classes, we can select no better example than the serial publications of Bohn. To confer absolutely unqualified laudation upon any human performance, is equivalent to a confession that the bestower has not seen it in every possible point of view, or investigated its every possible influence; but there are really very few things upon which we would pronounce so unhesitating and so unmeasured an encomium, as we would pronounce upon those serial libraries, which the public spirit and the enterprise of Henry G. Bohn have conferred upon his country and the world. Perhaps in no case has cheapness been so triumphantly combined with sterling excellence as in these serials. No man now, who has attained the gift of reading-who can, by any effort of parsimony, save a shilling in the week, or even in the month, and who has an intellect which can acquire knowledge-is in any way necessitated to remain an ignorant man: if he can afford a subscription to any ordinarily-furnished library, he may form a synthesis of information which might have moved the envy of the baron or the king of other days. He may listen to the great voices of Greece and Rome; he may see the final consummation of ancient knowledge in Aristotle, and the loftiest flight of ancient philosophy in Plato; he may thrill with the wild and dark terrors of Eschylus; he may admire the soft and fervid richness of Sophocles; he may hear the battle-tramp of the blind old man; the eloquence of Cicero may move him, and he may dally and smile with Livy. The greatest of the sons of his own land bring their intellectual treasures to his feet: he may hear Milton's lordly prose, and wonder over Shakspere's marvellous page; for a mere pittance, he may possess himself of the poetic works, collected in one volume, of Milton, Cowper, Goldsmith, Thomson, Falconer, Akenside, Collins, Grey, and Somerville. He may trace the general history of literature in Sismondi, and he may study for himself the great productions of Continental thought. These facts we consider as embodying one great and very important sign of the times. For the present, we only ask whether such a phenomenon has not considerably altered the position of our old seats of learning? whether Oxford, with all its childish versifying and morbid worship of antiquity, is so much more powerful an agency in the world than the men who place the works of such authors within the reach of all? The other class of serials to which we have referred, is sufficiently well instanced by the Library for the Times,' We have flung our passing remarks as yet at public published under the auspices of that large party which national institutions; we now come to the region of pri- opposes all endowment of religion by the state. That it vate enterprise and influence. It is a characteristic of our is legitimate for a public body to promulgate its opinions time, that the treasures of the past are poured forth for the in this manner, cannot, we think, be questioned; but ceruse of the present, with a profusion unequalled in the history tain very serious evils inveterately attend such issues. of the world. To publish new works is hazardous; to dis- These evils arrange themselves mainly under two heads: cern, with scrupulous accuracy, what precise book is a there is a very strong temptation presented to the issuers prize, amid a hundred nearly similar ones which are all to disguise their ultimate intention, and endeavour to gain blanks, is difficult; but there are certain books which are the ear of the general public by assuming general desigthe inheritance of the race-which, by the suffrage of nations which give no hint of a particular design; and the advancing generations, have been placed ever in a there is a general colouring thrown over all subjects, so as higher and yet a higher place; and these, with a certainty to render them advocative of certain opinions. The forresembling the constancy of nature, command pur- mer of these evils is well enough illustrated in Chapman's chasers. The whole is, then, a simple matter of calcula-Library for the People.' The volumes will be,' we are tion; such a name must attract notice, such a degree of informed, 'of a rational and elevating character. Not cheapness will insure a largely-increased sale, such an intended to promulgate any particular class of opiamount of expenditure will produce the requisite degree nions, nor restricted to any particular class of topics, of cheapness, and a clear, calculable profit remains. the reader will find, in the successive numbers of this Hence, mainly but not wholly, the prodigious increase of library, works calculated to minister to his entertainment with reason, that our great educational institutions have lagged behind the age, and occupy, in the economy of the world, a very different position from that held by them in the fifteenth century. Let them be improved, by all means, let them ever be extended and exalted; but, were they to expire to-morrow, we should yet nowise despair: it were but the closing of certain class-rooms of our great university, and new and probably better ones would soon arise. We hold it a noble thing to produce scholars; we hold it a nobler to produce men; and that education which is necessary to develop talent talent, can now be withheld from no street-labourer. and instruction.' And under this mild, innocuous visage, we have the silly blasphemy of Emerson, and the peculiar doctrines of the Chapman school. That a few works which do not directly advocate these doctrines may be included in the series, prevents not the danger to the public of being misled. The second evil is still more palpable, and, perhaps, injurious. Facts, in general, if not always, have many sides; the life of a man invariably presents many and to suppress truth is to open the gates to falsehood. But here facts are obstinately presented in one light; the lives of great men are obstinately made to convey particular lessons to the exclusion of others. We know no better instance of this than we find in Milton, a Biography,' To commence a series of advices as to the methods of which forms one of the 'Library for the Times. The book study in this our University, were to enter on a very wide is a valuable one in certain respects; it contains an excel- field. We can say but a very few words. The present,' lent selection of striking passages from certain of the works it has been remarked, is a time of boundless possibility, of Milton, and shows very clearly one phasis of his cha- and of boundless peril.' If there never was a time in which racter. If, then, it were entitled, Milton's testimony in mind could do more, there never, also, was a time when the favour of full liberty of conscience, and the total disseve- necessity of arrangement, of selection, and perseverant toil rance of church and state, with collateral glauces at his life was greater. The accumulation of knowledge in all deand character,' we should find no fault with it. But if a partments, must, in a correct system of self-education, be correct biography should exhibit to us its subject in every made subservient to the development and completion of phasis of his character, and in no one phasis more promi- character; and we all know that the soldier who has penently than in another, then the work is a failure, and, in netrated forests and morasses, and marched through mounsome measure, a misrepresentation. What Milton did in tain gorges, to the music of the tempest and the snowdrift, certain departments is set before us; what Milton was, will gaze with unflinching eye upon the line of foemen how his whole manhood shaped itself out in connection bristling with steel, when the pampered pretorian or with the circumstances of his time, we nowise learn. drawing-room knight will cower and turn back. The old Romans, with their own manly and piercing wisdom, caused the soldier, in the day of peace, to exercise in far heavier armour than he used in the day of battle; to unite exercise with amusement was no object of theirs. May it not be a fact that the stern manhood and strong thinking powers of our fathers, were in part owing to the difficulties they had to encounter in their way to knowledge ? Surely, superficiality never abounded as in our day; and yet, if wisdom is searched for, with true and unbending endeavour, as hid treasure, and dissipating influences are carefully guarded against, in no day was there a brighter prospect opened. Above all, we would say to the man who desires to educate himself in the nineteenth century: Beware of seeking for entertainment, and insisting upon amusement and instruction being conjoined. The goddess of wisdom of old was a stern and martial goddess; she wore not the light scarf of a Naiad, around her played not the balmy graces of the Paphian queen: on her head was a helmet, and the austerity of truth was on her brow. A total allegiance she required; and such truth ever demands. Mechanism has, in our day, thrown the light robe of amusement over the stern limbs of truth, and there is a danger that, as with the hero of old, destruction may be the result. 80. Our remarks have already extended themselves beyond our original intention; our closing observations must be brief. From the general glance which we have taken at our world-wide modern University, we cannot but think that the prospect is cheering. May we not say that now, to an extent unparalleled before, the great result aimed at by all constitutions and educational systems is attained? Talent must rise; in no era of the world were the obstructions so completely removed from its path. We have heard of mute, inglorious Miltons, long enough. We never had much faith in the existence of such; we remembered that will and power generally find or make a way for themselves, and that it is an integral part of their nature to do Have we not heard that the feeble mushroom will force its way to the light, upheaving stone pavement? Do we not see, every spring, the frail blade piercing the rude earth? And will Nature, so rigidly economical in all her proceedings, throw from her the inscrutable faculty of a man, so incalculably powerful in its doings, so mysteriously knit with heaven, and upon which, under God, the destiny of our earth depends? There never yet fell the smallest grain of wheat from the great granary of nature; far less can she afford to lose the might of a Milton, and strike any like him mute. It is true she may have set him to work rather than speak; it is true, too, that she may have given him little enough of the glory' which A FISHING ADVENTURE IN THE VALAIS. arises from the expressed applause of men; but be sure she has obtained his tale of work from him in some way, Ar nightfall we reached Bex, and alighted at one of those and the glory of having benefited his fellows and done his pretty inns found only in Switzerland. Dinner awaited duty, is his, however unconsciously. But even the glory of us, and the fish was so excellent that I ordered some for public recognition and applause, even that exclamation of breakfast next morning, which led to my witnessing a joyous sympathy which greets a man who emerges from mode of fishing peculiar to the Valais. No sooner had his fellows, and gains the pinnacles of the world, can hardly we expressed this gastronomical desire, than the landlady now be wanting. If nature has not given faculty, no summoned a great lad of eighteen or twenty, who seemed education will ever supply it; if nature has given it, an to hold the various offices of errand-boy, kitchen-boy, and awakening voice alone is required; and who is there so boots' He arrived half asleep, and took the order in poor that he cannot now hear such a voice? If, at a cross- spite of some very expressive yawns-the only protest ing, by some penetrative magical vision, we could perceive, against active service the poor fellow dared offer to under the tattered uniform of some little sweeper, the his mistress, when she commanded him to go instantly genius of a Milton, a Newton, or a Watt, we would feel and fish for trout for monsieur's breakfast, indicating me that the conditions of our time justified our predicting the with her finger. Maurice-such was the name of the day when that sweeper would become an honoured mem- victim-threw a sleepy glance at me, so full of undefined ber of society, and a king in his generation. Is it beyond reproach, that I became quite melted at witnessing the his means to learn to read? And, if he can read, the struggle between his obedience and despair, and began, gates of our great University are open, and the path to ho-But really, if this fishing would be inconvenientnour and power leads through it. Mute, inglorious Miltons have as good as ceased to exist. Seeing, also, that the conditions of our time are so much altered, we lack not consolation even when it is asserted, here the face of Maurice brightened up-if this fishing—' ‘Bah,' said the mistress, interrupting me, 'it can be all done in an hour; the river is not two steps from here. Go, you idle fellow! take your lantern and knife, and make haste.' So poor Maurice resigned himself to fate with the apathy habitual to those born to serve. A lantern and knife to fish! Ah! poor Maurice had no chance of escape from that moment, for I was filled with an irresistible desire to see fish gathered like so many sticks. While I made my remarks, Maurice made his preparations. He took off his shoes, and rolled up all his habiliments in a tight band round his waist, giving himself thereby much the appearance of a portrait by Holbein or Albert Durer. Wont you do the same?' said he. Why are you going into the water ?-How else could I fish!' he replied; and if you want to see me, take off your shoes and trousers, unless you prefer walking into the water with them on. There is no accounting for taste.' And he commenced his descent of the steep and rocky ravine, at the bottom of which rolled the river where the miraculous draught of fishes was to take place. I followed, tottering over the stones, and holding on by him as if he were a stout, straight iron pole. About thirty paces we proceeded in this way, when Maurice took pity on my weakness. Here,' said he, take the lantern." I took it; upon which he seized hold of my arm under the shoulder, and, with that prodigious strength I have never met but in mountaineers, almost lifted me down the perilous descent; and, in spite of all his rancour against me, placed me safely at the bottom by the edge of the river. I put my hand in the water. It was icy cold. 'You are not going into that,' I said, ' surely ?'— Of course I am,' he replied, taking the lantern from my hand, and slipping into the river. But the water is like ice,' I said, drawing him back.- Ay, it comes down from the snow up there,' he answered, not understanding what I meant.Then, Maurice, you shall not go into this water. I thought you wanted trout for your breakfast? Yes; but for a caprice of mine I will not suffer that a man--that you, Maurice-stand in this frozen water at the risk of dying in eight days of an inflammation of the chest. Come along, Maurice! come away!' And the mistress-what will she say?'-'Never mind; I'll make your peace. But it must be done.' And Maurice put his second leg into the water. 'What do you mean?'Why, if you don't want the trout, another will. They all like it the foreigners; a horrid fish like that; nothing but bones. What taste you all have !'-' Well, what of that? Why, if I don't catch it for you, I must catch it for others, that is all; and so I had better begin at once. To-morrow night maybe some of you will say at the inn, 'I'd like to taste a chamois.' A chamois! The vile, black flesh! I'd as soon eat a ram; but no matter; when that's said, the mistress calls Pierre-for Pierre is the hunter, as poor Maurice is the fisher; and she says, 'Pierre, I must have a chamois.' He takes his gun, and goes off at two o'clock in the morning; crosses the glaciers, the clefts of which might hold the whole village; climbs rocks where you might break your neck twenty times; and about four o'clock in the morning returns with his beast, until the day comes when he never returns at all.' How so? Why, you see, Jean that was before Pierre was killed; and Joseph, that served before me, died of a cold caught fishing for trout. Still we must go on-Pierre and I.' But I have heard that all you mountaineers took the greatest pleasure in these exercises, and many of you passed the night on the mountain, watching to catch the chamois at the first dawn, or to fling your nets into the river.'-' Ay, true enough,' said Maurice; but then they hunted and fished for themselves.' I was silent. Meanwhile Maurice, who little thought how his words had set me dreaming, was up to his waist in water, and beginning his operations after a fashion perfectly new to me. First, he plunged his lantern down to the very bottom of the stream, holding on by the long tube which kept the lamp supplied with air. In this way, a large illuminated circle was formed at the bottom of the river, into which thronged the fish, attracted like moths to the light, knocking themselves against the shining globe, and swimming round and round it. Then Maurice gently raised the lamp higher and higher, the fish following the . ascension, till all reached the surface of the water, when he adroitly struck the trout on the head with the knife held in his right hand, and down they fell again, headless and bleeding, to the bottom of the stream, to the surface of which they rose once more, only to be passed incontinently into the bag Maurice had suspended from his neck. I was amazed. My superior intellect, of which I had felt so proud five minutes before, was outdone; for it is evident, if I had been cast the night before upon a desert island, with only trouts in a stream for food, and no instruments with me but a lantern and knife, I must inevitably have died of hunger, notwithstanding all my superior intelligence.— The Glacier Land. NATURE, prodigal as she has been in her other gifts to Naples, has nevertheless denied to that beautiful city what is found almost everywhere in Italy-a sufficiency of pure water. In that terrestrial paradise-where life is easily maintained, and pleasures are gratuitous-a cup of limpid water is a luxury. Three or four fountains are the sole provision for the needs of a population of five hundred thousand souls; and of these fountains, only one-the Vomero-furnishes a really refreshing draught. The acquajoli, it is true, seated at their stalls decorated with garlands, noisily offer you water fresh from the Vomero; but, as a lie costs them nothing, you may be pretty sure that they have drawn the boasted fluid from the nearest fountain. As to the water to be obtained at the principal hotels, there is no need of a microscope to detect its living inhabitants: a circumstance that excites the horror of the visiters from Rome, who are very critical in the article of refreshing drinks. Besides this first most serious inconvenience, the want of water serves as a pretext for the negligence of the washerwomen. At Naples, a spotless shirt is a prodigy, while the bed and table linen are powdered with grains of sand. The fountain of the Vomero does the washing of the whole town; and it is perhaps by way of making the water last out, that the discreet lazzaroni wear no other linen than a pair of drawers of brown canvass. It were to be wished that some patriotic soul would introduce Artesian wells, and so remedy the existing disgraceful state of affairs. The Vomero fountain is situated in a picturesque spot, at a short distance out of Naples. Two roads lead from the two extremities of the city to this celebrated rendezvous of the washerwomen, after winding round the mountain where rises Fort St Elmo. Every morning the washerwomen may be seen descending these two opposite ways, carrying upon their heads a basket or a secchia of white wood, which they sustain with one hand, resting the other upon the hip, like the young girls surrounding Eliezer in one of Poussin's pictures. The earliest and most active take possession of the fountain; the others, seated in the shade, chat and sing while awaiting their turn. Оссаsionally a quarrel arises, which creates a tremendous hubbub, for the Neapolitans do nothing by halves; anon, the tide turns, and they laugh themselves almost into fits. All this time their tongues never cease, and may be heard from an incredible distance. All the idle and unemployed lads of the neighbourhood frequent this free and easy assembly, and coquet with the washerwomen, or seriously pay their court to them, though always in a tone of badinage. The most assiduous, perhaps, end by obtaining signs of preference. Then they pass from general conversations to particular interviews, and, on the return of the washerwomen and their cavaliers, one or more isolated couples may be seen straying from the main body. Many a pretty Neapolitan has lost her heart in this way; many a match has thus been concluded. In the spring of the year 1844, two young girls among the washer-maidens were particularly noticeable for their beauty; so much so, that a painter of merit had transferred them to his canvass. The one-aptly named Be |