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and when I am sick, instead of recanting or entering into composition with it, I begin yet more to hate and fear it, telling those who importune me to take physic, that they must at least give me time to recover my strength and health, that I may be the better able to support and encounter the violence and danger of the potion. I let nature work, supposing her to be sufficiently armed with teeth and claws to defend herself, when attacked, and to uphold that contexture, the dissolution of which she flies and abhors. For I am afraid lest, instead of assisting her, when grappled and struggling with the disease, I should assist her adversary and give her more work to do.

I say that not in physic only, but in several other more certain arts, fortune has a great share. The poetic sallies that ravish and transport the author out of himself why should we not attribute to his good fortune, since the poet himself confesses they exceed his capacity, and acknowledges them to proceed from something else then himself, and that he has them no more in his power than the orators say, they have those extraordinary notions and agitations that sometimes put them beyond their design. It is the same in painting where touches shall sometimes slip from the the hand of the painter, so surpassing both his fancy and his art as to beget his own admiration and astonishment. Fortune does yet more clearly manifest the share she has in all things of this kind, in the elegancies that are found in them, not only beyond the intention, but even without the knowledge, of the artist, an intelligent reader does often find out in other men's writings other perfections and invest them with a better sense, and higher construction, more quaint expression than the author himself either intended or perceived (i., 23).

Montaigne abounds with short aphorisms, like the following:Reason bids us always go in the same road, but not always at the same pace. (i., 44).

'I have never seen a more veritable monster or miracle in the world than myself; we grow used to strange things by custom and time, but the more I regard and know myself, the more my deformity astonishes me, and the less I understand of myself (iii., 11).

It is folly to expect that fortune will ever arm us enough against herself; it is with our own arms that we must fight her; all fortuitous ones will prove traitors in the heat of the action (i., 40).

How true, too, is this! (i., 26).

It is more frequently custom than our knowledge that deprives things of their strangeness.

Here we must pause. We had intended to have added something on Montaigne's scepticism,

ma temps ben parmi,

Donne gentili, omai di riposarmi.*

Montaigne's great faults are dubitation and grossness, but for the latter he finds an excuse in the manners of the age. His scepticism, moreover, was no heartless egotism, for he could fully appreciate and honour faith and devotion in others.t His head might be wrong, but his heart was right. Beside, here again we must consider the age he lived in; science was in the clouds,-was only conjectural, and not yet based on the firm foundation of experimental induction. In such a juncture doubt was wisdom and creditable to the sagacity of the Frenchman. That which must always charm in him is his sincerity * Ricciardelts, ix. 121. Compare i. 38, with i. 54, ad finem.

and exemption from conventional bonds. He gives the same license to his pen that others only give to the tongue in the unrestrained and unrecorded confidence of social intercourse. It is the freedom of a virgin mind that knows no ill and fears none, and honestly seeks the Truth, regardless of the prejudices of education, faith, and opinion. It is this which must always make him popular; it is Nature and that must always be pleasing in him, as in Shakspeare, despite of occasional coarseness, and of a style idiomatic and almost barbarous.

His great theme was human nature, and that he seems to have nearly mastered by a constant eye to the phenomena of his own individual existence. It is hard to get a complete confession, but the Essays seem both full and genuine. They form one of the few works that really tell us what man has been and is; and it is to such few that Bacon's words can most truly be applied: That the images of men's wits and knowledge remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly to be called images, because they generate still and cast their seed in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages.'

*

In conclusion, we cannot help thinking that the world would be much benefited by the revival of the free spirit of the merry old Gascon. At present it is very much of a bal masque, in which hardly anything or anybody appears in genuine character. S till it is rapidly undergoing an extraordinary revolution, and is daily presenting new and extraordinary aspects, which, to be rightly understood and made available must, be viewed through something better than the mental optics and cracked telescopes of our grandmothers.

USEFUL LESSONS.-The history of Napoleon and the history of the French revolution are each pregnant with two-fold instruction-one to individuals, the other to nations. The former shows to what a height of power, under favourable circumstances, great abilities, judiciously exerted, may raise a man; but it also shows how suddenly he may be hurled from his elevation. If intoxicated by good fortune, he becomes reckless of the virtues that were the foundation of his greatness. Not less instructive is the revolution, by warning Rulers of the terrible vengeance that awaits misgovernment; and the people who inflict it, of the mischief of popular excesses, and impracticable political schemes.

Amidst rampant errors and superstitions, true philosophy is like a plant, trying to take root au dflourish in an uncongenial climate, or unfavourable soil.

• Advancement of Learning, book 1.

IRISH POLICY AND THE NEW COLLEGES

THE progress of the session, and evolution of ministerial measures, give a more systematic and satisfactory aspect to the plan of policy determined upon towards Ireland. Nobody will deny that the great end to be attained, is to merge in national interests the more limited and conflicting interests of sects and parties; it is not the triumph of Protestantism, Romanism, or Repealism, that ought to be sought; but the triumph of the commonweal of the Irish people in cordial union with that of Great Britain. If this be the Minister's principle, and we incline to think it is, we augur favourably of his endeavours; that his followers will increase in number and zeal, by rapid defections from the ranks of those whose toils have long been consecrated to faction, individualism, and obstructiveness. It evinced a pitiable prostration towards the close of the Whig Ministry, when Lord Melbourne felt constrained to avow, that to govern Ireland it was necessary to conciliate Mr. O'Connell, because of his great personal influence. This was a position utterly unworthy of the Imperial Government; it was erecting into a power and treating with diplomatic forms a private person openly arrayed against it, and was a virtual concession in act, though repudiated in words, of that State dismemberment which has been described as the ultimate aim of this formidable agitator. We are glad a system so nationally humiliating has been abandoned. Conciliation is still sought, but conciliation on a broader basis;-not by an appeal to O'Connellism or Orangeism, but to the general patriotism and intelligence of Irishmen, apart from past feuds, sectional jealousies and passions.

An appeal like this requires only to be understood to be responded to, and be generally supported; and it is some earnest of this issue, that the Maynooth grant is making converts, and the fervour of hostility against it is on the decline. It was evidently misunderstood, and a religious interpretation given to a measure of strictly secular import-part of a general scheme for raising the intellectual standard of the educational institutions of Ireland. Maynooth College is the normal school of the Catholic priesthood, and obviously any concession tending to the improvement of this foundation in discipline, sentiment, or scholastic institutes would, through the accredited teachers of the people, act favourably on the entire Catholic community, that is, on the numerically preponderating mass of the population. It was touching the little springs-an application to the small wheels that move the greater-and at a minimum of cost trying to produce maximum effects.

The second educational step of Ministers appears based upon views not less sound and comprehensive. We allude to their project for founding New Colleges at Belfast, Cork, and Galway. These provincial academies will meet a want long felt, and complete-we wish we could say perfect-the national endowments for the education of different classes of the Irish. To the clergy of the Protestant Establishment, Trinity College has been long appropriated; Maynooth is the nursery of the Catholic Priesthood, and the National Board educates the children of the labouring poor of every religious persuasion; but for the Higher and Middle Orders there is no public provision, and this link in the circle of general instruction it is now intended to supply.

The National Board has under its superintendence 400,000 children, and the principle it has so successfully carried out will be adopted in the New colleges. They will be open to all, and no religious test allowed to exclude any from their benefits. In each college there will be a principal, with a salary of £1000 a year; and ten or twelve professors, with salaries of £300 a year each. At Belfast and Cork a medical school will be attached to each college, and lectures given in pharmacy, surgery, and chymistry. It is intended by Government to propose that, in all these colleges the professors shall be nominated by the Crown, and that the Crown shall have power to remove them for good cause. The principal will reside within the walls of the college, but it is not intended to provide within them residences either for the professors or the students.

Such is an outline of this gigantic scheme of godless instruction,' as Sir Harry Inglis was pleased to phrase it. More rational impugners of the ministerial plan than this honest zealot have objected, that Trinity College, Dublin, ought to have been first inquired into and thrown open on equal terms to the Catholic youth. But this is the Irish Protestant Church question in another shape; it is Mr. Ward's appropriation clause, in a lesser form, that perplexes and obstructs, but settles nothing, and is manifestly not ripe for decision. Meanwhile we would not have a substantial and immediate good to Ireland frustrated or delayed on that account. The state of Trinity College forms part of a vast question of educational inquiry and reformation, that ere long must be grappled with, and which would extend to Oxford and Cambridge, Eton, Winchester, Rugby, Harrow, and other scholastic foundations all of which fall under the same category -nearly contemporary in origin and object-alike ample in revenue, and alike perverted from the real intent of their royal and benevolent founders. Trinity College is perhaps the most

flagrant deviation, and we have long been impressed with its abuses and injustice. Its endowments are enormous, consisting of 300,000 acres of profitable land, besides valuable church patronage, and very considerable emoluments from entrance fees, board and lodging of fellow-commoners and pensioners, tuitions, &c. But its uses are limited and exclusive; Roman Catholics have been admitted since 1793, but they cannot remain after finishing their course, as they are not eligible to scholarships; nor admissible to higher academical degree than Bachelor of Arts. Neither can they vote for the parliamentry representatives of the University, who are chosen by the provost, fellows and scholars. Doubtless such invidious disqualifications call for melioration; infringing the palpable intent of the great Queen Elizabeth, who, in munificiently endowing Trinity College, unquestionally aimed at a national foundation dedicated to the general advancement of learning. Imperatively, however, as the subject demands legislative attention, we repeat, that it must stand over, like the Protestant Establishment, to a future occasion; the New Colleges may suggest examples for the amendment of the old, but to couple the creation of one with the reform of the other would be incongruous, if not impracticable and besides, a great question of scholastic restitution, that pertains to England in a greater degree than Ireland, be in danger of detriment or failure in being conjoined with a provincial experiment.

Meanwhile, we rejoice in that which is about to be attempted. It is a begining, at any rate, on statesmanlike views, of the regeneration of Ireland; for, in truth, it is the Irish mind more than anything else that requires to be brought up to the van of European civilization. A higher standard of instruction, both for clergy and laity, will heal divisions, explode popular delusions, and set at rest impracticable hopes. Moreover, it will rouse into action, and better give a vivid direction to, torpid industry, and call into life the natural resources of the country. Commerce, science, and education, have always been the chief national ameliorators; and though Sir Robert Inglis, Mr. Plumtre, and Sir Eardly Culling Smith may not perceive it, we can assure them that they are thoroughly anti-Catholic, very hostile to'idolatry and superstition,' and the best Protestant missionaries that can be sent into the Emerald isle.' History establishes our assertion, that they were the chief agencies in the Reformation of the sixteenth century, and the vituperation of Luther, and the rampant passions of Henry VIII., were less potent in rescuing European states from papal thraldom than the activity of moveable types, mercantile enterprise, and scientific informa

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