rates, but inclination unites us;' for they do meet, and the fate that will not let their union be entire, makes what union there is the more firm and enduring. There is a moral for all those who would forbid the natures, which rush to each other, to mingle; they must, they do; though it be but in a dream, that dream binds their souls for ever. Look at yon hooded monk! Well is it that the No Popery' cry is over, or surely they would have him down as an upholder of his holiness. There, though you may neither see nor believe, is a Cupid and Psyche. Strange that the curve of that huge mass of rough brickwork should suggest the exquisite language and grace of that lovely and loving pair. The old sign of the Crooked Billet' has in it the same sort of magic-its tortuosity suggesting the far-famed statue of the dying gladiator. Here is more work for Eolus, or Fame if she will, in her flight over the earth! An inkstand-looking house for her to dip her recording quill into. A Tunbridge toy sort of place, with square grey roof, and the chimnies for the pens-chimnies for pens! poor little lads, who have too often found pens in our chimnies! The English negro race, (our inky brethren, for they are our brethren, though we may disown them,) born with the same organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions, fed with the same food, (no, not with the same food, but they would eat it if they could have it,) hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer,' and sometimes warmed to death in a service to which man and woman should be ashamed to doom them. Poor fellows! they are a race apart, and the very avoidance of contact with them in our streets must tend to unhumanize them. Let us not think of their inky soot alone,' but remember that they have that within which passeth show;' minds to comprehend and hearts to feel; and let us all employ, for their salvation, that great physical Saviour― machinery.

And now the light is diminishing, and how richly and blackly come out the forms against the twilight sky! There is no longer the detail of brick and mortar; they are dark and massy in their mingled sameness and variety of form. Darker and darker-and now they are all asleep in the moonlight. There is a charm in moonlight to harmonize buildings that by day are full of strange incongruities; there is a charm in moonlight to harmonize man into the disposition to admire the beautiful, rather than detect the defective. That church, which by day is the imperfect work of an inferior architect, to-night is like a classic temple of the olden worship. Calm, bright, and hallowed it is, as if spirits were worshipping within it and around it. Look! what is that? it flashes like one of earth's purest brilliants; or like a star new fallen from heaven. Where? there! at the topmost corner of the eastern end. Strange! Is it a spirit risen from the graves

below to keep guard over the departing glory of episcopacy; as did the sweet little cherub smiling aloft' on the topmast? Vain care, if poor Jack's life were not better worth preserving than that of old, selfish, grumbling beldame Mother Church. No, spirits are wiser; and when they do rise from their graves it will be, like Ezekiel, to say to the land, 'There is a conspiracy of her prophets (priests) in the midst thereof; like a roaring lion, ravening their prey, they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things.' But what is it? Proud, yet trembling in its impulses, like a huge swelling world of a drop of water. The sky is without a cloud-no glistening rain-drops to make marvels upon slanting roofs. What is it? No glazed window to lighten with the moon's pure reflection. Nearer and nearer-brighter and brighter-how strange! What is it? I declare it is the moon shining on the bright tin tube of the vestry chimney!

S. Y.

RATIONAL INSTRUCTION.

ALTHOUGH books for the instruction of children have greatly improved of late years, it must be acknowledged that good books of this description are still rare; and it becomes our duty to mention from time to time such works as fall under our notice which have pretensions to a rational character.

It has only been discovered recently (and is still but partially known) that the familiar objects which surround a child may be easily converted into useful and delightful materials of instruction. Formerly instruction was commenced with crabbed books, which were thrust into the infant's hands long before he could comprehend their use, and which thus unwittingly became instruments of torture; instruments for the repression of real knowledge, and for deadening all delight in the attainment of knowledge. Would that we could say that such is not the case now. We trust, however, that the parents and instructors of young children will every day have less excuse for continuing a practice which is as destructive to the children's intellects and happiness, as to their own comfort; for we cannot admit that a mechanical and painful mode of instruction can add to the happiness of either parent or instructor.

Several treatises have appeared within the last year or two, for the purpose of showing the rational teacher in what manner valuable instruction may be extracted from ordinary familiar objects. The two most remarkable of these works are; first, a cheap London reprint of an American work, entitled The Little Philosopher, for Schools and Families; designed to teach children to think and to reason about common things; and to illustrate, for parents and teachers, methods of instructing and interesting children. By Jacob Abbott, Principal of the Mount Vernon

School.' Secondly, Lessons on Objects, as given to Children between the ages of five and eight, in a Pestalozzian School at Cheam, Surrey.' Meritorious as these works are, either for domestic instruction or for the lower classes of a school, they are hardly available for little children below the age of six or seven, for whom, however, it is exceedingly desirable that such exercises should be prepared, seeing that very little children, though not in a condition for book learning, are as capable and desirous of examining nature, if not of profiting by that examination, as, in all probability, they will ever become.

From nature we get knowledge at first hand; from books we get knowledge at second hand, when we succeed in getting it at all: so that we exhibit no remarkable signs of wisdom in prefering the shadow to the substance, when the latter is within our reach. The author of the Lessons on Objects' tells a story of a teacher who gave a lesson to his class respecting a window, of which he had taken the trouble to make a drawing, not reflecting, until reminded of the fact by one of the pupils, that a real window was actually before him; and even then the force of habit was so great, that he silenced the child and proceeded as before. A child will read about a blacksmith with apathy, and forget the lesson in an hour; but show him the real man at his forge, with his black hands, roaring bellows, and heavy hammer, making the bright sparks fly around him, and fashioning the hard iron as if it were of clay, and an effect is produced on the child's mind that will never be effaced. So, also, any object, no matter how common, a table, or a carpet, a grate, an article of dress, a stone or a flower will, each and all, afford a fund of entertainment when the parent is once familiarized with the mode, set forth in the abovementioned works. He will then soon find himself in a condition to diminish or enlarge, and to alter and improve the lessons to his heart's content; for the variety of object and illustration has no bounds.

We shall now go a little into detail in describing these two works.

The design of the Little Philosopher,' to use the words of its author, is not to go at all out of the appropriate field of childish observation; but to fix the attention of children, and to employ their reasoning powers upon the thousand objects around them, with which they are necessarily more or less familiar, and which are consequently the best subjects of thought and reflection for them. But in order that the book may at all accomplish the object for which it is intended, it must be used as the textbook of a teacher, not the mere reading book of a child.' The book consists of a series of questions calculated to engage the teacher and child in agreeable conversation, and to induce the latter to observe with accuracy, and to make various simple experiments. The subjects treated of are very numerous, and of course

no scientific order is attempted. Sections I. and II. relate chiefly to the more obvious qualities of simple objects, and proceed to the more striking phenomena of the elements, earth, sun, moon, &c. Section III. comprehends a brief examination of the body. Sections IV. and V. relate to animals and plants; and Section VI. includes an examination of several simple works of art, a brief examination of language, and a variety of miscellaneous experiments and questions.

Mr. Abbott states various modes in which his book has been used in schools; for it is not a crude and untried speculation, but the result of his long and successful labours in practical education. The exercises have been performed by the whole school at once, and by a single class. In doubtful cases the pupils were required to ascertain the fact by experiment or by observation; and in some cases particular boys or girls were appointed to inquire into facts, or make experiments, and bring a report on the result. Certain of the questions were also set to some pupils as a lesson or exercise.

The merits of this little treatise, and its very reasonable price, ought to insure its introduction into every family and elementary school.

The second work before us, namely, the Lessons on Objects,' is more elaborate and systematic than the Little Philosopher,' and therefore calculated for older children. If the Little Philosopher' be used with children at the age they usually commence school, the Lessons on Objects' would answer very well as a second book for the same children as they advance in capacity. The exercises of which it is composed are confined to such familiar objects as can easily be produced before the pupils; and the desultory character of such exercises is corrected by making a previous selection of subjects, and presenting them in the class room. they are intended to be preparatory to instruction in natural history, they gradually assume a more scientific character, and thus a feeling of progress is sustained in the pupil's mind. It has been found indeed by long experience, that no lessons produce more continued interest, or more, enlarge the minds of children, than those on objects.'

As

The first series presents a selection of miscellaneous simple objects, each possessing some distinguishing quality, such as glass, Indian rubber, leather, &c. The second series presents more complicated objects, the qualities, parts, and uses of which are examined as far as they come within the cognizance of the external senses; such as a pin, pencil, chair, &c. The third series resembles the second, but includes qualities not discernible by the outward senses, and also explanations and derivations of the more important terms. The chief aim of the fourth series is to exercise the children in arranging and classifying objects. For this purpose the spices have been selected for one set of exercises,

and a variety of liquids for another. The fifth series is intended as a first exercise in composition; observations and interrogations on familiar objects take place, and information is communicated as before; a written account is then required from the pupil: miscellaneous objects increasing in complexity are next presented; the metals and earths follow, and the work concludes with similar exercises on the external senses.

The above account of these interesting works will show that they cannot be advantageously used in schools or families without reasonable attention on the part of the parent or tutor. But with a little pains at the beginning, and a due allowance for a few failures, such as must be expected in all new undertakings, any persons of ordinary temper and capacity will soon find them highly useful as well as entertaining to the children, and possibly

not uninstructive to themselves.

6

A small work somewhat resembling the Little Philosopher,' was published twenty years ago by the celebrated Mrs. E. Hamilton. It is entitled Examples of Questions calculated to excite and exercise the Infant Mind,' and is not without many traces of the usual talent of its author, although, on the whole, it must be pronounced a failure. Too many things are required to be known, or to be admitted without evidence, by the pupil; and nearly the whole is embedded in a theology which is beyond the depth of a little child. To an intelligent instructor it would, however, afford many useful suggestions.

The whole of Miss Edgeworth's smaller works, and especially Harry and Lucy concluded,' abound with valuable remarks on the branch of education which we have been noticing. And we might have adverted to several other works, such as Smith's Lessons on Words and Objects, with Experiments,' (which is just published) and Von Türk's Phenomena of Nature familiarly explained,' were it not that they fall more appropriately under another head, which we may possibly examine hereafter.

NOTES ON THE NEWSPAPERS.

High Church anti-Property Doctrines.-A certain Dr. Etough, who seems to be a tough doctor, made two long speeches at the great Suffolk conservative dinner, eaten at Ipswich on the 2d ult., which not only show the truth of the old maxim, that if you give some people rope enough they will hang themselves withal, but, moreover, that there are people who will find the rope themselves. The illustrissimi of this county-gathering consist of one lord, one baronet, two or three majors, two or three captains, two or three esquires, and thirteen clergymen with several others.' And Dr. Etough was their mouthpiece, both for Church and King,' and the clergy of the diocese.' What