1 "In September, 1848, one of my London friends sent a message by telegraph to Liverpool, which reached Boston by mail-steamer via Halifax in electric telegraph to New Orleans in one day, the twelve days, and was sent on immediately by answer returning to Boston the day after. days were then lost in waiting for the steampacket, which conveyed the message back to England in twelve days, so that the reply reached London on the twenty-ninth day from the send Three education established in Massachusetts, | Boston is now fourteen days. Here is somewhere the whole community cheerfully sub-thing still more startling: mits to a very heavy taxation to secure the intellectual and religious advancement of every order, even the lowest of the citizens, with the anarchy of Peru and Mexico, where to judge from some recent travellers, (Mr. Ruxton in Mexico, or Dr. Von Tchudi in Peru,) the land would hardly lose in peacefulness, or in intelligence and cultivation, if it were resumed by the Indian tribes. We might with deep and reverential sorrow acknowledge the truth of Bishop Berke-ing of the question; the whole distance being ley's famous prophecy as to the western course of empire and civilization-a prophecy which we will not believe so long as our throne and our three estates maintain their ancient authority. Enough, perhaps too much of this; more especially since, while we attend our accomplished traveller in his wanderings over almost the whole continent of North America, we shall be perpetually reminded at once of those points of kindred and sympathy which arise out of our common descent of the contrasts and differences which spring from the different forms taken by institutions primarily of the same origin, but developed under different auspices when we shall behold the strange, striking, and amusing juxtaposition of the European life of Boston or New York, with the savage squattings in the far West; the inflexible law, which the sovereign people, even while we write, are vindicating against a furious mob by the right royal argument of files of soldiers and discharges of musket-balls-to the law of Judge Lynch, which the Borderers assured Sir Charles he would duly respect as his best, his necessary protection, if he were to settle among themselves. This consummation, indeed, they seemed to consider the necessary consequence, as it could be the sole object, of travelling so far westward. Sir C. Lyell left England as far back as Sept. 4, 1845, in one of those magnificent steam-ships which have, as it were, bridged the Atlantic; and have brought Halifax, and even Boston, almost as much within the reach of London as Dublin was in the earlier part of this century. We have heard a retired Home Secretary of the old school say, that in his active days, between the transmission of a dispatch and an answer received from the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, owing to adverse winds on both sides of the channel, several weeks had been known to elapse. The average passage to more than 10,000 miles, which had been traversed at an average rate exceeding 350 miles a day."-vol. i. p. 244. Another singular contrast suggests itself to Sir Charles; his noble vessel, the Britannia, was of 1200 tons burden; the first discoverers of America committed themselves to the unknown ocean in barks, one not above 15, Frobisher in two vessels of 20 or 25 tons; Sir Humphrey Gilbert in one of 10 tons only. Sir Charles had the great good fortune—a good fortune which can only be duly appreciated by those who know how important a part the glacier theory fills in modern geology-to behold, and at safe distance, one of those gigantic icebergs which warp slowly down the Atlantic: he could judge, to a certain extent by ocular demonstration, how far those mighty masses, "voyaging in the greatwonders now assigned to them-the transness of their strength," might achieve all the of enormous boulders, the furrowing of port the hardest rocks, the transplantation of the seeds of arctic or antarctic vegetation. On his return home he had the advantage of a nearer view, and detected a huge iceberg, the base of which towards the steamer covered 600 feet, actually conveying two pieces of rock, not indeed of any very great dimensions, to be deposited somewhere at the bottom of the sea, a long way to the south. Yet, after all, modern philosophers are prudent and unenthusiastic compared to those of old. He who Insiluit," -"ardentem frigidus Ætnam is said to have been urged to his awful leap, either by the desire of knowing more, or despair at his knowing nothing, of the causes of volcanic action. We do not read of Sir Charles Lyell, nor do we hear of any other more self-devoted geologist, desiring to be left, as some melancholy bears sometimes are, on one of these majestically-moving and tardily-melting islands, as on an exploring | strong desire, almost the necessity, of extendvoyage to test the powers and follow out ing their knowledge to kindred branches of the slow workings of these great geological natural philosophy; but they are likewise agents. men of keen observation, quickened intelliSir Charles was no stranger in Boston-gence, extensive information on all general though Boston, from its great improvement subjects. It must be of inestimable use to in handsome buildings during but three the traveller to be thrown at once under the years, was in some degree new to him. Be- guidance of such persons; instead of being fore his first journey to the United States entirely dependent, at best, on chance letters an invitation to read a course of lectures in of introduction, on the casual acquaintance of that city had happily fallen in with his own the steamboat, the railway-carriage, or the desire to explore the geology of North Ame- table d'hôte, (though, of course, much that is rica. One of those munificent donations for amusing and characteristic may be gleaned the promotion of intellectual culture, to their by the clever and communicative tourist from honor now becoming of frequent occurrence these sources, and, well weighed and win-particularly in the Northern States-had nowed, may assist in judgments on graver excited the laudable ambition of the con- subjects)-or, last and worst of all, on the ductors of the "Lowell Institute" to obtain professional guide or lacquey-de-place. Nor aid from some of the most distinguished is it only in cities like Boston, in meetings philosophers in Europe; and if we may judge held in that capital of American geolofrom the eager curiosity, as well as from the gists, that Sir Charles Lyell finds a zealous intelligent behavior of the audiences which interest in his own inquiries, as well as sociassembled to hear the author of the "Prin- ety calculated to give him sound views on ciples of Geology," this munificence is not the state and prospects of the country. It wasted on an ungrateful soil. "The tickets is remarkable that in the most remote and were given gratuitously to the number of untravelled quarters of the spacious land4500. The class usually attending amounted on the edge of the wilderness-even within to above 3000. It was necessary, therefore, the primeval forest, where men have just to divide them into two classes, and to repeat hewn themselves out room for a few dwellin the evening the lecture of the morning. ings-he encounters persons familiar with Among my hearers were persons of both his own works, who are delighted to accomsexes, of every station in society-from pany him on his expeditions, and to make the most affluent and eminent in the va- an honorable exchange of their own local obrious learned professions, to the humblest servations for the more profound and commechanics-all well-dressed, and observing prehensive theories, the larger and universal the utmost decorum." (First Tour, vol. i. p. knowledge, of a great European master of 108.) The scientific traveller, indeed, enjoys the science. Of course, now and then, he peculiar advantages. Throughout the civil- will fall in with admirers of his science ized world he is welcomed at once by persons rather solicitous to turn it to practical than of kindred minds and congenial pursuits to philosophical advantage-men who would these being in Europe sometimes of the high- not be sorry to have the name of the famous est rank and position-every where of superior geologist as at least encouraging the hope of education and intelligence. The man of sci- finding coal or valuable minerals on certain ence may be but a man of science-his entire lands, the value of which would rise thereby mind narrowed to one study-his conversa- in the market with the rapidity once postion on one subject; the whole talk of a sessed by railway shares. A geological zoologer may be of Mammalia and Mollusks Dousterswivel would find plenty of victims -of Ornithorhynchi Paradoxi and the last -or Face would be content to agree with of the Dodos; the botanist may be but a Subtle for a full share in the vast profits of "culler of simples;" even the geologist may such "smart" transactions. We have heard have such a mole-like vision for that which of advances of this kind, only prevented from is under the earth as to see nothing upon it becoming more explicit, only crushed in the -he may seem to despise everything not bud, by certain unmistakable signs of impracpre-Adamitic-his vocabulary may not go ticability, of an 'unapproachable dignity of beyond greywacke, eocene and meiocene, honor and honesty, which even awed such ichthyosauri and plesiosauri. But these are men. But-besides and beyond the facilities the rare exceptions-the hermits and devo- thus afforded to Sir C. Lyell for his more tees of an exclusive study. Far more usually complete geological survey of the land-our men of science are not merely under the knowledge of the intimate footing on which he stood with the intellectual aristocracy of United States, his opportunities, of which he seems constantly to have availed himself, of gathering information from those most trustworthy authorities, gives far greater weight to his statements on these more general subjects. We are hearing through him educated and accomplished Americans speaking of themselves and of their own country; while at the same time the pursuits of the geologist, leading him almost over the whole vast area of the United States, to its wildest and most untravelled regions, are constantly setting him down in the strangest quarters, bringing him into contact with every gradation of wild as well as of civilized life. He is among abolitionists and slaveholders-people of color, and of every shade and hue of color; he is lodging in a splendid hotel or in a loghut; travelling smoothly in well-appointed railroad carriages, in splendid floating hotels on the great rivers, or jolting over corduroy roads in cars or in stage-coaches, which might seem to be making their own road as they proceed; on Sundays he is listening to Dr. Channing-to Dr. Hawkes or some other of our eloquent Episcopalian divines-or to a black Baptist preacher, himself the only white man in a large congregation. We return to our traveller at Boston-admonishing the reader that we are about to dwell far more on these general topics than on the author's scientific inquiries. To geologists his work will not want our commendation: his name, and if more than his name were wanting, his former volumes, his masterly account of Niagara, his description of the organic remains discovered in various parts of the continent, as well as his other papers on the geology of the New World, will at once command their attention. Our first impression, not only at Boston, but throughout the extensive journeys on which we accompany Sir Charles Lyell, is that we are travelling in a transatlantic England; yet we can never forget that it is transatlantic: the points of resemblance and dissimilitudeof kindred, and of departure from the original stock-of national sympathies and national peculiarities are equally striking; and give at once the interest of that which is native and familiar, and the freshness of a strange and untrodden land. "It is an agreeable novelty to a naturalist to combine the speed of a railway and the luxury of good inns with the sight of a native forest; the advantages of civilization with the beauty of unreclaimed nature-no hedges, few ploughed fields, the wild plants, trees, birds, and animals undis turbed." This is a slight and casual illustration of our travelling in a transatlantic England. But the affinity and the difference extend much further. England is circumscribed within two comparatively small islands-the United States stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the St. Lawrence to the Bay of Mexico. England, with colonies and dependencies almost as vast as America itself, but distant, scattered over remote regions, in every continentAmerica, swallowing up, as if already not spacious enough, bordering territory, but those territories only divided by mountain ranges or uncultivated provinces; England, therefore, with an excessive population pent within her narrow pale, is finding a vent only at great cost and with great difficulty, and is ever threatened by explosion from its accumulation in crowded quarters-America is spreading freely, and year after year adding almost new States to her Union; making highways of rivers which but a short time before were rarely broken by the canoe of the Indian, but are now daily and nightly foaming up before the prow and the paddles of the huge steamboat; exemplifying Cooper's famous sentence, quoted by Sir Charles Lyell, that Heaven itself would have no charm for the backwoodsman if he heard of any place farther west. England proper has long completely amalgamated her earlier races-the Briton, the Saxon, the Dane, and the Norman for centuries have been merged undistinguishably into the Englishman; we may say nearly the same as to Scotland; yet England has her Celtic population in Ireland-either from her impolitic and haughty exclusiveness, or the stubborn aversion on the other part, or what may almost seem a natural and inextinguishable oppugnancy, a mutual repulsion still lying on the outside of her higher civilization, a separate, unmingling nation. America has not the less dangerous black races, apparently repelled by a more indelible aversion, in a state of actual slavery—of which we wish that we could foresee some safe and speedy termination. England from her remote youth has slowly and gradually built up her history, her laws, her constitution, her cities, her wealth, her arts, her letters, her commerce, her conquests:-America, in some respects born old, is starting at the point where most nations terminate, with all the elements of European civilization, to be employed, quickened it may be, and sharpened by her own busy acuteness and restless activity; with a complete literature, in which it might almost seem impossible to find place for any great genius, should such arise among our American sons, in its highest branches at least of poetry and inventive fiction; with English books in every cottage; with the English Bible the book of her religion. She is receiving with every packet all the products of our mind--and we must not deny making some valuable returns in the writings of her Prescotts, Irvings, Bancrofts, Channings; America, in short, is an England almost without a Past-a Past at the furthest but of a few centuries; if calculated from her Declaration of Independence, a Past not of one century-though assuredly, if it had but given birth to Washington, no inglorious Past. But she has, it must seem, a Future (and this is the conclusion from Sir Charles Lyell's book) which, if there be any calculation to be formed on all the elements of power, wealth, greatness, happiness-if we have not fondly esteemed more highly than we ought, the precious inheritance of our old English institutions, and the peculiar social development which may counteract and correct, at least for a long period, the dangers inseparable from republican politicsa Future which might almost tempt us to the sanguine presumption of supposing, in favor of this Transatlantic England, an exception to the great mysterious law of Prov idence "Prudens futuri temporis exitum Caliginosâ nocte premit Deus." Boston itself forces upon us, in more than one point, the analogy and the divergence of England and America. America is an England without a capital, without a London. A London she could not have had without a king, without an aristocracy, without a strong central government, without a central legislature, central courts of law, without a court, without an hereditary peerage, we may well add, without a St. Paul's and a Westminster Abbey. It is singular, but it is both significant and intelligible, that Washington is the only city in America which has not grown with rapidity: "In spite of some new public edifices built in a handsome style of Greek architecture, we are struck with the small progress made in three years since we were last here. The vacant spaces are not filling up with private houses, so that the would-be metropolis wears still the air of some projected scheme which has failed."-vol. i. p. 265. The cities of America answer to our great modern commercial towns, Liverpool, Man | chester, Birmingham. Many of these English towns have boasted and may still boast of scientific and literary circles, to which have belonged men not equal perhaps to those of whom Boston is now proud, but still-notwithstanding the natural flow of the lifeblood to the heart, the gravitation which draws all the more eminent talent to London-of deserved name and estimation. Yet Boston, New York, perhaps Philadelphia and Baltimore (New Orleans seems to stand by itself, with some faint kindred with Paris) are, though not the capitals of the Federation, the capitals of States. Boston in one respect, as likewise the province of Massachusetts, and indeed the New England States in general, may glory in one distinction, of which we cannot boast, the cheerful, unreluctant submission to general and by no means light taxation for the purposes of public education. We have before us, besides Sir C. Lyell's volumes, a report of the Massachusetts Board of Education, and an eloquent speech of the late most highly respected Minister of the United States in England, Mr. Everett, for a short time the president of Harvard College, near Boston. In the main facts they fully agree: Massachusetts in 1845-6, for a population of "The number of public or free schools in 800,000 souls, was about 500, which would allow a teacher for each twenty-five or thirty children, as many as they can well attend to. The sum raised by direct taxation for the wages and board of the tutors and for fuel for the schools is upwards of $600,000, or 120,000 at $754,000,] but this is exclusive of all expendiguineas, [Mr. Everett states the amount for 1848, ture for school-houses, libraries, and apparatus, for which other funds are appropriated, and every year a great number of newer and finer buildings are erected. Upon the whole about one million of dollars is spent in teaching a population of 800,000 souls, independently of the sums of Boston is supposed to be equal to the money expended on private instruction, which in the city levied by taxes for the free schools, or $260,000 (£55,000.) If we were to impose a school-rate in Great Britain, bearing the same proportion to our population of twenty-eight millions, the tax would amount annually to more than seven millions sterling, and would then be far less effective, owing to the higher cost of living and the comparative average standard of income among professional and official men."-vol. i. p. 190. The State of New York, it appears, is not behind Massachusetts; the population in 1845, was 2,604,495. The schools 11,000. The children in the schools for the whole or part of the year 807,200, being almost onethird; and of these only 31,240 in private schools. The expenditure, chiefly raised by rates, $1,191,697, equal to about £250,000. Sir Charles Lyell discusses at some length the causes which have led to this universal acquiescence in the duty and even the necessity of providing, at so large a cost to the whole State, this system of popular education: During my first visit to the New England States, I was greatly at a loss to comprehend by what means so large a population had been brought to unite great earnestness of religious feeling with so much real toleration. In seeking for the cause, we must go further back than the common schools, or at least the present improved state of popular education; for we are still met with the question-How could such schools be maintained by the State, or by compulsory assessments, on so liberal a footing, in spite of the fanaticism and sectarian prejudices of the vulgar? When we call to mind the enthusiasm of the early Puritans-how these religionists, who did not hesitate to condemn several citizens to be publicly whipped for denying that the Jewish code was obligatory on Christians as a rule of life, and who were fully persuaded that they alone were the chosen people of God, should bequeath to their immediate posterity such a philosophical spirit as must precede the organization by the whole people of a system of secular education acceptable to all, and accompanied by the social and political equality of religious sects such as no other civilized community has yet achieved -this certainly is a problem well worthy of the study of every reflecting mind. To attribute this national characteristic to the voluntary system would be an anachronism, as that is of comparatively modern date in New England; besides that the dependence of the ministers on their flocks, by transferring ecclesiastical power to the multitude, only gives to their bigotry, if they be ignorant, a more dangerous sway. So also of universal suffrage; by investing the million with political power, it renders the average amount of their enlightenment the measure of the liberty enjoyed by those who entertain religious opinions disapproved of by the majority. Of the natural effects of such power, and the homage paid to it by the higher classes, even when the political institutions are only partially democratic, we have abundant exemplification in Europe, where the educated of the laity and clergy, in spite of their comparative independence of the popular will, defer outwardly to many theological notions of the vulgar with which they have often no real sympathy."--vol. i. pp. 49, 50. Our author illustrates largely the mutual toleration which prevails, not only as to the great purpose of the common education. Thus, we read concerning the cheerful, smokeless town of Portland, the principal city of Maine: | nomination: Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, Free-will Baptists, Universalists, Unitarians, Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, and Quakers, all of the State was a Unitarian; and as if to prove the living harmoniously together. The late governor perfect toleration of churches the most opposed to each other, they have recently had a Roman Catholic governor."-vol. i. p. 48. Sir Charles is disposed to attribute great influence in this change of the staunch exclusionists, the old Puritan settlers, into perfect religious cosmopolitans, " to the reaction against the extreme Calvinism of the Church first established in this part of America, a movement which has had a powerful tendency to subdue and mitigate sectarian bitter ness. He gives us some curious extracts (vol. i. pp. 53-5) from an old religious poem, the "Day of Doom," written by one Michael Wigglesworth, teacher of the town of Maldon, New England In this strange homily in verse the extreme Calvinistic opinions are followed out to their most appalling conclusions with unflinching fearlessness; and this poem was, not more than seventy years ago, a school-book in New England. We forget which was the teacher, within or without the Church, of the last century, who noted in his diary: "Enjoyed some hours comfortable meditation on the infinite mercy of God in damning little babes!" Of this race was our poet, who, in his picture of the Last Day, has this group : "Then to the bar all they drew near who died in infancy, And never had, or good or bad, effected personally" Alleging that it was hard for them to suffer for the guilt of Adam : "Not we, but he, ate of the tree whose fruit was interdicted, Yet on us all, of his sad fall, the punishment's inflicted." To which the Judge replies that none can suffer "for what they never did." "But what you call old Adam's fall, and only his trespass, You call amiss to call it his; both his and yours it was. He was designed of all mankind to be a public head, A common root whence all should shoot; and stood in all their stead." "There are churches here of every religious de- With more to the like effect-when |