"during very nearly a quarter of a century been associated with various literary undertakings, which have had in view, more or less ostensibly, the furtherance of the object which has long since become the business, as it is the pleasure of his life-the general diffusion of knowledge, and a love of letters." Hence, no doubt, his connection with "The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge," and the compliment which he has earned for his "valuable assistance to the Society, and his cordial zeal for its objects." So speaks the Committee's address for 1843. (Quis loquitur?)

To return, however, to Mr. Knight himself. He proceeds :

"Looking back upon those things, in which there is much pain as well as happiness in the retrospect, . . . . the editor of the Weekly Volume' is tempted to collect a few scattered papers together, which were written by him at various periods of his life, chiefly with the view of doing something to advance the education of the people."

Hence, then, "the Volume of Varieties," and, truly, its contents are various enough: the subjects are thirty-four in number, some of them trifles light as air, e. g. "The Waits," "London Cries," "The Flute-player," "The May Fly," "On Queues," "Clean your Honour's Shoes," &c., &c. Now with this, in the abstract, we have no right to find fault. Every author is at liberty to consult his own taste, and the author of the "Varieties," "has preferred mostly to select for his volume those contributions to several periodical works which are of an amusing rather than a didactic character." But, in truth, the volume is an odd medley, and opening as it does with a formal essay on "Books for all Readers," in which Mr. Knight sets forth "the principles upon which the diffusion of sound popular literature should be built," and professes so anxious a desire "to advance the education of the people," one might have looked for something more didactic than his pen-prolific enough-has here furnished; and we cannot but opine that Mr. Knight's reminiscences and projects as connected with "the great business and pleasure of his life," may be of a character which it would not be quite agreeable to analyze. But this mixture of the grave and gay-principles of educationPastor Oberlin-and other topics of a semi-religious kind, with the trifles above specified, is a species of writing which we cannot much commend: still less can we assent to the principles which Mr. Knight propounds, and upon which his authorship is based. This, in fact, is the simple point to which it is our wish to call attention, and in doing so we shall use but few words. The question involved has been worn somewhat threadbare, nor can it be necessary to trouble our readers with a discussion of its merits.

We quote a few passages from "The Volume of Varieties," to indicate the principles of its author, and thus put our readers on their guard in adopting or recommending his hebdomadal produc

tions.

The first paper, "Books for all Readers," was originally published in 1828, two years after the establishment of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge; but the principles discussed-"The principles upon which the diffusion of sound popular literature should be built, appear to the writer to remain unaltered." It thus opens :

:

"It is nearly twenty years since the first impulse was given to the general intellect of this country, by the introduction of a new mechanical system for teaching reading and writing, by cheaper and more efficacious methods than those previously in use. It would be beside our purpose, at this period, when elementary education has become an established object with all the respectable and benevolent portion of society, whatever be their political party or religious denomination, to attempt to discuss the relative merits of either of those systems, which were originally so formidably opposed to each other. It is enough for us that the children educated under either system are well disciplined; that the key of the treasures of wisdom is put into their hands that their intellectual faculties are developed, so that, making allowances for all the temptations of individual frailty, the mass of the population may be directed to those pure gratifications of the understanding upon which their own self-respect may be established. It is indifferent to us which system was first perfected, or which party had the purest motives in establishing schools for the poor. The education of the youth of these realms must now be universal; it has become independent of the caprice of patronage or the fluctuations of benevolence. We must now carry our ideas beyond the boys and girls of Lancastrian or of National Schools. We have now to see what provision has been made, and is making, for satisfying the demands for cheap and wholesome literature, which the general ability to unlock the stores of knowledge has created in the new generation around us."-(pp. 10, 11.)

Our readers will, no doubt, admire this magniloquent exordium, its comprehensive, liberalism, its discriminating precision. But

we pass on :—

"It is somewhat remarkable," adds our essayist, "that those who were most laudably and rationally anxious for the education of the people, do not appear to have formed anything like a correct estimate of what remained to be done, after some thousands of their fellow-subjects had gone forth into society, all with their newly-acquired ability to read, many with the most anxious desire not to let that ability sleep. Before these young persons, not the less ardent because they were almost wholly uninformed, were spread the vast fields of inaccessible learning.

'The world was all before them, where to choose,'

On one side they were surrounded by the well-meaning, but tasteless, and almost revolting puerilities of the Tract Societies"

Here we pause for here we part company with our educational guide, till we join him at another stage. He is gallopping too fast, and we think we shall miss some useful knowledge if we do

not halt a little. The Tract Societies-all, in one category, but mere depositories of "well-meaning but tasteless and almost revolting puerilities!" This is all that can be said of them. They are, in fact, cashiered from the public service-the Christian Knowledge Society, the Religious Tract Society, the Bristol Tract Society, the Dublin Tract Society-all, all, are alike worthless-no Guides to Useful Knowledge, but forming the first class of “blind guides,” the second, or latter class, as our author has it, being "those writers who knew how (by coarse stimulants) to administer to ignorant enthusiasm all the incentives to political discontent." But both alike, he assures us, are "blind guides," and therefore no more of the Tract Societies.

We have next a history of the village book-stall, and the hawker of numbers, whose "attractive stores" (including, however, Bunyan's Pilgrim, and Foxe's Martyrs) having received a passing notice, are thus disposed of.

"Would such meagre, and often worse than useless productions, satisfy the intellectual cravings of one sincerely desirous of improvement? The power of reading, thus employing itself, could only prove a perpetual irritation, and a disappointment to its possessor.

To our knowledge, however, many a rustic has fared better at the country book-stall, or at the hawker's pack, than he would have done had he waited for Mr. K.'s "Varieties," or visited a certain mart in Ludgate-street. But it is enough. Our grand projector has cleared his way, and we are now to join him commencing his own career, some " quarter of a century" ago; that is, let the reader observe, in the year 1820.

Hear, then, Mr. Knight.

"An attempt was made about the beginning of the present reign (sic orig.) (1820!), to follow up the elementary education of the people, by publishing a monthly miscellany for their use, entitled The Plain Englishman.'

To this miscellany Mr. K. was a contributor-may be, more. Let him tell us its fate.

"The period chosen," says he, "for this attempt was unfortunate, as the nation was distracted by violent politics; and though a great body of valuable knowledge was got together, the publication was never sufficiently encouraged, either by the class to whom it was addressed (they had no appetite for Mr. Knight's fare), or by those who affected to take an interest in the diffusion of sound principles amongst the general community. We have reason to know that a Church Society of great wealth and influence (Qu., a Religious Tract Society, a Society for the Diffusion of Christian Knowledge?) not only withheld their encouragement from this work, but absolutely attempted to nip it in the bud, by the most chilling and heartless exercise of their power."

Sad requiem! Alas, for the "Plain Englishman!" Mr. Knight,

however," mentions this only to show (not that the Plain Englishman' escaped strangling, and died a natural death, but) that no scheme for the diffusion of popular knowledge can be successful which is not immediately addressed to the people themselves, without in any degree depending upon the patronage of gratuitous, and therefore suspicious distribution, by the superiors of those for whose perusal works of a popular character are devised." Hence Mechanics' Institutions

"In the establishment of which (as Mr. Knight affirms) is certainly to be found the first systematic attempt to provide adequate excitements, and reasonable gratifications, for the intellectual activity of the working classes. These (he tells us) led the way to cheap weekly publications....the Mechanics' Magazine,' 'The Mirror,' and many summer flies which they called into a brief existence. The greater number of these have perished:(but the circumstance is easily accounted for :)-nor can the cheap essayists, the historians, the novelists, the poets, the standard works of our literature, serve the purpose of national education. All the dominions of science and literature have yet to be mapped-out, as it were, before the popular mind can range in them with ease and freedom. We are just arrived at that period of our civilization, when it is impossible for us to remain contented with heaping more bricks and more straw upon the enormous heap of old materials, whether in legislation or letters. The piles of antiquity must be re-sorted-the rubbish thrown out-the profitable stock well compacted. The manhood of the world can afford to supersede the clumsy experiments of its childhood by well-arranged contrivances and finer mechanism. In short, M. Mercier's political millennium is no idle vision! It is being realized in the very age in which we live. . . . The progress of civilization will accomplish for the intellectual world something like what it has done, and is doing, for the physical. The vineyards are now smiling upon spots of France which Cæsar describes as inaccessible to his legions. The vines and fig-trees of knowledge will shoot up, in the place of those forests of pedantry where common sense could never pierce."

Such are the elaborated, though, in our hands, condensed, views of Mr. K., as regards the past, the present, and the future. He adds

"It was doubtless, with some such convictions as these, that, in the beginning of 1827, the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge' (magna pars fui) was established."

And we have then an account of its doings, and a set defence of its publications-which, however, by the way, a most competent judge has characterized, we say not how truly, as "miserable compilations." In fact, our author proceeds,

"The legions of tracts, which, up to the present hour, persevere in talking to grown men and women, as if they were as innocent of all knowledge, both of good and evil, as in the days of their painstaking mothers. ... these and every thing, with one or two exceptions, that has been addressed to the working population, by the constituted authorities, for making them wiser and better, are all beside the mark. The labouring and middle classes are alike in need. The public education of England,' as Talleyrand said, 'elle

est execrable.' We all want popular literature, we all want to get at real and substantial knowledge by the most compendious processes.'

And now this brings us to "Books for all Readers ;"-forsooth, to Mr. Knight's Weekly Volumes-the "Volume of Varieties," and its now long train of well-marshalled attendants-a train rapidly increasing, and which will not be made up, we suppose, till it exactly represent "the sages of M. Mercier's political millennium, who are to exhibit all their stores of useful learning, in a cabinet containing a few hundred volumes; just like so many bees. that have collected in their little cells the concentrated sweets of a thousand flowers." Such is Mr. Knight's "vision!" "not an idle

"It is being realized in the very age in which we live!" Finally-for we will not longer trespass upon our readers"Amidst the uncertainties and changes of events," writes Mr. K., "amidst the doubts, and fears, and restless hopes, and all the passions which politics excite there is one immutable standard to which we may refer for lessons of consistency; and that is, the constitution of the human mind, in all the modifications and all the convulsions of society, unceasingly progressing to its own improvement.... The elasticity of our powers the constant progress towards improvement-which no self-abasement, and no external oppression, can wholly destroy, makes the ultimate amelioration of the human race quite certain."

The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and Mr. Knight, their publisher, so far at least as deponent showeth, are the destined regenerators of our fallen world. No doubt but they are the people, and wisdom shall die with them. Our readers, perhaps, will come to a different conclusion; and being well nigh tired with our weary task, in attempting to keep pace with this lusty pioneer of the political millennium of the year 2500, we will not debate the matter.

One word, however, as regards the " Working Man," or, rather, let him speak for himself.

"As to myself," he writes, "I am not careful about either standards of doctrine, or modes of worship, or rules of discipline. To whichsoever of these divers matters any one may give the preference, is to me quite indifferent: all I wish for is to see a practical attention to the duties which the Christian religion enjoins, and a fair amount of resemblance, in regard to Christian charity, between the professed disciple and his beneficent Master."—(Memoirs, p. 130.)

And, again—

"At the request of our landlady, I looked over a volume of sermons by the eminent Unitarian minister, DR. PRICE. I did this, however, out of mere curiosity, for, although I have no objection to read any regular treatise on theological subjects, I have never been much disposed to read sermons. I ventured to report so favourably concerning these discourses, that the good woman was quite satisfied that she would do well to read them. She was the more readily brought to this conclusion, because-at which the reader may well smile-she took me to be nothing less than a clergyman!"