should say the producer is on his way to supersede the destroyer; and that the men of peace are about to become greater in their generation than the men of war. In this respect, we trust, they that were last are about to become first, and they that were first are about to become last."

Another great leading feature favourable to modern society is, that there has not been that laxity of morals among communities since the Christian dispensation, as there was during the reign of Paganism: this is an important advantage, especially when it is remembered that it was the loss of national character among the ancients, which was one of the primary causes of the declension of their power: satisfactorily showing that if morality be protected among a great people, it gives to a nation a healthy strength, and is almost an indemnity for its endurance. The high ground we stand on in this respect to the Cities of Antiquity, (far off as we may be from perfection) is clearly and ably proved in the work before us.

The long conflict between feudalism and civilization, and the social progress which has grown out of that struggle, occupies a considerable portion of the writer's attention. His reflections on the principle of the Protestant reformation and the vast improvements to society arising out of that event allow scope for passages of impressive eloquence.

"It is the fact that the principle of the Reformation carried with it these seeds of general improvement, that has given to it so much importance in the view of all minds interested in the progress of man and society. It was a call to wakefulness on one great subject; and a call made with so much success, that it could not fail to induce a habit of wakefulness in respect of many other subjects. Sagacious men perceived that matters tended to this issue, some regarding it with dismay, others with hope, and neither were disappointed.

"It raised man from a condition of mere passiveness in the hands of the accredited ministers of religion, and required him to act with the intelligence and seriousness proper to a being conscious of his personal accountableness to God. No lingering attachment to the old forms of authority on the part of the Reformers themselves, could prevent the impulse which they had brought upon society from taking this direction, or from proceeding to this extent. Their mission was, in effect, a proclamation of liberty to the captive, and of the opening of the prison to them that were bound, or, as the utterance of a warning voice, saying, the night is far spent, the day is at hand, be sober, be vigilant, for this call was not more a call to liberty than to labour. Its aim was not merely a restoration of human rights, but the restoration of a spirit in man that should be worthy of them."

The next great auxiliary of modern civilization, which must tend to, and has tended to, enlarge the human intellect, and consequently to improve the system of political government, as well as to make the principles on which a nation's greatness is based, better understood-has been brought about by the discovery, contemporaneously with the reformation, of that stupendous machine, the printing press -which has done more for man's social and moral amelioration than could have been produced had our cities, villages, and hamlets, been populated with a perpetual race of Solons and Lycurguses.

"Millions are instructed in letters in the present age, as the same class has never been instructed before; and millions who have received little direct instruction of that nature, benefit by its indirect influence, as the consequence of its greater prevalence in a manner no less unprecedented." What inconceivable blessings this one great invention has conferred on humanity! and to what illimitable extents may it reach. The following curious fact, in connection with this event, is not generally known :

"The bricks used in the erections of ancient Babylon present specimens of a kind of printing. The only difference was, that the subjects of Nebuchadnezzar printed with hollow types, the subjects of Charles V. with types which projected. Thus the slightest exercise of thought beyond the point then attained, might have sufficed to place the most momentous invention, in the history of modern art, among the discoveries of the ancients, and have given the printing press a place by the side of the far-famed looms of Babylon."

It would be a matter of supererogation to allude, at any length, to that offspring of the invention of printing-the Public Press-which is the mirror, the polished mirror, in which are exposed to all, the vices, and venality of public men; it is the champion of the oppressed-our safeguard against tyranny, the one powerful evidence of our national liberty-for that country is the freest where the press is the most unrestricted. The institutions of a people must be founded on just principles, or such an instrument of might could not, with safety, be entrusted to the hands of the governed. This makes the privilege so jealously watched by the rulers of states, and wherever it can be controlled, the authority necessary for that purpose is exerted to the uttermost. No country in Europe is so favoured with this glorious immunity as England. Like the censor of old Rome it sits in solemn judgment, not only over civil, but moral and religious freedom. It has, as Dugald Stewart wisely wrote, "Emancipated human reason from the tyranny of ancient prejudices, and aroused a spirit of free discussion, unexampled in the history of former times." This incomparable public right has been the product of association. Had it not been for great cities, which form the focus of intelligence and the concentration of mental vigour, the supposition is, that this reflex of national mind and spirit would never have been witnessed.

"Let our great cities disappear, and the freedom of the press, and nearly the whole system of liberty, of which that freedom is a part, must also disappear. This system has approached toward maturity only as the old relation between the vassal and his lord, and the subsequent relation between the subject and his sovereign, have given place to the more instructed relationship between the citizen and the community. It is to man, as a citizen, that we owe this liberty of utterance; and it is from him that the men who do not dwell in cities have learnt to avail themselves of a freedom which it would not have been in the nature of their habits, and still less within the power of their circumstances, to have originated."

By no means the least interesting portion of the work is the tracing the influence of "Great Cities," on the progress of all improvement, whether in relation to physical or political science; proving

also that they are the patrons of the fine arts, of literature, and the refinements that contribute to the embellishment of life. "Every living thing." says our eloquent author, "from the hyssop that springeth out of the wall to the noblest of the animal creation, has its appointed development; and in the discipline, expansion, and force of the human faculties, as realized in the civic associations of mankind, we see the development which has been manifestly assigned to human nature.'

After invincibly conclusive evidence that "Cities," by congregating large bodies of men together, are the grand reservoirs of civilization, and the prime stimulants to onward advancement in the pathway of human happiness, Dr. Vaughan brings his observations to bear on the condition of civic communities, as they appear at the present day; and, in this last investigation, there is an originality and depth of thought, which suggest to the inquiring mind many valuable considerations for his contemplation, in connexion with great cities as they affect popular intelligence, commerce, and manufactures; on all of which topics the author never assumes the tone of a party politician, and, indeed, even where opportunities present themselves for a strong expression of bias, no such advantage is taken, but all the reflections are those of a moralist and a lover of his species, desirous of doing his part towards the consummation of human amelioration.

In large populations, particularly in cities, there must be, to a certain degree, demoralization and depravity; and it is a cheerful assurance that so devout a man as the present author gives, that after carefully collecting facts, and weighing the tendencies both for and against morality, that the balance is greatly in favour of virtue and rectitude a deduction which might justly have been anticipated from the circumstance, that as city life is "eminent for intelligence," morality, in an equal ratio, must be disseminated. To deny this inference would be to fall into the delusion, that the "abuse of intelligence" is more natural and probable than the "use of it."

The general subject of Education is not only well discussed, but, by the aid of Parliamentary evidence, and statistical information, derived from the best of sources, the reader is made acquainted with the state of popular education in our agricultural, mining, and manufacturing districts; from which statements it would appear, that the unlettered parts of the population-that is to say, those who have never received even the rudiments of instruction-compose a number so great as to make it too apparent, that education in England is by no means so carefully considered as it is in many other countries, which we are in the habit of looking on as being far behind us in the race of civilization. It appears to us that there has been gross culpability in Parliament, if it be true that "our artisans are in general much less educated than the artisans of the Continent," and that "their manners, in consequence, are more coarse, more debased, by tendencies toward mere sensual indulgence, and altogether less self-governed, and less easy to govern by those who employ them." We repeat that these deplorable facts, with other truths no less dishonourable to our country, all relating to the want of some system of education, are terrible witnesses that the Legislature has not been sufficiently solicitous about a question which, of all others

VOL. II.

D

is of such momentous importance. We are fully aware that the question is beset with difficulties, and that the " systems" now in operation throughout Europe are open to many and fatal objections, particularly that of Prussia, which is far too arbitrary for this country, (and from which most of the " systems" of the present day have been modelled,) but the difficulty of making education general cannot be an apology for its total neglect. Denmark, Germany, Saxony, Sweden, Holland, and France, have not been deterred by obstacles; they have seen that there is sound policy in instructing their respective populations. Even Russia is following the example, with the satisfactory result that the morals of her people have improved, and are still visibly improving, under the influence of the adopted system. We are willing to admit that the lower orders of the people of this country, take them as a body, are, from the circumstance of their moving in a higher sphere of intelligence, more practically educated than the same class of other nations: but that there is urgent reasons for placing popular education within reach of our labouring poor, the statements of the British and Foreign School Society, the Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, the Minutes of the Council of Education, and the Statistical Returns printed on this subject with respect to all the large manufacturing towns of England, too accurately demonstrate. It would be almost impossible to praise over-much the noble manner (as conspicuous for ability as for sincerity of purpose) in which Lord Ashley brought this great topic before the attention of the House of Commons; nor less gratifying is the announcement that Ministers intend introducing a Bill, for the object of mitigating the evils which his lordship in his speech so powerfully adverted We seriously hope that the subject, in due course, will be dispassionately reviewed, and that it may be dwelt upon, in the language of Junius, "not as the cause of faction, or of party, or of individuals, but the common interest of every man in Britain." We should like to extend our observations on this very important inquiry to greater length, but the limits to which we are confined prevent the fulfilment of the inclination. All that we can here add is, that we are thankful that the subject has at last been agitated, and that it will no longer be suffered to remain stationary-feeling sanguine that all advance must be in the right direction, and in the same degree pregnant with interest to the nation.

to.

To return to Dr. Vaughan.-We cannot conceive why he should have deemed it expedient to introduce into the volume his opinions on the comparative prospects of Catholicism and Protestantism. For our own part, such commentation appears quite beside the purpose of the Work, the whole context of which is too expansive and general to admit, with any propriety, a disputation only adapted for a theological controversy. We regret, Protestants though we be, that the chapter should have been inserted, which detracts greatly from the merits of the other sections of the composition.

In conclusion, however, we cannot refrain from observing, that the "Age of Great Cities" is a highly meritorious production. A stream of thought flows throughout the whole volume; and every true philanthropist will feel more assured if additional evidence were required, that the potent struggle between good and evil, as ages roll

on, tends to the elevation of intellect, the purifying of morals, and the redemption of the human character. The history of nations may disclose to us the weakness of man's strength-the littleness of his greatness; but the history of humanity, at the same time, admonishes us that there is in the gradual development of the human faculties, as their powers are expanded through centuries, a vital agent generating enlightenment and a higher happiness to the farthest ends of the habitable globe. It is the triumph of the immaterial over the material man the ascendancy of mind over mortal error.

The most powerful cities of antiquity have vanished, with their splendid monuments of human art. The stupendous temples, embellished with all the beauties of the sculptor's genius, which consecrated the soils of Etruria, Ethiopia, Ninevah, Babylon, Thebes, Athens, and Jerusalem, have fallen into decay and ruin, and what those cities once were has become almost a fable. Rome, again, is a vast sepulchre, a huge sarcophagus of the mighty ;-the tomb of Cato, the grave of Cicero, the mausoleum of the Cæsars. Its amphitheatres, its coliseums, its splendid edifices, with all its magnificence, are crumbling in the dust. But the eternal mind outlives the wreck of nations-winging its mysterious flight ever onwards: nothing can stop its irresistible progress, nor mar its blessings to the universal race. "It is itself from God; and this living impulse in favour of all social elevation which is inseparable from it, is also from him. The present course of things, accordingly, is not to be thrust back or impeded. Its path is fixed-fixed by him who hath appointed the day-spring to know its place, and the outgoings of the morning to rejoice.'

66

AN APOLOGUE.

'My children," said the Persian philosopher, "hear the words of Beloc, the disciple of Zoroaster. When the good Ormuzd, grieved at the wickedness of man, recalled the fair daughter of the Sun, Celestial Love, from the earth, she ascended on the pinions of felicity; but, recollecting on her way, the many followers she had left upon earth, who would now be wholly under the power of the sinful Ghouls and their foul lord Ahrimenes-she paused in the middle heavens, and resting on her wings as a dove rests on its pinions, she turned her head downwards, and gazed on the earth with mingled pity and celestial love. At that moment a ray, brighter than the morning's beam and holier than the first smile of a mother at the sight of her new born babe, escaped from her eye and illuminated the upper sky. "Be thou the token" she said, "that though I am in the heavens, my soul dwells with the sons of men." Having thus spoken, she blessed it, and proceeded to the place of bliss.

In the calm night, when all the stars are out in their plenitude of beauty, if ye turn your eyes towards the heavens, ye will behold a faint streak of gentle light, stretching like a belt along the sky-the children of the dust have called it the milky-way; it is the beam of Celestial Love. And when ye wander alone by the quiet palm trees, brooding over the miseries of life, if ye look to the heavens, ye will still see the token of the Peri of Periis, watching with pitying eyes the world of misery, and let that be to ye a comfort, even as the voice of thy beloved, let it cheer thy soul. ANAX.