the ignorant in the extreme hazard of frequently choosing wrong, the establishment of select Village-Libraries seems highly desirable: and the principles, upon which such an establishment may most advantageously be conducted, and the publications in which those principles appear most happily exemplified, become consequently necessary and, indeed, very important topics of inquiry. The two projects, which I have seen suggested upon this head in print, are both in the one thing needful wretchedly defective. I hope, therefore, that I shall be considered as strictly within the line of professional propriety, when I take the liberty of laying before the public a third.

If the shelves are to be loaded with the County Agricultural Reports, Gregory's Cyclopadia, Dickson's Agriculture, A System of Geography and Arrowsmith's Maps, Mavor's Universal History, Johnson's Dictionary, Hume's and Belsham's History of England, The Monthly Magazine, The Annals of Agricul ture, The Oxford Review, and The Journal Modern Voyages and Travels;* a clergyman

See Monthly Magazine, xxiv. 28, 29. In justice however to both the plans alluded to, it should be added, that their views are professedly secular; and, that, as a subscription is exacted from all who are to profit by them, they seem intended chiefly for the classes of middle life.

may pardonably hesitate to solicit subscriptions for their purchase, or to lend his vestry for their reception: because, however respectable some of those compositions may be in other. points of view, they are all (professionally speaking) out of his way, as to religious improvement, which ought always to be a primary object for the great mass of village-readers. I question, indeed, whether the publishers of any of them, with a single exception or two at the most, would not deem their pages contaminated by the admission of what they would sarcastically term 'evangelical nonsense,' for the use of these humble scholars; though it was the glory of the Divine Founder of Christianity, that he preached the gospel to the poor.

Mr. Riddel's plan, reported in a letter from Robert Burns to Sir John Sinclair,* seems little better adapted to the true interests of the students under contemplation. What may be the literary appetite of the Scottish peasantry, I own myself incompetent precisely to estimate. Without any derogation from the intellectual credit of the South, they may be allowed, I apprehend, in consequence of the universal institution of Parish-schools in that part of the

See his Works by Currie, ii. 272. For an interesting account of the Scottish Parochial Schools, &c. see ib. i. 4, and App. No. 1. not. A. See, also, Monthly Magazine, xxiv. 106.

island, to rank considerably higher in information than their English brethren. Yet, even with this concession, what are we to think of the following selection; Blair's Sermons, Robertson's History of Scotland, Hume's History of the Stuarts, The Spectator, The Idler, The Adventurer, The Mirror, The Lounger, The Observer, The Man of Feeling, The Man of the World, Chrysal, Don Quixote, Joseph Andrews, &c.? We see here, along with some of the constitutional characteristics of the poet, the operation of prejudices national and personal in abundance; prejudices, in themselves undoubtedly often amiable and salutary, but putting Scotland and Mackenzie out of the question, what do we see besides? Certainly, very little that is religious.

Neither of those collections then seems likely to achieve, for the inferior orders of the community, any valuable ends. It is not to make the peasant a theorist in agriculture, a smatterer in history, and a pedant in philology; or to polish his taste, to stimulate his feelings, and to gratify his curiosity by periodical essays and sentimental or satirical novels, that Establishments of this kind should be encouraged. The instruction necessary for his temporal purposes he will best acquire, in early life, at a parochial school; and the superfluities or luxu

ries of learning he must, throughout life, be contented to forego. The rudiments of science are, usually, the least pleasant; and he will seldom, under the most favourable circumstances, be enabled to make much progress in it. His principal enjoyment therefore, accruing from his superficial studies, would be to find himself a little less ignorant, and a great deal more arrogant, than his idler neighbours; to puzzle by explanation, and to triumph in the village-circle without an antagonist. Whether such accomplishments would enhance his merit, or improve the tranquillity of his parish, let the projectors of those collections themselves decide.

The claims of the soul appear, in both the above schemes, to have been studiously neglected and yet, if we indeed believe that it will survive the wreck of worlds,' and subsist to eternity, it's education may well demand no trifling portion of our regard. It is not, however, by every species of religious disquisition, that this purpose would be promoted. The most popular and beneficial perhaps, next to the word of God, would be Tracts which should neither perplex by their abstruseness, harass by their diffusion, nor fatigue by their prolixity; which should be, in three words, Perspicuous, Interesting, and Short.

If with these were combined the essential qualities of Piety, Fulness of ideas, and an Accommodation to the various situations and contingencies of humbler society, there would be little wanting, with the Divine Blessing, to excite attention or to reward it.

That they should be rendered Interesting in particular by incident, or dialogue, or general vivacity of composition, appears an indispensa ble requisite. It has long and justly been complained, that Sermons are less read than Tales.' The chief attention, therefore, upon this occasion should be to select Books, where narrative and precept are so intimately blended, that in seizing the first, even gross apprehensions may imperceptibly lay hold on the latter. It is by such books alone, that the cottager can be lured back from the alehouse-corner, and the boon companion, to his family and his own fireside. He will read them to his children,, or his children will read them to him, with equal instruction and entertainment; and amidst their innocent questions, and his own simple replies, the evening will glide more happily by, than if spent in the torpor of dozing or the tumult of a debauch. Works of this description however, it is to be regretted, are at present comparatively few; but, with the increased demand, they would rapidly multi