point are not more remarkable than the worthlessness and heaviness of the materials in which they are imbedded, or on which they lie, like lumps of marl on a barren moor, encum'bering what they cannot fertilise.'

Aware of the limits within which nature or habit had circumscribed the abilities of this remarkable personage, we were consequently by no means disposed, on the occasion of the famous Thiers' plagiarism, to give him credit for being able to compose an original eulogium on the hero of a 'hundred fights,' of equal or greater merit than what he stole ready-made. He is by habit and frame of mind obstructive rather than constructive, better qualified for depreciating objects of popular esteem than for exalting them; and we happen to know that, prior to the detection of the theft, the stolen part (occupying between thirty-five and forty lines in the newspaper reports) of his Wellington performance, was exultingly adduced by his admirers to prove that he could shine, when it suited him, in a line for which he had been deemed radically unfit.*

We confidently appeal to any one who was present at the delivery of his studied attack on Sir Charles Wood and Sir James Graham in reference to our relations with France, whether apart from its factious and mischievous spirit this exhibition was not prosy and wearisome in the extreme, till he began to let off the squibs and crackers which he had reserved for the finale, and most of which, as usual, exploded very much to the annoyance and confusion of his friends. With what face can they attribute revolutionary tendencies to the Aberdeen and Russell Ministry, if, since its formation, no Radical can ' venture abroad for fear of being caught and converted into a 'Conservative statesman?' or how can they affect dread of Sir James Graham's 'progress,' if, as they were antithetically told, it consists in standing still.' But his closing speech on his Budget affords the most striking examples to show how habitually and instinctively he resorts to sarcasm or vituperation when he is hard pressed. He had concentrated all his energies to leave a terrible impression of his beak and talons, as he

The passages in question were first quoted in a translated shape in the Morning Chronicle' of July 4. 1848, in refutation of some depreciatory remarks of Mr. Disraeli's on the military mind.' We learn from the same paper of the 25th of November last, that the Right Honourable Gentleman has paid us also the high compliment of printing as his own some striking reflections of a celebrated historian which originally appeared in this Journal. The peroration of his speech on the third reading of the Corn Bill, May 15. 1846, is a mere paraphrase of the concluding paragraphs of Mr. Urquhart's 'Diplomatic Transactions in Central Asia."

alighted vulture-like on foe after foe. With the look, tone, and attitude of Kean's Shylock, he dealt about him like the Veiled Prophet

'In vain he yells his desperate curses out;

Deals death promiscuously to all about;

To foes that charge, and coward friends that fly,
And seems of all the Great Arch-Enemy.

And the sole joy his baffled spirit knows

In this forced flight is murdering as he goes.

There is, we regret to say, a prevalent tendency, both in and out of the House of Commons, to admire this description of display, without pausing to consider the precise qualities of head and heart indicated by it. Yet the positive amount of intellectual power demanded for a telling invective is by no means extraordinary, provided its exercise be not restrained by good feeling or good taste. Looking merely to ephemeral effects, it is also an immense advantage, in either speaker or writer, to be emancipated from conventional restraint. We learn from Moore's Diary' that this topic was once briefly handled between a friend (Luttrell, we believe,) and himself. L. "Between what one would'nt write, and what one couldnt, "tis a hard game to play at." 'M. “A man must risk the "former to attain the latter; and it is the same daring that "produced the things we would'nt write, and those we thought we could'nt.”

6.66

How many aspirants to political and literary distinction are there, who would accept Mr. Disraeli's position and reputation with the incidental drawbacks and qualifications? To reduce the number of those who might be tempted to envy him, is the main object of this Article; and it is with an especial view to their edification that we have collected the scattered illustrations of his career from its commencement. Each, individually taken, may prove little; but when the whole of them are viewed together, and in connexion with one another, the conclusion is irresistible. His mode of rising in the world then becomes patent to the most cursory observer. He is henceforth like a bee, or wasp, working in a glass case. He has broken Sedley's supplementary commandment-Thou shalt not be found out;' and every well-wisher to good government and social order should rejoice in his detection. His twenty-seven years of public life are thus made to assume their genuine form of a tangled mass of disingenuous expedients and contradictory professions, which change their colour, like the hues of shot silk-fade into something else as we are looking at them, like what are called 'shifting views,' or dazzle the eye like the showy and indistinct figures in a

kaleidoscope. Is it just, wise, or beneficial that the highest honours of a State should be earned by such means or lavished on such men?

It is idle to assert that he won his way, fairly or unfairly, as a man of letters or gentleman of the press.' He won it as a parliamentary gladiator; and his books have done him more harm than good with his employers, who do not appreciate their merits, and are constantly liable to be annoyed by their satire or compromised by their revelations. We should no more think of ranking him with Mr. Macaulay, than of placing a successful general of Condottieri, like Sir John Hawkwood, in the same category with Condé, Turenne, and Marlborough. Let those to whom this judgment may seem harsh, reflect on the results which have ensued in a neighbouring country, from the habitual disregard of the moral element in appreciating conduct or character, and from the premium thereby held out to unprincipled ambition. We are fortunately not yet arrived at that lamentable state of social degradation, in which there is no recognised criterion of excellence except success; but we shall rapidly approximate towards it if we tamely permit brazen images, or false idols, to be set up for national worship in the midst of us; whilst, to proclaim that any amount of interested tergiversation or apostasy should be forgiven for the sake of wit, eloquence, or adroit audacity, is to canker public virtue in the bud. The almost total absence of conventional restrictions and civil disabilities in this country, simply adds to the apprehended danger by widening the arena, and by rendering it more easy of access to competitors of all grades, worthy or unworthy. It is, therefore, small merit in our eyes to have dispensed with the adventitious aids of birth and wealth, if the essential distinctions between right and wrong have been simultaneously overlooked; and we speak under a lively sense of our responsibilities as public censors, when we avow, that, far from regarding this Caucasian luminary as having shed a wholesome light over our political firmament, we saw little but what augured evil in its lurid and fitful coruscations, and felt neither regret nor astonishment at its eclipse.

ART. VII. Public Education as affected by the Minutes of the Committee of Privy Council from 1846 to 1852; with Suggestions as to future Policy. By Sir JAMES KAY SHUTTLEWORTH, Bart. London: 1853.

FR

'ROM whatever premises opinions are started, they concur in placing Education first among the social questions of the

VOL. XCVII. NO. CXCVIII.

H H

day in the order of solution. Statesmen find that the franchise cannot be extended and the representation of the people improved until they are better educated. The Church has given a practical evidence of her devotion to the cause by gathering scarcely less than a million of poor children into her schools, upwards of 23,000 in number.

It is now but here and there among the clergy that one will be found to lament that so much is done for the education of poor children, or to maintain that to be thriftless, improvident, and sunk in gross habits of debauchery, is the necessary and normal condition of a labouring population, for which there is no help and in respect to which the Church has no other mission than to sit down and weep. Or that, at best, we should be contented if we can teach them to read the Scriptures, although they remain wholly incapable of comprehending the language of her Liturgy or of sermons, and with no other perception of pleasure or instruction derivable from reading than immoral or seditious publications will gratify.

There are thoughtful men among the clergy now everywhere to be found who are ready to admit that even if the statements made of the progress in knowledge of the children in some of our elementary schools which we believe to be greatly exaggerated-were true, there would be nothing remarkable or unreasonable in it. People forget, when they express their amazement at such advancement in intelligence among the labouring classes, what strides we have ourselves been making, so that a far wider chasm is interposed between us and them than heretofore-a chasm thus widened by our more rapid progress in knowledge, in civilisation, and in material well being. So that the education of the people does not tend to destroy the old relations of society, but to restore them; and the danger to be averted does not lie in this approximation but in that widening chasm.

We have entered more fully on this question in a former Number. The principle on which it rests is strikingly illustrated in the following passage from a description by a Scotch farm servant of the present, as compared with the former, condition of persons of his class. We quote it from 'Chambers' Journal' for the 5th February, 1853. Masters and servants ' have been gradually receding from each other for seventy or 'eighty years past. Education has been favourable to the 'former, while the mind of the latter has been left to famish ' and starve. The masters have become so polished in their

* Edinburgh Review, No. clxxxv. June, 1850.

⚫ manners and conversation that they will not hold intercourse ' with their servants. They not only neglected to order well ⚫ their household, but they have driven us from under the family 'roof as a nuisance and assigned us a bothie*, where we can, without restraint, indulge to excess in those humiliating prac'tices for which many of us are notorious, alike to our own 'disgrace and to the misfortune of others.'

The authorities of the Horse Guards have established regimental schools, attended in great numbers (voluntarily) by the soldiers. The Rev. G. R. Gleig, the Chaplain-General, is charged with the inspection of these schools; and, to train skilful teachers for them, a normal school has been established at Chelsea. The following extract from the recently published journal of F. S. Larpent, Esq., Judge-Advocate to the British Forces in the Peninsula, bears testimony to the expediency of these measures:-'In marching, our men have no chance at all with the French. The latter beat them hollow; and, I believe, principally owing to their being a more intelligent set of beings, seeing consequences more, and feeling them. This makes them sober and orderly; whenever it becomes material and on a pinch, their exertions and individual activity are astonishing. Our men get sulky and desperate, drink exces'sively, and become daily more weak and unable to proceed, principally from their own conduct. They eat voraciously when opportunity offers, after having had short fare. This brings on fluxes, &c. In every respect, except courage, they are inferior soldiers to the French and Germans.'

The advocates of penal reform tell us that crime strikes its roots deep into childhood; the period of life which immediately follows it being of all others most prolific in criminals. The number of prisoners classed as juveniles in the prison inspectors' returns was, in the year 1849, no fewer than 12,955; of which number 1431 were under the age of 12, 2,912 from 12 to 14, and the remaining 8,617 from 14 to 17.f

There is no age so prolific of crime as that from 15 to 20. Of the whole number of prisoners committed in the year 1846 one-fourth were between those ages; nevertheless these formed but one-tenth of the population; so that one-fourth of the crime was committed by one-tenth of the population.‡

It is not enough for society,' says Mr. Thompson, of Banchory (Social Evils and their Causes and Cure,' Nisbet, 1852,

* A detached cottage assigned to the unmarried farm labourers. † Mr. Fletcher's The Farm School System of the Continent.' Edinburgh Review, No. clviii.