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TENIERS AND HIS WORKS.
I.

THE artist's occupation, especially when confined to easel pictures, almost precludes the possibility of a life of much incident. Confined to his studio, he pursues the noiseless tenor of his way, and the occurrences of one year generally form an epitome of the whole course of his life.

That he may be rich or poor, industrious or indolent, are accidents that attach to all professions, and only interest when a moral may be deduced from a man of genius, who, by persevering industry, raises himself from a lowly condition to distinction; or, on the contrary, debases himself by indolence and vicious habits from the rank his talents would entitle him to hold*.

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The most satisfactory memoir of an artist is that which gives a chronological account of his works :where, for whom, and under what circumstances they were painted; this enables amateurs to observe the progress of his skill, and the variations of his style.

If it be true that painters as well as authors pourtray themselves in their works, it may be concluded from the works of Teniers that his disposition was gay and humorous, with an attachment to domestic enjoyments, as exhibited in the many scenes he so frequently represented. That he was gentlemanly in his appearance, and amiable in his character, may be inferred from the many portraits of himself which are introduced in his village feasts, &c.: he is always represented with the air and dress of a gentleman, and being generally accompanied by his wife and children, it is evident that he found his happiness in domestic society.

David Teniers the younger was born at Antwerp in the year 1610. From his earliest years he had the good fortune to receive instructions in his art from his father, an artist of no mean powers. Young Teniers is said also to have studied under Bronwer and Rubens, but this is very doubtful. It is, however, certain that David Teniers the elder had enjoyed the privilege of being a disciple of Rubens, and had gained the esteem of his master. From the school of that celebrated painter the elder Teniers went to Rome, and having attached himself to Adam Elsheimer continued with him six years; and between the styles of his two masters he formed a peculiar, agreeable, and natural style of his own; he was in fact the inventor of that manner of painting which his son afterwards so happily culti vated and brought to its utmost perfection. The pictures of the elder Teniers are usually small:-his favourite subjects the shops or laboratories of chemists; rural groups, festivals, and exercises; temptations of St. Anthony, and Friars: all executed with so much nature and truth, that his pictures procured him great honour and extensive employment.

Under the guidance of his father, young Teniers soon mastered the mechanical processes of his art, and in the course of this early training he doubtless acquired that branch of the art termed pasticci, or the power of imitating the Italian Masters, in which he afterwards became so remarkably proficient. His skill in this way must have been early displayed, for we find him first spoken of as "the Ape of Painting;" and afterwards, when increasing years had enabled him to transfer to his canvas the feeling, as well as the mere handling of the great works which he copied, he is referred to as "the Proteus of Painting." Indeed, as Pilkington remarks, the power of his pencil in imitating the works of great painters was incredible. He knew how to adapt it to a variety of eminent artists whose touch and colouring were exceedingly different; and yet he could give his imitations of those masters so strong a character of originality, as to leave it doubtful whether they were not really painted by the very artists, of whose manner of thinking, composing, and pencilling they were only an SMITH, Catalogue of Dutch Painters,

imitation. Nor does this appear to be an over-estimate of the imitative powers of the younger Teniers' pencil. Mr. Bryan was present a few years ago, at the sale or one of the principal collections of paintings at Brussels, in which was a picture of Mary Magdalen kneeling in a grotto, the figure as large as life: this picture had been regarded for many years by the most experienced judges, as an admirable production of Rubens: some difference of opinion arising, the picture was taken out of the frame, when the name of David Teniers, Jun., with the date, was discovered at the bottom of the picture, which had been concealed by the border of the frame.

The earlier years of Teniers were not free from those struggles with adverse circumstances which so often mark the progress of a man of genius. He was often under the necessity of going in person to Brussels to dispose of his own pictures; and was frequently mortified to see very inferior works preferred to his own. But most probably on account of the novelty in style, and the brown tint of his pictures, they were not understood. It happened, however, that some of his productions attracted the notice of the Archduke Leopold, a great admirer and patron of the art. By order of this prince he painted a great number of capital pictures, and was also employed by him to collect paintings of the Italian and Dutch school to enrich his gallery. Many of these he afterwards copied, and also published a folio volume of prints engraved from them. This volume was published at Brussels MDCLX, and consists of 246 engravings: it is dedicated "To the admirers of the art, greeting." There is a copy of it in the British Museum, which formerly belonged to Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose autograph is written on the titlepage*.

Teniers was suitably rewarded for these services, and honoured by the Duke with the gift of his portrait and a gold chain. Such patronage procured him employment and a ready sale for his works, He also painted several pictures for Queen Christina of Sweden. The King of Spain also became so pleased with his works, that he built a gallery on purpose for their reception. was also much employed by the Elector Palatine, who so nobly evinced his love for, and patronage of the arts, by the splendid collection formed by him at Dusseldorf, but since removed to Munich.

Teniers

The illustration to the present article is from a picture in the Louvre. It represents the interior of a Cabaret with two boors seated in front; one of whom, dressed in a white frock and cap, is filling a pipe, while his companion, sitting opposite to him is smoking: a low stool with a pot of embers and a paper of tobacco on it, stands near them. In the back of the room are four peasants round a fire. A tub and some pans are

in a corner in front. The size of this picture is one foot by one foot eight inches.

Our notice of this artist and his works will be completed in another article.

* Sir Joshua Reynolds has expressed his opinion of Teniers in the following terms:-"The works of David Teniers, Jun., are worthy the closest attention of a painter who desires to excel in the mechanical knowledge of his art. His manner of touching, or what we call handling, has perhaps never been equalled: there is in his pictures that exact mixture of softness and sharpness which is so difficult to execute."

PEACE.

SUCH was thy legacy at parting, Lord! All power, all willingness to give were thine; Thou might'st have made earth's richest sons resign The wealth wherewith their treasuries were stored; The prince's dignity, the miser's hoard, The field, the flock, the olive, and the vine, Pearls from the ocean, diamonds from the mine,All these thy bounty could thy friends afford; Yet none of these were pledges of thy love: But thou didst leave them on that solemn day What the world gives not, nor can take away, Peace, sought in vain when not a gift from Thee: How doth that legacy our hearts reprove, Still bent on earthly joys, though vain and false they be! D. D. S.

SEASONAL WILD FLOWERS.

JANUARY.

Not undelightful now to roam,

The wild heath sparkling on the sight, Not undelightful now to pace

The forest's ample rounds, And see the spangled branches shine, And mark the moss of many a hue That varies the old tree's brown bark, Or o'er the grey stone spreads. And mark the cluster'd berries bright Amid the holly's gay green leaves; The ivy round the leafless oak, That clasps its foliage close.

WE are in general prone to look on Winter as a season of gloom and desolation, in which all Nature lies bereft of beauty and interest. Even in the bright frosty days, that not unfrequently call us abroad during this season of the year, and lead us to take exhilarating exercise in the open air, we see not, because we expect not to see, the objects of interest which botanists speak of, as being apparent in all seasons, and as affording them so much pleasure and delight. Or if we mark, amidst the general decay of nature, a few stunted forms, not yet deprived of their leafy clothing, nor wholly stripped of their simple blossoms, not often do we check our rapid pace to form the scanty wreath we might otherwise obtain

From hedgerow, bank, and coppice bough,
To hang on January's brow.

In commencing a series of observations on the wild flowers of our land, we shrink not from the task of producing such a wreath, even though the season be considered unfavourable to its exhibition. We have often sought out the sheltered hollows and sunny slopes, where January's scanty blossoms have been wont to show themselves; and in remembrance of past pleasures, and in the hope of inducing our readers to look with greater interest on such hardy wildlings as dare to show their faces at this season of the year, we offer a few notices of their respective merits and beauties, with such simple directions for the discovery of their botanical character, as may not be inconsistent with the popular nature of

this work.

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The first of wilding race that weaves
In nature's loom its downy leaves,
And hangs in green festoons, that creep
O'er thorny brake or craggy steep.

If the weather be tolerably open, we shall not fail to find these green runners, prematurely put forth indeed, and doomed to blacken and to decay under the influence of the nipping frost and biting air, which will supervene ere May arrive to open their lovely and fragrant blossoms; yet still, at this season welcome, as is every green leaf and blade that meets the eye.

Where shall we find a more brilliant blossom wherewith to deck these simple runners, than that which is now

Fringing the fence or sandy wold
With blaze of vegetable gold,!

The FURZE.

This fragrant plant (for whether our readers are aware of it or not, its bright blossoms yield a pleasing perfume) is spoken of by Dr. Lindley as almost too beautiful for our northern climate; while it is a common anecdote told of Linnæus, that when he first saw it flowering in England, he was so struck with the richness of its golden corollas, which he had never seen blowing in his own severe clime, that he fell on his knees, and offered up a thanksgiving to the great Author of Nature. It is also remarkable that our distinguished botanist, Sir James Smith, commenced the systematic study of plants, by an examination of the common furze or whin. He tells us, that he began on the 11th of January, 1778, "with

infinite delight," to examine the Furze (Ulex Europæus), the only plant which he met with in flower. He says, "I then first comprehended the nature of systematic arrangement and the Linnæan principles, little aware that at that instant the world was losing the great genius who was to be my future guide, for Linnæus died in the night of 11th January, 1778." It is the frequency of this plant in our country which makes it so little valued or admired were we to come unexpectedly and for the first time in sight of a furze bush in full blossom, we should view it with a feeling approaching to that of the great founder of systematic botany. It has been stigmatized as

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The blossom'd furze unprofitably gay;

but yet it is not useless in an economical point of view. It is extensively cultivated in some places where the land is poor, and is cut every second or third year to make fagots for the use of lime and brick kilns. It is also occasionally used as fodder for horses, being mown. when very young, and bruised in a mill to soften its spines.

The common names whereby this plant is known are three in number. Furze, derived from Fyers, the Anglo-Saxon name of the plant. It has been supposed that this name was given to it on account of its peculiar dryness, which adapted it for fires. Whin, from Chywnn, the name given to it by the Welsh; and Gorse, from an Anglo-Saxon word signifying angry, or irascible, on account of its painful prickliness. Our poets celebrate it under either of these names, as best suits their purpose. Thus, Cowper says:

The common overgrown with fern, and rough
With prickly gorse, that, shapeless and deform'd
And dangerous to the touch, has yet its bloom,
And decks itself with ornaments of gold,
Yields no unpleasing ramble.

And Hurdis:

And what more noble than the vernal furze
With golden baskets hung? Approach it not,
For every blossom has a troop of swords
Drawn to defend it.

beauty of its blossoms, and we wish those of our readers But we are now considering it chiefly as it regards the who are unacquainted with botany, to examine atten

tively the shape of those blossoms, that they may, as Sir

James Smith did, get their first lesson from this brilliant flower. Is there anything peculiar in its shape which likens and associates it with many other common and well-known plants? There is. We cannot look at its curiously arranged petals, without remembering that those of the laburnum, or golden chain, and the broom,. are very much like them, though not bristled round with thorns in a similar manner. The laburnum and the broom resemble the furze-blossom in shape and colour; but there are many that differ in colour, and yet have the same shape. Such are the sweet-pea, vetch, clover, trefoil, lucerne, beans and peas of the garden, and many others. These constitute a tribe of flowers so easily recognised, and so abundantly to be procured, that they may well be recommended to the notice of young botanists, who may collect a few specimens of each flower of that kind, as it comes in blossom; examine the different parts, with the assistance of some elementary book on botany; and write down the principal points of resemblance and of difference, preserving these memoranda along with a dried specimen of each plant. Thus may be very easily acquired an acquaintance with the numerous and extensive tribe of papilionaceous or butterfly-shaped flowers.

To return to our winter's wreath. We choose not the noxious bear's-foot, or Christmas rose (Helleborus fætidus), formerly described in his work*, but rather take the despised wayside flowers, sometimes showing themselves on southern banks in the depth of winter, but not *Vol. IX. p. 96.

often gathered or even noticed; we mean the purple and the white Dead-nettle (Lamium). These stingless nettles, though classed among worthless weeds, are possessed of much beauty, which can only be appreciated by closely examining their lipped flowers. Their strong-smelling leaves may be deemed no acquisition to our wreath, but the delicately marked blossoms are worthy of a place there, and at this season of the year we must not be fastidious. We shall recognise in the admirable structure of these flowers, the same peculiarity which we have found in the splendid scarlet or purple salvia of our flower gardens, and we shall likewise trace a family resemblance to many other flowers, such as lavender, thyme, rosemary, mint, ground ivy, bugles, &c. Most of these lipped flowers (Labiata) are aromatic, a large proportion of them have perfectly harmless properties, and their favourite places of resort are hedges, woods, and shady lanes.

Our wreath will receive no ungraceful addition if we add the early tufts which already adorn the Hazel, and depend

In russet drops, whose cluster'd rows,
Still closed in part, in part disclose
(Yet fenced beneath their scaly shed)
The pendent anther's yellow head.

But of floral adornments our supply is so scanty, that if we reject such mean and insignificant plants as the Chickweed (Stellaria media), whose tiny greenish-white blossoms are still to be found, and of the Groundsel (Senecio vulgaris), whose composite flowers are hardy enough to bear the rigour of the season, we have little else to add, unless the occurrence of comparatively mild weather should induce the Primrose to peep forth and give us an early prestige of the spring. This is sometimes the case in January.

Mild offspring of a dark and sullen sire!
Whose modest form so delicately fine

Was nursed in whirling storms,
And cradled in the winds.

In this low vale the promise of the year,
Serene, thou open'st to the nipping gale,

Unnoticed and alone,

Thy tender elegance.

So Virtue blooms, brought forth amid the storms
Of chill adversity, in some lone walk

Of life she rears her head,
Obscure and unobserved;

While every bleaching breeze that on her blows,
Chastens her spotless purity of breast
And hardens her to bear

Serene the ills of life.

The botanical name (Primula) of this general favourite and harbinger of spring, is derived from primus, first, or prime. Hence the flower has been called prime-rose, which is contracted into primrose. The primrose tribe consist of bright but modest-looking flowers, frequently possessing a slight but pleasing fragrance. To this tribe belongs the lowly pimpernel (Anagallis), hereafter to be more particularly noticed, the water-violet or feather-foil (Hottonia) and many other familiar plants which will come under review as the season advances. The properties of this tribe are not very marked. The cowslip is slightly narcotic, the root of the primrose possesses nauseating properties, and different species of the pimpernel formerly enjoyed a great reputation as specifics in the case of madness; but their use is now discontinued.

Thus even in January we may generally collect a few flowers, and when Winter,

Sullen and sad, with all his rising train,
Vapours and clouds and storms,

may seem to have consigned the vegetable world to desolation and death, the botanist is not then necessarily deprived of all his accustomed pleasures. Speaking of this season, Drummond observes, " Many crypto

gamic plants, especially the mosses, now put on their best attire, and to the inquiring eye exhibit a structure more beautiful than is to be perceived in the noblest trees of the forest. At this season, too, the fuci and other sea-weeds furnish an abundant harvest; and Nature, ever benignant, retains some of the natives of the bright summer, and furnishes her admirers with a few sweet specimens to compensate in some degree the loss of the more numerous and gaudy progeny of the days that are gone by."

PROVIDENCE OF GOD.

To those, the eyes of whose understandings are enlightened, and the avenues of their hearts opened, to discern and adore the perfections of God, how manifold are the instances which will occur of the providence of God interfering to direct the course of human events towards a salutary end; to make the afflictions of men the path-way to enjoyment; out of evils temporal and transitory to produce substantial and permanent good Joseph was sold a bond-servant into Egypt, and thus was made the instrument of preserving his father, and his brethren, and their households. Moses was driven from Egypt by the fear of destruction, and thus was made the instrument of delivering the people of Israel from bondage. In these instances we have infallible authority for affirming the intention and the workings of Divine wisdom. In many we can judge only upon general principles, and from analogy of revealed truth. And who that examines into the course and mutual relation of human events, can however fortuitous they may appear to the inconsiderate fail of being struck by innumerable coincidences, which, and unreflecting eye, will, if duly scanned, bear solemn and convincing evidence to the disposing influence of the providential power of God?

Providence however works by means, and by means most generally of no extraordinary kind, but such as present themselves in the common incidents of human life. It was no mira culous or preternatural, nor marvellous, nor strange disposition of things, which brought Aquila and Priscilla into acquaintance and intercourse with St. Paul. Being originally Jews, they were both parties instructed in a trade, according to the usual Jewish practice. "By their occupation" the two former " were tent-makers, and because he was of the same craft, he abode with them and wrought." The apostle indeed, claimed for himself, as well as for the other ministers of the Gospel, the right of living by the Gospel which he preached; but for special reasons he chose at Corinth to waive that right, and to seek subsistence from other sources, of which the principal was the exercise of the trade, wherein for the supply of any occasional necessity he had been trained. What could be more natural than this, or more agreeable to the common course of things? What more natural, or more agreeable to such course than that on coming to a strange place, he should seek a dwelling and employment with those of the same trade? But it was by these natural and ordinary occurrences that Divine wisdom wrought: after the Rebekah, in going out of the city to draw water at the well, same manner that God wrought when he made the act or instrumental to her meeting the servant of Abraham, and becoming the wife of Isaac; or when he made a similar act of the woman of Samaria, in going to Jacob's well to draw water, subservient to the introduction of her and her fellowcitizens to a knowledge and belief of the Messsiah.

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Of events, however ordinary and natural, the results are in the hands of him who is the God of nature, without whom not a sparrow falleth to the ground, and by whom the hairs of our head are all numbered." Our lives are a series of providences. Whatever we do, however free we be to do it, it is as if we should cast seed into the earth; but God giveth it a body, as it pleaseth Him, and to every seed its own body.-BISHOP MANT'S Primitive Christianity.

LITERATURE has ever been regarded as the best test of civilization in any age or country; its history may, therefore, be regarded as a record of the progress of mind and the successive triumphs of intellect. But such a record would be imperfect if it did not directly refer to the Great Author of every good and perfect gift, whether physical or intellectual, and collect the indications of God's moral government, which are not less apparent in the universe of mind, than in the universe of matter.

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The fixed and lasting characteristics, which are common to the whole race of human fellow-beings, so greatly exceed in importance those transient qualities which distinguish individuals, that moral sympathy naturally extends from familiar acquaintances to unknown relations. While time, place, and other conventional circumstances, mould only such part of our nature as is peculiar to the individual, the ground-work of the human constitution has remained unchanged from the first creation. Personal peculiarities, family likenesses, and national resemblances, are lost in the bolder outlines of man, when abstracted from the influence of changing conditions, while the affections formed in ordinary society become merged in the charities of universal brotherhood.

The rapidity of communication which is now, for the first time, established between place and place, is giving rise to a corresponding increase in the interchange of thoughts and feelings. The personal appearance, the name, age, position in life, and artificial manners of another, may be unknown to us; but, "the science of human nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a few clear points," and these first principles, which belong not only to the reader and myself, but to mankind in general, may well be made channels of healthy intercourse. Endowed with the same bodily organs, gifted with the same intellectual faculties and moral attributes, are we not all brethren; has not one God created us?

But, while I recognise this comparative equality of man with man, with respect to the specific and enduring characteristics of his nature, I would especially disown the unphilosophical mixing up of natural with artificial property. On the contrary, I consider, that if there be one fact more than another applicable to large numbers of our kind, it is this, namely, that we are not only enabled to bear, both in mind and body, the various inequalities and moral climates of the world, but that exposure of the body to ranges of temperature, of the mind to the vicissitudes of worldly affairs, and of the heart to an education of circumstance and suffering, is absolutely necessary for the excitement of individual action, and to the extension of progressive civilization. The province of every other animal is contracted within a given circle, but the life of man is limited only by the confines of our planet; while the aspirations of the Christian connect our immortality with the universe. During periods of ease we stagnate in inaction, months of continued sunshine weaken our whole frame, and the mind, if not altogether subdued, actually craves after what would under other conditions be considered as hardships.

In truth, my dear reader, most of us confess at heart, that before we can stake our happiness upon outward objects, or, from motives of false philanthropy, desire for others an equality of things, we must have forgotten the beauty that belongs to a variety of social levels the diversified virtues that are put forth under as many trying positions, which are the means of strengthening the sinews of the soul, and so prepare us for putting off the liveries of life for the sable uniform of death. Difficulties are indeed essential to human improvement; else where would be the triumph of subduing them, where the more precious consciousness when we feel our impotence over events, and are thereby reminded of the ALL-POWERFUL, who is ever ready to shelter us, even from ourselves?

Having said thus much, lest you might take it for granted that, with a hollow judgment, I mixed up the idea of an unattainable earthly equality with the indisputable birthrights of our race, I turn, with less reserve to such matters as, to use my Lord Bacon's expression, "come home to men's business and bosoms."

It has been observed, that although the citizens of the United States speak the same language with ourselves, serious mistakes frequently arise between us by reason of the different ideas that are attached to the same words. Daily observation, also, shows that men, even of the same nation, in the degree that they differ from each other in natural temperament, early habits, and education, differ likewise in the ideas that they severally hold concerning the various portions of the universe with which their minds are familiar; and when they employ words that are the artificial symbols of these ideas, the necessity is frequently entailed upon them of translating their significations to each other. On the other hand, Capt. Basil Hall remarks, with surprise, the extent to which he could carry on communications with the natives of the Eastern Seas, of whose languages he was altogether ignorant, provided he could keep them in good humour. These casual facts teach us that the spirit of good will is the first principle of communicating with our species, and that it is idle to use merely the same words, unless we assure ourselves that we correspond with similar ideas. In order to do this, you may say, that men must be educated. But what is education?

Define it as an art, and we must find the subject of it, which, in this case, is MAN. But man is a compound being, whose elements must needs be counted before the effects of education, or of any other art, upon them, can be calculated. Botanical teachers are in the habit of demonstrating the various parts of plants, by selecting such species for inspection as have one or other of their organs remarkably developed. Thus, the large and fleshy bractea of the artichoke introduce the student to the tiny scales upon the common hawkweed, and so the more extraordinary features of mankind may serve as the index-map of our composition. Could we but ascertain the causes that have awaited upon the fullest growth of every human faculty and feature, it is evident that we should be put into possession of many valuable signs for the avoidance of noxious causes, as well as for the cultivation of wholesome influences.

I need not repeat the worn maxim, that in order to command nature, we must first obey her, except for the purpose of bringing the question to an easy analogy. Before the beautiful principle of Mr. Ward's miniature conservatories was explained in the papers of the day, the first and wrong impression of the facts was, that he had discovered the means of preserving living plants in cases from which all external air was excluded. But the philosopher claimed no discovery; copying with close fidelity the soil, air, amount of moisture, and other conditions whereby nature (that is, the laws of the God of nature) brings forth the most exquisite productions of the field, the imitative artist shut out, more perfectly than others had succeeded in doing, the interference of external and injurious agents. The force of air, when expanded by heat, was found to effect a passage for itself through a varnished membrane covering the mouth of a large bottle, in which a plant was growing under the foregoing conditions; and when the air within was contracted by cold, the weight of the external atmosphere (15 lbs. upon each square inch of surface) was fully sufficient to press in fresh quantities of the vital fluid, while there was no pore of sufficient magnitude to allow of the escape of a particle of watery vapour. Ornamental glazed conservatories, of diminutive proportions, made thus apparently air-tight, but actually only vapour-tight, are the most perfect of vegetable nurseries; and why? The reason is clear; plants, like animals, are by their nature susceptible of certain influences, some of which promote health, and others cause disease. In the closed glass cases here referred to, the agents of health, as far as man's knowledge over them extends, are included; the agents of disease, excluded.

Apply the same natural method to human im

provement. The constitution of man is, indeed, far more complex, and widely different must be the conditions under which it is most perfectly developed; but the method of studying, with the view of imitating, the means of our welfare, approves itself equally to reason and conscience.

These are physical experiments; but the material tenement is only the lower portion of our being. The intellectual faculties that enable us to watch, and partially to control, the powers of matter, equally demand the culture that is due to animal life; and this mind that commands matter must, in its turn, be subjected to the moral instincts of our conscience. Every village will afford us examples of the success and failure of these physical, intellectual, and moral experiments. The habits of some betray the unworthy triumphs gained by sense over their infirmity of spiritual self-control; the opinions of others are but the expressions of intellectual dissipation; but fortitude through suffering, patience under oppression, sympathy for affliction, belong altogether to another class of individuals. The civilization of the world affords another and broader illustration of these threefold growths. Oriental nations, for the most part, monopolize the unenviable attainment of material, sensual civilization; the tone of their superstitions, arts, and habits, savour of sense. The Greeks of old are undoubtedly the representatives of mental civilization; the very stones of Athens hold captive the mind of the traveller, by reason of the intellectual abstractions which they represent. But, higher than the Greek aspired above the barbarian, did the ancient Jew rise over all people in his spiritual relations; and the relative durability of Jewish, Greek, and Oriental nationality is no inapt scale of the comparative importance of physical, intellectual, and moral science.

By the term moral science, I scarcely need observe that I mean that Divine knowledge, which, being beyond the reach either of observation, experiment, or abstraction, has consequently been revealed not to the Egyptian, whose eyes were dimmed by material fancies; not to the Greeks, lest its source might be confounded with that of their brilliant philosophies; but to a race of shepherds, whose avocations were certainly not such as would lead them to the discovery of sublime truth by the slow processes of inductive reasoning or experimental investigation.

I might trace the destruction of these elements of our being; and science is even now absorbed in the eminently Christian effort of recording every cause that is hurtful to man, socially or individually. It has been observed that the recent Report upon the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain,

has unveiled dark pictures of our social state, but there is still sufficient to encourage hope; and yet the remedies require an absence of selfishness, and an amount of energy, intelligence, and public spirit, which only a strong sense of approaching danger, and even an appeal to selfishness itself, can bring into combination.

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adoption of vaccination reduced the number of deaths from the same disease, in the last quarter of 1841, to 68 When knowledge is brought to bear against ignorance, and legislation stimulates social inertness against the other injurious agents that are in activity around us we may reasonably anticipate equivalent success.

Of all who are born of the labouring classes in Manchester, 57 per cent. die before they attain the age of five years. I will never believe that medical science is content to cure, or to lessen, the evils under which the minority of 43 may struggle into existence, without investigating, with a patient and humane philosophy, the various causes that destroy the greater number. My reader will agree with me, that physical education, or a knowledge of the causes that depress, as well as of those that maintain, life, and the application of this science to the well-being of our children, will soon become a part of our domestic economy, and the extension of the same to the benefit of the poor, a part of our religion; for, of the mortality among the labouring classes no less than 62 per cent. of the total number were under five years of age. "Even amongst those entered as shopkeepers and tradesmen, no less than 50 per cent. died before. they attained that period."

I will here prevent the objection that this is a necessary mortality,--that these innocents are born to die. M. Mallet mentions that in an establishment for the care of female orphans, (at Geneva, I believe,) taken from the poorest classes, out of eighty-six reared in twenty-four years, only one died.

It will not require much reflection to see the value of the important statistical law, "that the strength of a people does not depend on the absolute number of its population, but on the relative number of those who are of the age and strength for labour." The 570 children that die, before they attain their fifth year, out of every 1000 children born at Manchester, are replaced by at least an equal number of others, perhaps, equally feeble-bodied. Early and barbarous periods are remarkable for a lavish excess of births, as well as for a prodigious mortality. These facts are common both to uncivilized nations and to the abject classes of more refined countries. The idea, therefore, that a large infant mortality is a necessary "corrective to the pressure of population on the means of subsistence," is as con trary to the facts of science as it is repugnant to the feelings of religion. Where the mortality of man is highest, the births are more than sufficient to replace the deaths, and this fact has long been observed as a consequence even of pestilences. Where the mortality is lower, the number of adults is larger, and the average amount of age, strength, skill for productive industry, and other elements of a sound civilization, are increased.

It is proved, that (in Geneva) the real and productive value of the population has there increased in a much greater proportion than the increase in the absolute number of the population. The absolute number of the population has only doubled in Geneva during three centuries; but the value of the population has more than doubled upon the purely numerical increase of the population. In other I confess I do not share these fears; and my hopes words, a population of 27,000, in which the probability of are founded, not merely upon the efforts of science, but life is forty years for each individual, is more than twice as on the practical relation which these bear to the spirit of strong for all the purposes of commercial production as a Christianity. Hospitals, lunatic asylums, and gaols, population of 27,000 in which the probability or value of may be defined as so many infirmaries for those physi-life is only twenty years for each individual.—Sanitary cally, intellectually, and morally diseased. Able men Report, p. 184-5. are analysing the causes that lead to these results; universal literature is placing before the eyes of all every fresh addition to our knowledge; while legislation is exerting a healthy control over such ascertained evils as cannot be removed by the efforts of individuals. Even the discovery of vaccination, for instance, was not sufficient entirely to overcome the indolence of ignorance; in three months, ending December, 1840, no less than 706 deaths occurred from small-pox in the metropolis alone; but an Act of Parliament for facilitating the universal

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The causes that have contributed to this improvement in the population of Geneva are generally attributed to the advance in the condition of all classes; to the medical science of the public health being better understood and applied: to larger, and better, and cleaner dwellings; more abundant and healthy food; the cessation of the great epidemics which, from time to time, decimated the population; the precautions taken against tamine; and better regulated public and private life

The material ripeness of barbarous nations is to a very considerable degree evidently independent of intel

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