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well informed American, with regard to an important district in the centre of which he has been for many years a resident, and it contains a mass of interesting information, most of which was carefully collected for an official object, and may, we think, be entirely relied upon. Mr. Burritt has seen more of the mother country than most Englishmen. He has taken his staff in his hand, and performed loving pilgrimages to many a notable shrine unheeded by the railway traveller. He has looked with eager eyes and with generous affection upon spots immortalized in song or history, and he has also traversed with patient assiduity the byways of the country, and is probably as familiar with our rural life and manners as with our arts and manufactures. Mr. Burritt is as remarkable for a warm heart as for a receptive intellect, and it is impossible not to feel kindly towards one who is himself so kindly, so ready to honour the stock from whence he sprang, so grateful in acknowledging the debt he owes in common with his countrymen to the literature and institutions of England.

Observers think they see a strong tendency cords the impressions of an intelligent and towards secularism, -a creed that if adopted would pulverize existing society, which, with all its faults, is not based on the theory of securing the greatest comfort in this world; -but let us imagine that history is true, that men will not live without a religious belief, and that the belief will probably have some connection with the root faith of the last few centuries, be, in fact, a new form of Christianity. How great,-let rectors say, would be the change produced by a general impression that we ought to live as Christ lived, or as He said we ought to live, to take His teaching as it stands, and not as the learned have for a few centuries declared that He meant it to stand? How would wealth and poverty face each other then? Or suppose the enthusiasm of humanity to get a strong hold upon men. It is odd, but it is true, that the only people who seem nowadays willing to be "faithful unto slaying "-not, be it noticed, merely "unto being slain,"- are the enthusiasts, the John Browns, Garibaldis, and Louis Blancs of all sorts upon whom that enthusiasm has descended. How would our social arrangements stand that new strain? Or suppose the change mainly one of dogma, that, for example, Western mankind in general got into its head the idea, which many English clergymen have got into theirs, that the prize offered by Christianity is eternal life, that the phrases eternal life and eternal death are literally true, that man either rejoins Christ or dies like a flower, would not that act as a pretty rapid solvent of institutions? We think we could advance some strong reasons for believing that of all the heresies current among us, that is, perhaps, the most enticing and most dangerous; but it is but one of a hundred, any one of which may for a moment prevail, and in prevailing make the next half-century a period of change before which the last half-century will seem stable

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From The Spectator.

THE BLACK COUNTRY.*

Unfortunately, to this praise, which is wholly merited, the reviewer, for the sake of honesty and literature, is bound to add a certain amount of censure. Mr. Burritt is, we doubt not, a delightful travelling companion, but he is not altogether a pleasing companion in the closet. His style is, of course, grammatical, but this is all or nearly all that can be said in its favour. It is of the most vicious stamp, flowery, bombastical, verbose, and we question whether, with all his learning, Mr. Elihu Burritt can be familiar with the masters of English composition. One or two specimens must be given in proof of our assertion. Here is a description of the Penny Post:

:

"It works like the dew and with the dew. The distillery of the still skies above and the distillery of the Penny Post beneath work hand in hand through the quiet hours of the night; one dropping out of the starlit atmosphere gentle dews, the other dropping for the sleeping families of the land the welcome thoughts of wakeful memory, thoughts that are to ten thousand breakfast circles in the morning what the dews are to ten thousand fields listening in thirsty silence for

their fall."

Mr. Burritt dubs Sir Rowland Hill the "Political Economist of Human Nature,"

THIS is a book which for two reasons de-a grandiloquent phrase which means anyserves a welcome from the public. It re-rities are also praised in language which thing or nothing. Other Birmingham celeb*Walks in the Black Country and its Green Border might perhaps be fittingly used by a clever Land. By Elihu Burritt, M.A. London: Sampson, and enthusiastic schoolboy. Thus of Jo

Low, Son, and Co. 1868.

seph Sturge we read that "his philanthropy | Warwick, Kenilworth, Stratford-on-Avon was as spherical as the sun's itself, and the are dedicated above all other towns in Engspace it illuminated and warmed was as land to poetry and romance, while Birmingspherical as the sun's light on the face of ham, Dudley, and a large number of towns the earth;" that his heart "shone out of within the Black Country, or on its borders, him equidistantly in every direction; " and are the seats of distinct arts and manufacagain, that "his heart was shining at its full tures which are famous all the world over. with the same sunlight when journeying by Mr. Burritt, from his official position, has night through Russian snows to St. Peters- given special attention to the industries of burg, to say an earnest word of peace to the district, and it is pleasant to follow him Nicholas, as when he walked among the ne-as he points out the relationship existing gro cabins in the torrid zone to gather between the Black Country and America, evidence of their condition for the British or throws out suggestions for the special Parliament." In the next sentence the fig- benefit of American readers. ure is transferred more appropriately from the heart to the countenance, for the same light beams "like the smile of God on his broad, serene face."

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conclusion that the farmers of England waste full one-third of their horse-power. And Mr. Burritt adds ::

Thus in praising the road between Stourbridge and Wolverhampton as a good specimen of an English turnpike, he adds that not ten consecutive miles like it can be Of the Rev. John Angell James we learn found in the United States. On the other that he came to the pulpit without the hand, if we have the best roads we have the loss of a single lock of his young manhood's heaviest waggons in the world. Any carestrength, and with all his great-eyed hopeful observer, we are told, will come to the and faith looking out grandly into the future." The meaning of which is, as we gather from the connection, that classical culture had not "sobered or softened the pulse of a single faculty within him." How could it, since we are told on the same page that though he "glanced wistfully into those rich affluents of ancient lore," he passed "the side-paths of ancient erudition with neither time nor need to enter them"? Probably if Mr. James had found the time, and felt the need, he would not have run, as Mr. Elihu Burritt tells us that he did in early life," with a rush and a rhapsody into the floweriest meads of rhetoric." We say probably, since we are reminded by Mr. Burritt's example that a knowledge of Greek and Latin does not of necessity produce, even in mature age, a fine taste in literature or purity of composition.

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"Often while watching one of these long, stragwith the leader full three rods from the forward gling strings of horses drawing a waggon up a hill axle, I have wished that the owner were obliged to take a few rudimental lessons in dynamics, that he might learn to be more merciful to his beasts. I hope it was not wrong to wish him such an exercise, for example, as this: to undertake to draw a fifty-six-pound weight up a hill at the end of a string forty feet long. Having tried this little experiment in tractorial forces two or three times, he would be quite likely to hitch his horses nearer to the load thereafter. Apparently no modern improvements have impaired this homage and tribute to stolidity. I doubt if the road waggons of English farmers of to-day weigh a single pound less than they did before Macadam was born, or when the highways of the country were made of its own clay or sand."

Mr. Burritt visited the Leasowes, and speaks of its maker as one of England's most favourite and favoured poets." This of Shenstone, who, despite the praise award- A million children in America, says Mr. ed him by Dr. Johnson, has long since had Burritt, are as familiarly acquainted with his deserts in oblivion, or at best is known the steel pen of Gillott as with the primer to the present generation by his essays and of Noah Webster, and, in his odd fashion, his garden. The truth is, that when Mr. he adds that both primer and pen are "makBurritt criticizes he blunders, when he rhap-ing the tour of the Western hemisphere tosodizes he grows tiresome, but when he acts gether, and leaving behind them a wave and the useful part of topographer or guide he wake of light." American tourists flock to is a serviceable and sensible companion. Gillott's, and of the visitors to Elkington's The pedestrian who starts from some cen- electro-plate establishment it is stated that tral position for the purpose of exploring about one-fourth are American. It is inthe Black Country will find these Walks ofteresting to read also that Lord Dudley considerable service. It is a strange re-manufactures the iron of the best edge-tools gion, since it possesses perhaps equal at- in the United States, that the Brades trowel tractions for the man of science whose is probably used by ninety-nine in a hundred dreams are facts, and for the poet whose of American masons, that the names of Barfacts are such stuff as dreams are made of. low, Butcher, and Rodgers are familiar to

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every American boy sporting a pocket-knife | as to all the rest. Indeed, this is not all; of any size or price," that from a factory for to take an understanding interest in a that turns out 1,100 dozen of currycombs great many things is the most certain means weekly the greater number are exported to of winning for yourself the odious reputaAmerica, and that of the needles made at tion of being very accomplished but very Redditch thirty millions a week go to Amer- superficial. If the people who think with ica also. From a tabular statement certi- complacency on their ignorance and apathy fied at the United States Consulate at Bir- about so many subjects were asked to promingham, it appears that the value of ex-pound in due formula their theory of the ports from Birmingham and its vicinity in aims and possibilities of mental cultivation, 1865 amounted to more than 540,000l., they would assuredly be thrown into a deep while in 1866 the value reached to upwards quandary. For there is only one formula of a million. Mr. Burritt reminds us, how-possible, provided you mean to defend it ever, that this statement can only be par- rationally. Apart from and besides the tially correct, as a considerable amount may trade by which a man earns his right to live, have first gone to large scaport towns as the he is by so much the weaker, the less intelstock of merchants, and have been shipped ligent, and the less happy-in the best from those ports without a record at Bir- sense of happiness as there is any form mingham. in which human energy has manifested itself unknown or unappreciated or uncared for by him. Sound mental discipline, therefore, has two aims-first, to keep men from being merely specialists; and secondly, to keep them from a futile dispersion of their time and faculties over the whole field without a healthy concentration in any one part.

On the whole, Mr. Elihu Burritt has, perhaps, done a better service for his own countrymen than for ours by the publication of this volume; but the book is worth the reading, and the friendly feeling which pervades it will be generally appreciated.

From The Saturday Review.
INTELLECTUAL DISCIPLINE.

At the present day, and in our own country, the former of these objects is much more worthy of being constantly called to mind than the latter. We suffer more from THE rarity of men of whom we can justly the dispersiveness of studies pursued in isosay that their minds are in perfectly good lation by numbers of men than from the distrim is a proof of the inadequateness of the persiveness of faculties in any one man or common ideals of the perfection which the set of men. Everybody would admit in mind may fairly be expected to reach. No- theory, if hard pressed, that in some Utobody appears to think that there is anything pian state, with wholly changed conditions strange in the fact of a man, with the ordi- of existence, with forty-eight hours in every nary pretensions to be called educated, still day, for example, and unwearying brainavowedly taking no interest in some four or power instead of that very easily wearied five of the chief subjects on which intelli-power which is all that we have, then the gence is exercised, and which have brought dispersiveness and specialization of knowlreally ponderable contributions to the com-edge might well be superseded by a system mon stock. Apart from the mournful classification of men who only know literature, and men who only know physical science, each despising the knowledge of the other, there are all varieties and shades among the ignorances of learned men. He who is excellent at Greek plays or Elizabethan texts or old manuscripts thinks it no ill to be without a taste for music or scenery. He who loves speculative writers on ethics, economics, and metaphysics, is content to be deaf to the charms of verse. A third, devoted to physical investigation, has a weak contempt for the movements of practical politics. And so on, through all the directions that the curiosity and intelligence of men may take, it is thought no shame that provided anybody diligently and fruitfully seeks knowledge in one field, he is welcome to remain in as profound darkness as he pleases

in which everybody should know everything. But meanwhile, they ask, where is the time, and where is the brain, to take in all knowledge? Of course, in Milton's day, a man might fairly hope to know everything that was then capable of being known. There was no science, to speak of. Literature was very scanty, if it was also very good. Speculation was almost entirely in the theological stage, and so the premises, at any rate, were few and simple and easily mastered. But now, as all the world perceives, sometimes exulting and sometimes lamenting, the sum of knowable things is more than one can know. The most voracious powers of acquisition are feebleness itself in the presence of the daily increasing mass of facts to be acquired. But this, after all, only shows that mere acquisition of facts is not the supreme object which a man, wisely

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seeking to discipline his powers, would | tical as even Mr. Lowe himself or any other choose to pursue. It is possible, however, deliberate vulgarizer of education could deto master the general ideas of the various sire; for there is nothing so important in subjects, as well as the special ideas and ver- understanding men and social movements, ified conclusions of one's own particular sub- and in dealing with them or controlling them, ject. It is not at all out of the reach of as a correct and instructed appreciation of even a busy man— provided he has had the the slow pace at which wrong methods of right tastes for things properly implanted examining and interpreting facts give way and tended in his early years to get a sat- before right methods. In literature, again, isfactory glimpse of, and the power of tak- such a book as Hallam's History, or Sising a satisfactory interest in, the general mondi's, may well serve for models of the tendencies of discovery and effort in all kind of discipline which anybody who takes their manifestations. It is perfectly possi- pains with himself should strive after. Such ble to form what in legal matters would be books indicate the system on which he should called a Digest of the leading principles and read-the industry, that is, with which he present problems, the usual methods and should undertake to master, not an author the line of progress belonging to each given only here and there, but companies of ausubject of investigation or performance, and thors, with a view to seizing the leading to seek for some common summary of them ideas and habits of thought and forms of all. To evolve a philosophic doctrine which expression which mark the succeeding ages shall comprehend all human knowledge is a of a civilized and literary society and distask for a master. Some affirm that this has tinguish one from another. Here, and in been already achieved, while others confi- all cases, to be systematic, to seek high and dently deny it. Whether or not, minds vig- far-reaching points of view, is the secret of orously and correctly trained to throw aside an effective discipline -- the end of it being superfluous and accidental parts of knowl- to create and develope an active and appreedge, and to grasp what is central, vital, and ciative sympathy with all the forms in which most comprehensive, have ample power of the best minds have expressed themselves. making for themselves a conspectus of the This sympathy ought not to stop superpaths in which the human intelligence has ciliously short, in obedience to a narrow travelled, as well as of the more notable fastidiousness or stupidity, excluding novmonuments which it has raised by the road- els, for instance, or music, or the drama, or side. Hence the value of such a book, for anything else which accident or deliberate example, as Whewell's History of the Induc- mutilation of mind may have disposed a man tive Sciences. You may not be a master of not to hold worthy of a place among serious all the problems of modern chemistry, nor interests. The beginning of knowledge is fathom all the minuter laws of astronomy; a respect for all the forms in which men of but you may very well acquire a thoroughly the highest human quality have ever worked, luminous conception of the larger steps and into which they have ever thrown themwhich have been taken in methods and laws; selves. One has preferences naturally, and of the kind of intellectual effort which has respect for varieties in the expression of brought us from the fantastic conjectures of mental energy does not preclude us from them of old time down to the embracing measuring them among one another. Even certainties of modern science; of the pro- if we feel a repugnance which no effort can gressive growth and improvement of men's overcome to some-particular kind of work, ideas of evidence and proof; and of the in- it is worth while to force oneself to recogfluence which this improvement in the scien-nise whatever sincerity of feeling and whattific region has had in modifying the mental ever force and directness of execution it states of society in regions that are not sci- may present. Of course, if it has neither entific yet, whatever they may become in one nor other of these, it is beyond the time. To follow this long record with intel- reach of aversion or liking, or any other ligence, with a sense of the connexion and positive emotion. We look at it and pass interdependence subsisting in the midst of on. But if a work, whether in form, in colit all, if not with an exact and exhaustive our, in sound, or articulate word, be sincere discernment, is one of the wholesomest ele- and forcible, then no personal repulsion ments of intellectual discipline that we can should distort one's admission of its good imagine. It imparts consistency and breadth quality and its right to a place before the to a man's acquaintance with the detailed world; any more than the mere fact of a facts of any one science, and gives him, man being epigrammatic, keen, or a little moreover, a firm and wide basis for the fur- stern, should prevent us from recognising ther acquisition either of general principles whatever energy, or disinterestedness, or or special sets of facts. And it is as prac-essential humanity, or other fine quality he

genius and character, there are nine hundred
and ninety-nine who will only be saved from
individual crotchets and perversities of the
most wasteful sort by hearing much or all
that is said of them or of their subject. A
weak man may be crushed by it.
A very
strong man can well do without it. Most
men will be invigorated and corrected by it.

might have at the back of his unlikeable rest it would be emphatically the wrong manner. In intellectual as in moral disci-view. For one man whom it were best to pline, there is nothing more important than leave undisturbed to the bent of his own to clear the mind of passionate prejudice; and this seems simple enough; yet we all know men of one author, one painter, one composer, one poet, at the feet of whose image they are ever immolating all other poets, painters, and composers. No sort of bigotry and conceit is more truly offensive than this. To crush it in oneself is a main point in intellectual discipline, as to expose its disgusting silliness in other people is a very important point in social disciFrom The Saturday Review. pline. In persons of a certain character, this intellectual exclusiveness has its root in SERMONS ON SERMONS. a crooked kind of vanity. They are com- SERMONS are a bore. Admitted to the pelled by all the rules and necessities of in- full. There is only one thing more boring. tellectual regimen to practise considerable It is sermons on sermons. The parsons are abstention. As we said at first, there is avenged, for the Times and its correspondmuch which they cannot read and apprehend ents prove that beyond the lowest depths of and assimilate. Yet they are unwilling to darkness that belongs to the pulpit there believe that they have not a judgment worth is a profound of bathos and stupidity duller, hearing about all things; and hence comes denser, and more irrational, and that is in wrong and most presumptuous disparage- the popular criticism on sermons. Whatment of whatever happens to fall outside of ever the clerical mind is, there is in the lay their own plot of ground. Many people mind, if we are to take this week's Times as would admit in theory that they cannot an exponent of it, a power of bad composifathom or even touch all subjects; yet few tion, heavy and illogical reasoning, platiadmit practically that there are many sub- tude and wearisomeness, which may well jects on which they cannot even have an make professional preachers rejoice. They opinion. A man will candidly confess that have no monopoly of stupidity. Let us try he is not a competent critic of embryology, to enter into the great sermon argument, physiology, or biology in any of its forms; and first let us take the Times itself, which yet we must not be surprised to hear him sums up, of course, into one clear and concondemn Mr. Darwin offhand, and scout densed statement the whole proof against that writer's conclusions as if they were the English sermons and preachers. In the utterances of a schoolboy. This is a com- first place, says this great authority, the mon trick in many regions of thought to clergy must "take the fact and accept the concede your ignorance in general, and then blame." The fact is that people are not into maintain your knowledge in particular. terested; the blame lies with those whose Another point of mental discipline is just business it is to attract, and who fail to do worth touching upon. Is it wholesome for so. Now the fact happens to be that some persons engaged in literary and scientific people are interested, and some are not. tasks of production, generalization, and the The very dreariest of sermons even those like, to pay much heed to what is said of which "bore people with faith and St. them and their work? The artist, for exam- Paul's Epistles," subjects which the Vicar ple, knows his own purpose and design; let of Amwell seems to think ought to be exhim penetrate himself with this, evolving all cluded from Christian teaching, if not from from himself, and he will thus produce the Christianity-do find a vast many admost harmonious, coherent, and original mirers. Some people may wonder at this poem, or picture, or novel. The philoso- taste, but that it exists among church-going pher, again, working out his system, brood-people there is no question. Nay, the Dising over his ideas, elaborating and fortify-senters, whom it suits some of the lettering his construction, is much more likely to writers to hold up as models for the English produce a strong, compact result, which the world will accept and not willingly let die, if he does not allow himself to be distracted by criticisms, whether hostile or friendly. There is unquestionably something to be said for this. In one case out of a thousand it may be the right view. But in all the

clergy, preach nothing but faith and St. Paul's Epistles. We always thought that in truly pious and Evangelical circles the real gospel and its faithful exposition was only one sermon, and that on one chapter of one of St. Paul's Epistles; and that by preaching this one sermon every Sunday

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