The Reviewer.

An English Grammar. By ALEX. BAIN, M.A. London: Longman, Green, Longman, &c.

Our opinion of the merits of the Professor of Logic in the University of Aberdeen has already been expressed with considerable freedom and copiousness in this serial (Jan., 1862). He makes a new claim upon our notice, not now as an elaborate thinker, and increaser of the sum of human speculation, but as a workman condescending to be useful, and "not needing to be ashamed." "The present work has been composed with more particular reference to the class of English composition attached to the chair of Logic in the University of Aberdeen;" but it will be found specially suitable to self-culture. Our own acquaintance with English grammars is pretty extensive. We have looked into, read, compared, and to a certain extent studied, somewhat more than a thousand of them, ranging in price from a penny to a guinea, and in pages from sixteen 32mo., to a thousand royal 8vo., not to speak of cognate works, and leaving out of reference altogether the grammars of other languages, in which occasional suggestions on the subject may have been found. In very few of these have we seen so marked an individuality, and so large a quantity of distinctly original constructiveness and absolute thinking out from first principles, with so few flaws arising from straining after show and freshness. Though on almost every page there may be noted some good remark on word, phrase, or form of speech, there is no sign of a writer claimant for praise. The method of the book, though not entirely new, is carried out with an unexampled rigour and consistency. His plan is to work out all that regards words in each special department, as, for example, in classification, inflection, and derivation,-rather than to exhaust successively all the considerations which require attention in regard to each part of speech. The special features of this grammar are careful distinctness, system, and clearness.

The Professor's scheme of alphabetization (we do not think much of it) is at once too complex, and too deficient in thoroughgoingness. His exposition of "the Sentence," as introductory to Ety. mology, is plain and sufficient. The classification of the parts of speech is given with great fulness of explanation. Inflection is most minutely examined. Indeed, we think too much space has been given to the exposition of merely orthographical changes or influences. We are also inclined to question how far the elaborate,

useful, and entertaining thirty pages, appropriated to derivation, falls within the true scope of grammar proper. Though it must be confessed the matter is admirably and concisely arranged, and well worthy of study, too great a concession seems to us to have been made to the new-fangled, German borrowed style of teaching syntax, by "the analysis of sentences," which in our opinion falls far more truly under the domain of rhetoric or composition. The law of words among themselves which syntax brings before us forms a round of teaching which requires ample illustration, and therefore, as it appears to us, ought to be kept quite free from the laws which refer to the expression of given ideas in given forms, or, in short, from the laws which relate to the utterance of thought by words. If the analysis of sentences should be taught, the counterpart, synthesis, ought also to be explained. The sections on "The order of words," Purity," &c., belong, as we have said, more closely to composition than grammar; yet as many expositions of the science of language have contained remarks on these topics, they may be held as excellent accessory lessons. The appendix on derivation is worthy of notice, as concise and capable of good use.

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One special portion of the work we must not overlook, viz., the discussion of the idioms and constructions of the relative and interrogative pronouns. These are very useful and informing. We fancy, however, that the common purpose of the relative pronoun, viz., to enable us to construct adjectival sentences, for which our language furnishes no single term, has escaped the Professor's notice. The recognition of this fact would simplify the explanation of many phrases, and would show the incorrectness of many ordinary slipshod expressions, for it would teach us never to use a relative sentence instead of an adjective, so long as our language furnished one of the latter, suited to our purpose in speaking; e. g., "I will tell you an anecdote, which will instruct you," instead of. "I will tell you an instructive anecdote."

Such phraseology as that is among the most prevalent of our vices of style.

To thoughtful young men desirous of learning within brief compass a large amount of information regarding the method of employing our English language with purity, pith, expressiveness, and accuracy, this is a good book. We counsel a perusal of its pages to our readers thus-viz.: Read a whole section, carefully noting as it is perused the matter presented new, or in a new light; re-peruse these passages, marking off those portions of which the reader has been ignorant; commit these parts to memory, and write illustrations of the fact, or cull them from other works. Revise each distinct division of the work before proceeding to the next, making up in the process all felt omissions in study; and thereafter read the whole work systematically and observantly through. If it is used as we advise, it will be found of infinite value to the large army of self-educators, the volunteers in the cause of mental improvement, for whom we write.

Transportation considered as a Punishment and as a Mode of Founding Colonies. A Paper read before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at Newcastle, 29th August, 1863. By ROBERT R. TORRENS, Esq. London: William Ridgway.

THIS essay appears to have been called forth by the Report of the Royal Commission on Transportation and Penal Servitude, recently presented to Parliament, in which the resumption of transportation to Western Australia is recommended. Mr. Torrens has strong convictions on this subject, arrived at from his own observations made during a visit to the penal settlements, and in a colony adjacent thereto, in which, for more than twenty years, he held the commission of the peace, and during the greater portion of which period he was a member of the executive and legislative councils. His description of the system pursued in the penal settlement of Western Australia may be interesting to our readers. He says,―

"The convict, on arrival, undergoes solitary confinement, and this, the only portion of the system that can, without a gross abuse of terms, be designated formidable, is doled out to all alike without regarding degrees of criminality, for the uniform period of nine months. This brief period of punishment over, the convict is thenceforth in a position, having regard as well to immediate physical requirements as to future prospects, far superior to that of the honest labourer of this country. With some thirty or forty of his comrades, under the guidance of a constable usually chosen from the gang, he is marched into the interior, where he is to sojourn for a period of from one to five years, proportioned by the term of his sentence, which period may, however, be reduced one-fourth, in case of good conduct, and is also shortened by deducting four months spent on the voyage. There he is comfortably hutted, well clothed, and fed with an abundance of bread, beef, mutton, tea, sugar, &c., varied occasionally by game of his own taking, or procured from the natives. The daily labour exacted is light, not more than is calculated to promote healthy digestion and sound sleep. The evenings are passed agreeably round the camp fires, with pipes and tea, 'the cup which cheers, but not inebriates,' whilst some bold cracksman recounts his deeds of burglary and violence, stirring the spirits of his auditors to emulate his daring; and oft the merry song goes round, and oft the jest.' Nor is improvement lost sight of in those hours of relaxation. The garotter's handicraft is playfully exhibited in the harmless practical joke, and the exquisitely delicate touch of the professional pickpocket is kept in practice by abstracting pebbles, deposited for that purpose in his neighbour's pouch. Captain Kennedy, governor of the penal settlement, naïvely enough describes this phase of convict life in his reply to query 2,447. 'Yes, they do prefer it. They have a greater swing; discipline is less severe, and there is less routine. They like that sort of free and easy life better.'

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"But, alas! all human joys must end, and after a couple of years of this "free and easy life,' the third stage commences, and our convict is thrown upon his own resources as a ticket-of-leave man for the space of one to four years, according to his original sentence, with the restriction that he must not roam beyond the limits of his police district (comprising an area usually as large as Yorkshire), and cautioned against exposing himself to the night air after ten o'clock. To console him under these restrictions, he is assured that in case of sickness he will be supplied with medical aid, and maintained at the expense of the mother country; and that, as stated by Captain Kennedy and Colonel Henderson (queries 2331-2 and 6344-5), he may obtain employment at far higher wages than those

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of the honest labourer in this country, may soon raise himself to a position of affluence, and himself become the employer of labour, and the owner of flocks and herds.' During this stage of his curriculum the convict is no longer pained by the severance of family ties; a liberal Government will, in compliance with his request, send out his wife and children at the cost of the mother country. If, however, the effects of time in weakening the family affections, or the formation of other connections, should render their society irksome or inconvenient, he is privileged to leave his wife and children to be supported by his parish in the old country. Neither are bachelor convicts any longer condemned to celibacy. A paternal Government undertakes, at the cost of this country, to supply an adequate number of young English women to wive the semi-emancipated convicts. Nay, so kindly considerate are the authorities to secure the convict from annoyance, that an Act has been passed by the colonial legislature, making it penal to speak disparagingly of the convict status in presence of a conditionally pardoned or ticket-of-leave man.

"After a couple of years spent under these not very grievous restraints, our convict obtains a conditional pardon. Exposure to the night air will no longer be dangerous; he is free to range beyond the not very narrow limits of his police district, or, should he prefer it, to remove to the adjacent colonies, where the cities of Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney afford an ample field for the practice of his former profession, and where, if he has acquired wealth and is a clever fellow, he may get into Farliament, and possibly become one of her Majesty's ministers.

To prove that there is no exaggeration in the picture I have drawn, I will state an actual case, selecting purposely that of a notorious criminal. Redpath, sentenced for life for offences committed under all the concomitants that can aggravate crime and render it inexcusable, arrived in Western Australia 23rd November, 1858, and was discharged on ticket of leave 3rd of June, 1861; during the interval, two and a half years, with the exception of nine months' initiatory stage of solitary confinement, he was employed as a clerk in the Government offices, and enabled to live in luxury in a country where, as stated by Captain Kennedy (query 2,512), 'there is very little shame attached to his status.' At the expiration of four years he will be free to go where he pleases out of England; relieved from even the figment of restraint to which he is at present subject."

This system, Mr. Torrens maintains, fails-1st, as a formidable deterrent to those lapsing into crime; 2nd, as having no reformatory influence on criminals; 3rd, as not being an advantageous mode of founding colonies.

The pamphlet deserves the perusal of all who are interested in the solution of this great social problem-and who is not ?

On Matter and Ether; or, the Secret Laws of Physical Change. By T. RAWSON BIRKS, M.A. Cambridge: Macmillan and Co. AMONG the controversies of our time, those of science are neither the least in interest, importance, virulence, uor ultimate promise. The molecular theory of the universe, the laws of morphology, the development of species, the antiquity of man, the problems suggested by light, the inferences deducible from forces, the nature of electricity, the productive cause of heat, spontaneous generation, &c., &c., are topics on which, among others, hot contests go on. Controversy may not enable men to unravel the mystery with

which the varied web of creation has been woven within and with out, but it can, at least, propose tests for hypotheses, and demand that a certain consistency of fact and thought should be proved before the pseudo-explanations of philosophers be finally accepted as the grand revelation of the purposes, processes, and laws by which the creation stands before us as it is; and, it can estimate the power of intellect and prescience of the various interlocutors who in such debates give evidence. It can also insist on consistency of exposition, and demand that intelligible replies should be given to such queries as arise in thinking minds.

Even into the territories of science, therefore, we do not hesitate to welcome the controversial spirit,-upholding its usefulness as a critic of thought, a caution to rash innovators to arm themselves for defence when met with defiance, and as a suggester of points liable to be overlooked by the too sanguine and one-ideäed scientist. If, as the author says, “men of science feel themselves to be on the verge of some great discovery, but the key which can unlock these various secrets of nature has not yet been attained," it is quite right that the proposers of schemes for disclosing these secrets should be met by interrogations as to the means and likelihoods of their key being the right one, and that the rival claimants of "the power of the keys" should be required to state the grounds upon which they expect men to accept their "key." If it can be shown that the key will not fit the wards, that it is too large or too small, that it has been previously tried and has failed, or if any other let, hindrance, and impediment can be proved against it, the safe need not be touched, or even if it be touched, we need not be afraid of the documents and treasures it contains. Hence, controversy may be useful even on scientific topics.

But scientific thought is not easily popularized, and hence scientific discussion is not readily made accessible to the public. A special culture is required to comprehend the import, and to notice the impact of facts and inductions. To those who possess a scientific bias and culture this work will be highly instructive, if not greatly delightful reading. But it demands somewhat rare qualifications from the reader. A power of conceptiveness descending to the minuteness of "the ten millionth of an inch," and a mathematical culture which can work with such "a high inverse power as the twelfth," and a familiarity with the purest elements of statics, dynamics, and physics, and science generally, are not too little to bring to its perusal. We confess to having been unable to follow to their far and ultimate results many of the matters contained in the work, and that it struck us, in reading the book, that the author seemed to founder (or if not, then we) on the idea that all that is capable of mathematical formulation is capable of mental realization (or conceivable), and is possible (and probable) in the outer world of phenomena and changes.

It would be vain for us to attempt to place before our readers, in the space at our disposal in this department, any abstract of this

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