of Right, embodying the principles of the constitution. In the name of all the estates of the realm, Halifax requested William and Mary to accept the Crown. William tendered his own gratitude and that of his Queen, and assured the assembled legislators that the laws of England would be the rule of his conduct. Such was the termination of the English Revolution, and such its triumph-Liberty achieved--Law inviolate-Property secured and Protestant faith established.

Such is a very imperfect analysis of Mr. Macaulay's immortal work. Enriched with the wisdom of a profound philosophy, and laden with legal and constitutional knowledge, these volumes will be read and prized by Englishmen while civil and religious liberty endures. In Mr. Macaulay's historical narratives the events pass before us in simple yet stately succession. In his delineations of character we recognize the skill of a master whose scrutiny reaches the heart even through its darkest coverings. His figures stand out before us in three dimensions, in all their loveliness, or in all their deformity, living and breathing, and acting. The scenes of listening senates-of jarring councils--and of legal and judicial strife-are depicted in vivid outline and in glowing colors; and with a magic wand he conjures up before us the gorgeous pageantries of state-the ephemeral gaiety of courts-and those frivolous amusements by which time's ebbing sands are hurried through the hour-glass of life. May we not hope that such a work will find its way into the continents of the Old and New World, and reach even the insular communities of the ocean, to teach the governors and the governed how liberty may be secured without bloodshed-popular rights maintained without popular violence--and a constitutional monarchy embalmed amid the affections of a contented and a happy people.

We are unwilling to mingle criticism with praise like this; but, occupying the censorial chair, we must not shrink from at least the show of its duties. Mr. Macaulay's volumes exhibit not a few marks that they have been composed with a running pen; and we have no doubt that, in subsequent editions, he will prune some of their redundancies, and supply some of their defects. There is occasionally a diffuseness both of description and discussion. The same ideas occur under a slight disguise, while dates are omitted, and events are wanting to unite different portions of the narrative, and to gratify the curiosity of the reader. The work is obviously defective in

| the proportion and symmetry of its parts. Historical sketches, sometimes of men beneath any peculiar notice, and literary, ecclesiastical, and political disquisitions often break the continuity and mar the interest of the story: and we occasionally recognize, in argumentative discussions, the copiousness of the writer in search of converts, when we might expect the rigor of the logician in quest of truth. In the early part of Mr. Macaulay's first volume, he frequently illustrates his narrative by analogous or parallel facts drawn from ancient and modern history. These illustrations, however agreeable to the classical scholar, or the learned historian, startle the general reader without instructing him. The feelings "of the Ionians of the age of Homer," for example the comparison of "Rome and her Bishops" to the "Olympian chariotcourse of the Pythian oracle"-the relation "between a white planter and a Quadroon girl"-and the robberies "of Mathias and Kniperdoling"-are not happy illustrations of other relations and events.

The very brilliancy and purity of Mr. Macaulay's style tend, by the mere effect of contrast, to display the most trivial blemishes. We are startled, for example, at the passages in which we are charged "with pleasuring our friends"-with "the accomplishing a design"-with "committing a baseness with "the tincture of soldiery"-with giving "allowance" to do anything,-with "swearing like a porter"-and with "spelling like a washerwoman." These and similar phrases have doubtless escaped from Mr. Macaulay's pen when the intellectual locomotive was at its highest speed.

We cannot close these volumes without giving expression to the deep and painful feelings which the events they record have left upon our mind. While we rejoice at the triumph of Divine truth over human error, and of constitutional government over a licentious despotism, we blush at the thought that religion, and the forms and rites of religion, should have been the mainspring of those bloody revolutions which have desolated England. The domestic history of Britain during the seventeenth century is but a succession of plots, and seditions, and rebellions, prompted by religious fanaticism, or springing from religious persecution. The struggle between the popular and the monarchical element was but the result of that fiercer conflict which the rights of conscience had to wage against an intolerant priesthood and a bigoted royalty. Opposed by the

IF Asmodeus possessed the power to unroof every house in Edinburgh, we doubt if he would bring to light any great amount of hidden talent. All our little celebrities put together are hardly fit to sustain the literary credit of the Modern Athens. As for our great ones-Jeffrey himself is, not to speak evil of dignities, un peu passé. The honorable lord still dresses well, adjusts himself admirably to the niche in which he stands enshrined, and recognizes on all occasions the homage naturally offered at the altar of his literary fame. He frankly and courteously discharges all the duties of his position, and, with equal facility, extends his hospitality to the illustrious literary stranger, and expostulation to the unfledged aspirant after literary renown. Dickens, when last in the Scottish metropolis, was Lord Jeffrey's guest. And we have repeatedly seen instances in which Lord Jeffrey generously and humanely took the trouble to consider and criticise volumes of youthful poetry not the most promising. But, save on the judicial bench, his lordship seldom makes public appearances. Once a year, perhaps, he presides over the distribution of prizes at the Association for Promotion of the Fine Arts. But we hear of little, if anything, from his pen beyond his full and frequent notes on an advising in præsentia dominorum. The Judex damnatur of the blue and brimstone cover of the Edinburgh Review has become with Lord Jeffrey something more than a figurative, and has proved itself a prophetical, expression. On the bench of the First Division of the Court of Session, Lord Jeffrey occupies the extreme left of the Lord President Boyle; Lord Mackenzie, the son of "the Man of Feeling," and probably the most esteemed of the Scottish judges, intervening; whilst Lord Fullerton is seated on the President's right hand. Lord Jeffrey incessantly takes notes and asks questions. The habits of the critic have accompanied him to the bench, and admirably serve to tease the ingenuity of the learned counsel at the bar.

We have never given much for Wilson,

since first the Professor, a few years back, took shelter within the panoply of a Mackintosh; for though our contemporary has since renewed his youth, and, in his mood of venerable eld, now no longer fictitious, is still as good for a jest or witticism as ever, still the original induing of such defensive habiliments was all unworthy of the wild spirit of Ellerlay; and Christopher has never been himself again.

What! the man who was wont to face the fiercest elements that ever encountered sage or sophist, struggling up the Earthen Mound in the direction of Alma Mater, buttoned only in his invulnerable dress-coat of black; the low flat surface of his shovel hat standing up against the gusty wind, like the dark point of a rock amidst a furious sea-he, encased in the veritable manufacture of Cross-basket--tell it not in Gath! Wilson is by nature a lion, and will be to the end of the chapter. His stalwart figure, unbent by age, passes along our streets the image of Triton amongst the Minnows. The long flowing hair, slightly grizzled by the enemy, escapes from beneath the brood eaves of his beaver, and descends like the snake-wreathed locks of an antique Jupiter over the snowy petals of shirt collar that flank the breadths of his ambrosial visage-giving altogether a peculiar and picturesque aspect to the head and its arrangements. This massive capital, elevated on Atlantean shoulders, and the almost gigantic bulk, borne along with speed and firmness of step, bespeaking dauntlessness and decision of character, sufficiently mark the man. Excepting conversationally, we do not know that the Professor has lately made much exertion of his powers. In his class, he goes through the old routine of the moral philosophy lectures; and, as a member of the Faculty, may sometimes be seen-occasionally sine toga-pacing the boards amongst his brethren of the long robe. Some conversational criticisms, which have been repeated, harmless, though personal, would do for verbal repetition, but not to print-so that we are fain to refresh ourselves with the collect

ed scrap-work of the "Recreations" of North -or the scattered poems, amongst which are mainly to be had in remembrance the two leading pieces, so unlike, yet so characteristic of the poet, "The City of the Plague," and "The Isle of Palms"-or the exquisite prose of the "Lights and Shadows,' and "Margaret Lyndsay," the grave fictions on which the author founded his title of philosopher. Professor Wilson's philosophy, his learning, his genius, have lately taken a new direction, and merged into a practical philanthropy, annually illustrated by his exordium to the popular session of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution. His admirers and flatterers-for, like all lions, he has his jackals-indeed we should say that his "lion's providers" rather superabound-may hold that the Professor's career as a philanthropist could be antedated. We, however, think not. We know of no phase in which the advocate of that aristocracy which, under the guise of good-old-English-gentlemanism, erected its jovial barriers of class and caste upon the necks of a dependent peasantry little elevated above agrarian serfdom, could be regarded as a man of the people, prior to his appearance on the platform of this popular institute. We have heard it whispered, however, that in adopting this conspicuous step, the Professor nobly set at nought the conventional restraints imposed on themselves and their brethren by the haughtier members of the Senatus Academicus, by whom the delivery of a popular lecture is deemed equivalent to "such an act as blurs the modesty and grace of nature" in Brahminical eyes, when a member of any of the rigid sects of oriental superstition, forgetting their rules and observances, lose caste. The Professor of Botany, it is said, however, anxious to give a popular course of that beautiful and interesting study, has not the courage to brave the papal ban of his exclusive brethren. But Wilson has not only come forward in aid of the popular "march of intellect;" he has come forward as its ostensible head and front. His introductory discourses, each session, tend more and more to a discovery of the latent philosophy lurking in the popular mind-to illustrate the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties and disadvantages to prove the onward tendency and ultimate triumph of self-culture among the middle and lower classes in the country-and to show (ultimately, but not yet,) by what title the power of a million of intellects is to assert its supremacy over the long-endured domination of a few more for

tunate or more privileged, by whom has so long been preached the spurious doctrine of poor stupid "Noll Goldsmith," that "they who think must govern those who toil;" as if there were anything to prevent those that toil thinking as well as, or better than, those that idle! In his future initial discourses in Queen Street Hall, Wilson has promised some further developments of the intellectual phenomena of the social mind, which may be looked for with interest, because the inquiry derives not its curiosity from the inquest, but the inquirer.

Favorers of popular movement, from the opposite extremes of "the electric chain that binds" the strange mixture of intellectual elements in the society of Modern Athens, the brothers Chambers, Mr. James Simpson, the Advocate, and Mr. George Combe, emerge on our notice in a group. By a series of successful adventures in the literature of popular progress, which have been selfrewarding, the former have elevated themselves, unaided, save by the tide of public approbation, to eminence so considerable, that a vacancy for the chief magistracy of the Scottish metropolis can scarcely occur, or be talked of, without one or other of the brothers being brought forward as eligible to the office. The merit of the publications of these gentlemen is mediocrity. But mediocrity, when once it wins its way, retains its hold. Addressed to comparative ignorance, or the unexcitable temperaments of impassive intellects, it never recedes. The literature of mediocrity, never bad enough to merit condemnation, carefully weeded even of the shadow of reproach, tolerably faultless in its construction, calculated just to impart the semblance without the severity of essential information, loses nothing that may be forfeited by time, chance, or change. Unlike the rash scintillations of superior genius, it incurs no risk of elevating and exciting the minds of its votaries, to give force and contrast to the dash of disappointment where its brilliancy flags or fails. The steady, equable quality of this kind of writing-imitating the dull proprieties of accurate prose, sparingly indulging in any vein of poetry, recording only facts with zest, and drawing fictions from the memory-forms the excellence of Chambers' Journals, Miscellanies, Informations, Histories, Educational and Juvenile Series. Irreconcilable as these in their variety may seem, a family likeness pervades the whole, and soothes them down into their regular monotony. The wise man prayed that he might neither be visited with poverty

nor riches. If he seek for his children the same happy medium of intelligence as of circumstances, he will have them educated upon "Chambers' Educational Course." Their minds will not fare sumptuously; neither will they starve. With doctrinal questions, and alleged objections to the matter of these cheap, and, for the most part, useful productions, we have nothing at present to do. Enough for us that their manner-generally easy, and always agreeable-more than anything, stamps their value. The price of knowledge reduced, by works like these, the commodity becomes palatable as well as accessible; and thus the great secret of their success is twofold-knowledge is cheapened and stimulated at once. The head of the firm, though seldom committed to any popular movement, has long professed liberal principles. The ragged schools" have been greatly indebted to his philanthropy; and the "faggot votes" have recently recoiled beneath his assault. The one cause he has advocated in "the Journal," and personally promoted in various parts of Scotland; the other enormity he has attacked from the platform-but with the disadvantage, less applicable to him than to others, of doing so as the partisan of a faction as deeply implicated in the evil as any other. Let that pass. William Chambers, without any great distinguishing marks as a man of letters, as a popular leader, or a party debater, is a man of energy and action, of perpetual movement and indomitable courage, and has had, unquestionably, the spirit to carve out his own fortunes. As a litterateur, and latterly as a savant, Robert Chambers has been the more distinguished. Less a man of business and more a man of letters, the author of the 'Rebellions" and the "Picture of Scotland" has dedicated the few last years of his life to scientific researches connected with absorbing questions of physical science, and particularly the phenomena exhibited on the earth's varied surface. He seldom draws conclusions. He states facts. He is a mere reader of the book of nature; and a clever as well as careful translator of its obvious passages. Take his recent work on "Ancient Sea Margins." Here is a work in which the eye, as from a pinnacle, scans with new ideas the great map of nature, and sees not features, but facts traced out over hill and valleymargins of seas stretched up towards the Alpine summits, and traces of a flooded world recorded imperishably upon the monumental mountain pyramids, amidst the crumbling and decay of the things of time. What

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strange ideas that book delineates beyond the scope of imagination, and literally chiseled out in granite heaps as hard, immutable truths! From the low coast lands and carses, the lower ancient sea margins emanate step by step to the sublimest altitudes. Oscillations in the shift of relative level betwixt sea and land-the last of them, perhaps, within the human period-unfold such a tale of time and change, tangibly portrayed before the wondering eye, as geology in all its quaint discoveries or strange imaginings has never before disclosed. In these there may be illusion where conjecture supplies the form of monstrosities extinct and incompatible with present conditions of existence. In those there can be none. We have local researches and descriptions undertaken with persevering and painstaking exertion-scenes in the vale of Tay, in Fife, Strathspey, Glenmore, Lochaber, the Basin of the Forth, the Vale of Tweed, and Basin of the Tay-all conjured up and strikingly arrested in diagrams of strange fidelity, though cast with the help of some excusable freedoms into the theoretical form of the supposed sea margins. The author has traversed all these scenes, and many more. His mind has dwelt upon their terraced aspect, and become imbued with the convictions of their character and origin; till the resistless reader, forced to yield to the endless multiplicity of facts, surrenders his convictions also to an author who avowedly has no theory to propound. In this way we are led to inspect visibly the Delta of the Ribble, the Mersey, Chester, Bristol, Bath, London, Sussex and Hampshire, Devonshire, France and Ireland, and even the terraces and markings in Switzerland, Scandinavia and North America. The contemplative power and sagacity of observation, conspicuous throughout these researches, tend not only to amass a collection of facts and materials for speculation, but facts and materials already sifted and prepared for an inevitable deduction. Mr. Chambers has carefully elicited in every instance the attendant circumstances of the natural appearances presented to his gaze, and so discriminated betwixt them as nearly to arrive at a chronology of the ancient beach-markings. He has traced out even the recession, accession, and second recession of waters, and furnished quite a new light in which to read the mighty page outspread upon the surface of a country. Some people, who would dispute the originality of anything, have doubted the originality of these researches. There is intrinsic evidence, however, of the author hav