and inflicted on her disconsolate father of May, 1832, Cuvier died before he a blow which he never recovered. The had completed his 63rd year. Although reeds upon which he had been seeking the cholera was then raging in Paris, support were giving way; the chasten- a crowded procession accompanied to ing hand of God was gradually prepar- the burial ground him whose glory had ing him for eternity. After an absence become, so to say, national property. of two months, Cuvier resumed his The body was carried by pupils from political duties as president of the the different schools of science; the Committee of the Interior. When it pall was supported by Baron Pasquier, became his turn to sum up the observa- president of the Chamber of Peers, M. tions which had been made by his col- Devaux, councillor of state, M. Arago, leagues, his first words were drowned secretary to the Academy of Sciences, in tears; he hid his face in his hands, and M. Villemain, vice-president of the and sobbed bitterly. A profound si Royal Council of Public Instruction. lence reigned throughout the assembly. According to custom, funeral orations At length Cuvier raised his head and were pronounced over the grave. said, "Pardon me, gentlemen, I was a father, and I have lost all." He then, as if by a violent effort, resumed his observations, and pronounced judg

ment.

Cuvier found relief in intellectual labour, and returned to his studies for a little while. In 1832 he had been made a peer of France, and, on the 8th of May of the same year, had opened a course of lectures on the History and Progress of Science. Five days after he was lying in his grave. On the 13th

We have come to the conclusion of this biographical essay. In glancing thus summarily at the life of Cuvier, we have omitted to mention his defects. It is not, our readers will believe us, from any desire to invest him with an imaginary perfection; but the task of a critic is never a pleasant one, and on perusing some of the authorities we thought right to consult before assuming the character of Cuvier's historian, we found ourselves forestalled.

.G. M.

ROBERT HALL.

THE REV. ROBERT HALL was born at | life became predominant. As soon as the village of Arnsby, near Leicester, on | he could speak he became a talker, and the second of May, 1764. His father, as soon as he became, to a certain debearing the same name, was a minister gree, possessed of the signs of thought among the Baptists (what he himself afterwards became), and is represented as a man of good ability and earnest religion.

In early childhood Robert gave no particular indications of what he was to be. At two years of age he could neither walk nor speak. He was of a delicate frame, and seemed to be of slow perception. His nurse succeeded in teaching him the alphabet on the village grave-stones, and the first words he uttered were those of the inscriptions, which both she and he delighted then to ponder. No sooner, however, did he attain the power of speech than his mental activity was in a high degree awakened, and the ardour and quickness which so distinguished him in after

in language, he became a steady and rapid thinker. This seems to be much to say of a child; but in Robert Hall, if we may believe his biographers — and of their veracity we have no question — this was, to a very unusual extent, realized.

Being one, and the youngest, of fourteen children, his father was compelled to seek for him an economical education. In those days dame-schools were abundant, and into one of these young Robert was introduced. Thus has Dame Scotton's name been embalined for immortality. A similar fortune has happened to Mrs. Lyley, a teacher of the young idea, in the same village of Arnsby, who subsequently became his instructress.

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At this time, while under six years of to be listened to by his frequently conage, his unconstrained application to gregated brothers and sisters. About reading and solitary thought was re- this time he and his brother had a somarkable. The graveyard where he lemn conference on the subject of the first learned to say his letters, spell," division of the inheritance." Anticiand speak, continued to be his favourite pating that their good father would some study. Hither, with pinafore stuffed time or other die, Robert was anxious with books, and with grave and moody that there should be no misunderstandcountenance, the future intellectual ing between him and his brother about Hercules would frequently retire from the "portion," and proposed that John the din of his numerously tenanted should have the cows, sheep, and pigs, house; and there would he remain un- and leave for him the вOOKS.' It would til the shades of night, or the unscrupu- seem that in his ardour to have a claim lous nurse, would compel him to return. upon the books, he forgot the poor sisAt six he was sent to a school, a little ters, to whom no portion was allotted. distance in the country, conducted by a His precocity was equally remarkable in Mr. Simmons. Here his intellectual the talent he evinced for public speaking. vigour and power of attainment became Soon after leaving the above school, and so great, that by the time he had com- when his father was about taking steps pleted his eleventh year his master ceded towards his introduction into a theolohis superiority, and frankly confessed his gical academy, he paid a visit to a friend total inability any longer to keep pace at Kettering. This gentlemen was so with his pupil. While at this school struck with his power of address, that his favourite books were of a very ex- he prevailed on him on several occasions traordinary class. Before he was nine to deliver a kind of sermon to a select years old he had "perused and re- company, convened for the purpose, at perused with intense interest" the trea- his house. These, with the exception tises of Jonathan Edwards on the of the homilies he addressed to his broAffections" and on the "Will," and ther and sisters, or fellow-scholars, had carefully read Bishop Butler's which were not of rare occurrence, were Analogy." It is not necessary to sup- his first efforts at public speaking. pose that works like these, which are the wisdom of encouraging one so young productions of the mightiest and most to take a position so prominent, he himinatured minds, and which have sup- self after the lapse of many years said, plied the acutest and profoundest meta"Mr. W was one whom every body physical students with materials of en- loved. He belonged to a family in quiry and points hard of solution, were which probity, candour, and benevolence examined with much discrimination, constituted the general likeness. much less mastered by our youthful conceive, sir, if you can, the egregious Divine; it is sufficiently extraordinary impropriety of setting a boy of eleven to that he should at this age have attained preach to a company of grave gentleto such a power and scope of mental men, full half of whom wore wigs. I never action as to be capable of perusing, and call the circumstance to mind but with that with "intense interest," and without grief at the vanity it inspired; nor any apparent encouragement, works so when I think of such mistakes of good ponderous and involved. The child men, am I inclined to question the coris father to the man." Robert Hall, rectness of Baxter's language, strong as the child-student at Wigstone, was the it is, where he says, 'Nor should men faithful antecedent in taste and general turn preachers as the river Nilus breeds bent of intellectual activity of Robert frogs, (saith Herodotus) when one half Hall, the friend and equal of Mackin- moveth, before the other is made, and tosh, the first preacher of his age, and which is yet but plain mud.’ ́ of whom John Foster said that his like or equal would come no more."

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Before he was ten years of age this little enquirer had become a rather prolific writer. The knowledge he so rapidly acquired was carefully elaborated, and systematized, and thrown forth in the form of essays and sermons, which the young preacher thought good enough

Of

But

For a year-and-a-half Robert was placed under the care of the Rev. John Ryland of Northampton, a distinguished preacher and careful trainer of youth. Here he made great progress in Latin and Greek, and the principles and practice of Elegant Composition. At fifteen he entered the Academy at Bristol, and had there as his tutors the Rev.

from the vestry, and on retiring to his room exclaimed, "If this does not humble me the devil must have me.”

Hugh Evans, Dr. Caleb Evans, and Rev. James Newton. Of his enthusiasm in the pursuit of knowledge at this place, and the progress he made, it is After being an alumnus at Bristol needless here to speak. He wrought three years, in 1781 he proceeded as a diligently and rose rapidly. He bent all student on "Dr. Ward's foundation," his energies to his improvement, aiming to King's College, Aberdeen, where he above all things at excellence and dis- continued till 1785, when he graduated tinction as an intellectual thinker, Master of Arts. To a plant so vigorous writer, and preacher. He is repre- Aberdeen proved a kind and productive sented by his able biographer, Dr. soil. Not only in having able professors Gregory, as having probably" set too was he fortunate, but in the companionhigh an estimate on merely intellectual ship and friendship of one whose mind attainments, and valued himself, not was of kindred texture, and whose name more, perhaps, than was natural to became afterwards perhaps even more youth, yet too much, on the extent of celebrated than his own. This was Sir his mental possessions." These said James Mackintosh, the eminent jurist, possessions, however, it strikes us, are mental philosopher, and historian. At things "too much valued," but very once these young men felt a strong symseldom. A high appreciation of them pathy for each other. They were of is ever essential to that energy and pa- the respective ages of seventeen and tience of pursuit that will issue in eighteen, Mackintosh being the elder. making them one's own, and they are Though in many things dissimilar, they too precious an ingredient amid the had so many points of contact, and an complex lumber made the objects of attraction so powerful in literary taste, human pursuit, and too rarely sought that they were ever in each other's after to merit any slighting remark of company, and polishing each other's ours on any who are their lovers. Rob- mind by the attrition of argument and ert Hall may have under-rated other interchange of idea. They read togeattributes of the preacher, but that ther, sat together at lecture, and took he over-rated intellectual culture and their walks together. Their tastes in the endowment we venture to question. department of morals and metaphysics Dr. Gregory may have been an erring were identical. They maintained injudge. At the same time we must ad- cessant discussions, without ever dismit that young Hall's heart was not turbing their mutual attachment. quite free from an admixture of pride-Berkeley's Minute Philosopher," pride which perhaps went beyond the Butler's "Analogy," "Edwards on the limits of the warranted. An incident Will," were analysed point by point, occurs which in an hour of anguish ex- and debated with utmost warmth and torts from him a confession to that energy. "From these discussions, and effect. He was appointed, according to from reflection upon them, Sir James the College rules, to preach at Broad- learnt more as to principles (so he assured mead Chapel vestry, before the tutors Dr. Gregory), than from all the books and others. After proceeding for a he ever read." Classics were not negtime with facility, and much to the de-lected. The brother-students read much light of the auditory, he suddenly in Greek-Xenophon and Herodotus paused," covered his face with his hands, exclaimed, "Oh! I have lost all my ideas," and sat down, his hands still hiding his face. The failure, however, painful as it was to his tutors, and humiliating to himself, was such as rather augmented than diminished their persuasion of what he could accomplish if once he acquired self-possession. He was, therefore, appointed to speak again, on the same subject, at the same place, the ensuing week. This second attempt was accompanied by a second failure, still more painful to witness, and still more grievous to bear. He hastened

being their favourites in history, and Plato in philosophy. From this their habit, which was well known in the University, it was rot uncommon for their fellow-students to point at them as they walked out in company, and say,

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There go Pluto and Herodotus." Their admiration of each other was cordial and unfaltering-all the more genuine and impregnable for the many stiff contests in argument which it had survived. Sir James never failed in after life, to bear the highest testimony to the unrivalled excellencies of his friend, and Mr. Hall always maintained that

Mackintosh, of all the men of modern times, possessed the intellect which most resembled that of Bacon. Twenty years after this, when the powerful mind of Hall had undergone a temporary eclipse, his friend, then the Recorder of Bombay, hearing of his affliction wrote to him a characteristic and very beautiful letter, from which our space will admit of only a few extracts:

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It is not given to us to preserve an exact medium. Nothing is so difficult as to decide how much ideal models ought to be combined with experience; how much of the future should be let in to the present, in the progress of the human mind. To ennoble and purify, without raising above the sphere of our usefulness; to qualify us for what we ought to seek, without unfitting us for that to which we must submit; are great and difficult problems, which can be but imperfectly solved.

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It is certain the child may be too

Bombay, Sept. 21, 1805. 'MY DEAR HALL-I believe that in the hurry of leaving England, I did not answer the letter which you wrote to me in December, 1803. I did not, how-manly, not only for his present enjoyever, forget your interesting young friend. ments, but for his future prospects. from whom I have had one letter, from Perhaps, my good friend, you have Constantinople, and to whom I have fallen into this error of superior natures. twice written at Cairo, where he now is. From this error has, I think, arisen that No request of yours could, indeed, be calamity with which it has pleased lightly esteemed by me. Providence to visit you, which, to a mind less fortified by reason and religion, I should not dare to mention, but which I really consider in you as little more than the indignant struggles of a pure mind with the low realities which surround it-the fervent aspirations after regions more congenial to it- and a momentary blindness, produced by the fixed contemplation of objects too bright for human vision. I may say, in this case, in a far grander sense than in which the words were originally spoken by our great poet,

It happened to me a few days ago, in drawing up (merely for my own use) a short sketch of my life, that I had occasion to give a faithful statement of my recollection of the circumstances of my first acquaintance with you. On the most impartial survey of my early life, I could see nothing which tended so much to excite and invigorate my understanding, and to direct it towards high, though, perhaps, scarcely acces sible objects, as my intimacy with you. Five and twenty years are now past since we first met, yet hardly anything has occurred since which has left a deeper or more agreeable impression on my mind. I now remember the extraordinary union of bright fancy with acute intellect, which would have excited more admiration than it has done, if it had been dedicated to the amusement of the great and the learned, in- | stead of being consecrated to the far more noble office of consoling, instructing, and reforming the poor and the forgotten.

"It was then too early for me to discover that extreme purity, which in a mind pre-occupied with the low realities of life, would have been no natural companion of so much activity and ardour, but which thoroughly detached you (alluding to Mr. Hall's mental aberration) from the world, and made you an inhabitant of regions where alone i is possible to be always active without impurity, and where the ardour of your sensibility had unbounded scope amidst the inexhaustible combinations of beauty and excellence.

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and yet

The light which led astray was light from Heaven. On your return to us, you must surely have found consolation in the only terrestrial produce which is pure and truly exquisite-in the affections and attachments you have inspired, which you were most worthy to inspire, and which no human pollution can rob of their heavenly nature. If I were to prosecute the reflections, and indulge the feelings which at this moment fill my mind, I should soon venture to doubt, whether for a calamity derived from such a source, and attended with such consolations, I should so far yield to the views and opinions of men, as to seek to condole with you. But I check myself, and exhort you, my most worthy friend, to check your best propensities, for the sake of attaining their object. You cannot live for men, without living with them. Serve God, then, by the active service of men. Contemplate more the good you can do, than the evil you can only lament.

"Let me hear from you soon and

often. Farewell, my dear friend. Yours ever, most faithfully,

would be quite of a peculiar type. On the other hand there were many simple JAMES MACKINTOSH." and satisfied Christians, whose demands Long before Hall's studies had ter- were very different. Now, Mr. Hall minated at Aberdeen, he was invited to had been accused at Bristol of looseness become assistant minister with Dr. of doctrine. He had been declared a Caleb Evans, over the Baptist Church, Socinian. He was, too, held to be no Broadmead, Bristol. He accepted their Baptist, because he held liberal, "laticall, on condition that he should still tudinarian," views on the subject of pursue his studies during the college baptism and strict communion. The session. This time, Mackintosh having co-relation was, as it proved, most opnow quitted the University, he devoted portune. The doubting people of Camentirely, and with utmost assiduity, to bridge hailed with joy their new minsubjects more immediately congruous ister's arrival. "Thinking themselves with the sacred office he had assumed. liberal and unshackled, they could not The Greek language, Moral Philosophy, but congratulate one another that their Church History, Biblical Criticism new pastor, a man of splendid talents, (such as it then was), and Theology was almost as liberal and unshackled as proper, were specially embraced. On they were." But this apparent harhis return to Bristol, he had a mind mony in free-thinking led to an issue richly furnished, powerful, and intensely little contemplated. It is said that the active, and capable with facility to moral condition of the Church acting marshal all its forces for combined upon the genuine heart and acute senaction whenever required. His preach-sibilities of their young minister, led ing at once attracted attention. Men to the adoption of a modified creed. were not long in learning that a great" Their want of devotional seriousness, mind and a genial heart poured forth their treasures from that pulpit. From far and near, rich and poor poured in to listen to his eloquence. Although he was at this time only twenty-one years of age, in three months after his settlement he undertook the duties of classical tutor at the academy where formerly he had been a pupil, and these, for more than five years, he discharged with credit and success.

In 1790, Mr. Hall was invited to succeed Mr. Robinson at Cambridge. Robinson's name is well known as that of one who for many years filled the first place amongst Nonconformist evangelical preachers, and who had gradually inclined, and at last entirely conformed to, the form of Unitarian doctrine taught in those days by Dr. Priestley. It has been said that no man in that section of the church to which Mr. Hall belonged, could have been thought of as a fit successor to Mr. Robinson, and that no other congregation in the body could present an adequate field for Mr. Hall's peculiar and distinguished powers. Mr. Robinson had been a daring speculator in theology, and being a man of superior endowments, estimable character, and winning address, he had managed to lead along with him into the fields of free and doubting thought many of those who attended his ministry. These, now, required a man whose preaching

by the force of contrast, heightened his estimate of the value of true piety; and this produced an augmented earnestness and fidelity, which they first learnt to tolerate, and afterwards to admire."

Mr. Hall's ministry at Cambridge embraced a period of fourteen years, during which his popularity and usefulness steadily advanced. The attraction of his genuis penetrated beyond the conventional boundaries of sects. University men, from undergraduates to heads of colleges, attended his chapel. Extraordinary events gave occasion for extraordinary displays of his powers. The French Revolution called forth his "Apology for the Freedom of the Press." The excesses, again, of the irreligious democracy which subsequently had such disastrous prevalence in France, and spread itself over England, stirred his mind to write the eloquent and magnificent sermon on Modern Infidelity." The general thanksgiving which followed on the Peace of Amiens brought forth his "Reflections on War." When that peace was again suddenly broken by Napoleon, Mr. Hall preached at Bristol his sermon on "the Sentiments proper to the present Crisis." Either of these productions would be sufficient to create a wide and lasting reputation.

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The excruciating pain in the back, under which he had at intervals laboured from very boyhood, about this time