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sation of time may be transmitted along with the elements of language; and the great cerebellum of the metropolis may thus constrain by its sympathies, and regulate by its power, the whole nervous system of the empire.

mighty sarcophagi of the brutes that perish.

It was to be expected, therefore, that the sciences of Geology, Zoology, and Botany, should be most carefully and completely treated of in such a work as this. They In the other departments of the useful form, indeed, the key to the hieroglyphics arts where profound science is called into of the ancient world; they enable us to exercise, we have the articles on Arch, reckon up its almost countless periods; to Carpentry, and Centre, River, Roofs, replace its upheaved and dislocated strata; Strength of Materials, and Water-works, to replant its forests; to reconstruct the by Robison; Seamanship, by the same, products of its charnel-house; to repeople with a skilful supplement by Capt. B. Hall; its jungles with their gigantic denizens; to Bridges and Roads, by Young; Architec- restore the condors to its atmosphere, and ture and Building, both very able papers, give back to the ocean its mighty leviaby Mr. Hosking, Professor of Architecture thans. And such is the force with which in King's College, London; Breakwaters these revivals are presented to our judgand Docks, by Sir John Barrow; Ship- ment, that we almost see the mammoth, the building (by far the best Essay on the sub-megatherion, and the mastodon, stalking ject in the language,) by Mr. Creuze, of Portsmouth; Cotton Manufacture, by Mr. Bannatyne; Weaving and Woollen Manufacture, by Mr. Chapman, &c. &c.

over the plains or pressing through the thickets; the giant ostrich leaving its footwriting on the sands; the voracious ichthyosaurian swallowing the very meal. which its fossil ribs enclose; the monstrous plesiosaurus paddling through the ocean, and guiding its lizard-trunk, and rearing its swan-neck, as if in derision of human wisdom; and the ptero-dactyle, that mysterious compound of birds, and brutes, and bats, asserting its triple claim to the occu

Among the subjects that must enter largely into the composition of an Encyclopædia are those which constitute what may be called Terrestrial Physics, including the structure and physical history of our globe and of its atmosphere, and an account of the various organized bodies which it contains or produces. This spe-pancy of earth, ocean, and atmosphere. cies of knowledge is, generally speaking, In the elegant and comprehensive hismost fascinating. It requires little previ- tory of the ANIMAL KINGDOM, by Mr. ous preparation of the mind; it is associat- James Wilson, he adopts, as the principle ed with our wants and amusements, and upon which the various articles of Natural finds frequent and useful application in all History are to be treated, the scientific clasthe various conditions of life. Carrying sification of Cuvier, who divides the Anius back into the depths of time long be- mal Kingdom into four great classes: Verfore the dawn even of fabulous history, tebrate Animals, or those which have backmodern Geology has acquired an interest bones; Molluscous Animals, such as shellexceeding, perhaps, that of any other of fish and snails; Articulated Animals, such the physical sciences. Though her conclu- as earth-worms, lobsters, spiders, and insions have not the evidence of demonstra- sects; and Radiated Animals, such as startion, and are opposed to many of our early fish, intestinal worms, sea-nettles, corals, prejudices, yet they stand before us in the sponges, and infusory animalcules. In virgrandeur of truth, and have commanded tue of this arrangement the vertebrated anthe assent of the most pious and sober-imals are described under the heads ICHminded of our philosophers. They have THYOLOGY, MAMMALIA, ORNITHOLOGY, and lent, in fact, a new evidence to Revealed REPTILES; the molluscous animals under Religion; they have broken the arms of the skeptic; and when we ponder over the great events which they proclaim,-the mighty revolutions which they indicatethe wrecks of successive creations which they display-and the immeasurable cycles of their chronology-the era of man shrinks into contracted dimensions; his proudest and most ancient dynasties wear the aspect of upstart and ephemeral groups; the fabrics of human power, the gorgeous temple, the monumental bronze, the regal pyramid, sink into insignificance beside the

the article MOLLUSCA, written by a most distinguished naturalist, Dr. Fleming; the articulated animals under the heads of ARACHNIDES, CRUSTACEA, and ENTOMOLOGY; and the fourth class under the words ANIMALCULE, ECHINODERMATA, HELMINTHOLOGY, and ZOOPHYTES. The great body of these valuable treatises we owe to Mr. Wilson himself, and the rest were executed under his immediate superintendence, in order to give variety and symmetry to the whole system of natural knowledge. In connection with this branch of science we

may here mention the popular article on ANGLING, written by the same author;* and the articles HORSE, HORSEMANSHIP, HOUND, and HUNTING, from the pen of Mr. Apperley (Nimrod,) whose powers of blending amusement with instruction are well known to the readers of this journal. Among the productions of the natural world plants stand next to animals in their relation to the purposes of domestic life. The great botanist of our age, the late Sir James Edward Smith, drew up an interesting history of BOTANY and BOTANICAL SYSTEMS, which Dr. Walker Arnott has judiciously introduced into his valuable article on BOTANY; and the remarkable treatise on the anatomy and physiology of vegetables (enlarged by Professor Balfour,) we owe to the late Mr. Daniel Ellis, whose fine talents and philosophical cast of mind characterize this elaborate article.

The newest though not the least important of the natural sciences, namely GEOLOGY, with MINERALOGY as its handmaid, has been treated in a manner corresponding to its importance. The treatise on GEOLOGY was composed by Mr. John Phillips, a geologist of the first rank, and whose general knowledge added a new qualification for the task. We regard this essay as one of high merit, containing a systematic and philosophical view of the extensive subject of which it treats, while at the same time it is so perspicuous in its language, and so sober in its views, that the general reader cannot fail to peruse it with pleasure and satisfaction. The recent discoveries of Cuvier, Smith, Buckland, Sedgwick, Murchison, Conybeare, Lyell, Hibbert, Elie de Beaumont, Fourier, and Agassiz, are all brought before us in a condensed form; and by means of constant references to the original works we can appeal to them for any further details which may be desired. Of MINERALOGY it is enough to say that it is treated by Professor Jameson.

Under the head of terrestrial physics, already referred to, we may include AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, and METEOROLOGY, articles contributed by Mr. Cleghorn, Dr. Neill, Dr. Trail, and Sir John Leslie, and marked by the same industry and talent which characterize the more scientific department of the general subject.

From the physical sciences, the philosophy of matter, we must now turn to the philosophy of the mind-that science which

*This entertaining manual has been published separately, and was reviewed by us in connection with Mr. Colquhoun's 'Moor and Loch' about a year ago. 5

VOL. LXX.

has not yet taken its place within the domain of positive knowledge. It is impossible to read the interesting details of its history, to follow its ingenious and varied. speculations, and to weigh the conclusions at which its votaries have arrived, without endeavouring to estimate the value and extent of its acquisitions, and without fearing that a value too high has been placed upon them, and an extent too wide assigned them. The learned and beautiful dissertation of Dugald Stewart is peculiarly fitted to assist the student in this inquiry. We gaze with delight on the first dawnings of intellectual truth; we admire it as it brightens amid the clouds and storms of controversy; we follow it with straining eye till it is eclipsed in the superstition and darkness of the middle ages; we trace its revival amid the congenial gleams of literature and physical science; and we pursue it through all the lights and shadows of modern controversy, till our labouring reason abandons her pursuit amidst the 'cloud-capped metaphysics of the German school.' In this survey of its Own powers the mind is bewildered among conflicting opinions. The truths of one age appear to have been the errors of the next; the lights of one school become the bea cons of its rival; and amid the mass of ingenious speculation, and the array of ambiguous facts to which the inductive process can scarcely be applied, we seek in vain for distinct propositions and general laws. If that only can be called truth which we can compel a sound and unprejudiced mind to believe, we are driven to the conclusion that our intellectual philosophy cannot yet boast of the number of her achievements. Even in that department which relates to the functions and indications of the senses, where physical science comes powerfully to our aid, there is but little harmony among the opinions of our most distinguished metaphysicians; and many of those points which Reid and Stewart were considered to have placed beyond the reach of scepticism have been lately assailed with the keenest ingenuity by their own countryman, Dr. Thomas Brown. How much more difficult, then, must it be to establish incontrovertible truths when the phenomena are those of thought and consciousness, and the sole instrument of research by which we take cognizanco of them is the abstract power of reflection. In support of these views we may adduce the observation of Dr. Reid himself, that the system which is now generally received with regard to the mind and its operations derives not only its spirit from Descartes, but its fundamental principles; and that, after all the improvements made by

Malebranche, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, | placed it beyond a doubt that the Egyptian it may be called the Cartesian system.' In hieroglyphics were signs of sounds, and quoting this passage Mr. Stewart adds that had determined the phonetic signs of seven the part of the Cartesian system here allud- of the letters of the alphabet. Dr. Young, ed to, is the hypothesis, that the communica- however, did not perceive the whole value tion between the mind and external objects of this step: in consequence of his having is carried on by means of ideas or ima-limited his principle to foreign sounds he ges.

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was prevented from pursuing it to its results; and he thus left to M. Champollion the honour of illustrating and developing the discovery. The English philosopher, however, pushed his researches in a different direction, and succeeded in constructing an enchorial alphabet, and presenting it to the world in a state so complete, that but few additions have been made to it by his successors. These discoveries, with a full account of the labours of Champollion and others, are admirably expounded in the article HIEROGLYPHICS, which, with the exception of the 3d, 4th, and 5th sections by Dr. Young, was written by the late Dr. Browne. We owe to Dr. Young, also, the treatise on the affinity of languages, which forms the 2d section of the able article on Lan

But whatever estimate we may form of the nature and extent of our knowledge of mental phenomena, there can be only one opinion of the high interest and vast importance of the subject; and the treatises on its various branches in the Encyclopædia' will be found extremely valuable and instructive. In Dr. Hampden's lives of ARISTOTLE, PLATo, and SOCRATES-(though we cannot exactly place them on the same very high level with his article on Thomas Aquinas, in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana)-the student will obtain a clever and comprehensive view of the ancient philosophy; and in the articles on UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR, METAPHYSICS, and PHILOSOPHY, the two last of which were written by Bishop Gleig and Professor Robison, he will find the general sub-guage. ject discussed in its most important bearings, while the preliminary dissertation on metaphysical and ethical philosophy will place before him in ample detail an interesting history of the progress of opinion in these branches of knowledge.

In the circle of human knowledge HisTORY and BIOGRAPHY form one of the largest and most popular departments; and it is here that the peculiar advantages of encyclopædic instruction most strikingly appear. The histories of the various nations of the world, both ancient and modern, though written on different scales, and by a variety of hands, form, nevertheless, a body of universal history which a hundred separate volumes would not be able to supply. In this class of articles we find the most recent information, and we are able to read the events of our own time with a copiousness and minuteness of detail which we should look for in vain in the independent histories of European states.

The

The subject of general literature, including antiquities and the fine arts, has been treated in the Encyclopædia Britannica' in a manner not on the whole less satisfactory. The articles on CHIVALRY, DRAMA, and ROMANCE, by Sir Walter Scott, are worthy of that name. The last of those articles having been limited to romances of chivalry, it has been extended very ably by Mr. Moir, so as to embrace a critical account of the romances of the Great Novel ist himself, and others of anterior and sub-greater number of historical articles have sequent date. The treatise on BEAUTY by been composed by authors well known to Lord Jeffrey exhibits that intellectual pow- the public; and the History of SCOTLAND, er, elegant taste, and brilliant diction, by by Mr. Tytler, is not the only one that prewhich so many of his productions have been sents in a condensed form the results of distinguished. The treatises on Music by years of study devoted to a particular subMr. Grahame, on PAINTING by Mr. Haydon, ject. on POETRY by Mr. Moore, and on RHETO- The biographical department has also RIC by Mr. Spalding, are all skilful per- been elaborately prepared. Many very informances, not unworthy of being associ- teresting lives were written by Dr. Thomas ated with this masterly Essay. Young; the greater number of the articles But there is another department of gene-in classical and mythological biography ral literature almost of modern growth in which the Encyclopædia' may boast of its exclusive superiority. The discoveries of Dr. Thomas Young respecting hieroglyphics have been justly considered as among the highest achievements of modern learning. So early as 1818 our great countryman had

were composed by Mr. Ramage; and almost all the Scottish lives were re-composed by that well-read, modest veteran, Dr. David Irving. The memoirs of Schiller, Shakspeare, and Pope, by Mr. De Quincey, have been much admired as specimens of critical biography; and among

the scientific lives, many are hardly inferior to that of Leslie, from which we have already given an extract.

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and tropical luxuriance of life. For instancea single instance, indeed one which in itself is a world of new revelation--the possible beauty of the female character had not been seen as in a dream before Shakspeare called into perfect life the radiant shapes of Desdemona, of Imo

The English Opium-Eater's' Life of Shakspeare is a very curious performance, and might well deserve to be made the sub-gene, of Hermione, of Perdita, of Ophelia, of ject of a separate criticism. We, in fact, intend to take the author to task by and bye on several points; but in the mean time we willingly acknowledge that he has displayed much ingenuity and sharpness of logic in this singular tract, and are sure the specimen of it about to be quoted cannot fail to interest our readers :

Miranda, and many others. The Una of Spenser, earlier by ten or fifteen years than most of these, was an idealized portrait of female innocence and virgin purity, but too shadowy and unreal for a dramatic reality. And as to the Grecian classics, let not the reader imagine for an instant that any prototype in this field of Shakspearian power can be looked for there. The Antigone and the Electra of the tragic poets are the two After this review of Shakspeare's life it be-leading female characters that classical antiquity comes our duty to take a summary survey of his offers to our respect, but assuredly not to our works, of his intellectual powers, and of his sta- impassioned love, as disciplined and exalted in tion in literature, a station which is now irrevo- the school of Shakspeare. They challenge cably settled, not so much (which happens in our admiration, severe, and even stern; as imother cases) by a vast overbalance of favourable personations of filial duty, cleaving to the steps suffrages as by acclamation; not so much by the of a desolate and afflicted old man; or of sistervoices of those who admire him up to the verge under circumstances of peril, of desertion, and ly affection, maintaining the rights of a brother of idolatry, as by the acts of those who everywhere seek for his works among the primal neconsequently of perfect self-reliance. Iphigenia, cessities of life, demand them and crave them again, though not dramatically coming before as they do their daily bread; not so much by beautiful report of a spectator, presents us with us in her own person, but, according to the eulogy openly proclaiming itself, as by the silent homage recorded in the endless multiplication of a fine statuesque model of heroic fortitude, and what he has bequeathed us; not so much by his of one whose young heart, even in the very own compatriots, who, with regard to almost agonies of her cruel immolation, refused to forevery other author, compose the total amount of get, by a single indecorous gesture, or so much his effective audience, as by the unanimous "All as a moment's neglect of her own princely dehail" of intellectual Christendom: finally, not scent, that she herself was "a lady in the land." by the hasty partisanship of his own generation, These are fine marble groups, but they are not nor by the biased judgment of an age trained in the warm, breathing realities of Shakspeare; the same modes of feeling and of thinking with there is "no speculation" in their cold marble himself, but by the solemn award of generation eyes; the breath of life is not in their nostrils; succeeding to generation, of one age correcting throbbing in their bosoms. And besides this imthe fine pulses of womanly sensibility are not the obliquities or peculiarities of another; by the verdict of two hundred and thirty years which measurable difference between the cold moony have now elapsed since the very latest of his reflexes of life, as exhibited by the power of creations, or of two hundred and forty-seven Grecian art, and the true sunny life of Shakyears if we date from the earliest; a verdict speare, it must be observed that the Antigones which has been continually revived and re-open- of character, like the aloe with its single blosof the antique put forward but one single trait ed, probed, searched, vexed, by criticism in every som: this solitary feature is presented to us as spirit, from the most genial and intelligent, down to the most malignant and scurrilously whereas in Shakspeare all is presented in the an abstraction, and as an insulated quality; hostile which feeble heads and great ignorance concrete; that is to say, not brought forward in could suggest when co-operating with impure relief, as by some effort of an anatomical artist, hearts and narrow sensibilities; a verdict, in but embodied and imbedded, so to speak, as by short, sustained and countersigned by a longer the force of a creative nature, in the complex series of writers, many of them eminent for wit or learning, than were ever before congregated system of human life; a life in which all the ele upon any inquest relating to any author, be he ments move and play simultaneously, and with who he might, ancient or modern, Pagan or something more than mere simultaneity or co-exChristian. It was a most witty saying with istence, acting and re-acting each upon the other, respect to a piratical and knavish publisher, who nay, even acting by each other and through made a trade of insulting the memories of de- each other. In Shakspeare's characters is felt ceased authors by forged writings, that he was whole and in the whole, and where the whole for ever a real organic life, where each is for the among the new terrors of death." But in the is for each and in each. They only are real ingravest sense it inay be affirmed of Shakspeare, that he is among the modern luxuries of life; that life is a new thing, and one more to be coveted, since Shakspeare has extended the domain of human consciousness, and pushed its dark frontiers into regions not so much as dimly descried or even suspected before his time, far less illuminated (as now they are) by beauty

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carnations.'

Who can read such a passage as this without asking why the author has written

so little?

Many of the names which we have already noticed would of themselves furnish a

which we have already mentioned; and in
the splendid Museum of Natural History in
Paris he has preserved actual proofs of the
facts upon which this great generalization
is founded. Regarding every animated be-
ing as destined for a special purpose, and
pursuing this fundamental idea, he drew
the general conclusion that
every bone,
and fragment of a bone, bears the mark of
the class, order, genus, and even species, to
which it originally belonged. From these
simple truths have sprung all those fine dis-

sufficient guarantee that no noxious or of sciences which have made such rapid and fensive strain of sentiment was to intermin- sure progress as those of Comparative ANAgle in the work to which they lent their tal- TOMY, PHYSIOLOGY, and MEDICINE. The ents. The Editor is well known to be study of fossil remains, now the right hand strictly attached to the Whig side of poli- of geology, has given an impulse to comtics, but he had too much candour or saga- parative anatomy hitherto unknown. The city to think of making an Encyclopædia labours of Cuvier led the way in this spethe repository of party views. In the econo- cies of inquiry, which is now carrying on mical theories of some of his contributors, it with the most singular activity and success is impossible that we should concur from in every part of the world. Comparative one or two of them we differ widely-but anatomy, which had previously been an obwithout exception they seem to have drawn ject merely of curiosity and of occasional an elevating and purifying tone of mind research, became in Cuvier's hands the bafrom just and manly consideration of the sis of natural history and physiology, and nature of such a work as this, and composed the mainstay of geology. In his Leçons their several disquisitions in a calm and d'Anatomie Comparée,' a work in five volphilosophic spirit. The articles on LEGIS- umes, he has given the details upon which LATION and on the Laws and Government he formed the philosophical classification of England, by Mr. Empson, are equally distinguished by their ability and moderation; and Mr. M'Culloch has condensed a great mass of knowledge, which men of all parties should be glad to see so put to gether, in his POLITICAL ECONOMY, ExCHANGE, INTEREST, TAXATION, PAPER-MONEY, and PRINCIPLES OF BANKING. Mr. Malthus drew up the skilful compendium of his own views under the head of PoruLATION; Mr. Ricardo the lucid article on the FUNDING SYSTEM; and Mr. Mill brought all his usual resources to the Es-coveries and noble views respecting the says on COLONIES, ECONOMISTS, and PRISON DISCIPLINE. To Professor Napier we Owe an able article on the BALANCE of POWER. The subject of the English Poor Laws, which will probably for many years to come be a subject of contentious interest both in England and Scotland, has been treated in a very useful manner by Mr. Coode. The kindred subjects of General LAW and STATISTICS, the last of which has risen into great popularity as a science throughout every part of Europe, have also occupied a due share of attention. Three elaborate treatises on the Canon, Civil, and Feudal Law, have been contributed by Dr. Irving; the statistical article on the NAVY The Essays on Human and Comparative was drawn up by Sir John Barrow, whose ANATOMY, on SURGERY, and on VETERINAofficial position gave him the best opportu- RY MEDICINE, written by Dr. Craigie, Mr. nities for the task; and to the same hand we Miller, and Mr. Dick, are copious and inowe many of the most valuable topographi-structive; and in the article PHYSIOLOGY, cal and geographical articles in the work, among which that on CHINA may be specially mentioned. The greater number of the papers on European Geography and Statistics were written by Mr. Jacob, and the Asiatic articles by Mr. Buchanan: to Mr. Jacob we also owe the notices of the principal Counties, Cities, and Towns of England, and to the Rev. Edward Groves the corresponding series for Ireland.

There are, perhaps, none of the practical

successive creation and extinction of races of animals which give interest and grandeur to the science of geology. Nowhere have these researches been pursued with more ardour and success than in England; and, if we except the gigantic charnelhouse of fossil remains in Paris already mentioned, nowhere have collections of fossil osteology been more numerous and valuable. The splendid cabinet of the Earl of Enniskillen and Sir Philip Egerton, at Lewes, possesses a scientific interest which could only have been given to it by the knowledge and talents of such proprietors.

by Dr. Roget, the reader will find the elements of the science, and a full account of recent discoveries drawn up with admirable perspicuity. The articles on MEDICINE, PRACTICE of PHYSIC, and PATHOLOGY, written by Dr. William Thomson; on MENTAL DISEASES, by Dr. Poole; and on PoISONS, by Dr. Christison, &c., complete the circle of our knowledge on the healing art.

The last and the most interesting of the sciences which our limits permit us to no

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