1829.] The London University Magazine. the soi-disant "man" of the soi-disant "University" looks down upon the even "well-instructed schoolboy;" for it appears, in p. 60, that, in imitation of the regular Universities, the London students do consider themselves "men." Now, if "the memory of man," above appealed to, mean the memory of a University "man," the statement respecting the Magazines is in great measure correct; but, if the experience of a man of older growth be called in testimony, then it is decidedly far otherwise. The truth is, that Magazines were formerly miscellanies of instructive, useful, or curious information, and it is of latter years that (with the exception of your own, which, as it was the first, so it is the last of its kind,) they have degenerated into those mixtures of trashy tales, unmeaning essays, and reasonless rhymes. I can take as a striking example (and without offence, as it is now defunct,) the European Magazine. This was commenced in 1782, on the model of the Gentleman's, and was for many years supplied with much valuable matter. In the latter part of its career, however, the tales and rhymes continued to encroach upon its pages, until it became little else but rhymes and tales; when, after many changes, and after having been diluted into two streams, the subsequent rejunction of which did not restore its former strength, it at last merged into the Monthly, and its name soon totally disappeared. The same has been the change of Magazines in general; though it must be allowed that in the light articles which form their principal contents, there are various degrees of merit, and many very superior to those under which the poor European was overwhelmed. With regard to Reviews, the essayist proceeds: "the Reviews of the same period were equally deficient; a meagre analysis of the work, a character of it drawn up like some of the ordinary booksellers' puffs, and sometimes one or two general observations, constituted the substance of their articles." It may be replied, again, that the old Reviews, in accordance with their name, frequently gave good analyses of works, and particular as well as "general" observations; whilst the present more commonly are merely general essays, taking the subjects in 411 deed of books, but not the books themselves, for their theses. Of the cockney buffoonery which follows, about the blue-and-yellow being met by the drab-colour," and the flourishing about "the Edinburgh knocking out brains like a Cherokee, and cutting to pieces with a butcher's hatchet," of "blue-and-yellow meeting with a rough customer, and drab-colour being sure of escaping at the worst with a ducking,"-of such stuff as this there is too much to notice further than by remarking that it is all very extravagant, very vulgar, and better suited for the language of a waterman's apprentice than a scholar. Having dogmatised in the plenitude of his "memory of man," respecting Magazines and Reviews, the essayist next puts the sage question, "Who dreams of asking whether Milton and Shakspeare were Whigs or Tories?" Who, indeed? But, should a teasing Professor happen to moot this puzzling point, depend upon it, my "man,' you may safely answer that Milton was as obstinate a Whig as old Homer, and Shakspeare quite as good a Tory as ever was Virgil himself. The next question, "Did they attend the church or the meeting-house," is perhaps equally absurd; but to lend it a little seriousness, the essayist may be told that it is an important point to know that Milton had no great affection for the Church, as all acquainted with his works will allow. On the commonplaces of the remainder of the paper I will not detain you further; but will only remark that, after this uninviting prelude, the number, with a characteristic mixture of impertinence and premature confidence (for which an essay on the study of the Law is conspicuous), contains some articles useful in their way, particularly in that department in which the College has most distinguished itself-the study of anatomy. H. 412 Speculations on Literary Pleasures-Geology. luge; and it must be granted that the lower we descend into its internal stratification, the more light will probably be evolved upon the subject of these changes. And here it may be said, that Dr. Woodward has not, among others, altogether without reason ad vocated the doctrine of central fires smothered up in vast unknown caverns of the "great abyss," although his doctrine of an igneous fluid in the shape of fire-damp, and subtle vapour, which is constantly ascending and oozing through the fissures and clefts of its solid parts to its upper surface, may be thought somewhat an ingenious refinement of imagination. On the other hand, the positions of Burnet, Woodward, Whitehurst, and their followers, are certainly favoured and supported by certain phenomena in practical geology. It has always, and with reason, been thought that the circumstance of the fossil remains of animals imbedded deep in the bowels of the earth, indicate another and a very different arrangement of things to have formerly existed. Indeed the fact seems inexplicable upon any other hypothesis, than one of the complete diluvial dissolution of the terraqueous globe, were it not recollected, on the other hand, that the waters of the primitive chaos once equally covered the face of the globe. As is remarked by the ingenious author of "Celtic Researches," these same depositions may date their origin from an event of many centuries higher than the æra of the Deluge. The extraordinary and unaccountable deposits of the bones of marine animals in the heart of mountains, and at the bottom of deep mines, is nevertheless well calculated to stimulate the research of the curious. The fact has been well attested by numerous investigators in almost every age; and the researches of Dr. G. Brocchi, an active and intelligent naturalist, may be cited to prove, that not only the cetaceous tribes and remains of marine animals, but also the animals of tropical regions and of another hemisphere, have been found in European soils. The remains of great whales existing, not only in detached bones, but in entire skeletons, have been found; we have his authority for the fact, in Tuscany, in the territory of Bologna, in Piedmont, and in the neighbourhood of Feltre, a country situated about 1200 feet above [Nov. the level of the sea. Near Castell Argnato, in the territory of Placentia, a skeleton was found nearly entire. The jaw-bone of a dolphin, quite petrified, was also dug up in the same soils.→ Some of these bones found in the territory of Placentia and Valdarno Inferiore, had oyster-shells encrusted around them; a fact which clearly proves them to have lain long in the bed of the ocean in the same state in which they were discovered. Targioni, according to Dr. Brocchi, calcu lates the number of elephants' bones dug up in Valdarno Superiore, in his time alone, equal to twenty entire skeletons; in which territory it is also common to find the bones of the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, and the stag. "Among all the phenomena of geology," says this active investigator, "there is none more wonderful than this, that it is not unusual to find, in these districts of Italy, the remains of great animals which now inhabit the torrid zone." Webb, the intelligent commentator on M. Paun, exclaims, we recollect, upon a statistical survey of the western hemisphere, "That all the natives of America from Cape Horn to the northern extremity of Hudson's Bay, should be of one colour, while the natives of Africa and Asia differ in every variety of shade, according to the latitude, is a phenomenon, which defeats the pride of philosophy, and the triumphs of system." Equally puzzling to the ingenuity of naturalists, it may be exclaimed with Dr. Brocchi, "is it to those who on this subject bewilder themselves in a labyrinth of conjectures, to imagine how the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the hippopotamus, should be found buried together in the climate of Italy." It is indeed, therefore, it may be added, unimaginable how animals of the torrid and the frigid zones should find sepulture in the same soils, except upon an hypothesis somewhat similar to that already noticed of the utter disrupture of the terraqueous globe. But it will here still strike the observer, on the other hand, that, as Davis pertinently remarks, "Moses describes the branches of the river of Eden, which had existed from the Creation, by their names and courses, as known in his own time; that certain remains of the antediluvians may have suggested to Nim rod and his associates the idea of mak 1829.] Speculations on Literary Pleasures-Geology. ing bricks and erecting the Tower of Babel (as without some leading hint, we can hardly conceive that mankind were then in an apt situation to embrace so vast a design,) and that the trees or the powers of vegetation were not wholly eradicated, as is plainly indicated from the circumstance of the dove returning to Noah in the ark with an olive leaf plucked off." These things, with some others, it must be owned, strongly neutralize any hypothesis which assumes that the bed of the old ocean now forms the continents and islands of the postdiluvian world. But there is yet a field indefinite and unexplored in extent, and rich in material, to exercise the activity of both M. Cuvier and Professor Buckland (whose second part of the "Reliquiæ Diluvianæ," now preparing for publication, will, it is presumed, contain a summing up, or set of corollaries deduced from the very interesting series of inquiries contained in his first part.) Thus also it may be said, on the other hand, that the theories or the researches of Burnet (notwithstanding the extravagancies of this gentleman), of Woodward, of Whiston, of Whitehurst, of La Place, of Hutton, of Cuvier, and of Buckland, have had their respective shares in discovering truth, and (like the inquiries and speculations of Des Cartes, Malebranche, Locke, Berkeley, Hartley, Priestley, Baxter, Price, Hutcheson, Kaimes, Condillac, and a host of others, in the philosophy of the human mind,) have tended to throw an increase of light upon scientific researches. This appears plain, and the light which has followed the footsteps of some explorers, ought to stimulate the investigations of others. The Baconian system seems of late invoked to subserve the purposes of geology; and although the work of examining, after the manner of Werner and other geognosts, all the substrata of our globe would be clearly infinite and impracticable, yet vague theory is no longer admitted without being built upon an experimental basis. But we leave these subterranean regions of our globe, with their relations, on which a portion of our attention has been for some time employed; and in quitting the precincts of Geology, interesting as some of its details must be allowed to be, may observe, aliuding to the position of Reid, noticed 413 above, that much yet remains to be 414 Speculations on Literary Pleasures-Geology. to have furnished Hume's hypothesis, will with incomparably more readiness be tempted to exclaim, in the language of Maclaurin, the celebrated commentator on Sir Isaac Newton, that "the philosopher who overlooks the traces of an all-governing Deity, in Nature, contenting himself with the appearances of the material universe only, and the mechanical laws of motion, neglects what is most excellent, and prefers what is imperfect to what is supremely perfect, finitude to infinity, what is narrow and weak (alluding to human reason) "to what is unlimited and almighty, and what is perishing to what endures for ever." "Natura nihil aget frustra," says the intelligent author of the Religio Medici,' is the only indisputable axiom in philosophy. There are," he continues, "no grotesques in nature, not any thing framed to fill up empty cantons and unnecessary spaces. The experimentalist, who unceasingly watches the results of the laboratory; the naturalist, who explores Nature at home and in distant climes,-whose attenuated sight detects the subtlety of her complicated forms,-these are the individuals who will most readily subscribe to the truth of Sir Thomas Browne's position. These, above all others, will most readily subscribe to the wisdom and matchless economy of the laws and operations which sustain her works throughout all parts of Nature's dominions. Hume, or Boyle, with the multitude of disciples of this class, who, like them, favour the doctripes of the Pyrrhonists and Epicureans, may comment upon the disorder and chaos which reigns with wild confusion in the visible universe; but their cavils argue a blindness of view, and a superficiality of research. Who would not rather say in the language of the very learned Archbishop King, in his chapter "Concerning Natural Evil," "Since our planetary system is incomprehensible to us, much more will the fabric of the whole universe appear to be so; but as far as we understand the disposition of it, all is elegant and beautiful." We do not, more than in the researches of Geology, wish to enter deep within the precincts of a discussion wherein the great questions in Natural Theology, of the fitness, congruity, and adaptation of the various parts of creation to their probable ends, [Nov. are involved. Your pages, Mr. Ur ban, are manifestly not the vehicle for such inquiries. But of Hume, and a thousand of his successors and predecessors, of the sceptical philosophy, though of inferior powers, it may be complained, that on subjects which might well forgive the expanding glow of enthusiasm, a cold misanthropy, which narrows the scope and breadth of their reasoning postulates, usually pervades their arguments. A disingenuousness, likewise, may be predicated of these gentlemen, in not always admitting the full evidence which might be urged against their own hypothesis, and which tends to throw over their postulates a colouring of sophistry which begets suspicion. Hume was unquestionably a philosopher of a cool head and patient investigation in these matters; but "sceptical doubts" had so tinctured the medium through which he viewed at once, morals, metaphysics, and the doctrine of final causes, that a pervading apathy seemed to attach to his most logical arguments, and a fasti dious and querulous pride of reason, sometimes, threw over his positions an aspect of impiety. This is abundantly evident in his speculations concerning "Providence and a Future State." He here labours to establish the position that we are not warranted in ascribing to Deity any attributes of which we have not had a precise experience; and remarks," the Deity is known to us only by his productions, and is a single being in the universe, not comprehended under any species or genus from whose experienced attributes or qualities we can, by analogy, infer any attribute or quality in him." But the ingenuous mind will still rather incline to favour the all-constraining doctrine which a wide survey of the illimitable extent, grandeur, and variety of the visible creation forces upon him; and will use the train of argument with which the same learned prelate, already cited, proceeds to en lighten his subject. You'll say," he proceeds, in his third chapter," that some things might have been better; but, since you do not understand the whole, you have no right to affirm thus much. We have much greater reason to presume that no one part of it could be changed for the better, without greater detriment to the rest. That is a foolish objection, therefore, of 1829.] ·Speculations on Literary Pleasures-Geology. the Epicurean Lucretius, that the world owes not its original to a Divine power and goodness, because mountains, woods, and rocks, large fens and the ocean, cover so great a share of it; that the burning heat of the torrid zone, and the eternal frost of the two frigid, take up almost two parts of it, since the sea, rocks, winds, and mountains, are not entirely useless in their present situation; for this was requisite for the good of the whole of the universe, and the order of the mundane system." The closer, indeed, our search, the more attenuated and subtle our inquiries into the minute and ramified arcana of animate existence; the more, perhaps (may we not say indubitably) are the marks of wisdom and contrivance developed. A universe of being lies beneath our unassisted vision, whose wonders rise, ab infra, upon our astonished senses, the more skilfully we perfect our artificial instruments of discovery. One of the scep tical school might, it is true, explore the book of Nature, as displayed by the microscope, without detecting from its details much that could warm him to enthusiasm, or prompt his devotion. But it is impossible for one of a more liberal and kindly temperament to examine this page of its minuter details, and be equally callous,-not to detect the irrefragable marks of consummate wisdom and of final end. Tully, amongst the ancients, seemed eminently alive to such feelings, when, in the second book of his "De Nat. Deorum," he examines the human structure, and its adaptation to the economy of life and nature. Boyle and Pascal each studied nature in her details, in that frame of mind that, while her thousand aspects, the innumerable and complex order of her forms, were recognized, they subserved each and all of them to feelings of elevated piety. Those ingenious naturalists, Derham and Ray, and their immediate successors (whose researches, at once, and whose pious temperament were the archetype of our countryman Paley, which last, with not more learning, though perhaps with more comprehensiveness of style and sentiment, went over the same ground,)-contemplated a deity through the immensity and exquisite arrangement of his works. And it is impossible to consider the labyrinths of the almost inconceivably minute economy which nature displays, 415 as unfolded, amongst others, by the learned author of Micrographia 11lustrata," without acknowledging that the mines of her varied treasures are unfathomable. But it is the greater scenes of Nature which absorb the energies of the soul, with perhaps the most astounding eloquence. And here, if those who have sought to trace her in the minuter details of her economy,-who have contemplated the inconceivably subtle forms under which she arrests the notice, and elicits the wonder of the mind through the senses, are often constrained to give utterance to their astonishment,-the traveller to all the climes under heaven feels his curiosity stimulated and awed in a tenfold degree. From the days of Hesiod, the philosophic poet of early Greece, to the intelligent and invigorated researches of these latter days, the admirable arrangement and magnificent structure of Nature has arrested every intelligent beholder. Minute, or passing bound! in each extreme, "Devotion! daughter of Astronomy!"What mind, unmoved by thoughts intense, and ideas deep and complicated, can view the mighty volume of these bright millions of the night, Of which the least full Godhead had proclaim'd, And thrown the gazer on his knee." But without wandering in imagination amidst the immeasurable spaces |