we have made prisons healthy and airy, to make them odious and austere-engines of punishment, and objects of terror.

In this age of charity and of prison improvement, there is one aid to prisoners which appears to be wholly overlooked; and that is, the means of regulating their defence, and providing them witnesses for their trial. A man is tried for murder, or for house-breaking or robbery, without a single shilling in his pocket. The nonsensical and capricious institutions of the Engfish law prevent him from engaging counsel to speak in his defence, if he had the wealth of Croesus; but he has no money to employ even an attorney, or to procure a single witness, or to take out a subpoena. The Judge, we are told, is his counsel;this is sufficiently absurd; but it is not pretended that the Judge is his witness. He solemnly declares that he has three or four witnesses who could give a completely different colour to the transaction; but they are 60 or 70 miles distant, working for their daily bread, and have no money for such a journey, nor for the expense of a residence of some days in an Assize town. They do not know even the time of the Assize, nor the modes of tendering their evidence if they could come. When every thing is so well marshalled against him on the opposite side, it would be singular if an innocent man, with such an absence of all means of defending himself, should not occasionally be hanged or transported; and accordingly we believe that such things have happened. Let any man, immediately previous to the Assizes, visit the prisoners for trial, and see the many wretches who are to answer to the most serious accusations, without one penny to defend themselves. If it appeared probable, upon inquiry, that

* From the Clonmell Advertiser it appears, that John Brien, alias Captain Wheeler, was found guilty of murder at the late assizes for the county of Waterford. Previous to his execution he made the following confession.

I now again most solemnly aver, in the presence of that God by whom I will soon be judged, and who sees the secrets of my heart, that only three, viz. Morgan Brien, Patrick Brien, and my unfortunate self, committed the horrible crimes of murder and burning at Ballygarron, and that the four unfortunate men who have before suffered for them, were not in the smallest degree accessary to them. I have been the cause for which they have innocently suffered death. I have contracted a debt of justice with them-and the only and least restitution I can make them, is thus publicly, solemnly, and with death before my eyes, to acquit their memory of any guilt in the crimes for which I shall deservedly suffer !!!'-Philanthropist, No. 6.

309.

Pereunt et imputantur.

these poor creatures had important evidence which they could not bring into Court for want of money, would it not be a wise application of compassionate funds, to give them this fair chance of establishing their innocence? It seems to us no bad finale of the pious labours of those who guard the poor from ill treatment during their imprisonment, to take care that they are not unjustly hanged at the expiration of the term.

ART. III. Substance of Lectures on the Ancient Greeks, and on the Revival of Greek Learning in Europe. By the late ANDREW DALZEL, A. M. F. R. S. E. Professor of Greek in the University of Edinburgh. 2 Vols. pp. 904. Constable & Co., Edinburgh.

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HERE is not a wider difference in all nature, than between those who read to learn, and those who consume their whole lives and opportunities in learning to read. Yet there are no two classes of beings more constantly confounded with each other. The world often makes the mistake,-and the parties in question always. The merest hacks and drudges in the cause, those who tussle for the goat's wool,-the Stocks and Bardi of alternate annotation,-the lords of Antispast and friends to Double-dochmee, --the running footmen who are meant to clear the path, but oftener stumble and incumber it,— are always, like Pussy's master in the fairy-tale, endeavouring to play the Marquis; and, by dint of large words and local knowledge, too frequently succeed.

It is deplorable that this should be the case; but it need not astonish us. So much importance attaches to preliminary discipline, when it is to lead to noble ends,-it is so essential to make the basis sound if you would have the superstructure beautiful,-that our eyes are sometimes fixed upon initial operations, and mistake for architects the spade and dibble-men, who are only set to grub round the bottom of the fabric from their sheer incapability for rising higher. Thus pedantry grows famous, and impotence looks strong; while real learning and genuine vigour are hardly recognised, or stinted of their praise.

This stain has adhered, with peculiar tenacity, to the department of Classical Literature. During the first dawnings of returning light which broke in upon the ages of darkness; -when an Aretinus or Chrysoloras in one quarter, were recovering for an astonished world the sublimity of Homer and the eloquence of Cicero,-and Erigena, THE SCOT, in another, was kindling the torch of science on the banks of the Isis;-it was

natural enough that the merits of comment, conjecture and transcription, and all the turns and varieties of verbal criticism, should be rated far beyond their worth. Words, for the time, were of more actual value than things:-every page, every sentence, that bore the impress of antiquity, brought a fresh accession of light, and a new stimulant of ambition to mankind. There was an impulse of universal improvement which letters accelerated instead of retarding. Even in those days, Barlaamus trained the genius of Petrarch,-Leontius was the teacher of Boccace,-and the grammatical writings of Gaza teemed with truths, which were to instruct and benefit, at a later epoch, the philosophic author of Hermes. Men much inferior to these enjoyed a great, though transient, reputation. That a being of the same form and dimensions as themselves should know a gamma from a tau,-decipher manuscripts, and unriddle contractions,-formed the wonder and delight of crowds. Unfortunately, the effects of such a state of things remained long after the cause had ceased to operate. The mantle of the Scholiasts fell upon the Monks; and they transmitted it, with all its virtue, to the pedants of future generations. Classical learning was long a species of hereditary slavery; and the sons of the bondswoman gloried in their chains. It is under this sort of oppression that men forget the use of their understandings: they are more solicitous to show what they know than what they think:-they reason from memory, and speak in quotation. And wherever the babble of vain and trifling criticism is still received as a current dialect, or the elaborate freaks of monkish or classical absurdity are recognised as legitimate objects of veneration, we may rest assured that only too just a handle is afforded for the gibes of that scoffing race, who, struck with some of the monstrous follies that have grown out of Ancient Literature, have proceeded to decry it altogether, as wholly useless or irrational.

It is very recently, indeed, that improved judgment and riper sense have been permitted to do away with some of these excrescences in the most celebrated nurseries of Ancient Learning. In that University, especially, which is considered as the peculiar patroness and guardian of Classical Knowledge, a system of Education is at length pursued, better calculated than any which has hitherto been known, to attain the true end and object of the studies there encouraged. Even there, however, there are still left some vestigia ruris-some relics of imperfection or absurdity. The rudiments of Mathematics are still the height of the student's attainment; and the barbarisms of the monkish logic have not yet. been hounded from the schools. But it must be conceded to ŎxVOL. XXXV. No. 70.

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ford, that her general course of classical instruction is now conducted on a very liberal and enlightened plan. Conscious at last that it is not the grand or ultimate aim of Education to turn out. into the world shoal upon shoal of small commentators or literary Eadys, and that there is something better in human knowledge than even Bentley or Scaliger ever reached, she labours to form in her pupils, as far as classical tuition can do it, the elements of accomplished scholarship and liberal ambition. She may safely appeal to the public examinations for honours, as a striking test of the justice of this eulogium. The Examiners are, in many instances, men of enlarged views and considerable talent and the candidate for distinction must have something more than glossary learning or a faithful memory, to obtain the laurel at their hands. The dictates of Aristotle and Plato are no longer to be stated as authoritative truths: -the Examinee must have analysed their systems with a good deal of sceptical rigidity, compared them with the advanced state of Moral Science in modern times, and prepared himself to point out their inconsistencies and errors as well as their beauties. His views of Ancient History, in like manner, must not have been confined to a mere deglutition of dates and facts:-he must have philosophized upon the authors perused, and entered into the details of antiquity with somewhat of the spirit of political speculation. The general literature of Greece and Rome, to a pretty wide extent, must have been studied with similar views, -illustration, and a power of critical discernment, at least en passant, must be displayed; and the student must evince that he has felt as well as understood. The chief merit of this system appears to be, that though industry must necessarily have been united with talent to ensure success, stupid industry will very rarely be successful. A young man who has carried off the highest honours of the schools at Oxford, will not always be a finished scholar, and not often an Encyclopædia of general information; but he will be found with quite enough of critical scholarship for the most learned avocations, with his mind in a proper state of ferment and anxiety for further knowledge,— and with an expansion of intellect, and a maturity of taste, which, less than twenty years ago, we might have looked for in vain as the fruits of University instruction.

If our readers could understand the thorough satisfaction with which we pay this tribute to the present state of classical discipline at Oxford, they would comprehend with how much justice we have been sometimes accused of wishing ill to that famous University. Even that malignant dulness which formerly took so much pains to misrepresent, in order to revile

our spirit towards the Body it continues to disgrace, might learn to blush for its poor perversions and witless insincerity. Such faults as still adhere to a system so much improved, are not to be denied with paltry equivocation, or defended with obstinate folly. They must be REFORMED;—and none will hail, with greater joy than ourselves, the arrival of a time when we may admire without winking, and applaud without reserva

tion.

It is under such an aspect as we have been describing,-só purged of pedantry, and so directed to great and liberal ends, -that Classical Learning may hope to obtain a wider diffusion than it enjoys at present in our part of the Island, and that we can cordially and conscientiously wish to see it so diffused. As far as Roman Literature is concerned, Scotland has always maintained a very exalted character. Our Southern neighbours have few scholars who would have ranked with our lamented Gregory, and not one name to match with Buchanan. But the higher and more hallowed fountains from which all Roman Literature flowed, have been less eagerly visited, and less carefully explored. Perhaps the reasons are obvious enough which have obstructed, and, comparatively speaking, prevented the progress of Greek Learning among us. They are to be found, partly in the nature of our Church Establishment, and partly in the forms of our Academical tuition. In England, the Church is the main support, and her munificent endowments form the final cause, of learning. A fair proficiency in Greek is required at the very entrance of her pale,-and then among her Stalls, and Mitres, and fat Benefices, and other comfortable things, the few which are every now and then be stowed upon real merit and attainments, operate in a wide circle as vouchers to Hope, and spurs to Industry. With us, on the other hand, for wise reasons, and with effects, though in a different way, to the full as beneficial, the ecclesiastical profession is stripped of all those splendid and substantial attractions which incite the ardour of Southern divines. To rise, by virtue of that sacred title, a few steps above the rank in which he may have been born, in order to exercise, with more effect, the purest Christian zeal, and the most truly pastoral care, is within the ambition of every man,—while to soar, by dint of genius or labour, to lofty station and lucrative preferment, is beyond the reach of any. Hence the very general distribution of knowledge to a certain degree of excellence, and, at the same time, the extreme rarity of every thing approaching to perfection. Men cannot be expected to undergo the requisite toil without the prospect, or at least the chance, of proportionate advantage.

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