admit of the full tide of the Rhine flowing freely through; and hence, from Brujen to Mayence, the river has still the appearance of an extensive lake, studded with numerous islands of remarkable verdure and beauty. A sail up or down this part of the river is one of much interest. A succession of the loveliest pictures passes before the eye. As we proceeded on our voyage on the occasion referred to, we discerned, through the vista formed by two of the islands we approached, a distant village, seemingly asleep on the bosom of the Rhine, its white gables and towering spires distinctly reflected in the still water, while far off, towards the extremity of the Rhinegan, stood up the little chapel on the rock, like a white spot lit up by the morning sun. In the foreground lay numerous graceful little boatcraft, with their white sails spread, freighted with gay parties, full of life and joy, all bound for St Rochus at Brujen. Fresh pictures, with new combinations, met the sight at every winding of the stream, or as we threaded our course among the green islands. We passed in succession Biberich, with the fine castle of the Duke of Nassau planted along the shore; Ellfeld, with its Gothic turrets and ancient watch-tower; Johannisberg Mount, the property of Prince Metternich, so famous for the wine it produces; Geissenheim, Rudesheim, and other villages; until at last we approached Brujen, and swept round the base of the lofty hill on which the church of St Rochus is reared. The face of the hill was alive with people, streamers and flags were flying, numerous tents were up, and repeated volleys of cannon from the heights boomed with sullen sound across the waters. The steamer rapidly disgorged its contents, and we ascended the steep hill at a great pace, to mingle with the crowd in attendance at the ceremonies. The road upwards was covered by a dense mass of people, all crushing and thronging up towards the chapel. There were men and women in all the varied costumes of the district for a hundred miles round. There were many lame, diseased, halt, and blind among the crowd, all come for their share of the sanctity that hovered round the remains of the long-departed saint. From all directions they poured in, up even the steepest sides of the hill, steadily converging upon the chapel-an humble building enough, crowned with a plain spire, which we now came in sight of. Each arrival of pilgrims was saluted with a fresh salvo of cannon. A row of booths was erected near to the chapel, where all sorts of coloured wax tapers, prayer-books, and manuals of devotion, rosaries, cheap crosses, and images, were exposed for sale; while for the more thirsty and less devout there was store of wine and beer; and for the children carraway cakes, peppermints, pastry, rattles, penny trumpets, and all sorts of playthings. We pressed into the chapel with the rest, and found a nearly square building, very lofty, crammed with visiters, all pressing on towards a point on the left, which, by slow process of squeezing and jostling, we at last neared, and there found, exposed in a long narrow box, under a glass lid, the bones of the holy St Rochus. They looked very old and decayed, but, by dint of careful polishing and bleaching, they had reached a state of almost dazzling whiteness. The large tibiæ, or bones of the leg, were in the most perfect state: the skull was crumbled into little pieces. Every one, as they came within reach of this coffin, touched it some with handkerchiefs, beads, and little crucifixes, which they afterwards passed over their faces and kissed-some kissed the coffin, then devoutly crossed themselves, and many, especially of the humbler peasant women, shed sweet tears over it. But new masses pressed in, and made a way for themselves-with decency, however, be it remarked-until we, with others, were borne along in the stream, and emerged again from the chapel by a side door. We still find fresh crowds of people arriving-they come now in processions, each having its divine effigy borne in the midst. All have their Virgin and child, not generally an artistical production, but abundantly decorated with spangles, ribbons, and flowers. It is evident the poor villagers have done their best. Four sweet little girls we see, clad in pure white dresses, carrying aloft on their shoulders an effigy of the Virgin, with the infant Saviour in her arms. And now comes the grand procession from Brujen up the hill, with banners, crosses, holy emblems, huge burning tapers, and images without number, with trombones, clarionets, and trumpets, accompanied by thousands of old and young voices, well tuned. In front we have an effigy of the holy St Rochus himself, in black velvet pilgrim garb, bordered with gold, beneath which peeps forth a little dog, with a piece of bread between his teeth Then follow boys and girls-the former in black, pilgrimhooded frocks, the latter in white, bare-headed, and hair braided. Then come the older men and women-peasants, burghers, and boatmen. The bishop himself next follows, gorgeously dressed in priestly raiment of white, red, and gold, under a gilded canopy, his dignitaries following him, together with Austrian soldiers and the chief men of the place. An immense body of the populace succeed; and still all had not collected, for the sound of new processions still arriving was again and again proclaimed by the firing of fresh volleys of cannon. At least twelve thousand people must have been upon the hill that glorious summer morning, at the feast of St Rochus. We need not detail the ceremonies of this day, so eventful to the people of the neighbourhood. The bishop and his train slowly enter the church, and there high mass is said in great ceremony, and by the aid of much musie from pealing organ and brazen-throated trombones. Then an open-air preaching succeeds, from the stone pulpit erected on the east side of the building, the multitude crowding, listening around, and covering the broad terrace formed on this side of the hill. The sermon over, the bishop again performed more ceremonies within the church; at length Te Deum was heard above the commotion; and the processions, after three or four hours' occupation, re-arranged themselves for their departure. The miscellaneous crowd then adjourned to the eating and drinking booths, where the savoury odour of frizzling sausages and sundry other good things soon made itself felt, amid much jingling of glasses of beer and Rhein-wine. We lingered on the hill, surveying the beautiful scenes which it exhibits on all sides. The hill of St Rochus commands the entire valley of the Rhinegan throughout its whole extent. The river, studded with its green islands, stretches away to the south as far as the eye can reach. The water, lying clear as a mirror, reflects sky, trees, boats, towns, and islets-a calm, fair, and lovely paradise-such a sight as perhaps cannot be surpassed on this earth. Close under your feet almost flows the river, now covered with boats and steamers, bearing away the pilgrims to their homes. Trace the river downwards, and you look into those dark mountain rifts through which the Rhine plunges angrily to the ocean. Situated on a projecting cliff, you discern the once-proud Castle of Ehrenfels, and below it, almost in the centre of the now rushing stream, you see the lonely Mouse Tower, renowned for its Tradition of Bishop Hatto,' as sung by our poet Southey. The view from the back of the hill is not less fair. An extended prospect opens itself into the lovely valley of the Nahe, at the mouth of which lies the town of Brujen, and you gaze far up the varied and fruitful scene, till the eyes rest, almost fatigued with the extent of prospect, on the far-off Donnersberg Mountains. As I descended the hill the day began to wane; the scene was now less busy, and the current of people was now downward; the village was still in a state of bustle and commotion, and every wine-house was crowded. Steamers were still passing and repassing up and down the Rhine, and in one of these I at last found room, and set out for Mayence, which was reached after a long and tedious sail, though diversified enough with good music on board, and a showy display of fireworks from the boat's deck at Biberich. COTTAGE SCHOOLS. THERE seem to be general laws directing morals as well as physics. Philosophers and philanthropists appear to be actuated by the same principles at the same time, just as electric phenomena are discovered at the same period in the most distant places of the globe. This principle of coincidence has produced many disputes, and has often led to the questioning of originality in discovery, when there could be no possibility of plagiarism. Two men in very distant places have, nearly at the same time, made important improvements in mechanical contrivances; two have observed the same effects to be produced by a natural phenomenon; and two have discovered the revolutions of the same heavenly body. This seems to us to be one of the most benevolent arrangements of a benevolent Providence; and teaches us, that even the greatest man that ever the earth saw has been but an humble agent in the great whole of human discovery and improvement. God does not allow great and good thoughts to depend upon the enunciation of one human being, for when humanity requires some great idea it is called forth from many minds at the same period of time. There are few ideas that seem to have so spontaneously and universally taken hold of the general mind as that of education. A grand and radical system of tuition seemed to be the want of the last quarter of a century; for in every nation of Europe, and in many parts of America, such a system was almost simultaneously adopted. Children were gathered together in great seminaries, and were educated according to the ideas of the governments under which they lived, until schools were recognised as a part of every state's machinery, or grand and essential elements of benevolent effort. Great public schools only skimmed the richer ingredients from the face of society, however. They left a world below untouched and lost. The doors of the public seminaries were guarded to respectability by fees and ideas of position. The child of the characterless parent with ragged jacket and shoeless feet had no title to rank up with the careful and honest tradesman's son. of demarcation was drawn between them, and the former A line was doomed to suffer all the ills of ignorance and neglect. Philanthropy soon discovered the injustice of the exclusion, however, and it provided a remedy. Charity schools, and district schools, and ragged schools, were established by benevolent Christians, in order to provide instruction for the neglected children of the very poor, and all these have conduced to the melioration and elevation of their condition. In cities the means of instruction and the facilities for bringing children together are infinitely greater than in the country; but Mrs Ramsay of Bucks, a most indefatigable and benevolent lady, has established and successfully carried into operation a plan of cottage schools, which has been of immense advantage to the poor of the sparsely-peopled rural districts where she resides. The system of education here followed is extremely simple, being only a step beyond that of infant school tuition, and the teachers are of very humble attainments and position. But we are too much impressed with the value of education to repudiate even the most humble modicum of it imparted by the humblest agency. In the country, where those who take an interest in philanthropical works are necessarily few, economy must of course be a prime idea in the establishment of cottage schools; and, while heartily wishing that it were possible to employ and adequately remunerate regular teachers, we cannot, at the same time, forbear expressing our admiration of such generous and praiseworthy efforts as those of Mrs Ramsay. This philanthropic lady, living in one of our southern lace-making counties, and amidst a population as poor as it was ignorant, became impressed with the necessity of making some effort to emancipate the young from the dominion of ignorance. Any instruction, however simple, was an advance upon their present inert condition. It was the initiative of progress, and might induce desires that would conduce to a high condition of mental improvement. Mrs Ramsay's plan originated in her high appreciation of the principle of infant school instruction, and she introduced it with some modifications into a little private seminary which she founded. Her little model school went on so successfully and satisfactorily, that, in the course of a very few years, 207 mistresses have been trained in it for four other schools less, it may be so in England, whose rural districts are far very much to be preferred to a master) a resident in the their not being absolutely gratuitous prevents the honest salary, it is generally twopence per week for one child, or threepence for two out of the same family-a trifle which is more than compensated by the saving which it causes in food and clothing, and the habits of care and cleanliness which the little scholars soon acquire, the effects of which, even in the smallest things, are speedily felt in a poor family. Another excellent idea is the mode of providing the girls with work. A quantity of calico being in the first instance given to each school, is made up by the children into various articles of clothing, which are sold to the poor at the cost price of the calico; the purchase money is carefully laid by, and when the calico is expended, is ready to repurchase a similar quantity; thus forming, literally, a selfsupporting fund. It is stated, that in some districts the parents of the children have fallen into the practice of bespeaking the articles they require, and the plan has the obvious effect of attaching them to the schools. Great advantage has been found to arise from selecting the various teachers in the schools from the respective localities. It is sensibly observed, that every district has its own peculiarities of habits and manners, and even dialects and modes of speaking; and when a stranger, unacquainted with these, comes among a people (a little more educated, too, than themselves), there is no feeling in common, and no attachment between them; they misunderstand, and too often soon dislike, each other; the school in consequence falls away, and a constant change of mistresses does not help to improve it. No instance is known in which this plan has failed to succeed, or where the mistress chosen from the district has ever been changed, except from loss of health or some other unavoidable cause.' The simple plan of education here laid down certainly offers the nucleus of a system by means of which, if extensively followed up, the mass of ignorance in English counties, now so much to be deplored, would rapidly disappear. There are hamlets and villages, with populations of five or six hundred, where there is at present neither school nor church. Wherever the schools have been established they have rapidly filled. One, on a secluded common, which opened with fifty-four children, speedily increased to seventy; and another, in a small country town, has nearly trebled the number of its inmates, the mistress receiving no pay but the pence of the children, and the gratuitous supply of books, slates, &c. The little scholars, generally speaking, are much attached to their occupations. It is common for the boys, when able to work, and engaged in different occupations, to return to school if unemployed even for a day, and eagerly resume their lessons; and an instance is mentioned of a boy of very tender years, whose parents had for a time sent him to one of the schools, but afterwards refused to pay the weekly twopence, and who, rather than lose the knowledge he felt himself to be acquiring, contrived to earn the necessary sum for himself, by opening a gate to passengers after school hours, and faithfully devoting what he earned to pay his school fees. Our Scottish readers will easily perceive that Mrs Ramsay's ideas are more applicable to England than to Scotland. We have full experience in this country of something very like the system she has propounded; and while we acknowledge the great blessings and advantages of the simplest form of instruction, we, at the same time, do not believe that a hundred children could be brought together with advantage in the house of any poor person in a crowded city locality. In the country, healthily situated homes are the rule. In cities the homes of even the respectable poor are notoriously destitute of heaven's light and air; so that well-ventilated schools would require to be built, or else this system of education would be the opposite of a blessing. This, then, would make them nothing more nor less than Lancasterian Schools, which have been in operation for nearly forty years, whose teachers, we believe, like the teachers of congregational schools in Scotland, receive little or no remuneration beyond the humble school fees of twopence a-week. If the number of scholars in attendance on these schools in cities were to be limited to forty, six shillings and eightpence a-week would be very inadequate for the support of a teacher and the payment of her rent, &c. We believe the system to be best applicable to the country, and we wish we saw it extended over the length and breadth of England. Mrs Ramsay and her coadjutors, who give their means to the extension of this plan, are worthy of all honour and respect; and doubly deserving of honour are those poor women who transform their homes into schools for their neighbour poor, and who devote their lives to their instruction, for a very small gratuity indeed. It is noble and benevolent to propose a scheme of melioration, but it is nobler still to carry it out in all its bearings and details. THE SEA. HAIL, thou inexhaustible source of wonder and contemplation! Hail, thou multitudinous ocean, whose waves chase one another down, like the generations of men; and, after a momentary space, are immerged for ever in oblivion! Thy fluctuating waters wash the varied shores of the world, and while they disjoin nations, whom a nearer connexion would involve in eternal war, they circulate their arts and their labours, and give health and plenty to mankind. How glorious, how awful, are the scenes which thou displayest! whether we view thee when every wind is hushed, when the morning sun silvers the level line of the horizon, or when its evening track is marked with flaming gold, and thy unruffled bosom reflects the radiance of the over-arching heavens! or whether we behold thee in thy terrors, when the black tempest sweeps thy swelling billows, and the boiling surge mixes with the clouds, when death rides in the storm, and humanity drops a fruitless tear for the toiling mariner whose heart is sinking with dismay! And yet, mighty deep! it is thy surface alone we view! Who can penetrate the secrets of thy wide domain? What eye can visit thy immense rocks and caverns that teem with life and vegetation? or search out the myriads of objects whose beauties lie scattered over the dread abyss? The mind staggers with the immensity of its conceptions, when it contemplates the flux and reflux of thy tides, which, from the beginning of the world, were never known to err. How do we shrink at the idea of that Divine Power which originally laid thy foundations so sure, and whose omnipotent voice has fixed the limits where thy proud waves shall be stayed ?* Oh, I shall not forget until memory depart, • Keate. |