MOTIVES TO KNOWLEDGE.

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world, but in human power, when much surpassing all that appears within the range of familiar knowledge. Thus it makes prophets, enchanters, and the favoured that have intercourse with spirits.

Shepherd. Michael Scott,1 in the olden day. But times are changed, sir; and even Christopher North himsel, is by few reckoned a magician.

North. But this reverence for knowledge is imaginative and generous, and of the same birth with the love of knowledge, which is itself an inquisition after Deity. But in those times of ours, when Imagination is almost expelled from the processes and counsels of human life, what then makes worship around knowledge? Truly, she that worshippeth Power. She that liveth in the eyes of men, and is ruled under their influences as her stars.

Shepherd. What's her name?

North. She sees that knowledge is great and strong in the world—that it commands power and fame; that it gets wealth; that it sways even in the great motions of the world; that it is set in honour, in places of old authority-therefore it is for her reverence- -therefore she will set her children to learn ittherefore she will give it her favour and her help, and will to some degree bow herself before it.

Tickler. Yes, North, that principle will govern even opinion of knowledge, among every society, wherever great causes act to produce a general contention of spirit for it beyond the pure love of it for its own sake. Or, to make clear sense at once, what are the principles that excite labour after knowledge, besides the pure delight in it?

North. There are two great original powers, Tickler, that drive onwards the human spirit in quest of knowledge; the necessity of life, and the delight of the soul. From the rudest to the most civilised state of society, the acquisition of knowledge that arises to men, from their contention with nature, to make her yield them life, is very great-immense. Suppose in our own country, James, one mind to possess all the knowledge by which, in ten thousand thousand hands, bread is earned.

Shepherd. What a Solomon he would be-a leevin Library o' Usefu' and Entertainin Knowledge.

North. Setting aside, for a moment, the multiform applica1 Michael Scott, the wizard in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, flourished in the thirteenth century.

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KNOWLEDGE POSSESSED BY LABOURING PEOPLE.

tion of simple principles by which the instruments of human art are produced-heavens! only think on the knowledge of Nature, James, which in every minute division is distributed throughout those various arts!

Shepherd. The thocht's overwhelmin.

North. Suppose that all the facts as to the nature and properties of the different substances which are employed as materials or agents in various arts in Birmingham and Sheffield, were known to one mind, as they are known to those who without higher knowledge practise them for their bread! Suppose an intelligent mind to possess the knowledge only which it might acquire in a course of workshops, from the conversation of those who worked in them-would it not, without study, without books-be most extensive-most

Shepherd. The knowledge o' many a' gathered thegither in ae master-mind—yet aiblins withouten sceeance

North. But if you will look at those forms of life in which each man, James, is required to possess the whole of that knowledge of nature, which is necessary for obtaining from her the greater part of the means of his subsistence

Shepherd. Amna I sic a man mysel, sir?

North. You are, my dear James. Think, Tickler, how any man, who is much acquainted with labouring people, where they are generally neither depressed by poverty nor degraded by vicious habits prevailing among them, must have been surprised at times to find the extent of knowledge, which native intelligence, exerting itself upon those objects and facts which the plain necessities of life only made important, had amassed without books,-husbandmen — shepherds

chanics-artificers!

me

Shepherd. Pour out upon him, Tickler-deluge him, Timothy. Tickler. If you would see the most extensive acquisition of knowledge enforced by the necessities of life, you must know what is the life of a savage, in those tribes where there is full power of mind-for in some the mind is extraordinarily degraded. For example, many of the tribes of the North American Indians, before they were visited with the curse of an intercourse with the Europeans, possessed a high character of mind, both for heroic and intellectual qualities. Now, conceive one of these Indians cast amidst the boundlessness of nature—with a mind strong and ardent-not beginning life as we do―surrounded with a thousand helps to guard it from

KNOWLEDGE POSSESSED BY SAVAGES.

255

all sufferings and necessities, to spare it all use of its faculties but cast upon the bosom of nature-to win from her the means of the preservation of his existence. From the moment he begins to understand and know-he sees what the course of his life is to be. He is to be a hunter and an inhabitant of the woods. Now, imagine all the multitude of natural facts, on the knowledge of which, for safety and sustenance, his mind is made to rest. He is a hunter—that is to say, that from the day he can use his hands at his will, he will begin his warfare against the animal race. What does that mean? That of every bird and animal of which his power can compass the destruction, he must begin to know the signs, the haunts, and the ways. He is already engaged as an observer in natural history. You may be sure he has very soon as exact a knowledge of the figure, colours, cries, &c., of many of them, and of the place and construction of the habitations of those which find, or make themselves habitations of their young, or eggs -their number, their seasons, and precautions of breeding, &c., as any naturalist from Linnæus to Cuvier. Now, everything he has to do to ensnare, entice, waylay them, is drawn entirely from observation of the various particulars of their modes of life. This knowledge, as he grows, he goes on extending to numbers of the birds and animals that people his dominion,— and when the savage has, by keen and extensive observation (you have read Hearne, North ?) acquired all the knowledge that affects his own well-being-of the appearance, the nature, the seasons, the modes of life of as many of these creatures as will come under the necessity or the wantonness of his art as a hunter, I ask, is it not plain that he must possess, very intimately and exactly, much of that knowledge which, when possessed by a naturalist, is raised to the rank of science? Shepherd. Ask Audubon.

Tickler. Combine with this the knowledge of the natural world that surrounds him, as implied by his dependence for sustenance on its vegetable productions and all the various knowledge of the earth itself, and of the skies, which become important to him who is to make his way by recollection or conjecture through untracked wildernesses, forests, swamps, and precipices. How, in an unknown wilderness so made up, even after he has chosen his course, by the stars, shall he know to trace a path through the dangers and immensity of nature, which human feet may tread? By observing, studying

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HEARNE ON BEAVERS.

all his life long the nature of mountains, torrents, marshes, vegetation. Then add to this-his observation of the air and the skies, from his dependence on their changes, and I think, my lads, if you have imagination to represent to yourselves one-twentieth part of the knowledge which a savage will thus be driven to possess by his mere physical necessities, you will be astonished to find how much liker a learned man he is than you be.

Shepherd. Maist yeloquent!

Tickler. Will this seem fanciful? I will give you a single instance. There is scarcely one point in natural history more celebrated and interesting than the beaver's building his house. Do you wish to be correctly informed upon this subject? Read all our naturalists from Buffon downwards, and you will be incorrectly instructed on the mind of these mysterious animals. Then go and read the account given by a man who had nothing to do with beavers, except that he was an agent in the fur trade, and who tells you what the Indian hunters told and showed him, and you will find much the most interesting, and the only exact account we possess of these builders.

Shepherd. Wha?

1

North. It is in Hearne's Travels in the northern parts of America. Here then I establish that a great part of that knowledge of external living nature which we hoard up among our treasures of science, is, through necessity, possessed, and I will say—much more accurately-by men in those rude forms of life, in which they are perpetually contending with nature for the supply of all our wants.

[Silver Timepiece chimes Twelve, and enter the Six Suppersupporters, with Roasted Turkey, Lamb, Fillet of Veal, Salmon, Turbot, Cod, &c. &c. &c.

Shepherd. I canna charge my memory wi' ever havin been sae lang afore without breakin my fast. It's bad for the health sittin hour after hour on an empty stamack, mair especially when the mind as weel's the body's exhowsted wi' the wear and tear o' rational and irrational conversation. Tickler, tackle you to the turkey-North, lay yoursel out on the lamb -and as for me, I shall hae some flirtation wi' the fillet.

1 "Samuel Hearne was employed by the Hudson Bay Company from 1769 to 1792, to explore the north-west coast of America, and was the first European who succeeded in reaching the Arctic Ocean."-American Editor.

SONG THE JACOBIN BILL.

257

North. Make ready!

Tickler. Present!

Shepherd. Fire!

[A sort of snuzzling silence in the Snuggery for an hour or thereabouts. Timepiece smites One, and the Apparition of PICARDY and his Tail comes and goes like the rainbow. North. THE KING (with all the honours).

Tickler. Of whom recording history will say “not that he found London of brick and left it of marble - but that he found his people in bondage, and left them free!"

North. Base Helot who first voided, and baser Helot still who ate up that loathsome lie, and splattered it out again undigested in his own poisonous slaver!

Tickler. Pitiful and paltry press !

North. Most wretched in its street-walking prostitution! Tickler.

"O tyrant swollen with insolence and pride!"

North.

"Thou dog in forehead-but in heart a deer!" Shepherd. Is there to be a revolution, sirs? North. If there be, 'twill be a bloody one.

Tickler. Come-come-gents-let us talk over that matter at next Noctes.

Shepherd. The verra first thing the Radicals will do-will be to extinguish the Noctes Ambrosianæ.

North. The verra last they shall be alloo'd to do-James -Ecce Signum ! [Shoulders the Crutch. Tickler. Since you insist upon it, why then I will sing a new song-in the character of a Radical!

Now the reign of the tyrant for ever is past,

And the day-star of freedom is beaming on high

When truth is now heard in the Senate at last,

And the shout of the million in grateful reply

Let us sing and rejoice,

With heart and with voice,

1 The Reform Bill, the first reading of which was proposed by Lord John Russell on March 1, 1831.

VOL. III.

R