politics, and a sensual, indecent bigot in morals; and for the "ornamental" part, if it be true, God help the country and age! We have no space to enter into this question; besides, a quoi bon? is Gifford not dead? is there a trace of his influence existing? is not all reverence for him departed from men? But of his criticism, we may take this very work, and we have therein a superfluous waste of conviction of his utter incompetency to understand Massinger, or to feel any poetry beyond his own! His continual and lavish praise of Massinger's versification proves how very limited was his knowledge of those endless harmonies and modulations which abound in Shakspeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, &c. Massinger's versification was correct, but mechanical; he was the Pope, not the Dryden of blank verse. But not to touch further on this matter, which would lead too far, and without which it remains a mere difference of opinion, let us take a specimen of Gifford's correction, and one which he mercilessly ridicules Coxeter and Mason for not seeing. Massinger says (Virgin Martyr, Act iv, s. 3) Elysian joys thou might'st have tasted Hadst thou not turned apostate to those Gods." Gifford says it should be read "Hadst thou not turned apostata to those Gods." Now, is not the first line musical, and the second harsh? the recurrence of the t, in ta, ta, to, with the hitch necessary for its pronunciation, quite breaks up the rythm. Now for a critical objection. In the same play (Act v, s. 1) is a terrible scene, which the reader may turn to. The maddening laughter of the fiend, the incorporcity of whom increases the horror, quite unfixes the spirit of Theophilus, who says wildly— "He's at barley-break, and the last couple Are now in Hell. Search for him. All the ground methinks is bloody, We have continued the lines that the reader may see the horror and madness storming in upon his brain, thereby explaining the grotesque incoherence of the former part. Upon this Gifford remarks, "This wretched copy of a wretched original, the hic et ubique of the Ghost in 'Hamlet,' is much too puerile for the occasion and the character." O manly understanding! O great critic, believing only what it can feel and handle, seeing no further than the smoke of its own chimney, and denying all space beyond? Yet that there is an infinitude beyond the Gifford chimney one may reasonably suppose, and into that infinitude his "improved spectacles" could not conveniently gaze. We could go on piling up absurdity after absurdity, but is not this one specimen sufficient? Are, then, the merits of Gifford as an editor reducible to a thin zero? No : his merits are great and substantial—if not a critic, if not an appreciator of poetry; he had a large fund of the necessary erudition, and indomitable patience, and great acuteness, within his sphere; so far as his "improved spectacles" reached, few men were keener-eyed; only, alas! the greatest things came not within their focus! Nevertheless, honour to all merit; honour to all industry, be it simply of the grub sort. Gifford had to purify the text from all the dunghills and dusty, mouldy logs of wood accumulated by the exquisite ignorance of printers, and increased by the perverse ignorance of Messrs Coxeter and M. Mason. Truly this task had become Augean, and required a brave, spectacled Gifford-Hercules to cleanse it; whose spectacles were increased in focus by the acrid bile and ferocious delight in detecting absurdity, until our Gifford-Hercules became the very vulture of commentators. However ridiculous all this, the result was, as he triumphantly asserted, "the most perfect text of an old poet ever issued from the press.' This is something, and proves that Nature, who does nothing in vain, meant kindly when she sent us a conceited Coxeter and an acrid Gifford-Hercules. We shall not attempt a criticism on Massinger. We do not love him well enough to hit off his characteristics in a few brief words, and our objections, as Paul de Kock's Robertin says of the intrigue of his comedy, "peuvent nous mener très loin!" Let us then perform a more grateful task of delighting the reader with a beautiful passage or two. There is an involved subtlety and beauty in the following, which is very Shaksperian, and rarely met with in Massinger: The bridge of glass does not here merely indicate brittleness, but also transparency, through which he sees his ruin. Another "I know Cleora fell too, Heaven's help invoked in vain; the amazed sun Hiding his face behind a mask of clouds, Not daring to look on it! In her sufferings In a different style Or this "You abuse your fortune, To entertain her choice and gracious favours Equally distant from proud insolence "The noble horse That, in his fiery youth, from his wide nostrils The following has been imitated by Moore and Keats— Again Or this "By instinct he teach thee, And with such ease as love makes me to ask it, "O my mistress, quench not The holy fire within you, though temptations "The sunbeams which the Emperor throws upon him, And, to conclude "A thousand blessings dance upon his eyes." Reader, do you meet with these lines for the first time? Procure a copy of Massinger, and you shall read thousands such, "beautiful exceedingly; -and for his faults, of course they cannot escape your penetrating sagacity! G. H. L. EDUCATION. DUTCH AND GERMAN SCHOOLS. By W. E. Hickson. 8vo. Cloth boards. Taylor and Walton, and H. Hooper.-This is an account of the present state of education in Holland, Belgium, and the German states, with a view to the practical steps which should be taken for improving and extending the means of popular instruction in Great Britain and Ireland. The first part of the work appeared in May last as an article in our pages (No 66 of the Westminster Review'); an article which was confined chiefly to the historical and statistical branch of the question, and to what related to plans of administrative organization for popular instruction. A second part has now been added, defining the nature of education as required for the people, and comparing the systems and principles of instruction adopted abroad with the state of our schools at home. The remarks upon this subject are arranged under the following heads : 1. Physical Education. ·- 2. Religious and Moral Instruction. 3. Intellectual Cultivation. 4. Industrial Training. We extract the following observations upon " religious and moral instruction," embracing sentiments which cannot, we think, be too frequently repeated or too widely circulated. "The necessity of religious and moral instruction for children is universally ad mitted, and yet perhaps there is no part of the subject of education that is so little understood, or that is so seldom judiciously carried into effect. Here, too, the mistake is made of confounding words with things; or, to use a scriptural expression, of substituting the letter which killeth for the spirit which giveth life.' The error is in over-estimating the force of precept, and undervaluing that of example. A man of irritable nerves and great infirmity of temper, with the cane constantly in bis hand, is employed to teach children the lesson, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself.' A teacher who seems to love no one, and who, instead of winning the attachment of his pupils, is the object of their fear or aversion, is expected to impress this lesson upon the mind and heart of children. How can they learn to love who are governed by fear? The text is fixed by repetition in the memory, but the words have, in the mind of the children, no meaning, and never reach the heart. "Observation and reflection would convince every one that moral instruction in a catechetical form, or in any other form of direct precept, has very little effect upon the conduct, compared with surrounding influences. To tell a boy not to be quarrelsome will not alter his conduct in the least if the example of his parents at home, or of his teachers at school, is always that of persons giving way to passionate outbreaks of temper and vindictive feelings upon the slightest occasions. • Do as they say, and not as they do, for they say and do not,' is not a principle children can understand and adopt as a rule of conduct. Hence the superiority of the moral training of a Dutch school over that of schools generally in this country. It is not that their catechisms, or moral axioms, are better than our own, or that they make a greater show of them, but the moral lesson taught in the conduct of the teacher is better. He is less the master of his pupils than their friend, and they imperceptibly imbibe the same qualities which in him they love and esteem, "Moral training is quite incompatible with the old brutalizing system of coercion, still unhappily pursued in many of our schools. Children governed by fear become deceitful, and when inured to punishment, hardened, sullen, and revengeful. Such children make the men and women against whom society is obliged to provide penal laws, and to stand constantly on its guard. To remedy the evil, the first thing to be done is to dismiss the teachers who are unable to appreciate or act upon any other system of discipline. No good they can accomplish in the mechanical arts of reading and writing can compensate for the mischief they create by souring the temper, crushing the affections, and wounding the spirit of a child. The next thing is to employ teachers able to govern by kindness, and to gain the confidence of children-teachers who would mix with them in the playground, and take part in their sports. "The whole secret of moral instruction lies in the art of awakening and strengthening kindly feelings. All crimes productive of human misery are simply injuries to others; but where a spirit of kindness prevails, there is no disposition to injure others. Children who learn to copy from their teachers a kind tone, an affectionate manner, a disposition to oblige, will neither quarrel nor fight, nor grow up in after years companions for the outcasts of society. Theft, violence, murder, malice, fraud, revenge, cannot flourish in the same soil where the affections have taken root: so true is the Scripture maxim, that love is the fulfilling of the law.'" The work before us has the merit of giving a really comprehensive view of the whole question in a cheap and readable form: (although handsomely got up, with caoutchouc binding, it is sold at the moderate price of half-acrown). The author is one of the Commissioners of inquiry into the state of the hand-loom weavers, and few persons have had better opportunities of observing how closely the interests of the working classes are dependent upon the progress of a sound system of national education. The work is rendered complete by the addition of a tasteful elevation and ground plans of a design (by Mr Joseph Lindley) of a building suitable for the combined purposes of a day-school and lyceum. We hope the time is not distant when institutions upon the plan described will be found in every part of the United Kingdom. W. A PRESENT FROM GERMANY; OR, THE CHRISTMAS TREE. Translated from the German, by Emily Perry. London. Charles Fox.-Political science is still progressive, though a comfortable, easy Abbé Sièyes fancied he had "achieved" it. To the three estates of the realm, described by our De Lolmes and Blackstones, and other such orthodox interpreters of the glorious British constitution, more modern research has added the discovery of the mightier fourth estate, dating from Faustus and his moveable types: the next revelation awaiting mankind is, that there is a fifth estate, greater than all, on which all the rest repose, from which they all recruit themselves, for which they all work, of which they all are representatives, albeit only of the virtual sort. The vast baby interest is getting to rule us all. For it papas and mammas scheme and slave; for it parliaments toil at tenhour bills and education bills; for it author works with tired brain, and printer's devil with inky hand. It is great in Paternoster row. Its literature lives without leave, asked or given, of the reviewers. Mother Hubbard, Cock Robin, and Cinderella have outlived many a pamphlet, article, sermon, prize essay, inaugural oration, parliamentary speech, and will outlive many more; the royal opera of Punch and Judy bids fairer for immortality than Lord Palmerston's correspondence with M. Thiers; and the tragedy of the 'Babes in the Wood' will still draw tears from little eyes, long after the tragedy of the Syrian war shall have come to its exeunt omnes. The fifth estate of the realm is a more potent dispenser of literary fame than the others together. The older the world gets, the more it makes of its little ones, and loves to warm its cold heart with talking to them and hearing them talk to it. How all this will end, we do not undertake to predict : let statesmen look to it in time; we confess we have our fears for the balance of the constitution. The Present from Germany' is not one of the publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. But there are true and good things in this world besides useful knowledge. Is it not good to dream dreams and see visions of Christmas-trees, laden with their rich and various fruitage of almonds and raisins, gold and silver nuts, magic nutcrackers, dolls, sugarplums, harlequins and holy kings, and to know all about fairies and fairydom, and why the willow weeps and the aspen trembles, and what day says to night, and night says to day, and what makes the moon shine, and how fast it goes, and how the old familiar earth looks up there? These, and other such pieces of lore, are here fresh as imported from the old fatherland of us all, for the special use and behoof of that not inconsiderable section of the human race whom this present Christmas of the year of grace 1840 may find rejoicing in a recent emancipation from the nursery. Peace be with all happy hearts that delight in Christmas and Christmas-trees; and with every kind soul that makes them glad with visions of beautiful princesses, good-natured fairies, and the other fair humanities of old nursery religion. Without at all presuming to decide on what rightfully belongs to the jurisdiction of a higher tribunal up-stairs, we will only say that the tales in this little volume do not appear to us in every instance selected with the best judgment. We could like a few more of the willow and aspen legends, and colloquies of the " fiery boy, Day," with his "quiet and modest sister," though it should cost the sacrifice of a Fairy's Gift,' and a Victorine.' In the educational morality of the latter "beautiful and instructive dream," there are certain grave heresies, against which we beg to enter our waking protest, well assured that the said higher tribunal will confirm our critical judgment. P. H. LECTURES ON NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. By the Rev. J. W. M'Gauley, Professor of Natural Philosophy to the National Board of Education, &c. 8vo. Dublin: Curry. 1840.-This work gives a condensed view of the principles of natural philosophy and chemistry, preceded by brief treatises on arithmetic, algebra, and geometry. It is the result of the author's experience as a lecturer to the teachers of the Irish national schools. As a text-book for seminaries of education, or for persons attending lectures, it would be found useful; but the author did not intend it to be what is called a "popular treatise," requiring merely a hasty perusal. He presupposes that the reader intends to study the subject, and that he brings to it some knowledge of the elements of mathematics. G. FIRST EXERCISES FOR CHILDREN, IN LIGHT, SHADE, AND COLOUR, with numerous Illustrations. 18mo. C. Knight and Co. 1840.-Nothing can be worse than the mode in which drawing is usually taught in schools and families. Each line of the master's pencil-sketch is imitated, or rather travestied, without any feeling for its purpose as a part of the entire drawing; and when the lines are all made the master often finishes up the copy, otherwise it would be unintelligible. The same ignorance of the purposes of lights, shades, and colours is exemplified when the pupil proceeds to colouring; and similar touches are put in by the master to prevent the daub from being altogether ludicrous. Thus drawing, like other school tasks, is seldom resumed, when the immediate necessity of practis |