as the lightning's beam, and overwhelm and take possession of feebler minds, impressing them irresistibly with a feeling of gigantic power. As a general rule, the largest organs in each head have naturally the greatest, and the smallest the least, tendency to act, and to perform their functions with rapidity. The temperaments also indicate the amount of this tendency. The nervous is the most vivacious, next the sanguine, then the bilious, while the lymphatic is characterized by proneness to inaction. In a lymphatic brain, great size may be present and few manifestations occur through sluggishness; but if a strong external stimulus be presented, energy often appears. If the brain be very small, no degree of stimulus, either external or internal, will cause great power to be manifested. A certain combination of organs-namely, Combativeness, Destructiveness, Hope, Firmness, Acquisitiveness, and Love of Approbation, all large-is favourable to general vivacity of mind; and another combination -namely, Combativeness, Destructiveness, Hope, Firmness, and Acquisitiveness, small or moderate, with Veneration and Benevolence large, is frequently attended with sluggishness of the mental character; but the activity of the whole brain is constitutionally greater in some individuals than in others, as already explained. It may even happen that, in the same individual, one organ is naturally more active than another, without reference to size, just as the optic nerve is sometimes more irritable than the auditory; but this is by no means a common Occurrence. Exercise greatly increases activity as well as power, and hence arise the benefits of education. Dr. Spurzheim thinks that "long fibres produce more activity, and thick fibres more intensity." them against a tyrant at home, or an alliance of tyrants abroad-to stamp the impress of a single mind upon a nation-to infuse strength into thoughts, and depth into feelings, which shall command the homage of enlightened men in every age-in short, to be a Bruce, Bonaparte, Luther, Knox, Demosthenes, Shakspeare, Milton, or Cromwell. -a large brain is indispensably requisite. But to display skill, enterprise, and fidelity in the various professions of civil life-to cultivate with success the less arduous branches of philosophy-to excel in acuteness, taste, and felicity of expression-to acquire extensive erudition and refined manners-a brain of a moderate size is perhaps more suitable than one that is very large; for wherever the energy is intense, it is rare that delicacy, refinement, and taste are present in an equal degree. Individuals possessing moderate-sized brains easily find their proper sphere, and enjoy in it scope for all their energy. In ordinary circumstances they distinguish themselves, but they sink when difficulties accumulate around them. Persons with large brains, on the other hand, do not readily attain their propriate place; common occurrences do not rouse or call them forth, and, while unknown, they are not trusted with great undertakings. Often, therefore, such men pine and die in obscurity. When, however, they attain their proper element, they are conscious of greatness, and glory in the expansion of their powers. Their mental energies rise in proportion to the obstacles to be sur mounted, and blaze forth in all the magnificence of self-sustaining energetic genius, on occasions when feebler minds would sink in despair. ap THE COMPASSIONATE AFRICAN MATRON. [MUNGO PARK was born at Fowlshields, near Selkirk, on the 10th of September, 1771. He studied medicine, assistant-surgeon to an East Indianan. The African Association, founded in 1778 for the purpose of promo The doctrine, that size is a measure of power, is not to be held as implying that much power is the only or even the most valuable quality which a mind in all circumstances can possess. To drag artillery over a mountain, or a ponderous wagon through and performed a voyage to Bencoolen in the capacity of the streets of London, we would prefer an elephant or a horse of great size and muscular power; while, for graceful motion, agility, and nimbleness, we would select an Arabian palfrey. In like manner, to lead men in gigantic and difficult enterprisesto command by native greatness, in perilous times, when law is trampled under foot-to vall forth the energies of a people, and direct ting discovery in the interior of Africa, had sent out several travellers-John Ledyard, Lucas, and Majo Park, however, Houghton-all of whom had died. undeterred by these examples, embraced the society's offer, and set sail in May 1795. On the 21st of June fol lowing he arrived at Jillifree, on the banks of the Gam bia. He pursued his journey towards the kingdom of Bambarra, and saw the great object of his mission, the river Niger, flowing toward the east. The sufferings of Park during his journey, the various incidents he encountered, his captivity among the Moors, and his description of the inhabitants, their manners, trade, and customs, constitute a narrative of the deepest interest. The traveller returned to England towards the latter and of the year 1797, when all hope of him had been abandoned, and in 1799 he published his travels. The style is simple and manly, and replete with a fine moral feeling. One of his adventures-which had the honour of being turned into verse by the Duchess of Devonshire is thus related. The traveller had reached the town of Sego, the capital of Bambarra, and wished to cross the river towards the residence of the king.] I waited more than two hours without having an opportunity of crossing the river, during which time the people who had crossed carried information to Mansong, the king, that a white man was waiting for a passage, and was coming to see him. He immediately sent over one of his chief men, who informed me that the king could not possibly see me until he knew what had brought me into his country; and that I must not presume to cross the river without the king's permission. He therefore advised me to lodge at a distant village, to which he pointed, for the night, and said that in the morning he would give me further instructions how to conduct myself. This was very discouraging. However as there was no remedy, I set off for the village, where I found, to my great mortification, that no person would admit me into his house. I was regarded with astonishment and fear, and was obliged to sit all day without victuals in the shade of a tree; and the night threatened to be very uncomfortable for the wind rose, and there was great of that I was very hungry, she said she would procure me something to eat. She accordingly went out, and returned in a short time with a very fine fish, which, having caused to be half-broiled upon some embers, she gave me for supper. The rites of hospitality being thus performed towards a stranger in distress, my worthy benefactress— pointing to the mat, and telling me I might sleep there without apprehension-called to the female part of her family, who had stood gazing on me all the while in fixed astonishment, to resume their task of spinning cotton, in which they continued to employ themselves a great part of the night. They lightened their labour by songs, one which was composed extempore, for I was myself the subject of it. It was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a sort of a chorus. The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words, literally translated, were these: "The winds roared, and the rains fell. The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree. He has no mother to bring him milk-no wife to grind his corn. Chorus.-Let us pity the white man-no mother has he, &c." Trifling as this recital may appear to the reader, to a person in my situation the cir cumstance was affecting in the highest degree. I was oppressed by such unexpected kindness, and sleep fled from my eyes. In the morning I presented my compassionate landlady with two of the four brass buttons which remained on my waistcoat-the only recompense I could make her. TUDE. appearance of a heavy rain-and the wild THE TRAVELLER'S PIOUS FORTI beasts are so very numerous in the neighbourhood, that I should have been under the necessity of climbing up the tree and resting amongst the branches. About sunset, however, as I was preparing to pass the night in this manner, and had turned my horse loose that he might graze at liberty, a woman, returning from the labours of the field, stopped to observe me, and perceiving that I was weary and dejected, inquired into my situation, which I briefly explained to her; whereupon, with looks of great compassion, she took up my saddle and bridle and told me to follow her. Having conducted me into her hut, she lighted up a lamp, spread a mat on the floor, and told me I might remain there for the night. Finding After the robbers were gone, I sat for some time looking around me with amazement and terror. Whichever way I turned nothing appeared but danger and difficulty. I saw myself in the midst of a vast wilder ness, in the depth of the rainy season, naked and alone, surrounded by savage animals, and men still more savage. I was five hundred miles from the nearest European settlement. All these circumstances crowded at once on my recollection, and I confess that my spirits began to fail me. I considered my fate as certain, and that I had no alternative but to lie down and perish. The influence of religion, however, aided and supported me. I reflected that no human prudence or foresight could possibly have averted my present sufferings. I was indeed a stranger in a strange land, yet I was still under the protecting eye of that Providence who has condescended to call himself the stranger's friend. At this moment, painful as my reflections were, the extraordinary beauty of a small moss in fructification irresistibly caught my eye. I mention this to show from what trifling circumstances the mind will sometimes derive consolation; for though the whole plant was not larger than the top of one of my fingers, I could not contemplate the delicate conformation of its roots, leaves, and capsula, without admiration. Can that Being, thought I, who planted, watered, and brought to perfection, in this obscure part of the world, a thing which appears of so small importance, look with unconcern upon the situation and sufferings of creatures formed after his own image? Surely not. Reflections like those would not allow me to despair. I started up, and, disregarding both hunger and fatigue, travelled forwards, assured that relief was at hand; and I was not disappointed. In a short time I came to a small village, at the entrance of which I overtook the two shepherds who had come with me from Kooma. They were much surprised to see me; for they said they never doubted that the Foulahs, when they had robbed, had murdered me. Departing from this village, we travelled over several rocky ridges, and at sunset arrived at Sibidooloo, the frontier town of the kingdom of Manding. MUNGO PARK. ROUSSEAU (1712-1778). [LOUIS SIMOND, a French author, who, by familiarity with our language and country, wrote in English as well as in his native tongue, published in 1822 a work in 2 volumes—“ Switzerland; or a Journal of a Tour and Residence in that Country in the years 1817, 1818 and 1819." M. Simond had previously written a similar work on Great Britain, during the years 1810 and 1811, which was well received and favourably reviewed by Southey, Jeffrey, and other critics. M. Simond resided twenty years in America, We subjoin his character sketch of Rousseau.] Rousseau, from his garret, governed an empire-that of the mind; the founder of a new religion in politics, and to his enthusiastic followers a prophet-he said and they believed! The disciples of Voltaire might be more numerous, but they were bound to him by far weaker ties. Those of Rousseau made the French Revolution, and perished for it; while Voltaire, miscalculating its chances, perished by it. Both perhaps deserved their fate; but the former certainly acted the nobler part, and went to battle with the best weapons too-for in the deadly encounter of all the passions, of the most opposite principles and irreconcilable prejudices, cold-hearted wit is of little avail. Heroes and martyrs do not care for epigrams; and he must have enthusiasm who pretends to lead the enthusiastic or to cope with them. Une intime persuasion, Rousseau has somewhere said, m'a toujours tenu lieu d'éloquence! And well it might; for the first requisite to command belief is to believe yourself. Nor is it easy to impose on mankind in this respect. There is no eloquence, no ascendency over the minds of others, without this intimate persuasion, in yourself. Rousseau's might only be a sort of poetical persuasion lasting but as long as the occasion; yet it was thus powerful, only because it was true, though but for a quarter of an hour perhaps, in the heart of this inspired writer. Mr. M son of the friend of Rousseau, to whom he left his manuscripts, and especially his Confessions, to be published after his death, had the goodness to shew them to me. I observed a fair copy written by himself in a small hand like print, very neat and correct; not a blot or an erasure to be seen. The most curious of these papers, however, were several sketch-books, or memoranda, half-filled, where the same hand is no longer discernible; but the same genius, and the same wayward temper and perverse intellect, in every fugitive thought which is there put down. Rousseau's composition, like Montesquieu's, was laborious and slow; his ideas flowed rapidly, but were not readily brought into proper order; they did not appear to have come in conseitself, formed afterwards, came in aid of the quence of a previous plan; but the plan ideas, and served as a sort of frame for them, instead of being a system to which they were subservient. Very possibly some of the fundamental opinions he defended so earnestly, and for which his disciples would willingly have suffered martyrdom, were originally adopted because a bright thought, caught as it flew, was entered in his com mon-place book. These loose notes of Rousseau afford a curious insight into his taste in composition. You find him perpetually retrenching epithets-reducing his thoughts to their simplest expression-giving words a peculiar energy by the new application of their original meaning-going back to the naïveté of old language; and, in the artificial process of simplicity, carefully effacing the trace of each laborious footstep as he advanced; each idea, each image, coming out at last, as if cast entire at a single throw, original, energetic, and clear. Although Mr. M- had promised to Rousseau that he would publish his Confessions as they were, yet he took upon himself to suppress a passage explaining certain circumstances of his abjurations at Anneci, affording a curious but frightfully disgusting picture of monkish manners at the time. It is a pity that Mr. Mdid not break his word in regard to some few more passages of that most admirable and most vile of all the productions of genius. MADAME DE STAËL (1766-1817). I had seen Madame de Staël a child; and I saw her again on her death-bed. The intermediate years were spent in another hemisphere, as far as possible from the scenes in which she lived. Mixing again, not many months since, with a world in which I am a stranger, and feel that I must remain so, I just saw this celebrated woman, and heard, as it were, her last words, as I had read her works before, uninfluenced by any local bias. Perhaps the impressions of a man thus dropped from another world into this, may be deemed something like those of posterity. Madame de Staël lived for conversation: she was not happy out of a large circle, and a French circle, where she could be heard in her own language to the best advantage. Her extravagant admiration of the society of Paris was neither more nor less than genuine admiration of herself. It was the best mirror she could get-and that was all. Ambitious of all sorts of notoriety, she would have given the world to have been born noble and a beauty. Yet there was in this excessive vanity so much honesty and frankness, it was so entirely void of affectation and trick, she made so fair and so irresistible an appeal to your own sense of her worth, that what would have been laughable in any one else was almost respectable in her. That ambition of eloquence, so conspicuous in her writings, was much less observable in her conversation; there was more abandon in what she said than in what she wrote; while speaking, the spontaneous inspiration was no labor, but all pleasure. Conscious of extraordinary pow ers, she gave herself up to the present enjoyment of the good things, and the deep things, flowing in a full stream from her own well-stored mind and luxuriant fancy. The inspiration was pleasure, the pleasure was inspiration; and without precisely intending it, she was, every evening of her life, in a circle of company, the very Corinne she had depicted. LOUIS SIMOND. CHARLOTTE BRONTE'S PROTEST AGAINST PHARISAISM. FROM PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION OF 66 JANE EYRE." [CHARLOTTE BRONTE, one of the best English novelists, was born at Thornton, Yorkshire, in 1816. She was the third daughter of six remarkable children, five girls and a boy. Their father, the Rev. Patrick Bronte, bestowed on them a careful education, although he made the mistake of sending the three eldest to school where they were harshly treated. When 38 years of age she married her father's curate, the Rev. Mr. Nicholls, and died the following year. Her novels are, "The Professors," "Shirley," "Villette," and "Jane Eyre." The last named, (like" David Copperfield," by Dickens), being largely a picture of her own life.] To that class in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against bigotry-that parent of crime-an insult to piety, that regent of God on earth, I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions; I would remind them of certain simple truths. Conventionality is not morality. Selfrighteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the crown of thorns. These things and deeds are diametrically opposed; they are as distinct as vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is-I repeat it-a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them. Why did they send me so far and so lonely, Yet distant and soft the night-breeze is blowing, Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam mild; God in his mercy protection is shewing, Ev'n should I fall o'er the broken bridge passing, The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling worth-to let white-washed walls vouch for clean shrines. It may hate him who dares to Still will my Father, with promise and blessings, scrutinize and expose-to raise the gilding, and shew base metal under it-to penetrate the sepulchre, and reveal charnel relics: but hate as it will, it is indebted to him. Ahab did not like Micaiah, because he never prophesied good concerning him, but evil: probably he liked the sycophant son of Chenaanah better; yet might Ahab have escaped a bloody death, had he but stopped his ears to flattery, and opened them to faithful counsel. There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle delicate ears; who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of society much as the son of Imlah came before the throned kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as prophet-like and as vital-a mien as dauntless and as daring. Is the satirist of "Vanity Fair" admired in high places? I cannot tell; but I think if some of those amongst whom he hurls the Greekfire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in timethey or their seed might yet escape a fatal Ramoth-Gilead. Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, reader, because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique than his contemporaries have yet recognized; because I regard him as the first social regenerator of the day-as the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things. Take to his bosom the poor orphan child. There is a thought that for strength should avail me, Heaven is a home, and a rest will not fail me; God is a friend to the poor orphan child. CHARLOTTE BRONTE. FREDERICK THE GREAT. About fourscore years ago, there used to be seen sauntering on the terraces of SansSouci, for a short time in the afternoon, or you might have met him elsewhere at an earlier hour, riding or driving in a rapid business manner, on the open roads or through the scraggy woods and avenues of that intricate amphibious Potsdam region, a highly interesting lean little old man, of alert though slightly stooping figure; whose name among strangers was King Friedrich the Second, or Frederick the Great of Prussia, and at home among the common people, who much loved and esteemed him, was Vater Fritz-Father Fred-a name of familiarity which had not bred contempt in that instance. He is a king every inch of him, though without the trappings of a king. Presents himself in a Spartan simplicity of vesture: no crown but an old military cocked-hat generally old, or trampled and kneaded into absolute softness, if new; no sceptre but one like Agamemnon's, a walking-stick cut from the woods, which serves also as a riding-stick (with which he hits the horses "between the ears," say authors); and for royal robes, a mere soldier's blue coat with red facings-coat likely to be old, and sure to have a good deal of Spanish snuff on the breast of it; rest of the apparel dim, unobtrusive in colour or cut, ending in high |