The preceding quotations are taken from the address on "Systematic Policy; the succeeding ones are from that on "Education." We presume that the first two will be interesting to those who have been considering the debate as between the "Union" and the "League," and we think the latter contains a wise and judicious word to Young Men's Improvement Societies, Mechanics' Institutes, and similar institutions.

"The true object of human society is the production of men, not human animals as the implements of material production, but of men in the true proper sense, formed and fashioned and disciplined agents, men adequately equipped for the right conduct and true enjoyment of life."

Compulsory education is objectionable, he says, because,

"(1) It is unnecessary; a wise action on public opinion will be adequate to secure the result aimed at.

"(2) It involves the introduction of a machinery for which we shall pay dearly in the sequel.

"(3) It has in it something of an insulting character, as implying that, if wisely offered to them, the poor will reject knowledge. Neither for our own, any more than the poor of other countries, do I believe this.

"(4) It rests on an exaggeration of the value of that which it offers,instruction in the mere elements of intellectual knowledge. With the food you offer at present for the power you would give, this is a consideration of great force.

'(5) The more natural, simple means have not yet been fully tried; good instruction has not yet been freely offered to all.

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'(6) It is a class regulation. I heard that no board would venture to interfere with any one who was called respectable.' It is, then, solely to press on the poor the power you would have given, and not on what are called the respectable classes. I hope the poor will take note of this, and whilst firmly claiming the means of instruction, insist that in their use of them they shall be free as others.

Lastly, I deprecate in toto the intrusion of the State into this question beyond the limit which is proved absolutely necessary."

"I think nothing is so wasted at present as the lecturing system. There is no attention to the choice of subjects, and one follows another in a way that is fatal to mental improvement; and there is constantly a disposition to give single lectures and not courses. Both for the teacher and learner it is essential, mentally, that this loose, crude lecture system should be scouted. It is, I believe, an unmixed evil. And in its place, it is for us who are disposed to do our best in the lecturing way, to do it seriously and consecutively, not as the idle amusement of an idle hour, but as a real mental exercise for ourselves and our hearers, -a mental exercise, with the object of imparting and gaining a consecutive knowledge of the subject we bave chosen. And we should be rigid in our choice, as rigid as possible. If hearers will not come, that is not for us to care for, but no mere attractiveness of a subject should induce us to choose it; rather in choosing we should be guided by some rational view of the place our subject holds in reference to other knowledge, and of its social utility."

The Signs of the Times. An Address dedicated to the Preachers of to-day. By S. B. BROWN, B.A. London: Elliot Stock.

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It

'This address was delivered before the ministers and delegates of an association of churches in the south of England," and is intended to enforce "the very great importance of adapting, in a special degree, the preaching of to-day to the great need of the times." is a very able address, on a most important matter; and deserves the perusal not only of those who preach, but of those who are preached to. This would make preaching more than it is a co-operative process-one in which the pastor suggests thoughts, and the people consider and apply them, and in which the wants of the people suggest thoughts which it is the duty of the pastor to apply. We quote one or two passages of interest :

"Society has changed its modes of working and its institutions; new powers have sprung into existence; altogether new ideas have been developed. Our Christianity, if it be what it professes to be, must be able to deal with all these in the spirit of Christ, and it must not show itself unable to advance and grow with the progress of society. It must not retreat to the wilderness, or even to the quiet house of prayer, and be altogether a contemplative spirit. It must come out of solitude, like John the Baptist, and cope with the evils of the age; and, like Christ, be a spirit of life in a society that will otherwise grow corrupt, and pass away into nothingness, and worse. Instead of the Church being in the rear of the progress of society, it ought to lead, and guide, and modify the movements of humanity.

I cannot help noticing one other feature out of many. A great part of our present Christianity is of an ignorantly selfish type. It is an over-anxiety for the salvation and comfort of self. It is scarcely any wonder that the selfishness of the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, should creep into the Church; but it is, nevertheless, a selfishness to be utterly abhorred. We recommend Christianity and Christ too much for what they can do towards comfort and everlasting painlessness.

That will be a glorious day when the Church fulfils her splendid mission, when she enters fully upon the career partially sketched in an address lately delivered (before the Young Students' Christian Association connected with the London University College); and goes far beyond it, as she may well do, when 'in every country she becomes a standing arbiter between the rich and poor, the privileged and unprivileged, a tribune interceding for the plebeian-a perpetual incorruptible critic upon all social proceedings, bringing all the lights of science and learning to bear upon human life-when she probes everything and tries it by her own high principles, and perpetually brings institutions and usages before the judgment-seat of Christ. And when any revolution breaks out in a Christian country, any irremediable discord between class and class, or if any class remain unenlightened, uneducated, barbarous, will reckon it her own sin."

Our Collegiate Course.

THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

A PINDARIC ODE.

BY THOMAS GRAY.

[The might of harmonious numbers over the graces of the motions of the body.]

EPODE I.

Thee the Voice, the Dance obey,
Tempered to thy warbled lay,
O'er Idalia's velvet green

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The harmonies of sound and motion-attuned to thine ecstatic tones, yield homage to thee. Wearing garlands of roses, the Loves may be be

(25) "In the Progress of Poesy' there is scarcely a line that does not contain an abuse of that poetic licence [personification] which renders the style animated if sparingly exercised, frigid if lavishly indulged. We could readily picture to ourselves the rosy-crowned Loves, even antic Sports and blue-eyed Pleasures, if we were not overtasked by being also called upon to believe in the actual incarnation of the shell' [line 15]; who again is parent of Airs' [line 14], and whom the Voice and Dance obey.' Thus are confused together those ideas which naturally represent persons, such as the Loves and Idalia, and those ideas-such as an instrument of music-to which no personification can ever be attached."-Lord Lytton's "Miscellaneous Prose Works," vol. i.; Gray's Works, p. 148.

(27) The grove of Idalum, with the town of the same name, at the foot of Mount Idalus, in the island of Cyprus, was sacred to Venus, the goddess of love and beauty; who on that account bore the name Idalia, which here is equivalent to Cyprian, or "of Cyprus."

The fancy of the poets and artists gave birth to Eros, the son and companion of Aphrodite. The number of Loves was speedily augmented, and each had some peculiar task to perform in affairs of the heart. The Loves are only a portion of

"All the shadowy tribes of mind,

In braided dance their murmurs joined,
And all the bright uncounted powers
Who fed on heaven's ambrosial flowers."

Collins's "Ode on the Poetical Character."

The rosy-crowned Loves are seen,

On Cytherea's day,

With antic Sports and blue-eyed Pleasures,
Frisking light in frolic measures;

Now pursuing, now retreating.

Now in circling troops they meet;

To brisk notes in cadence beating,

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held on the soft sward of Idalia, on the festival of Venus, frolicking gladsomely in merry mazes, flirting with the romping children of Fun, and the bright-glaring Joys alternately advancing and retiring, and then drawn into a gathered crowd, keeping time as they move to the lively notes

(29) The island of Cythera (Cerigo) being a chosen resort of Aphrodite (Venus), she was thence called Cytherea; and the month of April being, according to one derivation, named after Aphrodite, is called (mensis Cythereius) the month of Love. In it the Aphrodisia, or festival of Love, was celebrated with great pomp and luxury in the cities of Greece and in Cyprus. Horace says (Carm., iv., 11, 14—16),—

"Idus tibi sunt agendæ,

Qui dies mensem Veneris marinæ
Findit Aprilem."

("Come, celebrate the ides of April,'

The day which parts the month of Venus,
Our sea-born patron."-F. W. Newman.)

The ides of April fell on the 13th.

Also in his "Spring Song" Horace says,

"Jam Cytherea choros ducit Venus imminente luna
Junctæque Nymphis Gratiæ decentes

Alterno terram quatiunt pede."-Odes, I., iv., 5-7.

("Now Cytherean Venus leads the dance,

Under the gaze of the o'erhanging moon;
The comely Graces with the Nymphs advance,
And then retreat, swift-stepping to the tune.”)

Akenside has also thus noticed and characterized the Graces :

"The powers of Fancy, her delighted sons,

To three illustrious orders have referred,

Three sister Graces, whom the painter's hand,

The poet's tongue, confesses,-the sublime,

The wonderful, the fair."" Pleasures of Imagination,” i., 142–146.

Glance their many-twinkling feet.

Slow-melting strains their queen's approach declare;
Where'er she turns the Graces homage pay;

With arms sublime, that float upon the air,

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of dance-music, their intermixed steps causing a glitter of grace. Lengthy delicious measures herald the advent of their lady. The Graces show the utmost devotion in whatever way she moves; with arms raised aloft they skim along the clouds.

(35) Johnson objected to Gray's words arbitrarily compounded, and especially censures many-twinkling," because though we may say "manyspotted," we cannot say "many-spotting" but here the great lexicographer appears to be wrong in his analogy, for spot is a transitive, twinkle an intransitive verb. Keble has justified Gray against his censor, by using

"The many-twinkling smile of ocean."

(37) Charites, the Graces, the daughters of Jupiter and Eurynome,Aglaia, splendour; Euphrosyne, gaiety; and Thalia, bloom: as in Pindar,-

"Genius, and beauty, and immortal fame
Are yours; without the soft majestic Graces,
Not e'en the gods, in their celestial places,
Or feast or dance proclaim.

August Aglaia, blithe Euphrosyne,
Daughter of heaven's resistless king,
And thou that lov'st the liquid lay,
Thalia, hear my call," &c.

*

Olympic Odes," xvi., Abraham Moore's Version.

(38) "The gorgeous and justly celebrated description of Cytherea herself is greatly injured by this impertinence [of personification]. We go with the poet while he tells us,

"Whene'er she turns, the Graces homage pay ;'

we see the dream of Praxiteles embodied when we are told how

'With arms sublime, that float upon the air,

In gliding state she wins her easy way;'

but the picture is suddenly lost, the vitality of the creation fades away, and we find but a show of words before us, when we are told that—

'O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom move

The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.'

Here, desire and love being also personified, merely to express the goddess's complexion, the unity of the main personification of the goddess herself is destroyed. What we took for the true Florimel changes into the false one, and the glow and motion of life melt into the shape of snow."-Lord Lytton's "Miscellaneous Works," vol. i.; Gray's Works, p. 148.