a healthy and equable development. The knowledge of the heavenly bodies, the knowledge of the planet in which we live, of the qualities of its material elements, and of all its living orders, valuable-nay, invaluable—as it may be shown to be, is nevertheless knowledge wholly inferior in rank to the knowledge of the one living order that beyond measure transcends all the rest-that has for, perhaps, its most distinctive characteristic this, that it possesses a history. This history is among the most potent and effective of all the instruments of human education. It introduces us to forms of thought and action which are infinitely diversified. It gives us far larger materials of judgment upon human conduct and the very springs of action than any present experience can confer. Allow me to observe to you, gentlemen, that judgment upon human conduct is perhaps the most arduous among all the tasks to which the mind of man can be addressed. It is a work the perfect performance of which, I apprehend, surpasses all our powers. To some it may sound like a paradox, but I believe it to be the simple truth, that no man and no combination of men is capable of weighing action in the scales of absolute justice any more than the greatest artists that ever lived in Greece were competent to express absolute beauty by the force of their imaginations and the labour of their hands. But, as in the case of the artist, the constant effort to reach an unattainable perfection availed to produce approximations at least to ideal excellence, so, in the case of the historian, the steady and loyal endeavour to be absolutely just and true in the lofty task of passing judgment will keep the head steady and the foot sure in many a dangerous path by bog and precipice, and will give mighty aid in raising the mind of man to its best capacity for the noblest of all its operations-the search and discernment of the truth. But there is one peculiarity of the consummate historic student, nay, of the historic reader, which deserves beyond all others to be pressed upon your attention, and in which he partakes of the highest quality of the historian himself. Let us ask ourselves what is that highest quality. Of him who betakes himself to the writing of history, to the telling us what man and the world have been in other times, much indeed is required. He must, for example, be learned, upright, exact, methodical, and clear. This is much, but it is not enough. The question remains behind-By what standard is the child of the present to try the children of the past? Our mental habits are shaped according to the age in which we live, our thought is saturated with its colour. But, in like manner, those who went before us in the long procession of our race took the form and pressure of their time. Therefore, they must not be judged according to the form and pressure of ours. Those who in other days denounced death against idolaters, or those who inflicted it upon heretics, must not be sentenced without taking into view the difference in mental habits produced by two opposed religious atmospheres-the one in which dogma was never questioned, the other in which doubt, denial, and diverse apprehension so prevail as greatly to bewilder and unsettle the ordinary mind. Charles the First must not be tried by the rules of a constitutional monarchy now so familiar to our thoughts and language. Queen Elizabeth, working under the terrible conditions of her epoch and her position, must not be judged by the standards which will be applicable to Queen Victoria. The great Popes of the middle ages-

especially the greatest of them all, Gregory the Seventh and Innocent the Third-must not be denounced as aggressors upon civil authority, without bearing in mind that in those days the guardians of law and right were oftentimes the glaring examples of violence, lawlessness, and fraud. The historian, and in his measure the reader of the historian, must lift himself out of what is now called his environment, and by effort of mind assume the points of view and think under the entire conditions which belonged to the person he is calling to account. In so far as he fails to do this he perverts judgment by taking his seat on a tribunal loaded with irrelevant and with misleading matter. But in so far as he succeeds, he not only discharges a duty of equity, but he acquires by degrees a suppleness and elasticity of mental discernment which enable him to separate, even in complicated subject matter, between the wine and the lees, between the grain and the chaff, between the relevant matter in a controversy, which when once ascertained and set in order, leads up to a right judgment, and the bye-paths of prejudice, ignorance, and passion which lead away from it. The historical mind is the judicial mind in the exactness of its balance; it is the philosophic mind in the comprehensiveness and refinement of its view-nor is there any toiler in the field of thought who more than the historian requires to eschew what is known in trade as scamping" his work. He must, if only for his own sake, and to give himself a chance of holding a place in the kindly memory of men, bestow upon it the ample expenditure of labour of which Macaulay, independently of all his brilliant gifts, has given to this age a superlative and rare example. In him we have an illustration of a vital truth-in mental work the substance and the form are so allied that they cannot be severed. The form is the vehicle through which the work of the substance is to be done. If the point of the arrow be too blunt, the strength of the arm is vain; and every student, in whatever branch, should carry with him the recollection of the well known saying of Johnson, who, when he was asked how he had attained to his extraordinary excellence in conversation, replied that, whatever he had to say, he had constantly taken pains to say it in the best manner he could. Yet once more, gentlemen. In a recent lecture on Galileo, Professor Jack had said with great truth and force "that greatness is scarcely compatible with a narrow concentration of intellect even to one family of subjects." I remember that the late Sir James Simpson, conversing on some extremely small skulls which had then recently been discovered in the Orkneys, and which had been treated as belonging to some pre-Celtic and inferior race, observed that exclusive devotion to one pursuit and few ideas is known to give contracted skulls. It is difficult, perhaps, for those to whom one pursuit and one set of subjects are to be their daily bread to know how far they may with safety indulge in collateral studies. But there can hardly be a doubt as to the benefit of these, if they can be had. Absolute singleness of pursuit almost means a mind always in one attitude, an eye that regards every object, however many sided, from one point of view; an intellectual dietary beginning and ending with one article. Good sense and modesty obviate a multitude of mischiefs, but the exclusiveness of which I now speak is in itself prone to serious evils. It disposes each

man to exaggerate the force and value of his own particular attainment, and perhaps therewith his own importance. It deprives the mind of the refreshment which is healthfully afforded by alternation of labour, and of the strength as well as the activity to be gained by allowing varied subjects to evoke and put in exercise its wonderfully varied powers. So much, gentlemen, for your future callings, and your actual studies. As to the temper in which you should set about them you have little need of exhortation: and my closing words under this head shall be few. Be assured that every one of you has his place and vocation on this earth, and that it rests with himself to find it. Do not believe those who too lightly say nothing succeeds like success; effort, gentlemen, honest, mauful, humble effort, succeeds by its reflected action, especially in youth, better than success, which, indeed, too easily and too early gained, not seldom serves, like winning the first throw of the dice, to blind and stupify. Get knowledge all you can, and the more you get, the more you breathe upon its nearer heights the invigorating air, and enjoy the widening views, the more you will know and feel how small is the elevation you have reached in comparison with the immeasurable altitudes that yet remain unscaled. Be thorough in all you do, and remember that though ignorance often may be innocent, pretension is always despicable. Quit you like men, be strong, and the exercise of your strength to-day will give you more strength to-morrow. Work onwards, and work upwards; and may the blessing of the Most High soothe your cares, clear your vision, and crown your labours with reward.

History.

The chief Acts of Parliament passed in the present (19th) century regarding liberty of conscience and political freedom are:

I.-The Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts of Charles I., 1828. This motion was brought forward by Lord John Russell. An agitation had been going on for many years in Ireland, for repealing the disabilities under which the Roman Catholics in that country laboured. At this time Daniel O'Connell, a popular orator, was the great leader of the movement. The relief given to Dissenters, by the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts gave energy to O'Connell and his party; and

II.-The Catholic Emancipation Bill, passed 1829. This Act enabled Roman Catholics to sit in Parliament, and rendered them eligible for all Government appointments, except those of Regent, Viceroy of Ireland, Lord Chancellor of England, and posts connected with the Church, its universities and schools.

III.-The Reform Bill, passed by the Houses of Commons and Lords (the opposing Lords absenting themselves) June 4th, 1832. By this Act the Borough Franchise was fixed at £10 tenancy, and the County at £50 tenancy.

IV.-Bill for abolishing Negro Slavery in all the British Colonies and Possessions, passed (28th Aug.) 1833. By this measure 800,000 slaves received their freedom; and £20,000,000 was divided amongst their masters as compensation.

1

V.-The Municipal Corporations Reform Act (brought forward by Lord John Russell), passed 1835. This Act gave to the ratepayers, of three years' standing, in cities and boroughs, the right of electing a Mayor, Alderman, and Common Council, who were to have the entire management of the affairs of their borough.

VI.-An Act passed for allowing prisoners' council to plead for them, whatever may be the indictment, 1836.

VII. Mr. Disraeli's (Lord Beaconsfield) Reform Bill passed 1867. This Bill granted Household Suffrage to the boroughs, with one year's residence; and a £10 Lodger franchise; in the country £12 rental. There was also a redistribution of many seats.

VIII.-Act for the vote by Ballot at Parliamentary and Municipal Elections, passed (July) 1872. "The Lords" introduced into the Bill, the clause that the measure should only remain in force until 1880, unless Parliament should see fit to continue it. W. H. KNIGHT.

Edgar Allan Poe.

He was a man of medium height, of a well-knit, compact frame, dressed in a suit of black, and wearing a stock fashionable at that period. With his beautiful head erect, large violet, gloomy eyes, black wavy hair, pale melancholy face, an inimitable blending of sweetness and of hauteur in his expression and manner, and with a grace of movement indicative of his military training. The author of "The Tales of the Folio Club," was twenty-four years of age when he took the regular step of his literary career, and looked to himself, to his pen, for the means of subsistence. Edgar Poe was a descendant of a knightly Irish race, of Italian origin, whose chivalrous and eccentric character had given them prominence even in Irish history. Edgar was adopted by a wealthy gentleman named Allan, and brought to England, where he was put to school at Stoke Newington. After passing two years in England, he returned in 1822 to the United States, studied at Richmond Academy, and thence went to the University of Virginia. After a brief sojourn at West Point, he formally entered upon a literary career in the year 1835, becoming editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, at a salary of 100 guineas a year. Poe adopted literature as a vocation. His contemporaries formed the most brilliant group of men of letters that America had yet produced. Among the writers of romance were Paulding, and Cooper, and Lydia Child, Washington Irving, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, "most musically, most melancholy"-all breathing a national spirit and reflecting the excellencies and shortcomings of the people, the institutions and the customs of the country, whose mountains and prairies formed the stage upon which their creatures moved. Poe was like none of these illustrious writers: he had neither forerunner nor follower as an author. He had been flattered by many imitators, but all of them were beneath contempt. His individuality was intense, and he ruled alone without a rival the weird magic world inhabited by the creatures of his own mythology. He disdained the "stock-in-trade" of ordinary builders. Love was never the keystone of his story. That sacred theme he reserved for the muse, which with him

was a reverent passion. Poe often began a story with an incident or a chapter in autobiography and then gave rein to his imagination. His favourite pet cat Pluto, which was wont to sit upon his shoulder and purr in approbation, while with lightning speed he wrote that beautiful caligraphy we all admired, was made to howl and wait in horror and in triumph within the tomb until the crime was disclosed and the criminal secured in the tale of "The Black Cat." "The Gold Bug," one of the most deservedly popular of Poe's stories, was written for a one hundred dollar prize, and it supported the author's theory that human ingenuity can resolve any enigma human ingenuity could construct. Poe rivalled Defoe in realism and Swift in details in his narrative of "Arthur Gordon Pym." But he never dipped his pen in filth. The analytical power of his mind, which made him the terror of pretence, as a critic was shown in the " Mystery of Marie Roget," "The Purloined Letter," and "The Murder in the Rue Morgue." For serene and sombre beanty, and as a picture of mental pathology, "The Fall of the House of Usher" was a masterpiece, and one of the finest of Poe's romances. He loved to tarry o'er the shadowy side of life, to paint in sombre colours those morbid feelings which sometimes haunted writers and thinkers of the poetic, the nervous type. His imagination was boundless, but with it he combined mathematical precision and patience for working out details that gave intense reality to his most ethereal fancy. There was method in all his works, and a definite purpose for all his characters however shadowy at first they might seem. No Florentine mosaic was ever formed with greater care and nicety than the weird thoughts and finished sentences of Poe. Perhaps no American writer of fiction was so well known on the continent as Poe, but the Latin race were comparatively unacquainted with his poems, for the reason that poetic thought and expression seldom suffered translation. They only flourished in their native soil. It was as a poet, however, that the fame of Edgar Allan Poe was most firmly and universally established wherever his mother tongue was spoken. His idea of the poetic principle was the "human aspiration for supernal beauty." Its nearest relation to truth was consistency; and it waged war upon vice on account of its hideous deformity alone. The intellect and the moral sense were the guardians of truth and beauty, while taste informed us of the beautiful. In the matter of dressing the thought, telling the story, Poe was the very converse of Shelley. He was never a mystic. His narrative was clearly related with every attendant relevant circumstance. "The Raven" was a fine illustration in this respect. Much time and ingenuity had been devoted to guessing and conjecturing the train of circumstances and ideas which had led to the inspiration and composition of this marvellous poem. It was while tending his childwife with tenderest love that his sensitive mind brooded over the error of his life-the oft-repeated error which now deprived his dying darling of the delicacies which might soothe her closing hours. Then began the wondering, fearing, doubting, whether in spite of this wrong he had done her, the great wrong his chivalrous nature magnified a hundred-fold-whether within the distant Adienn he should clasp his sainted Virginia to his heart once again. Such, he thought, were the cloudy, melancholy reflections out of which the Raven was begotten.