Page images
PDF
EPUB

puts no faith in phrenology. He considers the other hand, the amount of possible mental the apportionment of the brain to various labor is far less than many persons imagine. organs as a merely fanciful theory, and the If professional men are enabled to work twelve judgment of character, to which practised or fifteen hours daily, that is because most of phrenologists have attained, as the result of their business has become, from habit, mere mere conjecture. Dr. Gall, the founder of the matter of routine. From four to six hours is science, was led into some ludicrous errors in probably the utmost daily period for which his attempts to determine the temperaments real exertion of the mind can be carried on. of individuals to him unknown. Then the Modern education is likewise touched upon. definitions of the various organs are so general It errs, according to the author, not in defect, as scarcely to admit the possibility of entire but excess. The teaching designed for, and which is good for, ordinary intellects is apt to But, even if the errors of phrenology were less check and stint those of a naturally superior numerous than I believe them to be, that would quality. But, as the nature of individual not go far towards convincing me of the value minds cannot be known until education has of their art. It is not very difficult for a clever been carried to a certain point, it is difficult observer of human nature to form a notion of to see how this fault can be remedied, except some part of a man's character in the course of by giving a large choice and variety of a brief conversation with him; and an enthusiast studies, so as to offer some that may attract in phrenology may very honestly persuade him

error:

self that he has obtained from the examination all learners. And such is actually the tenof his head that knowledge which he has really dency of our modern system in its latest obtained from other sources. Then observe how phase.

any

remark

comprehensive the faculties and propensities of If we were to offer any criticism on this the phrenological system are supposed to be. A work we should remark that the dialogue large development of the organ of destructiveness form adopted is rather a hindrance than a in the head of Hare the murderer explained how help. Conversations are only useful where it was that he was led to murder sixteen human differences of character are to be displayed beings that he might sell their bodies. But in or opposite opinions elicited. But here the the head of another person who never committed interlocutors generally agree, and a murder it is sufficient to find that it exists in made by one of them might be equally attrib combination with a disposition to satire, or to deface milestones; and in the beaver and squirrel uted to the others. The dialogue is, in fact, it explains how it is that these animals are im- merely an interrupted essay. pelled to cut and tear in pieces the bark, leaves, and branches of trees for the innocent purpose of constructing their cabins and nests. So the large size of the organ of acquisitiveness not only leads one person to be a thief and another to hoard, but it also explains the habits of the spendthrift (who does not hoard at all); and it impels storks and swallows to return after their migrations to establish themselves, each succeeding year, in the same locality. Following these examples, I do not see that a phrenologist can have much difficulty in finding a character for every individual suited to the particular configuration

of his head.

FLOWERS AND PERFUMERY. Some idea of the importance of perfumery as an article of commerce may be formed, when it is stated that one of the large perfumers of Grasse, in France, employs annually 10,000 lbs. of orange blossoms, 60,000 lbs. of cassie flowers, 54,000 lbs. of violet flowers, 20,000 lbs. of tuberoses, 16,000 lbs. of lilac flowers, besides rosemary, mint, lavender, thyme, lemon, orange, and other odorous plants, in like proportion. Flowers yield perfumes in all climates, but those growing in the warmer latitudes are, it seems, the most prolific in their odor, while those from the colder, are sweetest. Though many of the finest perfumes come from the East Indies, Ceylon, Mexico, and Peru, the south of Europe is the only real garden of utility to the perfumer. Grasse and Nice are the principal seats of the art. From their geographical distances, has at command that change of climate position, the grower, within comparatively short most applicable to bring to perfection the plants required for his trade. On the sea-coast his cas sie grows without fear of frost, one night of Many remarks scattered through this little which would destroy all the plants for a season; treatise are worth the recollection of all ages while nearer the Alps, his violets are found and classes. "The failure of the mind in old sweeter than if grown in the warmer situations age," says Sir Benjamin, "is often less the where the orange-tree and mignonette bloom to result of natural decay than of disuse." Am- perfection. England, however, can claim the bition has ceased to operate; contentment superiority in the growth of lavender and peppermint; the essential oils extracted from these brings indolence; indolence decay of mental plants grown at Mitcham, in Surrey, realize power, ennui, and sometimes death. Men eight times the price in the market of those prohave been known to die, literally speaking, of duced in France or elsewhere, and are fully disease induced by intellectual vacancy. On worth the difference for delicacy of odor.

It has been usually held that large heads are more powerful and thinking machines than small ones, and as a general rule, experience justifies the conclusion. But Newton, Byron, and others were exceptions to it; and it is quite certain that a large brain may be accompanied with the most dense stupidity.

From The Spectator.

recognized as independent-in some respects

THE NATURAL ALLIES OF ENGLAND. can transcend separate states of the Old World. The gross territory, 4,000,000 square miles, WHEN Lord Ellenborough proposed, last exceeds that of all Europe, by 290,000 square week, to dissolve the connection between the miles, and the United States by 769,000; but North American Colonies and the Mother- the portion at present politically organized is country, he could scarcely have known how not less than 486,000 square miles. Canada entirely out of season and out of tune with alone equals in size Great Britain, France, the present feeling both in this country and and Prussia together; and Nova Scotia is as the Colonies his proposal was. The same pro- large as Holland or Switzerland, both of which position has been whispered occasionally in are independent. If it is numbers that conboth Houses, more often in the House of Com-stitute the substance of a state, then British mons, and it could scarcely have remained so North America with its 2,517,000 almost equals long without an emphatic and indignant con- Scotland, and exceeds Denmark, Saxony, and tradiction if the Colonies had been represent- Wurtemberg. Is it trade? then in shipping ed in the Imperial Parliament. In the hey- tonnage British North America almost equals day of rebellion, Lord Ellenborough might Scotland, with its 522,000 tonnage; while its have heard something like a response from imports are £11,500,000, and its exports Canada; but at a time when the Colonies are £9,545,000, exceeding in both the thirteen getting all that they desire from the Imperial States of America soon after the time of inGovernment, and when they are answering dependence. And if England requires an to that generous concession with an equally army of 120,000 for ordinary protection, generous and spontaneous declaration of their British North America can muster 380,000 own loyalty and attachment, the proposal men for the defence of her soil. These are sounds as if it came from some political Rip substantial facts. The British North AmeriVan Winkle. If Lord Ellenborough is de- can Colonies do constitute a state not less exsirous of taking the post, vacant in the House tensive, wealthy, rich in natural resources, inof Lords, of independent Colonial advocate, dependent in spirit or intelligence, than the he may do good service; but in this instance States of America when they set up for them-. he has missed the point. There is a claim to selves; and certainly not less great in all these be advocated for the North American Colo- respects than many states of the Old World nies, but it is not separation; it is exactly the which have been duly recognized for centuries. reverse-Imperial representation. Yet, Mr. Howe remarks, while Scotland can This question has lately been in active dis-send fifty-three Members to the Imperial Par cussion before the House of Assembly in Nova liament, and the single state of Ohio nineteen Scotia, and the Colonial case has been well to the American Congress, British North collected and set forth by Mr. Howe, the Pro-America is left without any species of collecvincial Secretary of that colony. His state- tive representation. Sir Robert Peel called ment was one mainly of facts; sometimes, per- the Colonies English counties; but English haps, a little magnified by the Colonial view, counties return their Members. In this counsometimes colored with a Western force of try we are anxious for establishing County tint; but in the main substantial, and certainly Boards: in British North America they have constituting very strong ground for considera- only County Boards, and a natural federation tion. The day has gone by when an import- of states is deprived of the collective governant part of the British empire could be dis- ment which gives power and importance to missed as "only a colony." Strip England the neighboring republic, and makes England of her dependences, and she would possess what she is. neither that manifest extension of riches nor It is needless to say that the colonists ought that evidence of ruling power, neither the to have a choice in this matter; since they confidence in herself nor the influence abroad, have the choice. Some of their forefathers,-which make her now one of the six greatest and those perhaps who have infused a large states in the world. Amongst our Colonies, portion of spirit into the present population the North American group can certainly lay -once exercised their choice, and exercised claim to respect, on grounds material as well it in favor of adherence to the British Crown. as political; their sagacity, their energy, their Mr. Howe has a right to boast of those Loyalindependence of thought, have been proved ists who, rather than join a rebellion and reby the degree of self-government which they main attached to the Republic, abandoned have obtained through their own vigor from property and home, passed the border, and the Imperial Government and Legislature. began life again on the soil of Nova Scotia. But Mr. Howe shows, that in extent of terri- There is no denying that the British colonists tory, number of people, natural resources, are again capable of exercising their choice, wealth, and commercial activity, the group of even as the countrymen of Washington have colonies can vie with many states that are done.

Now

For the present, Mr. Howe, who very fairly wretched fortress on the Danube." Ten men represents the moderate as well as the inde- in the Imperial Parliament would at all events pendent class of colonists, sees a balance of enable the English people to understand the arguments against annexation to the Republic truth of Colonial wants, the material nature of the United States or an independent Fede- of the security which the British Colonies can ration of the North American Colonies. By give, the probity of the colonists. joining the Union, unquestionably, the Colo- We also have some interest in this question; nies on the banks of the St. Lawrence would and two illustrations will serve as well as the at once obtain their share of the power, the most elaborate arguments. At the present wealth, or the glory which belong to the Re- moment it is a matter of some solicitude to public. But local interests might be unplea- know whether in the conflict which may exsantly merged in general interests. The local tend over the whole world we should have influences, for example, in regard to fisheries, the United States for us or against us. might be more injuriously swamped at Wash- it may be said to be within the choice of the ington than they are in an Imperial treatment British colonists in North America to deterof that subject. Independence would entail mine whether they shall continue their allegi new expenses for a collective Government; ance to us, or whether they shall double the and, let us add, might also expose the federa- extent of that Republic which may be our tion around the St. Lawrence to dangerous friend but may also be our antagonist. By rivalries; might even precipitate that split in meeting the loyalty which the British North the Union which the Nullificators are continu- Americans have shown us thus far, with due ally prophesying, and might even plunge the consideration, we may determine their choice whole of the North American continent in for evermore. Again, the two great divisions civil war. On the other hand, it is not to be of the Anglo-Saxon race present at this day denied that the colonists are refused the bene- the most powerful and the most successful fits to be derived from collective government. forms of Republican Government, the one They cannot come to England in search of the Democratic form, less tried than our own; support for some Colonial enterprise, but they the other the Monarchical form, which has have forced upon their minds the mortifying endured the trial of centuries, and has by its comparison as to the encouragement which acts furnished the materials for that glorious may be given to private and even to foreign book which we call the history of England. speculations, while, for want of sufficient fede- According to our treatment of our Colonies rative or Imperial authority, the representa- on the banks of the St. Lawrence it lies with tives of the Colonies meet with less considera- us now to determine whether that broad tract tion than a half-authorized party from an of land shall be added to the Democratical or English borough. Mr. Howe contrasts his to the Monarchical form of Republican governown endeavor to negotiate an advance of a ment. And both these questions we say are few millions for material improvements in of vital importance at the opening of a period British North America, and the obstructions in which the English Crown may find its safety which he encountered, with the facilities secured only by bringing to its aid the support afforded to those who were seeking assistance of every English county that it can command. "about a question of the Holy Places or some

executors at some subsequent period. The entire disappearance of every fragment of the collection is in keeping with the mysterious manner of his death.

WAS LORD LYTTELTON JUNIUS? Ir is satisfactory to learn, (says the Press,) that diligent search has been made among the archives of the Lyttelton family for any docu- Some curious papers have, however, been ments which might elucidate the question. found relative to his decease, and particularly The present Lord Lyttelton has interested a statement drawn up by Lord Westcote (who himself in the inquiry; but the papers pre- became Lord Lyttelton on the subsequent served concerning Thomas Lyttelton are reaction of the peerage,) detailing the ghost scanty, and as regards this particular point, story. A copy of this curious paper has reached of very little importance. That collection us, and we shall betray no confidence in makof his "speeches, letters, verses, and writings "ing it public. The substance of it must have which he left to his executor, Mr. Roberts, ap- been known to Dr. Johnson, as he was accusparently with a view to publication, appears to tomed to silence doubt on the story by saying be irrecoverably lost. Not a trace of the col-" I had it from Lord Westcote himself." This lection is to be found. It must have been de- paper is endorsed," Remarkable circumstances stroyed by Lord Lyttelton between the date attending the death of Thomas Lord Lytof his will and his sudden death, or by his telton." It is in Lord Westcote's own hand:

REMARKABLE DREAM OF THOMAS LORD servant as having left his room for a few LYTTELTON. On Thursday, the 25th of Novem- minutes previous to his death. The late Lord ber, 1779, Thomas Lord Lyttelton, when he Fortescue related-among others to the precame to breakfast, declared to Mrs. Flood, wife sent Mr. George Fortescue-the manner of of Frederick Flood, Esq., of the kingdom of Ire- Lyttelton's death, in substance, as follows:— land, and to the three Miss Amphletts, who were lodged in his house in Hill-street, London (where

dead.

He called on Lord Lyttelton in Hill-street, on he then also was), that he had had an extraordi- the very day he died. He walked out with him, nary dream the night before: he said he thought and, passing through St. James's churchyard, he was in a room which a bird flew into, which Lord L. said, " See how young these people died appearance was suddenly changed into that of a (pointing to some epitaphs on young persons); woman dressed in white, who bade him prepare we do not do that now-a-days, we live to a good to die; to which he replied-I hope not soon, not old age." He then went down with him in a in two months; she replied-Yes, in three days. He said he did not much regard it, because he carriage to Pitt-place, where they dined with others. Lord L. went up to bed early. His sercould in some measure account for it, for that avant came down stairs to fetch a spoon to mix some few days before he had been with Mrs. Dawson, physic with. On his return he found his master when a robin redbreast flew into her room. dying, and coming down stairs again waked up When he had dressed himself that day to go to Lord F. from a nap into which he had fallen, the House of Lords, he said he thought he did and summoned him up. He found Lord L. not look as if he was likely to die. In the evening of the following day he told the eldest Miss Amphlett that she looked melancholy, but, said he, you are foolish and fearful. I have lived two days, and, God willing, I will live out the third. On the morning of Saturday he told the same ladies that he was very well, and believed he should bilk the ghost. Some hours afterwards he went with them, Mr. Fortescue, and Captain Wolseley to Pitt-place, at Epsom, withdrew to his bedchamber soon after eleven o'clock at night, talked cheerfully to his servant, and particularly inquired of him what care had been taken to provide good rolls for his breakfast the next morning; stepped into bed with his waistcoat on, and, as his servant was pulling it off, put his hand to his side, sunk back, and immediately expired without a groan. He ate a good dinner after his arrival at Pitt-place that day, took an egg for his supper, and did not seem to be at all out of order, except that while he was eating his soup at dinner he had a rising in his throat, a thing which had often happened to him before, and which obliged him to spit some of it

out.

Lord Fortescue never himself heard any thing of the ghost story until some days after Lord Lyttelton's death. Whatever the motive might be, the Lyttelton family, represented by Lord Westcote, took care to give currency to the ghost story, and to represent that Lord Lyttelton's death was in exact fulfilment of the prediction. No inquest was held on the body, nor does it appear that any examination of it took place.

We have seen four MS. letters of Lord

Lyttelton (undoubtedly genuine) which were
until lately in the hands of Mr. Thorpe, the
One of these, describing the
bookseller.
eloquence of Chatham, is sufficiently interes-
ing and characteristic to deserve publica
tion:-

My worthy old Friend,-I return you my most sincere thanks for that cordial effusion of sentiHis physician, Dr. Fothergill, told me ment which afforded me great pleasure. The apLord Lyttelton, had in the summer preceding a plause of an honest and independent country bad pain in his side; and he judged that some gentleman I prefer to volumes of flattery proceedgreat vessel in the part where he had felt the ing from smooth-tongued courtiers or hollowpain gave way, and to that he conjectured his hearted statesmen. I have but one object, but death was owing. His declaration of his dream, one ambition. It is to use all my endeavors to and his expressions above mentioned, conse-serve the public. To do this I can truly say I quential thereunto, were upon a close inquiry am blessed by no sordid interest, neither hallood asserted to me to have been so by Mrs. Flood, on by the yelpers of opposition, nor drawn off by the eldest Miss Amphlett, Captain Wolseley, and the terrors of ministerial resentment. his valet de chambre, Faulkner, who dressed him too well apprised, Quid ferre recusant, "Quid va on the Thursday, and the manner of his death leant Humeri," to look upon myself as the Marwas related to me by William Stuckey, in the cellus of the age. I have neither the gravity nor presence of Mr. Fortescue and Captain Wolse the importance of character necessary to govern ley; Stuckey being the servant who attended in these wild and unruly times, and am sorry him in his bedchamber, and in whose arms he that with the Earl of Chatham, died the genius died. WESTCOTE. of England. The majesty of his mind overawed everything. The world was silent before him. He alone intimidated the house of Bourbon, and

February the 13th, 1780.

But I am

In one particular this statement is at vari- so great was the terror of his name that the very year he died, on a report prevailing in France ance with all the accounts (so far as we recol- that he was to be again Minister of England, the lect) published at the time, or with the narra- French immediately marched twenty battalions tive of Mr. (afterwards Lord) Fortescue. down to the coast, transported heavy cannon Those accounts all represent Lord Lyttelton's post to Brest, and seized all the peasants from

the plough to assist in repairing the fortifications friend; remember me kindly to Madame la Barof the towns they imagined Lord Chatham would onne, and believe me your sincere friend.

Hill-street, ye 20th May, 1779.

LYTTELTON.

begin his administration by invading. When they found the rumor was false, they desisted from their works, marched their troops back to their garrisons, and thought Brest strong enough to repel the fleet of England, tho' too weak to likely that any further evidence of import will From what we can collect, we think it unresist the genius of William Pitt. This wonder

upon men.

now

ful man was not less dreaded at home. I re-ever be adduced on this Lyttelton theory. member when, after an absence of two years, he The Francis family, notwithstanding their came down to the House of Commons without anxiety to establish the claims of Sir Philip, any man's knowing his intentions, and knocked are silent, though his papers have been long up by a single speech a whole administration. open to them. The identity of Junius is still His invectives were terrible denunciations of matter of conjecture, and it seems vengeance, and accompanied as they were with tolerably certain that the mystery will remain an eye that shot pernicious fire into the heart of as long as the letters themselves. He wrote his opponents. They had a preternatural effect to Wilkes, "I speak from a recess which no Hume Campbell, brother to Lord Marchmont, a cold, steady, interested Scotch-human curiosity can penetrate, and," he conman (who disregarded words as much as any tinued, plainly referring to Burke's essay, man), was so scared by him in the House of "darkness we are told is one source of the Commons that he was suddenly seized whilst Mr. sublime." These words cannot now be read Pitt was speaking with a violent shivering fit, went without a feeling approaching to awe; and, home in a high fever, and died in a week after- vast as his genius unquestionably was, the inwards. I will stop here, for I am insensibly flexibility of his character, as firm and fixed going on to something like memoirs of Lord as fate, and the lofty contempt with which he Chatham. He sleeps now, but the poet's lyre is looked down upon the vain or ambitious mo awake. It is in your hand, my good friend.

Sound then the strings, celebrate his praisec, and tives which influence ordinary men, invest the contrast the magnitude of his mind to the poor great" nominis umbra" with a kind of fascinpusillanimity of modern statesmen, to the cor- ation which one would hardly care to have ruption of modern Parliaments, and to the base broken by the discovery of his secret. Italian.code of modern policy. Adieu, my dear

From The Spectator.

MEMOIRS OF MRS. OPIE.*

Their fashion has now passed; but they have left results behind, in the great superiority of our juvenile didactic tales, perhaps in the MRS. OPIE was one of that band of writers greater decorum of our manners and social who stood between the weakness or unnatural morals. The age which read with avidity novphantasies of the circulating library fictionists els that would now be called "slow," was of the old school, and the historical romance "fast" enough in its gentleman life, and not of Scott or the novel of manners that appeared over straitlaced in general society. in a later day. Less vivid and dramatic than A long life of eighty-five years (1769-1853) their successors, yet more obvious in their caused Amelia Opie to outlive her actual popcraft, they had upon the whole greater solidity ularity, though a tradition of it remained; and and purpose, though it was attained at the ex- the homage of friends, stimulated perhaps by pense of their art by means of direct didactics. religious community, continued to the last. Of this class Miss Edgeworth may upon the Hence her biography has not the general in whole be considered the head; but if she terest which it would have had if she had died brought to her task more sustained labor, at fifty instead of eighty-five; nor does its inweightier matter, and possibly greater close-trinsic character make up for want of tempo ness of structure, Mrs. Opie excelled them all rary attraction. Her life, though long, was in a genial warmth of feeling, as well as in a uneventful; and though living in society all vivacity which if not life itself was very like it; her days, and for many years among the highthough she did not always escape a degree of stiffness, from which indeed the true didactic novel is seldom free. These fictions of Edgeworth, Opie, Hofland, Hannah More, surpassed the popularity of any later novels except Scott's.

est, her pictures of it in letters and diaries are not so striking and characteristic as some contained in other writings of a similar kind. The reader is carried over seventy years of a busy and eventful life; he is continually brought into the company of remarkable per * Memorials of the Life of Amelia Opie, selected sons; he often hears of great names, from the and arranged from her Letters, Diaries, and other Manuscripts. By Cecilia Lucy Brightwell. Pub-opening of the first French Revolution to the lished by Longman & Co. London; Fletcher & Al-"glorious Three Days" of the second, and exander, Norwich. even to the setting of the younger Bourbon

DXXXII.

LIVING AGE. VOL. VL. 15

« PreviousContinue »