and moral philosophy. We need not dwell on the importance of the aid afforded by each and all of these, in the discipline of the intellect. If any doubt were felt on this point it would probably attach itself to the first and last. But the accuracy, the nice discrimination of subtle differences, and the appreciation of philosophical arrangement, which go to make up a good scholar, are qualifications which will have an abiding value, apart from that which they possess as essential to the understanding of classical literature, and the severe and sustained thought, the familiarity with the abstrusest questions with which human thought has to deal, and the communion with the greatest minds of every age which the study of the moral sciences requires and involves, must invest it with no common dignity, and bear seed, which will be fruitful when the powers so formed are devoted to other and very different objects. Besides these there would be some points, an acquaintance with which would be required as a preliminary to admission into particular offices. Thus a familiar knowledge of modern languages would be demanded of all candidates for the Foreign Office, though from their inferiority to the languages as instruments of thought, we should be sorry to see them substituted for Greek and Latin as criteria of mental training, unless at least some knowledge of comparative philology were exacted from those who brought them up. It remains to inquire briefly what means we have at our disposal for securing in the candidate an adequate knowledge of these subjects. With respect to logic, the classics, mathematical, and moral science, they are already amply provided for in our Universities. Even the natural sciences and history have lately been introduced into them with a fair chance of their taking root and growing there. But there are two large classes of young men who are not so well provided for, those educated at public schools, without proceeding to the Universities, and that large middle class who have neither time nor means to devote themselves wholly to education after they leave the grammar school or the commercial academy. What is to be done for these latter cannot be treated of now. The education of the middle classes is too large and too important a subject to be introduced incidentally at the fag end of another discussion. For the former class, public schools afford a sufficient teaching in classical literature, and perhaps in mathematics also. There are two ways by which the other necessities might be met. Either the school might retain such of its members as propose to become candidates for civil appointments without proceeding to the Universities, for a somewhat longer period than is now customary, and supply from its own resources some of that mental training which it at present leaves to the Universities,-or special Institutions might be founded where instruction might be obtained in the necessary subjects between the time of leaving school and entrance VOL. XVII. 3 H upon official life. Something of this kind has been done already in the foundation of a Civil Service department, at King's College, London, and the example which that body, always so desirous of adapting itself to new necessities, has set, will no doubt be followed by other Institutions as soon as there is a sufficient demand to warrant their doing so. If a system of appointment based on the result of a competitive examination be adopted as the only attainable test of merit at the first admission into the Civil Service,-and that such must eventually be the case, admits, we think, of but little doubt,—it is obvious what an important influence such a change must exercise upon all our educational institutions. We have no wish on the one hand to see an undue preference given to the studies of the elder Universities, or, on the other, to see any hasty changes introduced into them on their part, but we do hope that they will not be content to take a less important part in the education of the nation than heretofore. Nowhere are so many of the appliances of study gathered together as within their walls, nowhere can the whole local spirit and association be so fitted to aid in the attainment of a high standard of mental culture. And we feel sure that the modifications which are needed to render thoroughly efficient these appliances, and to make the realization of such a standard more certain, are just those which will enable them to stand their ground under these new circumstances, and to meet these fresh requirements. When these new wants are felt, it is to Oxford and Cambridge, endowed as they are with old experience, high renown, and vast wealth, that men will look first for their satisfaction. That they should be equal to the call is important indeed, for the interests of education at large, but it is so even more for their own welfare. If they are to retain their ancient reputation, their sons must win their spurs, not in their tilt-yard when they contend amongst themselves, but in the lists without where they must abide the challenge of every combatant. 415 GUIZOT'S MEDITATIONS AND MORAL SKETCHES. Meditations and Moral Sketches. By M. GUIZOT. Translated from the French by JOHN, MARQUIS OF ORMONDE, K.P. Dublin: Hodges and Smith. 1855. It has been remarked with much truth that the nineteenth century lives at a faster rate than did the eighteenth. In an age of great and increasing rapidity of locomotion and communication, and of ceaseless activity on the part of the press, an age of steam and electricity, photography, and cheap literature, a comparatively young have seen more changes take place in the world around him, have had more material things and mental visions presented to his outer and inward sight, than could have been the lot of his great grandsire, who lived in a century which we have now learned to look back upon as one of formality and conventionalism. man may These reflections are forcibly impressed upon us by the very name of M. Guizot, and still more so by the particular libellus now before us. It does not necessarily argue extreme old age in the writer of these lines, to say that he can call to mind the figure of the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, rising in the Chambre des Deputés to reply to the attacks of the Opposition upon the management of Algeria and the affair of Tahiti. The three Essays which make up this little volume, belong to that period of the writer's life and of the history of France and Europe. But the preface to the collection is dated from Val Richer, in the autumn of A.D. 1851. The private citizen reproduces in retirement, under the shadow of imperialism, pages which he had written as the Prime Minister of a constitutional Monarchy. Honour be to the man who has so spoken and so acted, that he need not shrink when stripped of authority, from republishing what he had uttered in his day of power. With the discussion of that great political problem, “Is constitutional Monarchy possible?" the career of M. Guizot will probably be associated for long time to come. It is no part of our business to pronounce opinions in such matters, but it may be lawful for us to indicate, historically, the change of feeling which appears to be in progress upon this question. Thirty years ago, young Englishmen were generally brought up in the creed, that the mixed form of government under which they lived was one that had realised the visions of Cicero and Tacitus, and disproved the assertion of the latter, to the effect that it could not be of long duration. Our political constitution was thought applicable to almost every other race and nation. Spain and Sicily, Greece and France, were to be made happy and prosperous by its adoption. Rightly or wrongly, the re-action is at present extreme. Niebuhr expressed a doubt whether the institutions which worked so well in England, were equally well adapted for Ireland. Mr. Ford's Handbook for Spain is replete with pleasantry upon the ludicrous unfitness of the Spaniard for the institutions of John Bull. Quasi-democratic poets have bepraised Napoleonism. Mr. Merivale, in his History of the Roman Empire, declares that the creed just referred to concerning the British constitution, is untenable. The confidence of Sir A. Alison in the excellence of constitutional government seems sorely shaken, if we may judge from the tone of his new history now in progress. Mr. Hallam pronounces that the idea of a Sovereign so fettered by law "is a sort of monarchical pantheism, of which the vanishing point is a republic." "And to this," he adds, "the prevalent theory, that kings are to reign, but not to govern, cannot but lead. It is a plausible, and in the main, perhaps, for the times we have reached, a necessary theory; but it renders monarchy ultimately scarcely possible."1 "This remarkable combination," writes Mr. Grote, "of the fiction of superhuman grandeur and licence with the reality of an invisible strait-waistcoat, is what an Englishman has in mind when he speaks of a constitutional king; the events of our history have brought it to pass in England, amidst an aristocracy the most powerful that the world has yet seen, but we have still to learn whether it can be made to exist elsewhere, or whether the occurrence of a single king, at once able, aggressive, and resolute, may not suffice to break it up.' A Prince Consort points out the difficulties with which Royalty has to contend in England: a Fellow of an Oxford College lectures the good people of Edinburgh upon the Empire of the West; and, although supposed to sympathize with democracy, yet recommends the adoption of an Imperial régime. in Great Britain, if it be but for a season. And, finally, language of a similar tenour is beginning to be heard in the railway and the steamboat; and the muse of our Poet Laureate in the new poem of Maud, chimes in with the chorus of the many who, whether they incline towards despotism or the sway of the masses, agree in being discontented with the existing state of things. "Ah!-for a man with heart, head, hand, One still strong man in a blatant land, 1 Middle Ages. Notes to Chap. viii. Part III. (Tenth Edition.) With respect to France, the question has been raised whether the constitutional government was ever really congenial to the soil, and not rather an Anglomania, fostered by a small, though brilliant set of men; such as the Duc de Broglie, Count Molé, the Count de Montalembert, MM. Thiers, Guizot, and others, who, however opposed in many respects, were yet all conscious of the importance which their own eloquence and powers of statesmanship would confer upon themselves under such a dynasty. On the ground of its presumed unfitness for France, noblemen bearing names long famed for their attachment to the house of Bourbon, a Pastoret and a La Rochejaquelein, have made over their allegiance to the reigning Emperor. We are not, we repeat, discussing these questions; but we may be permitted to remind the reader that be his political creed what it may, patience is a Christian virtue, that rash and hasty judgments are condemned by the Gospel, and that temporary difficulties and failures may be quite insufficient evidence to disprove the benefits of a system which, here at least, has withstood the trials of many a year and many a storm. On such points we have M. Guizot completely with us. The following passage in his preface is the more deserving of attention, because ex-ministers and victims of revolutions are but too easily tempted to imagine, that all hopes of order and good government throughout the world, disappeared on the day which witnessed their own fall from power. "I see the deepest injustice prevailing towards the governments of our day. It is false that they are indifferent to the welfare and progress of nations. It is false that they only look to stability and tyranny. They may doubtless feel personal passions, old errors; but whatever their form, they are all, from motives of prudence or duty, seriously impressed with the necessity of respecting the rights and ameliorating the condition of men. And those most opposed to liberal appearances, make every day, in their laws and practice, a multitude of changes favourable to justice and liberty. "I say, too, that European governments, amidst the storms of the last sixty years, have conducted themselves, taking all into account, with great moderation. Their dignity incessantly insulted, their existence attacked, they have not given way, either during the struggle or after the victory, to those excesses of passion or power with which the history of the world has been so long filled. They may be shown to have been neither foreseeing nor able in their methods, whether of resistance or concession to the new-born spirit; but it is unjust to set them down as its intractable adversaries. In the formidable strife of our day between governments and revolutions, history will surely not impute to the former the most insolent contempt of justice and liberty." pause We to observe that for the italicised passages in any extract from the book before us, we are solely responsible; and further, that we have not had an opportunity of comparing the English translation with the original. The latter circumstance, |