is not absolutely flat,' but fort basse:' an odd description this for an island, half of which consists of a ridge of mountains as high as the Pentland Hills.

There is so little said of the greater number of the Western Islands which he professes to have examined, that it is fruitless to follow him; but he describes Muck, which he does not profess to have seen, as a 'grés calcaire traversé par des filens 'basaltiques.' We are at a loss to account for this blunder; except by supposing that, in the manufacture of his book, his notes have somehow become misplaced. This island has been described only in Dr Macculloch's work; and the description is far too brief to be mistaken, as, instead of agres calcaire,' the whole island, with one very trifling exception, is a mass of trap rocks. So that M. Necker de Saussure's accuracy in transcribing is equal to his accuracy in observing.

But his geological account of Sky is infinitely the most modest. He lands at Loch Bracadale, and walks to Talisker in the dark. Hence he crosses to Sconser, where he leaves it, benighted also half the way; thus seeing about ten or twelve miles of the most uniform part of a country which the most active geologist could not examine in six weeks of daylight, and in which he could see nothing but one variety of trap, because there is nothing else to be seen. Instead even of geologizing for these ten miles, he is amusing himself with ghosts, with demonology, not geology, and breaks out into the following specimen of ChateauBriandism. He is figuring to himself ces poëtes inspirés (Ossian, Carril and Ryno) parcourants ces vallées obscures et profondes, laissant égarer leur imaginations mélancholiques à l'aspect des scenes imposantes de cette nature sauvage, et croyant voir dans les brouillards, dans les nues légères qui voltigent autour de ces hautes montagnes les ombres de leurs ⚫ pères et de leurs heros errer encore après leur mort, près des • lieux qu'ils avoient long-temps habité.' With these qualifications for writing an account of the Geology of Sky, he throws aside, with contempt, Professor Jameson's sketch, accurate as far as it goes, and Dr Macculloch's minute survey of this most complicated spot, and says, Avaunt! Voici la maniere dont je la considere;' and then he conjectures most dogmatically, and is delightfully confident and wrong.

He is very cruel to his friend Professor Jameson, whom he lauds, nevertheless, in the usual set phrases, for his doctrine of ' contemporaneous formations;' while he maintains, at the same time, that conglomerates are original crystallizations. It would be very kind to Professor Jameson if somebody would explain

what he really does mean: but M. N. S. is one of those philoso→ phers who abominate all theory-but their own; and he makes neither that nor Mr Jameson's intelligible. He is, if possible, however, still more ungrateful to poor M. Boué; especially, considering that he has borrowed from him the whole of his general article on the Geology of Scotland. After a little modest praise of himself, he says, of this work, Ce livre ne donne que des idées peu justes de l'ensemble;' and then proceeds very coolly to copy him. Our readers may guess, after the account we have given of that work, what the present is likely to be; a double-distillation of errors, alike of observation and of reasoning. Nevertheless, the whole terra firma is dismissed in 60 pages. We must not, however, suppose that this learned Professor omitted to read the works which he has quoted through poor M. Boué; since he says, very humbly, Enfin

qu'on puisse apprecier le genre de critique qu'il m'à faller exercer sur ces diverses ouvrages,' &c. The account of Muck will show how far this critic has examined the works on which he has exercised his talents; and indeed it is not a little amusing to see two rivals in Scottish Geology disputing about what neither of them ever saw. While Dr Macculloch, after a minute survey, simply says, there is a great tract of red sandstone on the west coast of Scotland, M. Necker very cavalierly calls these rocks pretendus;' and says, they are his roches de quartz.' No! says M. Boué, they are 'mes roches chloritiques!' It would be well if these two gentlemen would visit the rocks in question, before quarrelling about them. But enough, and more than enough, of Mons. Necker de Saussure's talents for geology. They concern us but little: let his pupils look to that.

The remainder of his Natural History will not put the Geology out of countenance. Erica vagans, not a misprint, since it occurs over and over again, is stated as a common plant in Scot land, where it does not exist. This must be pure ignorance. But your true science is shown by turning up a catalogue, and transcribing the Linnæan names from the Latin column. Thus, he finds that birch trees grow in Arran, and that they are dwarfish; and then, looking into Donn's catalogue, he discovers that dwarf birch is the English of Betula nana; so down goes Betula nana as a native of Arran,-while it is one of the rarest Scotch plants, growing only in the remote mountains of Atholl, and in one or two equally insulated spots. His copy from M. Boué of the geography of Scottish plants, must needs be equally valuable, as this latter botanist was obliged to have

recourse to a person whom we happened to know, for the names of the specimens, not only of plants, but of rocks, which he had collected in Arran. The catalogue of animals, however, is readily found in Pennant's Arctic Zoology; and, of the descriptive part, we may quote the following interesting specimen, because it is his own, 'Pendant l'hiver, les corneilles mantelées (hudie craws) se promenent le long de la greve sur le bord des eaux, pour chercher leur nourriture parmis les coquillages et les mollusques que la mer rejette. Les mouettes et les goelands volent et nagent à peu de distance de la terre.' He is less fortunate when he describes the eider-duck as breeding in Aberlady Bay. Not even content with indicating a fact, into the relation of which he has somehow been misled, he enters into long details, copied from Sir George Mackenzie's Iceland, as we imagine, respecting their tameness, &c. &c. &c. as if he had witnessed it all. We can only account for this by his having, in consulting the catalogue, mistaken one duck for another, and then transcribing the history of the wrong bird. This book-making, in very truth, is, after all, a delicate trade, and requires all a man's wits.

The rest of the book consists of every thing. We ought, however, to be very grateful to M. Necker de Saussure, which we fear we have not shown ourselves, for his desir de voir enfin les Ecossais reprendre dans l'opinion la place qui leur 'est due,' motives by which he has been uniquement dirijé. An hundred pages, for this purpose, are dedicated to the novel subject of Ossian, from the reports of the Highland Society, Dr Graham, &c. &c. On our Music, there are two distinct essays, one of fourteen pages, and, long after, a second of thirty, in all of which he proves what had been proved a century ago, that the Chinese use the same scale, repeats the hackneyed and misapplied remark about Carlo Gesualdo, and concludes by saying, after much complimentary matter, that ' par sa melodie triste et sauvage, elle est en harmonie avec les après rochers, ⚫le mugissement des vents, et la monotonie des roulement des flots sur les solitaires rivages qu'elle semble depeindre.' What will his Highland friends say to this compliment? An hundred and twenty pages on Edinburgh, may possibly be as new to the Genevese as the Guide itself; and so, for aught we know, may be an hundred on the manners of the Highlanders, and forty more on their economy. But it would be quite as well if, instead of describing that which is long dead and gone, a modern traveller would tell what really is, and if, instead of confounding his politics by copying contradictions from the an

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tagonists of Lord Selkirk and the Agricultural Magazine, the author would try to understand a simple subject, and state the facts as they really are. His adopted countrywoman, Mrs Marcet, might have been of use to him here. On the Gaelic language, he has not had a Père Amyot to help him out, as he has in the Chinese scale-or, to what he has borrowed from Dr Smith and Mr Stewart, he might have added what is infinitely interesting, namely, the connexion between the Celtic and Sanscrit, a fact known to all the philologists of Europe. But it is fruitless to wade through compilations made thus at hazard.

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Of his knowledge of the state of Church Education in Scotland and England, here is a specimen. On exige d'un mi⚫nistre du culte dans la religion reformée Calviniste, des études plus fortes et plus complètes que dans toute autre communion;' while in England, les curés de campagnes sont ad'ministrées par des prêtres subalternes des vicaires qui non pas 'été appellés à des études approfondies.' To conclude, this observer, who boasts that his connoissance des divers dialectes en usage dans les Isle Britanniques m'ont place dans un position favorable pour observer avec profit,' asserts, that the national antipathy of the English to the Scotch is found, not only in the conversation of all classes, from the Borders to the south of England, but even among the most distinguished writers. From this we would be apt to conclude, that his knowledge of England was derived from having seen Cook play Sir Archy and Sir Pertinax-and his acquaintance with their authors confined to Churchill, and some numbers of the North Briton.

ART. VIII. Observations relative to Infant Schools, designed to point out their Usefulness to the Children of the Poor, to their Parents, and to Society at large. Calculated to assist those who may benevolently incline to establish such Schools. By THOMAS POLE, M.D., Author of the History of the Origin and Progress of Adult Schools. 8vo. pp. 83. Bristol, Macdowall. 1823.

N° one who has reflected upon the subject of Education, can entertain any doubt that the term is most erroneously restricted, when it is applied exclusively to the instruction received at schools. Reading, writing and accounts, the allowance given to the poor, and whatever the rich add to

these acquirements, building upon them as on a foundation, form a mass of mental tuition incalculably important no doubt, but far from constituting the whole, even of intellectual education, and leaving wholly untouched, except indirectly and consequently, the important matter of moral discipline. To illustrate this position, we need only remark, that many of the most elementary and important lessons in knowledge are received independent of what we learn at school, many long before we go thither; and that there is hardly any thing taught at any school which has for its direct and immediate object the improvement of the moral education and the feelings of the heart, though undoubtedly this improvement is a natural result of whatever betters or stores the understanding.

The period of life which is the least fitted for intellectual improvement, is certainly in many respects the best adapted for moral culture. While the mind is yet untainted with vice, while its habits are unformed, while it is most susceptible of deep and lasting impressions, in a word, while in its infant state, the most valuable opportunities are hourly afforded, of binding it to what is amiable and virtuous, and of training it to all right habits. This truth has in all ages been admitted, upon the authority of constant and familiar experience; but the material step that has of late years been made, is in extending the period during which this precious susceptibility of right impressions lasts, and in applying also a larger portion of attention to the cultivation of the infant mind, beginning much earlier, and tending it more constantly.

Let any one consider the condition of a child from two to three years old, and he will find it in a state of perpetual curiosity; intensely eager in learning the nature of the world, where every thing is new to it, and exquisitely susceptible of every variety of sensation and feeling. Much may, about this period, be learnt by it, beyond what is usually deemed level to its capacity; but at any rate, between three and five, when school education usually begins, two years of habitual curiosity are generally thrown away, as far as regards the understanding, and two years of susceptibility worse than wasted, as regards the passions and feelings. To speak only of the temper-before three years old this is fully developed, nay, before eighteen months it is abundantly marked. But as yet, no habits are acquired; the vices of nature (supposing any to exist naturally) may easily be corrected, and right habits formed, which ordinary care in after years will render permanent and invincible. Suppose the child at three to be cross or passionate, how per