tators, of such as are perfectly intelligible without any remarks. These explanations ought, perhaps, to have been more numerous, but we are not inclined to complain, where so much has been well done, that everything is not accomplished.

The principle of selection adopted by the compiler, seems to us correct, and she has usually applied it with judgment. Most, if not all the pieces of poetry which are introduced, are such as can readily be made intelligible and interesting to young persons. She extracts more copiously from Sir Walter Scott than from any other writer; and in this we believe that she is right, for the works of no other poet contain so many passages which are sure to command the attention of readers of all ages.

It seems to us a fault, as we have already intimated, in many of the selections for reading and recitation in schools, that the compilers have regarded their own taste, rather than the capacity and acquirements of those for whom their volumes are designed. Nor is this fault confined to books intended for the younger classes only. It is, perhaps, even more striking in selections made for those more advanced. We say this with some diffidence, as we are aware that our opinion is in opposition to the practice of persons whose judgment on most occasions is deserving of confidence. Thus, we often find these volumes abounding in extracts full of high wrought eloquence, powerful reasoning, glowing imagery, and deep sentiment, on subjects entirely remote from the experience, studies, pursuits, and conversation of the young. Boys of the age at which they often begin to use these extracts, can scarcely be made to enter thoroughly into their spirit. The boy has, no doubt, some obscure notion of the meaning of the sentences, and of the general design of the performance which he is reading or reciting; but the happy allusions, the rich figurative diction, the felicities of style, the imagination, and the energy of passion, are in a great degree lost on him. How can he be expected to comprehend poetry which has a perpetual reference to the mythology of Greece, the history of Greece, Rome, and England, the biography of individuals distinguished in different parts of the world? How can he be expected to take a lively interest in philosophical criticism, ethics, and metaphysics, or even eloquence, when it is exercised on subjects with which he is entirely unacquainted? The objections to many pieces might undoubtedly be removed by suitable comments and illustrations. But in most collections for the use of schools

the manner in which the extracts are made, increases the difficulty of understanding them. They are torn rudely from the middle of an oration, poem, or other work, without a single word of introduction or explanation. If a speech, the boy who is to recite it, is not informed in his book, on what occasion it was delivered, nor what result it produced. Of the orator who spoke it he finds nothing but the name. His country, perhaps, he knows, but has nothing which tells him of the points of its history and statistics, or the circumstances in the lives of the speaker and his cotemporaries, with which the speech supposes him to be acquainted, and which are absolutely necessary to its thorough comprehension.

The first two pages of this volume, on the Nature of Poetry, as it is headed, seem to us not to be prepared with the author's usual felicity. This portion of the work is deficient both in simplicity and directness, and might, like the rhetorical introductions in fashion among the ancients, have been placed at the beginning of almost any other work, with equal propriety. We are afraid that it will not afford pleasure to young persons, but rather give them a distaste for the book. It is a bad omen to stumble at the threshold.

There are a few errors in this volume, generally of no great importance. We notice one or two, not as implying any great negligence on the part of the compiler, but in order that they may be corrected in any future edition. On page 218, it is stated that Pope received from Lintot, the bookseller, for his translation of the Iliad, £ 5320, more than $ 18,000 of our American money.' There must be some mistake in the figures here; for £5320 sterling is at the par of exchange $ 23,644.44.

The explanation of the following lines, addressed by Henry IV. to his son, seems to us not quite satisfactory.

'What in me was purchased,

Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort;

So thou the garland wear'st successively.'

'What in me was purchas'd, &c.-The royal dignity which I possess was obtained by artifice-it is not my right, and I have held it precariously, and in fear. Thou the garland wear'st successively. The crown devolves to thee from thy father-thy hereditary right is established, and thou art secure in it.' p. 83. This explanation does not advert to the technical meaning of the word purchased, to which Shakspeare no doubt alluded.

The following extract from Blackstone explains this meaning. Purchase, perquisitio, taken in its largest and most extensive sense, is thus defined by Littleton: The possession of lands and tenements which a man hath by his own act or agreement, and not by descent from any of his ancestors or kindred. In this sense it is contradistinguished from acquisition by right of blood; and includes every other method of coming to an estate, but merely that by inheritance, wherein the title is vested in a person, not by his own act or agreement, but by the single operation of law.' A reference to this legal meaning of the word purchased, renders the passage in Shakspeare clear and pointed.

It is a defect in this volume that it contains no table of con

tents.

The Primary Dictionary consists of explanations of words in common use, in language adapted to children.

"This vocabulary, in its selection and arrangement, has been taken from an English publication well suited to its purpose, called the MOTHER'S DICTIONARY. The definitions are either original in their form, or carefully revised; and though adapted in simplicity of expression to the language of the young, they are intended to convey to them just and new ideas in words that are in good use, and of proper authority.

Spelling-books and Dictionaries now in use, may, to many teachers, seem sufficient for all purposes of orthography, and all necessary aid to literary composition which can be thus derived-but there are parents and preceptors who are accustomed to be constantly appealed to for plain and familiar expositions of words which are new, and not of obvious meaning to their pupils, who will be glad of a book which is quite conprehensible, and properly introductory to more ample and systematic vocabularies-to those which serve for ultimate standards, and which are asserted to contain all our primitive terms, and their modifications.

'To advance, without oppressing the infant mind, has been the design of all the publications I have offered to those engaged in education; and to make those publications illustrative of others in very common use, but somewhat difficult for beginners to comprehend, has seemed to me to be supplying so many steps that were deficient in the artificial helps furnished to the natural ascent of mind.

'It is an almost universal custom in schools to give children daily a certain number of words, with definitions annexed, to be committed to memory. I have not found any efficacy in this

VOL. VIII.-N. S. VOL. III. NO. I.

5

practice; and I must agree with Miss Edgeworth, that words without application, and of significations wholly remote from the possible knowledge of children, when thus forced upon the memory, rather make a mystery, or dead letter of language, than furnish an instrument which serves to express what is known, and to acquire what is unknown. I know not of what utility it can be for a child to repeat," Metaphysics, the doctrine of the general affections of existing substances," and other such abstractions-but I believe that a selection from Dictionaries, of words corresponding to early requirements of the understanding, and intelligibly explained, may be useful to children.' pp. iv., v.

We have no doubt that a dictionary of this kind would be a convenient assistant to mothers and teachers, if tolerably well made. In the volume before us, as far as we have examined it-for we will not pretend to have read a dictionary through— the definitions or explanations seem well adapted to the capacity of young children, though from the explanations given in the Popular Lessons we should think that the present editor would have in some cases given better definitions, if she had not followed the English work. Some, perhaps, will think the vocabulary might have been more copious, and no doubt some words are omitted which it would have been better to insert; but in general the selection of words appears to us judicious. As a specimen of the work we insert a part of the first page.

'A-ban-don. Abandon, to leave or go away from. An abandoned man or woman, means a very wicked man or woman. 'A-bate. Abate, to make or become less: the storm abates when it begins to be less severe.

'Ab-bre-vi-ate. Abbreviate, to shorten: Tom. is an abbreviation of Thomas; one o'clock, is an abbreviation of the phrase, it is one hour of the clock.

'A-bet. Abet, to help or encourage a person to do any thing. 'Ab-hor. Abhor, to hate, to dislike very much indeed: as, "God abhors liars."

We have noticed these little works, because we think that they are likely to render good service to the cause of education. They all bear evidence that their author is familiar with education both theoretically and practically; that she has just ideas of its objects, and of the modes in which these objects are to be attained. In all her books it has been her aim to suit the instruction to the intellectual advancement of the pupil; to adapt the nourishment supplied, to the progressive state of

the mind. Large parts of the Sequel to Popular Lessons and the Poetry for Schools, are original. Both of these works, as well as the Popular Lessons, are new in plan and arrangement, requiring far greater labor and thought in preparing them, than most reading books, which are composed entirely of extracts.

ART. III.-A Sermon preached in the Cathedral Church of St Paul, on Thursday, May 8th, 1828, at the Festival of the Sons of the Clergy. By the REV. PHILIP N. SHUTTLEWORTH, D D., Warden of New College, Oxford. London. Rivington, 1828.

WHEN measures were first proposed in Great Britain for the extensive diffusion of education, and the establishing of a university in London, it is known that a class of men, strenuously attached to the hierarchy, took an alarm, chiefly on the ground that the proposed scientific institutions were to be conducted without any express connexion with the established religion of the empire. Of this number was the dignified author of the discourse prefixed to this article.

In discussing the question, he is distinguished from some of his coadjutors, by a commendable liberality, which limits his objections very far within the range to which his party thought they might safely be carried.

It is not our intention to follow the learned prelate through the course of his remarks, many of which, though ingeniously advanced, and some of them unquestionably in theory true, are not calculated for the meridian of our society. Least of all should we be willing to lend our support to the opponents of a system, calculated, from the moment of its introduction on the great theatre where now it is exhibited, to promote the best interests of mankind. We feel too much partiality for it, as one of the progeny of our own country; and we think we might claim for our ancestors and our countrymen, some share of the ample honors which decorate the names of those by whom it has been chiefly promoted. For what is that grand scheme of education, which has immortalized Mr Brougham and his compeers, but our well established New England notions in this particular, acted out with great display, but not at