the interests which he attacks. The servi- than in hope; but, meanwhile, let us look ces of such a man, an ardent devotee as he on, and be ready to appropriate the lessons is of social amelioration, and yet compe- which Paris shall be teaching us. If out of tent as he is by his long and intimate ac- the social chaos which its vehement and susquaintance with political economy, to ex- ceptible inhabitants are preparing, almost pose what is Utopian in these speculations of design, for their country, any idea good of the Communists, cannot fail to be valu- and practical, with proofs and corroboraable. On the other hand, however, M. tions attached to it, shall emerge, let us Louis Blanc himself, and his associates in give it at once due welcome, nor quarrel the more violent section of the Provisional with it because of the quarter from whence it Government, MM. Ledru Rollin, Albert, comes. And surely, even already, there is and Flocon, occupy an almost conservative one lesson clearly enough written out in the position, as compared with certain popular light of this great outbreak. Let us try leaders not in the Government. At the now all the more earnestly, through the nehead of the Communists, specially so call- glected multitudes of the lower class among ed, who carry the ideas of life in common ourselves, to spread the spirit of an intelliand equality of conditions, to their utmost gent and healthful Christianity; for had lengths, are two men of great influence with such a spirit pervaded, to any extent, the the working classes, MM. Cabet and Blan- population of Paris, it had been saved all qui; and even as we write, these leaders are the horrors of the past and of the future. attempting to overthrow the Provisional The hope of the neglected children of toil Government, and force on the Revolution a had found better and more satisfying obstage farther. jects to rest upon, and their sense of inTo what crashes these experiments may jury had made other and more legitimate lead no one can tell. Dreamy enthusiasm manifestations. is destined, we fear, to be cruelly disappointed. Capital will hasten away out of a country where the natural laws by which it seems to expand itself are violated. In the vain endeavor to share equally out among the producers the profits of their labor, the stimulus to production will every- UNIVERSITY OF FRANCE-In France the University where be lessened-in some quarters will has been completely remodelled, at least in its law altogether be destroyed. In ridding himself faculty. In the name of the French people the Provisional Government has decreed, in order to give of the tyranny of his employer, the poor political and administrative instruction the developlaborer will rid himself also of the means of ment necessary for the Republic, that there shall be his employment. Nor can any State step in a series of Professorships established in the College of to supply the place of that grand body of French political law and general political law comFrance, under the following denominations:--1. capitalists by whom the industry of the pared. 2. International law and the history of treacountry has been hitherto sustained. It ties. 3. Laws relating to private property. 4. Crimdoes so at extremest peril. We should care inal law. 5. General economy and statistics of the comparatively little, if all that these ex-agriculture. 7. General economy and statistics of population. 6. General economy and statistics of periments were to end in was a simple dis- mines, forges, arts, and manufactures. 8. General appointment; if, after having tried and economy and statistics of public works. 9. General failed, industry cheerfully returned to its economy and statistics of finance and commerce. 10. Administrative law. 11. History of French and old channels; but what if the failure shall foreign administrative institutions. Several profes come amid the cries of a famishing popula-sorships regarded as unnecessary, in consequence of tion-what if crime shall follow quick in their object being otherwise provided for, have been the wake of want-and what if the vexed abolished. It is a significant enough circumstance that so many of the Provisional Government have chagrin of the needy shall cry for vengeance got themselves nominated to these new chairs-Laon the heads of their rulers who may not martine to that of International law; Garnier Pages make good what they promised-and what to that of Finance and Commerce; Armand Marrast, if their rulers shall try to turn off from Civil Law, individual and social and Ledru Rollin History of French and Foreign Administrative Instithemselves the vengeance by opening up for tutions. It is necessary perhaps to explain that the it the vent of war? What if disorganiza- University of France, having the control of the whole tion at home, and bloodshed abroad, shall subject of education throughout the kingdom, consists be the fruit of their Utopian and unchristian of twenty-seven academies. The Academy of Paris consists of five Faculties-Sciences, Letters, Theoloattempts to re-organize? We wait to see gy, Law, and Medicine. The first three are estabthe issues-in fear, we acknowledge, more lished at the Sorbonne.-Lowe's Magazine.

From Tait's Magazine.

POPULAR LECTURERS.-NO. II.-GEORGE DAWSON, A. M.

BY GEORGE GILFILLAN.

trembling core of a subject, and show it to transfer and circulate Emerson's brain as his hearers. In both of these lectures we his belief. But, when we think of such admired his selection of instances and anec- a mind owning a faith seemingly so cold, dotes; each stood for a distinct part of the and vague, and shadowy; and when, in his subject, and rendered it at once intelligible lectures, we find moral and spiritual truths and memorable. An anecdote thus severely of such importance robbed of their awful selected answers the end of a bone in the sanctions, separated like rays cut off from hand of an anatomical lecturer: it appeals the sun-from their parent system and to sense as well as soul. We like, too, his source-swung from off their moorings upreading of a passage from the Odyssey, de- on the Rock of Ages-the Infinite and the scriptive of the eloquence of Ulysses. It Eternal-and supported upon his own auwas translated into prose-the prose of his thority alone-when, in short, the Moon of better essays by himself, and was read genius comes between us and the Sun of with a calm classical power and dignity, God, we feel a dreariness and desolation which made a thousand hearts still as the of spirit inexpressible; and, much as we grave. For five minutes there seemed but admire the author and love the man, we two things in the world: the silence, and are tempted to regret the hour when he first the voice which was passing through it. landed upon our shores. Our best wishes, If men, we have often exclaimed, would and those of thousands, go with him on his but listen as attentively to sermons, as they homeward way; but coupled with a strong do to the intimations at the end! Emerson desire that a better, clearer, and more defigenerally commands such attention; espe- nite light may dawn upon his soul, and cially, we are told, that during his first create around him a true "Forest Sanctulecture in Edinburgh on Natural Aristo- ary." Long has he been like Jacob, dreamcracy, it was fine to see him, by his very bash- ing in the desert; surely the ladder cannot fulness, driven not out of, but into himself, be far off.

and speaking as if in the forest alone with The office of an interpreter, if not of the God and his own soul. This was true self- highest order, is certainly very useful, honpossession. The audience, too, were made orable, and, at certain periods, particularly to feel themselves as much alone as their necessary. There are times when the angle orator. To give a curdling sense of solitude at which the highest minds of the age in society, is a much higher achievement stand to the middle and lower classes is than to give a sense of society in soli- exceedingly awkward and uncertain. Their tude. It is among the mightiest acts of names and their pretensions are well known; spiritual power, thus to insulate the imagi- even a glimmer of their doctrine has got nation or the conscience of man, and sug- abroad; some even of their books are read gest afar off the proceedings of that tre- with a maximum of avidity, and a minimum mendous day, when in the company of a of understanding; but a fuller reflection of universe each man will feel himself alone. their merits and their views-a farther In the three lectures we heard from Mr. circulation of their spirit, and a more Emerson, there did not occur a single ob- complete discharge of their electric influjectionable sentence. But there was un-ences, are still needed. For these purquestionably a blank in all, most melan- poses, unless the men will condescend to choly to contemplate. We have no sym- interpret themselves, we must have a sepahy with the attempts which have been rate class for the purpose. Indeed, such a made to poison the popular mind, and class will be created by the circumstances. to rouse the popular passions against this As each morning we see a grand process of gentleman, whether by misrepresenting his interpretation, when the living light leaps opinions or by blackening his motives. He downwards from heaven to the mountain does not believe himself-whatever an ig- summits, and from these to the low-lying norant and conceited scribbler in the hills, and from these to the deep glens"United Presbyterian Magazine" may each mountain and hill taking up in turn say-to be God. He is the least in the its part in the great translation, till the world of a proselytizer. He has visited landscape is one volume of glory-so mind this country solely as a literary man, in- after mind, in succession, and in the order vited to give literary lectures. Whatever of their intellectual stature, must catch be his creed, he has not, in Scotland at and reflect the empyrean fire of truth. least, protruded it; and even if he had, it Chief among the interpreters of our time would have done little harm; for as easily stands Thomas Carlyle. He has not added

any new truth to the world's stock, nor any be an easy, fluent speaker, they dignify artistic work to the world's literature, nor him with the name, orator; if his eye kinis he now likely to do so; but he has stood dle with the progress of his theme, they between the British mind and the great tell us that his face gets phosphorescent, German orbs, and flung down on us their and as the face of an angel. Hence the light, with a kind of contemptuous profu- mortifying disappointments which are so sion, colored, too, undoubtedly, by the common-disappointments produced less strange rugged idiosyncrasy on which it has by the inferiority than by the unlikeness of been reflected. This light, however, has the reality to the description. A distinfallen short of the middle-class, not to guished painter who visited Coleridge was speak of the masses of the community. This chagrined to find his forehead, of which he translation must itself be translated. For had read ravings innumerable, of quite an some time it might have been advertised in ordinary size. We watched Emerson's the newspapers-"Wanted, an interpreter face very narrowly, but could not, for our for Sartor Resartus." Without the in- life, perceive any glow mounting up its pale ducement of any such advertisement, but and pensive lines. We had heard much of as a volunteer, has Mr. George Dawson Dawson's eloquence, but found that while stepped forward, and has now for two years there was much fluency, there was little been plying his profession, with much energy, and very considerable success.

fire, and no enthusiasm. Distance and
dunces together had metamorphosed him,
even as a nobler cause of deception some-
times changes a village steeple into a tower
of rubies-and plates a copse with gold.
To call this gentleman a cockney, Carlyle

It were not praise-it were not even flattery-it were simply insult and irony, to speak of Mr. Dawson in any other light than as a clever, a very clever, translator, or, if he will, interpreter, of a greater trans- a transcendental bagman, were to be too selator and interpreter than himself. In all vere; to call him a combination of Cobbett the lectures we have either heard or read and Carlyle, were to be too complimentary. of, his every thought and shade of thought But while there is much in the matter which was Carlyle's. The matter of the feast reminds you of Carlyle, as the reflection rewas, first course, Carlyle; second, do. ; minds you of the reality, there is much in dessert, do. ;--toujours Carlyle: the dishes, his style and manner which recalls William dressing, and sauce only, were his own. Cobbett. Could we conceive Cobbett by Nor do we at all quarrel with him for this. any possibility forswearing his own nature, Since the public are so highly satisfied, and converted to Germanism, and proclaiming since Carlyle himself is making no com- it in his own way, we should have had George plaint, and instituting no hue and cry, it is Dawson anticipated, and forestalled. The all very well. It is really, too, a delight- Saxon style; the homely illustrations; the ful hachis he does cook, full of pepper and conversational air; the frequent appeals to spice, and highly palatable to the majority. common sense; the broad Anglicanisms; Our only proper ground of quarrel would and the perfect self-possession-are common be, if he were claiming any independent to both, with some important differences, merit in the thought, apart from the illus- indeed; since Dawson is much terser and trations, the wit, and the easy vigorous pointed, since his humor is dry, not rich; talk of the exhibition. We have again and since he is, as to substance, rather an and again been on the point of exclaiming, echo than a native, though rude voice. when compelled to contrast description To such qualities as we have now indiwith reality-We shall henceforth believe rectly enumerated, we are to attribute the nothing till we have seen it with our eyes, sway he has acquired over popular, and esand heard it with our ears. The most of pecially over English audiences. They are the pictures we see drawn of celebrated not, while hearing him, called profoundly people seem, after we have met with the either to think or feel. They are not painoriginals, to have been painted by the fully reminded that they have not read. blind. One has to hand them aside, like Enthusiastic appeal never warms their blood. letters mis-directed. So very many deter- A noble self-contempt and forgetfulness is minedly praise a man for qualities which he never inculcated. Of reverence for the anhas not if a man is tall, they make him cient, the past, and the mysterious, there is short; if dark, they give him fair hair; if little or none. They are never excited his brow be moderate in dimensions, they even to any fervor of destructive zeal. A call it a great mass of placid marble; if he strong, somewhat rough voice is heard pour

ing out an even, calm, yet swift torrent of me into notice." Mr. Dawson has been mingled paradoxes and truisms, smart epi- preached, placarded, and prayed into notice grammatic sentences, short, cold, hurrying a notice in which he has expanded and sarcasms, deliberate vulgarisms of expres- bourgeoned like a peach tree in the sunsion, quotations from Sartor Resartus and shine, and yet of which he thinks proper to Scripture, and from no other book-never complain as persecution! Pretty exchange! growing, and never diminishing in interest an elegant pulpit for a barrel of burning -never suggesting an end as near, nor re- coals-fifteen hundred admiring auditors for minding us of a beginning as past-every a thousand exulting foes-the "Church" one eager to listen, but no one sorry when instead of the "Cross" of the Saviour. it is done; the purpose of the whole being We really cannot, in this world of wo, find to shake, we think too much, respect for in our hearts one particle of pity to spare formulas, creeds, and constituted authori- for Mr. Dawson, nor for any such mellities; to inculcate, we think too strongly, a fluous martyrs. sense of independence and individualism, and to give to the future, we think, an undue preponderance over the past.

No eagle soaring and screaming in the teeth of the storm-no thunder-cloud moving up the wind, do we deem our hero; Mr. George Dawson has read with consi- but, on the whole, a most complacent and derable care and accuracy the signs of his beautiful peacock's feather, sailing adown time. He has watched the direction and the the breeze, yet with an air as if it had crerate of the popular tide, and has cast him- ated and could turn it if he chose; or, shall self on it with an air of martyrdom. His we say, a fine large bubble descending with has been the desperate determination at all dignity, as if it were the cataract? or, shall hazards to sail with the stream. He sees, we try it once more? a straw, imagining what only the blind do not, that a new era that because it shows the direction, it is diis begun, in which, as Napoleon said, recting the wind. If these figures do not "there shall be no Alps," when they threat- give satisfaction, we have fifty more at the ened to impede his march; our young mind service of Mr. Dawson's admirers; for, has in like manner sworn there shall be no after all, we must blame his admirers past, no history, no Bible, no God even, if and his enemies more than himself. He such things venture to stand across our way, has much about him that is frank, open, and curb our principle of progress, and is and amiable. A clever young man, endowrushing on heroically with this daring mul- ed with a rare talent for talk, he began to titude. One is amused at the cry of perse- talk in a manner that offended his party. cution which he raises on his way. The Many, on the other hand, of no party, were term, to us, in such cases as his, sounds su- struck with surprise at hearing such bold premely ludicrous. What, in general, does and liberal sentiments uttered from such a persecution for conscience-sake now mean? quarter. Pure, unmixed Carlylism coming It means, if the subject be a clergyman, the from a Baptist pulpit sounded in their ears trebling of his audience and the doubling sweet and strange, as a "voice from a loftier of his income; if an author, the tenfold climate." The rest might have been exsale of his works; if a man in business, three pected. Between the dislike of his foes, the customers instead of one-not to speak of wild enthusiasm of his friends, the ill-calthe pleasures of notoriety, lecturing engage-culated pounce of the Archbishop of York, ments, gold watches, and pieces of plate. the real, though borrowed merit of many of Pleasant and profitable persecution ! even his sentiments, and the real native force of when it is diversified by a little newspaper his speech-he found himself all at once on abuse the powerless hatred of the deserted a giddy eminence which might have turned party-and some strictures, such as ours, stronger heads; for here was the rarissima in the magazines! What comparison be-avis of a liberal Baptist-a Carlylistic clertween this species of persecution and the gyman, a juvenile sage, and a transcendentreatment which a Wordsworth or a Shel- talist talking English-there was no bird ley received? or what comparison between in all Knowesley Park that could be named it and the neglect, contempt, and poverty in comparison. Here, besides, was posiwhich now befal many a worthy and consci- tively the first Dawson (except Peel's friend) entious supporter of the Old? We knew that had, as an intellectual man, been an elderly neglected clergyman, who came known beyond his own doorway. Such cirto a brother minister and said, "I wish you cumstances, besides a felt want in the pubwould preach against me; it might bring lic mind, which he professed to supply, ac