to disabuse any of the thought that we are advocating in this some centralization scheme destructive to our Universities, and draining away all talent from the provinces to the metropolis. The standard weights and measures deposited in Somerset House do not supersede the use of common weights in every country town. On the contrary, the standard weights are only used to test, from time to time, the weights in common use. In the same way, such an institute would not give an education, but weigh the education given elsewhere. It would act upon our Universities as the inspectors under the Privy Council act upon the National Schools throughout England. Such a University commission, not called to satisfy popular clamour and then dissolve, but permanently embodied to try every year their prize candidates for admission into the public service, would supply to the Universities the very stimulus they require.

It may be said that in a free and commercial country like England, Go

vernment employment will not draw to it all the talent of the Universities, and that thus the Universities will be judged by their second-rate men, not by their first-rate. This is very true. We do not look to the competitive system as a hot-bed to force early genius in the country. It will act more upon the mediocre many than the talented few. But it is here that the stimulus is wanted. If it succeeds in this, it succeeds in all we can desire of it.

We shall feel thankful if we have thrown out a few suggestions, which other minds may mature and bring opinion to bear on. Education is an inductive science; we can only discover the best plan by devising experiments and tests. If the competitive examination system at a central University be the crucial test of our University system, ancient and modern, let it be applied at once, and let us abide by the result.

Truth's like a torch, the more it's shook it shines.

THE agitation into which Dr. Gebir gen was thrown by the vivid recollection of the catastrophe by which he lost his family and happiness at one fell swoop, was only of a few minutes' duration.

"I loved Bertha Rosen," he continued, "from the first day that I passed in her society. Her father observed my love, but in no way checked it. Of his having written to mine on the subject I was not then aware, but subsequently discovered that he had done so; and that my father was as unwilling as the Professor to interfere with our mutual affection. With the plain-spoken honesty of an honourable man, Dr. Rosen took an early opportunity of informing me of the embarrassed state of his affairs. He owned that he had long been in debt; that he was obliged in every way to retrench, in order to extricate himself from his pecu

niary difficulties; and hence the poverty of his domestic arrangements, hence too the comparative seclusion in which he lived. I admired him the more for the candour with which he confessed his difficulties. I admired Bertha the more for the uncomplaining cheerfulness with which she submitted to the deprivation of those amusements and ornaments which became her sex, her age, and her father's position.

"She taught her little sister indefatigably. It was a beautiful sight to see her, when the morning meal had been concluded, and its paraphernalia removed, sitting down beside her little charge, to hear wayward Gertrude her lessons, with a loving smile -a smile, partly of affection, partly also caused by the ludicrous idea of her teaching. She laughed outright more than once at the idea. But if I know little,' she would observe,

'Gertrude knows less. What Gertrude does not know, she asks me about; what I don't know, I ask you, Lemuel, about; and what you don't know, you ask papa about-is it not so?' And what your papa does not know?' I asked, anxious to probe her young heart. 'He appears to me to know everything,' was the simple reply. Happy confiding faith of youth in age! true solacer of man's life in this practical, iron age in which we live.

"An event of moment occurred in Herr Professor Rosen's family at this time, that is to say, about a year after his arrival in Bonn, which tended to knit my soul still more firmly to that of the fair Bertha. Gertrude had been ill, very ill, with fever. Her fair young brow, over which nine summers had not yet shone, was clammy with the dews of death; her eyes shone with a lustre not their own, as they started full and round from the wasted sockets which seemed to render them only the more prominent. Her graceful little arm was withered away to a mere shadow of its former self. Bertha was ever with her, nursed her with a mother's tenderness, watched over her with a mother's anxiety. The confinement, indeed, was already telling upon her own youthful frame, and her father insisted on her walking more in the open air. I had accompanied her on one such occasion, lovingly and joy

sly over the green fields and picturesque walks with which the neighbourhood of Bonn abounds. Her sister's illness added a melancholy to the expression of the fair girl's face which became it well; and to me, ignorant of the extreme danger of the childish sufferer, and regarding it solely in its objective aspect, it was a new grace to admire; a thing not to regret but to rejoice in.

"We returned from our walk shortly before the Professor, who had been tending the young patient anxiously, left his home to perform some duty in the college. I was already as one of the household, and, sitting down in his little study, proceeded to engage my thoughts in a work I took from the shelves; for the excitement of the exercise, and the loving conversation, so tender and so pure, had put my mind into a ferment. The house was perfectly quiet. Bertha and

the nurse who had been engaged for the occasion, were in the sick chamber. All was peaceful and silent, when I was astonished by the nurse coming mysteriously into the study, as though anxious to conceal her visit by her noiseless steps. 'Herr Gebirgen,' said she, 'the child is worse-far worse. Her sleep has been wild, broken, and interrupted— · the damp of death is on her brow-I know it. I go for the doctor and for the Herr Professor. I have not told Miss Bertha, for her young heart is sorrow-laden enough. It will be soon enough when the time comes, which will not be long now, I fear.'

"The nurse left, and I soon after made my way, noiselessly, into the sick chamber. The scene was one of those that stamps itself daguerreotyped upon the memory, and never leaves it afterwards. The bed of the invalid was near the window; a small fire, kept up more for ventilation than warmth, was languidly burning at its foot; at the head of the bed stood a small vase of flowers, fresh pulled that morning by Bertha, and placed there in melancholy contrast with the withering floweret that occupied the sick couch. The face of the sufferer was of the same hue as the neat little curtains which fell gracefully over the head of the bed, white as snow; the attenuated body was scarcely distinguishable beneath the coverlet. By the side of the couch knelt Bertha, praying earnestly, her face towards the window, turned away from the door. I surveyed the scene for a minute or two in silence, and would have left the room again as noiselessly, had not a piercing shriek burst from the lips of the patient. Her eyes started wildly from their sockets, rolling fearfully from side to side; her little hands were stretched helplessly towards heaven, as she sighed with exhausted energy, O Bertha, Bertha !' 'I'm here, Gertrude, my darling, my heart's idol-I am here, exclaimed her sister, clasping her hands, and bringing the warm cheek of health into contact with that of the dying child. My attention was arrested. I could not retirenay, I advanced rather, and stood at the foot of the bed. 'Bertha,' whispered the sufferer, I thought you had left me, and it grew so dark. Why does not the sun shine, Bertha ?

Is it because we are all so sinful?' There was a pause; Bertha was evidently alarmed at the unwonted excitement, and the unwonted words. She observed me, and I whispered to her that the nurse had gone for the doctor. The doctor,' said Gertrude, catching the word, 'I don't want the doctor; I want Bertha and mama. My own, my loved Bertha, that has been so kind and good to me everever. But why is it so dark? Is there no sun, no moon, no stars, no candle, even? My mama! O how much I love her. Tell me, Bertha, has not mama gone to God?' 'Yes, my love,' replied the sister, whilst the big tears coursed rapidly down her cheeks, yes, my love, my Gertrude, she has gone to God; and if you die you will join her, and you also will go to God. Be not afraid; be calm, my only sister, my well-beloved!' 'Nay, nay,' replied the child, but more faintly, I am not afraid. I will go willingly to mama-willingly anywhere with you. But you must come too. Nay, Bertha, do not say nay. What? You will not come with me.' 'I cannot, but I will pray to God for you, my beloved Gertrude,' said Bertha, dropping on her knees, but still keeping her cheek near that of the sufferer. I too, knelt, and she poured forth a flood of eloquence such as I have rarely heard equalled, never surpassed. Every energy of her mind was at work, every feeling strung to its utmost tension-the heart suggested, and the lips gave utterance to such eloquence as a death-bed alone suggests to a religious, faithful, confiding, awe-struck heart. I was deeply moved, and from that moment determined to try and make the life of her who could love so truly and so well, a happy one. Here was no selfishness. Disregarding the anguish it gave her own heart, she thought only of her sister-of her departed mother-of Him in whom she trusted for life and death, and for a better life hoped for after death. "She rose after that eloquent prayer, her face radiant as an angel's, with love and hope. She had seen, with the strong eye of faith, a glorious future; death in contemplation was to her but a blissful wafting to eternal life,' and she rose happy, relieved, confiding, to be plunged in a moment into the profoundest grief.

"The shadows of the mind and of the heart gave way at the actuality— the stern actuality of death. When she rose from her knees, Gertrude was no more. Bertha saw the truth at once, as I did too; for, inexperienced as we were in such scenes, death was legibly written in unmistakeable characters on that rigid brow, on those fixed eyes. Bertha threw herself into a chair, still retaining her sister's hand, and burst into a flood of tears, sobbing as if her young heart would break. The idea of self, banished by her sister's pain, had returned, and she wept bitterly. The consoling dreams of religion had given place to the sense of isolation and of misery.

me.

"I advanced to confront her'Lemuel,' she sobbed bitterly, 'leave You know of no grief like mine. I saw my mother so stretched, lifeless, stiff, unfeeling, as Gertrude now is. I felt then that I was partially alone-now utterly. She and I loved each other, as only sisters can love, and she is gone. Lemuel, leave me. I am alone, but I must be alone with God now. I will kneel again, and tell Him of my desolation, of my misery, and He will forgive my repining, for He is merciful and longsuffering! I would have given what consolation I could to the wounded soul, but she would not allow meshe wanted to be alone with her dead sister and her God. I left the room, and as I passed the little study, impatiently awaiting the Professor's return, I heard the subdued murmur of eloquent prayers and broken sobs, attesting the heart-rending submission of Bertha Rosen to the Divine will.

"The glimpse which I had thus obtained, as it were, into her heart, made me feel all the more warmly and admiringly for her. I had loved her before I adored her now. The influence of that death-bed scene upon her and upon me was equally lasting, though in different ways; upon her, in adding a subdued and melancholy grace to the charms of her ripening face and figure-a melancholy grace that sat beautifully upon her, etherializing and elevating, adding an ideality to the material organization-an influence which, on noble souls, sorrow always has more or less, but seldom to a similar extent. Upon

me, the scene was not lost; my philosophical reveries gave place for a time to religious musings. I spoke to Bertha of God, of the Saviour, of St. John, of all the hallowed and love-inspiring sentiments of Christianity, and she drank in my words eagerly, earnestly. In her fondness, she fancied I was like her, fresh, pure, innocent in thought, religious-and she loved me the more. Not that I was hypocritically acting a part-nay, I should disdain such. The feelings I expressed I felt at the time and long after;

but looking back upon them nowthis glorious moonlight night-looking back upon them objectively, and disregarding their then subjective aspect, I see plainly that to her,— unsophisticated, ideal, full of faith as she was many things were possible which could not be possible to me,many ideas true which had ultimately no truth for me,--many feelings permanent which in me were born of an hour's scene, and lived a year or two, but could not bud ever freshly into life as in her mind."

"AT length," continued the Doctor, "it was settled that when my term of study had been completed, I should take the degree of a Doctor of Philosophy and devote myself to collegiate work. This was my ambition. My father had unhappily succeeded. I longed for nothing more than to settle down at Bonn as a lecturer and private tutor, hoping ultimately to attain to a professor's chair. My diploma came in due course, and the day when I was first saluted as Doctor Gebirgen I shall probably never forget. I was almost intoxicated with pleasure. It seemed to me then as if, having obtained the doctorate, I had only to step into the chair of a professor to rival the great Immanuel. Rosen laughed at my enthusiasm whilst he fanned it. My father, who had come from Hamburg on the occasion, congratulated me warmly and honestly no doubt seeing me, with the strong eye of faith, already far advanced towards the pinnacle of metaphysical renown. We had a little fête to celebrate the event, to which our principal friends in the university were invited. At that fête I was betrothed to Bertha, and my happiness was made complete. She gave herself to me as fearlessly as the sailor confides himself to the bark that has already borne him safely over the ocean, without a doubt, without a sigh ; and as I clasped her to my bosom, and whispered words of love and admiration, looking the while into the depths of her pure blue eyes, I wondered that men said there was so

little happiness on earth, and that they preferred living in the future to the present. During the scientific excursion we made that day-an excursion of that kind for which Bonn has since become famous-a beautiful May sun over our heads, and the gorgeous livery of spring all around us, I felt what it was to be happy. We ascended the river in one of those light skiffs, so commodious and convenient, with which that part of the Rhine abounds, to Königswinter, a village. picturesquely situated on the banks, at the very base of the Sieben Berg, which we proceeded to ascend. Hand in hand did Bertha and I toil up the mountain's side, thinking of each other and of our love, of the bright present and of the brighter future. It was a scene of joyousness and heartfelt happiness such as the life of man does not often afford. We passed the cortége of the Grand Prince of Saxe Homburgh on our way, enjoying themselves scientifically likewise, and it never struck me that His Highness was to be enviedGrand Prince though he was. I would not have exchanged places with him that day to be prince of a thousand Homburghs.

"It is now almost a trite saying that, in the lifetime of nations, those periods which afford the fewest materials for the historian are often the most prosperous and happy for the people. And so is it with the life of man. The twenty years that succeeded the day when I was betrothed to Bertha, and made a Doctor of Philosophy-those twenty years were

the most peaceful and uneventful of my life. Strange that one day of intense agony and mental suffering— one day of misfortune, unhappiness, and disaster-should loom so largely in the retrospect as to thrust these twenty years of peaceful happy existence into the background. So it is in life but too often. The one day of suffering is remembered with exaggerated vividness-the thousands of days of uninterrupted happiness with a hazy indistinctness that leaves but general impressions behind.

"My marriage with the Fräulein followed soon after the betrothal. I became a lecturer and private tutor, and ultimately a professor in Bonn. My father died some years after at a ripe age, leaving sufficient to render us independent of the fruits of my professorship. His estate consisted almost altogether of house-property in Hamburg. But the labour was congenial to me, and I persevered as before at Bonn, varying the monotony of life there, however, by an occasional trip to Italy, to France, or to England. My wife's father died, and I succeeded him in his professorial chair. I was popular with the students, liked by the government, and venerated by the townspeople because my expenditure was on an ample scale.

"Of the various children born to us, however, one only, a daughter, called after my wife's sister, Gertrude, survived infancy. She battled manfully with the demon of death that had rudely snatched our little flowerets one by one, and was saved; but all the others, five in number, we followed mournfully to the tomb. Dark shadows those burials in bright years of happiness! Gertrude grew up, however, to be a great consolation to us-like a beam of sunshine she was, that ever lit up the house and chased melancholy and gloom away. cultivated her naturally fine voice assiduously. She sang like an angel, and her spirit was mild and loving as a dove's. We loved her with that entire devotion which the heart of middle life throws into its affection for the child. She was our one great treasure, the boon for which we were very grateful, and which we had tended as loving parents should. She had a companion a few years older than herself, an English youth, the

We

son of a London merchant, sent to be educated in Germany. For three years, Henry Morgan and Gertrude had been almost inseparable companions. They grew up together as two flowers might grow beside each other, equally beautiful, equally pure, equally loving-the one tall, muscular, and proud, the other gentle, timid, mild. They called each other little husband and wife, and we did not check their young hearts' affection, for we knew that ere they reached man's and woman's estate they would have been separated for years. Our Gertrude was but little more than thirteen years old when Henry Morgan left to prosecute his studies in England; for, although his father valued our German studies, he knew the prestige of Oxford and Cambridge, and determined to have his education finished at one of them. At first the letters which passed between the two were frequent and tender-they became fewer, however, as the summer advanced, both, doubtless, finding far other amusements than letter-writing; and before winter hadset in their epistles were "few and far between," each, I suppose, thinking the other the one in fault. It was altogether a beautiful little episode in my daughter's life, and during the years that have elapsed since I lost her, it has often formed a theme of reverie and reminiscence. I have seen the two, wandering hand in hand, as Bertha and I had wandered long before, through the green fields, by the fruitful vineyards. It recalled old thoughts, half-buried feelings, and the retrospect has made me melt into tears often since.

"For some years it seemed as if we must relinquish all hope of any other offspring than our beloved Gertrude. But towards the close of this very year-that in which Henry Morgan left Bonn, 1841-there was again a prospect of another little one to be snatched if possible from the insatiate jaws of death. My wife believed that the unskilfulness of our Bonn physicians might have been the cause of the deaths of our little children, and, as all Germany rung with the name of Dr. Schleiermacher, she determined to remove to Hamburg for her confinement, in order to have the benefit of his attendance. I offered no opposition to her wishes, although