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var" with great effect. An amusing song, "Hame cam' our gude man at e'en," was sung with characteristic effect by Mr. Rine. Mr. Beattie then told a very humourous story, entitled "A Love Exploit," amid the interrupted laughter of the audience. A dialogue from the "Stranger," between Messrs. Bruce, and Dunn, was executed with dramatic effect; and a ludicrous recitatation, entitled "Paddy the Swabber," by Mr. Clark, concluded the first part of the proceedings. An interval of ten minutes, with service of fruit; after which Mr. James Lumgair delivered an address to the ladies on "Love," which was enlivened throughout by broad bursts of humour and eloquence. The song "Rule Britannia" was sung in admirable style by Mr. McKay, while the audience joined heartily in the chorus. Mr. Bruce then delivered an eloquent and elaborate address on 66 Excelsior," abounding in apt allusions and telling illustrations of the value of this motto. A song, "My native home," was sung with true patriotic feeling by Mr. Dunn. The dialogue, "Clarence's Dream," between Messrs. McIntosh and Lumgair, was done in a highly artistic manner. A recitation, "Crescentius," was spoken by Mr. Burrie in a very commendable style; followed by a humourous and side-convulsing story by Mr. Mc

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Intosh; while "Auld lang syne," sung by the audience with great éclat, finished the proceedings of the evening. This association has been in existence for two years, and is in a very flourishing condition. Its regular attendants vary from twenty-two to twenty-four. essay is read every Wednesday evening, varied by debates once a month, which are all prepared with great care by their several authors, and mostly treating subjects of great practical value to individual members. A manuscript magazine has been established among them, published monthly, which goes the whole round of the members, receiving generous and impartial criticisms thereon. Their annual meeting was held in their rooms, Dock-street, on the evening of the 2nd of May last, A. Jones, Esq., in the chair, when the secretary and treasurer read encouraging and satisfactory reports of last year's proceedings. Votes of thanks were then proposed to the president and other office-bearers, when the following gentlemen were elected for the following year:-president, A. Jones, Esq.; vicepresident, Mr. Millar; secretary, Mr. Rae; treasurer, Mr. McIntosh; editor, Mr. Dunn; committee, Messrs. Robertson, Burrie, Bruce, and Lumgair.— A. S. R.

LITERARY NOTES.

It is said that the baton of the Quarterly Review has passed from the hands of the Rev. Mr. Elwyn into those of an erudite Scotchman, Mr. Macpherson. Are national alternations absolutely necessary in this journal?-Gifford, Lockhart, Elwyn, Macpherson. It must be an Englishman's turn next.

Mr. James Hannay, author of "Satire and Satirists," &c., is reported to have assumed the editorship of the Edinburgh Courant, the oldest Conservative newspaper in Scotland.

"The Isthmus of Suez" is the topic given out by the French Academy for the prize poem of 1861.

M. E. Bonnechose's "History of England" has gained the Halphen prize, by decree of the French Academy.

Editions of Pope and Addison are shortly to be produced by Murray, under the supervision of Mr. Elwyn; for Croker is dead, and Cunningham is ill.

The Moniteur for 1789 to 1799, containing materials for a history of the French Revolution, is republishing in Paris.

The London Review has commenced the issue of a series of inedited letters between Lord Nelson and Sir William Hamilton.

Griffin and Co. intend re-publishing

a collective edition of the philosophical writings of the Rev. F. D. Maurice for the "Encyclopædia Metropolitana."

Dr. Maine, Middle Temple reader in jurisprudence and civil law, has in the press a work on "Ancient Law in its Relation to Early History and Modern Thought."

The North British Review has again changed hands. It is now published by Messrs. Clark, Edinburgh.

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Species not Transmutable" is the title of an anti-Darwin work, by Dr. R. E. Bree, in the press.

Mr. E. Clifford is to issue a Biography of Edward I.

Cædmon's "Fall of Man" is to be translated from the Anglo-Saxon by W. H. F. Bosanquet.

Marcus Niebuhr, son of the great German historian, a courtier and an author (!), is dead.

Mr. Charles Wells has recently issued a "Treatise on Political Economy," in the Turkish language. Will it medicine "the sick man"?

Gerald Massey's "Poetical Works" are republished in America.

"Pages and Pictures from the Writings of J. F. Cooper," the American novelist, are preparing by a relative, Miss Susan Cooper, author of "Rural Hours."

Lord Stanhope is to enlighten men farther regarding the "Life of William Pitt;" and Mr. Motley is writing the 'History of the United Netherlands."

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A statue of Cromwell, raised by subscriptions from the million, is talked of. Fox, the founder of Quakerism, is about to be biographied.

Miss Macready, daughter of the eminent tragedian, is to appear before the public as an authoress in "Leaves from the Olive Mount."

A volume of unpublished Voltaire letters, entitled "Voltaire at Ferney," has been issued by Didier and Co., Paris.

The mathematical writings of Leibnitz have been published, from original MSS. in the library of Hanover, and under the editorship of Dr. G. Pertz, at Berlin.

Kavanagh, the author of "How I Won the Medal," is appointed AssistantCommissioner at Oude.

A French "Peerage" is about to be officially published at Paris.

Ponsard, of "Divine Williams" notoriety, has had his play, "What Pleases the Ladies," unequivocally perditionized at the Vaudeville, in Paris.

During July the theatre receipts in Paris amounted to £33,300.

An inedited dramatic sketch of Schiller's, a domestic comedy of real life, in which himself and his friends are banteringly exhibited, is now in the possession of Herr C. Künzel, of Heilbronn, but is likely soon to be published.

A novel entitled "Galilleo Galillei," by Raven, has been published by Brockhaus, Leipsic.

B. B. Woodward, Esq., is engaged on a Historical and Chronological Encyclopædia.

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Signor Dall'Ongaro has lately completed, at Florence, a series of twelve conferences on Dante's "Inferno." In the autumn, he intends illustrating the Purgatorio," and the "Paradiso." His poetico-political expositions of the work of the great Florentine, are well adapted to the present times in Italy, and highly popular.

"Fabian Mercer," a London mayor of the fifteenth century, is to become the subject of G. A. Sala's sketchy biographic pen shortly.

R. W. Dale's "Life and Letters of J. A. James" are to be published by Nisbet and Co.

The Notts "Young Men's Literary Association" will issue, early next month, essays, tales, poetry, &c., in “ A Book without a Name."

Napoleon III.'s "Julius Cæsar" is in active preparation. Has he seen Shakespeare's work on that topic? Therein it is said,

"Such men as he be never at heart's

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOCRATES.

IN one of those grave epochs of human history when polity, policy, morality, jurisprudence, and religion, are waning in their control over, or influence upon, the individual soul; and it has become a question among men whether these are the results of priests' fables, legislators' dicta, the mere fictions of poets, or whether they have an everlasting fountain in God, and an eternal applicability to man,-Socrates appeared. It was a time of crisis; a time when a man is needed who can sweep the whole horizon of speculation with an eye at once free and acute, and distinguish between the seeming and the true. It was one of those periods which recur in the process of the cycles when reform is needed but unheeded; when evils are felt, yet remedies are unwelcome. Effete formalism, and shameful shamming, abounded. There had been an apotheosis of humbug. He came, and the tremor of despair thrilled through the spasmodized hypocrisies of life thought, statesmanship, and ritual; for the sly laugh, the jocose twitting, the ironic reverence, and the modest questioning, which Socrates had for each and all, were worse to bear than outspoken disbelief and arrant heresy. In the very "fitness of things," he came to out-comedy in real life the humour of the dramatist, to into debate upon beliefs and laws the intense contentiousness and rude mirthfulness of Olympia and Nemea, and to out-sophistrize sophistry itself.

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Unwelcome intruder! disturbing the quiet of enjoyment, the patient sluggishness of soul, the dolce far niente-ism of the time: you have stirred up a strife of which you must "take the consequences." Why should it be needful to search into the meaning of worship and right, of law and life, of policy and honour, when we can attend to the forms of them all so much more easily than to their realities? Such heterodoxy is troublesome and vexatious; we will have "none of it." Innovation shall have no ovation from 1s; we are sick of investigation; we are bent upon enjoyment. To conserve our privileges is the only way to deserve our love. Crowd life with delight, and win our gratitude; torture us with probing inquisitiveness, and you will excite our hate. An adviser is seldom esteemed a friend; a critic, much more a censor,-never.

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Coolness, coldness, resistance, opposition, enmity, are the states of mind that are entered into in quick succession, under the influence of censure, however honestly exercised, or however ably expressed, in ordinary men. It is quite easy to predicate that a reformer must be unacceptable to his own age, and must pass through a period of trial and endurance, before the day of his fame arrives. Socrates was a reformer, therefore he was criminal; "criminal, inasmuch as he acknowledgeth not the gods whom the state holds sacred, and introduceth new deities: he is likewise criminal, because he corrupteth the youth."

"So grows, so flourishes" among men the hate of innovation; and then all forms of procedure are considered legitimate, and even law itself may, it is thought, be twisted into injustice and injury. Nor are there wanting plausible grounds for this accusation:-the philosophic innovator in politics, Pericles,-Socrates' pupil,-had fed the Athenians into the Peloponnesian war; the profane and profligate Alcibiades, another pupil, had hurried them into the Sicilian war, a war so perilous in its course, so disastrous in its end;-and the downward tendency given to the power of Athens by these events was consummated by the overthrow of the consti tution by the Thirty Tyrants, one of the chief of whom, Critias, had also taken Socrates, for a while, as his Gamaliel. To reason from the per haec to the propter hac is a fallacy of no uncommon prevalence, even now; and in those days, when logic was only struggling into potency, it was a form of reasoning to which passion lent a wondrous relevancy. Socrates was condemned, and the hem lock settled for the nonce the awkward dispute of that age,―lately renewed in ours,-"On the worth of Socrates as a philosopher." On this subject the formation of a fair, impartial, and intelligent opinion is not so easy as it seems. Socrates has been exaggerated to gigantic dimensions by Plato," and he "has been dwarfed by Xenophon; he was in intellect a mean proportional, if we may 80 speak, between the Platonic and the Xenophontic Socrates. But how is this proportion to be calculated? How reconcile and harmonize Plato's idealism, grace, pleasantry, inventiveness, and genius, with the cold, flat, dead-level, realistic, yet sagacious common sense of Xenophon,-the Ionic picture with the Attic statue, the poetic exaggeration with the simple matter-of-fact, the artistic and mystic, with the severe and the sincere? Plato's originality and wide stretch and compass of mind caused him to give, as Aristotle somewhere says, "a character of overstraining, bombast, innovation, inconclusiveness, and impracticability" to some of the reasonings which he puts into the mouth of Socrates; while the simple equibility, the tranquil practicality, and the mere mir roring, not comprehending powers, of Xenophon's mind, rendered him unfit to become the expositor of the philosophic tenets of his

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* Rogers's "Essays,” vol. i., p. 314. "Literary genius of Plato-character of Socrates," an epitome of Platonism of great value and excellence, worthy of careful perusal and study.

master; while they manifestly made him admirably suited for becoming his apologist,-say rather, defender. It is likely that the fair medium may never be struck; for it is difficult to hold away from the reason the influences of the imagination; and it is never an easy matter to strike the balance between the decisions of two powers so jealous of each other. Perhaps no proof could be given of the real" worth of Socrates as a philosopher" as this one fact,that his life and doctrine impressed so fully, so deeply, so seriously, so lastingly, minds so much the opposites of each other, as those of Xenophon and Plato.

We shall not here attempt to re-argue, critically, and at length, a question which has so much and so tensely occupied philosophers, philologers, and historians, for ages; because we believe that, in the main, the compromise proposed by Grote is feasible and fair. The following excerpts will put our readers in possession of the chief parts of the adjudication, and the reasons for it. The "Memorabilia" of Xenophon profess to record actual conversations held by Sokrates, and are prepared with the announced purpose of vindicating him against the accusations of Melêtus and his other accusers on the trial, as well as against unfavourable opinions, seemingly much circulated respecting his character and purposes. We have thus in it a sort of partial biography; subject to such deductions from its evidentiary value as may be requisite for imperfection of memory, intentional decoration, and partiality. On the other hand, the purpose of Plato, in the numerous dialogues wherein he introduces Sokratês, is not so clear, and is explained very differently by different commentators. Plato was a great speculative genius, who came to form opinions of his own, distinct from those of Sokrates, and employed the name of the latter as spokesman for these opinions in various dialogues. How much in the Platonic Sokrates can be safely accepted, either as a picture of the man, or as a record of his opinions; how much, on the other hand, is to be treated as Platonism; or in what proportions the two are intermingled, is a point not to be decided with certainty or rigour. But though the opinions put by Plato into the mouth of Sokrates are liable to thus much of uncertainty, we find, to our great satisfaction, that the pictures given by Plato and Xenophon of their common master are, in the main, accordant; differing only as drawn from the same original by two authors radically different in spirit and character. Xenophon, the man of action, brings out at length those conversations of Sokratês which had a bearing on practical conduct, and were calculated to correct vice or infirmity in particular individuals; such being the matter which served him as apologist, at the same time that it suited his intellectual taste. But he intimates, nevertheless, very plainly, that the conversation of Sokrates was often, indeed usually, of a more negative, analytical, and generalizing tendency; not destined for the reproof

"Memorabilia," Lib. i, 16.

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