George G. Cunningham, author of "Lives of Eminent and Illustrious Englishmen," and editor of several useful geographical compositions, died at Windermere, on 25th of September. "Temple-bar, a London Magazine," conducted by G. A. Sala, will appear in December. H. Sutherland Edwards is engaged on a "History of the Opera and the Ballet," in two volumes. "Two Black Masks" is to be the title of a new fiction by Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, so that G. A. Sala is not to be Quite Alone" in that field of literary effort, though his expected fiction is to bear that name. 66 Rev. Alexander Fletcher, author of "Family Devotions," &c., expired September 30th. M. Louis Blanc has been lecturing in Scotland, and in some towns of England, on Co-operation, Mysterious Personages, Labour-life in Paris, The Salons of Paris. Victor Hugo is engaged on a new work, "Les Misérables," for the copyright of which, is said, a Paris publisher has offered £8,000. The sixth volume of his son's translation of Shakespere has been lately issued. . The Recorder of Birmingham, Mr. Commissioner Hill, has a biographical work ready for press. A new novel, by Signor Ruffini, author of "Lorenzo Benoni," &c., is in the press of Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co. "The Origin and Succession of Life on the Earth," by the Oxford Professor of Geology, Mr. Philips, taking the anti-Darwin side of the question, is nearly ready. C. W. Opzoomer is editing at Amsterdam a new annotated issue of Shakespere in Dutch. A translation of the New Testament from a MS. of the 14th century, in the Vatican Library, has just been published at Geneva. A "Life of Smollett" is employing the time of the author of the "Life of Fielding,"-Frederic Lawrence. 66 José Guill y Renté, the celebrated Cuban poet, lawyer, novelist, essayist, and historian, is preparing for the press A History of the Conquest of America." "Boadicea" is the subject of Alfred Tennyson's new poem. It is to be ready in the spring. "A Treatise on Ancient Oratory," found in the Island of Inchcolm, is to be edited by Professor Simpson. Four thousand florins have been provided for in the budget of Holland this year, for the promotion and encouragement of literature. A complete Dictionary of the Dutch language is to be compiled under the auspices of the Government of Holland. A Shakespere memorial is to be erected in Melbourne; the committee engaged in it have agreed to trust the selection of a fitting design to the discretion of Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, and Sir C. Eastlake. A hitherto unknown poem of John Bunyan's is to be published by J. C. Hotten, under the editorship of the distinguished Bunyanist, George Offer, who is to supply, in an introduction, several new facts in the biography of the marvellous dreamer of Bedford. Sir Henry Herbert's "Diary" of Plays licensed while he was Master of the Revels, viz., 1622-1640, from the MS. possessed by Lord Powis, which was copied by Malone when collecting materials for his "Historical Account of the Stage," is to be published. John Hunter-1728-1793 the "gifted interpreter of the Divine power and wisdom at work in the laws of organic life," and "the founder of scientific surgery," is to have a statue of marble placed as a memorial in the Hunterian Museum by the members of the College of Surgeons." A subscription is being raised in Glasgow and its neighbourhood to aid John Young, a local poet, who has met with a disabling accident by fire. The means proposed is to present him with an edition of his poems, consisting of a thousand copies, by the disposal of which he may eke out a living. Speculative Thought. THOUGHT is the force of forces. In the very heart of the most perfect mechanical invention thought pulsates, and teaches it to labour. At the very root of habit thought lies, and operates. In the most recondite-and, to the inapprehensive mind-unmeaning, mathematical formulæ thought hides, and yet perks out. To the strange ciphers of the scroll of heaven thought imparts significance, and from the age-old characters with which the rock-volumes of nature are inscribed thought educes the history of otherwise unrecorded times. By thought steam has been harnessed to do the will of man, the electric fluid has been made his messenger, the ocean has been mapped into highways, and even the stars in the sky have been arranged into lighthouses and sea-guides, reckoners of time, and tests of chronology. Thought unites and disunites the elements, brings into effective nearness or connection differing powers, and causes them to work together in harmonious action in fulfilment of its predestination. Thought links in one, by the bonds of causation, long series of effects, and either originates or controls the manifestations of the latent powers of bodies. The thin air is dispossessed of its apparent unity by chemical elimination, and the solid brilliancy of the diamond is reduced to elemental tenuousness by the skill of the thinker. The might of mind constructs artificial explosives destructive as the lightning's flash, and its precautionary forethought disarms the thunderbolt of its deadly energy. Seizing the impalpable sunbeams, thought makes a pencil of light, and prisons for ever the artistic brilliancy it produces "as a thing of joy." Thought interpenetrates all matter with its intentions, and makes it subject and submissive; and thought interprets all the manifestations of material existence, making each phenomenon only a letter in the alphabet of science, to be read hereafter into new meanings and in new conjunctions, and to be used again as symbols of truths which have become precious to the soul. Matter is almost, as it were, vitalized by thought, and it is thereby gifted with energy, endowed with intelligence, moulded into grace, fashioned into new utilities, and made perdurably capable of reading to man lessons of wisdom. Thought is the elixir of life. The far space-distances, orb-filled and glorious, have had projected into them the lives of many thinkers, so that they now live with the life and in the harmony of their thoughts, and the seeming chaos of immensity has been woven into form by the passing through it of thought-the shuttle of life. The hard rock-surfaces have had their hieroglyphic pages re-written and translated into living and vital speech by thought. The animate VOL. IV. 2 D spirit has even consented to shut itself up in the enclosure of an inanimate thing-a book—and yet retains its ancient prerogative of befriending and teaching, encouraging and delighting, its fellowspirits. Years cannot dim the beauty of Homer's thought, destroy the potency of Plato's speculations, break the spell of entrancement with which Demosthenes enthralls, silence the imperial voice of Julius Cæsar, or impair the gaiety of Horace. The heart of man pulses yet with some of Harvey's life; the "old red sandstone” holds a lien of Hugh Miller's spirit; the skiey vault is even now beaming into our souls light gained from the intellect of Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton. Franklin still curbs the lightning, Watt still reins in the steam-steeds, Columbus guides to the Western world, and Vasco da Gama to the Eastern. Solon, Justinian, and Grotius superintend law, Euclid enspirits mathematics, Aristotle regulates thought, and Bacon holds an episcopate over experiment. The majestic domes of St. Peter's and St. Paul's enmonument and canonize the souls of Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Wren. The iron-ribbed earth is conscious of Stephenson, the waves are yet under the vicariate of Bell and Fulton. The trade and commerce of Britain are vital with Arkwright's inventiveness, Crompton's perseverance, Smith's thought, Peel's legislation. Hildebrand rules yet in the Vatican, William the Norman's sceptre is powerful still in England, Luther's voice is living even in this day, Washington preserves America, Clive governs India, Wesley informs the church with new life, Howard animates and organizes philanthropic effort, and Cromwell warns, and awes, and quells, even to this hour. Scaliger revivifies classical literature; Tell inspires Switzerland; Faust and Guttenberg give wings to words, making them indeed εTεα TEρOEVTA; and Shakespeare, by his transcendent genius, makes, as Bacon says, Dramatica poesis veluti Historia spectabilis. Of all vital things, the most vital is thought; it permeates and suffuses, works in, into, and over all things; it is the inner life of all-of discovery, invention, science, history, ethics, law, and religion. "On earth, there is nothing great but man; In man, there is nothing great but mind.” Thought is the key which admits to the jewel-casket of man, nature, and life—indeed, it is the very element in which life is it is "The pith and marrow of our attributes." Of cunning, composite, mysterious man, the essential and the quint essence is thought. Out of that, and by that, the individual becomes manifest, grows, lives, and exerts its changeful being; it is the the efflorescence of existence-life of our life. It is the energy by which happiness, improvement, knowledge, development, progress, civilization, and moral activity become possible; and all that is noble, laudable, good, is .6 Won from the void and formless infinite" of nescience, ignorance, or error. Without thought, science is but a rude and indigested mass of mere observation-of facts "It is an army with no general, An arch without a keystone;" worse than a blank leaf of nature's ledger, if reason has not been the accountant. Science derives its chief value from thought ;-the sages are not only the teachers, but the interpreters of the ages -they supply the solution to the great riddles of existence, the Past, the Present, and the Future. Thought is the might of seers; it is the nerve of action, the spring at whose unwinding effects strike out into potentiality, and the series of affairs is set in motion. Statesmanship, diplomacy, trade, manufactures, navigation, war, literature, science, art, &c., are only the blossomings of human thought. It is necessary, by repetition and reiteration, to emphasize this idea. A spurious practicality has invaded the mind of our age, and thinking has been lowered to a mere ensigncy, while doing has been promoted to an undisputed captaincy and chieftainhood. Idealism is contemned, realism is the faith of the times. The genator has been supplanted by the genatrix, and "the grey mare "has been regarded as "the better horse." The far-darting power of conceptiveness springs forth from thought, and requires to be nourished and brought to maturity by the concomitance and encirclement of practicality. Thought is the husband of experiment, experiment the mother of science and of art. By the marriage of thought and nature truth is born. The germs and influences, from which it gains birth, existed in us before. The old undergoes transformation te produce the new; but the new is old as nature and as thought, though the generative conjunction of both had not as yet taken place. "Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise From outward things, whate'er you may believe: Where truth abides in fulness. The demonstration of a truth, its birth, And you will trace the effluence to its spring And source within us, where broods radiance vast, The value of a thought cannot be told. Who can estimate the money-worth of Watt's inventions, of Jenner's discovery, of Hill's postage reform, of Wheatstone's telegraph, of Stephenson's railways, of Chambers' literature for the people, of Simpson's ameliorations of human suffering by chloroform, of Howard's philanthropic ideas, of Peel's free trade measures? Who could reckon the price due for pleasure and instruction received from the plays of Shakespeare, the poems of Milton, the novels of Scott, the histories of Macaulay, Grote, and Froude, the essays of Jeffrey, the songs of Burns, the wit of Jerrold, the philosophic speculations of Reid, Whately, and Hamilton, the moral treatises of Butler, Chalmers, and Whewell? For what amount can we assess the discoveries of Newton, Herschell, and Hutton, the chemical researches of Scheele, Liebig, and Faraday, the glorious interpretations of the phenomena of heaven given to us by Ross, Halley, and Nichol-the systematizations of Nature by Linnæus, Jussieu, and Oken-the inventions of Telford, Hoe, and Cooke,-the art-products of Raphael, Hogarth, Scheffer,the political improvements of Pitt, Peel, and Gladstone,—the moral efforts of Fry, Oberlin, and Miss Nightingale,-and the religious influences of Hall, Chalmers, and Foster? The indeterminable value of these items of civilization arises from the fact that they are the firstlings only of an infinite series of effects, whose manifestations are unceasing, yet whose root and birth-germ were once-a thought; small as a grain of mustard seed, and yet fruitful as Egyptian corn. "'Tis in the advance of individual minds That the slow crowd places its expectation, Waits ages in its bed; till some one wave If this lengthy exordium has effected its purpose, it will have supplied the basis of a belief in the worth of thought, and of the revealer of thought, "The master mind, The thinker, the explorer, the creator." But it should do more; it should lead us to determine for ourselves that thought shall not always remain latent in us; but that, with the lit lamp of consciousness, we shall search through the chambers of the soul for the old chronicles that were written by the scribe Memory in the archives of the past, and read the daily record of clerkly experience regarding the present,-in order that we also may know the might of the secrets they contain, and the value of the thought within us-that we should, in short, each become the students and disciples of a genuine philosophy, and acquire the self-knowledge which results from the exercise of speculative thought. 66 It is often difficult to explain what is meant by a scientific phrase; but our minds always gain in precision of effort by establishing, or even endeavouring to establish, the determinate conception of which we intend any phrase to be expressive. Speculative thought" we employ to signify the free use of reason for the attainment of wisdom. Not the dialectic use merely, but the cognitive as well; indeed, every faculty and capacity of the mind exercised according to its natural bent, under its natural excitants, in its usual forms, and for the fulfilment of its preordained purpose. The |