in social and governing qualities, they do not make up

for in intellectual power.

faulty as their social result.

Their intellectual result is as

If this be true, then that our middle class does not yet itself see the defects of its own education, is not conscious of the injury to itself from them, and is satisfied with things as they are, is no reason for regarding this state of things without disquietude.-Schools and Universities on the Continent.

PARIS AND LONDON.

WHAT makes me look at France and the French with such inexhaustible curiosity and indulgence is this, their faults are not of the same kind as ours, so we are not likely to catch them; their merits are not of the same kind as ours, so we are not likely to become idle and self-sufficient from studying them. It is not that I so envy my Orleanist critic, 'Horace,' his Paris as it is ;-I no longer dance, nor look well when dressed up as the angel Gabriel, so what should I now do in Paris?-but I find such interest and instruction in considering a city so near London, and yet so unlike it! It is not that I so envy 'Horace' his café-haunting, dominoes-playing bourgeois ; but when I go through Saint Pancras, I like to compare our vestry-haunting, resolution-passing bourgeois with the Frenchman, and to say to myself: 'This, then, is what comes of not frequenting cafés nor playing dominoes!

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My countrymen here have got no cafés, and have never learnt dominoes, and see the mischief Satan has found for their idle hands to do!' Still, I do not wish them to be the café-haunting, dominoes-playing Frenchmen, but rather some third thing, neither the Frenchmen nor their present selves.-Friendship's Garland.

DEMANDS ON LIFE.

If we consider the beauty and the ever-advancing perfection of Paris,-nay, and the same holds good, in its degree, of all the other great French cities also, if we consider the theatre there, if we consider the pleasures, recreations, even the eating and drinking, if we consider the whole range of resources for instruction and for delight and for the conveniences of a humane life generally, and if we then think of London, and Liverpool, and Glasgow, and of the life of English towns generally, we shall find that the advantage of France arises from its immense middle class making the same sort of demands upon life which only a comparatively small upper class makes amongst ourselves.

Delicate and gifted single natures are sown in all countries. The French aristocracy will not bear a moment's comparison for splendour and importance with ours, neither have the French our exceptional class, registered by Mr. Charles Sumner, of gentlemen. But these are, after all, only two relatively small divisions

K

broken off from the top of that whole great class which does not live by the labour of its hands. These small divisions make upon life the demands of humane and civilised men. But they are too small and too weak to create a civilisation, to make a Paris. The great bulk of the class from which they are broken off makes, as is well known, no such demands upon life. London, Liverpool, and Glasgow, with their kind of building, physiognomy and effects, with their theatres, pleasures, recreations, and resources in general of delight and convenience for a humane life, are the result. But in France the whole middle class makes, I say, upon life the demands of civilised men, and this immense demand creates the civilisation we see. And the joy of this civilisation creates the passionate delight and pride in France which we find in Frenchmen. Life is so good and agreeable a thing there, and for so many.-Mixed Essays.

FRENCH REVOLUTION.

THAT a whole nation should have been penetrated with an enthusiasm for pure reason, and with an ardent zeal for making its prescriptions triumph, is a very remarkable thing, when we consider how little of mind, or of anything so worthy and quickening as mind, comes into the motives which alone, in general, impel great masses of men. In spite of the extravagant direction given to this enthusiasm, in spite of the crimes and follies in which it lost

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itself, the French Revolution derives from the force, truth, and universality of the ideas which it took for its law, and from the passion with which it could inspire a multitude for these ideas, a unique and still living power; it is, it will probably long remain,—the greatest, the most animating event in history. And, as no sincere passion for the things of the mind, even though it turn out in many respects an unfortunate passion, is ever quite thrown away and quite barren of good, France has reaped from hers one fruit,—the natural and legitimate fruit, though not precisely the grand fruit she expected: she is the country in Europe where the people is most alive.Essays in Criticism.

ENGLAND AND THE CELTS.

THERE is nothing like love and admiration for bringing people to a likeness with what they love and admire ; but the Englishman seems never to dream of employing these influences upon a race he wants to fuse with himself. He employs simply material interests for his work of fusion; and, beyond these, nothing except scorn and rebuke. Accordingly there is no vital union between him and the races he has annexed; and while France can truly boast of her 'magnificent unity,' a unity of spirit no less than of name between all the people who compose her, in our country the Englishman proper is in union of spirit with no one except other Englishmen

proper like himself. His Welsh and Irish fellow-citizens are hardly more amalgamated with him now than they were when Wales and Ireland were first conquered, and the true unity of even these small islands has yet to be achieved. When my lucubrations on the Celtic genius and literature first appeared in the 'Cornhill Magazine,' they brought me, as was natural, many communications from Welshmen and Irishmen having an interest in the subject; and one could not but be painfully struck, in reading these communications, to see how profound a feeling of aversion and severance from the English they in general manifested. Who can be surprised at it, when he observes the strain of the 'Times' in commenting on a Welsh Eisteddfod, and remembers that this is the characteristic strain of the Englishman in commenting on whatsoever is not himself? And then, with our boundless faith in machinery, we English expect the Welshman as a matter of course to grow attached to us, because we invite him to do business with us, and let him hold any number of public meetings and publish all the newspapers he likes! When shall we learn, that what attaches people to us is the spirit we are of, and not the machinery we employ ?-Study of Celtic Literature.

ENGLAND AND IReland.

OUR nation is not deficient in self-esteem, and certainly there is much in our achievements and prospects to give