Dickens-the Boz who rose up in the midst of us like a jin with his magic glass among some eastern people, showing forth what was doing in the regions of darkness, and in odd places where nobody ever thought of going to look. It is scarcely conceivable that any one should, in our age of the world, exert a stronger social influence than Mr. Dickens has in his power. His sympathies are on the side of the suffering and the frail; and this makes him the idol of those who suffer, from whatever cause. We may wish that he had a sounder social philosophy, and that he could suggest a loftier moral to sufferers; could lead them to see that 'man does not live by bread alone,' and that his best happiness lies in those parts of his nature which are only animated and exalted by suffering, if it does not proceed too far; could show us something of the necessity and blessedness of homely and incessant self-discipline, and dwell a little less fondly on the grosser indulgences and commoner beneficence which are pleasant enough in their own place, but which can never make a man and society so happy as he desires them to become. We may wish for these things, and we may shrink from the exhibition of human miseries as an artistical study; but, these great drawbacks once admitted, we shall be eager to acknowledge that we have in Charles Dickens a man of a genius which cannot but mark the time, and accelerate or retard its tendencies. In as far as its tendencies are to 'consider the poor,' and to strip off the disguises of cant, he is vastly accelerating them. As to whether his delineations are true to broad daylight English life, that may be for some time to come a matter of opinion on which men will differ. That they are, one and all, true to the ideal in the author's mind, is a matter on which none differ; while the inexhaustible humour, the unbounded power of observation, the exquisite occasional pathos, and the geniality of spirit throughout, carry all readers far away from critical thoughts, and give to the author the whole range of influence, from the palace-library to the penny book-club.

It is something new in England to see a satirical periodical-a farcical exposure of the sins and follies of the time. We have one now. Some of the wits of London,

with Douglas Jerrold at their head, set up a weekly commentary on the doings of London as seen by Punch; and there is no corner of the kingdom to which Punch's criticisms have not penetrated. The work has been very useful, as well as abundantly amusing; it has had its faults and follies, and has dropped some of them; and now, its objects of satire are usually as legitimate as its satire is pungent and well-tempered. It is something that the grave English have a droll periodical to make them laugh every week; and it is something more that the laugh is not at the expense of wisdom.

In the solemn and immortal labours of the laboratory and the observatory we have Faraday and Herschel yet busy. It is not for us to speak of the secrets of nature which they are laying open; and it is not for any one to compute what they have done, or to anticipate what they may do. Of one work of Sir J. Herschel's we may form some estimate his Preliminary Discourse on Natural Philosophy. That treatise is enough to make any man with a mind and heart long to devote himself to the pursuit of physical science, as the high road to wisdom, from that moment onwards. His own devotion to it is an example and inducement to all who can follow. He went to the Cape, to set up his observatory-leaving behind all considerations but that of the advancement of science; and every step of his pilgrimage has set its mark on a future age. As for Faraday, we dare say only that he is penetrating into mysteries of existence of which his own vast faculties can hardly bear the contemplation, and which will therefore become fully comprehensible only to a future generation. Under his gaze and his touch, the solid material of the universe is all melting away; matter -according to the old and now vulgar idea of it—is dissolving itself into forces; and our feeble insight into nature would be blinded, and our weak grasp of reliance would be all cast loose, but for the great truth which presents itself more clearly through all changes—that immutable law rules everywhere, all-sufficing for our intellectual support and our ease of heart. If we cannot compute what has been done by the researches and discoveries of Faraday for the period through which we have

passed, we can say nothing of how they will influence the next. We can only feel certain that, in as far as they must change the aspect of the universe, and give a new command over the conditions of organised life, they must largely affect the destiny of man, both in his intellectual progress and his social relations. It will be for the men of that future time to assign to Faraday his place in the history of his country and of his kind.

CHAPTER XVII.

National Advancement - Electric Telegraph-Sun-painting-Lord Rosse's Telescope-The Thames Tunnel-British Scientific Association-Geology-Medicine- Sanitary Improvement - Agricultural Associations-Prisons and Criminal Law-Extinction of SlaveryEducation-Popular Music-Popular Art-The Educator-Methods of Charity-Duelling - Political Morality-What remains — The Labour Question.

There

IN taking a review of any period within our own experience, every one of us is apt to exaggerate the gains of the time —its gains in knowledge, arts, and moral views. This arises in part from our confounding change or expansion in our own ideas with change in the world about us. fore, we are liable to be struck by an opposite view upon occasion; and, in contemplating the best things in the old world-not its arts and science, but the wisdom of its sages, and the mental condition and communion of its people to doubt whether, after all, the human race has got on so very much as is commonly said. If we endeavour to keep our view extended, we shall not suppose that any critical or decisive advance can have been made by any section of the human race in a period of thirty years; and we shall look without pride or vanity, it may be hoped, upon such improvements as may be recognised; while the review of such improvements may be thoroughly delightful, as convincing us of that rapid partial advance towards the grand slow general advance which we humbly but firmly trust to be the destination of the human race.

To look first to the lowest class of improvements, the arts of life-we find many of recent origin, which promote the general convenience and comfort. The electric telegraph is a marvel of the time which our minds are even yet hardly able to familarise themselves with; and yet, while amazed at what we see, we have a clear persuasion that this is but the opening of a series of discoveries and inventions. News is transmitted as by a lightning flash; messages are exchanged, police and soldiery may be summoned on an emergency, criminals are captured, scientific observations at distant points may become all but simultaneous, and there is a strengthening expectation that distant countries may communicate, not by the sea, slowly and hazardously, as hitherto, but through the sea, with the rapidity of thought. And still, when we look at the natural facts that have manifested themselves in the course of recent experiments, we are aware that much more remains to be revealed.—Then, again, we have discovered the wonderful fact of sun-painting. Not only are our portraits taken (with a harshness at present which will soon, no doubt, be softened down by art)-portraits about whose likeness there can be no dispute-but a world of toil and error is certain to be saved in coast-surveying, architectural portraiture, and delineation in natural history. Every fibre of a flower, every stone of a building, every feature of any scene, is fixed in a moment in its true proportions, to last for ever. There need no more be controversy in future centuries about the aspects of perished cities, or speculation about the faces of the illustrious dead. Each age may leave to the future a picture-gallery of its whole outer life. Then, again, there is a telescope existing, of such power, that every rock in our side of the moon, as large as a church, is visible. We do not hear much of this marvel yet, because it is not yet so manageable as it will be; and errors derived from its use are as enormous as its powers. But it is a vast new opening into science, through which wise men are learning to look, and which may hereafter stand wide to the peasant and the child.—Of steam and railways enough has been said. Everybody knows more than could be told here of what they do in superseding toil, in setting human hands free for skilled labour, in

bringing men face to face with each other, and with nature and novelty; the peer face to face with the farmer and the merchant, and the mechanic face to face with mountain and forest and sea.-Then, again, we have new explosive substances which first connect themselves in our thoughts with war-as the gun-cotton of recent invention, but which will doubtless be used to lay open secrets of nature, and help us in our application of the arts when the nations shall not learn war any more. In an humbler way, but by no means a contemptible one, we have now means of obtaining fire in a moment, everywhere. Not only in the cottage but in every house the tiresome tinder-box, with its slowness and uncertainty, was the only way to get fire twenty years ago, except in the chemist's laboratory, where phosphorus matches were a sort of terror to the commonalty. Now the penny box of lucifers is in every cottage, where it saves the burning of the rushlight for the baby's sake. We have had some rick and shed burning in consequence; but that evil was sure to follow any great facility in obtaining fire.-In waterproof clothing, the poor have obtained a great benefit. Large classes of labourers may soon be better protected from wet at their outdoor work than are the policemen of the present day.-The Thames Tunnel may at first appear purely a work of human head and hands-a piece of boring and building; but it could not have been achieved in an age of science inferior to our Mention has been made before of the strong and wide interest which existed about this work when it was brought to a stop, and shut up for some years. The sanguine were justified in their prophecies that it would be opened again. In December 1841, the works reached the shaft at Wapping; and on the 24th, an opening was made in the brick-work of the shaft; and a large party of gentlemenall the directors and several original subscribers—walked through, being the first persons who had ever passed under the river from shore to shore. In March 1843, it was opened to foot-passengers, a grand procession with music passing through one side and returning by the other. While this modern mermaid music was going on lower than the fishes could dive, there was some grief and mourning above-such as always makes the drawback on

own.