trol over the teacher who gives it. Here, accordingly, are converging lines of authority, which, drawn from every school-house in every hamlet, meet in one point, and that point is the imperial will." In connection with this subject, the article on "Privy Council Centralization" deserves consideration, but we have nearly exhausted our space, and must hurry to a close. The shortness of Dr Schmitz's Memoir on Bunsen is much to be regretted, for few men in this country knew him so well. The following passage will, we think, thoroughly establish Bunsen's claims as a politician and a statesman :— "Soon after the French Ambassador had protested against Austrian intervention in the Legations, which had been solicited by Gregory XVI., the ambassadors of the four great European powers and a special envoy from England met in conference at Rome on the 14th of April 1831, for the purpose of expressing to the Papal Government, in the name of their respective sovereigns, their conviction of the absolute necessity of introducing extensive political reforms. Bunsen was commissioned to draw up a memorandum embodying the views of the ambassadors, and on the 21st of May 1831 it was presented, in five identical copies, to the Pope's Govern ment. The following is a summary of its contents: 1. His Holiness determines and promulgates, of his own free will, the new principles of his Government, and they are to be secured by substantial guarantees against alterations, which may easily occur in an elective monarchy. 2. The organic law is to contain two principles; first, that the reforms shall be introduced in all the provinces as well as in the capital; and, secondly, that laymen are to be admitted to all administrative and judicial functions. 3. In regard to jurisdiction, the motu proprio of 1816 is to be carried out to its full extent, and elective municipal and provincial councils are to be intrusted with the local and provincial administration. 4. A high court of finance, being a section of the State Council to be appointed, is to have the control of all financial affairs, and members of the local councils are to be admitted as members of this court. This memorandum was agreed to by Prince Metternich, but its proposals were only partially approved of by the Holy See. The declaration of the Pope was contained in a note of Cardinal Bernetti to the French ambassador, dated June 5, 1831, in which the request of France that the memorandum should be adopted in toto was declined with some bitterness. Gregory XVI., accordingly, in his attempts at reform, disregarded two main points, viz., the election of municipal and provincial councils, and the institution of a council of state consisting of laymen. It was to this circumstance that the great powers ascribed the failure of Gregory's plan of reform; but Prince Metternich, undertaking the justification of Gregory, declared that the European sovereigns ought to apply no kind of compulsion to the Pope in regard to those two points, which would create an entirely new power in the Roman State. Not many months after this, when Bunsen visited Cardinal Bernetti, the latter produced the fundamental laws which were to establish municipal freedom, already printed, and remarked: You see we were in earnest, but read yourself this letter of the Emperor of Austria, in which he threatens to withdraw all moral and material support, if we carry out this principle, which, he says, would be a dangerous example to his Italian possessions. All plans of reform are given up.' Soon after this Bunsen learned that in Berlin also energetic representations had been made by the absolutist party against his proceedings in Rome." The article "On Teaching of English History," by Fitch, is a valuable paper, worth the study of all our teachers,-for history, as generally studied, is but a dry array of names, interspersed with as dry a list of battles or bare historic facts, which the scholar generally learns by rote in their sequence, and of them any other way he knows nothing at all: "Surely there is a higher truth than the truth of mere detail, and that is just what the compiler of annals misses, and the man of poetic genius retains. The power To show the very age and body of the time' is a rare one; it requires not only knowledge of actual occurrences, but philosophic insight enough to distinguish between typical and exceptional events, and imagination enough to select and adapt the materials, and to give unity and verisimilitude to the whole picture." We beg to call particular attention to Dr Schmitz's article on the late Chevalier Bunsen. From the point of view Dr S. has taken, it presents a just estimate of that truly remarkable thinker, as well as man of action, and it is characterised by a free and elastic style, not easily attainable in historical compendia. The article on "Current Literature," is also deserving of praise. Altogether, we wish well to the periodical just started. THE DUKE D'AUMALE'S SHOT AT PRINCE NAPOLEON. THERE is no saying more trite and better understood than the common proverb, that "People who live in glass-houses should not throw stones." Yet strange it is that the inhabitants of these fragile dwellings seem more given to indulgence in this silly and dangerous amusement than those who dwell in other tenements of clay. They are more enlightened than their neighbours, and wish to enlighten others as to what is going on in the external world, while they are unconscious of the danger which they are bringing on themselves. The position and the recent speech of Prince Napoleon are no inapt illustration of the truth of the proverb, and the want of discernment of those to whom it applies. The stones which he has lately chosen to let fly have brought down on his glass-house missiles of various kinds from the armoury of Henry of Orleans. The Napoleonic rule has its weak and assailable points, and the life and character of the head of the Jerome branch of the Buonapartes offers a fair field of attack for the weapons of scandal; and the champion of the younger French Bourbons has made a good onslaught on the Napoleonic dynasty as well as on Prince Napoleon himself, dealing right and left his well directed blows. The spokesman of the exiled dynasty of the "Citizen King" has employed the same engine of the press by which Napoleon seeks to give forth his feelers and oracular utterances. Nought but a jaundiced view of things as they are can be expected from the representatives of things as they were; but notwithstanding the laudation of the Bourbon rule and the depreciatory contrast of that of the Buonapartes which was to be looked for, there is a prevailing current of undoubted truth stated plainly and by inuendo. The vantage ground so adroitly occupied by the Duke d'Aumale, is that his position has been attacked, and that in defence of it, he seeks not to carry his adversary's post, but gives vent to his ingenious malice, in keen retort and well told scandal, which will have its effect in making the object of it the subject of ridicule. What Prince Napoleon said of the fallen dynasty, will have little effect; but the recounting of the foibles and evils of those who rule may not be so fruitless. That this piece of sarcastic politico-personal declamation will do more than be a nine days' wonder, and afford food for the Parisians' love of gossip, seems unlikely. It cannot but wound the self-conceit and proud arrogance of the Prince, and it may be the source of some secret enjoyment to his imperial cousin. The Orleanists, however, are neither numerous nor powerful in France, and there is no very prevalent desire to disturb the present state of affairs. The mistake of the French Government has been in taking measures for suppression of the pamphlet, especially after they had neglected so long as to allow its publication. The author is beyond their jurisdiction, and therefore not amenable to the law; and it would do little good to punish the hapless printer. Varied have been the rumours in regard to the course which Prince Napoleon is to take. The on dit was that he was coming to England to challenge the Duke d'Aumale, and now the report is that he is raking up all that can be collected with the view of coming down upon the Duke with a new Philippic. No doubt it would be easier to shoot or to stab the author, than to answer the letter; but the better course would be silence, and Napoleon III., if he exercises his wonted prudence, will restrain his cousin from the use of sword, pistol, or pen. This epistle is a very clever and pointed satire, and deserves notice for its literary ability. We can only allude to some of its contents. We do not appreciate the force of the contrast with which the Duke commences his "Letter on the History of France," between his own position as a free exile in a foreign land, and that of the present Emperor as a prisoner at Ham. Any force which it seems intended to have is weakened by the publication and circulation of this letter. It may be that he meant to insinuate by the comparison that no such mild fate as imprisonment with a chance of escape, awaits any of the Orleans family who may make a similar attempt as that made by Louis Napoleon; but that they would be at once and for ever silenced by being shot down, as the Prince had clearly intimated in his speech. More fortunate is the duke, when he charges the Prince with disowning the name to which he owes everything; and also when he shows himself to be a greater admirer of the framer of the present dynasty than this scion of the Bonaparte family. There is a piquancy in his definition of parvenu as applicable only to the first of a dynasty, and in his inuendo of its non-application to the present ruler of France; but the recollection that his father came under that designation as the first of the Orleans dynasty may have withheld his peu from making a thrust to the full extent. But the hardest hit of all is when the Duke deprives the Prince of all claim to the title of Republican, by shewing his vertu republicaine to fall under the description of easy. In some of his attacks, especially in regard to the fortifications of Paris, which we are now told, were not for the suppression of popular insurrection, but for defence against a foreign foe, he exposes the weakness of his own side and he certainly brings forward no merits of the Bourbons of the elder or the younger branches which should make the French people desirous of an exchange for the Napoleons. SACRED SONGS OF SCOTLAND, OLD AND NEW.* THIS elegant volume comprises three distinct classes of religious poems. The first contains "Sacred Songs of the sixteenth and seventeenth Centuries," the second consists of "Hymns for Mourners," while the third is occupied with miscellaneous hymns and sacred poems. The special characteristic of the book is that it includes specimens of sacred poetry selected from the writings of Scottish Authors alone. In this respect, therefore, the work may be received as the first instalment of a collection which, though devoutly wished for, has not yet seen the light, namely, "The complete Hymnology of Scotland. The extracts are judiciously made, but we have space only for Professor Blackie's "Benedicite" which concludes the series. "Bond and free man, Land and sea man, Earth with peoples widely stored, "Praise Him ever, Bounteous Giver! Praise Him, Father, Friend and Lord! Our readers will observe that Professor Blackie has now taken his place "among the prophets" of his native land. We should not be surprised to hear of him next as chairman of a district prayer meeting in the parish of Free St John's. DR CORNWELL'S WORKS. 1. Dr Cornwell's Geography for Beginners. 2. Dr Cornwell's Map Book for Beginners, being a Companion Atlas to the Geography for Beginners. 3. Dr Cornwell's Book of Blank Maps; each Map complete in all but the names, which are to be filled in by the learner. 4. Dr Cornwell's Book of Map-Projections, comprising the Line of Latitude and Longitude of twelve Maps. London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co.; Hamilton, Adams, & Co. Edinburgh Oliver & Boyd. DR CORNWELL ranks among our very best editors of educational treatises. We have for many years used his "English School Grammar," his "Young Composer," and his "School Geography," as text-books, |