about to wing its flight for ever with thoughts not suited to so awful a change! I have still a few little matters to settle to complete the business, so must go down to the office. You can do as you like about following me."

"Oh, I would rather. I wish to say a word first, that is all." "Very well."

When Frederick heard the office-door close after his father's entrance, he rose and rang the bell; and on James's appearing to the summons, he said, with as much composure as he could assume,

"Oh James, you need not say anything concerning the young lady who came here this morning, to my father, as her business was entirely with myself."

"I understand, sir!" replied James, with a nod of familiarity which he had never presumed to venture before, and which was highly offensive to Frederick in his present state of irritation and perplexity.

"What does the fellow mean?" he mentally ejaculated. "What does the fellow mean?"

Frederick could not respond to himself, but he felt as if his independence was compromised; and so it was in a manner, for James had always smarted under what he considered the unmerited hauteur of his young master towards him, and seized with avidity this, the first favourable opening for a little quiet revenge.

NEW BOOKS.

MAJOR HERBErt Byng Hall's latest work is a record of his labours in the cause of the Great Exhibition, contained in a narrative of his experiences in the West of England, whither he was sent by the Royal Commissioners, to make known the real bearing and nature of the project which has since proved such a marvel of success. Not so much, however, a record, in the literal sense of the term, but rather a resumé of all that befel him by flood and fell, in town and country, while travelling in the romantic district to which he was appointed. It is a pleasant, agreeable volume, and has this useful tendency, to represent Western England and the Western English in such a light as to make us wish them far less remote; for, in spite of steam, remoteness characterises all lands beyond which there is no thoroughfare but the ocean.

An historical poem from Jersey, called "Agabus; or, the Last of the Druids," greets us next. The author is a lady-Esther Le Hardyand in a very modest preface pleads earnestly for a favourable consideration of the manner in which she has treated a difficult, and-perhaps-not very inviting subject. It would appear that she has been prompted to make the Druids her theme by her familiarity with certain Druidical remains which have been recently discovered in Jersey-formerly called Angia-whither the priests of that ancient faith retired, to seek and find their last refuge.

The West of England and the Exhibition, 1851. By Herbert Byng Hall, K.S.F. London: Longman and Co.

+ Agabus; or, the Last of the Druids. An Historical Poem. By Esther Le Hardy. London: Pickering.

The story is an interesting one; the versification is melodious, and the thoughts with which the poem abounds are full of grace and purity. "Agabus" is essentially a feminine work in its best sense, and reflects great credit on the writer.

"A Little Earnest Book," by Mr. Wilson,* commends itself to our notice by the quality set forth in its title-page. Mr. Wilson's object is "to mirror forth the poetical nature, and to lay bare the feelings and motives of poets"—a vast subject, which he enters upon with due reverence and much earnestness. "All that is good, beautiful, or heroic in this our world," he says, "is Poetry;" and this definition he very eloquently illustrates in a masterly analysis of all that constitutes poetical genius-of all that fills the mind, and forms the aim and existence of the poet. Sentiments more just, opinions more correct, feelings warmer, or aspirations nobler, it would be difficult to find in any author who has made the Poet's Art his theme; and, in perfect sincerity, we recommend this "Earnest Little Book" to the public. A pretty story, called "The Poet Lover," closes the volume. Let us add, that the illustrations, by Alfred Crowquill, enhance the value of the work.

"Home is Home," a domestic tale, records, in a pleasing style, the trials and vicissitudes of a family who have to struggle through that ocean of trouble which arises from pecuniary embarrassments. The situations are natural, and the tone of the work commendable.

swoop.

THE admirable satire and pungent wit of the author of "How to make Home Unhealthy," fully prepared us for the enjoyment we have experienced in reading his latest production, "A Defence of Ignorance,"ta work which contains all the qualities that render Swift's humorous writings so attractive, but without a particle of the Dean of St. Patrick's coarseness or indelicacy. The "Defence of Ignorance" has a notable advocate in this original and far-seeing votary, who has so shaped his work, in subtile praise of what he exposed, as to allow no flaw to escape him, and who pounces down on every stray error with irresistible The form which he has adopted for uttering the home-truths he tells, is quasidramatic, a learned committee being the speakers, and the speakers themselves, owls, the intensity of whose love of ignorance is of various shades, but each most earnestly expressed. The book is one of that class of which very little notion can be acquired without setting the author's ideas before the reader in his own words. We shall, therefore, let him speak for himself as much as we can. Hear how innocently Aziola, one of the select committee, expresses himself respecting the best method of teaching children. The absurdity of his notions is obvious:

The teacher predetermines that he will occupy perhaps three years in a full narration of the story of the world. He begins at the first dawn of history, studies for himself with patient diligence upon each topic the most correct and elaborate records (for which purpose he requires aid of a town library), and pours all out in one continued stream from day to day, enlivened by a childlike style. The children comment as the story runs; the teacher finds a hint sufficient at a time by way of moral, he is rather willing to be taught by the experience of what fresh hearts applaud or censure on the old worn stage of * A Little Earnest Book upon a Great Old Subject. By William Wilson, author of "A House for Shakspeare," &c. London: Darton and Co. 1851. + Home is Home; a Domestic Tale. London: Pickering. 1851.

A Defence of Ignorance. By the Author of "How to make Home Unhealthy." London: Chapman and Hall.

life. Natural history and science, all the -ologies, and -tics, and -nomies, succeed each other, also, as a three years' story of the wisdom which begat the world. Foreign countries, not dismissed in a few dozen of the driest existing sentences, are visited in company with pleasant travellers. Clever, goodhumoured books of travel, carry the imaginations of the children round the world. In all these latter studies they take lively interest, remembering, to a remarkable extent, what they hear. On every point they have spoken freely in the presence of a teacher not desirous to create dull copies of himself, but to permit each budding mind to throw out shoots and spread its roots according to its own inherent vigour. He manures and waters, watches to remove all parasitic growths, but the true, healthy mind, expands unchecked under his care.-SCREECH. But will the children satisfy the patience of John Smith?AZIOLA. Will the rose bear colours which he did not paint-the petal of the pink have notches that he did not cut? If he be nervous, fidgetty, exacting, he will grumble at the children frequently. He will sometimes be fretted; but when he is most himself he will perceive that he has nothing whereat he may justly fret. The children will regard him with affection and implicit trust. Their hearts have not been made ungentle; therefore, if they ever feel that they have vexed him, they themselves are penitent and vexed. Less as a prize than as a good-will offering, each child has a half-yearly gift, not won by an unwholesome rivalry, but containing a record in the first leaf of his half year's career.

I have not done with Smith's contrivances. Another is this. He parts his children evenly into two sides, calling them, we will say, the Greens and Blues, after the two factions of the Roman Circus. For these sides also conduct races. Smith does not catechise his children, they examine one another. This mutual examination* takes place not less than twice a week. Each side has in turn to ask a question of its antagonist, on anything that has been at any time a subject of the teaching common to them all. Gain and loss is calculated upon some fixed scale, and in the game the children take an active interest. Those who can finger a pen readily, take notes during the oral teaching; all ears are alive to what is uttered, and at home books of reference are ransacked with a diligence that would be toil were it not self-imposed. To avoid personality of opposition the two sides are occasionally shuffled.SCREECH. Can children collect their thoughts sufficiently to ask questions that are not frivolous?-AZIOLA. The experiment has been tried by a gentleman whose plan is not unlike John Smith's, and who was persuaded to adopt Smith's crotchet of the Blues and Greens. He was so much surprised by the result that he determined to preserve a list of questions, writing down each of them in a book as it was asked. That book I borrowed and intend to keep. It contains questions asked by children between nine and fourteen years of age. Many refer, I understand, to information given them a year before they asked their neighbours for its reproduction.

The whole of the remarks of Civetta on school discipline may be read with advantage, and the illustrations prove their truth and utility :

Dr. Williams frequently tells his boys that caning is as painful to him as it is to the pupil suffering. Since fifty boys still yield him a good share of work, the amount of his self-flagellation is extremely serious. The Dominie might be St. Dominic. But as a Zooloo warrior, who had crossed the Cape frontier, declared his delight in sticking Dutchmen; the spear slipped into their soft unctuous skin so much more luxuriously than into the thick hide of a native, that he would much rather, he said, stick Dutchmen than eat beef; even so the hand of wrath may find a soothing outlet on the flesh of childhood. I never enjoyed sucking-pig so much as Dr. Williams seems to be enjoying now that operation on Binns Minimus, which sends him away to where he may not even, like Arvalan,

In impotence of anger, howl,
Writhing with anguish, and his wounds deplore.

* Southey tells us of a schoolmaster who in this way taught spelling. His is the idea.

-BUнO. That impotence of anger is, in my mind, the great object of the flogging. Mere physical pain now and then does a child good, and is soon forgotten; it will propagate no ignorance. What I like is to see a storm of anger raised in a child's heart against his teacher, all its winds tied up in a bag within him, without any hope of getting vent, except among his companions in spiteful nicknames and caricatures. Ignorance suffers when a child is taught through its affections. Therefore, I say, let us have none of that puling nonsense; let us instil some pluck into our boys.-AZIOLA. We do that when we pay a man to bully them, and teach them to tyrannise over each other.

Who can help sympathising with the great Defender of Ignorance when we read these remarkable words with which he puts down the pert "owlet from the bottom of the table?"

SCREECH. That the ignorance of the middle classes is in a sound and safe state for the present, we can see by the bitterness of party, and the durability of all manner of misunderstanding. Misunderstandings are the stones which macadamise the road of life; our way without them would be tedious from her excess of softness. Now I have seen reason to suspect that Knowledge impresses on its victims a belief that nobody is all wrong or all right. That opposite lines of belief or conduct may run over the land of truth, and that it is honest for a man to travel upon either; that so a man going to Birmingham need not necessarily spit at a man going to Bath. The victims of knowledge may at last be brought into a state of such great wickedness, that they doubt the entire depravity of man. They almost doubt whether any human being would fail to get the sympathy of another who should be cognisant of all his thoughts and all his springs of action. They say that nine-tenths of the quarrels they have witnessed would have dropped immediately, if each party had seen nakedly the other's mind, and either have resulted in absolute unanimity, or friendly opposition of opinion. They say that if there were no ignorance there would be no party heat, and if there were no party heat there would be no ignorance. This is a pretty argument, you cannot catch it by the tail; like the snake of eternity its tail is in its mouth, it is a perfect circle.-ULULA. SO may Ignorance exist for ever.

Amongst the many merits in this wise and witty book, the apt quotations are not the least; they are short and pithy, as quotations should be, and tell in every word; but there is mother-wit enough to strike even without these, and not a sentence but comes home with some irresistible blow from which the defenders of ignorance are unable to rise.

The "new man," if such he be, is not longer a "coming man"-and we have a right to expect from him a perpetual strife against abuses such as have of late been rather traditional than real amongst us. This work will startle many by its plainness, but ought to rouse all by its truth.

As far as our lady-readers are concerned, we fear the author will be considered unduly severe; they will rise angrily from the perusal of that part of his work which relates to their habitual pursuits; but we suspect they will join the laugh in reading the following passage, which treats of their skill in drawing, and with which we conclude our notice :

Dear femininities! of which the dearest are those gorgeous little birds perched upon pencil-marks, whose only habitat appears to be the album, and which are hatched out of no eggs but those which Mr. Newman sells in nests of rosewood and mahogany.

NOTES OF A LOITERER IN THE PYRENEES.

BY HENRY COOKE, OF PETERBOROUGH.

III.

THE Spanish girls are often beautiful creatures. The handsome wench who served our porridge had a pair of the most imploring eyes I ever looked upon. Even the parson admitted they made him feel all-overish like. There is a grave dignity about the men that often reminded me of the American Indians.

The country between Salient and Penticosa is wild, romantic, and beautiful. A man shall walk a long way and not see a more happy intermixture of lofty precipices, singular shaped peaks, and prettily wooded valleys.

In the gaudily decorated church of Penticosa, we saw a large painting of our Saviour on the cross in petticoats.

It took three hours more to reach the baths. They are completely surrounded by mountains; but it is a triste spot that one would not care to stay at longer than a day. The hotel, too, is expensive. They charged us five francs each for beds, but the fleas, like Macbeth, “did murder sleep."

There were two or three Frenchmen at the table d'hôte, whose finiking appearance and manners contrasted strangely with those of the haughty Spaniards.

The following morning, at daybreak, we had a tremendous climb over the mountain into France. It took us eight hours to reach Cauterets. We had to scramble up huge masses of rock as steep as the roof of a house, the patches of snow in some places completely obliterating the little track there was. We frequently heard the izzards, though we could not see them. They are so sharply hunted, that I expect they will gradually disappear, like the buffaloes in America.

'Tis pleasant to linger and loiter amid scenes like these:

To sit on rocks to muse o'er flood and fell,

To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,

Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,

And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been,

To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,

With the wild flock that never needs a fold,

This is not solitude; 'tis but to hold

Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled. Yes, this is the way to see a country and enjoy its beauties. These are the walks to make a man feel happy and hungry. We took with us, on this occasion, half a yard of French bread, two cold fowls, and as many bottles of Jurançon, which we discussed under a projecting crag at the top of the pass during a heavy fall of snow. There is nothing like having plenty to eat on a mountain ramble—the air is very keen, and scenery, however beautiful, is seen to a woeful disadvantage upon an empty stomach. The rock water is pure and delicious, but one cannot exist upon that, any more than one can upon love in a cottage, for "Man," says Byron,