can take his eye from the splendid panorama of nature which lies spread out like a map under his gaze, to examine the extraordinary relics of man's labor with which that farfamed eminence is crowned, cannot fail to be particularly struck by the quality of the stone of which they are composed. Cormac's Chapel, which, with the exception of the Round Tower, takes the lead in antiquity, is, as is well known, an early structure in the Norman style of the beginning of the twelfth century, and now therefore nearly 750 years old. The stone, either in substance or color, exhibits no symptoms of decay or disfigurement, while the rich ornamental sculptures and carved mouldings are as perfect, distinct, and sharp as if they were produced yesterday by the hand of the chiseller. The expense of quarrying in Ireland is less than in England, and the cost of transit by sea from Cork to London would hardly exceed that by canal and wagon from Derbyshire, Yorkshire or Durham. Even if it did, the consideration is of inferior moment in a mighty national undertaking. A fatality seems to attend many of our great public buildings. They are no sooner completed than it is discovered there was some radical error in the commencement. Either the style is ill-chosen, the plan incongruous, or the site inconvenient. A double outlay is thus incurred to rectify mistakes which ought never to have existed. Building to pull down, and pulling down to build up again, have become almost as national with John Bull as playing at cricket, riding steeplechases, or paying taxes. A wondering foreigner who inquired the other day for what certain unsightly edifices in the metropolis were intended, (the National Gallery being one,) was answered in the words which the poet applied to even a more important subject: other qualities of the different stones; also, a list of the most remarkahle buildings, with the dates when they were first constructed, and an account of their present condition. On the recommendation of the Commissioners, it was determined to select magnesian limestone from the well-known quarries in the neighborhood of Bolsover, in Derbyshire. This stone, when taken from its original bed, is of a very beautiful light yellow color, has a pearly lustre when broken, was said to exhibit very slight disintegration, and not to change by exposure. Southwell Minster, in Nottinghamshire, was examined in evidence of its durability. This church is described as in excellent preservation; and the Norman portions of the eleventh century, built of limestone, similar to that of Bolsover, are reported as being throughout in a perfect state, and betraying no injury from time or weather. We have never seen Southwell church, except at a distance, from the top of a coach in the good old days of horses and ostlers, when eight miles an hour was considered a desperate rate of locomotion; but in all the buildings, whether lay or ecclesiastic, we have examined, in which magnesian limestone from Yorkshire and Derbyshire had been used, there are both discolorization and decay to an extent which would make the founders of York and Beverley Minsters, the old church of Doncaster, and many other coeval and younger edifices, turn themselves and rattle their bones in their coffins with disgust, provided they retained in those narrow domiciles any reminiscence of what Coleridge used sometimes to call sentiety. It is to be regretted that the Commissioners were not tempted to visit Ireland in the progress of their scientific investigation. The gray compact limestone which abounds in the south, particularly throughout Cork and Tipperary, was well worthy of a place in the Report. The old bridges, castles, and abbeys scattered over those extensive counties are permanent evi- Triumphal arches, statues, columns, and dences of its durability, while the new College of Cork, and many other recent buildings in that city and elsewhere, attest the superior beauty of the material. The traveller who visits the Rock of Cashel,* when he "For nothing else but to be mended." regularity of the arrangements, or the civility of the officials. Time is kept to a moment, and the comfort and privileges of each distinct class of passengers most scrupulously attended to. We are a little emphatic in these remarks from the constant complaints we see daily in the London papers of the total irregularity and inattention practised on many of the English lines. It may seem very like a joke to invite our brother John over to Ireland to enlighten him, but we are quite serious when we as sure him that a trip by rail from Dublin to Cork and Limerick, and back again, will open his eyes, and show him that we know something of business, although it is the prevailing fashion to think the contrary. fountains are either thrust back into obscure | localities where they are seldom noticed, or pushed forward into crowded thoroughfares where they are chiefly remarked as ingenious deformities. Why, with an unlimited command of money, high pretensions, and acknowledged endowments, taking a distinguished lead, as we are entitled to do, in mechanical science, we should be so glaringly deficient in architectural taste, is a problem which ought to be solved, and a national reproach which might easily be removed. The observations we have ventured are not strung together with any ambitious aspirations after originality, or any unjust desire to appropriate the ideas of other and far abler exponents. We are humble commentators following in the track of discovery, disciples rather than teachers, anxious to learn ourselves, and zealous to dissipate the errors into which succeeding students may be seduced by plausible and conflicting theories. We wish to show what Geology really is, how it has been occasionally mis applied, and how it may operate in the transactions of the world. In proportion as this noble science becomes simplified and intelligible, its uses will be acknowledged, and its advantages perceived. The development of strata in our own land is singularly favorable to the happiness and prosperity of the inhabitants. A glance over the geological map of the British Islands will show the peculiar blessings which Providence has thus vouchsafed to us, at once as incentives to industry and evidences of dispensation. We cannot conclude more aptly than with a passage from Scripture, which has been felicitously quoted already by more than one writer, as expressing with forcible distinctness our own individual position: “A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass. When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which he hath given thee."* From the British Quarterly Review. PLEASURES OF LITERATURE.† THE Pleasures, Objects, and Advantages of Literature, is a somewhat comprehensive title for this modest little volume. Mr. Willmott, however, does not attempt to fill up the outline which he has drawn: a few graceful touches serving to suggest, rather than complete his picture. He is a lover of elegant literature; and in a series of essays, short, but exceedingly pleasing, both from their pointed style, and the genial tone that pervades them, gives us the result of his meditations on a variety of subjects connected with it. Books, their writers, circumstances attendant upon their composition, the mood in which they should be read; taste, criticism, poetry, fiction, history, philosophy, pass in review before him; and each in its turn receives such treatment as * Deuteronomy, viii. 9, 10. + Pleasures, Objects and Advantages of Literature. A Discourse by Robert Aris Willmott. may be expected from one who thoroughly enjoys his work, and goes about it in that quiet, tranquil spirit which seems to indicate more of the literary mind and feeling of the last century than of the present. His turn of thought is a retrospective one. Not only is this apparent in his matter and manner. A passing allusion to the "classical criticism and biography of the eighteenth century," seems also symptomatic of it. publisher has further introduced him to us, in the appropriate costume of the period to which his mind belongs. And his Without professing to undervalue ourselves of the nineteenth century, we believe that, like our great-grandfathers, we have our good points, we must own to a considerable enjoyment of this peculiar cast of mind. There is a sort of sober, autumnal grace about it. And it stands out in agreeable contrast with the peculiarities of our own teach the mind how to use its powers so as age, whose tendencies are to an excess of haste; to live two days in one; not so much in amount of usefulness, as in mere business. A temperament that can sympathize with not yet have got much to work upon, is surethe "sequestered spirit of meditative enjoy-ly a very small objection to the teaching it ment recognized in much of our early fancy how to work. One great object of education, and learning," is in antithesis to this, and as its name imports, is to teach us how to affords a useful corrective both of it and of apply our mental powers; not merely or that other inclination which we, perhaps in chiefly to "fill" the mind with facts and common with all former ages, evince, to sever ideas. And the value of mathematics, and ourselves, as to our mental life, from those similar studies in relation to this object, who have more immediately preceded us. An consists in their training the mind to those isolation as unfavorable to intellectual vigor habits of close and consecutive reasoning, the and moral expansion, as is that other isola- absence of which so often strikes us in the tion of which we have been writing to those ordinary intercourse of life. It is to the interests for whose sake it has been practised. want of thorough disciplinary study of this The mind that would attain its completeness, nature, in the education usually received by must live in all time. Yet must it specially the middle classes, that we must attribute beware of contemning that in which it has the very common habit of confounding-to its own immediate existence. Whoso falls use a hackneyed phrase-the post hoc with the into this error, cannot enter into the full propter hoc, so irritating to all who have been value of the past. accustomed to discern a difference between the two; and which, from the hasty and erroneous judgments that it must involve them in, cannot fail of having a most pernicious effect on those important interests wherein men in our age and country are necessarily concerned. "Tenterden steeple is the cause of Goodwin Sands," is the type of a logic that is sadly too prevalent. And that must be so, we fear, till some improvement be made in the character of the instruction ordinarily afforded to that large and important class claimed by mercantile pursuits, just at the time when they are beginning to be voluntary agents in the work of their own education. Some notion of the laws of reasoning should be afforded them. We do not say that the study of mathematics is the only means of doing so; though we do think they might be made to answer the purpose. Mr. Willmott's poetical temperament disqualifies him, we suspect, for sympathizing with these crabbed studies, which we incline to consider the fittest foundation, or framework, for more ele Literature under its less severe aspect has the greatest charm for our accomplished country clergyman. "It is only Wisdom, with the girdle of Beauty, that belongs to our subject." "Science is not embraced in the pleasures of literature. Refined readers and noble authors are made without it." And hereupon, with a sort of mild maliciousness, he quotes Fenelon's "Diabolism of Euclid," by way of eking out the condemnation which he, and Dean Swift, and Bossuet, and Bishop Burnet, have thought fit to pronounce upon mathematics, which stands as the representative of its unfortunate class. We know not of what university Mr. Willmott may be; but we conclude that the banks of the Cam were never paced by his devious feet. If they were,-we dare not say what our conclusion would be. But whether he ever contended with the great geometer of Alexandria, and came off "second best," or not, we must be allowed to think that the view which he takes of mathematics, relatively to their educational or disciplinary purpose, any but a correct one. Speaking in general terms, we suppose to include logic, which has had its separate slight a little earlier, he says: Such studies can only be useful to a full mind if they find it empty, they leave it in the same state." Passing over that by the very name which he has given to them disciplinary-he excludes, or at least does not profess to include, the idea of putting anything into the mind, it may be said that the object of disciplinal studies is not only to teach the right use of stores of knowledge already collected, but more specifically, to is gant ones. In his essay on "Philosophy and its Delights," that department of it that aims at systematizing the anatomy and workings of the mind, receives no more favorable notice than does this, concerning which we should have had something more to say had space permitted. Metaphysical researches, he tells us, " offer few lasting rewards. Exploring expeditions into the mind generally bring back fabulous news of the interior." It may be so. We perhaps put no more faith in the results of these exploring expeditions than he does. Yet seeing that in all ages men have been irresistibly impel led to make them, their history becomes part | of the history of the human mind; and that can never fail of being deeply interesting to all who partake of humanity. "Know thyself," has been written upon man's inmost heart; and ceaselessly, however erroneously, must he seek to obey the command as to his intellectual, as well as spiritual nature. Eager research, prying into every, even the meanest object of creation, with passionate desire to ascertain both the laws and conditions of its existence, cannot leave the noblest of all uninvestigated. It may be baffled. Nay, the subtle analysis often defeats its own purpose. But still the attempt will and must be made again and again. Applied mental science is more attractive to our author. Yet, indeterminate as has been their results, there are minds to whom these researches have had all the fascination of poetry; and as they do not, for the love of them, think lightly or inappreciatingly of the more graceful characteristics of his intellectual conformation, he is entreated, in return, to have charity even for the metaphysician. It may be that a taste for such pursuits, inconclusive as they must be, indicates rather a love of the curious than of the useful. And if so, to be hedged round with "ultimate facts," to find at every turning, "No road this way," after the manner of a certain school, may be beneficial rather than otherwise. Yet, "where they agree," if not useful as to results obtained, they may perchance be so in their effect upon the mind itself, disciplining it to acute discrimination, patient thought, and fixed attention on objects somewhat difficult to bring within the right mental focus, still more difficult to retain there. Mr. Willmott will perhaps excuse them as a species of mental gymnastics. Taste, criticism, history, poetry, fiction, the drama, and the interior of the literary workshop, offer to him more congenial themes. To them we will follow him. He who regards not the object and character of a book, does a like injustice to its writer. While upon works of genius, no decision must be pronounced without frequent perusal. "Whoever has spent many days in the company of choice pictures will remember the surprises that often reward him. When the sun strikes an lar direction, the change is swift and dazzling evening scene by Both, or Berghem, in a particuEvery touch of the pencil begins to live. Buried figures arise; purple robes look as if they had just been dyed; cattle start up from dusky corners; trunks of trees flicker with gold; leaves flutter in light; and a soft, shadowy gust--sun and breeze together-plays over the grass. the charm is fleeting, as it is vivid. In a few minutes the sun sinks lower, or a cloud catches it: the scene melts-the figures grow dark, and the whole landscape faints and dies into coldness and gloom. But "Life has its gay and hopeful hours, which lend to the book a lustre, not less delightful than the accidents of sunshine shed upon the picture. Every mind is sometimes dull. The magician of the morning may be the beggar of the afternoon. Now the sky of thought is black and cheerless : presently it will be painted with beauty, or glowing with stars. Taste varies with temper and health. There are minutes when the song of Fletcher is not sweeter than Pomfret's. The reader must watch for the sunbeam. Elia puts that our sympathy with a writer is affected by this difficulty in a pleasant form, and shows us the time, or the mood in which we become acquainted with him :- In the five or six impatient minutes before the dinner is quite ready, who would think of taking up the Faery Queen' for a stop-gap, or a volume of Bishop Andrews' sermons? Milton almost requires a solemn service to be played before you enter upon him.' Only a zealot in political economy begins Adam Smith before breakfast; and he must be fast growing benumbed in metaphysics who, wishes Cudworth to come in with the dessert." And yet we have known people to take the "Paradise Lost" for their after-dinner readHow to read, seems naturally to come being; and should scarcely ourselves object to fore what to read. A good reader," he says, "is nearly as rare as a good writer. People bring their prejudices, whether friendly or adverse. They are lamp and spectacles, lighting and magnifying the page. It was a pleasant sarcasm of Selden, that the alchemist discovered his art in Virgil's golden bough, and the optician his science in the annals of Tacitus. . It is not enough for a reader to be unprejudiced. He should remember that a book is to be studied as a picture is hung. Not only must a bad light be avoided, but a good one obtained. This Taste supplies. It puts a history, a tale, or a poem, in a just point of view, and there examines the execution." see Cudworth at any time. Perhaps Ariosto selected an unpropitious hour when he presented his Orlando to the Cardinal D'Este, and was startled by the in"Whence he had quiry of his eminence, gathered such a heap of fooleries?" The cardinal must either have been very hungry, or very dyspeptic. To meet with a reader in such mood is bad enough for the unfortunate author; but worse still must be his fate if he should fall into the hands of a reviewer suffering the same evils of our common humanity. For we, too, are mortal. It suggests an additional range of responsibili ties beyond those which we have been accustomed to regard as sufficiently formidable. We once fell in with an amusing diet-table compiled for the benefit of book-writers; but who shall administer "tea and dry toast," and other salubrities, to the critics? Yet, it is too true, that fine sensibilities, and powers of thought, all the most intellectual and emotional parts of our nature, are under dictatorship of a most unromantic kind. Our head and our heart may do credit each to the other, and yet the inharmonious condition of another organ may effectually nullify the excellence of both. Lobster salad may crush a new philosophical speculation; and a bad dinner may blight a poet. "A classification of books to suit all hours and weathers might be amusing. Ariosto spans a wet afternoon like a rainbow. North winds and sleet agree with Junius. The visionary tombs of Dante glimmer into awfuller perspective by moonlight. Crabbe is never so pleasing as on the hot shingle, when we can look up from his verses at the sleepy sea, and count the 'crimson weeds, which spreading slow, Or lie like pictures on the sand below; With all those bright-red pebbles, that the sun Through the small waves so softly shines upon.' "Some books come in with lamps, and curtains, and fresh logs. An evening in late autumn when there is no moon, and the boughs toss like foam raking its way down a pebbly shore, is just the time for Undine. A voyage is read with deepest interest in winter, while the hail dashes against the window. Southey speaks of this delight. The sobs of the storm are musical chimes for a ghost-story, or one of those fearful tales with which the blind fiddler in Red Gauntlet made the auld carlines shake on the settle, and the bits of bairns skirl on their minnies out frae their beds.' "Shakspeare is always most welcome at the chimney-corner; so is Goldsmith. Who does not wish Dr. Primrose to call in the evening, and Olivia to preside at the urn? Elia affirms that there is no such thing as reading or writing but by a candle; he is confident that Milton composed the morning hymn of Eden with a clear fire burning in the room; and in Taylor's gorgeous description of sunrise, he found the smell of the lamp quite overpowering." But under what circumstances soever the book be read, "no fruit will be gathered unless the thoughts are steadily given up to the perusal." We may hereupon give a short formula for the benefit of those who complain of bad memories: for re-tention the pre-requisite is al-tention. It is the certainty that the want of the one is caused by the want of the other, that makes us par ticularly impatient of that excuse, held so sufficing alike by child and senior-“I forgot!" "Attention," says Mr. Willmott "is not often the talent of early life. But if not acquired then, it rarely is afterwards." "Criticism," writes our essayist, "is taste put into action. A true criticism is the elegant expression of a just judgment. It includes taste, of which it is the exponent and supplement. The frame of genius with its intricate construction and mysterious economy is the subject of its study. The finest nerve of sensation may not be overlooked. But criticism must never be sharpened into anatomy. . . The life of the imagination, as of the body, disappears when we pursue it." Good advice this for ourselves. A remark of Alison's, which Mr. Willmott quotes previously, expresses, though with far too little qualification, our own feeling on this subject. Instead of saying with him, that "the exercise of criticism always destroys," we should phrase it, often endangers "our sensibility to beauty." Were we to admit it in his form, we should admit our own unfitness for our office. Yet how much beauty has criticism been the means of discovering! Mr. Willmott does not, however, impress us with a high opinion of his own critical acumen, when he tells us, in illustration of the inventive power of criticism, that "it infers the lowly station of Homer, from internal_evidence. He tells us what a thing cost. Some pages of the Iliad are a priced catalogue.” The doing this is no peculiarity of poverty. It is just as much the besetting sin of the nouveaux riches. If we knew nothing of Homer from any other source, we might with equal justice infer that he belonged to this latter class. He concludes his discourses upon criticism by thus expressing his superior sympathy with the last century as compared with the present one:— If "This discourse scarcely presumes to speak of criticism as it now lives and flourishes... there be in it little of the splenetic heart of a former century, there is abundance of untimely fruit and confident foreheads. Its defects are twofold -a want of modesty, and a want of knowledge. A remedy for the former is to be found in the removal of the latter. The truest critic, like the deepest philosopher, will produce his opinions as doubts. Only the astrologer and empiric never fail. teaching of the modern school. The decisions of "A thoughtful person is struck by the despotic the eighteenth century are reversed; the authority of the judges is ignored. Addison's chair is filled by Hazlitt; a German mist intercepts Hurd. Our |