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Tuesday, April 21st.-Accompanied a party to a pottery about a mile and half up the river. Was delighted with the elegance and simplicity of the process [which is most minutely and graphically described]. . Went to the School

for the Blind, a truly admirable institution. They have an hour for music-the effect was in the highest degree interesting, and the allusion to their own situation most pathetic. Dined in Mr. MacCorquodale's. The only gentleman was a Mr. Duncan MacCorquodale, a military gentleman, of an appearance rather unfashionable, but accompanied with a most interesting modesty. To such as these I feel attached by an impulse the most kindly and benevolent, and cannot but spurn at the heartless formality of those who could triumph in the timidity of the inexperienced. Oh, how I like the untrained originality of nature! Oh, how I dislike the trammels of a cold, lifeless, and insipid formality!

"Friday, April 24th.--1 spent the forenoon with Dr. Traill, a chemical lecturer and practitioner, with a great deal of ardor and philosophic simplicity. He showed me his chemical apparatus. The most interesting was-1. An apparatus for decomposing water [minutely described and diagramed]: 2. A glass apparatus for decomposing water by galvanism [the form of two vessels drawn, and the manner of using them detailed]. "Saturday, April 25th.-Walked to the Botanic Garden, and spent two hours in it. Found it of this form and dimension. [Here follow plan and measurements, with notices of its rarest plants.]

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"Sunday, April 26th.--Preached in the fore noon for Mr. Kirkpatrick, on the comforts of religion, and in the afternoon on drunkenness, the former with far more effect and impression than the latter. In the afternoon we met at three o'clock, after dinner, which has the effect of making both a drowsy preacher and a drowsy audience. Mrs. H. evidently reluctant in her testimony of approbation-disposed to overrate the deficiencies of manner and pronunciation; and asleep in the afternoon."

would have been instructive. Some of them are inserted in this volume, and we confess that if more of them exist we should like them all. Blenheim is a thoroughly public place. It is almost public property, so connected is it with some of the brightest of military achievements in our history. Mr. Chalmers being then a clerical soldier-a volunteer of Fife-was drawn by a kindred spirit to Blenheim; and the house built by the nation, like the estate bought for the great Marlborough, delighted him much :—

Thursday, April 30.-Left Birmingham for Woodstock, at seven in the morning, where I arrived at four in the afternoon. There was only another passenger in the coach, and he was inside a sensible, discreet, cultivated man, whom I afterward learned to be a Fellow of Oxford, and who had evidently a little of the rust and embarrassment of a learned profession. I parted with him at Woodstock. I was immediately conducted by a person from the inn to the gate of Blenheim. For a particular account see Guide, which seems to be written with great taste and power of description. The pleasure I felt was heightened by a variety of circumstances which supplied associations of grandeur. In addition to the stateliness of actual display, I had the recollection of its origin, the immortality of its first owner, the proud monument of national glory, the prospect not of a house or scene, or a neighborhood, but the memorial of those events which had figured on the high theatre of war and of politics, and given a turn to the history of the world. The statue of Louis XIV., placed upon the south front, and taken from the walls of Tournay, gives an air of magnificence far beyond the mere power of form of of magnitude. It is great not as a visible object, but great as a trophy, great as it serves to illustrate the glory of England, and the prowess of the first of warriors. I spent two hours in the garden. Never spot more lovelynever scene so fair and captivating. I lost myself in an Elysium of delight, and wept with perfect rapture. My favorite view was down the river, from the ground above the fountain. The setting sun gleamed on the gilded orbs of Blenheim; through the dark verdure of trees were seen peeps of water, and spots of grassy sunshine; the inurmurs of the waterfall beneath soothed every anxiety within me; the bell of the village clock sent its music across the lake on my left. I sat motionless, and my mind slumbered in a revery of enchantment.'

From Woodstock Mr. Chalmers walked to Oxford, on May Day of 1807; and an old journal belonging to an old gentleman of the present day, places the chances of forty years most palpably before the men of the current year. Ministers do not walk long journeys now; but some time previously Mr. Chalmers had walked from Edinburgh to Liverpool.

sary. After he had been for some time minister of the parish, he was ashamed to engage in the duty of family prayer when any of his parishioners spent an evening at the manse. His first winter as parochial minister was passed in teaching chemistry and mathematics, at a distance of eight to ten miles from his church. His first speech in an ecclesiastical court was in defence of his own pluralities and non-residence. His first publication was written to prove that a parish minister has five days of leisure weekly after the satisfactory discharge of his official duties. His first visit to London was attended by a course of what he afterward regarded as apparent Sabbath-breaking. His first efforts to get into the universities were directed to the secular Chairs of Chemistry and Mathematics. His first address to the General Assembly was a clever pleading for augmented stipends. His first struggle with the law courts was for one chauldron more.

We cannot wonder that Kilmany, its quiet manse, and humble population, were endeared to this great man. There a revolution most complete was accomplished in the purposes for which he lived. There he adopted new principles, learned to weigh all things as he had never done before, and, in the emphatic language that he would have used," was born again." The domestic bereavements that contributed to this great change occurred at Kilmany. He formed there other domestic relations that endured until his death. He came to the parish a clever, worldly, scheming scholar; and he left it with a nobler mind, better stored with knowledge, matured by experience, rich in spiritual wisdom, and with all its powers devoted to the work which he did not comprehend when he undertook its performance. The first volume closes with the negotiations for his removal to Glasgow, and his election by the Town Council as minister of the Tron parish. The transfer to Glasgow was not particularly advantageous, in a pecuniary view, and he had long ceased to consider emolument a matter of chief moment in such transactions. His election, by the Glasgow Town Council in 1814, was effected only after a severe struggle. The Evangelical party were beginning to acquire influence in the Church at the time; but they were very generally spoken against. Society had not pronounced in their favor, and the brands of extravagance and fanaticism rested upon them. Mr. Chalmers had preached a funeral sermon in his own neighborhood, and some gentlemen belonging to Glasgow

attended the service.

They were anxious that he should be brought to occupy the Tron Church, then vacant. His character and his talents were then partially known; and the election created much excitement in Glasgow, and considerable interest in all parts of the country. The surviving member of the family, through whose agency chiefly Mr. Chalmers was proposed for this vacancy, informed us that, subsequent to his appointment, and when the genius of the great orator was acknowledged and appreciated, some of his Glasgow friends, anxious that he might not be drawn to Edinburgh, proposed to erect a suitable house, and convey it to him as his personal property. He thanked them for the kindness of the intention, and requested a few days to consider their proposal. At the end of the specified time, he informed them that he could not accept the house they proposed to build, because none of his co-presbyters had glebe houses, and he feared that the distinction might impair his usefulness amongst them. Even at that time he contemplated the acceptance of a professional chair, and urged that he would be more useful at the fountain-head than working in the stream. He was translated from the Tron to St. John's parish in Glasgow, but he never accepted a parochial appointment out of that city. He became Professor of Moral Philosophy in St. Andrews, and ultimately attained his great sphere of usefulness as Theological Professor in Edinburgh.

The first volume closes with 1814-the presentation to the Tron parish, and the commencement of Dr. Chalmers' busy life. All his great literary and theological works date subsequent to that year. At Kilmany, he had been prepared and armed for the conflict he was doomed to sustain, and the work he was purposed to do; he left it to enter on a life of anxiety, excitement, and labor, destined never to close on earth-he left it to commence a career of great and almost unrivaled moral influence and power. The revolution accomplished in his mind at Kilmany was designed to extend over Scotland. The small Fifeshire parish is therefore classic ground in Scotch literature and theology. In it the leader in that 30 years' war of moral and religious principles was schooled and trained to his task. His biographer skillfully lays out before us, from journals and letters, the gradual process of change accomplished there. No violent emotions marked that period. The convictions regarding faith and practice that grew up in his mind formed a gradual, and not a rapid, conversion. Dr. Hanna has

exercised great care in bringing all these points prominently forward in his narrative. The first volume is thus one of the most interesting that can occur in the series; but the subsequent volumes will necessarily be composed of more exciting material; and, judging from the present, and from other circumstances, we infer that the completed work will form a biographical narrative of great utility and extreme interest.

We experience great difficulty in persuading people that the world is not becoming worse; and we are confident that it is getting better. Mr. Chalmers, when first in London, would not have opposed the free and full delivery, of letters and Newspapers on "Sunday.' While traveling to Newcastle, as he took the post-office gig, the sculler and the boat, he would not have refused the railway. A great change has occurred in society on these

matters.

In London, he attended some political meetings, and was displeased with the cookery :

"Saturday, May 23d.— . Repaired to the Albany, and dined with Mr. Sheridan and 150 of his admirers. The dinner was wretched-too

little of it-and the worst conducted I ever saw. Great tumult and confusion among the company. I was disappointed in all the speeches, and much shocked with the extreme incorrectness of feeling discovered by several of the company."

In addition to John Campbell, he met another Fife man, equally famous in his own department:

"Thursday, May 21st.-Called on Wilkie; took Russell square in my road, and think it the finest in London. Mr. Wilkie is a man of genius and excellent sense, with all the simplicity which accompanies talent, and firmness to resist corruptions and flattery. After leaving him, I took a

round among the streets and squares to the north of Oxford-street."

The had few charms for the matheopera matician and the minister :

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Friday, May 15.-The India House--Deptford-the Docks-We proceeded to Drury Lane Theatre, where we heard the comic opera of The Duenna,' 'High Life Below Stairs,' and the pantomimic ballet Don Juan.' I am not fond of operas, because I have no taste for that music the merit of which appears to me to lie entirely in the execution. The squalling exertion of the performers is painful to me, and not a word of the song can be Lane Theatre, that in many parts of the house the collected. Indeed, such is the extent of Drury

most audible and distinct enunciation must be lost

upon the hearers. The house was quite full, more decorous than the circus, and exceeds anything I have seen in the splendor of its boxes, and rich, expensive scenery. None of the performers appeared to me first-rate. The pantomime I did not enter into. We returned to Walworth in the morning."

And if the public had generally the honesty of this critic, we are not sure that the opera would meet the encouragement it receives; for nine-tenths of the audience know nothing of foreign languages when sung, and are not naturally fond of foreign music. The central pages of this volume, and by far the greater part of it, are occupied with correspondence and extracts of a most instructive and useful character. Better reading scarcely could be conceived. Anything more striking than the gradual uprising and purification of this great mind has not recently been published, and we remember no other work that is so obviously the history of a mind in its passage from listlessness to anxiety, and from earnest seeking for, to the practical enjoyment of, cheerful and confident piety.

the warmest affection for this country, where she has a nation's admiration, and many devoted friends. The death of the lamented Bishop of Norwich was almost as great a trial to the fair songstress as the death of her friend Mendelssohn had been; in one of her latest letters, she entreated the friend to whom she wrote to place a chaplet of ivy, which she enclosed, upon the grave of Dr. Stanley, "as her tears!" This simple offering is in accordance with one of the customs of her country. Miss Lind is now at Lubeck, but will soon proceed thence to Berlin.Art Journal.

WITHOUT doubt the most wondrous of all voyages made for geographical purposes since the discovery of the New World, have been the expeditions in search of a north-west passage. They are wondrous for the zeal, the endurance, and the perseverance with which they have been carried out. They are still more wondrous for the misplaced and perverted direction in which such qualities, and the material necessary to give them effect, have been brought to bear. It is like a boy who first climbs a hillock, and then a tree, and then a cliff. His ardent spirit is never satisfied but with new triumphs. The youth climbs the same tree for a nest, or a cliff for some cave, or other object in view. Maturer age is supposed to weigh still more astutely the quid pro quo, and the probable return for sacrifice of time, money, material, and life. It is easy to understand the spirit of adventure and love of enterprise that carries one or more individuals across pathless forests, or over arid deserts, into mountain fastnesses or savage lands; but it is difficult to imagine a government or a nation seized with the same impulse, or communicating it to the crews of so many doomed ships. It is impossible not to feel a service ennobled by first opening to navigation and commerce the great rivers and olden thoroughfares of the earth; penetrating into unknown lands by the fevered delta of unexplored streams, surveying and mapping coasts torn and rift into islands like those of Southern America, so dangerous to seamen; or circumnavigating the globe; discovering new lands; bringing civilization into contact with remote populations; and bearing "glad tidings" on wings of canvas-for all these things there is a feeling and sympathy; but who has ever entertained a serious hope of working a passage through the ices of the Arctic region, or of opening even a summer way to China by the Polar Seas?

The efforts made, not to grapple with the difficulties of the case, but to beat Nature in her sternest aspect,-to sweep away the icefloe, and to shoulder out the berg from their own realms,—will, indeed, ever be narrated

as a miracle of misdirected energy and enterprise. It seems as if the most adventurous nation in the world had grown tired of all commonplace explorations, or had deemed that nothing remained to be done on this small planet of ours-that large populations did not remain to be detected on the Nilethat an interior highland country, with the resources of a territory so favored, did not actually lie within the grasp almost of an outstretched hand upon the tropical coasts of Africa-that the interior of the great continent of Australasia was not still a blank-that the Isthmus of Panama did not still remain to be cut through—and that, in disgust at nothing more remaining to be done, it betook itself to the hopeless task of battling with the perpetual frost of the Arctic regions, and opening a passage through its ice-locked seas.

From the time of Queen Elizabeth, when the idea of a north-west passage first found favor in this country, to the present day, there have been upward of thirty attempts made by British ships to effect this difficult object. This alone ought to satisfy all reasonable minds-such as have faith in the skill and courage of English navigators-of the inutility of renewed struggles. One of the very first attempts made was of most ominous import. The gallant Sir Hugh Willoughby took his departure from Radcliffe, on his fatal voyage to discover a northeast passage, on the 20th of May, 1553. He sailed with great pomp by Greenwich, where the court then resided. Mutual honors were paid on both sides. The council and courtiers appeared at the windows, and the people covered the shores. The young king, Edward VI., alone lost the noble and novel sight; for he then lay on his deathbed so that the principal object of the parade was disappointed.

Sir Hugh led the expedition, in the Bona Esperanza, of 120 tons. There was also a second ship, called the Edward Bonaventura; and a third smaller vessel, called the Bona Confidentia, of ninety tons, commanded by Captain Durfoorth. The Bonaventura parted company, during a storm, on their