ed with every indignity; the boys thought him fair game-his father being a Methodist, and he necessarily destitute of spirit. He at length with tears in his eyes, begged his father to let him fight, or take him away from the school. Mr. C. advised with some of his friends; and it was determined that an engagement was necessary, as the only remedy for the evil. Young C. repaired to the school with great alacrity-challenged the proudest of his oppressors; and after a tough battle in which he came off victorious, was allowed to be a lad of spirit, and had the ban of excommunication taken off. Contests of this kind are not unfrequent at the public schools, and are settled according to the strictest laws of the science. Each champion has his bottle-holder, and sits on his knee to recover breath between the rounds. The whole school forms a ring, and the parties shake hands in token of the absence of all malice, before a set-to."

"It is incredible how much of the public attention has been attracted by the hardened wretch, Thurtell. Almost every paper in town has polluted its pages daily with some disgusting narrative or other concerning him; and the reading populace not only tolerates, but demands these revolting details. The effect cannot but be, to render the sensibilities of the population callous to crime, and divest public justice of its majesty and terror. A public execution is a perfect holiday to the populace; a prize-fight between two sturdy boxers, their dearest recreation. There can be no doubt, but that shows of gladiators, bull-fights, or any other spectacle which scattereth blood and death around, would be greedily run after, were they permitted by the laws.-The rage for prize-fighting is detestably prevalent; and the merits of the different heroes of the ring compose the common topic of coffee-house discussion, the cant and slang of which are intolerable. But the magistrates are beginning to interfere; and there is, in many quarters, an evident disposition to break up the sport. It is a disgrace to the country, and in point of vulgar brutality is not a whit better than the bullfights of old Spain, or the bear-baiting of Queen Bess's days. A show of gladiators, did the laws permit such an exhibition, would bring the rabble together by myriads."

"A person whose heart is not entirely callous to the miseries of the brute creation, will do well not to be on the lookout for objects of his commiseration, while walking the streets of London. I have long avoided Smithfield, and the region round about, on market days.-Let a person whose nerves are strong enough to endure the sight of brute misery in all its varieties and degrees, give a few days' attendance at the markets for live stock; and he will look upon the whole tribe of butchers, drivers, carriers, &c. as no better than a hardened, relentless, unfeeling race of fiends, in human shape. I am convinced that the lowest classes of the English are either by nature or custom, cruel; nor have I formed this judgment hastily, or from a few examples. I pretend not to account for the fact; nor to say, how far they are indebted for this disposition to their boxing-matches-for every John Bull is a bruiser from his youth upwards-or to the frequency of their capital punishments, or to their bloody roast beef and porter. I only speak of the fact, as the impression has been made on my mind.”

"In the party on Loch Lomond were a number of young Englishmen, who by their dress and manners might have been taken for gentlemen, had not their devotion to the bottle given the lie to their pretensions. On our disembarking at Balloch, some of them were unable to get to the carriages without assistance; and before we arrived at Glasgow, they were stowed away in a state of most beastly intoxication. Much as intemperance prevails in the United States, I have never witnessed such scenes on board any of our steam-boats, and am confident they would not be permitted."

"Every body is privileged here, I believe, except the traveller, and at his expense. A lad places a plank to assist you in getting into the skiff, for which he expects a trifle; the waterman demands three pence for rowing you twenty yards, and six pence, if the distance exceeds it by a few steps. You pay your fare on board the steam-boat, and suppose your account with your purse settled. No-the, musicians come round with their box. We have no other way of getVOL. VII.NO. 14. 46

ting our living, sir;'-and you drop in your six pence with the rest. Finding your surtout troublesome, you give it to the steward, who throws it across the railing; and for this piece of service he expects six pence. You disembark, and re-embark, and disembark again, on the same terms as before; and whether you sit still, or travel, by land or by water, your pockets are like the buckets of the daughters of Danaus."

"At the British Museum visiters are desired, by printed placards hung up in the ante-room, to give nothing to the servants by way of gratuity. Yet, even here, I had money extorted from me; and in a manner so characteristic of the beggarly race of public menials generally, that it may serve by way of specimen. Ab uno, disce omnes. My umbrella was taken from me by the porter, as I entered, who gave me a slip of paper marked with a number, but without signifying what use I was to make of it. I ought to have hung it on my umbrella, and then called for the number when I came out. When I asked for it, the wily rogue affected great surprise at my negligence-said that it would take him a long time to find it among so many; and was spinning a long string of rigmarole, which I cut short by picking it out myself. His next attack was on my pride. He be gan to talk so loud about 'gentlemen's refusing to pay for the trouble they gave," that, feeling the awkwardness of my situation among a number of auditors, I threw him a sixpence, with about the same feeling of kindness that one would throw a bone at a snarling dog and repented of it the next moment. I mention this anecdote, because it illustrates a trait of character which runs through the whole race of public servants and understrappers of every grade. They are shameless beggars, from the highest to the lowest ; and are versed in a hundred low expedients to extort money, which they generally practise with success. In America, when the traveller has paid his bill, there is an end of the matter. He may button up his great coat, and step into the stage: but not so here. He pays roundly for his cup of washy tea, his lodging, and his breakfast; but there are still other demands on his purse. The waiter, the chambermaid, the porter, and the shoe-black, have all their separate claims, which they well know how to urge with effect. Escaping from these persecutions, he mounts the coach, and at the end of a twenty miles' drive, the coachman claims his shilling, and another must be given to a fat, ale-drinking fellow, called a guard; and all this, in addition to the regular fare. In many situations, the servants receive no wages whatever; in some, they even pay premiums for their places, and live on the gratuities they extort from travellers.-But John Bull puts up with all this, with the dogged kind of acquiescence with which he would submit to the decrees of fate. It is different, however, with his trans-atlantic cousin; until a few ineffectual trials at holding his purse-strings have convinced him of the utter inutility of the attempt."

Before closing our notice of this really pleasant volume, which, if not remarkable for depth of observation, or originality of information, is at least, in general, agreeably and unaffectedly written, and sufficiently useful and acute, we shall take the liberty of mentioning a few errors, which may be corrected in a subsequent edition.

Sir James Park is a puisne judge, not chief justice of the court of common pleas. Sir Charles Abbot, now lord Tenterden, never was vice-chancellor, and is now chief justice of the court of king's bench. Queen's Cross, near Northampton, was erected about five, not seven hundred years since. The temple of the winds was in Greece, not Egypt, and complete drawings and descriptions of it may be found in Stuart's Athens. It was not after, but before, Sheridan's eloquent speeches on the trial of

Warren Hastings, that "he sunk into a mere writer of comedies," for such is Mr. Wheaton's singular phrase, in regard to the School for Scandal, the Rivals, and the Duenna. The dome of Radcliff library can hardly be called a specimen of Grecian architecture, since the dome is never found in the edifices of the Greeks. Fonthill abbey was not erected by alderman Beckford, the spirited lord mayor of London, but by his son. We must protest against our traveller's conversion of the sex of Isis; poets and old romancers have too long made her the fair bride of "royal tower'd" Thame, to say nothing of its overturning a whole canto of Drayton, which describes their nuptials in the vales of Berkshire. The intimate friend of Addison was Craggs, not Craigs, as it is twice written in this volume; it should not be changed, for it is the name of a politician who received from a poet of a different party, a manly, eloquent, and affectionate tribute, which may well be remembered by the politicians of every age, and can never be repeated without advantage ;

"Statesman yet friend to truth! of soul sincere,

In action faithful, and in honour clear!

Who broke no promise, served no private end,

Who gained no title, and who lost no friend;

Ennobled by himself, by all approved,

Praised, wept, and honour'd, by the muse he loved."

ART. V.-GEOLOGY.

1.-A new System of Geology, in which the Great Revolutions of the Earth and Animated Nature are reconciled at once to Modern Science and Sacred History. By ANDREW URE, M. D., F. R. S., &c. &c. &c. &c. London: Longman & Co. 1829.

2.-Outlines of Geology. By WILLIAM THOMAS BRANDE, F. R. S. Professor of Chemistry; R. I., &c. &c. London: Murray. 1829.

Ir is not long since we introduced the subject of geology to our readers, in a review of Bakewell's third edition; a work of great merit, and which has strong claims upon the attention of the lovers of natural history; being written by an experienced practical geologist, who has the confidence of the scientific world. We have now to introduce to the notice of our readers,

the works whose titles appear at the head of this article, and which have recently come to our hands.

Dr. Ure and Mr. Brande have produced two very amusing and respectable volumes-not exactly called for, perhaps, by any exigencies of the science, for they contain little more than repetitions of what has been before published. Bakewell's third edition had exhibited, tolerably well, the progress of geological investigations, up to the period of its appearance; and if it was the intention of the above named authors, who have succeeded him, to lay this great subject in a more elementary and attractive way before curious, rather than learned readers, we do not think they have remarkably succeeded. The appearance of these volumes, however, cannot be misunderstood. It announces the increased importance of geological knowledge. We are old enough to remember, and this was before Geology was rescued from the Noyade of old Werner, when a man was thought an uncommon animal who spoke French well. We remember when it was said of Thomson, who translated the Stranger from Kotzebue, "he understands German." We also remember the impression which a rambling young friend of ours made, who had picked up in his continental excursions, a good deal of Italian and Spanish, to add to his stock of German and French. We have heard him express the effect produced upon him on his return into the world, after a retirement of eighteen years, at finding every body speaking all these languages: as a matter of course, adding in numerous instances others to them, and applying their materials to profound philological inquiries, and still deeper speculations on the philosophy of the human mind. So it is, pari passu, with geology. When men had got a surfeit of the old fashioned mineralogy-when the words fracture, lustre, &c., began to lose their influence, and the old gentlemen, for we will not say old ladies, of the Wernerian school, could not keep their minerals under water any longer, the dry land of science began to appear, and the ark of knowledge grounded, and sent forth its sçavans to examine for themselves. These examinations are still going on.

The succession of the geological series, the fossils, animal and vegetable, the minerals, the phenomenal appearances of every kind connected with our planet, are the philologies of the formations; by the aid of which, the highest powers of the mind are to be exercised upon the noblest of all earthly subjects, the order and design of creation. Men are beginning to feel deeply the importance of this pursuit. Eminent chemists and lecturers are not content with keeping in the current of geological information; they feel it of consequence to their reputation, that the world should be well assured of that fact. To know chemis

try, to know mineralogy, to know botany, is not enough nowa-days. We feel that the attainment of these branches, is not, per se, a title to the confidence of public opinion; that there is a something to which they must be applied. The world is beginning to exact this application from men; they are beginning .to exact it of themselves. It will not be long before men will be deemed ignorant and bigotted, who undervalue geological knowledge; and we think that those respectable writers, Dr. Ure and Mr. Brande, have been a good deal influenced by this feeling, when they resolved to connect their names with geology by the publication of these volumes. We desire to speak of them in the most friendly terms-they will do good-they will assist to fix the public attention on the subject; but when we shall come to speak, by and by, of some peculiar opinions contained in Dr. Ure's work, we shall speak with great freedom.

In England, every enlightened man knows something of geology; it is very much the case in France, and is becoming more and more so in Germany. But the English have taken the lead. There are sufficient reasons to be given for it. Cuvier, a name that inspires the greatest respect, did much to awaken the English taste in this direction, and his services to the cause are in no country esteemed higher than in Great Britain. That island is the luckiest spot of ground in the world. How it has contrived to pack up such fine specimens, one upon the top, almost, of the other, of nearly every distinguished bed of the known formations; how such magnificent specimens of the saurian animals have been coaxed together, is as wonderful as it is curious. Certainly no other part of the world presents such an experimental school as England. It is the West Point of geology;-there, these curious and persevering islanders get regularly educated in natural history, and then out they sally to all parts of the world, to point out to the French, Italians, and Germans, what lies under their noses. We are glad it is so; and we are glad geology has got into such sensible hands. But what, perhaps, has influenced accurate geology more than the happy arrangement of the beds in England, is the independent position of the leading geologists of that country. We do not mean independence of mind, all naturalists have it more or less, and it may be well asserted of the naturalists of this country. We mean that independence of the business affairs of the world, which admits of cultivated minds applying their leisure to fostering the arts and sciences. We owe the geological maps of England to Mr. Greenough, a man who employs the leisure which a brilliant fortune gives him, to the illustration of geology and natural history. We say this with great respect, nay, reverence for the labours of that veteran in geology, Mr. William Smith, whose services in the cause have been worthily eulo