From the Monthly Review. the public view; but the present work was found at his death, nearly ready for the press, and supports the eulogy bestowed on the author. It is thorough, exact, lucid, and learned. Not a stone seems to have been left unturned; not a scrap of information, useful or amusing, relating to the first one hundred and thirty years of the history of the University, has been left ungathered. It is evidently, in short, the production of one whose heart was in what he was doing. He must have taken a deep interest in the institution, for he has traced with a filial affection its progress from a grammar-school to a flourishing and well-endowed college. THE history of the literary institutions of any country must, to a considerable extent, be the history of that country. It cannot but embrace an interesting portion of the lives of most of the distinguished men in it, whether churchmen or civilians; a portion, at least, when the powers of the mind are pliant, and may be moulded by wise direction to future valuable Nor is the work a mere register of events conpurposes. The pupils go forth prepared in part to nected with the institution itself, but it gives fre sustain the duties of professional and active ex-quent glimpses into the state of manners and the istence, under the influences which the establishment opinions of other days, and occasional sketches also lent and fostered from which they proceed, and to re- of the distinguished men who yet live in their works. flect back upon the place of their education the cha- As an instance of this, we may mention the discrimiracter and distinction of riper years. The quality of nating account of the famous Cotton Mather, who, if instruction is a measure of the general intelligence his sense had been equal to his talents, and his digesand refinement of the community; for no seminary tive powers on a par with his appetite, would have of learning can be sustained, that lags in the rear of been truly a great man. an improved condition of literature, science, and the arts in the public around. Hence the higher institutions, in their combination of learning and distinguished men, with the means of knowledge abundantly within their reach, form an important part of the great whole, and become of indispensable and incalculable value to the permanency of national welfare and the progress of national character. Such an aggregation of men embraces the aspiring of every rank and condition in life, and therefore lend impulses even to the most enterprising. The present work is a history of Harvard University, from its foundation to the last important epoch previous to the American revolution. It comprises the whole of the author's original plan; but the editor of it thinks that, had Mr. Peirce lived, he would, perhaps, at some future time have brought his work down to a later period. Nevertheless the book is complete in itself, its subjects being included within well-defined marks and periods; while it comprehends a space, which from its antiquity and other causes, affords more materials than any other to gratify the natural desire of men to look back to the illustrious deeds of their fathers. With these views of the importance of literary institutions, we can never but take pleasure in noticing any atten.pt to sketch their history, whatever be the The style of the work is good and pleasing. The country to which they belong, especially if it be one editor informs us that Mr. Peirce was a diligent which may be regarded as a mighty offshoot of our reader and hearty admirer of the English Classics, own, morally as well as naturally speaking; and Addison, Pope, Dryden, Swift, and their contempotherefore we seize the present opportunity of intro-raries; and that he took these for his models, ducing some instructive and also entertaining account of, we believe, the most celebrated university in the United States of America; the period embraced enabling us to obtain striking glimpses of a young and rapidly rising nation, and also of the indications it offered of the time to come. The late Mr. Peirce was librarian of the University, and an educated man; and he also possessed the other qualifications (as Mr. Pickering, the editor of the posthumous publication, informs us, and as the volume itself demonstrates) essential to the success ful execution of a work of this kind. We are told that he had an industry and an accuracy which steadily and faithfully carry us back to the scholars of another age. Thorough research into a subject in which he was interested, was to him a pleasure and not a task, as a catalogue of the library is said abundantly to testify. He never rested content with second-hand information, but went always to the original sources. He scrupulously weighed and sifted evidence, and never formed nor changed his opinions upon slight grounds. He was always a lover of books. In his youth he was a distinguished scholar; and in the midst of his daily business he found some time for the gratification and the assiduous cultivation of his mind by study. His modest and retiring habits prevented him from offering his acquisitions to although he was in some degree tinctured with the plainness of still older writers. The style, indeed, is unostentatiously simple; it is also correctly severe, without being harsh, or descending into feebleness and tameness. It is condensed, not attenuated. In an age of magazine and novel writing such tricks are played with our mother tongue, such uncouth words and phrases are pressed into it, such involved sentences are manufactured, while there is such a love of the monstrous, fancy for the artificial, or yielding to the sentimental, that it is really refreshing when, on turning away from the distorted, the dazzling, or the mawkish and twaddling, one alights upon the green, the natural, and the healthy. As already intimated, the work has been published under the editorship of a Mr. Pickering, who was an early and an attached friend of the author, and who has enriched the volume by assembling in an Appendix a great variety of miscellaneous and illustrative matter relating to the University. Without attempting to give an analysis or an abstract of the volume, we shall present a few things to be found in it that will engage attention. The University dates its existence from an act of the General Court, in 1636, by which there was voted £400, towards the erection of a public "sehool or college," to be situated at Newtown (which name was afterwards changed to Cambridge,) "a place very pleasant and accommodate," and "then under the orthodox and soul-flourishing ministry of Mr. Thomas Sheaphard." This most liberal appropriation, taking into consideration also the time at which it was made, speaks volumes in praise of the founders; illustrating also the general feeling which must have countenanced the measure. The transaction took place only six years from the first settlement of Boston, and only sixteen years from the landing at Plymouth, at a time when they were struggling for very existence, surrounded with vast and unexplored wildernesses, inhabited by savage foes, whom imagination invested with more than their real terrors. One would have supposed that the sustenance and protection of their bodily lives would have engrossed their whole time and thoughts; but with what moral purpose and far-sightedness did they set about providing the mind with convenient and enduring food; and with what highminded disinterestedness did they give up so large a portion of their scanty means for the good of posterity, and "that learning might not sleep in the graves of their fathers!" Mr. Peirce remarks well and becomingly on this subject when he says, "To minds less enlightened, less impressed with the value of liberal studies, and less resolved on achieving whatever duty commanded, such a project would have presented itself in vain; but from the fathers of New England it was precisely the measure which was to have been expected; it flowed from their principles and character, as an effect from its legitimate cause; and while the qualities of a stream are a test of the nature of its source, this venerable institution must be regarded as a memorial of the wisdom and virtue of its pious founders." The regular course of academic instruction began in 1638, and in 1639 it was ordered that the college should be called Harvard College, in honour of its great founder, the Rev. John Harvard. It was at first under the charge of Nathaniel Eaton, who, as Cotton Mather says, "was a brave scholar, but cruel withal, and was fined 100 marks for beating a young gentleman (his usher) unmercifully with a cudgel." That this ruffianly, rather than brave, master should have attempted to beat his usher, shows the spirit of subordination much more than that of equality. Indeed the former sentiment was as prevalent at one period as the latter is now in that country. Eaton was also accused of ill-treating the students in various ways, and of giving them bad and scanty diet, a source of complaint which curiously enough began at the very foundation of the college, and has continued to break out from time to time to the present day. There is some very amusing matter in the Appendix touching this same cudgelling Mr. Nathaniel Eaton, extracted from several quarters. We learn that he beat his unfortunate usher with a walnut-tree cudgel, a yard in length, and big enough to have killed a horse," he being, as may be supposed from this statement, harder to kill than a horse, as indeed may also be inferred from the result; for it seems that his savage master gave him "two hundred stripes about the head and shoulders, and so kept him under blows (with some two or three short intermissions) about the space of two hours." No head, made as heads are made in our degenerate days, could have survived such a flailing; but if not poetical, there must be some lawyer-like exaggeration in the statement of the usher's case. Eaton was interrogated anent the ill and scanty diet of his boarders, "for although their friends gave large allowance, yet their diet was ordinarily nothing but porridge and pudding, and that very homely." Nathaniel, with that want of manliness and gallantry which might be expected from his cruelty towards the weak, laid all the blame upon his wife. A curious paper is furnished, which, no doubt, contains the statement given by this Mrs. Eaton, relative to the charges brought against her domestic economy. It is a very amusing document, and we should extract it, if we had room. It is full of contrition and humble acknowledgment; yet laughable as the whole affair may be to those readers who have been and are exempted from all such abuses, yet we cannot help being touched with the conjugal affection which made the woman so prompt to transfer all the blame to herself, and to exonerate her dear husband. From the very submissive tone of her confessions, we have a fear that Nathaniel was woman's master, and that he had long kept a "walnut-tree cudgel" at home, and one too of much more than the orthodox thickness of a man's little finger. This trouble about the diet of the students at Harvard was gravely investigated by the government of the state, and rightly so it was. The institution's interests might have been disastrously affected by the ferocity and baseness of teachers, not to speak of the lives of pupils. The wheel of time has brought about strange revolutions in the character of the Commencement exercises. Orations, dissertations, and forensics in the vernacular language, are reliefs and luxuries of modern introduction and growth. Within the memory of some who are now alive, the principal exercises consisted of a Syllogistic discourse in Latin, in which four or five distinguised scholars were appointed respondents, to whom was assigned the task of defending certain positions which the rest of the class severally opposed and attacked. All this was done in Latin, and in the form of Syllogisms and Theses, and might have been very edifying. In the old institutions of a similar kind in Europe, and down to a comparatively recent date, the same method of sharpening the intellect, and making combatants expert, as it was thought, and also of rendering them dexterous in the universal language, was in vogue; the Americans but followed and imitated us in their first foundations. A list is preserved of the Theses which were defended by the first graduates in 1642, from which we cull a few specimens, which may well make the young scholars at Harvard College, at the present day, bless their stars that they were not born in the times of which we speak :-"Causa sine qua non, non est peculiaris causa a quatuor reliquis generalibus;" "Axioma contingens est, quod ita verum est ut aliquando falsum esse possit;""Forma est princi pium individuationis;" "Unius rei non est nisi unica forma constitutiva," &c., &c. How would one of our spruce, learned, modern orators at the bar or in the senate, or even at some academical debating club, with all his scholastic lore at his fingers' ends, and his Latinity upon his tongue, look, were he called upon to defend "pro virili parte," as the order of performances was wont to word it, one of! the above Theses in Latin Syllogisms? But the masters were, of course, expected to soar to a higher sphere of disputation, or to plunge into a deeper and darker well of scholastic metaphysics, as will be seen from the following questions, "methodically to be discussed by the candidates for the degree of Master of Arts," at the Commencement in 1743:"An ex operibus Sanctificationi comitantibus, optimæ exquiratur Justificatio;" "An conscientia invincibiliter erronea sit inculpabilis." But we presume even our learned readers have enough of these scholastic puzzles, and therefore we proceed to some more interesting matters. "In looking over the list of early benefactions to the College," he observes, "we are amused, when we read of a number of sheep bequeathed by one man, a quantity of cotton-cloth worth nine shillings by another, a pewter flagon worth ten shillings by a third, a fruit-dish, a sugar-spoon, a silver-tipt jug, one great salt, one small trencher-salt, by others; and of presents and legacies amounting severally to five shillings, nine shillings, one pound, two pounds, &c., all faithfully recorded, with the names of their respective donors. How soon does a little reflection change any disposition we may have to smile, into a feeling of respect, and even of admiration! What, in fact were these humble benefactions? They were The sons of Harvard must have read with great contributions from the 'res angusta domi ;' from pipleasure and sympathy the indications scattered ous, virtuous, enlightened penury, to the noblest of all through Mr. Peirce's volume, of the pride and causes, the advancement of education. The doaffection with which their forerunners looked upon nations were small, for the people were poor; they the University, and the large space it occupied in leave no doubt as to the motive which actuated the public mind. Life has become so crowded with the donors; they remind us of the offering, from stirring interests, and men are whirled now with every one whose heart stirred him up, and every such rail-road velocity, through such a multitude one whom his spirit made willing, to the work of and variety of excitements, that a peaceful literary the tabernacle of the congregation;' and, like the institution does not obtain its due share of considera- widow's mite, indicate a respect and zeal for the tion or respect by the many, and is only adequately object, which would have done greater things, had thought of by the scholars who have anchored their the means been more abundant." barks in those placid recesses to which the turmoil and the foam of the world of noise and of traffic seldom reach. But it was not so in America some hundred years ago. Its people formed then but a "feeble folk," an infant colony, supporting their tottering and impeded steps, by clinging to their mother on this side of the deep. The peculiar character of the Pilgrim Fathers and their more immediate successors in general, and the clergy in particular, possessed a great influence out of their sphere. Harvard College was long the eye of New England. It was regarded with pride and veneration. Every leading man felt a strong personal interest in it, and considered the prosperity of the colony as largely involved in its own. Thus the death of president Leverett is spoken of as a "dark and awful providence," a "heavy judgment of God," a "token of his anger," a "sore frown upon the College." When President Wadsworth died, it was voted by the Corporation, that, "whereas the choosing of a President is a matter of great concern, it be proposed to the Honourable and Reverend Overseers, that they with the Corporation might spend some convenient time in prayer to God for his In the earliest annals of the College, the students gracious direction in that important affair." We find seem to have indulged very little in those wild freaks the General Court voting to President Wadsworth, which now so often perplex professors. In those one hundred and fifty pounds, "to enable him to puritan days youths ripened apace into austere men. enter upon and manage the great affair of President A dissipated or even frolicksome descendant of the of Harvard College, to which he is appointed.' "fathers presents a paradoxical idea to the mind. One The sense of the value and the importance of the institution which was cherished, may be learned from the liberal appropriations made to it from time to time by the General Court, and by the amount of private benefactions. The great number of small gifts, donations, and legacies, from men of humble fortunes, shows at once the high respect in which learning was held, and the spirit of generous selfsacrifice which distinguished the times. It would be doing injustice to Mr. Peirce, to withhold from the reader his appropriate and feeling remarks on this subject. It is a curious trait, and characteristic of the stern discipline of the times, that personal chastisement was for a long period tolerated and practised in the College. It is related in Judge Sewell's MS. diary, convicted of speaking blasphemous words concernthat in June, 1674, Thomas Sargeant, having been ing the Holy Ghost, was, among other punishments, publicly whipped before all the scholars in the library, prayer being had before and after by the President! Notwithstanding the barbarity of this law, time mantained its place in the statute-book; for in and the constant troubles it produced, it for a long the revised body of laws, made in the year 1784, this article occurs,-"Notwithstanding the preceding pecuniary mulets, it shall be lawful for the president, tutors, and professors, to punish under-graduates by boxing, when they shall judge the nature or circumstances of the offence call for it." It soon Peirce states," was expunged from the code, never, after however, fell into disuse, and at length, as Mr. we trust, to be recalled from the rubbish of past absurdities." can hardly but imagine that their infants wore long faces, or that their knee-buckled urchins could ever think of hoops and marbles when pacing to school. As the country grew older and richer, however, livelier fancies began to stir in the stiff-skirted youth. Thus in 1740, a committee appointed to inquire into the state of the College, reported a long list of grievances and enormities. The students are accused of "improving persons in fetching liquors,” and of wearing silk night-gowns. A curious law was passed in 1761, "that it shall be deemed an offence if the scholars shall in a sober manner entertain one another and strangers with punch, any law, usage or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.” But we must bring our paper to a close, although we could profitably and pleasantly linger longer among the monuments and the recollections of the past in the New World. Who can look back, be he a son of this Alma Mater, or an entire stranger to her, without taking an interest and feeling delight in her honourable career? Often assailed as we believe she has been by evil tongues, and no doubt not only liable to many imperfections, but sometimes chargeable with errors, her course, we learn, has been almost uniformly high, consistent, and upright. The light that was kindled at Harvard in darkness, and which long glimmered or shone with a faint lustre, now burns with a steady and powerful gleam, and thousands have lighted their lamps by it. Emulous and answering flames have now kindled throughout the union, throwing the bright yet mellow beams of letters and science athwart the landto the remote south and the far west. May Harvard University flourish perpetually! DOUBLE SEA COCOA-NUT. ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. table during the reading of the paper, measured twenty inches in length.] The immature fruit, called by the colonists "coco tendre," is easily cut with a knife; and it then affords a sweet and melting aliment of an agreeable taste. When the fruit is ripe it drops on the ground, and is no longer fit for food. In a few months, if not buried in the earth nor exposed to the rays of the sun, the fallen nut begins to germinate, and a new plant is formed. A remarkable circumstance connected with this tree is the length of time necessary to mature its fruit, and the long duration of its bloom. It bears only one spadix in each year, and yet has often above ten in bloom at once: it has flowers and fruits of all ages at one time. The tree grows on all kinds of soil, from the sandy shore to the arid mountain-top; but the finest are found in deep gorges, on damp platforms, covered with vegetable matter. In such situations the great height and slender diameter of the stem, and the length of its enormous leaves, produce a fine effect; though, near the sea-shore, its leaves torn by the storms, and hanging in long strips, give it a desolate appearance. It is to be regretted that the tree is not cultivated; and that a practice has prevailed of cutting it down in order to get at the fruit and tender leaves. The writer of the notice, in fact, expresses his fears that the species will be, ere long, entirely lost. The uses of the lodoicea are numerous. When young, its fruit is a refreshing article of food; when ripe it furnishes oil. Its germ when developed is a sweet dish. The hard shell is formed into excellent vessels for drawing and carrying water; and the whole nut is used in India as a medicine. The wood is used for building, and is split open to form good water channels, and excellent palisades for fencing. Its leaves are used for thatching; and when platted they are made into hats, bonnets, baskets, fans, and a number of tasteful works for which the ladies of the Sechelles are celebrated. The meetings were adjourned till November.-Literary Gazette. PRESERVATION OF CRAYON DRAWINGS. JUNE 19.-Professor Wilson in the chair.-The Secretary read an interesting botanical "Description of the Lodoicea Sechellarum," by M. Bernard, President of the Committee of Natural History of the Sechelles Islands. This production, which has been long known under the appellation of the double sea cocoa-nut, grows only on two small islands of the Sechelles group, lying nearly under the equator. Many centuries before the place of its growth was known, portions of this nut have been frequently carried by the oceanic currents to the Maldive Islands and the Malabar coast; and the most absurd fables were current respecting its origin and virtues. It was generally supposed to grow at the bottom of the sea; and the votaries of Vishnu devoutly believed that when that deity was churning the ocean, he broke off several of the branches from the tree, that they might float upon the surface, and HITHERTO the principal objection to crayon drawbe a specific for all the ills that afflict mankind. ings has been the difficulty of preventing them The lodoicea attains a height of eighty or ninety feet, from being damaged by rubbing, no varnish being and is surmounted by a beautiful crown of winged applicable to the surface of such drawings without and palmated leaves. The diameter of the stem injuring the colours. The Marquis de Varenes, a varies from twelve to fifteen inches, and the whole distinguished amateur of the fine arts, has hit on the is so flexible, that the tops of those trees which stand happy idea of applying varnish to the back of such in each others' vicinity strike against and chafe drawings, and has found the experiment to succeed each other in a strong breeze, making an extraordi- perfectly. The varnish, after saturating the paper, nary noise. The leaves open like a fan; they are is sucked up by the particles of colour, in virtue of of large size, often attaining to a length of twenty their capillary attraction, and the alcohol of the feet, with a breadth of twelve, and, in some varnish, evaporating speedily, leaves the resinous cases, to thirty feet in length, including the pe- particles firmly adhering to the colours, and giving tiole, which is of sufficient strength to support them such tenacity that the drawing may be rolled, the weight of a man. The fruit is generally and even rubbed, without injury. The proportions double, sometimes triple, and even quadruple; of such varnish should be one part of ordinary gumand, with its enclosing drupe, attains a length of fifteen inches, with a circumference of three feet, and sometimes weighs from forty to fifty pounds. [A full-grown specimen, placed on the Society's DECEMBER, 1841.-MUSEUM. 60 lac to twelve parts of spirits of wine, rendered co- 50 From Blackwood's Magazine. ENGLAND AND HER EUROPEAN ALLIES. AT a period when a temporary check has been given to the progress of misrule at home, and England is again at liberty to assume her position among the great Conservative powers of Europe, it is not a fruitless speculation to direct attention to the present condition and interests of the Conservative party on the Continent, and to offer, for the consideration of the British aristocracy, some general remarks on the actual state of the same class in other European nations. We are not of those politicians who think that England can ever, consistently with her own best interests, pursue a line of policy which is to be always unconnected with that of other powers; we hold a policy of isolation, notwithstanding the physical impregnability of our island-home, to be an impossibility for even though we should endeavour to abstract ourselves from the influence of foreign events, those events would affect us in spite of all our efforts; other nations would not let us alone, though we were to protest for ever our deepest admiration for the noninterference system; and our multitudinous interests -spread abroad like the feelers of a molluscous inhabitant of the deep, to take cognizance of all around it—would be made to vibrate with many an unforeseen event, which might call on the instant into fiery exertion all the efforts of the nation. In fact, we have nothing to gain and every thing to lose by a policy of isolation; in territorial extent, as far as Europe is concerned, we can hardly rank as a firstrate power-it is by our dense and industrious population, by our wide-spread colonies, and by our universal trade, that we extend our name and our influence wherever waves can beat or foot can tread; it is by our very ubiquity that we hold the high rank among nations which it has pleased Providence that we should attain. England is, and has long been, so essentially a civilizing nation-she has done so much good for mankind-she has taught men so many arts, has made for them so many discoveries, has protected them from so much evil, and, on the whole, has used her great and honourably acquired power so humanely, so nobly, that she would be wanting to herself were she to abdicate that exalted station, which, in the opinion of three-fourths of the world, she so fairly holds. England is intimately connected with every nation, and every nation is intimately connected with her; whether for good or evil, for friendship or for enmity; she has her lot in the bag with every nation under the sun; and at the present moment, her navies are afloat in the Chinese seas as well as in the Mediterranean, while her travellers and expeditionists are exploring the frozen regions of either pole. It may be a laborious task for British statesmen to have to deal with the destinies of the whole world, but it is also a high and perilous honour; it requires men of no common knowledge and ability to move the levers of our mighty empire; and the honour and credit of the nation itself are at stake every day in some portion or other of our wide-scattered possessions; but such is the state of the case-the task cannot be refused, the labour cannot be lightened-the energies of the mind must be called forth to meet the difficulties of the undertaking, and England must never be wanting in a supply of men duly qualified to serve their sovereign and their country. Away, then, with the narrow policy which would make us believe that England has only herself to care for, only herself to govern; the Ocean Queen, the mistress of the world in arts and civilizing energies, has to think and act for mankind; she has to supply their wants, to guide their labours, to cultivate their minds, to confer an interchange of benefits on them all, and to unite them, if it were possible, in one common bond of good sense and good-will. She has to ally herself with good men wherever she finds them; she has to encourage the lovers of peaceful and upright government wherever they are to be met with; she has to set them a good example, and to imitate good conduct wherever it exists; she has, in fact, not only to be conservative at home, but she has to connect herself with all that is conservative abroad. That an aristocracy is always a conservative body, is true in various senses; it is conservative, at all times and in all cases, of its own rights and privileges, except when the terrors of revolution have arisen from its misconduct or factious ambition, and are sweeping away the foundations of society; in many instances, and at various periods, it is conservative of the true interests and welfare of the people, and is in fact the stay and safeguard of a nation. It is in this latter sense that the aristocracy of Great Britain has shown itself pre-eminently one of the most conservative bodies that Europe has ever possessed; for the nobles of our three kingdoms, while they have maintained their own privileges, and asserted their own independence, have ever been mindful of the duly regulated liberties of the people, and have guarded the sacred deposit of national honour and happiness, with a constancy and a courage that have weathered the severest political storms to which the nation has been exposed. The nobility of England have not deserted their posts, like those of France at the outbreak of the great Revolution, nor have they sunk into a state of cowardly and corrupt degeneracy, like those of Spain and Portugal, who look unmoved at the calamities of their wretched countries, and peril not their persons or their fortunes in an attempt to save them. The British aristocracy have remained a far more united and active body than that of the old Germanic Empire, or the heterogeneous aristocracies of the actual German Confederation; they are not lost in indolence and sensuality, like the nobles of Italy, nor do they form a rude untractable body, like the potentates of the Russian empire:-they are essentially the best and most energetic class of the nation; they have the truest perceptions of what constitutes the national good, and the steadiest determination to bring that good into effect; they keep up the tone and character of the community to their proper pitch; and they are the real leaders of the people in all that requires the exercise of courage, talent, and virtue. It is true that the aristocracy suffers by the political divisions of party which afflict the nation at large; but, with some minor differences removed, they have, as a body, the welfare of the whole people seriously at heart, and they devote their best powers to promote and preserve whatever tends to advance it. One of the most striking instances in which the forethought of the British nobility was displayed, and their efforts exerted with the most complete success, was in the noble stand which they made against the |