and moral action, it is no bare and momentary sight of the truth which can effect anything practical. The wisdom of age and experience is precisely this-conviction from long familiarity with the proofs of those truths which the young and inexperienced have merely read in books or heard from others. If you tell a young and vigorous man that he will injure his health by this or that practice, he will probably give his verbal assent; but no impression is made on the mind, and he proceeds to do that which the older man has so strongly associated with the feelings of pain and disease consequent on it, that even if he were as young and healthy, he would not, and could not neglect the danger. The statements of science are believed by the great mass of people of course on trust. If you tell one who is totally ignorant of astronomy, that on such a day a hundred years to come there will be an eclipse, he will believe it; but if any great stake depended upon it, such as his fortune or his life, he would immediately become restless and unsatisfied, showing clearly that his belief was not conviction, whilst the astronomer, who had gone carefully through every step of the investigation, would be perfectly at ease. No one can ever become a man of decided character, whose opinions are not thus founded on 'conviction,' as opposed to mere 'belief.' For some excellent remarks on this point, the reader is referred to that admirable work, 'Foster's Essays.' For, without firm grounds for his belief,' he will waver about with every wind of doctrine.' If we examine the daily conduct of all classes of society, we see in every one this want of conviction.' If a set of propositions were drawn up, on which half a million of people agreed, by nine-tenths of them would the greater portion be violated in their conduct. Take, for instance, a set of such assertions as those relating to the preservation of health. Fresh air is necessary," Exercise is necessary,' Moderation in eating and drinking,' &c. &c. Now, if people really were convinced of these facts, their conduct would show it. But they are not convinced, or anything like it. Nothing is so difficult as to convince people of the most obvious and generally admitted truths, especially if their own welfare depends upon acting on these truths. You may easily enough find persons to support aërial machines, impossible railways, or any other absurdity; but directly you try to make them act in accordance with principles, the truth of which they have admitted all their lives, you find you are talking to empty air. If one ten-thousandth part of the money, time, and energy were employed in putting into practice the most simple and evident truths, which are now squandered in useless vagaries, the comfort, health, wealth, and happiness of all classes throughout Europe would be more advanced in two years than in the last two hundred years. What is wanted is not a crusade to preach new opinions, but to get everybody to act up to those he already has. The object to be aimed at is the substitution of that thorough, clear-sighted, determined 'conviction' which impels a man on as effectually as if the pains and punishment of neglect were staring him in the face, and about to fall on him immediately-the substitution of this for that lazy 'belief,' which gives assent because it is no more trouble than to dissent. Money won easily is lost again easily: opinions taken up without much care are either changed in the same way, or at anyrate remain barren, lifeless, useless things. It is only by going carefully through every reason on which they are founded, and by thus having the mind deeply and frequently impressed with the reality of the truth, that these profitless and empty 'beliefs' can be converted into practical principles. The difference between one man and another will be found to depend very greatly on the attention he has given to the proofs and reasons of things. The creed of one man is his own property, for he has made it himself; that of another is made up of odds and ends borrowed from all sources, often disagreeing with each other, and having no firm foundation whatever. Such a man is 'unstable as water, and shall not prevail.' THE INSTALLATION ODE. WE had thought that the days of ceremonial verse by poets-laureate were past with Mr Pye; but we were mistaken. Mr Wordsworth, it appears, does not enjoy the situation on the understanding of its being a sinecure. He has produced an ode on the occasion of Prince Albert's installation as chancellor of Cambridge university. And such an ode! No one can read it without pitying the poor old man who, for some paltry hundred a-year, has either felt it as his duty, or been reminded thereof, to cudgel his brains in order to make something that will sing on an occasion to the Muse indifferent. Finding, apparently, no idea of the present day to start with, he has been forced to go back to some of Mr Pye's compositions for material, and accordingly we have a commencement made with the following allusions to that favourite aversion of our youth, Napoleon : INTRODUCTION AND CHORUS. For thirst of power that Heaven disowns, Too long insulted by the spoiler's shock, Her stormy foe at last To reap the whirlwind on a Libyan rock, SOLO TENOR. War is passion's basest game Madly played to win a name; Up starts some tyrant, earth and heaven to dare, But will the lightning glance aside to spare CHORUS. War is mercy, glory, fame, Waged in freedom's holy cause- So much being done-and most thankful must the poet have been when he had done so much-a new effort has to be made. One can imagine the writer running distractedly over the whole field of his thoughts in quest of something more, and at length, after desperate exertions, making out a reference to another matter that excited public feeling in our youth, but one not bearing the slightest connection with the preceding. RECIT. (ACCOMPANIED)-CONTRALTO. A nation's hopes lie crushed in Claremont's desolate hall. Here another awful pause of thought. The poet, however, is now approaching ground which has some sort of connection with the occasion. Hear him— AIR-SOPRANO. Time a chequered mantle wears; Cease, Britannia, cease to weep. SOPRANO SOLO AND CHORUS. A guardian angel fluttered It named the future Queen : For righteous triumphs are the base QUARTET. Time, in his mantle's sunniest fold, Trained to health and artless beauty. From the lore of lofty duty. This designed for lyric poetry! All of it, too, untrue RECIT. (ACCOMPANIED)-BASS. That eve the star of Brunswick shone On Gotha's ducal roof, and on Nor failed to gild the spires of Bonn, Old Camus, too, on that prophetic night, And his willows whispered in its light, Not to the zephyr's sway, But with a Delphic life, in sight Of this auspicious day. CHORUS. This day, when Granta hails her chosen lord, Welcomes the consort of a happy queen. From some recollections of Milton's Lycidas, we presume that Old Camus is the genius of the river Cam, a gentleman who speaks by his willows; thus, like the duke, finding tongues in trees, though, it would appear, not very truthful ones, since Granta could scarcely be considered as proud of an award in which her mind was very nearly as much for no as yes. Could some power but give us a correct return of the various motives which went to make up the majority that chose the Prince, oh William Wordsworth! what a comment we should have upon Granta's confidence in star serene.' Let us hear, however, what farther these willows of Old Camus have to say- the AIR-CONTRALTO. Prince, to these collegiate bowers, Where science, leagued with holier truth, These reverend aisles, these hallowed towers, Not in vain those sages taught- Have pondered here their country's weal, And how a land may rule its fate, Though worlds to their foundations reel, For comment on this we are content to wait for the university commission, that cannot be much longer delayed. Now for a crash of sentiment to bring out all the musical powers of the affair— AIR-BASS. Albert, in thy race we cherish A nation's strength that will not perish True to the King of Kings is found; Who threw the Saxon shield o'er Luther's life, The trumpet of the Living Word CHORUS. What shield more sublime E'er was blazoned or sung? Resound, resound the strain, For the Church, the State, the Throne! Who deigns to grace our festal rite, The Pride of the Islands, Victoria the Queen! And so it closes, without one poetical thought or happy expression from beginning to end, much less with a single gleam of healthy, natural, sincere sentiment-the whole a piece of the merest crambo, scarcely worthy of hoarse Fitzgerald, and certainly much less likely to have met with success in a tavern hall, had it been there spouted, than were the ordinary creaking couplets of that hero. What on earth can have induced the poet of the lakes to consent to the degradation of writing such a poem! ASCENT OF THE BUET. IF the Alpine tourist be possessed of tolerable activity, with my guide, Ferdinand Tissay, each mounted on a * Frederic the Wise, Elector of Saxony. to shelter several people; and an additional poor pro- impression of stillness shall never forget. Close on tection is afforded by a rough wall of stones to keep out the edge of the highest point of the mountain, where the wind. But it is needless to add that bivouacs in the precipice suddenly sinks down with frightful rapi. such places, though no doubt highly romantic, should for dity, and to which we scarcely dared approach, for fear obvious reasons be avoided, unless in cases of extreme of dislodging a mass of the soft snow, we saw the track necessity. For, after all, even for beggars or thieves,' of a chamois, that must have very lately passed. I a worse lodging could scarcely be found. I am always, observed several insects half dead lying on the snow I confess, for a good night's rest; and am apt to suspect during our ascent; and whilst we stood on the summit the energy and perseverance of those who affect to de--oh, satire on human ambition!-several common butspise conveniences. The hovel, formed in this desolate terflies flew over our heads. spot almost wholly by nature, was very damp and dirty, and contained a large patch of snow, yet remaining from the blasts and drifts of the winter. At this spot we first obtained a sight of the Oberland Alps, and from hence our way, though steep, was for a time free from snow. The weather was quite perfect; not a cloud was visible; the sky was clear of haze, and the air mild, yet not close. This pass of Bérard is one of those better known to shepherds and smugglers than to any other description of travellers. At a quarter past eight we had of course gained somewhat in height; but we nevertheless saw cattle passing the snow, one by one, at a great height above us, and in a few minutes more we again entered on the snow. At a quarter before nine we caught sight of Mont Blanc appearing over the range of the Aiguilles Rouges. At twenty minutes past nine we attained a rough slaty ridge, quite free from snow; in fact the ridge of the pass. From hence we had a wonderful view of mountain-tops in all directions. It was not cold, but the sky now put on the appearance of the weather being about to change for the worse. Every peak, however, even the most distant, was quite clear; nor was there the slightest cloud or haze upon any part of Mont Blanc. From this pass we might have descended directly to Servoz; but our purpose was of a much more aspiring nature. After pausing a few minutes, we commenced and completed a fatiguing ascent of the now eternal snow, which was succeeded by a heart-breaking slope of bare slaty débris, occupying us together till forty minutes after ten o'clock. Again another slope of snow succeeded, and again another ascent of slaty fragments, which brought us, at a quarter past eleven, to the remains of the stone hovel of the philosopher Pictet, in which he used to take shelter when overtaken by bad weather in this elevated desert. One more short slaty ridge, and a steep slope of soft snow, brought us to the summit of the Buet, 10,154 English feet, according to De Saussure, above the level of the sea, at half-past eleven, after a fatiguing walk of five hours from the place where we left the mules, and eight hours exactly from Chamouny. The sun at half-past eleven was exactly over the Aiguille du Midi, as seen from hence. From this fine mountainsummit we looked clear away over the summit of the Brever, and of the Aiguilles Rouges (which we had so often looked up to from Chamouny), to Mont Blanc, and his attendant Aiguilles in all their glory. Mont Blanc, seen from this height, and at this distance, towered in kingly state over all his vassals. There were some clouds about, but none to impede the view; nor was there a breath of wind. The air, too, was quite mild; but my feet now became excessively cold, from my having been so long walking in the soft snow. The mountain summits visible from hence are so numerous, that to mention them all would be to make a catalogue of a considerable portion of the Alps. Beyond the range of Mont Blanc, towards the west, far in the Taxentaise, I saw very many undulating snowy summits, with a light thrown over them that gave them the appearance of the coloured waves seen in a surface of mother-ofpearl; in another direction, through a mountain gap, we got a peep of the Lake of Geneva. The Jura range, on the other side of the lake, was very distinct; so were the summits of the Oberland Alps, and all the heights quite round towards the Simplon. We were here, although the air was perfectly calm, at a height to which the voice of the torrent did not reach; and the The view from the summit of the Buet reminds one forcibly of one of the old-fashioned maps of all the mountains in the world at one view. In a word, it is the most unpicturesque thing possible, but possessing a grandeur and sublimity peculiar to itself, which, once seen, is never through life forgotten. We could not remain on the actual summit for any length of time, for the snow was so soft, that we could not sit down, and no dry rock was visible, and my feet were aching excessively with the cold of the wet snow; so we descended to some dry rocks a little way down, where we changed our stockings, and got quite warm, and enjoyed the luncheon we brought with us very much. We remained here until one o'clock. Neither on the summit, nor during the ascent, did either I or my guide experience any inconvenience from the rarity of the air. During the ascent, I twice heard that peculiar solemn noise, difficult to describe, something between a deep sigh and a lourd, heavy, sullen, subdued sound of an explosion, which no doubt is frequently to be heard in these upper regions. It is probably occasioned by some slip or giving way of the snow under the influence of the mid-day sun. Beneath the snowcliffs, my guide pointed out to me a place which, he told me, was that in which, in the year 1800, Mr Eschen, a Dane, lost his life. In the spot which he pointed out, the snow appeared deeply crevassed; and to the most unpractised eye, it was evidently not the way up the mountain. It was hard to believe that any one would have ventured into such a place. ་ I have already mentioned the stone hovel on the summit of the Buet, erected for the accommodation of the philosopher Pictet. I believe he made on this spot many observations with the barometer, as well as experiments on heat and radiation; the Buet is also alluded to by name, in a paper by him in the English Philosophical Transactions,' concerning the measurement of an arch of the meridian, dated 1791. The steep and fatiguing slopes of slaty débris which I have mentioned before, are enriched with some of the rarest of the Alpine plants. In descending, we glissaded the greater part of the slopes of snow; but where we kept the track of our ascent, I was surprised to find that our footsteps, though very deeply impressed, were almost entirely effaced by the action of the sun. Our descent was very rapid, and varied with frequent falls; the ensuing glissading of which may, without care, be carried far beyond a joke. So overpowering was the glare from the snow on the Buet, that I did not find a large goggling pair of green spectacles, together with a thick black crape veil, more protection to the eyes than was necessary. We finally reached the spot where we had left our mules, below the Pierre de Bérard, at a quarter before three o'clock; that is, in an hour and three-quarters from the summit of the mountain, it having taken us five hours to ascend the same distance. I continued my way on foot, leaving the guide and mules to follow all the way down, and had now ample leisure to admire the scenery of the valley we had ridden up in the morning, which presents one of the wildest and most thoroughly picturesque scenes I ever beheld. Some of the rock and water scenes are scarcely to be exceeded for beauty and grandeur. No one should omit, if possible, during a séjour at Chamouny, an excursion as far at least as the Pierre de Bérard. We arrived at the Chalets de Poyat at four o'clock, and I got back to Chamouny on my mule at a quarter before six. Thus the expedition from Chamouny to the summit of the Buet, and back, occupies just about fifteen hours. THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS OF LEIGH HUNT. [From the Manchester Examiner."] Or all living English writers, there is not one towards whom there exists a more general feeling of kindliness and gratitude than Leigh Hunt. This friendly gratitude has arisen from the peculiar characteristics of his writings from their sympathy and genuine cordiality-their cheerful, hopeful tone-in short, their fulness to overflowing with that spirit which is best expressed by the beautiful but neglected old English word loving-kindness.' We know of no writer who has done more to make hearths and homes happy by peopling them with pleasant thoughts; for he quickens us into a livelier consciousness of our blessings, and communicates to our ordinary duties, and the simple objects of our daily wayside walk, a freshness and interest which it becomes a kind of grateful duty to him to acknowledge. The tendency of all that Leigh Hunt has written is to cheerfulise existence. He reconciles us to ourselves, draws off our minds from remote visions of some future possible good, or painful remembrances of the past, and fixes our attention upon the actual blessings and privileges about us. He is one of the best teachers we know of that kind of contentment and gratitude which arises from a thankful recognition of those minor joys by which all of us are more or less surrounded, and to the value of which most of us are by far too insensible. And then with what a delicate and fine touch he pierces our selfishness! In what a kindly way he convinces us of our uncharitableness, and puts to rout our self-indulgent fallacies! With what a jovial hilarity he banters us out of our moroseness, and laughs at our ill-humour, until at last we are ashamed of our weakness, and determine to be wiser and better for the future! We never rose from a few hours' perusal of any of his charming books, without a sense of obligation to him for stimulating to a desire of generous activity those sympathies which habit and daily contact too often render languid and inert. Everything that comes from his pen is refreshing, and full of good-will to all the world. A belief in good, the recognition of universal beauty, and a brotherly consideration for mistake and circumstance,' will be found pervading every essay he has written. To minds disturbed, or set on edge by crosses and disappointments, we know of no more effectual soother than a course' of Leigh Hunt. His own buoyant spirit is a fine example of the impossibility of crushing the heart of a true man, be his misfortunes and hardships ever so severe; and no man has suffered the rubs of fortune more bravely than he has done. A popular writer once spoke of him as 'the gray-headed boy whose heart can never grow old.' Those who are familiar with his writings will recognise the truthfulness of this remark, and remember how this perpetual youthfulness of feeling shows itself, in a thousand different ways, throughout all his works. Another winning peculiarity of Leigh Hunt's writings is their frank, friendly, conversational tone-the pleasantlyegotistical and almost confidential manner in which he tells us every now and then of his own private notions and sentiments so that we begin to fancy he is addressing ourselves in particular, and not his readers in general. There is such an easy, fireside-way about him, that it is like talking with an old intimate friend. He runs on from one theme to another with the most sprightly exuberance-now discussing with hearty sympathy the merits of Chaucer or Spenser, or some other old poet, and pointing out to us the beauty and true meaning of a favourite passage-now bringing out the sentiment of an ancient classical story, or dwelling upon his first impressions of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments then, perhaps, entering into a curious speculation regarding persons one would wish to have seen,' Shakspeare, for instance, or Petrarch, or Mahomet, or Cromwell, or Sir Philip Sydney-or, in a more gossiping vein, relating some characteristic anecdote of Cowley, or Pope, or Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, or Colley Cibber, or Mrs Centlivre; or reporting snatches of racy court scandal from the diary of Samuel Pepys. Then he will get into a philosophical humour, and discourse of the slow rise of the most rational opinions,' and quote wise and stately sentences from Lord Bacon's 'Essays' or Milton's 'Areopagitica.' On another occasion he comes to us when he is running over with news of the fields Or it and the woods, and can speak of nothing but May-day, and IMPORTANCE OF HEALTH TO THE LABOURING CLASSES. Of all the members of society, the labouring man is the most dependent. Health is his only wealth, his capital, his stock in trade. When disease attacks him, the very source of his subsistence is dried up. He must earn his daily bread by daily toil; and, unlike many who occupy a higher position in society, he cannot do his work by deputy, nor postpone the doing of it till his health is re-established. Day by day the expense of sickness is added to the loss of income; and too often he recovers only to find his place occupied by another, and the first hours of convalescence spent in an anxious, and too often a fruitless, search after employment.-Dr Guy. Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh. Also sold by D. CHAMBERS, 98 Miller Street, Glasgow; W. S. Oan, 147 Strand, and Amen Corner, London; and J. M'GLASHAN, 21 D'Olier Street, Dublin.-Printed by W. and R. CHAMBERS, Edinburgh. CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,''CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c. No. 189. NEW SERIES. THE PROTECTOR. THE fate of Cromwell, as a man of history, is singular. After a lapse of time which seems more than sufficient to have dissipated prejudice, and silenced the outcries of party-after his character had long found what seemed to be its true level-a new agitation arises, and a revolution is called for in public opinion regarding him. The Protector, a Vindication,' is the title of a volume by Dr Merle D'Aubigné of Geneva, written in defence and praise of this remarkable individual.* It was originally intended as an article for a review, but grew into a book. We have in it no new facts regarding the Protector, but a considerable amount of fresh eloquence in showing him up as a great man. Dr Merle D'Aubigné, being satisfied that Cromwell was a sincere lover of evangelical Christianity, and anxious to promote the welfare of England on that principle, follows up the general line lately assumed by Mr Carlyle; so that the judgment of the last two centuries may on this point be said to be undergoing a very serious challenge. There is something interesting in thus seeing a new light attempted to be thrown upon a character which has so long stood among the shades of history. Mr Carlyle's love for Cromwell seems mainly to spring from the admiration which this author bears for the earnest. Oliver was a man of strong views and profound convictions, who went resolutely through his work. This is enough for the eccentric philosopher of Chelsea. The present author is led by a different passion; he sees in Cromwell the arch opponent of the Roman church in the seventeenth century, and for this cause venerates him. To make all square to this point, we fear he scarcely gives a fair account of the religious principles of the two first Stuarts. These he makes out as the friends of the papal system; a somewhat odd position, in the first place, for the almost victim of the Gunpowder Conspiracy; and in the second, for him who had his head cut off because he never could exactly give up the Church of England. Even in the case of Charles II., one would say it was a somewhat unalarming friendship for Romanism, which never could confess itself till the deathbed scene had arrived. We should rather think that the Stuarts simply chanced to live at a time when the popular spirit was working strongly towards more liberal forms of policy, as well as to more zealous views of religion; and that placing themselves, as is very natural for the possessors of power, in opposition to this spirit, they unavoidably fell a sacrifice. As for there being anything peculiarly bad in the spirit of this family, it seems a vulgar way of accounting for the events, and, moreover, a somewhat equivocal vindication of their dethronement, seeing that, * Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh. 1847. PRICE 1d. in adopting monarchy at all as a form of government, a people necessarily expresses its willingness to bear the risks which families run in the course of nature, of presenting imbecile or evil-spirited representatives. A much honester way of describing the Revolution were to say that the people came to lose all patience with the king's infatuation, and frightened him away without ever considering the constitutional bearing of the act. One-half of the errors of history are after-thoughtsphilosophical accounts of things that proceeded from instinctive impulses, or took their main character from accidents small and great. The outline of Cromwell's life given in this book is meagre; but it is enough, with the arguments accompanying it, to complete the extinction of the hypocrisy theory regarding the Protector. The profound cunning so long attributed to him now vanishes like darkness before light. There cannot, we think, be any longer a doubt that Cromwell was not only a man of vast capacity and energy-a thoroughly great man in the ordinary meaning of the term-but an entirely wellmeaning man towards his country, aiming primarily at the establishment of the religious and civil liberties of the people, and only obliged to take power upon himself, because there was no other ready way of accomplishing that end. There was even a true humanity in Cromwell, albeit obscured and often set entirely aside by his religious delusions and his views of policy. In all these respects it is profound injustice to the Protector to compare him with Bonaparte. They take analogous places in their several chapters of history; but there was one simple but decisive difference in their characters-the one was a wholly selfish man, the other not so. Beyond this, however, we suspect that the vindication of Cromwell cannot be justly carried. For one thing, it appears in glaring colours throughout Cromwell's life-and no eloquence of Mr Carlyle or Dr Merle D'Aubigné can extenuate the matter-that he would do any amount of evil that good might come. The execution of the king was an example. His practice with the Irish was to the same effect. When he landed there to restore order, he had to consider the plan that ought to be followed for the purpose. 'Should he employ a few weeks,' says our Genevan doctor, 'with the sacrifice of 5000 men, or several years, with the loss of perhaps 20,000? Having weighed everything, he That hand is never decided for the hand of iron. amiable; but yet there are cases in which it is salutary.' This is the way in which an evangelical minister of our day commences an apology for the most horrible butcheries on record in our history during the last five centuries. The page cannot, he admits, be read without emotion and pain, but it presents this great man to us as following the most skilful course to arrive at a prompt and universal pacification. Can Dr Merle D'Aubigné |