department of La Seine Inferièure, rendered accompt of this his debt in the same roll," and so on over the remainder of the 220 pages. If we turn over a few of them we will find the same sort of thing: "Agnes, the first daughter, was married to William de Vesey, of whom John de Vesey, issueless, and William de Vesey, who had issue, John de Vesey, who died before his father; and afterwards the said William de Vesey, the father, without heir of his body;" and so on.

The reader whose fortune it has been to pass a portion of his early days among venerable Scottish gentlewomen of the old school, will perhaps experience an uneasy consciousness of having encountered matter of this description before. It may recall to him misty recollections of communications which followed a course something like this: "And so ye see, auld Pittoddles, when his third wife deed, he got married upon the laird o' Blaithershins' aughteenth daughter, that was sister to Jemima, that was married intil Tam Flumexer, that was first and second cousin to the Pittoddleses, wha's brither became laird afterwards, and married Blaithershins' Baubie-and that way Jemima became in a kind o' way her ain niece and her ain aunty, an, as we used to say, her gude-brither was married to his ain grannie."

But there is the deep and the shallow in genealogy, as in other arts and sciences, and incoherent as it may sound to the uninitiated, the introduction to the Liber de Antiquis Legibus is no old woman's work, but full of science and strange matter. It all grows, however, out of genealogical trees, that being the predominant intellectual growth in the editor's mind. In fact, your thorough genealogist is quite a peculiar intellectual entity. More truly than of the poet it may be said of him, Nascitur non fit. If he should for some time endeavour to strive after a more cosmopolite intellectual vitality, the ruling spirit

conquers all other pursuits, and he grows into a genealogist; and if he have healthy sturdy brain, whatever other matter it may have collected is betimes dragged into the growth, and absorbed in the vitality of the majestic bole and huge branches. There is perhaps no pursuit more thoroughly absorbing. The reason is this: No man having yet made out for himself an articulate pedigree from Adam-Sir Thomas Urquhart, the translator of Rabelais, to be sure, made one for himself, but he had his tongue in his cheek all the while-no clear pedigree going back to the first of men, every one, whether short or long, Celtic or Saxon, comes into the clouds at last. It is when a pedigree approaches extinction that the occasion opens for the genealogist to exercise his subtlety and skill, and his exertions become all the more zealous and exciting that he knows he must be baffled somewhere. The pursuit is described as possessing something like the same absorbing influence which is exercised over certain minds by the higher mathematics. The devotees get to think that all human knowledge centres in their peculiar science, and the cognate mysteries and exquisite scientific manipulations of heraldry, and they may be heard talking with compassionate contempt of some one so grossly ignorant as not to know a bar-dexter from a bend-sinister, or who asks what is meant by a cross potent quadrate party per pale. These are generally great readers-reading is absolutely necessary for their pursuit ; but they have a faculty of going over literary ground, picking up the proper names, and carrying them away, unconscious of anything else, as pointers go over stubble fields and raise the partridges, without taking any heed to the valuable examples of cryptogamic botany or palæozoic entomology they may have trodden over. We knew a writer on logic and metaphysics who was as much astonished as gratified by an eminent genealogical antiquary's ex

pression of interest in a discovery which his last book contained. The philosopher thought his views on the quantification of the predicate or on bifurcate analysis had at least been appreciated, but the discovery lay in the name of a person who, according to the previously imperfect science of the genealogist, ought not to have existed then and there, being referred to in a letter from Spinoza, cited in defence of certain views upon the absolute.

The votaries of this pursuit become powers in the world of rank and birth, from the influence they are able to bring upon questions of succession and inheritance. Thus they are, like all great influences, courted and feared. Their ministry is often desired, sometimes necessary; but it is received with misgiving and awe, since, like the demons of old summoned by incantation, they may destroy the audacious mortal who demands their services. The most sagacious and sceptical men are apt to be mildly susceptible to conviction in the matter of their own pedigrees, and, a little conscious of their weakness, they shrink from letting the sacred tree be handled by relentless and unsympathising adepts. We could point to one of these intellectual tyrants, who, when he quarrels with any man, threatens to "bastardise" him, or to find the bend - sinister somewhere in his ancestry; and his experience in long genealogies makes him feel assured, in the general case, of finding what he seeks if he go far enough back for it.

The next volume we lay hand on is manifestly edited by an Ecclesiologist, or votary of a recent addition to the constituted ologies, which has come into existence as the joint offspring of the revival of Gothic architecture and the study of primi

tive-church theology. Through this dim religious light he views all the things in heaven and earth that are dealt with in his philosophy. His notes are profusely decorated with a rich array of rood screens, finial crockets, lavatories, aumbries, lecterns, lych sheds, albs, stoups, sedilia, credence tables, pixes, hagioscopes, and squenches. It is evident that he keeps a bestiary, or record of his experiences in bestiology, otherwise called bestial eikonography; and if he be requested to give a more explicit definition of the article, he will perhaps inform you that it is a record of the types of the ecclesiological symbolisation of beasts. If you prevail on him to exhibit to you this solemn record, which he will open with befitting reverence, the faintest suspicion of a smile curling on your lip will suffuse him with a lively sorrow for your lost condition, mixed with righteous indignation towards the irreverent folly whereof you have been guilty. He finds a great deal beyond sermons in stones, and can point out to you a certain piece of rather confused-looking architecture, which he terms a symbolical epitome of all knowledge, human and divine-an cikonographic encyclopedia.

If we desire an antidote to all this, we may find it in the editor in true blue who so largely refers to the Book of the Universal Kirk, The Hynd Let Loose, The Cloud of Witnesses, Naphtali, and Faithful Testimony-Bearing Exemplified, and is great in his observations on the Auchinshiach Testimony, and the Sanquhar Declaration. But we must have done with this-time is up, and the reader is tired, so that the half-dozen volumes or so in which some morsels were marked off for quotation and comment must go back to their shelves.

WHY indeed should not science be social? There are social enjoy ments and entertainments of all kinds; social evils, social clubs, and social pic-nics. The days for solitude are gone. The hermits of secluded study and contemplation are no more. And so science herself gladly forsakes the cold lonely cell of Friar Bacon, puts out the midnight lamp, eschews the dim light of oil, takes to the fierce blaze of gas, and pursues knowledge, not under difficulties, but amid the fascination and delight of a full-dress soirée. In these advanced days, science has thus happily extended her sphere far beyond the limits of the dry intellect. There is fortunately a science and a corresponding art of dining and good eating. Ladies, too, nowadays, we believe, rejoice in their own special sciences; the science of dress, the science of address, laws of etiquette, courts of love, and tactics of war; all of which now form, we understand, important departments in the scientific congresses which have lately, in provincial cities, beguiled these autumn months.

Men of science, too, it is found, like other mortals, have their own peculiar weaknesses, among which not the least amiable is the love of being wondered at. Intellect has its gala-days, when it likes to disport itself in sunshine, and to bask in smiles. And if knowledge have cost severe labour, it is hard to deny to it all reward of recreation, all the delight of praise, and that highest meed, the worship of beauty. It is found, it would seem, a conquest not wholly unworthy of an ambitious mind, when youth, perchance, is fading, and snowy locks gather round the brow, to gain the willing ear of the fairest, and to win, as a victory of science, hearts cold to warmer wooing. A well-filled lecture-room greeting a teacher with loud applause, glittering with lights

al giorno; a thousand persons on the tip-toe of mental expectancy, each determined for once to indulge the thirst for knowledge even to excess these are among the rewards and the delights of modern scientific and social congresses. Few inventions of recent days, prolific in expedients for the people, have been more happy in contrivance, or attained greater success, than these itinerant social and scientific performances. In times of yore, a good king is said to have desired to see a chicken in the pot of every poor man's cottage, and in more recent days, the cry was heard, cheap law brought to the door and domestic hearth of every Englishman in the land. And now it must, we presume, be deemed no slight boon, that men have not to dig deep after knowledge, but that philosophy is found afloat upon the surface of society, and that social science may come even to the humblest of homes and the simplest of hearts. Philosophy, indeed, at all ages of the world, seems to have had its tendencies towards the peripatetic. And surely a man of science in these our days, accustomed during long dreary months to London residence and routine, with little, it may be, save the light of knowledge to cheer him through dark winter nights, must find it a refresher to get abroad into the free air and the green fields, to "ventilate" his intellect and renew his youth. It is then, as we have said, a most happy contrivance, this holding of congresses, social, scientific, and philanthropic, during what would otherwise be the dead season, sometimes called irreverently the silly season. This carrying about, as it were, in a travelling caravan, a few select lions, willing and able to roar upon all needful occasion, with a clever manager or two to get up the thunder, is one of the striking phenomena, and now forms, indeed, an inherent part in the established in

stitutions of the nineteenth century. There have been written and published such works as The Physiology of Evening Parties -The History of Snobs, by One of Themselves; and a witty contemporary is accustomed to give to its readers, in digest, The Essence of Parliament. Can no one, we would ask, attempt “The Physiology of the Dublin Congress of Social Science," or extract the "Essence of the Manchester British Association?"

These remarks have been suggested by the meeting of the "National Association for the Promotion of Social Science," recently held in Dublin. The general objects of this society, as of others kindred in design, are at any rate praiseworthy. The following statement, issued on authority, though not in the best of English, will in few words indicate the scope and direction of the Dublin proceedings:-" The Association is established to aid the development of Social Science, and to guide the public mind to the best practical means of promoting the amendment of the Law, the Advancement of Education, the Prevention and Repression of Crime, the Reformation of Criminals, the adoption of Sanitory Regulations, and the diffusion of sound principles on all questions of Social Economy. The Association aims to bring together the various societies and individuals who are engaged or interested in furthering these objects; and, without trenching upon independent exertions, seeks to elicit by discussion the real elements of truth, to clear up doubts, to harmonise discordant opinions, and to afford a common ground for the interchange of trustworthy information on the great social problems of the day."

On reading this promising programme, which was found in Dublin practically to embrace all conceivable topics from Scotch marriages to Irish salmon fisheries, from patents to small-pox and paperhangings-we felt at once persuaded that the progress of the human race was henceforward adequately

provided for. We might previously have feared too free an influx of briefless barristers eager for talk; we might at first sight have dreaded the havoc easily effected by certain constitution-mongers under the guise of law - reformers - men of that ready facility which, at a moment's notice, could aptly frame a Magna Charta for any nation upon earth.

We might have imagined a busy brood of small active men of isolated detail to patch and tinker at law and legislation-men, too, rough and ready to kill or curemen, moreover, of a certain science, to apply the rule of thumb, and square down the picturesque ruggedness of time-hallowed precedent into prim precision-or, lastly, in the capital of Ireland especially, we might have dreaded the onslaught of reformers more fiery in mettle, like O'Connell of old, who drove his coach and four through all the clauses of an Act of Parliament. We soon, however, discovered that we had taken the whole affair much too seriously. At the opening meeting in Dublin, the general secretary rose and addressed fifteen hundred professors and disciples of Social Science as follows:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, the first proceeding on these occasions is always to announce the number of tickets that have been sold, and I am happy to be able to say that on this occasion 285 members and 1386 associates, being a total of 1671 persons, have already taken tickets,(applause)." "One thousand six hundred and seventy-one persons" come expressly, in the words of the programme, "to aid the development of Social Science"! This surely, in itself, we said, must be deemed, at all events, a great, a gigantic fact. Upwards of fifteen hundred people seeking "to elicit by discussion the real elements of truth"! This, assuredly, was of itself a phenomenon in social and intellectual science, which far transcended our most sanguine expectations. Again we turned to the programme for further information. Two hundred and eightyfive members. What, we asked, are

the mental or social qualifications for membership? "Any person," say the rules, "becomes a Member of the Association by subscribing One Guinea annually." One thousand three hundred and eighty-six associates. What, we inquired, is needful to graduate as an associate "Any person becomes an Associate for a year by a payment of Ten Shillings. Every Associate is entitled to attend all the meetings." Very good-this is clear enough. Ladies and gentlemen, let us proceed to business. The Dublin meeting for "the development of Social Science" being thus happily constituted on so social and equal a basis, let its 285 members and 1386 associates forthwith, in the emphatic words of the programme, set themselves "to elicit by discussion the real elements of truth, to clear up doubts, to harmonise discordant opinions, and to afford a common ground for the interchange of trustworthy information on the great social problems of the day"! The progress of the human race, we repeat, is henceforth adequately provided for.

Lord Brougham, of genius discursive, and eloquence alluring, achieved in his inaugural address a feat often before attempted, but generally attended with less success than in his facile hands:-the compromise between the profound, the popular, the superficial; the interweaving of past history with future prophecy; the blending of reason with imagination, of fact with fiction. The capital of Ireland-the land of Burke, Grattan, and Plunkett might well receive with enthusiasm the illustrious President - orator and statesman-himself the living type of the pretended science of sociology" in profession and pursuits the signal representative of the sciolist and the doctrinaire. Who, even in that island of prescriptive injuries, can denounce a national grievance in words more withering, or bring to its relief greater ingenuity or resource? Who can make a dreary Act of Parliament sparkle with the brilliancy of

a romance, render dry law a positive luxury, and sport with the drudgery of legislation as if a mere pleasing pastime? Who can so well load a learned disquisition with encyclopædic lore? Who can better paint with epithet-coloured eloquence? Who can string together precedents in more formidable array, or bring to debated topics the hard-won experience of a longer life? What man, in short, save Brougham, throughout this wide world, can fulfil to utmost perfection all the expectations and demands of "social science"-a science grandiloquent in promise-a science which with vagrant steps overruns the illimitable regions of universal knowledge, still craving for new worlds to conquer and possess—a science so expressly social, so little given to slow induction, that henceforth the solution for every difficulty will be sought, not in the solitary study secluded to meditation, but in the crowded arena for the conflict of profuse public talk.

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It must be admitted that the opening address of the noble and learned President, two hours and more in duration, ranging from John o' Groat's to the Equator, embracing nationalities cognate and diverse, peoples oppressed and enfranchised, rights recognised or still denied, was enough to satisfy appetites the most omniverous, and to tax digestions the most vigorous. Of the genius of Brougham may we truly say, age cannot wither it, nor custom stale its infinite variety;" ever borne on the wing of high invention, does it "find out new heaven, new earth." It is not strange that crowds should still flock to hear him. Dashing boldness, mental enterprise running riot, eloquent denunciation, are qualities in an orator which reconcile audiences even more critical than social science students to possible inaccuracies of fact and fallacies in argument.

When a man like Brougham rises to speak, crowned by the victories won in many a hard-fought battle