and English wit. It is, indeed, one of the most consoling traits of such meetings, in the absence for the most part of anything amounting to positive intellectual exercise or enjoyment, to find what merriment may grow out of the mere blunders of justices' justice, and the inveterate dulness usually incident to topics touching mere parish business. We feel, indeed, that we owed something akin to gratitude to the wellmeaning magistrate who committed a boy, caught in the use of bad language towards a donkey, to a juvenile reformatory for the term of two years. To gain a laugh was in Dublin deemed so great a boon, that even the most forlorn of jokes, taken from the province of social science, were sometimes perpetrated with the best possible effect, and much, of course, to the relief of the tedium of the proceedings. What a godsend, for example, after long, windy, and washy papers on temperance, was it to find a member from the land of whisky rising in his place to exculpate the aspersed name of his countrymen, on the score that the Irish could never have suffered from the stigma of drunkenness had they not previously established an excellent character for temperance! In the land sacred likewise to the potato was discussed with renewed point and additional relish the most vapid of all panaceas for the ills to which flesh is heir to-vegetarian diet. In the capital of Ireland, too, were very fitly debated tenants' rights, and labourers' cottages and cabins, and encumbered estates, and sectarian, secular, and mixed education, with the zeal, if not the rancour, engendered by the immediate pressure of local interests. We are glad, however, to be able to assure readers, that even during the most critical moments in these patriotic and stormy debates the existence of "the Union" was not thrown into jeopardy. There appeared to be indeed, at least on one point, a universal concurrence of opinion, that Ireland had, for some few years past, entered on an unexampled

career of prosperity, with possibly just here and there a national grievance remaining, for which we doubt not all true-bred Irishmen are devoutly thankful, otherwise the indignant patriot were left without vocation. This, indeed, were a consummation devoutly to be dreaded, the interests of Social Science notwithstanding.

The meeting in Dublin, we believe, was considered a great success. How indeed could it be otherwise? His Excellency the Lord-Lieutenant, as habitual with this amiable nobleman, smiled blandly upon science, opened the Castle for "the members and associates of the Association, ladies as well as gentlemen," refreshments ad libitum, music more crashing and dashing than even Irish oratory. Success, we say, was inevitable. The printed programme states that for "Saturday the business of the departments will close at 1 o'clock," being a halfholiday. Honorary degrees were then conferred in Trinity College at 1.30 P.M.; at 3 P.M. followed a special promenade in the Zoological Gardens, at which three bands and the Lord-Lieutenant assisted; at 5 the lions and cubs were fed as usual, and at 8 the labours of the "half-holiday" were pleasantly brought to a close by a select soiree at the Royal Irish Academy. Science may, we think, well feel proud of such a half-day's labour. The resources of Ireland were found indeed great, and the whole island was virgin soil to the ardent souls of the professors. Irishmen, it is true, as Sheridan and Goldsmith, in long years gone by, had made social science, in some of its more alluring departments at all events, their darling recreation, and accordingly the Vicar of Wakefield was claimed by the present Attorney-General as a profound and far-seeing book, which had indeed anticipated almost every one of the discoveries of modern days! Ireland, however, as we have said, in its emerald fields and renowned tracts of bog, still presented to the hopeful and aspiring sons and

daughters of science a territory tempting to still more extended labours. On a given day, four excursions started, each on its several way, upon the grand mission of exploration and reclamation. Irish round towers and the Irish convict system-Powerscourt Waterfall and Protestant orphan unions-leadmines, churches, and cold collations, shared the labours of a most unpropitious day; not forgetting a projected visit to the "Devil's Glen," in the heart of which we rejoice to learn it is yet hoped that the Association, with the sanction of the genius loci, may succeed in erecting a juvenile reformatory. The Dublin meeting, we repeat, was an undeniable success. We have seen that dreary tables of statistics were enlivened by draughts of sparkling champagne-that famine was discussed from afar under the shelter and the sunshine of the best of cheer that the deshabille toilette of the morning's labours was closely followed by the full dress of the dazzling soiree that thus days of strife, and hours devoted to misery, found quick relief in pleasure, and the science which pursued with terrible earnestness a phantom future, was happily, thanks to local secretaries, allied to arts which secured the most substantial of present enjoyments. The martyrs of science, how would they have desired to see these days!

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"Final causes," we believe, have, in the present advanced stage of knowledge, fallen to a discount. Yet, bringing our criticism to a close, it may not be amiss for just one moment to inquire what are the final causes," what the real purport and intent of these congresses, associations, and institutes, which, especially during autumn months, disport themselves so gaily? Let us assume that the effect upon the public mind is in many ways salutary and good. It has happily not been reserved for us in these days to write in the "praise of knowledge." The work has been already well done by other hands. The people of this country are now

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taught by the experience of every hour how deep is the debt of gratitude which each one of us owes to science, the beneficent servant and helpmate and instructor of man. We need not, moreover, recount how many and how pure are the delights which the student of nature derives from the loving prosecution of his labours. "A mind," says Sir John Herschel, which has once imbibed a taste for scientific inquiry, and has learnt the habit of applying its principles readily to the cases which occur, has within itself an inexhaustible source of pure and exciting contemplation. Accustomed to trace the operation of general causes, and the exemplification of general laws, in circumstances where the uninformed and uninquiring eye perceives neither novelty nor beauty, he walks in the midst of wonders; every object which falls in his way elucidates some principle, affords some instruction, and impresses him with a sense of harmony and order." Let us in charity suppose that this quiet truthloving spirit, which we hold in profoundest reverence, is not wholly foreign to the ostentatious jubilees which have provoked our ridicule.

The charity which covers a multitude of sins, hopeth all things. Yet we must avow that in these monster gatherings, apparently got together for the glorification of a few master minds, who might fitly despise popularity so cheap and often so vulgar, we see little of the retiring modesty which is supposed to crown the philosophic mind. In the fulsome flattery upon these occasions too frequently bestowed by presidents and professors, the one upon the other, enough to make, one would think, the blush of shame rise in the cheek of insulted humanity, we must say that we distinguish but little of that humility which bowed the head of the great Newton when he said, "I have been but a child upon the sea-shore, gathering a pebble and a shell from the vast ocean of truth which lies still undiscovered before me." Is it that our modern men of science

WHEN we were asked to join the Archdeacon's party on the banks of the Gare-Loch, after the brief and bright (though damp) experience of the Highlands, recorded on a former occasion,* it may be easily supposed that my friend Kate and myself eagerly accepted the invitation. After the ordinary conventionalities of life, there is something more charming than I can describe in that free, unfettered, half-Highland, half-seaside life which one lives in such a place. I can scarcely say what motive brought the Archdeacon to Knocktarlitie. I believe he had just glimpsed it in a former tour, and, charmed by the look of quiet upon everything in that lovely locality, thought of the place again when, worn out by the year's labour, he and Mrs Archdeacon consulted where to go in September. A dig nitary of the Church does not, of course, shoot, especially not when he becomes stout and advances in life; and as our excellent friend is a literary man, and has always some work of that description in hand to occupy him, he does not care for the vulgar amusements without which other gentlemen do not seem to find existence possible. He is the very man to make a country residence delightful. The very sound of his laugh is enough to dispel the clouds from a less cheerful temper. The sound of that light step, which (having such a weight to carry) he naturally prides himself a little upon, stirs a whole house into alertness and pleasant looks. On the whole, he is what may safely be called a dear man, full of jokes and lively allusions, but in the pulpit as stately and serious as becomes an ecclesiastical dignitary,

and such a preacher as one rarely hears. No one who knows him can wonder at his great popularity; and if the right party were in power, and the bestowal of bishoprics was in proper hands, we all know who would wear the first vacant apron. But, of course, with a judge so advanced in spiritual discrimination as Lord Palmerston, nothing but Low Church will do; and I should not wish the dear Archdeacon to accept preferment through such a channel.

I am not sure that the regular current of Highland tourists know much about the Gare-Loch. I don't think they do, in fact. It is too near the ordinary world to catch the eye of the mere traveller, who thinks nothing of a place unless it is a few hundred miles off, and rather difficult of approach. On the contrary, anybody from Glasgow can reach Knocktarlitie in a couple of hours can plunge into the sweetest quiet, the deepest wealth of foliage, a paradise of wood and water, at the very smallest cost of money and trouble; and consequently, as a matter of course, people think lightly of the Elysium that lies so easily at hand. Glasgow persons frequent the place in tolerable numbers, it is true; and as there is no show in it, no marine parade, not a single shop, I imagine these visitors must be devoured with ennui; but for people escaping from the world - people tired out with London life, or sick of work and noise in whatever quarter it may be carried on, nothing can surpass this tender tranquillity. The hill-side opposite, though its highest slopes are purple with heather, might be clad with vines, for anything one can say

against it, when the sun shines on its heights, so soft is that gentle acclivity. Unfortunately the mists are only too ready to descend, and prove beyond controversy that this is not a region of wine and oil; but wherever a burn rushes down the steep (and they come in multitudes), the freshest foliage, heavy and rich and full, tracks the stream up to its sources, and clings about all the eccentricities of its way. Such plane-trees! patriarchal sycamores clustering in deepest umbrage!

such laurels ! such crowds of graceful ash such lofty limes, flinging down tremulous floods of verdure to their veiled feet! My enthusiasm may be smiled at, probably; but I do not deny that I am enthusiastic. At the entrance of the loch, the great artist, Nature, making her first sketch and study for the world of opening lochs farther down the Clyde, distinguished the spot by a repetition of sweet bays and beatific summer headlands, green to the water's edge; and, at the upper end, having made further progress with that splendid network of mountain and lake, throws across the gentle basin a noble line of hills, truly belonging to Loch Long, which is hidden yonder under their shadow, but in still more picturesque possession abiding here, giving a charm to the landscape which is quite indescribable. The wonderful thing seems to be that the sun himself never exhausts those hills. Every hour of his shining you see him busy about them, curiously investigating the countless knolls and hollows far up and near the sky, throwing now and then a surprised and sudden gleam upon some nook he has never fairly explored before, and intensifying the light upon it so that every spectator shares his sweet wonder, triumph, and joy. Now it is a crag, which shows stern and splendid under the wonderful flash of sudden perception-now a flush of heather rising forth into the light-now a slope of the most wonderful colour suddenly appearing with Pre-Raphaelite minuteness

from amid a world of other slopes, among which, a moment before, it was undistinguishable. This is the Gare-Loch. If it did not rain—if it were not raining half the time-it would be too much like paradise.

And often the rain is very bearable. Whenever it clears off, the atmosphere is delicious. But when it settles down-oh me !-let me not recall that persistent, pertinacious, soft, continual dropping. We are not in paradise after all-nobody ever passes along the heavy roadno good Samaritan comes to callone cannot go out-one quarrels with one's best friend inside-one gradually grows into a slow desperation beyond the reach of hope; and the laurels gleam their wet boughs at you, and the long branches of the ash sway to and fro, and the clusters of the plane-trees nod together in a kind of dewy triumph. You think you will be in time for all the autumnal colours, I suppose, because it is September-that is why the green, green leaves, green as though it were June, whisper and nod at you with malicious triumph through the steady rain.

The

This, however, has nothing to do with the Archdeacon's party. The Archdeacon's house is a large yellow-coloured house, with a curious door, approached by two sweeps of staircase, like a Scotch pulpit. A pretty house, on the whole. drawing-room has a handsome bow, with three windows commanding everything but the hills, where we used to sit in dumb despair, one in each window, watching the rain, but where we had abundance of talk and cheer to make up. is called "The Lodge ;" anybody who is interested will easily be able to identify it. Here we lived in primitive withdrawal from the vulgar world. In the morning the postman came with a whistle, calling forth a flight of maid-servants to receive the letters; and at noon he came back, with a horn, to receive the communications which we sent out of Arcadia. Vulgar provisions, which one orders from vulgar shops

This house