stop to the sports; and if they do the public will not strongly disapprove, though Dublin will thereby lose one of its few amusements. But, even if not wholly forbidden, it seems certain that they will be placed under very much more stringent restrictions than hitherto. In particular it seems very desirable that every person who partakes in the management of the sports should be amenable to College discipline. All this will, no doubt, get settled in time; but meanwhile there has been great mischief and sore scandal, and the continuance of the sports is brought into very serious peril. Trinity Term does not end until the 7th of July, so we have still some days before Long Vacation. I do not know whether it will be worth while writing to you before next term, but if any interesting changes should meanwhile occur in our "skin" or our "spots," I shall not fail to let you know. TORONTO UNIVERSITY, June 3rd. THE building, in which the business of this institution and of University College, Toronto, is conducted, is unusually fine for a colonial, or even an imperial structure. It is situated in a splendid park of more than 100 acres, and approached by beautiful avenues of considerable length, planted with trees on either side. The description given of it by Mr. Black, in his "Green Pastures and Piccadilly," is by no means inappropriate : "There was one point about Toronto which they did most honestly and warmly admire, and that was the Norman-Gothic University. To tell the truth, we had not seen much that was striking in the way of architecture since we crossed the Atlantic ; but the simple grace and beauty of this grey stone building wholly charmed these careless travellers; and again and again they spoke of it in after days when our eyes could get nothing to rest upon but tawdry brick and discoloured wood." This is not a Government structure; neither the Legislature nor the people gave one cent towards the erection of the edifice, the finishing of the interior, or the purchase of the park. The building was erected, and the library, museum, and lecture room equipped, from the sale of the lands granted originally by his Majesty George III., for the benefit of education in Upper Canada, to the U.E. (United Empire) Memorialists, who first settled in this province. Subsequently these lands were granted, through the advocacy of Archdeacon Strachan (afterwards first Bishop of Toronto, and also first President of King's College, Toronto), by his Majesty George IV., for the foundation of a University at York, now Toronto. But both Government and Legislature have often interfered with this University, and, in the majority of instances, beneficially. At present the former are by statute trustees of the property, appoint the President and other officials of the University College, and exercise control over the statutes enacted by the Council and Senate; whilst, as early as 1837, the latter altered the provisions of the Royal Charter, under which the University of King's College, York, was organised, subsequently repealed the Act of 1837, establishing in 1850 a University of Toronto in lieu of the University of King's College, and finally, in 1853, divided the institution into two-the University of Toronto, and University College, Toronto, which, it was intended, should be after the model of similar establishments in London, England. From the balance of the purchase of these lands remaining after the erection of the building, the finishing of the interior, and the previous purchase of the park, both the University and College are supported; and so anxious have been the officials that the people at large should derive the benefit of the endowment, that the following scale of fees has been adopted: UNIVERSITY.-For Matriculation, 5 dollars (or about twenty shillings sterling); for each examination after matriculation, 2 dollars; for charge of Faculty, 4 dollars; for admission ad eundem statum, 6 dollars; for the first degree in University, 6 dollars; for every subsequent degree, 8 dollars; for admission ad eundem gradum, 10 dollars. COLLEGE. For admission as a Matriculated Student to all the required lectures, 10 dollars (or about 21. sterling) per academic year. In addition to this unprecedented lowness of fees, forty-five scholarships, of the value each of about 120.00 dollars, are annually offered for competition. Of the course of examination required in the University, and of study pursued in the College, it is sufficient at present to state that it is throughout divided into Pass and Honour subjects; and that, at the final examination for B.A., there are five departments of honour, or triposes, viz.: Classics (including Greek and Latin), Mathematics, Modern Languages (including English, French, German, and Italian), Natural Sciences (including Chemistry, Zoology and Botany, Mineralogy, and Geology), and Metaphysics and Ethics; whilst Oriental languages (including Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac) constitute an Optional Department, and may be accepted as an alternative for French and German. Although the charter was given in 1827, the establishment was not opened for the admission of students until 1843, when His Excellency Sir Charles Bagot was Chancellor, and Rev. John M'Caul, LL.D., was Vice-President, by whom the arrangements were made, and the curricula were prepared. That for Arts was for a three years' course previously to taking the degree of B.A. This remained until 1853, when the Faculties of Medicine and Law were abolished as parts of University instruction, in addition to that of Divinity, which was removed in 1850. Then the curriculum for undergraduates in Arts was extended to four years, at which it still remains. It may be useful, to prevent useless applications, to state that this University confers no honorary degrees. All such distinctions are to be acquired only by proficiency tested by examination. This first contribution being occupied with explanatory details, I hope to write further to convey a more interior picture of our life and aims here. I retain an old affection for your Magazine, as it was originated in my time, and I was familiar with the original editors. CURRENT LITERATURE. Studies in Literature, 1789-1877. By Edward Dowden, LL.D., Professor of English Literature in the University of Dublin, author of "Shakspeare-His Mind and Art," "Poems," &c. London: C. Kegan Paul and Co., 1878. "Upon the whole, I have cared more to understand than to object; I have tried rather to interpret than to judge." So the author prefaces these Studies, and to this liberal principle of criticism he has faithfully adhered, taking broad and generous views of epochs of literature and the men that have made or filled them. These views are expressed in simple, vigorous, and at times even eloquent language. In the first essay Professor Dowden examines into the chief tendencies of the literature of this century, and defines them as (1) Revolutionary or Democratic Movement, (2) Scientific Movement, (3) Medieval Revival, (4) Transcendental Movement; and proceeds to further analyse the first of these movements and its effects on literature. The second and third essays are devoted respectively to the "Transcendental Movement and Literature" and the "Scientific Movement and Literature." To these the author had intended to add a fourth on the "Mediæval Revival," but he abandoned the idea, concluding that he could not do justice to the subject within the brief limits of an essay. This is to be regretted, as it detracts somewhat from the completeness of the work, unless he contemplates treating of the Mediaval We ac "If ever our democratic age be organised, the organisation will be not for a class but for the entire society for workman as well as capitalist, for peasant as well as proprietor, for woman as well as man; and such a complex organisation cannot be the product of one day, nor of one century. cept courageously the rudeness of our vast industrial civilisation. The results of that other movement also, the scientific, which Mr. Ruskin passionately reproaches or regards with smiling disdain, we accept with gratitude. And yet. were these our sole sources of hope, to some of us the burden of life would seem to be hardly worth taking up. Accumulated materials, whether materials for food, fire, and clothing, or materials of knowledge to feed the intellect, do not satisfy the soul. Are we tempted to enter the fierce struggle for material success? Are we tempted to forfeit our highest powers in the mere collection and systematising of knowledge? Let us pause; if our utmost ambition were gratified, how barren a failure would be such success? Nay, even in duties, in the items of a laborious morality, we may cease to possess that life which is also light and incommunicable peace. Surrounded with possessions of wealth, of state, of splendour, or of culture, of erudition, of knowledge, or even of the dutiful works of a servant who is not a son, the inmost self may be poor, shrunken, starved, miserable, dead. What shall it profit a man though he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? “And what shall it profit an age, a generation of men, if it lose its own soul? We accept joyfully the facts of material progress. Tons of iron, tons of coal, corn, and wine, cotton and hemp, firkins of the best butter, barrels of salted pork; let these have their praises, and be chanted in the hymns of our poets of democracy. Knowledge about the brains of an ape, knowledge about the coprolites of an extinct brute, the dust of stars, the spawn of frogs, the vibrations of a nerve; to such knowledge we cry hail, and give it joyous welcome. Then, none the less, we ask, 'But the soul-what of it? What of the most divine portion of the life of a man, and of a society of men?' To these essays succeed a study on "The Prose Works of Wordsworth," one on "Walter Savage Landor," distinguished for the even justice with which the balance is held between the greatness of the man and his defects; another on "Mr. Tennyson and Mr. Browning," in which the antitheses between the two are well worked out. But to our thinking the finest essays in the book are those on George Eliot and her work, in which Dr. Dowden has brought both head and heart to his task. Of French writers, Lammenais, Edgar Quinet, and Victor Hugo are the chief ones selected. There is also an interesting study of the minor writers of verse of the period 1830-1877, as representing the various features of the age. The concluding essay is devoted to the Poetry of Democracy, with which is coupled the name of Walt Whitman. Whitman's work has met with much misrepresentation and ridicule from English, and perhaps even more from American critics. Dr. Dowden interprets him in a spirit of candour and fairness, and of large tolerance of his freedom of speech, regarding it as the natural reaction from the unhealthy asceticism of the past. He makes us feel the freedom and lovingness and simple greatness of the man who is the outcome and truest representative of his age and nation, the "representative in art of American democracy." "He delights in men, and neither approaches deferentially those who are above him, nor condescendingly gazes upon those who are beneath. He is the comrade of every man, high and low. His admiration of a strong, healthy, and beautiful body, or a strong, healthy, and beautiful soul, is great when he sees it in a statesman or a savant; it is precisely as great when he sees it in the ploughman or the smith. Every variety of race and nation, every condition in society, every degree of culture, every season of human life, is accepted by Whitman as admirable and best, each in its own place. Working men of every name-all who engage in field-work, all who toil upon the sea, the city artisan, the woodsman and the trapper, fill him with pleasure by their presence; and that they are interesting to him not in a general way of theory or doctrine (a piece of the abstract democratic creed), but in the way of close, vital human sympathy, appears from the power he possesses of bringing before us with strange precision, vividness and nearness in a few decisive strokes the essential characteristics of their respective modes of living. If the strong, full-grown working man wants a lover and comrade, he will think Walt Whitman especially made for him. If the young man wants one, he will think him especially the poet of young men. Yet a rarer and finer spell than that of the lusty vitality of youth, or the trained activity of manhood, is exercised over the poet by the beautiful repose or unsubdued energy of old age." A few other writers are briefly noticed, as being "indigenous growths of the New World in American literature. Among these we look in vain for the name of Thoreau. Surely he too may be counted worthy to rank among the "indigenous growths of American literature." Studies in Spectrum Analysis. By J. Norman Lockyer, F.R.S. Second edition. London: C. Kegan, Paul, and Co. 1878. This is in some respects a most fascinating, in others a most provoking, book. It is to be inferred from the well-known name on the title page that the author can, when he choses, express himself with the utmost lucidity; and this is the case during the first thirty or forty pages of the book-indeed, many pages can be regarded as models of scientific exposition, especially in the way in which it is put in the reader's own power to perform a simple experiment by the aid of a diagram (p. 13). But afterwards, except when some point or difficulty seems to attract the author's attention, we should imagine that it had been written to his dictation, when he would rather have been otherwise employed. It apparently consists of short extracts from lecture note books, which are accurate and to the point, because the author is a scientific man, but are neither pleasantly written nor easily to be understood. Occasionally, as if remembering that he is writing for the general public, the author introduces what he has got to say with some phrase, which may cheer, he hopes, the despondent reader along. For instance, on page 136, a sentence runs: "It is well to see if one can group facts together. That is the first business of a man of science," and there follows a classification of the behaviour of substances of different specific gravity under the spectroscope. Does one not seem to hear an acrobat or a rope walker come forward on the boards and say, "It is the business of an acrobat to fly through the air," or of a tight rope walker to walk on the tight rope, and then to proceed to do so. Again, on page 139, the author probably thinks that a little talk about what he is talking about will be of service, and so he introduces a theory with the interesting but somewhat puzzling dictum that he is afraid that not to say what he is going to say would be scientific cowardice. But whenever the author does not try to appeal to our somewhat wellworn sense of what it is a scientific man's vocation to do, or suggest such ideas as that there is a science of running away as well as of fighting, when he feels called upon to really grapple with the difficulties of exposition, the result is a conviction on the reader's part that he is amongst most fascinating discoveries and immeasurable possibilities of future discoveries. And, indeed, although the reader may not be able to |