The conclusion of this article is devoted | O'Trigger, than every one of Miss Austen's to a review of “Jane Eyre,” and led to the young divines to all his reverend brethren. correspondence between Miss Bronte and And almost all this is done by touches so Mr. Lewes which will be found in the me- delicate that they elude analysis, that they moir of her life. In these letters it is ap- know them to exist only by the general efdefy the powers of description, and that we parent that Mr. Lewes wishes Miss Brontè fect to which they have contributed." to read and to enjoy Miss Austen's works, as he does himself. Mr. Lewes is disappointed, and felt, doubtless, what all true lovers of Jane Austen have experienced, a surprise to find how obtuse otherwise clever people sometimes are. In this instance, however, we think Mr. Lewes expected what was impossible. Charlotte Brontè could not harmonize with Jane Austen. The luminous and familiar star which comes forth into the quiet evening sky when the sun sets amid the amber light of an autumn evening, and the comet which started into sight unheralded and unnamed, and flamed across the midnight sky, have no affinity, except in the Divine Mind, whence both originate. The notice of Miss Austen, by Macaulay, to which Mr. Lewes alludes, must be, we presume, the passage which occurs in Macaulay's article on Madame D'Arblay, in the Edinburgh Review, for January, 1843. We do not find the phrase "prose Shakspeare," but the meaning is the same; we give the passage as it stands before us :— 66 in the Quarterly Review, 1821, sums up his very little There are but few descriptions of scenery in her novels. The figures of the piece are her care; and if she draws in a tree, a hill, ground. This fact did not arise from any or a manor-house, it is always in the backwant of appreciation for the glories or the beauties of the outward creation, for we Shakspeare has neither equal nor sec- know that the pencil was as often in her ond; but among writers who, in the point hand as the pen. It was that unity of purwe have noticed, have approached nearest pose, ever present to her mind, which never the manner of the great master, we have no allowed her to swerve from the actual into hesitation in placing Jane Austen, as a wo- the ideal, nor even to yield to tempting deman of whom England is justly proud. She has given us a multitude of characters, all, scriptions of Nature which might be near, in a certain sense, commonplace, all such as and yet aside from the main object of her we meet every day. Yet they are all as per- narrative. Her creations are living people, fectly discriminated from each other as if not masks behind which the author solilothey were the most eccentric of human be- quizes or lectures. These novels are imperings. There are, for example, four clergy-sonal; Miss Austen never herself appears; men, none of whom we should be surprised to find in any parsonage in the kingdom, Mr. Edward Ferrars, Mr. Henry Tilney, Mr. Edward Bertram, and Mr. Elton. They are all specimens of the upper part of the middle class. They have been all liberally educated. They all lie under the restraints of the same sacred profession. They are all young. They are all in love. Not any one of them has any hobby-horse, to use the phrase of Sterne. Not one has any ruling passion, such as we read in Pope. Who would not have expected them to be insipid likenesses of each other? No such thing. Harpagon is not more unlike Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more unlike Sir Lucius and if she ever had a lover, we cannot decide whom he resembled among the many masculine portraits she has drawn. Very much has been said in her praise, and we, in this brief article, have summoned together witnesses to the extent of her powers, which are fit and not few. Yet we are aware that to a class of readers Miss Austen's novels must ever remain sealed books. So be it. While the English language is read, the world will always be provided with souls who can enjoy the rare excellence of that rich legacy left to them by her genius. Once in our lifetime we spent three deli- | of "Jane," and to be brought so near the cious days in the Isle of Wight, and then actual in her daily life. Of his sister's fame crossed the water to Portsmouth. After as a writer the admiral spoke understandtaking a turn on the ramparts in memory of ingly, but reservedly. Fanny Price, and looking upon the harbor whence the Thrush went out, we drove over Portsdown Hill to visit the surviving member of that household which called Jane Austen their own. We had been preceded by a letter, introducing us to Admiral Austen as fervent admirers of his sister's genius, and were received by him with a gentle courtesy most winning to our heart. In the finely cut features of the brother, who retained at eighty years of age much of the early beauty of his youth, we fancied we must see a resemblance to his sister, of whom there exists no portrait. It was delightful to us to hear him speak We found the old admiral safely moored in that most delightful of havens, a quiet English country-home, with the beauty of Nature around the mansion, and the beauty of domestic love and happiness beneath its hospitable roof. There we spent a summer day, and the passing hours seemed like the pages over which we had often lingered, written by her hand whose influence had guided us to those she loved. That day with all its associations, has become a sacred memory, and links us to the sphere where dwells that soul whose gift of genius has rendered immortal the name of Jane Austen. 66 confined to men, or at least, not sought after by women. Accordingly on Saturday the Senatus met and passed a resolution to the effect that the issuing of the matriculation ticket and the class ticket to Miss Garrett was not sufficiently authorized; that this novel question raised ought to be deliberately considered and decided; that the opinion of other universities should be taken if thought expedient; and that in the meantime professors should be enjoined to defer allowing the attendance of this lady on the classes of the university." FEMALE MEDICAL Students.-We take the | of educating women in a college, and in those following statement from the Scotsman: A branches of education that have been generally young English lady, Miss Elizabeth Garrett, the daughter of a gentleman of independent fortune, who has educated herself highly in classics and in some of the physical sciences with a view to the study of medicine, visited St. Andrews during the summer, and intimated her desire to become a student in several of the classes during the winter. She received decided encouragement from some of the professors; and others were understood to say that they would offer no opposition to her becoming a student. Professor Ferrier, however, intimated his opposition with that candor which extorts the respect due to a A correspondent of a morning contemporary, trusty opponent as to a trusty friend. Relying alluding to this question, fairly meets the diffion the encouragement which she had received, culty, which none but women peculiarly conthis lady arrived at St. Andrews a few days ago, stituted could, we imagine, possibly get over: and on Wednesday last applied to the Rev. Mr. "The question which is now puzzling the SenaMacbean, Secretary of the University, for a tus at Aberdeen also came before the committee matriculation ticket, paid the usual fee, received of a metropolitan school of medicine where I am the ticket, and signed her name in the matricu- a teacher. It was settled by the Professor of lation book. Next day she presented her ticket | Anatomy, who said, 'I must decline to lecture to Dr. Heddle, the Professor of Chemistry, and on all parts which differ in the two sexes to a asked leave to attend his lectures. He stated mixed class of men and women.' We preferred that he had no personal objection, and gave her retaining the services of our excellent colleague a letter to Mr. Ireland, the Secretary of the to the adornment of our benches with the promUnited College, authorizing him to give her a ised bonnets. There is no doubt that this is the ticket for the chemistry class. On presenting real difficulty, and it cannot be got over till this letter and paying the class-fee, she, accord- women have energy enough to form a separate ing to the usual course, obtained the ticket. In class and teach themselves anatomy."-Press. the same way she obtained a ticket for Dr. Day's class of Anatomy and Physiology, he having no objections to her being a member of it, but, on the contrary, giving her a cordial welcome. Subsequently the professors seem to have become alarmed at the idea of being the first to take the lead, or rather to permit of its being taken, in regard to this so-called " "innovation ON THE SKIRTS OF ABSURDITY.—A lady (Mrs. Bedford Squeers) defends the present extravagant length of ladies' dresses by saying that it is a very old fashion, originally brought into vogue by NINON DE LONG CLOTHES.Punch. From The Spectator, 17 Jan. the masters of the country their obligation, THE BISHOPS OF THE CONFEDERATE as Christian men, so to arrange this instituCHURCH ON SLAVERY. tion as not to necessitate the violation of THE one earnest faith-many would call it those sacred relations which God has created a fanaticism—to which we have never ceased and which man cannot, consistently with to cling throughout the course of the great Christian duty, annul. The systems of labor and apparently fruitless war which is now which prevail in Europe, and which are, in devastating the continent of America, is the many respects, more severe than ours, are so conviction that, in it, final sentence has been arranged as to prevent all necessity for the passed by God on the most evil form of one separation of parents and children, and of of the most evil institutions with which civ-husbands and wives, and a very little care ilization has ever been cursed; but we have upon our part would rid the system, upon never pretended to foresee how the sentence which we are about to plant our national life, would be worked out,-whether by the reluc- of these un-Christian features. It belongs, tant instrumentality of degenerate freemen, especially to the Episcopal Church to urge a or the tardy repentance of the partisans of proper teaching upon this subject, for in her Slavery. Since it has once for all become fold and in her congregations are found a evident that slave labor and free labor can- very large proportion of the great slaveholdnot by the nature of things unite, that they ers of the country. We rejoice to be able shrink apart and spur their respective advo- to say that the public sentiment is rapidly cates into internecine war so soon as it is becoming sound upon this subject, and that attempted to mingle them, we have a right the Legislatures of several of the Confederate to conclude that Slavery is condemned, and States have already taken steps towards their is on the road to swift extinction. That has consummation. Hitherto have we been hinnow been definitively proved, and it seems dered by the pressure of abolitionism; now to us no weak credulity to accept it as in the that we have thrown off from us that hateful truest sense a divine judgment. But whether and infidel pestilence, we should prove to the great purpose shall be completed by the the world that we are faithful to our trust, spread of a nobler zeal at the North, or by and the Church should lead the hosts of the the growth of a new life at the South, we Lord in this work of justice and of mercy." should be very presumptuous to say. For No doubt this is to English ears very feeble the interests of the slave himself there can- half-truth; but if it were more, it would be not be a question that the last would be both wholly untrustworthy and insincere. As it the more wonderful and the more beneficent is, we may, perhaps, accept with caution the alternative, though it may well seem, look-evidence that a certain portion of Southern ing to the historic antecedents and chosen society is awaking to the poisonous charac66 corner-stone" of this confederation, one of those impossibilities which cease to be impossibilities only amidst the resources of the Divine Omnipotence. Yet, if we could trust the Confederate bishops to represent in any way the tone of society at the South, we should admit, and we should do so most joyfully, that the iron which has entered into their souls in what men choose to term this "lamentable" war, has worked great good in the heart of the Southern States. The bishops of the episcopal churches of Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia, have, apparently, issued a lengthened pastoral against the worst features of the "domestic institution," and call loudly for some reform. Here are their words: "It is likewise the duty of the Church to press upon ter of the institution on which the new Confederacy is founded, and is really anxious to consider seriously the awful class of responsibilities which the deliberate adoption of that institution will force upon them. If this be so,—and if the foul moral atmosphere of the South be as much purified by public misfortunes, private mourning, and the bracing influence of great patriotic sacrifices as we may venture to hope, there is dawning some faint promise of regeneration from within, which every genuine believer in human freedom should be eager to recognize and welcome. To us the main article of the indictment against the South has always hitherto been, that they have pharisaically chosen to defend, as a legitimate "domestic" and patriarchal institution, the most malignant of all blights discretion of the court." It seems clear that the Bishop of Louisiana is himself now liable to the punishment of death under this law. What can tend more directly to excite insubordination among the slaves than a proclamation of the principle that the law of God forbids the separation of slave families, and demands a thorough system of Christian instruction? The whole iniquitous code of slave-legislation collapses at once before the recognition of any divine sanction on the domestic principle,-the one institution which has rendered the ties of home absolutely unattainable to the enslaved race, and which has driven away from their homes, into residence in a purer society, by the very infection of its evil, even the children of the white masters. Were the slave regarded as in any true sense a part of the household of his master,—were the gangs of negroes on the cotton plantations united by any tie of personal loyalty and reciprocal affection to the head of the estate,—the institution, how-to the family tie. If every master is to be ever liable to abuse it might be, would, like the European serfage of the Middle Ages, be open to a gradual amelioration, and finally to a painless extinction. But the reverse of this has been notoriously the case. State after State has not only not enforced, but has absolutely prohibited the recognition of those obligations which the head of every true household incurs to his dependants. If the Confederate bishops be really in earnest they have nothing less than a revolution before them, in the war which they propose to wage with the anti-domestic influences of Slavery. We would ask nothing more of them than really to uproot these malign adjuncts of what they call the Slavery principle; and Slavery itself must quickly follow. It is simply impossible to implant a profound sense of the sacredness of domestic life in both master and slave without so limiting the arbitrary power of the one, and so enlarging the free responsibilities of the other, as to extinguish the right of property in man altogether. At present the law of most of the Slave States makes instruction of the slave a crime, and any resistance to the most iniquitous acts of the master a still worse crime. It is clear that the Bishop of Louisiana, if he have really signed this pastoral, cannot rest till he has induced that State to repeal the law that "whosoever shall make use of language in any public discourse, from the bar, the bench, the stage, the pulpit, or in any place whatsoever, or whoever shall make use of language in private discussions or conversations, or shall make use of signs or actions having a tendency to produce discontent among the free colored population of this State, or to excite insubordination among the slaves, shall, on conviction thereof, suffer imprisonment with hard labor for not less than three years, not more than twenty-one years, or death at the prohibited from separating slave families, and is to be saddled with the obligation of teaching them Christian principles-as the bishops contend in the first part of their pastoral-an indefinite number of important consequences follow, which must almost immediately reduce Slavery into something like serfage. For instance, a master bound to keep the old and used-up slaves in the neighborhood of their younger, stronger, and more profitable children, will assuredly soon be anxious to give them the means of buying their own freedom; and a master bound to let the slaves learn the letter and spirit of the Christian Gospel would probably soon find them unmanageable by the old methods of brutal violence. Once limit the selling rights of the owner, and the right of blinding the minds of the slaves,-by moral principles of any sort, and the whole system must decay. If the bishops are in earnest in their wish to make the constitution in any sense “ domestic," they will soon be carried into an advocacy of a policy much nearer to that of the Abolitionists than to that on which the South elected to take its stand. In taking Slavery for the "headstone of the corner," they deliberately laid the foundation in the world of evil. If now they wish to take back again the great corner-stone of every Christian State, let them do so amid the honest joy of every Christian's heart. But let them not try to imagine that the two corner-stones can co-exist. They must not conceal from themselves the radical character of the revolution by which that exchange is to be made. The one corner-stone may, no doubt, replace the other, but not without the rush of a mighty catastrophe, the crash of a divine collision. They know well the old language concerning the descent of the true Corner-Stone, which applies to the deof living volitions, and can nowhere apply struction of political principles no less than more closely than to the principle of Slavery: "On whomsoever that stone shall fall, it shall grind them to powder." From The Spectator, 17 Jan. ceptance. But, admitting all these draw. THE TWO PROCLAMATIONS. backs and all that Democrats can urge in On the 1st of January, Mr. Abraham Lin- addition, his action is still for good, his tencoln, President of the United States, pro- dency is towards principles higher than those claimed all slaves in the great territory south by which he has hitherto been guided. No of lat. 38 free forever. On the 2d of De- man is responsible except for his will; and cember, Mr. Jefferson Davis, President of so far as his will can operate, the Northern the Confederate States, declared that all President has cleansed the North of her stain, slaves who should avail themselves of the and carried out the great principles upon forthcoming proclamation should be handed which his nation was founded. So far as his over to the States to which they belonged, order extends, three millions of persons, herei.e., put to death, and that all officers com- tofore bound, are henceforward free, to be manding them or executing the proclamation recognized as freemen by all officials of the should share their fate. The two documents Union, to enjoy all non-political rights, to be seem to us to indicate precisely the relation admissible into the national service, to rise, of the two powers to modern civilization. in short, from chattels transmissible like dogs Mr. Lincoln, as might be expected, performs or horses, into men. Every part of his act, his great task ungracefully, incompletely, rude and imperfect as its conception may be, and with as little reference to principle as an tends to raise human beings in the scale of occasion, which in its magnitude essentially humanity, to increase their capacity of haptranscends all formulas, would allow. Had piness, to carry one step farther the ideas for he had the courage to rise above the bonds which we English profess to stand ready to of the Constitution, and appeal at once to the risk our lives. higher law; had he ventured to declare slavery at variance with Christianity and the Declaration of Independence, and, therefore, with the bases upon which that Constitution is founded; had he, in short, appealed to God and not to his party tenets, he might have roused a fanaticism before which that of the South is weakness, and possibly by giving his armies an idea, have given them also victory. Instead of this, he adheres, as he has consistently done, to his constitutional obligations, emancipates as a war measure exclusively, leaves loyal States to emerge from the slough the best way they can, and even excepts the disloyal districts in which his armies are encamped, and which are, therefore, presumably within the range of constitutional law. He has strictly kept his word, which was to emancipate all slaves in States disloyal on 1st of January, and has even interpreted that promise to his enemies' advantage; but he had not risen to the height of his unique opportunity, or declared slav-power over them by public law as slaves, but ery a crime against God with which no terms could be kept by man. He expresses, even in his moderate measure, the wish of a party rather than of a nation; he has failed to secure the European sympathy which would have followed a bold appeal to principle; and he has left it doubtful whether, after all, the race for whom he has risked so much will ever hear of the benefit he offers to their ac In excellent English, possessed of a certain character of stateliness, of which Mr. Lincoln is wholly devoid, Mr. Jefferson Davis announces that whole classes of prisoners shall, when captured, be massacred in cold blood. He makes no mistakes, imposes no geographical limitation, professes no restrictions from constitutional law; wherever the man commanding black troops is found, he shall be handed over to men who, as the Index allows, will inevitably send him to the gallows. There is no weakness in his order, and no blundering; but there is a thorough contempt at once for law and for humanity. Every section of it is intended to rivet the chains of the slave, or to add a new horror to the inevitable horrors of a fratricidal campaign. No cause was ever served by suppressions, and we are bound to admit that, as respects the blacks, Mr. Davis is within his technical right, and therefore unimpeachable before the world. He has no he has as subjects, and subjects bearing arms against their own government, however tyrannical, are by every law known to Europe liable to suffer death. But he has no such right over the whites. No law makes it treason for any public enemy to avail himself of any aid offered by the population of an invaded State, and in virtually decreeing death for such an offence Mr. Davis proclaims a war of exter |