and thus introduce permanent peace. No; | prescriptions of nature. With this underman must solve his own problem. Though standing they are prepared for society. devoid of all rectitude, he is not blind to Having depicted their danger, Hobbes resthe comforts of life, and amidst this chaos, cues them from it by pure fiction, making his self love arises to teach him the true them enter into covenant with each other to method of political redemption.¡ submit to some common power. Rejecting the patriarchal scheme of Filmer, and avoiding that of compact between sovereign and subject, as well as the extravagant theory of divine right, he supposes an agreement among equals to make one or an assembly unequal, and to embody in him or in a certain number the collective will of all. By this means they attain The passions that incline men to peace are feare of death, desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living, and a hope by their industry to obtain them. And reason suggesteth convenient articles of peace, upon which men may be drawn to agreement.”—Ibid. These, therefore, he explains. We know of no inconsistency more glaring in the system of Hobbes than that A real unity in one and the same person, made which arises from his doctrine of Right and by covenant of every man with every man, in Law; the former allowing a man to do any man, I authorize and give up my right of gosuch manner as if every man should say to every thing, the latter binding him to a moral verning myself to this man, or to this assembly of code. ¡He settles and annihilates the mo-men, on this condition, that thou give up thy right rality of the laws of nature in one and the to him, and authorize all his actions in like mansame breath, making them always oblige in ner."-Leviathan, Pt. II, ch. xvii. conscience, but not in action: the latter, indeed, "only when there is security." Yet he pronounces them "immutable and eternal;" "the true moral philosophy;" which is "nothing else but the science of what is good and evil in the conversation and society of mankind." (Pt. I., ch. 15.) We are however deceived if we attach any importance to his transcendental phraseology, for, in the very next line, he tells us that "Good and evil are names that signify our appetites and aversions, which in different tempers, customes, and doctrines of men, are different." Presuming, therefore, that "private appetite" is the only standard of right and wrong, he yet does, in an extraordinary way, find in man about twenty maxims on which to build up public tranquillity. They themselves, however, have not yet a solid footing. "These dictates of reason men use to call by the name of lawes, but improperly; for they are but conclusions or theoremes concerning what conduceth to the conservation and defence of themselves, whereas law properly is the word of him that by right hath command over others."—Ibid. This surrender is absolute-save of life. Leviathan now ascends his throne, and has all the powers to which we have previously adverted. He is a king and a priest; hath authority jure divino, not in himself and by nature, but by office, to appoint pastors and teachers; to baptize subjects, and to consecrate temples; and can never forfeit his sovereign right. He can break no covenant, because he made none. In fact, the nation was not one person to be a party until he became sovereign; and if it be said, he made covenants with each and all of them, these became void by his sovereignty, as every breach which they can allege was their own act in their representative. "Because every subject is by this institution author of all the actions and judgments of the sovereign instituted; it follows that whatsoever he doth it can be no injury to any of his subjects; nor ought he to be by any of them accused of injustice."-Leviathan, Pt. II., ch. xviii, Such, then, very briefly, is the system which is to make nations great and happy. No realist could embody an abstraction with more ardent zeal. Whatever interferes with the notion of supreme authority Yet being prescribed by reason, they be--be it parliament or common law, or any come so far authoritative that they lead to mixture in government-he fiercely demutual overtures among mankind. All nounces. The whole battery of his logic of them feel that peace; laying down their right to all things, standing to covenants, cherishing "gratitude, justice, equity, modesty, mercy; and, in summe, doing to others as they would be done to," are the and sophistry, however, is brought to bear upon revelation, and upon all religious teachers, as blocking up the way which leads to the pinnacle of absolute power. While a commonwealth may be "weakened" by the opinion that he who hath the sovereign-think that he believed in any intelligent ty is "subject to the civil laws," there is subsistence-the "God of the spirits of all nothing so mischievous in this respect as flesh." His latter days awaken no hope. the doctrine, that "whatsoever a man does We left him enjoying the charms of Chatsagainst his conscience is sinne;" and that worth in 1653. From this time, he carried he owes an allegiance to the "blessed and on his controversies with Wallis and Bramonly Potentate," which no earthly authori-hall; published his Elementa Philosophia ty can contravene. The whole drift, there- in 1655; vindicated his loyalty; had a fore, of the third part of the Leviathan is pension of a hundred a year at the Restorato undermine the Scriptures. With a con- tion; was honored by a Parliamentary censiderable share of biblical reading, so com- sure; received a visit in 1669 from Cosmo mon at that time, he reviews the sacred de' Medici; published his translation of Canon; the signification of the terms pro- Homer in 1675; and died at Hardwick, phet, church, kingdom of God, heaven, Dec. 4, 1679, in the ninety-second year of hell, &c. ;-while by the most insidious his age, wishing, when he knew he could suggestions, by etymologies-such as blow- not live, "to find a hole to crawl out of ing into for inspiration, and by wresting this world at." Poor old man! He lived various passages which inculcate obedience not for himself, though he thought so, and to civil rulers, he succeeds in throwing ridi- taught others that this was the end of life. cule on divine truth, and, at the same time, He was raised up to shock the mind of all in seeming to equip himself with its armor Europe, and the beneficial action of his to fight the battle of Leviathan against works is felt to the present hour. God. In order to carry him through in would the friends of man hesitate to hail triumph, he treats lastly of the Kingdom him a second time, if his existence were the of Darknesse; overthrows the Papal power; condition on which Cudworths, Clarkes, places all education and teaching in the Butlers, and others of a like school, were hands of the State; proposes his own writings as the common text-book; and, with extraordinary ingenuity, argues that, since Saul's appointment, God has had and will have no Kingdom upon Earth till Christ's Second Coming other than that which is incorporated in his Vicegerent-the seat of all civil and spiritual authority. Absolute submission to him, therefore, is the present form of our duty to God. No plea of Conscience can arise, and should it, persecution is a virtue, since this maintains inviolable against fanaticism, that Sovereignty, which is the only known similitude of the most High. to be called from the depths of Nature's bosom to confront and defeat him. He did evil; he was the occasion of good. Here, as elsewhere, the system of the Divine Being is one; and the operations of Providence, which we thus observe, are miniature forms of the grand scheme of redemption, in which Satan is followed and subdued by the Son of Man. In style and tactics Hobbes had no equal. The works of Bramhall and Cumberland-indeed of all his antagonists-are far inferior to his in free and vigorous composition. They have, however, better titles to praise; and we know of no more healthy exercise than We have not allowed ourselves space to to follow both parties step by step in the dwell at any greater length on the moral battles which they fought. His great and theological doctrines of these volumes. powers have ever been acknowledged. His As to the latter, we have little occasion to genius was the bond which united him to speak. In a thin folio in the British Mu-Bacon, Gassendi, and Galileo; and though seum, entitled Sayings of Pious Men," we do not think that his fame has grown there is a single sheet, which was published with the lapse of time, yet we are satisfied by Charles Blount, called the dying legacy that this is owing merely to the enormities of Mr. Thomas Hobbes. Amidst extracts of his system. from his chief work is one short sentence, conveying Blount's notion of his theology: -"God is Almighty Matter." A calm strength pervades almost all his writings. He advances from one point to another without any sudden jerk or visible We fear, after all, that this is as much effort, and the process of thought goes on as can be said for it. His materialism at its usual elevation like the unwatched breaks out everywhere. Bodies, and no-pulse of a strong man. Even when the thing else, in his view, composed the uni-ground is rotten beneath his feet he has And, though he calls the Deity a the power of sustaining himself by raising corporeal spirit, there is little reason to an unseen prop, or somewhat extending verse. with a more or less visible course, and with capacities more or less exalted, towards the same goal. "Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness; The general conduct of Hobbes was correct, his habits regular, and his disposition. liberal. His virtues, however, were mostly prudential; of greatness he knew nothing. After assailing all that is sacred, he had the pusillanimity, at the Restoration, to profess to submit his opinions to the constituted authorities; sheltering himself beneath the miserable plea, that when he wrote he was in the irresponsible state of nature, there being, in consequence of the subversion of government, no legitimate judge of heresy. We have only to add, in relation to this complete collection of his works, that we should have been better pleased with the labors of Sir W. Molesworth had he indulged a little more in elucidative annotation. his base, without allowing the reader to think that he is employing any art to retain his position. His self-confidence was never disturbed. With unmatched presumption he affirms that he is "the first that hath made the grounds of geometry firm and coherent." Vol. vii. 242. Neither, however, in Mathematics nor Physics has he made for himself a name. His other writings produced great effect in his own day; they afterwards formed a school which lives, and is likely to live, but not to lead, at least not in ethics and philosophy. No writer on human nature can be profound, who makes Will and Appetite, Conscience and Consciousness, the same; and identifies Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, with the ever-changing inclinations and antipathies of mankind. This is not to see the one in the manifold, but to merge the manifold in the one. It is not analysis but confusion. Being such it cannot last. An evil genius of gigantic proportions may for a time spread a mist over the whole region of morals, and have power seemingly to change men into swine; but goodness is omnipotent. The ineffable name is in her: and by its incarnate virtue do these ugly and ill-favored forms quickly vanish, and INTERMENTS IN LONDON.-From a statement all her children recover their native lustre. made by Mr. G. A. Walker, well known for his Pity no longer wears the shape of self-writings on intermural burials, we gather the following particulars:-"There are 182 parochial gratification; Religion casts off the crouch- graveyards in London; of these only 48 were coning attitude of a slave. And if, instead of fined to the proper limit of 136 bodies to the acre; resting at the superficial indications which from 200 to 3000 bodies to the acre annually. In the rest exhibited various degrees of saturation, point out the wealth below, we ask how St. Andrew's Undershaft, the average per acre was these and science and truth became possi- 1278; Portugal Street burying-ground, 1021; St. ble, we shall find our way through by à Dunstan's, Fleet Street, 1182; St. Dunstan's-in-theposteriori guidance, out of the darkest pas-ry-at-Hill, 1159; St. Olave, Tooley Street, 1257; St. East, 1210; St. John's, Clerkenwell, 3073; St. Masages of the soul into the sunshine over Swithin's, Tooley Street, 1760. Turning from pawhich time and space and sense all cast rish ground to dissenting burial places, the followtheir shadow. Man is under an eclipse, ing were the results:-Wickliffe Chapel, Stepney, and reveals himself, like the Great Parent 1210; Enon Chapel, Woolwich, 1080; Parker, Dockhead, Woolwich, 1613; Moorfields, 1210; Spirit, only by his works. But these be- Cannon Street Road, 1109; and lastly, New Bunspeak the laws and attributes with which hillfields was distinguished by an average of 2323. he is prepared for his mission upon earth. It was humiliating to think that a parish ground -St. John's, Clerkenwell-stood at the head of Overlooking the achievements of science these unchristian nuisances, pestiferous in every rethe written and embodied intellect of manspect, because, when a proportion of 3073 were anwe take off our shoes from our feet, and nually interred on an acre of land, it followed that stand on holy ground. In the pure aspira- the bodies could only remain in the ground five months instead of ten years. Hence the stacking tions, and the patient counsels of piety; in of coffins in deep pits, the brutal dismemberment the sympathies that would regenerate man; of bodies, the consumption of coffin wood in many in the anticipations of life hereafter; in the localities, the danger to mourners from attending hopes that follow the just; in the punish- cially in the warm season, poisons the atmosphere, such places; the insidious infection which, espement of the evil, and the discipline of the and by undermining health, or begetting disease, good; in the character of Christ, and in hurries thousands to an untimely end, again to bethe power of his Spirit, working in the come the subjects of fresh indignities, the centre of human breast;—we see a grandeur that infection to survivors, and the distributors of pestiwas wrapped up in the mystery of Heaven ere it dawned on us at birth, now hastening VOL. XIII. No. I. 5 lential emanations." What admirable reasons for leaving the metropolis out of the late Health of Towns Bill! From Lowe's Magazine. THE BUCKINGHAMSHIRE HOME AND HAUNTS OF COWPER. "You ask me where I have been this summer. I answer, at Olney. Should you ask me where I spent the last seventeen summers, I should still answer, at Olney. Ay, and the winters also." "The limes and the elms of Weston can witness for us both, how often we have sighed and said, 'Oh that our garden opened into this grove, or into this wilderness.'" "The very world, by God's constraint, Its women and its men became Beside him true and loving, And timid hares were drawn from woods To share his home caresses, Uplooking to his human eyes LETTERS OF Cowper. MRS. BARRETT BROWNING. self on a Sunday. His name was Wilson, a dissenter and deacon of the Baptist church, who survived to a good old age, but his anecdotes, to which many besides Mackintosh have referred, appear to have pe It was on a fine summer day, about twenty dotes of the most amiable and unhappy years ago, that an open carriage reached of men." This individual, one of the higher the Bull Inn at Olney, from which a some- grade of his profession, Cowper commemowhat elderly gentleman alighted, evidently rates as having embellished the outside of from his appearance a man of mark and an his head and left the inside just as unfiinvalid, with a younger female companion.nished as he found it; but he is more hoThe strangers proceeded to the tall brick norably noticed for his conscientiousness, as house in the market-place, so long the resi- one who would not wait upon the king himdence of Cowper, the "stricken deer that left the herd," where his grievously wounded spirit magnanimously endured the cross, employing a mighty genius to infuse hope and consolation into the portion of his race, from which he deemed himself to be ex-rished with him. cluded, doomed by an awful ban to drink alone of the cup of bitterness and trembling. From the sitting-room of the poet and Mrs. Unwin, the party passed to the garden, to the summer-house, to the arbor, the elder conversing with his guide of the departed bard, of his poetry and inimitable letters, his sincerity and sorrows, in a manner that evinced an intimate acquaintance with his writings and a just appreciation of his exalted powers and moral worth. Sir James Mackintosh, for such was the name Yet another tribute of respect was paid of the visitor, had been on the spot before, by Mackintosh to the memory of Cowper, and now returned to it to introduce his in a pilgrimage from Cromer to Dereham, daughter. On the former occasion, in 1801, to the house in which the last five years of he was comparatively unknown to fame, a his troubled life were spent, to the chamber barrister on the Norfolk circuit, attended where he expired and had the "blackness in this, as in many extra-professional ex- of darkness" for ever removed from his cursions, by Mr. Basil Montague, since the spirit, and to the spot where his remains editor of Lord Bacon's works, and one of repose in peace. his biographers. A record has been made of this visit: "We went into the room "We saw his handwriting in a copy of his poems which he presented to this hairdresser. I hope you will believe me, when I say I could not look at the writing without tears. So pure in his life-so meek-so tender-so pious-he surely had few superiors in genius. I think better of myself for having felt so much in such a scene, and I hope I shall be the better all my life for the feeling."* never had his rival in virtue and misfortune. He "The morning was interesting; it not only where the Task was written, which is now of ordinary life, but it has, I hope, made some imamused from its dissimilarity to the stupid routine a village school. We rambled round the pressions likely to soften and improve the heart. village, and at last found out the hair-None but fools and fanatics can expect such scenes dresser, whom he had employed for many years, who told us some most affecting anec * Life of Mackintosh, i. 148. are of themselves sufficient to work a change in the character, but it is one of the superstitions of shrewdness and worldliness to deny that such impressions may contribute something towards virtue. However this may be, I rejoice that my heart is not yet so old and hard as to have all its romance dried up."* That noble passage in which Johnson condemns the frigid philosophy which may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or courage, alluding to the plain of Marathon and the ruins of Iona, is fresh in the minds of most readers. The emotion stirred by the sight of objects| with which the great and good of bygone time have been associated, may be only indeed the homage which nature is involuntarily constrained to pay to the majesty of those Divine lineaments reflected by the human example. It argues not, therefore, of itself the membership of the individual in the same illustrious brotherhood, only his capacity to enter the communion, and the fact of his relation to it not being hopeless and reprobate. On the other hand, the absence of sensibility surely betrays the want of fraternity. In the case of Mackintosh, the import of his local emotion cannot be mistaken. Besides the intellectual tie, there were other bonds, stronger and more enduring, between him and the poet. He had the same unsophisticated and truthful nature, keen affections, taste for simple pleasures, singular gentleness, and benevolent disposition. We may venture to believe also that Cowper's trial, its terribleness in the instance of one so pure and devout, was another link in the chain of association, for though deeply serious and sincere in his yearning after truth, a cloud of speculative difficulties kept the perception of it from the mind of the great statesman who "walked in darkness and saw no light," troubled in his pilgrimage with solemn thoughts on themes which philosophy could not eradicate. Yet as Cowper's sky was not always overcast, as when in the full assurance of faith, he could sing, “Lord, I believe thou hast prepared, 'Tis strung and tuned for endless years, To sound in God the Father's ears, * Life of Mackintosh, i. 149. so there came an appointed time to Mack- "He At even The The list of pilgrims from afar to the haunts of Cowper is a long one. names of some will hereafter be mentioned, our principal purpose being to notice the recent record of a visit by Mr. Hugh Miller, the author of the Old Red Sandstone."* Space compels us to overlook the intermediate tour from Edinburgh across the Border, by Durham, York, Manchester, and Birmingham, to Wolverton, the depot of the North-Western Railway, the nearest station on the line to Olney, where we join the travelling geologist, out for refreshment from professional labors in the summer of 1845. It was at night-fall, amid the hurly-burly preparatory to a prize-fight on the coming day for the championship of England, that our tourist arrived at Wolverton. Of course there was no accommodation at its inn, or at Newport Pagnell, the quarters being crowded with the southern blackguards. So posting on his route a-foot, Mr. Miller, after thinking of a haystack for a bed, found a pleasanter one at Skirvington. Whether the no-admission of the inn-keepers to the belated traveller, suggesting the idea of what is commonly called scurvy treatment, had anything to do with this rendering of the name, we know not, but assuredly it stands as Sherrington in Cowper's letters, the spot to which "the most elegant, the compactest, the most commodious desk in the world, and of all the desks that ever were or shall be, the one most loved," had safe arrived, a present from Lady Hesketh, when the wagoner's wife returned her abominable No!" to his in quiry about it. The next morning, the classic ground of Weston Underwood, the park of the Throckmortons, the banks and bridge of the Ouse, and Olney, were reached: * "First Impressions of England and its People pp. 274-312. |