forbear feeding my despair with all those desponding reflections which the present subject furnishes me with in such abundance. I am first affrighted and confounded with that forlorn solitude in which I am placed by my philosophy, and fancy myself some strange uncouth monster, who, not being able to unite and mingle in society, has been expelled all human commerce, and left utterly abandoned and disconsolate. Fain would I run into the crowd for shelter and warmth, but cannot prevail with myself to mix with such deformity. I call upon others to join me in order to make a company apart, but no one will hearken to me. Every one keeps at a distance, and dreads the storm that beats upon me from every side.

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* Every step I take is with hesitation; and every new reflection makes me dread an error and inconsistency in my reasoning. Can I be sure that in leaving all established opinions I am following the truth; and by what criterion shall I distinguish her, even if fortune should at last guide me on her footsteps.

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* The intense view of these manifold contradictions and imperfections in human reason has so wrought upon me, and heated my brain, that I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another. Where am I, or what? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return? Whose favour must I court, and whose anger must I dread? What beings surround me? On whom have I any influence, or who have any influence on me? I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, environed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty."

But scepticism is no part of the system of Doctor Brown, though he has followed many of the errors of the sceptic, and, as it were, grafted them upon a dogmatism of his own. For, laying aside the able and ingenious ethical disquisitions contained in these lectures, when we consider those in which the intellectual system of the author is developed, when we consider that it is the same system which was taught for several years, ex cathedra, in the University of Edinburgh, we can have but a poor opinion of the progress of intellectual philosophy among those by whom it is most assiduously cultivated. If Doctor Brown could have succeeded in establishing his doctrines as to power and causation, he would certainly have brought back the science pretty much to the state in which it was left by Mr. Hume before his speculations were confuted. All the benefits derived from the works of Doctor Reid would have gone for nothing, and little would have remained of the labours of Mr. Dugald Stewart but the aggravation of some of his mistakes.

We have now done with this system, which is founded on the principle of confusing all the faculties of the human mind, and

stripping them of the power of voluntary operation. The impres sion which remains on our minds is not such as would incline us very sharply to blame the prevailing distaste for metaphysical speculations.

When we look around and observe what the questions are which still engage the attention of philosophers, it would seem as if this opinion of the present backward state of knowledge must be confirmed in our minds. Are there not, even among the learned, some who still advocate the ideal system, and follow the scepticism of Hume? When Doctor Reid wrote, he mentioned materialism as an error so thoroughly exploded, that he conceived no future philosopher could attempt to maintain it, and he therefore passed from it, saying, it was a thing "too absurd to admit of reasoning" in the state at which philosophy had arrived in his time. And yet, even in these very days, this exploded doctrine has been revived by men who pass for philosophers; and the best abilities have lately been employed in the refutation of this error, which the refined and subtle speculators of the last century considered so gross, that it shocked their understandings. Thus we see, on all sides, the most opposite errors so perseveringly maintained, and the most established truths so often drawn into question, that we are led almost despairingly to doubt whether philosophy is really much farther advanced than in the barbarous ages. It seems still clouded with uncertainties, and is still agitated by a continuance of the oldest disputes.

A comparison, however, of the state of metaphysics, with the state in which we see the various branches of natural philosophy, of which the progress can with more certainty be known, than in the vast and boundless regions of intellect, serves to correct the despondency which is excited by the view of these continued aberrations. In natural science, as well as in the philosophy of mind, we soon discover that no length of time, during which truths have been established, is a security against the questionings and disputes of obstinate, pugnacious, and presumptuous men. It was but very lately that a book was actually published as a confutation of some of the fundamental principles of the Newtonian philosophy; and other instances of similar extravagancies, even in natural philosophy, will constantly occur. It is not, therefore, to be concluded, from the existence of such controversies, that science is making no progress in the world. For if it be a reproach against any branch of philosophy that its most fundamental truths continue to be questioned, it is a reproach from which none has hitherto escaped: and if it were reasonable to think that every such controversy brings the whole science back to the contro

verted point, and that it can advance no farther, till every such disputant is silenced, all the vigour of the human understanding would be miserably wasted, and the first step of knowledge would be also its last...

But it is so ordered, that this perverted spirit of disputation has a very different effect. Presumptuous denials of established truths cause the foundations on which these truths rest, to be more broadly and deeply laid. Out of controversies apparently vexatious and perplexing, new lights are thrown upon science. The examination of every error exposes at the same time the causes which have produced it, and therefore teaches how it is to be avoided: by the removal of the apparent obstacles which such obstinate disputes must occasionally raise, the means of further progress are discovered; the way becomes more broad and more safe for the advancement of true philosophy,

1. Essays on the Institutions, Government, and Manners of the States of Ancient Greece. By Henry David Hill, D. D., Professor of Greek in the University of St. Andrew's. 12mo. London. 2. Substance of Lectures on the Ancient Greeks, and on the Revival of Greek learning in Europe. By the late Andrew Dalzel, A. M., &c., Professor of Greek in the University of Edinburgh. 2 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh. 1821.

THE ingenious authors of these treatises have been successively called to a state in which they are alike indifferent to praise or censure. A comparison of their performances has, therefore, become a less invidious task. From respect, however, to those who represent them, and, probably, feel an interest in their memories, we should have been pleased to have been able to assign them an equal rank in the roll of literary fame. But it cannot be. Dr. Hill's book would be unjustly treated were it classed no higher than that of the late Professor Dalzel, to which it is, in every way, a very superior performance.

But while we thus pronounce in favour of Dr. Hill's Essays, and declare our disappointment in Professor Dalzel's Lectures, considering them wholly unworthy of the high reputation which placed him, during his life, amongst the first scholars of the country,candour requires us to remark, that much of that disappointment may be owing to exorbitant and

unreasonable expectation. They are distinguished by several cir cumstances which ought to soften critical animadversion. Lectures upon Greek literature, compiled for a class of youthful auditors, can be expected to be no more than elementary aids-hints for thinking, and outlines for reading, to be afterwards filled up by diligence, rather than a regular and systematic courses of instruction. In addition to these suggestions, it would be unfair were we to overlook the state of classical learning in the northern division of the kingdom, compared with the progress made in those studies at our own Universities. The youth who attend the lectures of a Greek Professor, at a Scottish University, are still" super elementa volitantes."

"At the period," says the editor, "during which my father filled the Greek chair in the University of Edinburgh, there was little instruction given to the boys at many of the public schools, but the dry and repulsive communication of the Latin language. This they were forced to learn by means of severe corporal discipline, and hardly any attempt was made to lead the youthful mind to a gradual perception of the beauty of classic diction and sentiment. The boy, when released from the restraint of school, was consequently too often induced to throw aside, in disgust, what was associated in his mind, only with the idea of suffering. At school, there was either no instruction given in the Greek at all, or the rudiments of it only were imperfectly taught: so that the duty of a Greek Professor was one of no small labour; he had to communicate the language from its very elements; he had to do away the repugnance acquired at school to classical study, and had to instil into the minds of the youth, the delight, as well as the improvement to be derived from the rational contemplation and study of the ancients."-(Pref. p. 5.)

In truth this, as an excuse for the trite and superficial character of these lectures, is much more admissible than the fact stated by Mr. Dalzel, that they were never intended for publication;-a worn out apology, and no sufficient plea of exemption from the jurisdiction of the critic. It might, and indeed properly might, have influenced the editor, while his father's manuscripts were yet slumbering in their dusty repose. But a book, once published, stands for judgment according to its deserts, and he who drew it from the safety of its asylum, ought to have had before his eyes the consequences which he deprecates,

Delere licebit

Quod non edideris; nescit vox missa reverti..

But Mr. Dalzel seems impatient to destroy even this doubtful claim to indulgence: in a few sentences onwards he forgets thes modest extenuations which he had urged for the defects of the publication, and proffers it "as not uninstructive to those who have passed the period of academical tuition." b in la 30 ibun

Such, then, being the test by which we are to estimate its value, it would be a false courtesy to suppress the conviction which a deliberate perusal of it has left upon our minds,—that it will be found less instructive than the editor supposes, as well to those who are actually proceeding through their academic discipline, as to those who have already passed it. We anticipate disappointment to the ingenious student, who may be attracted by the splendid promise held out in the distribution of subjects with which the professor commences his lectures ;-viz. "The Political Situation of the Greeks, comprehending an Introductory History of Greece, and a retrospective View of Manners, Arts, and Sciences, during its several periods; the Manners, Character, and Religion of the Greeks; their Polite Learning, comprising Investigations on Grammar, Language, and Poetry, and the revival of Greek Learning in Europe."

We do not, indeed, exact from such a course of lectures, deep or original disquisition, or a series of profound and philosophical thinking. But, from a man of Professor Dalzel's acquirements, we certainly looked for elegant and striking dis quisitions upon known and established positions, correct views of the domestic life, and enlarged and liberal surveys of the poli tical institutions of the wonderful people, whose history and literature he undertook to elucidate. In justification of our strictures, we will select his opening remarks upon Grecian History, and we will ask whether the rawest, and most inexperienced tyro of the second or third form, would not receive so jejune a collection of truisms as an affront to his understanding."

"Ancient Greece, small as it was in extent, rose to a degree of splendour, in point of the improvement of the human mind, to which no other nation ever attained; and gave birth to a greater number of illustrious men than has been produced by any one nation that ever existed. Poets, orators, philosophers, warriors, artists,-in all these Greece stands unrivalled, and reflects the highest glory upon human nature. But such is the nature of human affairs, that no one government, or political society, has been known to subsist constantly, but all have been either destroyed or changed. Greece has undergone the same fate with others: and that once accomplished nation is now no longer what it was in the days of Lycurgus, Themistocles, or Epaminondas."-(Vol. i. p. 12.)

Was it a maxim, then, of Mr. Dalzel's theory of institution, that the youthful capacity is incapable of receiving stronger aliment than that which was thus served up to it in such miserable scraps of common place? But the same triteness of remark, and the same absence of thinking characterize the whole of this book. He seems to coast timidly along, fearful of losing sight of those indisputable truths, and fixed opinions which have been