mar.

For instance, in one page occur these two sentences: "Thus perish affections tribute, the frail link which connect the sympathies of the living, with the memory of the dead." "The rights of the church is under the superintendance of the minister and two churchwardens." Other statements are no less strange, as (p. 81)," Lim-pes-ham, otherwise Limpils-ham, or Lympsham, is a parish of no very considerable extent, its form being similar to the Isle of Wight, and its circumference about eight miles, while it ranges over 1966 and three-quarter acres of rich and fertile soil." This we presume is not a small parish for the west of England. A local name terminating in well is "probably derived from its ancient British designation Bannawelli, compound of Bann meaning deep, and welgi sea, a deep sea,' although [it is added] the parish is now nearly eight miles from the sea-coast." We have not the slightest idea who Benjamin Cox may be; but we could not allow his production to pass with that disregard which it may probably be said to deserve, as it is just from such ungainly and abortive attempts at archæological authorship that the study of antiquities has heretofore fallen into disrepute, and they are calculated rather to offend and disgust than to attract the sympathies of "the younger branches of society," for whose special use the introduction states that the book is intended. Such a performance will surely make the "antiquary" a laughing-stock among the visitors at Weston super Mare, the place where it is printed and published.

History in Ruins: a Series of Letters to a Lady, embodying a Popular Sketch of the History of Architecture. By George Godwin, F.R.S. Crown 8vo. -The series of papers of which this volume consists has been written with the view of affording to the unlearned in architecture a familiar exposition of its history from the earliest times, and of the various styles which have prevailed in all parts of the world. The letters have appeared from time to time in The Builder, of which excellent periodical Mr. Godwin is the editor, and they are now collected in order to form a popular Handbook of Architecture. The task is executed in a very pleasant and agreeable manner, and is well calculated, in our opinion, to accomplish its object, of attracting some readers to the study of architecture who have hitherto regarded the subject with indifference or aversion. Mr. Godwin's style is easy and familiar he endeavours to enliven the technicalities of his subject by the flowers of fancy and poetry. These are well intended, but occasionally we think grow

somewhat too luxuriously, and would bear cropping. They are all, however, conceived in good spirit, and his critical remarks, whether on architectural or other matters, are generally pertinent and judicious. In proof of this we may quote the following passage, expressing sentiments which it is true are now generally acknowleged, but which it is well to present distinctly to the tyro in architecture: "You must not imagine, as many did at one time, that the architects of the Middle Ages worked without rules or guiding principles. The more fully our ancient edifices are studied, the more clearly does it become apparent that nothing was introduced unnecessarily or deceptively, for mere appearance' sake; that the excellence of effect, which is apparent, resulted from the use of sound principles, laid down not with a view of producing that effect, but with reference to stability, convenience, and fitness; good taste and great skill being afterwards employed in adorning that which was necessary, and making the Useful a producer of the Beautiful. Plans were not made to accord with a fanciful elevation, entailing thereby loss of convenience and unnecessary outlay; but were arranged first, to suit the requirements of the time, and upon these naturally the elevation followed. All decoration grew out of the construction, and reason governed instead of caprice. This is now better understood than it was a few years ago, and will doubtless produce its fruit in due season."

Memoir of John Frederic Oberlin, Pastor at Ban de la Roche. Tenth edition. (Bagster.) 12mo. pp. x, 372.— THE TALENT OF DOING GOOD is said to have been the motto of Prince Henry of Portugal, the celebrated navigator. There is a work entitled "Essays to do Good," by Cotton Mather, to which Franklin thus avows his obligations, in a letter to the author's son:-"If I have been a useful citizen, as you seem to think, the public owes the advantage to that book." The whole career of Oberlin was an exemplification of the motto, and a series of such essays. We do not remember that any list of works, proposed by authority for divinity students, contains a selection of historical biography; but such a list would be incomplete if the Life of Oberlin were omitted. It is, as Mr. Bickersteth observes in his Christian Student, "An interesting memoir of one who was a devoted minister," adding, "with some exceptional views ;" and these the present biographer by no means dissembles, but draws his hero's portrait, as Cromwell desired Lely to draw his, with all the wrinkles.

The masonry of the nave had evidently been raised four feet above its original height, and was flanked by two buttresses, to which, as indication of weakness became apparent in the building, an addition of stonework was placed, until each presented an unique illshapen mass. A porch of timber framework stood before the south doorway-a low arch of the earliest pointed style. Above this, in the roof, was a high-pitched dormer-window of the time of Charles II. The eastern end of the chancel was pierced by three wellproportioned lancet-windows, and, on the north side, were two round-headed loopholes, five inches in width, but splayed internally to the extent of three feet. The tower appears to have been erected upon an old foundation, and probably, from its debased style, early in the sixteenth century. It is of freestone, and finished with a plain embattled parapet and pyramidical roof. Each face of the belfry-story shows a window of two lights, with heads nearly semicircular. In the basement is a late Perpendicular window of three lights; and within, a pointed arch, springing from square piers, opens into the nave.

The interior of the building had altogether a primitive simplicity. A small pointed arch of the thirteenth century divided the nave from the chancel; and four octangular columns of timber, roughly worked, and resting on square stone pedestals, supported the roof of the former on the north side, forming an opening to

a narrow aisle, built probably in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and, as tradition relates, by the family of Harnage of Belswardine (an adjoining township in the parish of Leighton), for their convenience in attending divine worship, and where, in a vault beneath, several members of the same family have been interred.* In the east wall was a square-headed window, divided by a mullion into two trefoiled lights. The pulpit and desk were of the time of Charles I.; the former octangular and panelled in upper and lower compartments, with a lozenge and sunk flower in each. The roof was open, and from the principals were suspended carved pendents of fir-cones. The font, large and cylindrical without ornament, stood on a round base, and, with the ancient oaken parish chest, has been removed.

Within the basement of the tower is preserved a finely-executed monumental brass, which formerly rested on the floor of the church. It displays a male figure in armour, bareheaded, with his lady attired in a horizontally-framed head-dress, each having the hands joined on the breast, as in prayer. The former is clothed in a suit of plate-armour, of elegant design, the head reposing on a tilting-helmet. Around his neck is the livery-collar of SS. The sword is suspended on the left side by a belt crossing the loins diagonally. On his right side is the anelace or dagger. Below his feet is the following inscription in black letter:

quarter a bird; impaling, Sable, three bends argent. . . . and, Argent, on a chief or a raven proper (Hoord).

This memorial probably denotes Sir Richard Lacon, sheriff of Shropshire 17th Edw. IV. (1477), and 2nd Henry VII.,

doubt, much business is transacted between Unions and Parishes in exchanging payments to the non-resident paupers: still the fundamental evil remains-the common life of the labourer is grievously embittered by the difficulty of obtaining a cottage near his work; he is lowered in the scale long before he requires parochial aid, by being pushed about and made the subject of oppressive measures, lest he should in some future time become chargeable. The instances adduced by Mr. Pashley are no exaggerations or exceptional cases. While the settlement of the future supposed pauper is an object ever before the minds of guardians and ratepayers, it is vain to hope for neighbourly union-for a kindly interchange of feeling between the poor and the rich. Sullen or violent resist ance on one side, and grinding oppression on the other, will be the prevailing spectacle we shall have to witness. All that benevolence desires to do by means of education, or by loans or allotments, or any species of kindly aid, is nearly useless now. The daily feeling that an interested eye is watching his movements, settling his place of abode, and keeping him out of the comforts of a decent dwelling house, is gall and wormwood to the poor labourer. This is a case on which we cannot speak too strongly. Surely the united voice of inspectors, guardians, and economists, will prevail at last to procure the abolition of so degrading a law.

Mr. Pashley by no means makes light, however, of the difficulty of bringing it about. The whole mode of raising the poor rate must be altered simultaneously with such a change. His own proposal is developed in a few pages at the end of the volume; but, concise as the statement is, it is too long for us, and we must refer to the volume itself.

There is less in Mr. Pashley's book about outdoor allowances to the ablebodied than we should have expected; he cannot be ignorant that this is now the subject of great contest between Unions and the Poor-law Board. Every one must agree with him to a large extent in what he says of workhouses. In so far as the treatment, or even admission, of lunatics and idiots is concerned, it is scarce possible to overrate the miseries and mismanagement they infallibly entail upon the common Union House. We are rather more doubtful about the School question. Some experience and much inquiry have led us to apprehend that if the district houses, for children only, were much more numerous than they are, the workhouse would lose the benefit of a resident schoolmaster; and the consideration of the large sprinkling of children which must

always be retained there, as far as we can see, is a serious one. There is good done by securing in a common Union House the presence of a schoolmaster who will keep before the eyes of the guardians of the parishes the spectacle of better teaching than can often be found in national schools. Sir J. K. Shuttleworth's unceasing attention to this point, during the time of his Poor Law Inspectorship, was, we have reason to know, followed by these good effects. By his recommendation, schoolmasters were brought from Scotland, and apparatus and books were freely purchased for many of the Union Houses. But an error was committed in requiring a residence at the workhouse for these men. We cannot see why they should be compelled to a mode of life and to influences and associates which must to many have been disgusting and painful. It is not fair to expect from every schoolmaster, otherwise good, that he should be entirely possessed by the missionary spirit; and nothing less could make the workhouse life endurable to a man of education. As was to be expected, these masters quickly became discontented and resigned their office and, in many places, the school was discontinued or shuffled off to the master's daughter or some official who happened to be on the spot. District schools at wide intervals, for orphans and unprovided children, who can there be properly trained in industrial habits, are certainly, however, desirable; but let the workhouse school, if possible, go on and be improved upon. There is not much force in Mr. Pashley's objection about the difficulty of classification. It is a similar inconvenience with that which meets us in many of our national village schools, which are mostly for all ages and both sexes.

Seeing no present remedy for this, we think the grand point is that our trained teachers should be a little less stiff and unbending.* They must, it is true, strive

*We are glad to find that one of our best training schools-The Home and Colonial Model Infant School at King's Cross-so recognises the actual want of the agricultural districts as to have lately instituted in addition to its other schools what is rather amusingly called "An Agricultural School,"-the object being to admit just that mixture of ages, sex, and, as far as can be done, social position, which is generally seen in the schoolroom of a village. There is a governess, and there are three pupil teachers. No other monitors are employed. One of the pupil teachers is employed with the infants in a class room during great part of the time. The others give the lessons. Teachers now

for order in their schools; but the idea should be encouraged of an end that is higher than the means-of accommodation to unavoidable circumstances for the sake of doing good. Any master or mistress competent to instruct pupil teachers, who is allowed the use of a class room in addition to the schoolroom, may, by separation of the mere infants from the other scholars, keep either a workhouse school or a common village school with great credit; and we believe that, with respect to the former, it would be a serious evil if it were discontinued or ineffectively taught.

Papers for the Schoolmaster. Vol. I. -Though but one volume of this excellent publication is yet made up, we have carefully examined the successive monthly numbers, and are happy to bear our testimony to the admirable spirit and execution of the whole. We know no work adapted like this to the uses of pupil teachers more especially. It is not saying too much to assert, that every pupil teacher in the land would do well regularly to expend the trifling sum required for ensuring constant access to so suggestive and so benevolent a book.

We have read, and recur to it, again and again, with exceeding great respect-not for its cleverness merely, though very clever it certainly is, but for the uniform predominance given to religious and moral agency. Not without apprehension have we watched the workings of Government Inspection. It cannot be denied that there is a danger from the continued stimulus,the artificial position, in short, in which these young teachers find themselves. And then it is unquestionable that our inspectors have a task of the greatest difficulty before them. We think too seriously of the character of the true Educator (a man appearing hardly more than once or twice in an age) not to have many misgivings as to the mode in which some worthy, wellinformed, but rather common-place, minds may perform their task. Of necessity they must be guided in a great measure by what is set down for them in the Minutes of Council. A system has to be pursued from year to year, and the successful performances of the pupil teachers, and the masters and mistresses also, when they come up for examination, must be measured by the standard there laid down. Of course character is inquired into and reported on, but proficiency in head knowledge, such a proficiency as tells in an ex

under training will here see what kind of management will be required in schools of this most usual kind.

amination,—is the chief that an inspector can know about them. We have certainly seen some very bad teachers, ruling over, or rather mis-ruling, most undisciplined schools, who had yet passed extremely well themselves. There is also another danger in inspected schools: from one visit to another, what will enable the pupil teachers to carry their point, and get their stipends, is apt to be too constantly before them; and we think it requires great watchfulness to prevent the school, the forwardness of which is one of the tests of progress, being tampered with in any respect. There are always temptations enough to teachers to make too much of clever, forward children-the difficulty is to bring forward the slow ones. It is scarcely possible that an inspector can see the whole in a quiet natural state, and there is reason to fear that the poor-spirited ones will be depressed, while the confident and easy will be roused to special but partial exertion. All this is said not in the least with a view to disparaging the great boon of government inspection, but merely to point out the necessity it entails on the conscientious teacher and the patrons, of maintaining inviolate their own ideas of what is of primary importance in education, while yet they endeavour to make the best use of the intellectual stimulus afforded. We thank Government for all it does now and may do for national education, but we place our strongest hopes in the power which Government cannot create, but only assist. How true it is that every where there are minds to work if they did but know their vocation! (6 who honestly looks for it will find something peculiarly his own-something which no one else is either placed in circumstances, or endowed with qualities, to do equally well. Therein lies his proper work, noble and beautiful because it is his own; *** but we miss the duty that belongs to us for want of simplicity of mind, from ignorance of ourselves, and a restless ambition to be what we are not."

Every one

It is in the vigilant superintendence of what is done and doing in education that the duty of many persons seems to lie. Some want the talent of teaching, and some are bad servants to a system, who yet intuitively see what is needed, and point the way to that which underlies all systems. If such are wise, they will be scrupulously careful of pronouncing discouraging words, even when they see much mistake. The bare fact that kindly intercourse is taking place between the rich and poor, should be hailed as a good, for every thing that savours of brotherhood is to be prized for its own sake, and to be fostered as the germ of what will

sort with musical harmony Shakspere was not singular. Spenser uses the word in the same association of ideas,

For all that pleasing is to living car,
Was there consorted in one harmony;

and the translators of the Bible, with more manifest inaccuracy, "A consort of musicke in a banquet of wine is as a signet of carbuncle set in golde," (Ecclus. xxxiii. 5,) where the modern editions have substituted the word concert. F. M. N.

It now

The Commissioners of The Exhibition of 1851 have published their Second Report, announcing the manner in which they propose to deal with the large surplus remaining in their hands. In their former report it was stated that this surplus would not be less than 150,0007. appears probable that its net amount will reach 170,0007. They also possess a collection of articles presented as the nucleus of a Trades Museum, and temporarily deposited in Kensington Palace, the value of which is estimated at 9,0001. The Commissioners had previously announced the general principle upon which the funds at their disposal were to be applied, in some plan which would increase the means of industrial education, and extend the influences of science and art upon productive industry; and, though numberless sugges tions have been urged upon their consideration, the greater part of them have been dismissed by the rule they had laid down for their guidance, that they should not entertain any proposals of a "limited, partial, or local character." In their report the Commissioners first pass under review the existing institutions for industrial instruction at home and abroad. Our own deficiencies in this respect are known and notorious; while the systematic exertions of other nations may be illustrated by reference to Germany alone, where 13,000 men annually receive the high technical and scientific training of the Trade Schools and Polytechnic Institutions, more than 30,000 workmen are being systematically taught the elements of Science and Art, and, in addition to the Trade Schools, there are important institutions equivalent to industrial universities in the capitals of nearly all the States.

The Commissioners then refer to what has been done in this country to promote the interests, and extend, enlarge, and diffuse a knowledge of Science and Art.

So little aid has been given by the Govern ment until this last quarter or half century, that the report is of course in a great degree limited to what the people have done for themselves in furtherance of these objects; and, incredible as it may at first appear, it is shown by the balance sheets of the different Societies-which exceed one hundred in number that in London alone the amount is not less than 160,000l. a-year, a considerable portion of which is absorbed in rent and taxes. Adding to this list the great Government establishments-such as the British Museum, the National Gallery, the Museum of Practical Geology, and the Department of Practical Art, the total revenue of the metropolitan institutions and societies for the promotion of science and art is placed at 250,0007., the Parliamentary sum voted for the national institutions being 95,000l. a-year. The Commissioners find two causes in operation to prevent the country reaping the full benefit which was to have been expected from its exertions to promote the interests of science and the arts: first, the want of united action among societies and national establishments; secondly, the want of room. The first want is not explained in the report, nor do the Commissioners appear to have taken many steps to ascertain whether union is practicable. Associated bodies are proverbially chary of their independence, and they will, no doubt, weigh the subject well before they consent to the proposed centralization. On the want of room, the present state of the Royal Society, the School of Mines, the School of Design, the College of Chymistry, the National Gallery, the Society of Arts, the Royal Academy, and the British Museum are appealed to; and to these cases, with which the public are more or less familiar, are added the demands for space on behalf of a collection of medieval art, formed with reference to