remarked, that in the character of his mind and writings, and in the mode of his studies, his great namesake of the sixteenth century resembled him who, more than three hundred years after, effected such changes in those pursuits of science which were at once the blessing and the bane, the joy and grief, of the life of the philosopher of the thirteenth century. It has been conjectured, and with every show of reason, that had the art of printing been discovered at the time Roger Bacon lived, such was the sluggishness of mind at that period, and the complete prevalence of superstition, that it would have been rejected with horror and smothered in its birth.

Fortunately, as we have seen, that art came at a time when the clouds were rapidly breaking away, and the morning stars of literature in the south had heralded the coming day. The most important scientific discovery of the fourteenth century was that of the Mariner's Compass by Flavio Goija, a Neapolitan. This instrument, in more senses than one, led the way to the maritime discoveries of the Portuguese in the fourteenth century, and the ever-memorable discoveries of Columbus in the fifteenth, the latter having increased the known boundaries of the world one-half, and received as his reward a life of anxiety, disappointment, and ingratitude.

The sixteenth century was not only the age of literary greatness, but science then made rapid strides. We have already adverted to Lord Bacon, but other names deserve honourable mention for their genius and their sufferings. It was natural that the grandest of the sciences, astronomy, which had long ministered more to the ambition and credulity of mankind than to their real knowledge, should be the first to emancipate herself from the dreams of astrologers. Copernicus, Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler, were the four distinguished astronomers of the period: thus Poland, Italy, Denmark, and Germany furnished each a philosopher destined to pave the way for a more enlightened age, and, a century later, a far more distinguished and fortunate successor in Sir Isaac Newton. The four astronomers named experienced very bitterly the antagonism of prejudice against truth. Copernicus dreaded to publish his theory that the sun was stationary and the earth moved round it. The Pope and all influential churchmen (and they chiefly decided on scientific matters) held a contrary belief, and to differ from them was black heresy. Copernicus died, and thus escaped the malice of his enemies, just after the publication of his theory. The storm of persecution, however, descended upon his disciple Galileo, -as great a genius as any in that age of great geniuses. It is well known that he was consigned to the dungeons of the

Inquisition for saying, and proving, that the earth moved, and the sun stood still. Tycho Brahe, of noble birth, and remarkably discursive mind, possessing talent rather than genius, endured banishment and the confiscation of his property, as the consequence of being wiser than his peers. And patient, laborious, truthful John Kepler lived a life of perpetual struggle with poverty and sorrow. These men were to astronomy what Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio were to literature, its morning stars-" heralds of the dawn." Modern triumphs of knowledge may, like the risen sun, obscure, and indeed hide, their beams, but the grateful memory will ever dwell upon their names with tender reverence. -MRS. BALFOUR's Sketches of English Literature.'

THE rapid advancement which Great Britain has made during the last fifty years is not more strikingly marked by anything than by the vast facilities of communication opened up during that period. Down to the middle of the last century, the ancient mode of transport of goods was still continued; and most of the traffic of the country was carried on by means of pack-horses, a mode of carriage still practised in mountainous districts in many parts of the world. As the improvements of roads progressed, heavy goods came generally to be transported by waggons.

At the commencement of last century, stage-coaches had made but little progress in Britain; for we find, in the year 1706, a stage-coach advertised to perform the journey from London to York (196 miles) in four days; and, in 1712, a coach undertook to go from London to Edinburgh (about 400 miles) in thirteen days "eighty able horses being employed on the journey." Twenty years later, the same journey was performed by coach in four or five days. The first coach was started between Edinburgh and Glasgow in the year 1678, and it took six days to perform the journey of 42 miles. In the year 1766, nearly a century afterwards, the same journey was accomplished by the stage-coach in eleven or twelve hours. So late as 1798 the first mail-coach commenced to run between Edinburgh and Aberdeen, a distance of about 117 miles. It was twenty-one hours on the road.

Until the introduction of steam-vessels, travelling from London to Edinburgh was as serious a matter by sea as by land. Six or eight days was the common time occupied by a smack on this coasting voyage. In the year 1811, not one steam vessel was on the river Thames; and even the passage from London to Gravesend or Margate was no trifling matter. What a contrast does the river now present! How rapid has been the advance. ment in steam navigation during the last 30 years! As the power of steam progressed, coach transit seemed to vie with it; and to such perfection had it reached, by improvements on turnpike roads, and in the breed of horses, and by the skill of drivers, that passengers were carried fearlessly along at the rate of 12 to 15 miles an hour. Canals, too, which are now so common in this country, and which were in use at an early period in the history of many nations, are but of comparatively recent introduction into Britain; they indeed took the lead of railways, and perhaps their success retarded for a time the advancement of the latter. The first canal with locks supposed to have been made in this country, was that of Exeter, in the year 1563; but till two centuries later they made little progress. The formation of the Sanky Brook into a canal, from the river Mersey to St. Helen's, in Lancashire, took place in 1755, and led the way to the general use of canals in Britain. J. Brindley planned the Worsley canal, for the Duke of Bridgewater, in 1758. The Grand Trunk canal between the Trent and Mersey, 63 miles in length, commenced in 1766, was completed in 1777; and so rapid was the extension of this mode of transit, that between 1760 and 1803, no less than 2,295 miles of canals were opened to the public. Equally rapid with the movement of canals and of steam navigation has been the science of railway locomotion. Though coming into full action 30 years later, it has moved on with truly amazing speed, evincing that the power of steam has effected for this country the same prodigious advancement in inland transit it has already. achieved in manufactures and navigation. The immense advantage which the general introduction of railways into this country has already produced, in affording facilities for the conveyance of passengers and goods, must be obvious to all. With a rapid and easy mode of transit, new markets will be opened up for manufactures, which must lead to the establishment of factories in heretofore neglected localities. From this impetus the vast resources of the nation will be still farther developed; the immense stores of mineral wealth so widely diffused will be made more available, and the fields of commerce, manufactures, and agriculture be enlarged and extended.-RITCHIE 'On Railways.'

LANGUAGES, as intellectual creations of man, and closely entwined with his whole mental development, bear the stamp of national character, and as such are of the highest importance in the recognition of similarity or diversity of race: the descent of languages from a common origin is the conducting thread which enables us to tread the labyrinth, in which the connection of physical and mental powers and dispositions presents itself under a thousand varied forms. The brilliant progress which the philosophical study of languages has made within the last half century in Germany, is favourable to researches on their national character, or on that which they appear to have derived from the influence of race.

But here, as in all fields of ideal speculation, there are many illusions to be guarded against as well as a rich prize to be attained. Positive ethnographical studies, supported by profound historical knowledge, teach us that a great degree of caution is required in these investigations concerning nations, and the languages spoken by them at particular epochs. Subjection to a foreign yoke, long association, the influence of a foreign religion, a mixture of races even when comprising only a small number of the more powerful and more civilized immigrating race, have produced in both continents similarly recurring phenomena, viz., in one and the same race, two or more entirely different families of languages; and in nations differing widely in origin, idioms belonging to the same linguistic stock. Great Asiatic conquerors have been most powerfully instrumental in the production of striking phenomena of this

nature.

But language is an integral part of the natural history of the human mind; and notwithstanding the freedom with which the mind pursues perseveringly, in happy independence, its self-chosen direction under the most different physical conditions-notwithstanding the strong tendency of this freedom to withdraw the spiritual and intellectual part of man's being from the power of terrestrial influences-yet is the disenthralment never completely achieved. There ever remains a trace of the impression which the natural disposition has received from climate, from the clear azure of the heavens, or from the less serene aspect of a vapour-loaded atmosphere. Such influences

have their place among those thousand subtle and evanescent links in the electric chain of thought, from whence, as from the perfume of a tender flower, language derives its richness and its grace. Seeing, then, how close is the bond which unites the physical world with the world of the intellect and of the feelings, we are unwilling altogether to deprive this general sketch of nature of those brighter lights and tints, which might be imparted to it by considerations, however lightly touched, on the mutual relations of races and of languages. By maintaining the unity of the human species, we at the same time repel the cheerless assumption of superior and inferior races of men. There are families of nations more readily susceptible of culture, more highly civilized, more ennobled by mental cultivation than others; but not in themselves more noble.

All are alike designed for freedom; for that freedom which in ruder conditions of society belongs to individuals only, but, where states are formed and political institutions enjoyed, belongs of right to the whole community. "If," in the words of Wilhelm von Humboldt, "we would point to an idea which all history throughout its course discloses as ever establishing more firmly, and extending more widely its salutary empire-if there is one idea which contributes more than any other to the often contested, but still more often misunderstood, perfectibility of the whole human species-it is the idea of our common humanity tending to remove the hostile barriers which prejudices and partial views of every kind have raised between men; and to cause all mankind, without distinction of religion, nation, or colour, to be regarded as one great fraternity, aspiring towards one common aim-the free development of their moral faculties. This is the ultimate and highest object of society; it is also the direction implanted in man's nature, leading towards the indefinite expansion of his inner being. He regards the earth and the starry heavens as inwardly his own, given to him for the exercise of his intellectual and physical activity."

"The child longs to pass the hills or the waters which surround his native dwelling; and his wish indulged, as the bent tree springs back to its first form of growth, he longs to return to the home which he had left; for by a double aspiration after the unknown future and the unforgotten past-after that which he desires, and that which he has lost-man is preserved, by a beautiful and touching instinct, from exclusive attachment to that which is present. Deeply rooted in man's inmost nature, as well as commanded by his highest tendencies, the full recognition of the bond of humanity, of the community of the whole human race with the sentiments and sympathies which spring