pear to be individual in contradistinction to imperial interests, or for his anxiety to measure the latter by a standard which falls infinitely short of their true proportions. These lectures, beautiful and instructive as they often are, when critically examined, abound in proofs of this peculiarity. There were not, perhaps, twenty men in Britain who felt as acutely on all subjects as he himself did, or who could invest the passing occurrences of the day, or the events of remote times, with the charm which he threw around both: but he wrote as if he thought otherwise, and he reasoned as if he believed that every man might become "a law unto himself," for it was far from his purpose to inculcate any such demoralising creed. His system of isolation has here its just issue. It confines his vision as a philosophical critic, as in other instances it confines his sympathies as a man: and the result is, a contracted appreciation of the force of those great influences which act on the common family of nations, which are in all probability a part of the scheme of creation, and which have been in conspicuous operation since the dawn of history downwards. The consideration of these, Dr. Arnold, as we venture to think, neglected; and if his book be taken as a whole, and be carefully examined, it will be found to be, if we mistake not, an ingenious defence of individual independency, and a softly worded apology for the "rights of man." What is it, we should be glad to know, which he spares that bears the name or impress of power? The word, except in some sense proper to himself, was as offensive as the thing which it represented; and whether the question be of ecclesiastical subordination, of magisterial authority, of natural law, or even of moral obedience, there is at least a tacit reservation of the privileges of the individual which it is impossible to overlook. Compare him in this respect with Burke, and his most ardent admirers could desire no higher analogy. In the one you find the majesty and integrity of society strenuously enforced, and our “glorious constitution" set forth as an object of almost idolatrous veneration; in the other you will discover nothing of the kind, but you may

learn that society is, upon the whole, rather an oppression than a benefit; that in various ways it has abridged your liberties, forced your will, and restricted your sphere of enjoyment; and that this or any other constitution-unless, perhaps, some unreal form of democracy-is as remarkable for its defects as its excellencies. Dr. Arnold was of the statutory school, and had unlimited confidence in the beneficial effects of legislation, and little in the undisturbed play of the social affections; and whatever of vice or folly may disfigure the world, would seem to be less a consequence of the propensity of man to err than of the neglect of his rulers to keep him right. The effects of this plaintive habit are very remarkable. All his pictures want relief. There is no sunshine, no chiaro oscuro, no light and shade, to diversify the landscape and to soften its angularities; but all is darkness and gloom, until the mind, saddened by the perpetual contemplation of an unavailing contest between feebleness and strength, and humility and tyranny, turns in dismay from a spectacle which is all the more terrible for the severe fidelity with which its several lineaments are displayed. We live in an age in which there is an unnatural appetite for the bare anatomies of life. The skin, the muscles, the bones, are each in their turn exposed to public view. Every social wound is probed till it bleeds and festers, and he is the most profound philosopher who is the most dexterous operator; but this disposition to luxuriate over human suffering and sordidness has the worst possible effect upon the national mind and taste. The humanity which it inculcates is melo-dramatic and false, and may be indulged to any extent at the smallest expense to the individual; but there is nothing practical and nothing useful about it. Dr. Arnold's nature was too noble and too pure to allow of his personally participating in this degrading pastime; but there can be no doubt that there is a querulous and an unhealthy tone about his miscellaneous writings, which may tend to foster the growth of a disease which a wise man would repress, and that they may afford food to those who, without one particle of his ability or his benevolence, would

His

have no objections to feed a passion which they consider respectable merely because it is prevalent. otherwise admirable sketches will not teach contentment, nor will they inspire the uncritical reader with respect for the past or the present, for the author himself felt none: but surely there are some bright spots even in human history; surely there have been times when man was happy and deserved to be so; surely there is a tolerably equal admixture of good and evil in the world; and surely it is the duty of the moralist and the historian not to neglect these, were it only for example's sake. Dr. Arnold would seem to have thought differently. His theory of imaginary perfection precluded the possibility of a compromise, and what was not positively good he was obliged to condemn as positively bad. He had viewed society so long in one light that the power of contrast failed him, hence his characters are either heroes or devils. For mere humanity, such as God has made it, there was no place in his system; and between the paradisaical state of being on which his fancy loved to dwell, and the "desolation of woe," there was no middle spot on which man could rest, and fulfil some of the purposes of his being. In his anxiety to be just, he became stern and exclusive; and in his dread of being lenient to vice, he forgot the existence, the authority, and the elasticity of virtue. There might, nevertheless, be "balm in Gilead," though he had not the skill to extract it; and the gradual regeneration of the race may be among the designs of Providence, though the evidences of that arrangement escaped his penetration.

We have also remarked it as a peculiarity of these lectures, that amid much interesting discussion on what we must call a body of miscellaneous subjects, the theory of race, or generic differences, is nowhere noticed; and that no attempt is made to discriminate between the effects of temperament and the influence of institutions. A slight acquaintance with history, however, is sufficient to shew that the former reaches deep into the philosophy of

nationality, and calls for the utmost caution in the application of dogmatic principles in the elucidation of its properties. The energy of the Saxon character, for instance, is what M. Guizot would call a fact; in other words, it is a natural not an acquired quality, to which many of the most memorable incidents of mediæval and modern history may be referred. The Saxon race is now the ruling race, and to its energy it owes, first, its liberty; secondly, its progress in science, literature, and commerce; and, thirdly, its extensive dominion. It covers a large portion of the surface of the globe, and in time it will cover more; and the question which is suggested by the contemplation of these phenomena is, to what cause can they with most propriety be ascribed? It is not Acts of Parliament, nor the existence of parliament itself, nor her tripartite constitution, which have made Britain what she is and long has been, the foremost power in the world; but it is the Saxon character which has made all these, for, in truth, they are but emanations from its spirit, forms of its living soul, and expressions of its sovereign will. It had no original advantages over other races except those which its energy imparted; and it is certainly not beneath the dignity of history, or of historical criticism, to inquire how that property has affected its destiny during the progress of a thousand years. Take the Irish, again. They are not Saxon, and neither are the French. The sprinkling of northern blood which both contain has not been able to modify the force of primary character; and by that character, not by Teutonic tastes and passions, do they continue to be distinguished to this day. Do what you will-endow Maynooth, build lay colleges in Ireland, or plant a mockery of the British senate in Paris; you cannot efface the ingrained marks of race, nor prevent them from re-acting on the habits, manners, tastes, and even the pastimes of the people who possess them. The same observation applies to other nations. Their generic peculiarities must be studied and remembered if we would com

prehend either them or their histories, or form a rational estimate of their vices or their virtues. Old records and monkish chronicles, of which Dr. Arnold was so fond, we are far from undervaluing as subsidiary testimonies; nor would we speak slightingly of the importance of ancient statutes, which must necessarily reflect the spirit of the times and the legislative temper of the age to which they belong: but they cannot supply the place of those unwritten records which the Almighty has traced on the brows and planted in the hearts of the creatures whom He has made, and which not only outlive the passage of years and geographical changes, but are inextinguishable by the subtle influences of civilisation itself. Some chapters of the late Mr. Hope's work on man, apocryphal as that strange book is on many points, are models of this kind of analysis. Something less glarish would have suited Dr. Arnold; and had he lived to complete his sketch of the Middle Ages, he would have, doubtless, introduced the subject. The present volume contains scarcely an allusion to it, and in a series of introductory lectures on history, where it would have found its appropriate place, we consider its total omission a defect.

We must now bring these remarks to a close. They have exceeded the limits assigned to us, but the subject is seductive, and would warrant a

larger measure of observation than we can afford to bestow upon it. The extraordinary individual whose character we have endeavoured to estimate, was prematurely cut off in the midst of his days and his usefulness; and it is but reasonable to conclude that, had his valuable life been spared, Experience, which is a stern teacher, would have softened many of his asperities and corrected many of his errors. If properly directed, the exercise of his talents would have been of immense benefit to mankind; as it is, much of what he has left behind him is crude and unsatisfactory, and displays the activity rather than the compactness of his mind. We should also fear that his political and ecclesiastical heresies would find more admirers than his solid virtues, and that Dr. Arnold will be oftener quoted than imitated. "Unicuique dedit vitium natura creato." The rule is of universal application, and his prominent infirmity was a contempt for the opinions of others, and a too exclusive confidence in the soundness of his own. With less of this haughty self-reliance and more humility, what might he not have accomplished, for Dr. Arnold was both an accomplished and a good man?

Λαῷ γαρ συμπαντι ποθος κρατερόφρονος άνδρας
Θνης κοντος, ζώωνδ ̓, ἄξιος ἡμίθεων,
"Ωσπερ γαρ μιν πύργον εν οφθαλμοισιν ὁρῶσιν·
Ερδει γαρ πολλῶν ἄξια μουνος εων.

forced upon him the necessity of acting honestly; indeed, it was no uncommon thing to find a whole year's pay due to men, who, with arms in their hands, lived, as was to be expected, by plunder, till the districts which they were embodied to protect could no longer sustain the weight of their presence. During the anarchy that followed Runjeet's demise, both the Sirkar and the army more and more followed the bent of their inclinations; and the one withholding pay, the other first threatened, then robbed the peaceable inhabitants, and, finally, broke out into universal mutiny. As was to be expected, the infuriated soldiery turned their arms first against their European commanders. Some of these they slew, others with difficulty escaped, while some owed their lives to their own gallantry and the devoted attachment of a few of their adherents. The result was, that Shere Singh yielded every point for which the mutineers clamoured, distributed largesses among them, and punished none; after which he granted a four months' furlough to the whole of them, and forthwith plunged into the course of degrading vice to which he had long been addicted.

It was in 1843 that the hatred of the Sikhs towards the English, which had long smouldered, and by the energy of Runjeet been kept under, began to shew itself openly. They demanded, that the new Maha Rajah should refuse a passage to General Pollock through the Punjaub; and when they failed in carrying this point, they clamoured for leave to fall upon his communications, and rob the convoys which from time to time were sent up to him. Shere Singh steadily refused to sanction these proceedings; whereupon a conspiracy was entered into for the purpose of getting rid of him; and, at a review of cavalry outside the walls of Lahore, he was murdered by his own brother-in-law, Ajeet Singh. Not that the young man stood alone. On the contrary, Dhejan Singh, the same minister who had raised Shere Singh to the throne, secretly favoured the plans for his destruction, and gave proof of his approval of the assassination by getting into the murderer's carriage and proceeding with him towards the city. But

they had not sat long together ere a difference of opinion, with regard to the new government that was to be set up, occurred; whereupon Ajeet Singh stabbed his relative to the heart, and casting his body to the ground, made his followers hack off his head

It would be as little profitable, as it would be disgusting, to follow, one by one, the course of the atrocities that followed. Ajeet Singh slew every member of the royal family whom he succeeded in getting into his power, shewing mercy to none, not even to an infant born the day before; and summed up all by sending the head of Dhejan Singh to his son, Rajah Heerab Singh. He paid dearly for his folly; for Heerab Singh getting his uncle, Gholab Singh, to join him, issued orders to the troops in garrison at Lahore to seize the murderer, who shut himself up in the citadel and was there besieged. The murderer endeavoured to escape,, was overtaken, and cut to pieces, whereupon Herab Singh set up Dhulab Singh, a reputed son of Runjeet, as Maha Rajah; and in the capacity of minister to this child of tender years, endeavoured to grasp the powers of the state. He was not strong enough to keep the place he had won. New factions arose, new mutinies occurred among the troops, and Herab Singh becoming an object of hostility to his nearest of kin, died as most of his predecessors had done. And now the mother of the infant Maha Rajah put in her claim to be treated as regent, and the whole frame-work of society fell to pieces. The soldiers roamed about the coun

try at will. Towns were sacked, villages plundered, while the wretched woman, nominally at the head of affairs, lived as we could not, without the violation of all the dictates of decency, stop so much as to hint at.

Meanwhile the Indian government had not been inattentive to the progress of events across the Sutlej. Other and more urgent cares pressed, indeed, upon Lord Ellenborough, so that he had neither leisure, nor perhaps military means sufficient, to throw the weight of his influence. into the scale of the Sikh parties; but his lordship, we believe, makes no secret of the plans which he meditated for the putting down of a