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could resort, and not be disappointed in the hope of finding the means of prosecuting the thorough and complete study of any of the highest branches of learning or science. For some departments, there is, in most of our colleges, no provision whatever of books and teaching; and in none of them an adequate provision. There ought surely to be one institution in which there might be found at least the books, apparatus, and all the material conditions, for the complete and thorough study of every department of higher science and learning. And there is scarcely a conceivable way in which the Church could more effectually combine her general energies for the good of the country and her own honour and extension, than by founding and sustaining such an institution. Let the importance of the object only be properly felt, and it can be accomplished. To collect, indeed, at all the local institutions, complete materiel (books, apparatus, &c.) for every branch of high science and learning, and to assemble a full body of the most accomplished professors, even if it were desirable, could not be done. But it certainly is in the power of the Church at large, by combining her resources, to establish one great general institution, amply endowed, and provided with all the means requisite for the complete and thorough pursuit of every branch of science and learning. Besides the intrinsic desirableness of such an institution for those who wish for the means of a more profound and thorough study of any department of learning than the existing institutions supply, the possession of such an institution would give the Church an honourable eminence, and a commanding influence which she could scarcely acquire in any other way.

But there is still another most important object which we should wish to see recognized in connexion with the establishment of a great central university for the Church, or else provided for in some other mode. Without diminishing, but rather increasing, the means for diffusing a competent share of general learning and professional accomplishment, there is a special want in our country of a higher style of scholarship; we need a class of men more thoroughly accomplished in the various departments of classical, biblical, and theological learning. To secure this object, there must be more division of labour. No one can excel in all things. Individuals must devote their lives and powers to the attainment of the highest excellence in some one department to which they find in themselves a special vocation. But it is idle to expect this can be done by the parochial clergy, or by those employed in a daily

routine of communicating comparatively elementary instruction in our schools, colleges, or even in our theological seminaries. Even if they could find the time, they have not the materials for profound and thorough investigation. They could not sustain the expense of making complete collections of books, &c. ; and as things now are, there are no adequate collections to which they could have access. It must be obvious to every reflecting mind, that besides all that may be done in this way by the parochial clergy and by the instructors in our existing institutions, there are many departments of high intellectual exertion, for which it would be for the glory of God, the honour and extension of the Church, the instruction and benefit of the country, to make special and most ample provision.

It would be easy to draw out the illustration of this remark, and to point to a variety of particulars in which the interests of the Church require the employment of special learned services. But for this we have not time at present; and we shall only advert to one fact, which we hope will prove but the commencement and germe of a more complete and systematic movement. We allude to the action of the General Convention upon the communication of the Rev. Dr. Hawks relative to the collection and preservation of documents and materials for the history of the Church in the United States. This led to the mission of Dr. Hawks to England during the last year; from whence he brought an immense mass of rich and valuable documents for the illustration of the earlier history of the Church in this country. These, with the collections of manuscripts and printed works previously made by Dr. Hawks, form an invaluable body of materials for the history of the Church.* To the working of these materials the zealous collector has ardently devoted himself; but how, even with his versatility of power and capacity of labour, this lifelong task is to be accomplished in conjunction with the labours of a large parish, and the manifold other demands made upon his time, we confess ourselves at a loss to conceive.

We said that we hoped this action of the General Convention would prove the germe of a more extensive and systematic provision for the higher wants of the Church. Let there be made complete collections of materiel for the thoro h pursuit of every department of learning, and especially theolo

The archives of the Lambeth palace, and of the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, were freely submitted to the examination of Dr. Hawks; and the results of his laborious search are contained in seventeen thick folio volumes of MSS., the heavy expense of transcribing which was in part borne by Trinity Church, New-York.

gical, ecclesiastical, and kindred learning. Let provision also be made for the support of a competent number of those who, with adequate abilities, may be led by the strong impulse of their nature to the pursuit and communication, through the pen and press, of truth in the highest spheres of good learning. The Church has need of such services: let her secure them. It is her policy, her wisdom, her duty. The system of exertions which she is called upon to make, in extending her own influence and in promoting true religion, is incomplete without some such provision for the higher intellectual wants of the Church and of the country. We earnestly hope this subject will claim the attention of the next General Convention; and that some action may be taken commensurate with the importance of the object, and with the resources of the Church.

There are one or two other important subjects to which we designed to call the attention of our readers; but the length to which our remarks have already extended, makes it necessary to defer what we wished to say to a future opportunity. In the meantime we would commend the objects we have endeavoured on the present occasion to advocate, to the serious consideration of all enlightened and devoted members of the Church.

ART. XI.-ANALYTICAL AND CRITICAL NOTICES.

1. The Rocky Mountains; or Scenes, Incidents, and Adventures in the Far West; digested from the Journal of Captain B. L. E. Bonneville, of the army of the United States, and illustrated from various other sources, by WASHINGTON IRVING. Philadelphia; Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1837. 2 vols. 12mo.

JOHNSON said of Goldsmith, when he was engaged in his history of Animated Nature," he has the art of saying every thing he has to say in a pleasing manner-he is now writing a Natural History, and will make it as entertaining as a Persian tale." Irving, too, not less a master of English prose, touches nothing that he does not adorn,-Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit. In Astoria and the present work he has created his subject by the force of his happy fancy and humour. Through these scenes of the Far West the graces of his pen have literally made the solitary wilderness blossom like a garden, invested the harsh and rugged features of the desert with the air of sublimity, made its gloomy, discoloured rivers poetical, and tinged its barren mountain tops with the rich sunny hues of fancy.

But little was known before the appearance of Astoria of the great Western region. We heard there were hunters and trappers employed in gaining a dangerous and difficult livelihood from the peltries of the Columbia and the Far Pacific; a rude story would sometimes reach us of a skirmish with the Indians, a disaster by sea, or a fatal quarrel between the rival trading companies; we saw the rich furs collected in the warehouses, and learned among the statistics (that useful knowledge) that they supplied a wealthy and important branch of trade; but we knew nothing of the life of adventure and exciteinent associated with that distant region. But Irving has thrown a better light on the land for young and old. He has shown us that here, in these worn-out times of the world, there is a last foothold left for a remnant of chivalry in the wild life of the Far West. The passion for adventure. that influenced Sydney and Raleigh has fast disappeared before the over-civilization of the old world; a few travellers yet explore Africa or the North Pole, but with chart and compass fully equipped against surprise-they move with the precision of science. Enterprise has assumed a mercantile signification, and is best understood on 'Change. Policies at Lloyds have

taken away the dangers of the seas, and life insurances put to the rout all romance by land or water.

These are the days of fact, not fable,

Of knights, but not of the Round Table.

Society travels westward, and has driven adventure to the shores of the Pacific. The free trapper of the great West yet lingers on these farthest outskirts of society, threading--as he is often painted to our eye in these volumes-the dark defiles of the Rocky Mountains, venturing (so to speak) beyond the sight of land on the shoreless prairie, starving one day on roots, and feasting the next on the rare niceties of the Buffalo hunt, trapping by solitary streams "unsung by poets," or returning to the world full of braggart health to waste his gains in the profusion of the city. At times, too, the picture has a darker shade, when he struggles for life or death with the merciless Indian tribes of the desert. The present work abounds with these motley scenes, and more-it is a constantly shifting panorama of life in one of its most eccentric and varied forms.

We accompany the pleasant Captain through his adventures in this agreeable narrative with much of the feeling we would experience in hearing the story from his own mouth. The book is written by the best English prose writer of the day, containing many passages of description that cannot be surpassed, yet still preserves the simplicity of a tale told by a plain, though observant and humorous narrator. Most fine writers would have obscured the subject and destroyed this great charm, but Irving is something better than a fine writer. Perhaps a fine writer would have passed this subject over as beneath him; but in this, too, Irving is something better than a fine writer. He is a man of genius, and genius shows its power in elevating a common subject to its own height. A man of mere fact might have drawn up a useful table of statistics on the Fur Trade, but would never have written this tour of Captain Bonneville. Whether in fact or fable, may Irving continue to send forth more such delightful volumes, and may we live on to read them.

2. Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., by J. G. LOCKHART-Parts 1-4. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blan

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We intend nothing further than to announce this work at present. Its discussion hereafter will afford ample material for more than a single article. In permanent literary interest

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