then to the establishments it possesses for the support of a great number of individuals whose profession is literature, and among it were strange if one or two should not be found who became enthusiasts in their profession, and, having nothing else in the world to attend to, really profound and erudite scholars. This seems to me the true secret of Oxonian erudition: not that as a body the men brought up at Oxford are more learned, far less better informed, far less better educated at Edinburgh-but that Oxford does not, like Edinburgh, let her scholars go just at the moment when they have got over the preliminaries, when they have got the command of their tools, and might, if they were not called away to active service in life, begin to explore the arcana and become initiated into the greater mysteries. Put up a hundred or two rich sinecures in Edinburgh for learned men, as such, and out of the hundred you will certainly find one or two who will turn these sinecures to their intended use-the undisturbed cultivation of the pursuits of erudition. Whether the gain be worthy of the price is another question; but that is the way, if you wish it, to turn Edinburgh into an Oxford.'"-vol i, pp. 210, 211. We must not go much farther into Mr. Patterson's history. Suffice it to say that he was in 1829, presented to the large and populous parish of Falkirk, in Stirlingshire, by the crown; and that he died on the 29th of June, 1835. As a preacher, his biographer says of him, that he at once rose into the very first class in public estimation: his style and character are thus described :— "There was nothing bizarre about him to attract-no forced peculiarities of style or manner, such as often for a while engage and amuse the capriciousness of popular admiration; but there was every grace of scholarship, and fervid and flowing eloquence-high powers of reasoning united to a glowing and plastic imagination-together with an extensive and accurate knowledge of scripture doctrine, and, over and above all, a high devotional spirit, and the manifestation of an unction which intimated that he preached the Gospel of his Lord from full conviction and deep feeling, and was not one of those who can speak of the glories of Christ, and the eternal interests of men, as coldly as if he were reading a lecture in mathematics, or an experiment in natural philosophy.' We have indeed heard him charged with an elaborate and artificial style of preaching-a manner too rhetorical and declamatory; but the objection never appeared to us well founded. It seemed the criticism of superficial observers, who mistook the majestic march of his language, and the natural magnificence of his thoughts, for the mere love of glitter and pomp, and an ear for flowing phrases and balanced periods. Such objectors seemed to us to confound the impulses of a powerful and capacious mind dealing with the stupendous revelations of the Gospel, and a loftiness of language flowing from the very subject-matter of his thoughts, for an empty and frivolous parade of words, and a straining after effect. Nor did they sufficiently advert to the fact that his rich and gorgeous imagination drew much of its conceptions and imagery from the beautiful and the sublime of Scripture. In a word, they perceived not that he was a popular philosopher, and a philosophical declaimer.' His discourses were neither abstract nor scholastic; he did not deal in metaphysical subtleties and recondite speculations, but addressed himself to the common spmpathies and understanding of his hearers. His sermons were characterized by clearness as well as depth of thought; by precision and vigour of expression, not less than by rich diction and flowing eloquence; by lucid arrangement, and by the grace and finish of the whole." -vol. i, pp. 229, 230. From all we can discover of Mr. Patterson's genius and accomplishments, we must agree with his biographer, who, of course, had many opportunities of judging, that the reader of these volumes cannot possess, when he says:— · "As a scholar and man of letters, Mr. Patterson was certainly more distinguished for correctness of taste and soundness of judgment, than for original or inventive genius. Yet it would be doing him great injustice to rank him with the merely literary class. He was not only profound in learning, but the faculties of his intellect were of the highest order; his understanding was at once profound and acute; accuracy of thought, not less than copiousness of ideas and comprehensiveness of views, distinguished whatever he wrote; and in all his mental efforts there was a facility and spontaneousness which are the characteristic marks of real genius. He was undoubtedly one of those men of whom Johnson says, that their slightest and most cursory performances excel all that labour and study can enable meaner intellects to compose.' One great secret of his superiority was his well-balanced mind; his faculties were finely adjusted to each other in their original creation, and had been cultivated in a due relative proportion. Hence they never impeded, but mutually assisted each other in their action. His judgment was as strong as his imagination was vivid and his sensibility lively. His fine taste and delicate moral sense attempered the enthusiasm of his genius and the exuberance of his imagination. Hence the strict keeping and harmony of his compositions. He had no eccentricities-no oblique propensities of intellect—no morbid constitutional irritability about him; his good sense was always as conspicuous as his genius, and his genius was as decidedly practical as it was contemplative. Hence the manliness and justness, as well as beauty and chasteness, of his moral sentiments."-vol. i, pp. 313-315. Among the various, beautiful, and learned papers printed in the appendix to the first volume, there is one on "The Eloquence of the Pulpit," which is particularly able and charming. The editor says that it was originally read before a society of young collegians, when its author was a student of divinity. His great object in it, is to vindicate to eloquence, but the eloquence of the pulpit particularly, a much greater freedom of range, and variety of character, than is generally conceded in systematic treatises on rhetoric. In doing this, he instances a number of the most famous pupitorators which Britain has produced in past or present times; giving each his precise due, if we may judge according to the extent of our knowledge of these masters, with a felicity of language, and accuracy of criticism, that, we believe, are nowhere to be excelled. The manner in which he applies his general views to the youthful audi ence he addressed, will afford us the only extract for which we have remaining space. It is altogether worthy of the illustrious young man whose career was so brief. "The great practical truth which immediately results from these illustrations and deductions is a very cheering one-that no man who possesses faculties able to move the minds of his fellows, whatever may be the particular description of these faculties, is excluded by nature from the attainment of a powerful and persuasive eloquence; but that every mind of power, wherever that power may reside, whether in reason, or imagination, or feeling, and whichsoever it may assume of those manifold appearances in which mental ability presents itself to our view, may construct for itself an appropriate eloquence, and so enjoy the prerogatives and wear the laurels. of that not ignoblest of dominions. Know thyself, therefore (the heavendescended, and, like other things of heavenly birth, too much neglected maxim), Know thyself must be the first principle in this as in every other part of self-education. Ascertain the nature and degree of your various powers; examine their systematic combination; know where your strength lies, and where your weakness: reckon the amount of your mental resources; calculate what you may safely demand from them, and in what direction of effort they promise you success. Let the inquiry be as minute and as complete as possible. It is a difficult, but an important one, and you are furnished with many facilities, of which your attendance on this Society is not the least valuable for making the necessary experiment. We are arrived at that period of our progress at which our intellectual characters may be considered as formed, at least in their grand outlines and lineaments, and when we may expect a scrutiny of our own minds to be rewarded with some degree of solid information in regard to the extent of their powers and the direction of their tastes. And having once reached this point, the great fundamental rule to which we should attend in the development of our mind through speech is this, 'Be natural.' There is nothing that so directly reaches or so powerfully moves the heart, either in thought or feeling, manner or language, as the simplicity of unsophisticated nature. There is no foe to eloquence, or to the capacity of pleasing in any department of social intercourse, so deadly as affectation, or an unnatural bias forced upon the character. You may observe many a public speaker who has injured, or even destroyed in his own mind, what might have been matured into a commanding or a persuasive eloquence, either by aiming at those excellencies in which nature never forced him eminently to shine, or by carrying into extravagant prominence those which nature gave him in measured degree and for measured use. There is an electricity in natural eloquence which has beyond all other rhetoric an inexpressibly thrilling and attractive power. And O the loss of that freshness, that sprightly force, that living charm, that soul of style, those breathing thoughts and burning words which nature can alone inspire, is but ill compensated by the stilted majesty and irregular strength, the distorted attitudes and mountebank trickeries of speech, that draw the staring wonder of the multitude! But of all persons in whom an unnatural eloquence is offensive and mischievous, most mischievous and most offensive is it in man that ministers and serves the altar.' It is a poor thing in any cir cumstances for a public speaker to be merely wondered after, when men's minds are to be instructed and swayed to action: but beyond common measures of contempt does he deserve it, who to so poor a distinction sacrifices aims so momentous as those of the Christian pulpit. To every student of eloquence, therefore, and especially to every candidate for the sacred chair, do I say, on the strength not merely of critical deductions, but of the obligations of a high and solemn duty, that his leading step in the cultivation of the art should be to ascertain, by the examination of his own mind and character, what line of eloquence to him is natural, and to make this the fundamental principle of his whole system of rhetorical study, ' versate diu quid ferre recusent Quid valeant humeri; cui lecta potenter erit res, In politics, Mr. Patterson was a Whig. ART. X. 1.-Considerations sur les Causes du Suicide; Paris, 1836. 2.-De Euthanasia Medica. Prolusio Academica. MARX. 4to. Gottinga. Auctore C. F. H. NUMEROUS as may be the causes for disgust with life, its end is never contemplated with indifference. Religion may elevate the soul to a sublime reliance on the benefits of a future existence; nothing else can do it. The love of honour may brave danger; the passion of melancholy may indulge in an aversion to continued being; philosophy may resign itself to death with composure; the sense of shame may conduct to fortitude; yet they, who would disregard death, must turn their thoughts from the consideration of its terrors. It is an instinct of nature to strive to preserve our being; and the instinct cannot be eradicated. The mind may turn away from the contemplation of horrors; it may fortify itself by refusing to observe the extent of impending evil; the instinct of life is still opposed to death; and he, who looks directly at it and professes indifference, is a hypocrite, or is self-deceived. He, that calls boldly upon death, is dismayed on finding him near. The child looks to its parent, as if to discern a glimpse of hope; the oldest are never so old, but they desire life for one day longer; even the infant, as it exhales its breath, springs from its pillow to meet its mother, as if there were help where there is love. There is a story told of one of the favourite marshals of Napoleon, who, in a battle in the south of Germany, was struck by a cannon ball, and so severely wounded, that there was no hope of a respite. Summoning the surgeon, he ordered his wounds to be dressed; and, when help was declared to be unavailing, the dying officer, pushed into a frenzy by the passion for life, burned with vindictive anger against the medical attendant, threatening the heaviest penalties, if his art should bring no relief. The dying man clamorously demanded that Napoleon should be sent for, as one who had power to save ; whose words could stop the effusion of blood from his wounds, and awe nature itself into submission. Life expired amidst maledictions heaped upon the innocent surgeon, whose skill was unavailing. This account would have seemed incredible, if we had not occasion to know a similar, though in humbler life: a sick man, vowing that he would not die, cursing his physician, who announced the near termination of his life, and insisting that he would live, as in a derision of the laws of nature. To some minds this foolish frenzy appeared like blasphemy; it was but the uncontrolled display of a passion for life; the instinct of self-preservation, exerted in a rough and undisciplined mind. Even in men of strong religious convictions, the end of life is not always met with serenity; and the moralist and philosopher sometimes express an apprehension, which cannot be pacified. Dr. Johnson was the instructer of his age; his works are full of the effusions of piety, the austere lessons of reflecting wisdom. It might have been supposed, that religion would have reconciled him to the decree of Providence; that philosophy would have taught him to acquiesce in a necessary issue; that science would have inspired him with confidence in the skill of his medical attendants; and yet it was not so. A sullen gloom overclouded his mind; he could not summon resolution to tranquillize his emotions; and, in the impotence of despair, taking advantage of the absence of his attendants, he gashed himself with ghastly and debilitating wounds, as if the blind lacerations of his weak arm could prolong the moments of an existence, which the skill of the best physicians of London declared to be numbered. So earnest was the passion for a continuance of life, that he, who had, during his whole career, been a monitor of moderation, who had acquired fame by enforcing the duties of morality, was now betrayed by a lingering desire of life into acts of imbecile and useless cowardice. "Is there any thing on earth, I can do for you?" said Taylor to Dr. Wolcott, as he lay on his death bed. The passion for life dictated the answer. "Give me back my youth." They were the last words of the satirical buffoon. If Johnson could hope for relief from self-inflicted wounds; if the poet could prefer to his friend the useless prayer for a restoration of his youth, we may readily believe what historians relate to us of the end of Louis XI. of France; a monarch, who was not destitute of eminent qualities as well as disgusting vices; possessing courage, a knowledge of men and of business, a powerful will, a disposition favourable to the administration of justice among his subjects; viewing impunity in injustice, as a royal prerogative. Remorse, fear, a consciousness of being detected, disgust with life and horror of death, these were the sentiments, which troubled the death-bed of the powerful king. The ignorance of physicians in those days was in part betrayed by the belief, that the blood of |