The Sun.
London, England, 1837-11-29 00:00:00

posed. Many Whigs thought his views chimerical—all Tories
thought he was demoralizing the people. Still he pressed on,
and light remained upon the track he had trod. Alarmed at
his progress, the Tories (although such arguments are still
heard in private) no longer talked publicly of the danger of
education to the people. They attempted to rival the course
they could not stop. The National Society sprang into being
—schools multiplied, and education spread. But while the
Tories were obliged to follow the movement, they execrated
its author. His design had been to spread education among
every class, among the followers of every creed ; to treat it
as an affair utterly distinct from religion, and to remove it
from the custody of those who had carefully confined it within
the pale of the Church. Their maxim had always appeared
to be, Ignorance or orthodoxy ;' his was, Universal educa-
tion.' Mr. Brougham objected to the admixture of religion
in a national plan of education, because it must render the
operation of that plan partial instead of universal. lie would
teach the children of the poor to reed and write, and leave
their religious instruction to their parents : he would teach
men to think and reason, hut leave to them the choice of sub-
jects upon which they should exercise their powers. The To-
ries have always looked upon education as an instrument of
proselytism in the hands of the establishment. They thought
the Church in danger from the new theories of education, and
instituted schools in vahich it was rendered subservient to the
dissemination of the doctrines of the Church of England.
Thus, from the opposition of the parties arose an important
public good ; and while the Edinburgh and Quarterly Re-
views, the organs of their several parties, were exchanging
the epithets bigot' and infidel,' the general cause was ad-
vancing, and the public attentien was fixed upon the subject.
" But the labourers were still far from equal to the extent
of the vineyard. In 1816 the metropolis alone contained 120,000
children destitute of the means of education_a promising mass
of ignorance to act as an incubus upon the advance of civili-
zation among their contemporaries I Brougham now obtained
a Parliamentary Committee, which laid open instances of
entire misappropriation and bold embezzlement of educational
funds, such as no man could have imagined who had heard the
declamation of the Tories upon the sacredness of such insti-
tutions, and upon their vital importance to the prosperity of
the Church. He carried through, against every opposition, a
Bill for a Commission of Inquiry into the abuses of Public
Charities ; but his discoveries had already been too embar-
rassing, and the Minister preferred the odium of excluding
him from the Commission he had originated, to the exposures
which must infallibly follow his appointment. Still, however,
the subject never slumbered in Brougham's active mind ;
through the press from his place in Parliament; through the
Edinburgh Review, by popular and widely-read pamphlets,
the object was kept before the country. Without abandoning
fir a moment the education of children, he comprised in his
endeavours the improvement of adults ; he resuscitated an
idea, which owed its origin to Dr. Birkbeck so long ago as
the year 1800, of forming classes of labouring mechanics, and
lecturing them in the rudiments of natural philosophy and
mathematics. Societies, under the title of Mechanics' Insti-
tutes,' were formed, libraries were collected, laboratories pro-
cured, professors appointed, and cheap publications on scien-
tific subjects were publed, and found extensive sale. The
Tories saw the cleerige with alarm ; and their oracles, unable
openly to denounce the abandonment of sensual for mental
enjoyment, turned their violence upon the author of the change.
Party abuse, unless it degenerates to private calumny,
in it.
injures any man. Brougham appeared to luxuriate !t. His
powers of ready eloquence, fierce invective, and withering sar-
casm, left him nothing to fear from an opponent. When the
barking of the pack which has so long surrounded him is for.
gotten, and a future generation comes to analyse and com-
pare the powers of mind of those who have preceded them,
Brougham will probably be placed at the head of contempo-
rary statesmen ; he will certainly be regarded with admira-
tion, as the leader of the little band of pioneers who first
entered the forest, and cleared a space through which the
sunbeams, that had hitherto rested upon the topmost branches,
descended to dissipate the darkness that reigned below.
" While Brougham was teaching his countrymen to reason,
Mr. Hume was diligently supplying them data. The neoessity
of covering corruption and concealing extravagance had led to
a designed confusion of the national accounts. Items of ex-
penditure could never be obtained, totals only were brought
forward, and these were communicative of little more than the
extent of the Minister's demand. Perhaps there was not an-
other man in England, except Mr. Hume, who could have
reduced these accounts to an intelligible state. Gifted with
no extraordinary talent, although a shrewd and sensible speaker
yet by no means an orator, he discovered nevertheless an im-
perturbable perseverance, an indifference to defeat, a disre-
gard, appearing like unconsciousness, of the invective by
'which he was assailed, and of the wit by which he was ridi-
culed. Equally undisturbed by the jeers of Canning, the
indignation of Huskisson, and the majorities of Castlereagh,
he was nightly at his post, calling for explanations, and de-
manding returns. Whenever his importunity was success-
ful—to perseverance like his, all things are possible—and
he was admitted to inspect the details of a suspicious
item, he almost invariably discovered the grub, around
which the mysterious web had been woven, in the
shape of a sinecure, a pension, or something equally desirous
of concealment ; and picking it out and holding it up to the
House of Commons he passed on to the apext. At first the
House laughed, and the public echoed the laugh ; but at
length the aff,tir became serious, the examples became nume-
rous—an impression was made—the agriculturist, who felt
present distress were inclined to listen to tales of extraval
gance—in the debate upon Mr. Curwen's motion for a rcpea-
of the agricultural horse-tax, Mr. Hume's laborious exertions
became the subject of praise instead of ridicule, and Castle-
reagh, after a vehement opposition to the motion, was left in a
minority. These successes afterwards became frequent, Cas-
tlereaeh was beaten upon many minor subjects of economical
reforms, and he at last was compelled to form a compact with
Mr. Hume, by which he granted him all the returns be imme-
diately wanted."

LIVE AND LET LIVE.
BY MISS SEDOWICK.
London, John Green, 1837.

This is a reprint of a Tale published in America,
from the pen of a most popular female author of the
New World, Miss Sedgwick. Its object is to im-
prove the moral condition of the middling and lower
classes, by giving them, through the medium of a fic-
titious narrative, correct notions of their relative social
duties. We especially recommend it to the admirers
of Miss Martineau's Tales, to the most popular of
which it bears a. strong resemblance. There are few
housekeepers who may not profit largely by its atten,
tive perusal.

THE SQUIRE.—IN 3 VOLS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF 44 THE HEIRESS," 6-C.
London, Bentley, 1837.
. .

This novel is more likely to become a favourite in
the nursery than in circles where a maturer judgment
is exercised upon the merits of works of fiction. It
abounds in the wonderful and the improbable—its
pages are spiced with startling details of midnight
love flights, jealousy, and murder. An old lady, long
thought dead, re-appears, on the stage of mortality
when her presence is most wanted—a lost brother is
suddenly foth-id to rescue his only sister from disho.
nour—and a venerable gentleman, by no means re-
markable for the sweetness of his temper, is relieved
from a load of remorse, by discovering that a shot
which he fired many years before, with the most
fell intent, had wounded nothing but his own
peace of mind. We are sorry for the author's
sake that the incidents selected were not more
natural, as we find in these volumes several passages
of a highly redeeming character. The time when a
novelist might have taken the " Castle of Otranto,"
the " Mysteries of Udolpho," or the " Children of
the Abbey " as a model of fictitious narrative, is de-
parted for ever. This is a truism with which the
author of the " Squire " manifests either a non-ac-
quaintance or a disregard.

LETTERS FROM AN ABSENT GODFATHER.
BY TILT lbw. J. E. RIDDLE,,
London, Longman and Co., 1837.
We cannot too strongly recommend this little work
to all parents, desirous .of bringing up their children in
the religious principles of the Established Church.
While care is taken to avoid all reference to the tenets
of Dissenting religious communities, the highest eccle-
siastical authorities are quoted to fix and define the
doctrines of the Church of England, upon all the lead-
ing points of faith and observance taught and main-
tamed in the Church catechism. The style is simple,
the sentiments pure, and the design and execution of
the work worthy of a devout minister of the Gospel
of Christ.

HINTS TO MOTHERS.
Br THOMAS BULL, M.D.
London, Longman and Co., 1837.
This little work is addressed to married ladies on
the management of their health during the period of
pregnancy, by a medical gentleman of undoubted ex-
perience. It appears to us to be well calculated to
effect the benevolent object designed by the author.

WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS.
VoL.
Wilson, Berwick, 1337.

We are glad to find that this miscellaneous collec-
tion of Border legends andlraditions is growing in fa-
vour with the public, for it deserves to become popular,
being written in a bold, easy, and vigorous style, some-
thing after the manner of Hogg's " Winter Evening
Tales." The late J. Mackie Wilson is the author—
an intelligent and industrious man, who spared no
pains in collecting materials for his Border narratives.
The present work is pOilisliecl for the benefit of his
widow and children.