The Sun.
London, England, 1828-07-14 00:00:00

sensed; and this is particularly true as regards the objects
and pursuits in foreign travel; where just observation is
difficult, and false inferences are prompt to present them-
selves on every side. The man of thirty or forty may
traverse Italy from north to south, without becoming either
antiquarian, artist, or philosophical observer. The youth
of eighteen or twenty, turned loose upon the same country,
is in great danger of becoming a more idler on its surface ;
or if he escape this Scylla may plunge into the worse
Charybdis of a vague, precocious, and pretending knew-
ledge, without depth or usefulness. Inanibas aristis ante
messemilaveseit. The successful cultivation of the mind
by objects of art and taste is rarely attainable under a cer-
tain age ; and the boy, aping the connoisseur, does but cast
discredit on those who placed him in the way of becoming
ridiculous. The Corinthian edifice should rest on a
Tuscan foundation."

The remaining articles " Chronological History
of the West Indies"—" Legal Reforms," and
—" The Federative Policy of Europe," we
must, from press of matter and want of room,
dismiss with the remark that they all bring infor-
mation to the subject ; and arc, for the most part,
devoid of that caustic sectarian spirit, which once
so unpleasantly characterised the pages of this
otherwise excellent periodical.

EDINBURGH REVIEW, No. XCIV.
EDINBURGH, 1828.

" State Trials" is a very learned and ably-
digested notice den intelligent publication; and
alluding to the light diffused by Mr. Phillips
over the doubt and darkness in which the trials
of the 16th and 17th centuries are enveloped,
happily observes, that " he has thrown a bridge
over Chaos." Remarking on the benefit pro-
duced by an impartial examination of the re-
cords of past ages, and an acquaintance, if pos-
sible, with human nature in its utmost variety,
the Reviewer puts forth the following very appo-
site sneers at the modern sect of Utilitarians :

" It is a poor school which judges of the outer world
like a land-surveyor, and looks at man in the spirit of a
slave-dealer about to haggle for his purchase. There arc
elements, both from without and from within, which defy
this system ; and it may be doubted whether the universe,
supposing it were pocaible, would be improved either in
reality or appearance, by thus putting everything under
plough. There is not only room, but use, for all that
God has made in his wisdom—a use not the less real,
because not always tangible or immediate. Our new eco-
nomists, political and moral, who will see nothing valu-
able in either, but what is almost calculable as money, may
leara too late that the masters of better iron, whether in
character or country, may chance to become the owners
of their gold. We are net of those who reproach great
nature with the barrenness of her heaths and solitary high-
lands ;we grudge net the poet his lark and water-fall ; nor
the painter his wilderness of rocks. And they miserably
deceive themselves who, in their bill of prices of the qua-
lities of human excellence, put down at twopence the part
tbat answers to the laurel crown ! For those who are
tired with the tameness and uniformity of everyday life,
we would send them to these volumes—where they may
see the human character drawn out like a telescope, and
adjusting itself to any distance and any eye. It is the har-
mony of strong contrasts, in which greatness of character
truly dwells. As it rises, its variety and rich profusion
only remind us of those southern mountains, whose ma-
jestic ascent combines the fruits of every latitude, and the
temperature of every clime; the vineyard is scattered
around its base to gladden, and the corn field waves above
to support, the family of man,—mount a little higher, and
the traveller is surropncled by the deep umbrageous, forest,
whilst the next elevation will place his foot on its magni-
ficent diadem of eternal snows."
His sketch of Elizabeth, which is cursorily in-
troducedtrial of Essex, is full of character and life.—
E x. in some remarks arising out of the
first.

" Elizabeth is a representative of the whole Tudor line.
To the frugality and caution of the founder of their family,
she united her father's capricious temperament and courage,
with more than her brother's learning, and not a great
deal less than her sister's intolerance of religious innova-
tions. Her character was colossal—and designed for that
triumphal pillar upon which she was early placed by a
nation that she enlightened, invigorated, and saved.—
I aken down from that elevation, for the purpose of being
subjected to a moral microscope, formed on the more