it, but have been induced to change our opinion, and that for various reasons. In the first place, this plan would direct instant attention to the names, as well as to the writings, of many young and rising authors. 2dly, It would bring our writers more under a sense of literary responsibility, and render them more careful of what they sent to the press. 3dly, It would be more satisfactory to the mass of readers, who at present tease and tantalise themselves too much about the mere authorship of articles. 4thly and principally, It would effectually root out the nests of those contemptible cliques of small scribes, who make up for their insignificance by their manifolded malice, whose numerous little rivulets of spleen unite into a vulgar and dirty whole, and who, from under the shield of the Anonymous, shoot their poisoned but minnikin shafts at public characters, with impunity to themselves and to the objects of their attack, but with much injury to the general cause of letters, as well as to those more respectable individuals who may chance to be massed up with, and sometimes mistaken for, them. Such knots of composite unclean life could not live an hour, were the plan we propose to be adopted; and, were the caves of these 'Peter Macgrawlers and Assinæums' laid naked to the day, their nasty personalities, low ribaldry, and other 'convulsion-work of rabid imbecility,' would instantly disappear.

We name Boldness as another prominent quality in a powerful periodical. Its air must not be timid and apologetic. Its preliminary bow over, it must not be perpetually going about as if, like the character described by Hall, it were 'constantly apologising for the unpardonable liberty of being in the world.' It should stand erect, and speak out loud and bold. All weakness is timid, power is ever daring. It was partly by boldness and energy that our great journals of the past gained and kept their ground. The 'Edinburgh Review' rushed into literature like an eagle, and hung back from no quarry, however lofty or however humble: it now snatched up the bleating lamb, and now rent the royal lion-cub, and now pounced upon the singing-birds of the grove. 'Blackwood's Magazine,' at its beginning, added to a daring scarcely inferior, a dauntless impudence peculiar to itself; and the heroes of the 'Noctes' shrank from absolutely nothing which might

astonish or mystify, strike or stun, amuse or petrify, the public. Whence, too, the power of the 'Times,' the leading journal of Europe? Not entirely from its immense resources, its extensive information, its varied talent, long-established name, and the stimulating effect of that mystery which environs it, but greatly, also, from the bold and confident tone assumed by its writers, whose words sound like the strokes of some giant hammer, and are re-echoed through the world. We are far from proposing such journals as, in every point, worthy of imitation. But we do think, that something of their independent and self-reliant spirit, in a better and holier cause, were worth copying. A periodical holding strong principles, supported by strong talent, and informed by genuine earnestness, should use strong language, and take up a high and decided tone, which yet might be, and seem to be, something very different from the impertinence of shallow conceit, or the insolence of overbearing dogmatism. The journal that would wield power and sway opinion, must not be an aspen or sensitive plant; it should be a sturdy oak, or the pine of the poet'Moor'd to the rifted rock,

Proof to the tempest's shock,
Firmer it roots him the louder it blows.'

We are reminded, by this quotation from one of our great national poets, of the next qualification we desiderate in a firstrate journal-Nationality. Journals, like charity, should begin, although not end, at home. To a wide and generous cosmopolitanism, they should unite an interest in national affairs, a sympathy with national progress, a desire to vindicate the peculiar rights, to maintain the independence, to illustrate the manners, and to recognise the rising genius of their nation. And this, especially, if the nation, like Scotland, be in danger of narrowing and dwindling into a province, and becoming a mere subaltern appendage to a richer and larger, although not a nobler or older kingdom. The cry, 'Justice to Scotland,' has become a watchword. Upon the political significance of that cry we enter not; but we would raise and ring it with all the vehemence in our power in reference to our literary and social interests. Our authors, our books, our journals are fast ceasing to he Scottish. Look in proof of this to the celebrated journals we mentioned above. The 'Edinburgh Review' is now edited

by an Englishman; its principal contributors are English, and it seldom touches on a Scottish topic, or reviews a Scottish author. 'Blackwood's Magazine' is in the same predicament, with the exception that its editor-honour to his illustrious name! is a Scotchman, a prominent member of the Justice to Scotland' Association; and yet, in his righteous and disinterested impartiality, seldom notices Scottish literature at all-never reviewed even the remains of one of 'Ebony's' most admired contributors, although published for the behoof of his widow, simply, we suppose, because that contributor was a Scotchman, and because the memoir prefixed was written by another very eminent Scotchman! It may be thought that this conduct is much more rational, and more likely in the long run to benefit Scotland, than the rash enthusiasm displayed by the late Christopher North. And yet to do HIM justice, he was sincere in his attachment, although unguarded in his expression of it, to his native land. When he donned his 'sporting jacket,' it was among the moors of Caledonia; when he spake of 'streams' or 'cottages,' the streams were the Tweed, the Tay, the Clyde, the Cart, and the Cona-the cottages, those which send up their smoke each morning and evening, like the smoke of an altar, parallel with the simple song of praise, to Scotland's still blue morning heaven; and on whomsoever he might shower that praise, which fell on genius all over the world, like autumn sunlight on autumn foliage, adding beauty to the beautiful, and glory even to the decayed, the richest gleams were ever reserved for our own Burns, our own Ettrick Shepherd, our own Aird, Campbell, and Scott. Even our subordinate and rising periodicals, too, are not sufficiently national, and some of our young authors, both in poetry and prose, are forgetting their puir auld mither, and becoming the adopted children of a more richlyattired, but not a fairer, a prouder, or a purer matron.

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unquestionably at the head of our literature, poetry, and eloquence. Now these are gone; and, although there are many clever men still among us, none, with the dubious exception of Carlyle, have taken fully the place of these giants; and most of the leading spirits of the age belong to the South. Hence Scottish books, manners, authors, even scenes, have lost much of their prestige, and fewer hearts now 'warm to the tartan.' Besides, there is in many parts of South Britain a positive prejudice against Scottish writers, particularly if they dare to use the Doric of their native land. Men acquainted with the book trade can tell us how difficult it is to introduce Scottish poems, and Scottish novels, whether new or old, if at all national, into the great southern markets, upon the sale in which the success of a work so much depends. To this, almost the only exceptions are the works of Burns and the Waverley Novels. Talk to most of the English of Ramsay, or Ferguson, or Galt, or Mansie Wauch, and they stare and say, Burns we know, and Scott we know, but who are these? Away with their barbarous gibberish!' But, again, this prejudice has been deepened by the profound silence, or the reckless and infamous abuse, with which some wellknown London journals are in the habit of receiving books from the North. We remember the late amiable and admirable Delta, in a letter to ourselves, complaining of this in no measured terms, and instancing Professor Wilson even as having suffered in the sale of his works from a portion of the London press, which never noticed their existence, when republished as the 'Recreations of Christopher North.' In this we cordially agree with him, and none the less since, after Wilson's death, these same journals have, although with the legs of the lame, which are not equal, with the feet of a Diable Boiteux, been trying to trample on his glorious grave. We cannot help contrasting this base and contemptible usage of Wilson in the South (we mean, of course, by a set of critics there), with our Scottish treatment of De Quincey, whom we have not only adopted and sheltered, but to whose genius we have given an amount of recognition, which America herself has not greatly surpassed. In fine, England is, by the magnetism of her superior wealth and importance, not only assimilating,

gradually, our language and manners to her own, but is drawing many of our brighter and more hopeful spirits southwards, and most of these, we fear, make a point of dropping many Scottish peculiarities besides their dialect, accent, and regard for the Sabbath-day.

It may, indeed, be said, 'Well, what can we do?' A current of conformity has set in toward the south, and how is it to be resisted? If an English sale determines the fate of a book or periodical, and if the English won't buy anything that is, strictly speaking, Scottish, it can't be helped-we must just suit our goods to our markets. Now, so far as books are concerned, this may be partially true; but we think it does not apply so much to periodicals. Surely every Scottish periodical might and should have a Scottish corner in it, especially since in England, in America, and in every country under heaven, there are Scotchmen who have 'Scotch'd, not kill'd the Scotchman in their blood,

And love the land of mountain and of flood;' and who would hail with eagerness, and peruse with rapture, whatever told them that Scotland's mountains and Scotland's hearts were still standing or beating in their right places; and that the mighty Mother of a Wallace, a Buchanan, a Knox, a Chalmers, a Scott, and a Wilson, had not ceased to bear men worthy of treading, however far off, in their footsteps, and of emulating, however imperfectly, their virtues and their genius. Nothing can, we think, crush Scotland's aspiring soul, 'cool and ardent, adventurous and persevering, winging her eagle flight against the blaze of every art, and of every science, with an energy that never remits, and a wing that never tires,' except despair in the continuance of her energy and inspiration; and nothing would tend so to circulate that despair, as the continued issue of Scottish periodicals, in which Scotland, like Hamlet in the play, is omitted by special desire.

We name, as a last quality in our ideal periodical, a hopeful, sanguine, believing onlook toward the future prospects of the Christian world. The greatest of these is charity,' in many circumstances and cases; but there are circumstances and cases in which we may with all reverence invert the golden sentence of the apostle, and say, 'The greatest of these is hope.' We live in a twilight age, but everything depends on whether we deem it the

morning or the evening twilight. We have only the light of a crescent to guide us; but, although they strongly resemble each other, there is a great difference between a waxing and a waning crescent. In regard to the future, men's views may, we think, be fairly divided into the following varieties:-There are those who look to the future as to a hopeless repetition of the experiences of the past, modified somewhat by increased culture and improvement, and many of this class would roll round yesterday if they could, and chain us, in politics, in morals, and in religion, to the exemplar of former ages. Another large body expect that the operation of the natural and moral causes at present working is of itself to produce a kind of millennium, somewhat coarser, perhaps, than that painted by prophets, and expected by Christians, but so much the more, they think, likely to be realised. A third and smaller class look forward with very dark forebodings to the possibility of man deteriorating; of his animal and feral nature becoming more despotic than it has even hitherto been, and adduce the increase of madness, and modified licentiousness, in connection with progressive civilisation, as a proof of what they fear. Another class expect our cure from the destruction of all religion, and the concentration of man's every thought and energy upon the improvement of his present condition. A large number found their hopes for the future on the revival of Christianity, coupled with the advance of knowledge, and with social, sanitary, and moral improvements. And a less but increasing class are expecting, in accordance, they suppose, with prophecy and Scripture promise, a supernatural intervention, to stanch all our social wounds, right all our public wrongs, to purify the Augean stable of our morals and miseries, and to settle all our religious disputes at once and for ever.

We enter not on the question, which of these two last views be more consonant to truth, or to the scheme of Scripture; but one or other of them a high-toned journal should entertain. It must, in other words, fight not the battle of despair, but of Christian expectation and hope. There is much in the present state of the country to appal us. churches are all crumbling; the masses are nearly as ignorant and vicious as ever they were, and are fast hurrying into in

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fidelity; the upper classes (see some remarkable statements in a recent number of the Edinburgh Review') are rushing en masse into Pantheism; society seems losing all its old cements, and it is only our present outward prosperity which saves us from a fearful catastrophe. But the man and the journal holding Christian principles will not be discouraged by all this. They will see in it only the darkness which precedes the dawning of the day. They will feel that things may require to be worse ere they are better, but that better they shall be. And standing on the misty mountain tops, they will, as they see through the gloom glimpses of sunny fields, and white villages, and spired cities, and thick-sown churches, and sober, enlightened, happy multitudes, raise a joyful shout of recognition, and cry out to the rear ranks to press onwards, that they too may reach, not only the prophetic summit, but the glorious prospect which it commands. The contemplation of the Future was long only a luxury to the speculative or the enthusiastic; it has now become a necessary to all who would either work or fight with alacrity and success. Deep hope in the Millennium of the Bible strengthens men for toil, soothes them under discouragement, hardens them against scorn and detraction, and with what easy grandeur does it bridge across every torrent of opposition, however furiously it may flow, and however madly it may foam! Every good and great object must now be pled, as if in the sight of that great reserve of Divine force which is expected, and in the prospect of that good time coming' which has been promised, otherwise it will be pled to no purpose, and with no success. The ideal we have thus set up is not yet fulfilled in the periodical for which we write-although there is a decided tendency in this direction-nor in any other. But fulfilled it shall be. And we cannot, ere closing, forbear to glance forward to the periodicals of the coming time. The spawn of the infidel, the blackguard, and the licentious press has vanished from view. No more does each First of the Month let loose a plague of frogs, as thick and foul as erst descended on ill-fated Egypt. No more do light and frivolous, although clever and witty, Weeklies pass like a whirlwind of down across a land,

which is tickled and laughs, but remains unfed and unchanged. No more do the organs of a fierce and narrow sectarianism come forth, as if on dragon wings, to increase the divisions and to deepen the heartburnings of a divided and uneasy church. No more are political or moral diatribes required in a world where right has at length become might, where sin is felt to be unnatural, and work to be holy. No more is religion prostituted by being used as an element of commercial success, a means of speedy sale! All things have been made new. The higher mind of the earth is at last in thorough rapport with its lower. Periodicals have become faithful records of all the pure intuitions, lofty imaginings, noble schemes, and high and holy feelings of those who, in the privilege of superior virtue and genius, have taken the kingdom, and are ruling the world. Purity, simplicity, earnestness, widest sympathy, and warmest piety, stamp their pages, which are, besides, brightened by a genius, inflamed by an ardour, and pervaded by a power, of which we cannot now conceive, and which none even of those dreams, when the soul is most awake, and through sleep, as through a lens of subtlest power, sees things unutterable, can realise to our view. The periodicals of that time shall be hailed in their stated appearance, like the dewdrops sparkling from the womb of the morning, like the stars shining out in the evening sky, like the moon, ever recurring and ever fair-as these bodies beautiful and pure, and as them welcome, and all but worshipped.

'Utopian' is a word already prepared to characterise this description. We care not for it. Had any writer in the age of Augustus, ay, or of Queen Anne, described by anticipation the journals of our own day, a similar epithet would have been applied to his pictured prophecy. We do not recognise the word impossible as an English, as a human, least of all as a Christian word. There is nothing,' it has been said, 'which the human mind can conceive, which it cannot accomplish.' There is nothing (we should prefer to alter it thus) which the human mind can conceive which cannot be accomplished, through the blended and harmonious working of human perseverance and Divine power.

LET me tell you, it's no 'small mercy' to be sound in wind and limb. Just attempt to climb a veritable mountain, with short breath and soft corns, and you'll believe me; but anyhow, if you will just let me have my own way, I will take you over the Wengern Alp, without making you once 'puff and blow,' or doing the slightest hurt to your 'touch-me-not' corn.

Many bulky volumes have been written about the 'great mountains,' and, certainly, many of them deserve as prominent a place in books, as they occupy on the face of nature. There is Mount Hor, with Aaron's Tomb crowning the summit; certainly that must be worth a climb; there is Mount Tabor, with its commanding view of the surrounding country, and Mount Olivet, with its never-to-be-forgotten Gethsemane and panoramic picture of the Holy City, the sight of which must suffice to make impressions on the mind of a thoughtful traveller, which time can never efface: the fact is, there are none of God's mountains, the climbing of which is not connected with scenes and incidents over which the memory will long love to linger. Such, at least, is the testimony of those who have climbed the Pyrenees, ascended the Himalaya, or toiled up the Andes. It may be, that many of my readers have little expectation of ever seeing these distant mountains, or even the nearer Alps, but, permit me to say, there is one glorious elevation which all may reach, and all may climb, that which is emphatically denominated the 'Mount of God,' the Holy Hill of Sion.' Yes, he who will take the Holy Spirit as his guide, and Holy Scripture as his spiritual alpen staff, may pass from height to height, until he reaches the celestial 'culm,' the blissful station near the throne, where

'High on a hill of dazzling light,

The King of glory spreads his seat, And troops of angels, stretch'd for flight, Stand waiting round his awful feet.' But I am sermonising, and must come to plain matters of fact. Well, we start from the 'Capricorn' at Lauterbrunn, to cross the Wengern, in the face of the Jungfrau. Instead of making at once for the mountain path, we turn aside to see one of the most unique and beautiful of the Swiss waterfalls, called the Staubbach. The

body of water is by no means large, but it descends from a great height, and takes its first leap nearly 900 feet above the spot where you are standing to gaze at it; as it rushes down, it is affected by every gust of wind that blows through the valley, and sometimes appears to be suspended in the air, as if quite reluctant to come down to earth at all. As we looked at it, it assumed at one moment the form of mist; at the next, it came down gradually like a shower of silvery meteors; then, as it drew nearer, it rushed along like a torrent of rain, giving some of the unwary bystanders a thorough drenching; thus baptising them into the mystery of waterfalls. We found we had selected the most favourable season for obtaining a sight worth going a thousand miles to look on: the falling drops reflecting the rays of the sun formed a most beautiful rainbow, which, in consequence of the sun's altitude, was then far below us, near the basin into which the water fell, and there it remained for a considerable time, to gratify and delight the eyes of all, and to remind some of the greatness and goodness of Him who has 'a rainbow round about his throne, in sight like unto an emerald. From this scene of beauty we at length forced ourselves away, and speedily came to a zigzag sort of path, that made us very soon feel we were on rising ground. Having been joined by other travellers, we formed quite a caravan. Our party consisted of ladies and gentlemen, young and old, English, French, Swiss, and German some on foot, some on horseback, some carrying their knapsacks with ease, and some making no small difficulty of carrying themselves, but all in the best humour and highest spirits, now loitering and chatting, then dashing forward as if resolved to reach the summit in less than no time;' but the 'halts' soon became very frequent, and the temptations to look back, and look down, were increasingly irresistible. The valley we were leaving, with its green meadows, its winding streams, its picturesque houses, its turbulent waterfalls, its glittering turrets, and its musical bells, richly deserved an earnest and oftrepeated gaze. As we ascended, we made acquaintance with several of the hardy mountaineers. As a class, they ap

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