[ALTHOUGH it is no part of our plan to give specimens of oratorical power, yet the various public addresses of one of the most thoughtful minds of his age, entitle some of them, as careful compositions, to be placed amongst the productions of the best authors. The speeches of the late Prince Consort embraced some of the most interesting subjects connected with our social condi tion, and with the intellectual and moral improvement of the whole community. That delivered in 1855, at the banquet in the Birmingham Town-Hall, on the occasion of laying the first stone of the Birmingham Midland Institute, is one of the most remarkable, as showing the scope and clearness of his mind, and his especial power of directing the attention of his hearers to great elementary truths. Such are too often overlooked in the details which a merely fluent speaker presents to audiences unaccustomed to view their own times under the broad light of a philosophical estimate of their character and tendency. That the decease, in the matured vigour of his intellect, of such a man as Prince Albert, should have been deeply felt by the nation as an irreparable loss, was the natural result of his useful life. The nation knows also how to appreciate that devotion to his memory which the royal widow cherishes as a sacred duty, not incompatible with the strict performance of the constantly recurring public duties which his companionship rendered iess burthensome.] It has been a great pleasure to me to have been able to participate, in however trifling a degree, in a work which I do not look upon as a simple act of worldly wisdom on the part of this great town and locality, but as one of the first public acknow ledgments of a principle which is daily forcing its way amongst us, and is destined to play a great and important part in the future development of this nation, and of the world in general; I mean the introduction of science and art as the unconscious regulators of productive industry. The courage and spirit of enterprise with which an immense amount of capital is embarked in industrial pursuits, and the skill and indefatigable perseverance with which these are carried on in this country, cannot but excite universal admiration; but in all our operations, whether agricultural or manufacturing, it is not we who operate, but the laws of nature, which we have set in operation. It is, then, of the highest importance that we should know these laws, in order to know what we are about, and the reason why certain things are, which occur daily under our hands, and what course we are to pursue with regard to them. Without such knowledge we are condemned to one of three states: either we merely go on to do things just as our fathers did, and for no better reason than because they did them so; or, trusting to some personal authority, we adopt at random the recommendation of some specific, in a speculative hope that it may answer; or, lastly—and this is the most favourable case—we ourselves improve upon certain processes; but this can only be the result of an experience hardly earned and dearly bought, and which, after all, can only embrace a comparatively short space of time and a small number of experiments. From none of these causes can we hope for much progress; for the mind, however ingenious, has no materials to work with, and remains in presence of phenomena, the causes of which are hidden from it. our own. But these laws of nature, these Divine laws, are capable of being discovered and understood, and being taught, and made This is the task of science: and whilst science discovers and teaches these laws, art teaches their application. No pursuit is therefore too insignificant to be capable of becoming the subject both of a science and an art. The Fine Arts, (as far as they relate to painting, sculpture, and architecture,) which are sometimes confounded with art in general, rest on the application of the laws of form and colour, and what may be called the science of the beautiful. They do not rest on any arbitrary theory on the modes of producing pleasurable emo. tions, but follow fixed laws; more difficult, perhaps, to seize than those regulating the material world, because belonging partly to the sphere of the ideal, and of our spiritual essence, yet perfectly appreciable and teachable, both abstractedly and historically, from the works of different ages and nations. No human pursuits make any material progress until science is brought to bear upon them. We have seen, accordingly, many of them slumber for centuries upon centuries; but from the moment that Science has touched them with her magic wand, they have sprung forward and taken strides which amaze, and almost awe the beholder. Look at the transformation which has gone on around us since the laws of gravitation, electricity, magnetism, and the expansive power of heat have become known to us. It has altered our whole state of existence; one might say the whole face of the globe. We owe this to Science, and to Science alone; and she has other treasures in store for us, if we will but call her to our assistance. It is sometimes objected by the ignorant that Science is uncertain and changeable, and they point with a malicious kind of pleasure to the many exploded theories which have been superseded by others as a proof that the present knowledge may be also unsound, and, after all, not worth having. But they are not aware that while they think to cast blame upon Science, they be stow in fact the highest praise upon her. For that is precisely the difference between science and prejudice that the latter keeps stubbornly to its position, whether disproved or not, whilst the former is an unarrestable movement towards the fountain of truth, caring little for cherished authorities or sentiment, but continually progressing, feeling no shame at her shortcomings, but, on the contrary, the highest pleasure when freed from an error at having advanced another step towards the attainment of Divine truth-a pleasure not even intelligible to the pride of ignorance. We also hear, not unfrequently, science and practice, scientific knowledge and common sense, contrasted as antagonistic. A strange error! for Science is eminently practical, and must be so, as she sees and knows what she is doing; whilst common practice is condemned to work in the dark, applying natural ingenuity to unknown powers to obtain a known result. Far be it from me to undervalue the creative power of genius. or to treat shrewd common sense as worthless, without knowledge. But nobody will tell me that the same genius would not take an incomparably higher flight if supplied with all the means which knowledge can impart, or that common sense does not become, in fact, only truly powerful when in possession of the materials upon which judgment is to be exercised. The study of the laws by which the Almighty governs the universe is therefore our bounden duty. Of these laws our great academies and seats of education have, rather arbitrarily, selected only two spheres of groups (as I may call them) as essential parts of our national education-the laws which regulate quantities and proportions, which form the subject of mathematics, and the laws regulating the expression of our thoughts through the medium of language; that is to say, grammar, which finds its purest expression in the classical languages. These laws are most important branches of knowledge; their study elevates the mind; but they are not the only ones; there are others, which we cannot disregard, which we cannot do without. There are, for instance, the laws governing the human mind and its relation to the Divine Spirit, (the subject of logic and metaphysics ;) there are those which govern our bodily nature and its connexion with the soul, (the subject of physiology and psychology ;) those which govern human society and the relation between man and man, (the subjects of politics, jurisprudence, and political economy ;) and many others. Whilst of the laws just mentioned some have been recognised as essentials of education in different institutions, and some will by the course of time more fully assert their right of recognition, the laws regulating matter and form are those which will constitute the chief object of your pursuits; and, as the principle of subdivision of labour is the one most congenial to our age, I would advise you to keep to this speciality, and to follow with undivided attention chiefly the sciences of mechanics, physics, and chemistry, and the fine arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture. You will thus have conferred an inestimable boon upon your country, and in a short time have the satisfaction of witnessing the beneficial results upon our national powers of production. Other parts of the country will, I doubt not, emulate your example; and I live in hope that all these institutions will some day find a central point of union, and thus complete their national organisation. Marian Erle. MRS BROWNING. [ELIZABETH Barrett BrownING, the authoress of "Aurora Leigh," from which the following extract is taken, died at Florence in June 1861. It has been said by a judicious critic, Professor Craik, that "the only really eminent poets that the age can boast of, are Tennyson, and Robert Browning, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning." The genius of Elizabeth Barrett was displayed at a very early age. Of delicate health, she nevertheless assiduously prepared herself for a noble career, by studies such as few women think within their province, as the fitting introduction to a life of literature. A translation by her of the "Prometheus Bound" of Eschylus, was published anonymously in 1833 The first collected edition of her poems, in two volumes, was pub. lished in 1844. Miss Mitford has touchingly described the life of seclusion which the young authoress was compelled to pursue for many years after the breaking of a blood-vessel in the lungs. "Confined to one large and commodious but darkened chamber, to which only her own family and a few devoted friends were admitted; reading meanwhile almost every book worth reading in every language, studying with ever fresh delight the great classic authors in the original, and giving herself heart and soul to that poetry of which she seemed born to be the priestess." Her health had been gradually improving when she bestowed her hand upon one of the warmest of her admirers, and thus gave a double immortality to the name of Browning. "Aurora Leigh," originally published in 1856, has gone through many editions. In a Dedication to her cousin and friend, John Kenyon, she describes this book as the most mature of her works, and the one into which her highest convictions upon Life and Art have entered.] Was Marian Erle. Nowise beautiful She was not white nor brown, In doubt 'twixt dark and bright, nor left you clear |