upon which he considers that reform should proceed, wisely leaves the solution of all practical questions to those who possess the requisite acquaintance with the facts of the case, and are otherwise duly qualified for this arduous undertaking. The concluding sections of this work are, however, feeble and unsatisfactory. His editor is far more intrepid and consistent in his hostility to the English Church and his attacks upon the system of the Universities. While Mr. Newman denies the identity of the Catholic Church in all ages, Professor Huber regards the Anglican Church as only one of several "forms of Christianity," (vol. ii. p. 407 ;) and is betrayed by this radical error into very superficial views of the functions of the Church, into needless fears as to her continued existence and progressive prosperity, and into a miserably inadequate appreciation of the great movement of the age.

For our own parts, in contemplating this movement, we are reminded of a striking illustration which we lately met with, of that wonderful process, so perplexing to men of secularized minds, by which the great LORD and MASTER of the Church assimilates it to Himself, removing its earthly elements, and giving additional solidity and brightness to whatever is spiritual and divine. "HE shall sit," says that prophet, in whose person the legal oracles expired, like the fabled swan, with the gospel on their tongue," HE shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness." Desirous of entering

into the full meaning of this illustration of the great work of CHRIST on behalf of His Church, we visited a refiner's workshop, and inquired closely into the nature and object of the several processes by which the impurities of the metal were gradually removed, and the liquid silver was restored to pristine purity. Our inquiries were fully and satisfactorily answered, and we were retiring from the laboratory, when the refiner called us back, saying, "I have forgotten to mention one thing; and that is, that the refiner ascertains the progress of the work by looking down into the crucible from time to time; and he knows that the silver has become thoroughly pure, when he can see his own image reflected in it!"

And so it is as regards the Church. In the turbulence of her present state, the stirring of her inmost depths, the temporary solution of her most solid elements, the admixture of impurities not yet precipitated, the rising of angry passions to the surface, the agitation of the whole mass, we see the evidences of that refining process which shall ultimately expel from her composition every base and alien element; and the Church, as a glorious mirror of unsullied brightness, shall reflect the image of the HOLY ONE! We can contemplate with calmness, nay, even with satisfaction, the present agitations of the Church, her fightings without, her fears within, because we can see in them the evidences of LIFE; of a life, moral, spiritual, divine, which is now putting forth all its powers in sustained and

vigorous exertions to banish from her constitution whatever is foreign or adverse to her moral and organic oneness. And it is of deep significance that the Universities, especially Oxford, are the stage on which this mighty spiritual movement is going on.

justly observes, that,

Huber

"Upon this very field every deeply influential and effective movement must have its scientific roots."—Vol. ii. p. 407.

For this is the true and proper nature of our English Universities. They are the scientific organs of the National Catholic Church. And while they especially cultivate theology as the grand architectonic science, as at once the mainspring and the regulator of every intellectual movement, as the mother and queen of art and literature, of poetry and philosophy, of whatever is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, or of good report; they embrace the entire circle of sciences, they educate every faculty of the human mind. As organs of education, they embody and carry out the great truth, that a really christian education, whether for high or low, is not an education which excludes everything except direct religious teaching and discipline, but one which includes every subject of human knowledge, attaching it to its proper root, training it to its proper end. But they are also seats of learning; a truth which has sometimes been forgotten. The primary object of many, at least, of their foundations is ad studendum et orandum; and the express duty of their members is to devote themselves to the direct objective cultivation, first of arts, (as preparatory,) and then of theology. The deep-sighted, farseeing holy men who established these admirable foundations, might say, with Bishop Fox, (in the statutes which he gave to Corpus Christi College, Oxford,) "We have resolved to constitute within our bee-garden for ever, right skilful herbalists, therein to plant and sow stocks, herbs, and flowers of the choicest, as well for fruit as thrift, that ingenious bees swarming hitherward may thereout suck and cull matter convertible not so much into food for themselves, as to the behoof, grace, and honour of the whole English name, and to the praise of GOD, the Best and Greatest of beings."

Thus, and to such ends, constituted, the only lawful and useful changes which the Universities can undergo, are the changes of natural growth; changes resulting from their continual assimilation of fresh elements of wisdom and virtue, of truth and grace; and rendering them more and more worthy of the high position assigned to them in our Bidding Prayers, of "places of sound learning and religious education."

300

Life of William Wilberforce. By his SoNs. (Abridged from the larger Work). 1 vol. fcp. 8vo. Seeley. 1843.

WHAT exactly is the right character of biography? What are the limits, on the one side or on the other, to its length or its particularity? How far should the biographer draw up the veil which hides the private life of him whose history he narrates? How far should he enter into the details of his public career? If a diary has been kept, or if a correspondence has been voluminous, what is the just rule to be observed in publishing that which is primâ facie confidential in the one or in the other? These, and a variety of other questions, every biographer will naturally ask himself, before he commences his work. The answer which he gives himself, or that which he gets from others, if he propounds to others his question, will be undoubtedly of various kinds, according to his own temperament of mind, or to theirs.

It seems to us that there is one great rule for the guidance of the historians of great men's actions. Lord Bolingbroke has virtually shown us what it is in his definition of biography. "Biography is history," he has told us, "teaching by examples." But, if this be true, it follows that the province of the biographer is identical with that of the general historian, as far as the wide character of the latter can be paralleled by the more limited nature of the former. In history we give, or we get, all we can, private, public, open, confidential, without scruple; and we consider all to be of value that may shed a light on the transactions which the historian records, or on the characters of those who are the chief actors in them. The same estimate is formed, and the same want is felt by the reader of biography; and the want must be met by the supply of such information as may illustrate the otherwise unintelligible passages of the history of the departed one.

Keeping this end in view, the biographer can scarcely err in respect either to that which is to be divulged, or to that which is to be retained in its privacy. There may, no doubt, be a too great desire on the part of a reader for private history, and there may be a too great readiness in a biographer to give that which he knows will please. But then there may be a squeamish and sickly fastidiousness about the importance of keeping private opinions as closely concealed as if they were Eleusinian mysteries, and as if that which men had not been ashamed to do, a biographer ought to blush to record.

There was not the difficulty at which we have glanced, at least there seems not to have been so, in former times. Agricola, perhaps, kept a diary, and no doubt he maintained a correspondence, although we can scarcely imagine so voluminous an one as Mr. Wilberforce's. We do not know the characters of the autobiographies of Rutilius and Scaurus, or of those biographies of earlier days to which Tacitus alludes, or how far letter-writing had advanced in their time. The

view, however, which Tacitus took, was evidently this,-both that the lives of eminent men were the property of posterity, and that the future was their rightful possession. "Clarorum virorum facta moresque posteris tradere antiquitùs usitatum ne nostris quidem temporibus quanquam incuriosa suorum ætas omisit, quotiens magna aliqua ac nobilis virtus vicit ac supergressa est vitium, parvis magnisque civitatibus commune, ignorantiam recti et invidiam." And if this be true, if the custom of writing biographies be an excellent one, if it was ancient, even in the time of Nerva, and if he who sketched so admirably the life of one of the most eminent of his own contemporaries, evidently approved it, we may surely say that there needs no proof of its propriety in these later days. And if so, and if the subject of the biography be a fitting one, from personal character, and if it possesses the additional interest which arises from his having acted a prominent part in the higher scenes of a great historical drama, there is no room for a moment's hesitation on the propriety of publishing his life; we say at once, when we see it announced, it is right that such a man's name and memory should not be permitted to die, or even to be partially obscured.

Recurring to the subject which we were handling, we have no hesitation in saying, that all that is necessary for the illustration of the scenes in which the subject of a memoir moved, ought, if possible, to be known. The writer must neither be fearful nor fastidious. He must describe the associates or the opponents of his hero as they really were. If they helped him in great undertakings, their assistance must be acknowledged; if they were his rivals, their merits, or their demerits, must be exhibited as far as they can be clearly ascertained; if they thwarted him, their opposition, the motives from which it sprang, its baseness, or its generosity, must none of them be concealed; always, however, remembering, that there are no matters so delicate or so difficult of treatment, whether historical or biographical, as those which concern the motives of men.

It seems to us now, and it has seemed to us from the time of the publication of the larger memoir, that the biographers of Mr. Wilberforce have correctly apprehended their duty in the particulars which we have specified. They have introduced the character and the conduct of other men as far, and no further, than was necessary for the illustration of the life and times of the great and good man whose memoir they were drawing up. We do not say that there may not be some few exceptions which may occur to the minds of some readers, and to which personal or party feelings may give a greater weight than they deserve. To us they do not seem much more than such as even the critical Roman would suffer to pass as those

"Quas aut incuria fudit,

Aut humana parum cavit natura."

Should they be greater than this, still, if filial biography be lawful, sons must be pardoned if they plead too earnestly their father's cause. We have no intention of reviving the dead embers of Clarksonian

partizanship, but we have heard it stated that the late lamented Laureate expressed strongly his opinion that if Mr. C. had published that which he denominated the abolition of the slave-trade, under the title of "Passages in the Life of Thomas Clarkson," and had been somewhat more sparing in his self-appropriation of the merit of all that had been effected, he would have better consulted the interests of truth as well as his own.

It was necessary that in compiling the memoirs of such a man as William Wilberforce, his biographers should place him before their readers as he was surrounded by the great and leading men of his time. It was evidently this necessity that led them to select so largely from his diary matters which seem scarcely necessary to be recounted. Many, we are aware, have objected to extracts such as this:

"16th.-Sunday.—Walked after Church till almost four. Dined at home, then called at Pitt's. Went to hear the address read at Tommy Townshend's."

P. 16.

Or again :

"12th.-House. Lord Abingdon's concert. Supped at Goosetree's, and bed about two."-P. 17.

Or again :

"20th.-Dined up stairs. Bankes, Pepper Arden, &c., then home. Read. My eyes bad. Bed early."

Or again :

"April 3d.-Wimbledon, where Pitt, &c. dined and slept. Evening walk. Bed a little past two."

Or again :

"4th.-Delicious day. Lounged morning at Wimbledon with friends, FOINING at night; and run about the garden for an hour or two."

Now to us these extracts are most interesting, as well as most instructive. They show us the intimacy of our hero with the leading men of the day; their joyousness when together; their hilarity and boyish gaiety, even to their foining at night, and coursing about the garden at Wimbledon while the stars were setting. But this is not all. We rejoice in seeing Pitt with his friend; and we can sympathize with that great man more, when we find him thus enjoying, as he keenly did, the pleasures of nature and the country, and bracing himself, in this most wholesome way, for the stormy atmosphere and rude encounters of St. Stephen's.

But there is another view in which these, and such like, details are most instructive. They show us the great intimacy, and the lengthened association of Mr. Wilberforce with all the leading politicians of the day; and in this way they silently extol his vigour of purpose, and his holy resolution in relaxing (we must not call it breaking, for he never broke them,) those ties, when more exalted views of his duty and his responsibilities opened upon him. It was indeed high moral