prayed briefly, solemnly with his eyes wide open all the time, but not seeing. Then he gave out his text; we forget it, but his subject was, "Death reigns." He stated slowly, calmly, the simple meaning of the words; what death was, and how and why, it reigned; then suddenly he started, and looked like a man who had seen some great sight, and was breathless to declare it. He told us how death reigned everywhere at all times, in all places; how we all knew it, how we would yet know more of it. The drover, who had sat down in the table-seat opposite, was gazing up in a state of stupid excitement; he seemed restless, but never kept his eye from the speaker. The tide set in, everything added to its power, deep called to deep, imagery and illustration poured in; and every now and then the theme, the simple, terrible statement, was repeated in some lucid interval. After overwhelming us with proofs of the reign of Death, and transferring to us his intense urgency and emotion, and after shrieking, as if in despair, these words, "Death is a tremendous necessity," he suddenly looked beyond us, as if into some distant region, and cried out, "Behold a mightier: who is this? He cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah, glorious in His apparel, travelling in the greatness of His strength, mighty to save.' Then, in a few plain sentences, he stated the truth as to sin entering, and death by sin, and death passing upon all. Then he took fire once more, and enforced with redoubled energy and richness the freeness, the simplicity, the security, the sufficiency, of the great method of justification. How astonished and impressed we all were! He was at the full thunder of his power, the whole man was in an agony of earnestness. The drover was weeping like a child, the tears running down his ruddy, coarse cheeks, his face opened out and smoothed like an infant's, his whole body stirred with emotion. We all had insensibly been drawn out of our seats, and were converging toward the wonderful speaker; and when, he sat down, after warning each of us to remember who it was, and what it was, that followed Death on his pale horse, and how alone we could escape, we all sank back into our seats. How beautiful to our eyes did the thunderer look, exhausted, but sweet and pure! How he poured out his soul before his God in giving thanks for sending the Abolisher of Death. Then a short psalm, and all was ended.

We went home quieter than we came, we did not recount the foals with their long legs, and roguish eyes, and their sedate mothers: we did not speculate upon whose dog that was, and whether that was a crow or a man in the dim moor: we thought of other things, that voice, that face, those great, simple, living thoughts, those floods of resistless eloquence; that piercing, shattering voice, "that tremendous necessity. ZMAGA MOTIIMAK

In conclusion, we can recommend this volume to our readers as one of the many contributions to a knowledge of Scottish character and manners which we have lately received from the North.

LONDON :—PRINTED BY WILLIAM NICHOLS, 32, LONDON WALL.

THE

LONDON REVIEW.
LONDON

JANUARY, 1862.

ART. 1.-History of Civilization in England. By HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE. Vol. II. London: Parker, Son, and Bourn.

Ir is a pleasant thing to meet with a book which gives us plenty of new facts and new ideas in clear, well written English. It is pleasant to meet with old facts and ideas strung together in generalizations and theories which invest them with new importance. And it is pleasant to a combative reader to knock down theories too slightly based, and shake in pieces premature generalizations. But it is still more pleasant to find an author who gives us full opportunity to sift his opinious by the frankness and fearlessness with which he proclaims them; and who, equally by the breadth of his facts and the narrowness of his theory, by the force and honesty of his convictions and the arrogance and audaciousness of his errors, rouses us up to examine, to compare, and to reflect, leaving us, whatever be his own wisdom or folly, most certainly the wiser for his words.

These remarks are especially applicable to Mr. Buckle. His second volume now lies before us, bearing the name of 'Civilization in England,' but containing two introductory historical sketches, the one of Spain, the other of Scotland, illustrative of his theory of civilization. In his first volume he gave us a long dissertation to prove that man is not a free and responsible

agent, but as much the subject of over-ruling law as the stars and tides: in this volume he endeavours to show us that communities of men are also under the influences of general causes, which 'force" them-that is his very word to advance or decline. Thus, he says, Spain was from very early times addicted to loyalty and superstition.' The Arian war with France asso

ciated the ideas of leadership and rein; for the Spanish

chieftains fought for their faith, and thus the first germ was planted of the Spaniards' reverence for king and priest. This was fostered by unparalleled circumstances during eight centuries of struggle between them and their Moorish invaders. That long strife between two races and two faiths could not fail to bind their religion around every condition of their life. In

three ways the Mahommedan invasion strengthened the devotional feelings of the Spanish people. The first way was by promoting a long and obstinate religious war; the second was by the presence of constant and imminent dangers; and the third way was by the poverty, and therefore the ignorance, which it produced among the Christians.'-Page 18..

Just at the end of these eight centuries, when the final conquest of Grenada gave the national energies room to expand, three rulers of great abilities, Ferdinand, Charles V., and Philip II., working with this strong bent of the nation, and using to the utmost its loyal, religious, and military spirit, not only pressed the Spaniards forward on a course of great power and prosperity, but gave a final stamp to the national character, which has never since been erased.

I

So late as 1478 Spain was still broken up into independent and often hostile states:-before the year 1590, not only were these fragments firmly consolidated into one kingdom, but acquisitions were made abroad so rapidly as to endanger the independence of Europe. That country, recently torn by civil wars, and distracted by hostile creeds, was able in three generations to annex to her territory the whole of Portugal, Navarre, and Rousillon. By diplomacy, or by force of arms, she acquired Artois and Franche Comté, and the Netherlands; also the Milanese, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, the Balearic Islands, and the Canaries. One of her kings was the Emperor of Germany; while his son influenced the councils of England, whose queen he married. The Turkish power, then one of the most formidable in the world, was broken and beaten back on every side. The French monarchy was humbled.......Out of Europe, the deeds of Spain were equally wonderful. In America, besides Mexico, Central America, Venezuela, New Grenada, Peru, and Chili, the Spaniards conquered Cuba, San Domingo, Jamaica, and other Islands. In Africa, they obtained Ceuta, Melilla, Oran, Bougiah, and Tunis, and overawed the

whole coast of Barbary. In Asia, they had settlements on each side of the Deccan; they held part of Malacca; and they established themselves in the Spice Islands. Finally, by the conquest of the noble archipelago of the Philippines, they connected their most distant acquisitions, and secured a communication between every part of that enormous empire which girdled the world.'......Here we have a great people glowing with military, patriotic, and religious ardour, whose fiery zeal was heightened, rather than softened, by a respectful obedience to their clergy, and by a chivalrous devotion to their kings. The energy of Spain, being thus both animated and controlled, became wary as well as eager; and to this rare union of conflicting qualities we must ascribe the great deeds which have just been related.'-Pp. 35, 36.

But what follows?

1

"The unsound part of a progress of this sort is, that it depends too * much on individuals, and therefore cannot be permanent. Such a movement can only last as long as it is headed by able men. When, however, competent leaders are succeeded by incompetent ones, the system immediately falls to the ground, simply because the people have been accustomed to supply to every undertaking the necessary zeal, but have not been accustomed to supply the skill by which the zeal is guided.'

Hence when the government slackened its hold, the nation fell to pieces.' Three kings, as inefficient as their predecessors were able, occupied the throne from 1598 to 1700; and

'so rapid was the fall of Spain, that in only three reigns after the death of Philip II., the most powerful monarchy existing in the world was depressed to the lowest point of debasement, was insulted with impunity by foreign nations, was reduced more than once to bankruptcy, was stripped of her fairest possessions, was held up to public opprobrium, was made a theme on which school-boys and moralists loved to declaim respecting the uncertainty of human affairs, and, at length, was exposed to the bitter humiliation of seeing her territories mapped out and divided by a treaty in which she took no share. Page 41.

The deep-rooted loyalty and superstition of the Spaniards bore their natural fruit: the Church rose and triumphed under the weak yoke of its kings; the banishment of the Moriscoes impoverished the realm, and the people grovelled in ignorance and abject submission. Of the latter half of the seventeenth century it is said, 'The poverty and wretchedness of the people surpassed all description.

"The once rich and prosperous country was covered with a rabble of monks and clergy.' 'In every department all power and life dis.

appeared.' Another account describes this once mighty kingdom as utterly unprotected; the frontier towns, ungarrisoned; the fortifications dilapidated and crumbling away; the magazines without ammunition; the arsenals empty; the workshops unemployed; and even the art of building ships entirely lost.'-Pp. 72-5.

1

In 1700 the Bourbon dynasty introduced somewhat better kings and ministers; but no Spaniard was deemed competent to hold the helm of state. But though ministers and kings, especially Charles III., (1759-88,) strove hard to raise the nation by reforms and improvements, the nation would not rise. The spirit of the country was broken, and nothing could retrieve it.'

'Foreign influence, and the complications of foreign politics, bestowed enlightened rulers upon an unenlightened country. The consequence was, that, for a time, great things were done. Evils were removed, grievances were redressed, many important improvéments were introduced.....but the mind of Spain was untouched. While the surface and, as it were, the symptoms of affairs were ameliorated, affairs themselves remained unchanged;......and at length the reaction came. In 1788 Charles, III. died;......and was succeeded by Charles IV., a king of the true Spanish breed, devout, orthodox, and ignorant......In less than five years everything was changed. The power of the Church was restored; the slightest approach towards free discussion was forbidden; the priests reassumed their former importance, literary men were intimidated, and literature was discouraged; while the Inquisition, starting up afresh, displayed an energy which caused its enemies to tremble.......Once more was Spain covered with darkness; once more did the shadows of night overtake that wretched land. Pp. 130-2.

And what was the cause of this lamentable arrest of the progress of civilization? Mr. Buckle will tell us that also.

"All these things were natural and in order. They were the result of a long train of causes, the operation of which I have endea voured to trace, during thirteen centuries, since the outbreak of the Arian war. Those causes forced the Spaniards to be superstitious, and it was idle mockery to seek to change their nature by legislation. The only remedy for superstition is knowledge. Nothing else can wipe out that plague-spot of the human mind. Without it, the leper remains unwashed, and the slave unfreed. It is to a knowledge of the laws and relations of things, that European civilization is owing; but it is precisely this in which Spain has always been deficient.......The Spaniards have had every thing except knowledge. They have had immense wealth, and fertile and well-peopled territories, in all parts of the globe.....They had, at a very early period, ample municipal privileges; they had independent Parliaments; they had the right of choosing their own magistrates, and managing their own cities. They have had rich and flourishing