dern induction-mongers and minute analytic fingerers sounds to a sane ear like the babblement of children, the gibbering of ghosts, or the maundering of Bedlamites. The

real fact seems to be that John Bull, inflated and made giddy by the wonderful material and mechanical discoveries, in reference to the forces of the external world, which he has recently made through the persistent application of the Baconian method of research, has got himself possessed with the fixed idea that there is no such thing as internal truth at all, and that all knowledge must be picked up by the fingers, submitted to the microscope, and weighed in the balance. A material philosophy of this kind, if persevered in, can end only in the intellectual degradation of the people that is deluded by it; for it is no more possible to construct a philosophy of this essentially reasoned world, by mere sensuous induction, than it is possible to build up the propositions of Euclid without the metaphysical postulate that two and two make four. And in fact we must acknowledge that there is just as good reason for denying that two and two make four, as for doubting the existence of the Primal Self-existent Reason which we call God; and, accordingly, one of the most reputable of the school of sophistical externalism, which is now filling the air with big, swelling words of vanity, has put it on record that, in his sober judgment, in some possible world two and two may make five!

But if a philosophy without God dissolves at the touch of Reason into a mere formula of unmeaning phrases, a theology without Reason is a mere Brocken phantom in the clouds, which people may take for a giant, but which is only a shadow. And a theology which, being reasonable in the main, yet controverts reason in some of its salient points, is a deformed angel to which a

person of good taste will naturally prefer a well-formed man. Such a deformed angel is any Christian Church that obstinately persists in buckling itself round with the bristling mail of a traditional orthodoxy, which once on a day fought bloody battles that have now lost all their significance, and carry (like some other wars) no pleasant fragrance in their memory. Theology, like other things, must change its dress with the times, if it were only to avoid singularity. But theologians ought to learn not only to change their dress with the times, which is comparatively an easy affair; they must learn also to say 'Peccavi,' and to cut off even a right hand, and to pluck out a right eye, if it gives just cause of offence to a reasoned philosophy and an exact science. But it needs no large knowledge of history to know that Churchmen have almost always found it as difficult to do this as conquerors to restore their conquests and diplomatists to unsay their lies. Every Church rests to a great extent on authority; and to support this authority it is naturally led to favour the idea of a virtual infallibility, sometimes professed, generally implied; and besides there is a kindly feeling which tempts many a good man, in reference to a creed essentially rotten, to say with the old Roman poet, Acceptam parce movere fidem.' But a time comes when this dainty-fingered toleration, and amiable piety without truth, will no longer do the worn-out formula is driven into a corner and drags through a mouldy existence, divorced hopelessly from the intellectual leadership of the time, and surrendered to the simple faith of adult children, with Jack the Giant-killer, Puss in Boots, and Sindbad the Sailor. For a true metaphysics can hold no terms with a theology which cannot distinguish between the ephemeral form and the eternal substance of

Before concluding, completeness would demand that I should show the intimate relation that exists between a sound metaphysics and a large treatment of law, politics, social science, and political economy. But scantness of time and your exhausted patience forbid any expatiation at present into these very important and interesting fields. Suffice it to say in a single word, that without philosophy law is sure to degenerate into a complicated network of the most arbitrary subtleties and the most artificial formulas, politics into a mere cunning invention of shifts to serve momentary occasions; social science will occupy itself principally with draining and

washing for the body, and with examination boards and crams of utilitarian knowledges, after the Chinese model, for the mind; and political economy will teach the inhabitants of a country intoxicated with a flush of material prosperity to place their highest good in the accumulation of heaps of gold gathered without reason, distributed without love, and wasted on every sort of unmeaning gaud and unmanly luxury. For metaphysics is the supreme seeing science, and the eye of all the rest. It alone, as the science of primary causes and of ultimate ends, knows the relation of each special kind of cosmical work to the whole of which it is a part, and thus is alone capable of dignifying each part by the consciousness of its participation in the harmony of the whole. It occupies the same place in regard to all subordinate spheres of energy that God does to the universe; it is the centre and the soul: it is the alone permeating, animating, and controlling principle, exercising by necessary right a perpetual presidency, which binds all to each and each to all by a thread of Divine reason, which may be tangled sometimes, and sometimes lost, but never can be broken.

His

whole epic by some poets. genius was a flower, and he did not ruin it by attempting to prove that it was an oak. The happy consequence is, that such a perfume has

Did your eyes ever follow

The wings of the swallow

Here and there, light as air, o'er the meadow field glance?

For if not you've no notion

Of the exquisite motion

will never lose. Would that we had more of this bending of the will to the natural adaptation, and not the attempted forcing of a growth where even the seed does not exist!

The singing of Mr. Graves is very pleasant and agreeable. His notes are not strong, but they are really musical, and for that reason we wish him well. We think he has hit upon the best mode of telling the world what he has to say. The burden of his songs is happiness. It is not so with all poets: some are charged with messages of woe, and must fulfil their vocation; but these Songs of Killarney are natural music, and are worthy of some mention. One division of them is in the dialect of the beautiful district from which they take their name; the other divisions are entitled respectively, 'Spring Voices,' and 'Moods and Melodies.' As is frequently the case with songs, those which are mingled with the dialect are most expressive: the songs of Burns, for instance, would have lost much of their force had they not had the Scotch expressions in them. In Mr. Graves's little volume we can find many illustrations of this. Those who can see no charm in dialect may possibly find their opinion quickly reversed after reading it. We could wish, however, that in future editions of the work, should they be called for, he will append a glossary, so that the meaning of a few words which will, perhaps, now be occult to some may not escape apprehension. The Rose of Killarney' is a song which is now and then very exquisite; as will be admitted, doubtless, after reading the following lines from the poem :

dance.

The imagery, it will be perceived, is in harmony with the subject;1 not lofty, but true and graceful, whilst the metre is quite originalat least, we never remember having met with it before. 'The Girl with the Cows' is a more ambitious attempt on the part of the author, and is in many respects very successful. His gift, however, is evi dently not adapted to long flights, as is demonstrated again and again in the course of the volume by the superiority, the invariable superiority, of the short over the longer poems. His forte will be to take up gems wherever he finds them and put them into a suitable setting. And it is no mean qualification to be able to do this; such work cannot fail to be highly appreciated when well done, and done through the love of it. What he has accomplished in this respect is quite sufficient encouragement for Mr. Graves to proceed. He has given us some things which justify remembering: we are convinced he will yet give us many more. To return to the story of the Girl with the Cows.' It is supposed to be told during a rest in the giddy dance by one of a merry party. Nora Maguire is represented as an orphan, of the age of eighteen, who is the flower of

all the girls of the district, and is in addition an heiress. At least, her father left her at his death half a hundred of cows and a handsome slate house, an inheritance, of course, to be envied. She was a true philanthropist amongst the poor and the sick, and her varied charms were such as to make her universally beloved and admired. Her heart, however, which many would have suffered all loss to win, was given to Patrick O'Neale, who is described as 'the pet of the colleens, the pride of the boys,' but he was only a poor peasant boy; yet of all Nora's suitors there was not one who loved her so deeply. He had not the courage to ask her to share his lot, whilst she was pining for the very affection which he was afraid to make known. Her thoughts kept running, as is frequently the way with her sex, most of all on the man who was laste in her way.' The author by and by helps his story forward and precipitates the crisis, which the chief actors in the story and the readers of it desire, by a touch of real poetry :

teeth,

'Tis the eagles,' they cried, at the Colleen na Mo.'

But an old man amongst them spoke up and he said,

"Tis the eagles for sartin, but not at the dead,

For they'll not touch the corpse-murther,

but for the mist,

'Tis I could have told you that this was their nest.'

'It's O'Neale that they're at-pull him back, or they'll tear

And they shouted together the eagles to The poor boy to pieces below in the air.'

scare.