railway carriages and sleeping cars, the Victoria Bridge, the city of Montreal and the theatre there, with the performances of the "Wizard of the North," the Canadian elections of 1861 and the party spirit displayed, the Mississippi steamers, wayside prairie inns, stage-coaches and their passengers, American whiskey and brandy, Wilkie Collins' "Woman in White," and its appreciation by Mr. Morgan, a fellow traveller, &c., &c.

Chapter 5 will pass, containing, as it does, an interesting account of a trip across the prairies and down the Red River, from St. Paul's to Fort Garry -a truly primitive method of transport, in carts made altogether of wood and without springs; and in a steamer, from the bow of which a long "sweep" had to be used as an additional rudder, to round the sharp corners of the river, soon to be a thing of the past, if it is not so already; but the description has some permanent value as shewing what the mode of travel was in that region, so late as 1861.

Chapters 6, 7, and 8 are among the few contained in the book which have any real worth. They detail the history, so far as there is a history, and mode of government of the North West Territory from the earliest visits of Europeans till shortly be fore the author's arrival. From them we learn that in 1640 the French trappers, or “coureurs des bois,' | first extended their explorations to the height of land west of Lake Superior, which however was not crossed till 1731, when the passage was effected by a party under the direction of Varennes de la Verendrye, not by De la Verendrye himself as the author supposes. That enthusiastic pioneer did not join the party till two years later, when however the exploration of the country was vigorously proceeded with, and in the course of the following ten years, opened up along the Saskatchewan as far as the Rocky Mountains. The extension in 1774 of the trade of the Hudson Bay Co. from the vicinity of the Bay into the interior is referred to, though no mention is made of Mr. Hearn's discoveries of the Coppermine River and Arctic Ocean in 1769 and 1771 which led to the extension of trade. The organization in 1783 of the North West Company, and shortly afterwards of the X. Y. Company and

their rivalry and bloody feuds with the Hudson's Bay Company until amalgamated with it by Mr. Ellice in 1821; the colonization of Red River by Lord Selkirk in 1811 and the acquisition of the Indian title to the lands occupied by settlers, in return for an annual subsidy of 200 lbs. of tobacco; the hardships of the early settlers, and other matters are also detailed. Though most of the facts have been related before by Garneau and others, we cheerfully give the author credit for considerable industry in the collection of the materials for this portion of his work.

Chapters 9 and 10 contain what the author calls a history of the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches. They contain little more than lists of the names of the ministers and priests who have lived in the settlement, with the dates of their entrances and exits, and of the names of the churches with dates of erection.

In Chapters 11, 12 and 13, we have, in as copious detail as the rest of the book, the occurrences of the period just previous to the author's arrival and a description of the annual routine of life in the settlement. The trivial character of most of the incidents recorded, may be judged from the fact that "the starting of the Northern Packet" is called "one of the great annual events." (p.155.)

The rest of the book, comprising about two-thirds, may be very briefly dismissed. It is a chronicle of events, great and small, from 1861 to 1868. On the title page are found the figures-1871, but the nar rative does not come within three years of that date, so that the recent troubles are not touched upon, nor indeed do we find anything tending to throw light upon the causes of those troubles, or to indicate a forecast of them by the author.

As a whole, the work, though containing some valuable facts, is prolix. The amount of valuable matter bears almost as small a ratio to that which is of no importance to any one except the author, as Falstaff's bread did to his "intolerable quantity of sack." A master of the art of writing could easily compress all that is of any permanent value in its five hundred and odd pages within the limits of 100 or 150.

The death of Joseph Mazzini has taken a great writer as well as a conspicuous actor from the world's stage; for he was a master of the words which grave themselves on men's hearts, and he owed in part to this gift his vast influence over the minds of Italian youth. Nor was his eloquence unsustained by a corresponding force and dignity of thought. What

of the Seine." Though an unbeliever in Revelation and the mortal enemy of what he deemed the degenerate Papacy, he was in his way deeply religious; and his conception of nationality as a divinely appointed organ for the service of humanity at large, soared far above the narrow patriotism of the countrymen of Napoleon, and indeed above the patriotism of even the most liberal minds in most nations. Contact with him could not fail to leave an impression on any man, however opposed to him in sentiment, who had an eye for greatness of character. He remained, even in exile, the heart of the Italian movement, though he lacked some qualities necessary to make him its head.

By the death of the Rev. F. D. Maurice, we lose one to whom, considering the number and eminence of his disciples, it is impossible to deny the title of a great teacher, though to many, perhaps to most, utterances appeared merely dark, which to disciples appeared dark with excess of light." Mr. Maurice had himself deeply imbibed the religious philosophy of Coleridge, whose pre-eminent virtue was not clearness. The essence of his teaching, and the source of his power as a teacher, seem to us to have been his conviction of the truth of Christianity as the one key to human nature and to man's relations with God, independently of any questions of ecclesiastical dogma or even of history. This, in fact, is the essence of Broad Churchmanship, of which Mr. Maurice was perhaps the best known type. So decidedly "Broad Church" was he, that he was forced to retire from his Professorship in King's College; but Lincoln's Inn, of which he was chaplain, refused to receive his resignation; and the University of Cambridge did not scruple to elect him to her chair of Moral Philosophy. The best of his theological works, as well as the least obscure seems to us to be still his "Kingdom of Christ." On more practical questions of personal and social morality, he was clear as well as impressive. Of the value of his efforts as a social reformer, an educator of the working classes, and a mediator between them and the wealthier classes, there can be no doubt. As little doubt can there be of the nobleness, beauty and truly Christian excellence of the character which attached to him in no ordinary degree a circle of no ordinary friends.

Another name, not so well known to the general reader, must be added to the obituary of the month -Mr. William Henry Smith, of the Middle Temple. A quiet, retiring student, whose nature shrank from the elbowing struggle for success necessary in the profession he had chosen, he early retired to Keswick to pursue his reading and his meditations in the quiet atmosphere of the Lake District. His "Discourse on Ethics" has been of service to many, and even his talents as a dramatist so far attracted Macready that he produced "Athelwold on the boards of Drury Lane. The work by which he is best known is "Thorndale or the Conflict of Opinions"-a book well and favourably known to many Canadian readers. He was a warmly attached friend of Prof. Maurice, whose death preceded his own but by a few days.

The number of works on Religious and Philosophical subjects constantly issuing from the press is so great as to be almost bewildering. We can only notice a few of the more prominent books in this department. Principal Tulloch announces an elaborate work, in two volumes, on Rational Theology

and Christian Philosophy in England, in the 17th Century, which will doubtless prove a valuable contribution to church history, from the author's point of view. Dr. Dollinger, the Alt-Catholic leader, is at present, delivering a course of lectures at Munich on the re-union of the Christian churches, of which an English translation is promised. Judging from a report of the lecture on the English Church taken from the Allgemeine Zeitung, Dollinger's views are not dissimilar to those of Dr. Pusey in his celebrated Eirenicon. Another noble author, Lord Ormathwaite, better known as Sir John Walsh, has taken the field as a controversialist. "Astronomy and Geology Compared," (New York: Appleton) is the name of the little work; it is, however, only the title of the first part of the essay. The second and third parts are written with no small ability; the objections to Darwin and Buckle, and the author's theory of civilization are, to a large extent, original and are stated in terse and forcible language. The book will, no doubt, be very generally read. The Rev. Stopford Brooke, one of the Queen's Chaplains, has published a series of discourses under the title of "Christ in Modern Life." (New York: Appleton.) The style is rather florid, but we have no doubt they were well received by the aristocratic congregation of St. James' Chapel. Mr. Brooke rejects the doctrine of endless punishment in strong and vehement terms, but generally speaking his gospel is the orthodox one, flavoured to suit patrician ears. "Man and his Dwelling-Place," by James Hinton (New York: Appleton) is a work of considerable interest from the Unitarian side. His views of eternal death do not differ materially from those of Mr. Brooke. The style of the work is eminently earnest and devout, and we cordially sympathize with the author's tone, even where we cannot agree with his theory. sident Porter, of Yale, like Dr. Paine, of New York, has published an elaborate work on "The Human Intellect, with an introduction on Psychology and the Soul," and Professor Hickok, of Amherst College, a learned treatise on "The Creator and Creation," in which he tries to give an a priori demonstration of theism and of the ideas of space, time, cause and effect. "Paul of Tarsus ; an Inquiry into the Times and the Gospel of the Apostle to Gentiles," by a Graduate, (Boston : Roberts) handles the history of St. Paul in a similar style to that adopted by the author of "Ecce Homo" in treating of the life of our Saviour. The work has not yet reached us, but it has already attracted general attention in England. The Rev. W. Sanday, a Fellow of Trinity, Oxon., is the author of a critical essay on the "Authorship and Historical Character of the Fourth Gospel," with special reference to the contents of the Gospel itself. A series of lectures by the Rev. R. St. John Tyrwhitt on the interesting subject of Christian Art and Symbolism will shortly appear. The Rev. Dr. Bartle re-opens the questio vexata of the intermediate state of the dead, in a work of considerable learning and judgment-"The Scriptural Doctrine of Hades." It contains a critical examination of man's nature, the state of the dead, the redemption of the world and "a refutation of the unscriptural creed of professing Christendom in reference to the Atonement." Dr. Bartle, we may mention, is the Principal of Freshfield College, Liverpool. We conclude with the odd title of a book not yet published :-"The Martyrdom of Man and his Apotheosis," by Win

Pre

The elementary provincial schools of Ontario, until the year 1871, were called Common Schools. This name, however, appears to have excited a prejudice against them, which, it might have been hoped, time would abate and even extinguish. The word common, used in this connection, was somewhat fastidiously regarded by many as synony. mous with vulgar or low, and not a few whose pretensions to superiority and refinement partook of the ludicrous, breathed the spirit towards these schools if they did not indulge in the language of the exquisite Roman poet who wrote " Odi profanum vulgus et arceo." Gray has happily reminded us, in the case of a man recovering from sickness, that

"The meanest flow'ret of the vale,

The humblest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are ope'ning paradise—”

and the offering of our "common prayer and supplication" to that common Father, whose word teaches us to "honour all men," should enkindle within us a kindly and equitable feeling towards all the partakers of our common nature. Perhaps in time such sentiments as these would spontaneously have appeared and flourished in Ontario. It has seemed good, however, to our legislators to remove from before the eyes of our more assuming fellow-subjects the temptation to arrogance which existed in the epithet "common" as applied to our elementary schools; and now, while common as ever in the Massachusetts sense of the term, they are styled by law the Public Schools of Ontario. By the same authority, the former Grammar Schools are now the High Schools of the province. They are not, indeed, strictly, as in the United States, a higher step or platform of that educational pyramid, of which the Public Schools are the base and the University is the apex; but a distinct structure to which a few choice materials may be supplied from the Public Schools,

while the larger portion is obtained from other quarries.

The Public School System of Ontario had its origin in 1844. It is for the most part an eclectic system, in which the characteristics of the Massachusetts, New York, and Irish systems can be distinctly discerned. Its framer, who has also been from the first its principal administrator, received the title of "Superintendent of Schools," which has expanded into his very comprehensive title of "Chief Superintendent of Education." In 1846, a Board of Education was created which is now styled the "Council of Public Instruction," the members of which are of various religious denominations, and are appointed, it seems, partly on that ground. The powers of this Council and of the Chief Superintendent, although not legislative, are very extensive-administrative and, in some degree, judicial suggestive indeed of the "giant's strength," and pre-supposing much of equity, discretion, and good-will in those in whom they are vested, lest they should be tempted to "use them like a giant." The subordinate administration of our Public School affairs is committed to local boards of school trustees, who are elected by the rate-payers, and to county, city, or town inspectors, who are appointed by county councils, or city or town public school boards, and whose qualifications are prescribed by law and certified by the Council of Public Instruction. Connected with the Provincial Education Office, which has become in style and title "the Department of Education," is a large establishment for the purchase and sale of school-books, prizebooks, maps, educational apparatus, and books for school and public libraries. The propriety of the existence of this establishment has long been a matter of earnest public controversy. On one side it has been represented as a great and unmingled public benefit, on the other as an interference on the part of the Government with the freedom and healthful competition of trade. By