gray-the pinch of thrift compelling.'* This may be a hu morous appreciation of the king's motives, but in what sense is it a justification? Again it may be true that he had the interests of his country at heart. But it must be remarked, that neither the avaricious accumulation of treasure, nor the tyranny+ shown in the erection of Berlin and the Stettin fortifications nor the importation of tall soldiers, impress us with the idea of any nobility of sentiment in this direction. His intentions were, without doubt, according to his lights, good; but his lights were of the dimmest description, not such as emanate from the stuff that heroes are made of. Kidnapping tall privates may be described as 'the polishing of a stanza'- the creation of a city upon a marsh, by means of money wrung from unwilling citizens, as the 'annihilation of wreck and rubbish'-§ avarice as thrift; but no obliquity of phrase can invest such courses of action, even for a moment, with the dignity of true patriotism. Lastly we are told with variety and iteration, which are almost wearisome, that he was of intellect, slow but true and deep, 'with terrible earthquakes and poetic fires lying under it.' 'Amiable Orson, true to the heart, though terrible when too 'much put upon!' To all this we can only reply, that, as regards his heart, the volumes before us teem with evidence of the orsonism or brutality. But the traces of amiability are faint and rare. Yet he had fountains of tears withal hidden in 'the rocky heart of him, not suspected by every one.'|| And such come to the surface when he hears of the decease of George; when he meets his son at Cüstrin, for the first time after he had sentenced him to death; and, specially, on his own truly pathetic, though in some degree whimsical, deathbed. He had thoroughly alienated the affections of his children, but it would have been strange if they had not forgiven him then. Of his intellect we have already conveyed our opinion. It may be added, that for many years of his life, partly, from a constitutional ten-. dency to hypochondria, partly, it must be suspected, from his habits of constant fuddling, he was a slave and prey to violent fancies. During this period, he was but as a pipe on which men like Seckendorf and Grumkow could play what stop they pleased; or in Carlyle's own language, he was the main figure in an en * Vol. I. 459. § Vol. II. 358. 'chanted dance, of a well-intentioned Royal Bear with poetic tem'perament, piped to by two black artists.'* We do not deny that the spectacle is a pitiable one, or that it is presented before us with true tragic power. We complain that a man, in truth so weak, should be held up as admirable for vigour of purpose. There is no more fatal confusion than that, by which the spurious power gained in going with the torrent, is identified with the genuine strength displayed in stemming it.† Above all, we are at issue with Carlyle as regards the effect, which an 'apprenticeship' under such a father, exercised upon the character of the son. He looks upon it as a model of Spartan training, producing Spartan virtues, and as the key to Frederick's future greatness. We should conclude from the evidence he lays before us, that the Crown Prince was naturally warm-hearted and open both in friendship and antipathy; but that the cruel and bigoted discipline to which he was subjected, drove him, first, into rebellion and unconcealed licentiousness, and finally, when he had been taught by his narrow escape from death the futility of resistance, into a profound hypocrisy, and a chilling disregard to the feelings of others. He became hard and callous. At the instance of his sister Wilhelmina, he was released from exile and confinement at Custrin, on the occasion of her wedding. Wilhelmina was warmly attached to him. She is the witty, though sometimes flippant chronicler of their lives, and had been a sharer in all their early torments. Yet he responds to her eager welcome with a coldness which, under all the circumstances, can only be characterized as heartless indifference.‡ He became a hypocrite. This is hardly denied: but hypocrisy in a hero is rebaptized as Loyalty to fact;'§ or, in another place, as the art of wearing among his fellow-creatures a polite cloak of darkness.' 'Gradually he became master of it as few men are-a man 'impregnable to the intrusion of human curiosity, able to look cheerily into the eyes of men and talk in a social way, face to 'face, and yet continue intrinsically invisible to them.' Nor can we detect any scorn of mendacity '|| in the manner in which he exercised the faculty so developed. "On the contrary, in the relations of the two, after these lessons had been learnt, the *Vol. II. 316. + Compare Shakspeare's Give me that man Who is not passion's slave: and I will wear him Vol. II. 360-5. § Vol. II. 338. || Vol. II. 333. MARCH, 1861. M 'histrionic talents' of the son contrasted with the volcanic temperament of the father almost avail to transfer our sympathies from the victim to the tyrant. Apart from these natural fruits, the apprenticeship' does not appear to have yielded anything beyond an accurate knowledge of the arts of farming and drilling. Yet 'depend upon it brother Toby, said Mr. Shandy, learned 'men do not write dialogues upon long noses for nothing.' And though some of the views advanced in the works we have been considering, may appear, when laid before us naked and in legitimate light, to be of hardly more value than some new theory upon nasal protuberance, yet it would be a proof of rash ingratitude to our learned men to conclude thence that the works themselves are equally valueless. We have failed indeed in conveying our opinion, if it is not plain from all that has been written, that admiration is the preponderating feeling with which we regard our authors. Nay, we would go further, and affirm, that no small portion of the power they exercise over us, resides in the bent and bias which we have endeavoured to point out. Men may qualify, modify, deduct and balance, till all spirit evaporates from their writings. Strong one sided statement is ever the most eloquent. To the majority of the world the speech of the barrister is more stirring than the summary of the judge. Nor do thoughtful readers run any risk from yielding for the time to such immediate impressions. Apart from natural combativeness, Audi alteram partem is a motto ever present to most educated men. And the position of a juryman, dictated to from above by an incarnation of impartial justice and superior knowledge, is not only less dignified and agreeable, but also less likely to do benefit to the intellect, than that of a man seeking to decide for himself between the conflicting arguments of able advocates. Among our many disadvantages, we should not forget that in India, exiles as we are, we have one point in our favour, which may go far to countervail them. It not unfrequently happens that materials out of which we may form opinion, are laid before us at once and together, which were laid before the reading public at home successively. The tide of fashion is strong and proverbially fickle. Reactions are often as unjust as the original opinions from which they are the rebound. Yet few take the trouble to look back merely for the sake of modifying their opinion. And, therefore, it may well be true, that when two spirited representations taken from opposite points of view follow the one after the other, they only avail to sway the public mind to and fro; when simultaneously exhibited, they assist directly towards a calm estimate. ART. IV.-1. Christianity contrasted with Ilindu Philosophy. An Essay, in Five Books, Sanskrit and English: with practical suggestions tendered to the Missionary amongst the Hindus. By James R. Ballantyne, L.L.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy, and Principal of the Government College at Benares. London: James Madden, 1859. 2. The Religious Aspects of Hindu Philosophy, stated and discussed. A Prize Essay. By Rev. Joseph Mullens, Missionary of the London Missionary Society, Author of Missions in South India,' and Results of Missionary labours in India.' London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1860. THESE HESE are two important volumes, upon a very important, but a very dry, subject. The benevolent Gentleman who suggested the idea worked out in these Essays, was a public benefactor to the people of India, and, what is of far greater importance, he was a lover of the Truth, in its highest, sublimest, and most divine form. It is a disputed point, whether the discovery of a great principle-a fundamental Truth, or that of a new method for discovering the Truth, is the most important in itself and in its results. Newton did the first; Bacon the last. Both the Principia and the Novum Organum are immortal, and are already acknowledged to be the property, not of a few nations, but of the race of man. But the investigations which they contain extend no further than the relation of man to the different objects of the external world, of which he forms a part. The laws and limits of the relation between spirit and matter, appear insignificant and unimportant, when contrasted with the relations of spirit with spirit, and especially of finite spirits with the Infinite Spirit. The greatest Teacher who ever dressed human thoughts in human words, has asserted that knowledge of the Truth is the means of man's emancipation:-Ye shall know the Truth, ' and the Truth shall make you free.' This is not a knowledge acquired by the cumulative processes of the Organon; by the demonstrations of the Principia; by the dialectics and guesses of the disciple of Pure Reason; or by the rules of verbal processes laid down by Mill and Whateley. It is a knowledge which is felt as well as comprehended; which has as much to do with conscience as with reason; which embraces within its influence both the Intellect and the Emotions; and which bears as much upon the springs of actions, as upon the regulation of cognitions and of judgments. The Essays mentioned above, treat of Ontology and Gnosiology, or the sciences of being and of knowing. Sciences which are, at once, boundless and limitless. They embrace-if the word embrace can be employed in such a connection-every object, law, and relation, whether comprehensible or incomprehensible. They treat alike of conditioned and unconditioned existences, and of all their relations. They refer to the questions, What does exist? How it came to existence? Under what conditions, relations, or laws; and for what object, it does exist? This limitless Ontology is handled in these two volumes. The task which the writers have undertaken is to follow the Hindu sages through all their cumulative collections of thoughts and speculations, to trace out and analyze the wisdom and the folly, which the most restless and active souls, inhabiting the vast plains between the Himalaya and the sea, were able to display in explanation and defence of Hindu principles, during twenty or thirty centuries. The writers profess to analyze all those thoughts; to present them faithfully in an English dress; to contrast them with the Ontological system of the Bible; to point out and refute their errors; to shew cause why the Hindus should abandon them, and embrace the more useful, rational, and truthful tenets of the Bible; and to do all this, in the style and manner best adapted to Hindu comprehension and mode of thinking. This is a task for giants. To write a book on the Cosmos is but child's play, to this. The laws and objects of nature will yield up their mysteries and secrets with much greater facility than Hindu speculations. The former have regular laws though often secret and intricate, the latter have none. The gauge of the Inductive Science is utterly inapplicable to the chaos of the 'three systems of philosophy' handled in these Essays. One of the systems has no God; another has no world; a third has a God and an atomic world co-existing, and running on eternally parallel to one another. One of them has an imaginary world of Illusions, created by Ignorance; another a substantial world, constructed from nine eternal atoms, by the chief of souls; a third has a real world starting up from an eternal unintelligent principle-or rather state of equipoise of three 'qualities,' for the sake of liberating a certain indefinite, eternal, innumerable 'purusha' from bonds created either by himself or by accident. One of them makes man to consist of a point of meeting between an eternal 'purusha' and a concrete form of nine eternal atoms; another makes out that he was constructed by an unintelligent principle in successive portions-first intellect, then self-consciousness, then five subtle elements, followed by |