118 Scieniytc Reviews. 



and in having instigated the present investigation of the indepen- 

 dent members of the Wernerian Society into the singular condi- 

 tion of their mis-directed institution. 



But in our case there still remains much to be affected, before 

 prejudice shall be induced to relinquish an authority which has 

 been too long possessed, and which, like gold from the miser, or 

 opinion from the bigot, must be wrung away by slow degrees. 

 . The Coterie, we must inform our innocent readers, is a group or 

 association of place-men and place-hunters, generally collected 

 around an essential nucleus, whose designs give life and spirit to 

 the whole. It is formed for the purpose of securing and gaining 

 places, directing votes, and for general monopoly. It seems to be 

 a necessary excrescence on all well-fed and overgrown bodies, 

 whereby the intestine humours, which, without it, might poison 

 every individual part, are voided, and thus their injurious influence 

 exerted over a smaller portion. " To conceive a society of men 

 without coteries, would be to imagine a rich harvest free from 

 tares, a picture without a shade ; if the world were inhabited by 

 only four individuals, this society would have two coteries." A 

 coterie of place-men differs from a coterie of independents, in the 

 former having influence, riches, and a servile tribe of expec- 

 tants to aid the execution of any purpose ; whilst the latter relies 

 on truth, publicity, and a fearless exposure of the means by which 

 the existence of the former is maintained. The former is essen- 

 tially founded on a conscious unworthiness : the throne that is won 

 by blood, by blood must be preserved. The latter is composed of 

 such spirits as have curbed the licentiousness of ill-gotten power, 

 and have given temporary ease to the world by the abolition of ty- 

 rannical rule. 



In Great Britain the coterie has attained a high degree of per- 

 fection. Under the name of soiree, evening-party, conversazzione, 

 it may be met with wherever there is any thing to be gained or 

 lost. In our own city, we know that coteries manage almost every 

 scientific institution. Let us notice, for example, the Wernerian So- 

 ciety. There a coterie of rather small dimensions regulates every 

 act. And now that a few independent members have come forward 

 to inquire how, and by whom, the library and museum have been 

 managed, strange lights rise above the convenient mist which has 

 hitherto enveloped the sacred head. 



Germany is perhaps the only country where the coteries pre- 

 serve a tolerable equilibrium, mutually negativing each other's acts. 

 The learned of the nation, scattered over a great extent, belong- 

 ing to different circles, or to different towns, can only form coteries 

 in their respective districts, which do not interfere with each other's 

 bad practices or good things. And in Germany, if a man of science 

 be elevated to a place, he labours to preserve what he acquired by 

 labour ; and science has not to deplore his good fortune. Whereas, 

 in this country, if an individual succeed in throwing the dust of 



