96 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



^JULY, 



an infinite variety of amusement in the 

 curious Alg£e, among which I am daily 

 discovering something new ?' " Well ! 

 were it not for such men the knowledge 

 of nature would make but slow way. 



Thaddens of Warsaw — Standard No- 

 vels. Vol. IV. — It is now thirty years 

 since Miss Jane Porter published her 

 Thaddeus of Warsaw — the first of the 

 class of biographical romances which Sir 

 Walter Scott has since brought into 

 such fashion and repute, and in which, 

 she observes, he had done her the ho- 

 nour to adopt her precedent. In her 

 turn she is delighted to follow his ex- 

 ample, in communicating to the world 

 all it is desirous to know of a writer's 

 views, when first framing these par- 

 ticular fictions. Her interest in favour 

 of the Poles was first raised by seeing 

 numbers of the refugees, after the last 

 partition of Poland, roaming forlornly in 

 St. James's Park. Some years after, 

 when Kosciusko was released by Paul of 

 Russia, and came to London in his way 

 to America, Miss Porter's brother was 

 introduced to him, and tlms he became 

 the topic of family talk ; and finally, 

 when she took to writing, the hero of 

 the young lady's romance. Mrs. Rad- 

 cliffe ate raw steaks to stir her imagina- 

 tion, and Schiller hung his room with 

 black drapery, and wrote by the glimmer 

 of a farthing rush-light ,• — while Miss 

 Porter worked away in her brother's 

 study or painting room, in which was 

 suspended Abercombie's " war-dyed 

 coat," and the waistcoat, bullet-torn, of 

 some other commander, to give intensity 

 to the strokes with which she dashed off 

 the campaigns of Thaddeus Sobieski. 



Henry Pestalozzi — his Life atid Writ- 

 ings, by Dr. Biber. — Whatever may have 

 been Dr. Biber's intentions or anticipa- 

 tions, it is obvious his biography is little 

 calculated to elevate our conceptions of 

 the qualities or the merits of Pestalozzi, 

 save only as to kind and generous feel- 

 ing and irrepressible resolve. Many of 

 his cotemporaries considered him as half 

 crazy, and Dr. Biber scarcely wishes his 

 readers to think him otherwise. Judg- 

 ing of him by the Doctor's representa- 

 tions, Pestalozzi had but " one idea," 

 and that one not very strictly defined^ 

 certainly in none of its details. From 

 the beginning to the end, a period of 

 sixty years, he went stumbling, but still 

 struggling on, and was finally indebted 

 to others for making out his meaning, 

 and aiding him in reducing the matter 

 to practice. He never, perhaps, had a 

 precise view of his object, nor could con- 

 ceive any definite means of realizing it — ■ 

 neither philosophy to generalize, nor 

 language to develojre his purpose. He 

 found out very early that writers were 

 perpetuall3' talking of what they knew 



little or nothing, and, in dis^st, but 

 with no discretion, threw all his books 

 aside. He read nothing for thirty years. 

 Words were only calculated to mislead, 

 and he would have nothing to do thence- 

 forth with aught but things. Education 

 was wholly occupied with words, and 

 therefore, education must be reformed or 

 rather revolutionized, and he must be 

 the agent. Lite was accordingly con- 

 sumed in impotent, but persevering 

 efforts to effect a change in national 

 education, while he had no definite 

 views of the mode in which such an 

 effect was to be brought about. With 

 the true spirit of a Cierman, every thing 

 teachable seemed to him capable of be- 

 ing reduced to sound, form, and num- 

 ber ; and ears, ej-es and fingers were 

 accordingly the proper instruments of 

 education — in communicating and re- 

 ceiving. All abstractions were renounced 

 as mere words incapable of being coupled 

 with things, and so unidentifiable with 

 their objects. 



There can be no doubt, in any sane 

 person's mind, but the instrumentality 

 of the senses has been too much neglected, 

 but never was it wholly so, as Pesta- 

 lozzi and his friends would have the 

 world believe. There never yet was a 

 teacher of any fitness for his office who 

 did not tax his pupil's senses to aid his 

 mental conceptions. Nay, every old 

 dame who required a child to tell her 

 how many two and three made, directed 

 him, if there was any hesitation, to 

 count his fingers, and thus gave him 

 precise ideas of numbers — and what in 

 principle has Pestalozzi done more ? 



Pestalozzi was born in Switzerland 

 (17451, the son of a physician, and was 

 himself destined for the church ; but 

 failing in his jireliminary exercises, and 

 quarrelling with his books, he took to 

 fanning. No sooner was he in ])osses- 

 sion ot his little property than he re- 

 solved to couple his new profession with 

 his new views of the necessities of edu- 

 cation. For this purpose he collected 

 some fifty children among his poor 

 neighbours, and set to work to instruct 

 them and cultivate his farm by the same 

 act — with an utter indifference as to 

 any results but the improvement of his 

 proteges in practical knowledge. He 

 himself knew nothing in fact of farming, 

 and it is no wonder that the scheme, 

 with all its benevolence, ended in com- 

 pleting the ruin of his property ; never- 

 theless he had the gratification of essen- 

 tially awakening and rousing the intel- 

 lects of a considerable number of poor 

 forlorn lads, in the interval betweeti 

 1773 and 1790 ; and of promoting ex- 

 tensively kind thoughts, for the children 

 were all delighted with one who en- 

 tered so warmly into their feelings, and 

 gave himself so completely up to them. 



