£38 Monthly Review 
ofthe English language should form a prominent 
part of instruction. The young persons employed as 
the first teachers not being sufficiently qualified in 
this respect, he kindly undertook to instruct them 
at his own house; and, for their use, he made some 
extracts, from Blair, Campbell, and other writers, 
which afterwards formed the basis of the Appendix 
to his English Grammar, By these young teachers 
he was much importuned to write an English Gram- 
mar, for the benefit of their pupils, on the same 
plan of simplicity, clearness, and regular gradation, 
which he had purstied in his verbal instructions. 
Their requests were sanctioned and enforced by the 
superintendents of the school, and by some of his 
other friends; he was at length induced to comply. 
Such, was the humble origin of his Grammar. 
Possessed of a sufficiency for ‘the supply 
of his’very limited wants, the profits of his 
numerous publications, amounting it seems 
to nearly £3,000, were all applied to chari- 
table purposes, Which is also the destiny of 
the proceeds of the present memoirs, and 
of Elizabeth Frank’s gratuitous additions. 
With respect to his personal character, 
he appears to have been most amiable ; 
rarely yielding up his temper to vexations — 
preserving an equanimity, indeed, that 
scarcely any thing could ruffle—and bearing 
up, under very acute sufferings and a long 
confinement, with a cheerfulness truly ex- 
emplary, and most consolatory to her on 
whom the burden of superintendence fell. 
With feelings thus quieted, contented, and 
“at €ase, anda mind awake to a variety of 
subjects, he enjoyed conversation ; he had 
made large acquisitions of knowledge, and 
was delighted to communicate. His feeble 
and helpless condition excited sympathy 
among his friends and visitors ; while his 
acquirements, his books, his reputation, his 
charities, his kindness, his goodness, drew 
upon him consideration and deference from 
his neighbours—all very sedative things— 
calculated to make people pleased with 
themselves, and of course disposed to please 
others. 
With some superiority of acquirement, 
he was not certainly a man of extraordinary 
*tntellect; of his Grammars, Exercises, 
Readers, &c.—very serviceable no doubt in 
their way—it is surely enough to say, they 
are calculated to teach learners to smooth 
their phrases a little, to detect irregularities, 
to shun common blunders, and indirectly 
perhaps to aid the judgment and refine the 
taste. His publications, however, are well 
known, and we have no other present de- 
sign than that of conveying some notion of 
this kind and good man, and the memoirs 
before us. 
Of Elizabeth Frank’s performance the 
less that is said the better. There is a7 
pertness, and a self-sufficiency—smothering 
too. the little she has to say with piles of 
devout phrases, as ostentatious as they are 
presuming—that is exceedingly offensive. 
The lady is too, it seems, herself a writer of 
children’s books, and by classing them, as 
she does, with Mr. Murray’s, evidently 
deems them of at least equal value. She 
of Literature, [Nov. 
quotes a passage from The trayels in Eng- 
land, &e. of Benjamin Silliman, professor 
of chemistry at Yale College, Connecticut, 
containing a Very high, though not unde- 
served, eulogy on Mr. Murray ; at, the con- 
clusion of which she startles us with the 
following poser:— Navan 
Who would not rather be Mr, Murray, confined 
to his sofa, than Napoleon, the guilty,possessor of 
an usurped crown, and the sanguinary oppressor of 
Europe? eH V8 
Review of the Progress of: Religious Opi- 
nions during the Nineteenth Century,...By 
J. C. L. De Sismondi; .1826.—Notwith- 
standing the air of generality thrown oyer 
the title, and indeed much. of, the discus- 
sion itself, the real puzpose of, Sismondi is, 
not to mark or record the progress of the 
religious opinions of the age—a purpose 
which may at once be pronounced. tobe 
impracticable—but simply to, give, the 
French Jesuits a gentle hint on, two; to 
prove to them, in short, that though. re- 
ligious feelings have. of late, by a kind of 
revulsion, spread rapidly and ,widely over 
France, the Jesuits have mistaken the tone 
of them, —-that, while they are hailing 
with eager anticipation the revival of these 
feelings, as a sure indication of a general 
willingness to return under their sway, the 
feelings themselves are ofa character too 
deep and spiritual, too solemn. and seli- 
originated, to submit, to, the. control or 
guidance of any, mortal priest or pontiff ; 
and that any precipitate, measures to. en- 
force their. obsolete, authority.will, only 
recoil upon themselves, and. terminate, jn 
the ruin of their own, order, and_ that. of 
their unwise protectors, ‘ j 
But these facets, true enough and plain 
enough, Sismondi must prove in his own 
way—he must mystify in order to establish. 
We shall give our readers a glimpse of his 
method—it is altogether so thoroughly of 
un-English growth, that, merely as an exo- 
tic it is worth a moment’s contemplation. 
M. Benj. Constant, who has something of 
the same vague sublimity about him, and 
which may indeed be marked as the style 
of the Chateaubriand school, assures us 
that the religious feeling is original, inde- 
pendent, interwoven with our very nature ; 
M. De Sismondi, on the contrary, deter- 
mines it to be nothing but the inevitable 
complex result of certain other feelings, 
termed by him very correctly the preserving 
passions of our nature—love, fear, , * the 
feeling of need of help,’ the consciousness 
of imbecility, we suppose, and. of faith ; 
for the full gratification. of which passions 
the present scene of things isinadequate, 
and which are thus forced.to expand into 
the sphere of infinity, _ Love we must; our 
capacity for love is imperatiye and un- 
bounded; but the more we know. of the 
world of creatures the less we find it capa- 
ble of satisfying our desires ; these desires 
are in quest of perfection; we recognize 
indeed goodness, beauty, knowledge, but 
