THE ENDOWMENT OF RESEARCH. 



20$ 



more or less offensive, and unavoid- 

 ably so, to many, although I hope 

 not to all, however the subjects might 

 be treated, for " it is impossible but 

 that offences will come," I feel that 

 in publishing them in Great Britain, 

 I must, in some respects, resemble 

 (but resemble only) " a desperate 

 adventurer landing on a coast, and 

 burning his ships, and committing 

 himself to fortune," and of whom it 

 could be most appropriately said : 



" Woe to the coward, that ever he was 



born, 



Who did not draw the sword before he 

 blew the horn." 



Still, in England, there is that sense 

 of dignity and honourable dealing 

 among high-class, high-toned jour- 

 nals, that if they do not entertain or 

 do justice to the book (or rather to 

 the subjects discussed in it), they 

 will not abuse it. And, besides that, 

 there is a strong conservative feel- 

 ing peculiar to most of them that 

 impels them to be careful in regard 

 to what they introduce to their read- 

 ers; which is a great drawback to 

 anything novel or original, whatever 

 its truth or attraction, being given 

 to the world through their pages. 

 But as all of the subjects treated are 

 of a permanent nature and interest, 

 the work can wait till it suits the 

 convenience or pleasure of these 

 journals to take it up, after it has 

 become more conventional to do so 

 than seems to be the case at present. 

 As regards myself personally, I have 

 no requests to make of any kind, for 

 even the commonest " rough " there, 

 when a stranger gets into trouble, 

 will generally call for " a ring and 

 fair play." 



In this light read the accompany- 

 ing notice of the book by the Edin- 

 burgh Scotsman, the leading Scotch 

 newspaper, whose character would be 

 the following, if I were describing a 

 man in every-day life : that is, well- 

 educated, talented, enterprising, not 

 over-scrupulous, and wealthy, very 

 tyrannical by nature, and of great 



personal importance, but of no fami- 

 ly, pedigree, or connexions worth 

 speaking of, yet whose motto is, 

 " A fig for providence, but come to 

 me ! " 



He is a great professor of hu- 

 manity, liberalism, science, and so 

 forth, and the patron and mouth- 

 piece of a large " promiscuous lot " 

 in regard to their opinions and in- 

 terests (many of which are ques- 

 tionable), and undefined and almost 

 undefmable religious sentiments ; 

 and is very free, even tyrannically 

 so, in his unprovoked remarks on 

 almost all that differ from him, or 

 are not of his "following," gener- 

 ally to an extent of being uncalled 

 for, indelicate or impertinent, and 

 frequently nearly if not altogether 

 scurrilous amplifying and harping 

 on subjects and persons till his spun- 

 out questionable wit and palpable 

 animus become tiresome and offen- 

 sive even to those who generally re- 

 gard him as an oracle. Moreover, 

 he is "a godless old fellow withal," 

 to whom anything like sincere prac- 

 tical religion, based on the Christian 

 evidences, with clearly-defined ideas, 

 when publicly expressed outside of 

 the regular church service, is gener- 

 ally offensive, and frequently provo- 

 cative of all kinds of bantering, jeer- 

 ing, and gibing. My allusions to the 

 Pope and John Stuart Mill, and the 

 aspects of natural and revealed re- 

 ligion, incidentally brought in, and, 

 above all, the public appeal to the 

 Scottish Clergy, seem to have acted 

 on him like the shaking of a red rag 

 in his face, and become a subject to 

 be discredited, if not destroyed. In- 

 deed, if one takes even an Ishmael- 

 itish squint in the direction of the 

 Ark in daylight, he has to reckon with 

 another whose eyes are globules of 

 water and who lacks bowels for such 

 a subject an excellent " defender 

 of the faith " against its unauthor- 

 ized or injudicious friendsv 



Many sensible, learned, and pious, 

 and what are called good men (and 

 many not possessed of all of these 



