278 The Museum Gazette 



ambition is to give to its readers clearer insight into the 

 laws of life and their practical application to every-day 

 affairs. 



A new memoir of William Cobbett, with judiciously 

 selected extracts from his works, would, we think, be very 

 acceptable at the present time. He left much material of an 

 autobiographical kind. A writer in the " Penny Cyclopaedia " 

 says of part of this, " His own account of his courtship and 

 marriage is, it may be fairly said, one of the most beautiful 

 moral pictures ever drawn." The same writer, speaking of 

 " The Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine," published in 

 1796, says : "This tract contains a most interesting account of 

 his self-education, carried on, under circumstances of difficulty, 

 with an ardour and steadiness of purpose that have never 

 been surpassed." The work, apart from its personal interest, 

 would afford valuable illustration of the progress of socialist 

 thought in reference to many doctrines now much nearer 

 acceptance. Will Mr. Lucas, whose " Life of Lamb " has 

 given us all so much pleasure, take the suggestion in hand ? 



It is reported in one of the records of Goethe's conversa- 

 tions that he used the expression, " Man was the first dialogue 

 between God and Nature." To some, such a statement may 

 appear meaningless, whilst to others it may seem full of 

 the deepest insight. What is meant is — if we may express 

 it baldly — that the inanimate earth, the vegetable world, and 

 even the long succession of animal forms, had failed to realise 

 any spiritual existence, and that with man came the first 

 perception of the higher life and of moral good. Man, 

 representing in himself all Nature, began to hold spiritual 

 intercourse with the Author of all Nature, the great myste- 

 rious Source of Life. The same sentiment has been ex- 

 pressed by divines, philosophers, and poets, in all ages and in 

 countless forms of phraseology, but never probably with the 

 forcible conciseness of Goethe's words. 



