558 



ENGLAND. 



Tlie revenues of the English Universities are immense ; Oxford and Cambridge " those 

 twin stars of learning " are princely establishments. The fellowships, are some of them o. 

 ample income, and almost all of them insure a comfortable subsistence. It is possible, too, 

 as in New Enghmd, for a poor scholar to enjoy the advantages of the Universities by perform- 

 ing certain menial services, and some of the greatest names In England were servitors in the 

 Universities. The ancient discipline is somewhat relaxed, and though there are many excel- 

 lent scholars, some youths there are who go to Oxford and Cambridge, only because it is the 

 custom to go, and who carry away as little knowledge as they bring. There are in all parts 

 of England, a great many private schools, under the direction of eminent scholars, but 

 fewer of the endowed public schools like those In the United States called academies. 

 Some of the most profound of the English scholars have kept these private schools ; and the 

 advantage could not be slight, to a zealous student, of having the instruction of such men as 

 .Johnson and Parr. 



19. State of Ike Jlrts. The arts, in England, have received their greatest Impulse and 

 advancement, within the last half century. There has, indeed, always been a sufficient degree 

 of taste to lead to the purchase of foreign or ancient collections, but there was not sufficient 

 encouragement to the artists at home. The Royal Academy has done much to improve the 

 taste in the arts, and to encourage the professors. Excellence now meets with munificent 

 reward, greater perhaps than In any other country, and artists of great merit have sprung up 

 in all branches, and some of them of great originality. 



There are a great many collections of paintings by the old masters, and many modern and 



antique sculptures. Greece has been plundered of 

 what time and barbarians had spared, and the sculp- 

 tures of the Parthenon have been transported to 

 London. An English artist can find much to assist, 

 in forming his taste in England, and Sir Thomas 

 Lawrence did not see the monuments of his art in 

 Italy till past the meridian of life. Sculpture has 

 been as much advanced as painting, by Flaxman, 

 Chantrey, and others ; and the features of the great 

 and good of England will be faithfully transmitted 

 in marble, to posterity. 



The English have a passion for music, if their 

 fondness of the Opera be a test ; and all musical 

 performers of excellence receive splendid rewards. 

 But it Is in the useful arts that the English are most 

 distinguished ; wherever commerce has freighted 

 a ship, in the remotest corners of the earth, are 

 to be found the products of English ingenuity. The cutlery, the porcelain, and the thousand 

 articles of luxury and show, have been brought to such perfection, that all improvement seems 

 impossible. 



The sciences are much indebted to England, and the natural sciences are nowhere so suc- 

 cessfully cultivated, except perhaps at Paris. Bacon seems to have diverted the inquiries of 

 the English philosophers to these, though the philosophy of the mind has not of late been 

 neglected. There are at present many luminaries in England, in the sciences of chemistry, 

 geology, and anatomy. The government has despatched several expeditions, to penetrate to 

 the Pacific Ocean, around the northern part of America, and though without success, still 

 much has been gained to science. Other expeditions have greatly increased the stores of 

 geographical knowledge, within a few years. 



In no former age, has the press been so prolific, or literature so much spread and rewarded. 

 The i)ubllc is now the munificent patron, that discovers and rewards excellence, and it is no 



in the days of Goldsmith and Fielding, to see an 

 The profusion of new books is, upon the whole, 

 and, though there are many authors of \\w present 

 day, with whom posterity will be familiar, the great mass, like those of every age, will be 

 neither read nor remembered. The greatest change that a few years have made in English 

 literature has been effected by a form of writing unknown to the ancients, that is, the novel. 

 Several of the most gifted minds of the age have compressed in the narrative form, all their 



Tlic Clarence Vase. 



Strange sight, though it was never seen 

 author made rich by the labors of his pen 

 more remarkable than their excellence ; 



