almost desired; that, all the time he was writing that piece, he seemed to be in the air. [We fear his reader will adopt the same conclusion.] But afterwards he complained to a friend that he found himself in domo lutea, - in the tabernacle of

clay."

In his early life he took some pupils under his care, whom he diligently and faithfully instructed, "giving them excellent lessons out of the chapter, read at nights, at his chamber." The Lady Anne Conway was a "heroine pupil" of his. She was skilled in natural and mathematical sciences; deeply read in Plato, Plotinus, and the mystical writers. She became a quakeress, and this circumstance caused her worthy friend great sorrow. She proposed several important queries to Dr. More, upon theological and philosophical subjects, to which he returned a long answer. Both are contained in this volume.

On the 12th of Sept. 1687, the Doctor ceased to be mortal. His death was, like his life, calm and serene. He foresaw it at a distance, and welcomed it when near. He died in the seventy-third year of his life.

He was tall of stature, and somewhat thin; of a serene countenance, pale in his latter years, though more swarthy in his youth, so that a friend called him a duskish diamond. His eye was hazel, vivid as an eagle's. "There was a playful wit in his heart." He had a soul for humor, and was habitually cheerful, and yet a veil of melancholy was at times thrown over his beautiful spirit. His whole appearance was prepossessing, a noble pearl fairly set.

Dr. More's religion was calm and gentle. He looked out mildly upon the beautiful providence of God, and adored profoundly that wisdom which displayed itself everywhere. He lived the "divine life" with his fellow-men, laboring in their behalf with assiduous diligence, till his mortal course was ended. Few men have attained so great a degree of tranquillity as he. His faith cast out fear. His own character proved the words of the old sage; "It is the quiet and still mind that is wise and prudent. He has undesignedly sketched himself in a single brief sentence. "In the deep and calm mind alone, in a temper clear and serene, such as is purged from the dregs, and devoid of the more disorderly tumults of the body, doth the true wisdom, or genuine philosophy, as in its proper tower, securely reside."

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But Dr. More, like other men, had his weak side. His be

lief in witches, ghosts, apparitions, magic, astrology, and similar absurdities, is open to the censure of all. Estimating him from an ideal point of view, and comparing him with "the stature of a perfect man," we see great deficiencies and faults in this respect. It is difficult to conceive how a mind so wise and instructed as his could receive, as true, the ridiculous stories of devils who were cold to the touch, who danced by moonlight on the heath, and played antic games in old houses; or those equally ludicrous, respecting "dead men's bodies that walked," which he quotes from Curtius, and Albinus, and Schlichtingius. But it should be remembered, as his excuse, that all the men of his age, ―all, even the wisest, of preceding times, had admitted the same foolish notions. Mr. Ward has well observed respecting them, "He may be said not so much to have attained the truth in this respect, as others to have fallen short of it.” A volume might easily be filled with the " errors of wise men, which are the glory of dunces." Bacon believed in charms and amulets, Dr. Johnson, in ghosts, witches, and second sight. Boyle recommended the thigh-bone of a hanged man as a cure for a violent disease; and, nearer our own times, Dr. Rush prescribed cloves and mace to strengthen the memory. If Dr. More is to be condemned for believing what all his contemporaries believed, let it be a man without similar sin who "casts the first stone at him. It is rare for a man to go a single step beyond his fellows, says a wise man; wonderful, when he takes two steps before them; but, to take a third progressive step, has been given only to some half-score of divine geniuses since the world began. We have sometimes dreamed that some error was necessary, in our infirm state, to preserve "a proper habit" of mind; for it may be that the mind can no more thrive on pure and unmixed truth, than the body can subsist on food, every particle of which is nutritious. Error may be the bran-bread of the soul.

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Peace to the shade of this wise and good man! So lofty a spirit has rarely visited the earth. He had his failings, nay, his faults, but he was in the body, where the brightest light shines, "as through a glass, darkly." Vulgar men may laugh at some of his ridiculous tenets, and fools may "make wide the mouth, and draw out the tongue," at his credulity. Weak men may flatter themselves as they look on him, and say, "Aha, these were the great men of past times!" Be it so. Greatness of mind manifests itself by the possession of truth,

more than in the negative rejection of error. Tried by the latter standard, Leibnitz, and Newton, and Socrates, and Aristotle, were men of small stature, we fear. Let Henry More, then be weighed in an even balance; his errors in physical science be set off against his spiritual truths. Let his understanding be measured by his contemporaries,-men of lofty stature, and he is a giant. Let him be judged by his life, and the spirit he worked in, and amid that circle of gifted and holy men we shall find few that were his superiors.

T. P.

ART. II. Illinois and the West. With a Township Map, containing the latest Surveys and Improvements. By A. D. JONES. Boston: Weeks, Jordan, & Company. 1838.

THIS is a neat little volume of about two hundred and fifty pages. It was written, as the author tells us, "while on the wing." It contains, nevertheless, many pleasant descriptions and much useful and accurate information. These are merits which will commend it to those who are making inquiries concerning the West. Its faults, which do not harm it much, will speak for themselves.

In travelling a country but newly settled, there is far less matter for entertainment and instruction, suggested by its past circumstances, than is found in visiting the older portions of the world. In the latter, almost every spot has been the scene of some memorable event which the pen of history has consecrated, which has given a theme to the moralist and the reviewer, which has been wrought into the popular tale, or which has been celebrated in song. Hence there gathers round it a sort of classic interest, which awakens pleasing recollections, and affords useful excitement to the mind. But in the former nothing has yet been hallowed by immortal deeds. The past brings no contribution to the enthusiasm that may be felt. History, fable, poetry, lend no enchantment to the unpeopled scene. The imagination, if employed at all, must run onward, and paint what is to be; call into life the actors on this great VOL. XXVI. 3D S. VOL. VIII. NO. I. 3

theatre; arrange the plan of their drama; describe their pursuits, their struggles, their dangers, their successes, their sufferings, their strides to power, their fearful ascendancy, their moral strength or weakness; and cause them to enact such parts as will hereafter make the yet untrodden soil classic and sacred.

The first thing that strikes the traveller on reaching the Western waters, whether the rivers or the lakes, is the jostle and rush of the moving multitudes of men, women, and children; and the number of steamboats, boxes of merchandise, drays, wagons, lumpers, and clerks with invoices and bills of lading in hand, with which the wharves and landings are crowded till no room is left. And his first question is, What has brought all these people hither? what causes this mighty flow of human beings in this direction? Let us stop a minute to answer this question. Setting aside, then, those who are mere tourists and those who are engaged in their regular business, it will be found that the larger part of this moving multitude have been driven either by misfortune, or by the straitness of their circumstances, or by oppression, to look out new homes. From the cities on the sea-board they are "going to the West," because in the revulsions of trade they have been overthrown, and despairing of being able to recover their former standing, and weary of the perplexities of business, they are resolved to spend their days in retirement and the tranquillity of rural occupation. They have gathered up the fragments of a wrecked fortune, and mean to make the best they can of them. From the agricultural districts of the old states, they are "going to the West," because the ancestral farms are not large enough for the support of the numerous family, and they want more room for industry, and more scope for the accumulation of property. From the continent of Europe they are "going to the West," because land is getting too dear and labor too cheap at home, and they feel that if they stay where they were born, poverty and oppression will be the only inheritance of their children. Besides these great classes, some are going to the West" from a nervous restlessness of disposition, which forbids their being satisfied with any condition, however eligible; and others, from a passion for what is new and strange, from an impulsive desire to combat difficulties, from that spirit of daring which delights in bold achievements and perilous adventures, and which finds no play amid the regular and quiet movements

of long established communities; and others still, who, if interrogated, are found to have no distinct motive or object, but to be floating along and drifting about whithersoever the wind of circumstances may chance to blow them. These constitute, it will be seen, altogether a very heterogeneous mass, differing widely in tastes, feelings, habits, education, character; and it must of necessity be long before they will assimilate so as to form one complete and congruous body politic.

And what is the nature of the country to which such immense numbers are flocking, this great Valley of the West? We shall speak of only what has fallen under our own observation, it having been our lot to travel over nearly the whole of the country about which Mr. Jones has written. Our remarks will therefore be understood as having particular reference to the State of Illinois. In its physical features, then, the country may be described in a few words. It is a region of great beauty and astonishing fertility. It would seem that the primal curse could never have fallen upon it. It is capable of sustaining a vast population. Its soil is so easy of cultivation, that a boy may do the work on a given number of acres, which it would require men to perform here. The boundless prairies covered with greensward and bedecked with flowers, in endless variety, which vie with each other in the beauty of their forms and the richness of their tints, stretching over unmeasured acres, in long and high undulations, skirted all round with tall forests, looking as if an ocean in the midst of a storm, by some inscrutable agency, had been suddenly converted into earth before its billows had had time to subside,

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these constitute a large part of the territory; and they seem designed for a garden from which the inhabitants of the land might be fed; or for places of refuge, to which the poor and the down-trodden and the stranger might flee, when other resources failed them, and find plenty, rest, and liberty. God made them to invite the hand of cultivation,

"And be the exhaustless granary of a world.”

No one can think seriously of these illimitable tracts of luxuriant but uncultivated land, without being deeply impressed with the divine goodness; without seeing in them the provision of almighty love for the sustenance of his creatures; nor without rejoicing, that to whatever extent population may be increased and multiplied in this country, there will ever be room enough for their activity, and food enough for their subsistence.