the world, and, in the natural course of things, some of them must
disappear from the stage of authorship, if not of life. If we seek their
successors among the writers for the weekly or monthly journals, we shall
certainly fail to find them. Looking to the Reviews, we find ourselves
forced to agree with the English journalist, who informs his readers that
"it is said, and with apparent justice, that the quarterlies are not as
good as they were." From year to year they have less the appearance of
being the production of men who looked to any thing beyond mere pecuniary
compensation for their labor. In reading them we find ourselves compelled
to agree with the reviewer who regrets to see that the centralization
which is hastening the decline of the Scottish universities is tending to
cause the mind of the whole youth of Scotland to be

"Cast in the mould of English universities, institutions which, from
their very completeness, exercise on second-rate minds an influence
unfavorable to originality and power of thought."--_North British
Review_, May 1853.

Their pupils are, as he says, struck "with one mental die," than which
nothing can be less favorable to literary or scientific development.

Thirty years since, Sir Humphrey Davy spoke with his countrymen as
follows:--

"There are very few persons who pursue science with true dignity; it is
followed more as connected with objects of profit than fame."--
_Consolation in Travel_.

Since then, Sir John Herschel has said to them:--