logical. His à posteriori argument aims at still less. This, which is known by the name physico-theological, seeks only to raise a reasonable assurance of a first cause. Both these being found faulty and untenable, there still remain to us two other kinds of argument, viz., the ontological argument of Anselm, and the psychological argument of Descartes. I cannot pronounce on these now. For myself I am quite sure that my Theism has nothing to do with either. I believe in a God because I find an all-sufficient reason for doing so in the moral reason, and in part because I find it laid on me as a duty to do so. Kant showed, and Coleridge wisely taught, that if God's existence were a certainty, i. e., an affair of knowledge, or, at least, capable of irresistible proof, the purity of the moral motive would be invaded by pathological elements. The same as to the freedom of the will, and as to the immortality of the soul. See Kant's Religion within the Limits of Pure Reason," Book II., apot. I., section C. (Semple's translation, 1830, p. 87.) This work, and Kant's "Critic of Practical Reason," are in my judgment the most important of all his works. The former seems to me to render most subsequent didactic works on religion an impertinence. -C. M. INGLEBY. 852. I do not know that I can do much to inform S. W. P., but so far as I am able to express it he is welcome to the knowledge I possess. Perhaps some one better informed may supplement, if not supplant, my reply to his query. First, the Rev. Thomas Seaton, M.A., late Fellow of Clare Hall, bequeathed to the university the rents of his estate at Kislingbury, in Northamptonshire, to be given yearly, without restriction, to the Master of Arts who should write the best English poem on a subject which shall be judged by the Vice-Chancellor, the Master of Clare Hall, and the Regius Professor of Greek, to be most conducive to the honour of the Supreme Being and the recommendation of virtue. The subject is "given out" in June, and the poem is to be" sent in" to the Vice-Chancellor on or before the 29th of September following. The successful poem is to be printed, and the expense deducted out of the product of the estate; the remainder is given as a reward to the writer. The first prize poem was competed for in 1750. The rent of the estate in 1796 was £16; in 1811 it produced £40. In 1831 and 1838 a premium of £100 was announced by the examiners as adjudgable, should any poem appear to them of distinguished merit. Second, both of these extra premiums were gained by the Rev. Thomas E. Hankinson, M.A., of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge-"a man," as W. T. Edwards says, "of gentle and tender yet exalted soul," who died early, but who, so long as health was permitted to him, showed himself to be a devoted minister of the cross of Christ. Some of his "Sermons " were published in 1833-4. I possess six of his Seatonian Poems, viz., "David Playing the Harp before Saul," 1831; "The Plague Stayed," 1832; "St. Paul at Philippi," 1833; "Jacob," 1834; "Ishmael," 1835; "Ethiopia stretching out her Hands unto God," 1838. The first and the last of these gained the £100 premium; I do not know what other ones he gained, but I am told that there is a full list, with authors' names attached, under the head Musa Seatoniana, in Bohn's edition of Lowndes' "Bibliographers' Manual;" with this I am not acquainted, nor do I know anything more of the poet than is to be found in W. T. Edwards' brief notice of his poems.-R. M. A. Literary Notes. UNDER the auspices of the Cobden Club a volume of essays on Land Tenure," written by various eminent British and foreign authors, is shortly to be issued. A collected edition of the works of J. S. Mill, in twelve vols., under the superintendence of Dr. Thomas Gompertz, has just been commenced at Leipzig in Germany. Vol. I. contains "On Liberty," "Utilitarianism," and the "St. Andrew's Address." When are we likely to have this example imitated at home? A collection of the speeches of Mr. Disraeli, to be issued in popular form and at a cheap price, is in the press. M. Eugène Forçade, journalist, author of "Historical Studies," &c., died 6th November. The poetical works of Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, and contemporary of Shakspere, are to be now for the first time issued, with memoir and notes, by subscription. A novel, entitled "Mary Hollis," by H. J. Schlennst, the Scott of Holland, has been translated into English. Palacky, the Bohemian historiographer, has prepared "Documents illustrative of the Life of John Huss." R. E. Raspe (1737-1794) was the author of "Baron Munchausen." He was a German antiquarian, held a place of trust in Hesse-Cassel, and in 1769 lectured on Volcanoes to the Royal Society of London. The late Professor John Grote's "Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy" is to be edited by J. H. Mayor, M.A. George Gilfillan has just issued an able work, "Modern Christian Heroes," and he has nearly ready "Men of Progress"—the heroes of English Dissent, the advanced thinkers in the Scottish Church, and the leaders of the Broad Church. The Rev. T. Fowler's “ Elements of Deductive Logic" has been translated into Hindoor IH MRAM No library in America has yet reached 200,000 volumes, though in Europe there are more than twenty which have passed that figure. The Library of Congress, at Washington, contains 183,000 volumes; the Boston Public Library has 153,000; the Astor, at New York, 188,000; the Harvard College, at Cambridge, 118,000; the Mercantile, at New York, 109,500; the Athenæum, Boston, 100,000; the Philadelphia, 85,000; the New York State Library, at Albany, 76,000; the New York Society, at New York, 57,000 and the Yale College, New Haven, 50,000. The Astor Library was founded by a bequest of 400,000 dols, by John Jacob Astor, and has been enriched by many supplementary gifts of money from his son, William B. Astor. It is perfectly free to all comers, but it is open only from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Dr. James Rush, of Philadelphia, recently left 1,000,000 dols, to the Philadelphia Library, but made it a condition that the library should not take in "mind-tainting reviews, controversial politics, and those teachers of disjointed thinking, the newspapers." W. F. Donkin, Savilian Professor of Astronomy, Oxford, died 16th November. |