The British Magazine

inconvenience of two neighbouring universities does not exist; and if it did exist, might be remedied without suppressing either of the colleges.

Notwithstanding the imperious and impertinent tone in which Mr. Bannerman answered all applications for delay, a tone which his very middling station and abilities ought to have prevented him from assuming, in a matter so far beyond his range, and although the heads of his bill reached Aberdeen four days after it had been read a first time, and the bill itself only two days before the time fixed for the second reading, yet so universal was the indignation which it excited, so numerous the declarations and petitions against it from public bodies of every kind,-from synods, presbyteries, boroughs, and parishes, all over the north of Scotland, that by the intervention, the "molliter manus imposuit" of Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Bannerman was compelled, with a very bad grace, to withdraw it for the time.

What, then, has been attempted? It has been attempted, and by a professed adherent of the popular cause, to enrich the college of the town with property which was expressly given to the college of the country, to dry up, in great measure, the bounty which assists indigent merit, to remove the seat of education from a village to a manufacturing town, to transfer to a political board of his own nomination the patronage which was entrusted to an independent literary body, and to call in the strong and wide hand of the central power in matters which have hitherto been suffered to adjust themselves to the wants and feelings of society. With offensive arrogance, he has proposed to subject a reverend and learned body to the ignorant and presumptuous intermeddling of a board consisting of men like himself, incapable, from their commercial habits and limited attainments, their personal partialities, and connexion with the details of local politics, of forming any conception of those subjects over which they vainly hoped to exercise an unchecked and irresponsible dominion.

The picture here given is a very singular one. But it assumes a still more singular appearance when brought into connexion with the steps taken in Parliament and elsewhere as to the London University. We thence learn who are esteemed in these days the proper persons, founders, legislators, and governors for universities. Mr. Bannerman, a wine merchant at Aberdeen, brings in the Bill to re-mould an ancient university. Mr. Hume,* who made a fortune in India, Mr. Warburton, and a large posse of gentlemen who took shares of 1007. each, are the active persons in forming the new one. In the former case, it is settled that the dean of faculty, and either the provost or first bailie of Aberdeen, with three persons appointed by government, shall be members of the governing body-i.e., in the present case, a practising attorney, a respectable clothier and tailor, and, in all human probability, Mr. Bannerman and his brother and partner in the wine trade. In the new University, in like manner, Mr. Spring Rice (in its constitution as detailed by him in a despatch written on Sunday, Nov. 22nd) tells the Gower-street College that the members are to be nominated by the Home Office, and the examinations approved also by that same tribunal, remarkably qualified as it is for exercising academic sway and promoting academic knowledge. But the meaning is clear enough. It is hoped that the House of

Lord Brougham's name is not mentioned, because, on different grounds, it is quite absurd to think that a practising lawyer and leader in the House of Commons can take up such matters except for political reasons.

Commons will, in fact, be the executive; and that giving power to government is, in fact, giving it to the House of Commons. They who have lately read Mr. Mitchell's invaluable "Commentaries on Aristophanes," want no other or more lively picture than those which he has drawn of a Mob King, which made laws for everything, ruled everything, ruined everybody for its own enjoyment, spoiled and fattened on the spoil, sold every thing, and carried away an infinite treasure of bribes, plunder, and presents in its own pocket. The difference, in our case, seems likely to be that the same monster will be duly paraded to terrify some and plunder others; but, instead of being allowed to pocket the spoil, fill his own purse, and gratify his own palate, will, after he has done his part, have the mortification to see all these small advantages subtracted from him by gentlemen who intend to do him the particular favour of establishing themselves as his representatives on such occasions.

But is it intended, by any chance, to attempt remoulding our Universities in any such government or Bannerman mould?

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.

THE attention of the reader is most earnestly requested to the following paragraphs from the "Record," of Dec. 17th:

"We believe, at the ground of our hearts, that it was not the gospel of Christ-the glad tidings of the kingdom-which was, in the general, for an extended period of darkness, circulated in the publications of the society, but "another gospel which was not another." We believe, that when Whitfield and Wesley, and other veterans of that early age, began to act as "a blister" on the dead and sleeping church, the society remained among the most insensible and unaffected portions of the entire body. We believe that, in our own day, its leaders of the "standing committee" have shewn the strongest aversion to that blissful change which has been gradually proceeding over the body of the church; and we know that it has been with the most extreme reluctance that they have unwillingly submitted to the changes which have already been effected in the publications of the society, and that it is the earnest desire of the majority of them to tolerate no more. We firmly believe, that so far as its own publications-its own proper work-are considered, it has, in all later times, hindered and not advanced the knowledge of the gospel," the promotion of" true "Christian knowledge;" and, accordingly, we must allow Mr. Harvey to glory over its triumphs, while we weep over its past deadness and perversion of the truth."

"The fact we allude to is, not that the experience of all ages proves to us that bodies constituted like the "standing committee" have ever resisted change and improvement till it was forced upon them; not even that the conduct of the committee has strikingly illustrated and harmonised with this previously-ascertained fact; but that it has been only in consequence of the publicity (which is now covertly sought to be shrouded and lost,) that those changes have been effected in the tracts and in different other matters, which are now held, by UNIVERSAL Confession, to be great improvements."

VOL. IX.-Jan. 1836.