which his fame has so severely suffered. His errors cannot be ascribed to bigotry. He was, in fact, one of the most tolerant and liberal of the clergy of his day. Even his credulity seems always to have been based on authority that could not then be gainsaid, or to have been the result of a process of reasoning or investigation. He aimed to study the subject of witchcraft as a man of science and philosophy, as well as an humble believer of the Bible; and what could then be derived from learning and philosophy, but confirmation of a Scripture, which declared, "Thou shall not suffer a witch to live"? Wherein was the evidence, produced by Pilarini and Simoni, of the beneficial effects of inoculation, more conclusive than the testimony of human wisdom and divine revelation to the existence of witchcraft? In either case he acted upon his convictions with incautious sincerity and manly courage. In both instances he was encouraged to go forward by many, who shrunk from responsibility themselves, and who, when blame arose, were glad to let the weight of it rest upon his shoulders.

When Cotton Mather found the witches and their allies an overmatch for human sagacity (for so he explained the unexpected result of public prosecutions), he would naturally wish to believe, himself, and to convince others, that he had not been too precipitate in carrying out his principles. The correctness of those principles he always maintained, because the evidence of their truth still preponderated in his mind over the arguments of their opponents. His claim of having counselled caution and moderation in judicial proceedings, and his continued assertion of the propriety of such proceedings, have furnished the grounds of many accusations against him.

In summing up the character of Cotton Mather, we should say, that he was a man of superior general ability, without the advantage of any leading intellectual tendencies, and that his warm and benevolent feelings were not sufficiently guarded by reserve, or qualified by worldly shrewdness. By nature and education he was unfortunately subject to conceit and selfcomplacency, which he had not tact enough to conceal. This infirmity was evidently the real cause of his misfortunes during life, and its influence has followed his reputation, and obscured his merits with posterity. Too evident self-satisfaction is the last thing mankind are disposed to tolerate.

variably provokes the assaults of ridicule and satire. All the faults and weaknesses, that a vain man exhibits, are sure to be

mentioned and brought up against him. Known hypocrisy, and mock humility, are less obnoxious and more respected. The frank simplicity of Cotton Mather continually exposed him to attacks that affected his public standing, embittered his temper, and occasioned an old age of unhappiness and disappointment.

The high anticipations, that surrounded his entrance into life, subjected him both to observation and to jealousy. He aimed to maintain the position his ancestors had held in church and state, and claimed, too openly, similar influence and consideration. To the changes of times and circumstances he had not shrewdness enough to accommodate himself. consequence was, that industry, learning, philanthropy, and talents enough to crown any name with distinction, could not secure him from final neglect and the pain of frustrated expectations.

The

We think his writings worthy of more consideration than they receive. There is often a richness of thought buried beneath his exuberance of learning and illustration, that well repays the labor of getting at it. Could his "Magnalia" be relieved from its miserable punctuation, and the too liberal use of italics and capitals, the style would be found more clear and forcible than is generally supposed, and possessed of much of the peculiar qualities, that the admirers of Jeremy Taylor would strongly relish.

J. B. Reid,

ART. II. Report, on Education in Europe, to the Trustees of the Girard College for Orphans. By ALEXANDER DALLAS BACHE, LL. D., President of the College. Philadelphia: Lydia R. Bailey. 1839. 8vo. pp. 666.

THE extended report contained in the volume, of which the title is prefixed to this article, is the first-fruits of the most munificent literary endowment, originating in individual liberality, which has ever occurred in this country. Indeed, the annals of scholastic foundations in Europe present few instances of equal magnitude, and assuredly not more than two or three which are greater. The name of Stephen Girard has taken a place in the same category with those of

Sir Thomas Gresham, of Thomas Sutton, and of George Heriot.

A curious illustration of the practical operation of our political system, its influence upon individual enterprise and feeling, might be traced in the history of the accumulation of a fortune like that amassed by Mr. Girard, and its final appropriation to a plan of purely popular beneficence. A foreigner comes penniless to our shores. The liberal policy of the law and of public opinion receives him into the community. Barely acquainted with the language of the country, without education, without kindred or friends, without patronage, in a word, without any means external to himself, he seeks, and without difficulty finds, in an humble line of life, an opening for his industry. The lone man makes himself useful, and with his usefulness come connexions in business. The field of his labor becomes enlarged and more elevated. The genius for traffic, with which some men are endowed, enables him at every advance to find a firmer footing, and to plant himself more securely. For a time, one of the crew of some of the small craft that ply on a river, he gradually raises himself to some authority on board of a coasting vessel. He relinquishes the vocation of a mariner, and, with his small earnings and savings, stocks a small shop. In a few years he is in a state of transition to the condition of a merchant. Traffic, that scarce ventured beyond the hail of the voice, or the range of a good spyglass, has learned a bolder venture, and begins to vex the seas of distant climes. The ventures prove successful, or, to speak more accurately, there is in them wisdom and foresight, the compound of boldness and prudence, which makes a merchant's might. The man, whose trading began in small channels, has gained a standing in the centre of a commercial metropolis. A new department for his skill and enterprise is found, and the successful merchant becomes also the thrifty and prosperous banker; and thus his wealth, never lying idle, is magnified in a ratio almost exceeding calculation.

Such is a hasty sketch of the formation of Stephen Girard's estate, the earnings of individual effort, with poverty for at starting-point. He came to this country from France, it is said, as a cabin boy. He was a fresh-water sailor on the river Delaware, and subsequently, as he mentions in his will, he traded to New Orleans, in the first instance, as "first

officer" of the vessel, and afterwards, as 66 master and partowner." The designation he gives himself in his will, is, "mariner and merchant." He went into commercial business, in a small way, as a grocer. A few years more made him a shipping merchant, and he was for a considerable time the largest ship-owner in the port of Philadelphia. When he became a capitalist, he sought the growing gains of a shrewd and cautious banker, and soon was strong enough to purchase, for his own use of private banking, the building which had been erected and was used as the banking-house of the nation during the continuance of the charter of the first bank of the United States. The accumulation of money was with Girard the one great aim of life, pursued with an unremitting and unwearying assiduity. He was a man, who, having been separated in early life from his kindred, suffered the ties of consanguinity to hang but loosely on him. His habits of living were simple, or rather austere and parsimonious. His sole recreation, and that was recreation mingled with thrift, was rural occupation on his farm in the immediate neighbourhood of Philadelphia, to which for many years he daily retired, after the business of his banking-house closed. He was a man of close counsels. The work of his life may literally be said to have been achieved by himself alone. No sorcerer ever environed himself with a magic circle more impenetrable, a line to be crossed only at the risk of his displeasure. His temperament was unsocial. There was a wide, and, we may add, a dreary space, between him and his kindred, his connexions, his assistants in business, his fellowlaborers, not companions, in the counting-room and the banking-house, and his fellow-citizens generally. During life, his name was not associated with plans of beneficence. Charity was timid in approaching to solicit a bounty. He was a solitary-hearted being, and his fellow-creatures knew not the avenues to his feelings. When the credit of the national government was depressed during the late war with Great Britain, Girard was one of the capitalists who replenished the treasury of the country from their private coffers; and he fostered important internal improvements in his own State by advances, when the work was in danger of standing still, and other men were afraid or unable to give assistance. But, in these cases, the impulse was the foresight of a safe deposit and an increased return, the instinct of investment.

In short, Stephen Girard was such a man, as, had his lot been cast, like that of the London banker, Thomas Sutton, the founder of the Charter House, in the same age and in the same community with Ben Jonson, would have furnished a better mark for the dramatist's satire.

If the acquisition of so large an estate by such a man as Girard is any illustration of the political system under which he lived, and which, placing no impediments in his way, gave abundant security to his possession, still more is its ultimate appropriation an evidence of the influence of popular spirit. The laborious earnings of a long, and, in a certain way, self-denying life, were destined, not to the aggrandizement of a few, some short-lived aristocracy of wealth, but to be diffused amidst the people, for the promotion of the people's best interests. The idea is not to be entertained for a moment, that there can be any adequate substitute when there is a seclusion from the natural social affections; because undoubtedly the happiness of mankind is best advanced by the cultivation. of kindly emotions, the sympathies of blood and other impulses of nature, which are unwisely sacrificed to any scheme of beneficence, no matter how plausible. Yet there is something redeeming for a career of close-handed money-making, of avarice, denying alike indulgence to self and liberality to others, when the fact comes to light, that all this course of living has had a purpose beyond what the world could see, the blind and heart-chilling lust that gloats over the swelling coffer. It is some justification of a life like Girard's, that all his labors had a destination into which no selfish principle entered. The city of his adoption, where his money had been earned, was to be his heir, and back into her lap the accumulated wealth of years was to be poured. With the exception of comparatively a few legacies, the bulk of his estate, amounting to some six millions of dollars, was bequeathed to the city of Philadelphia, as a trustee to fulfil certain designs, which he supposed best calculated to promote her permanent interests. The final appropriation of Mr. Girard's property was, during his life, a mystery fruitful of conjectures and speculations; and when death broke the seal of it, there was amazement in finding, that he had been maturing, in the solitary counsels of his own mind, a great scheme of education. With no pretensions to any acquirements of science or literature, and successful in a worldly way beyond competition without