we know that all perfection, whether of the ego or the non-ego. must be in the infinite Being in infinite excess; thirdly, by way of negation, for we know that no imperfection of being can possibly be in the uncreated. Therefore He is uncomposed, unchanging, immortal, uncaused, &c. Now, it is impossible to consider these three methods without perceiving that, on the one hand, we do not confine the perfections of God to those we perceive in ourselves we perceive that all perfection of all being is in Him; and that, on the other, we exclude from our idea of God much that is essential to us, and a portion of our relative perfection. We deny that He is corporeal; we deny that He has faculties as such, for He is one eternal unchanging act of life, which is Himself. Neither, therefore, would the clock confine its ideas of God to what is analogical with its own being. It would include in that idea much which is not derived from self, and exclude, on the other hand, much that is so derived. These non-theistic speculators have confounded the material out of which human thought is evolved with human thought itself. They have superciliously surveyed the heaps of stones, unchiselled, unordered, ready for the builder, and then, pointing in triumph to the unsightly mass, have asked their admiring listeners: "Where is your temple of order and symmetry here?”

A lamentable sign of our present intellectual decrepitude is the way in which even the so-called educated public is ready to fall down at the feet of any teacher of physical science who has attained a certain degree of fame or even notoriety. Two or three such, with as many soi-disant philosophers, reign, at the present moment, in English public opinion in a way which would be ridiculous were not the consequences so serious. Inverting the true order, we have unbounded submission, as to mere matters of opinion, where reason and not authority should be the sole arbiter. In the name of truth, then, we cry out for more "free thought," and a greater exercise of "private judgment," in this, its legitimate field!

We owe some apology to our readers for our later observations, which have little enough in the shape of novelty to recommend them. But after all, it is remarkable how little is really new under the sun, how the same or similar conceptions crop up again and again. Some speculators appear now inclined to return once more to the fortuitous concourse of atoms of Democritus-for that each animal is merely the result of the physically selected aggregation of his component atoms, is the most recent (pangenetic) development of the Darwinian hypo

thesis.

However this may be, the gemmules of Mr. Darwin are singularly like the molecules of Bonnet and of Buffon; and even certain mediæval authors have almost anticipated the doctrine of Pangenesis. Again, the "physiological units" invented by Herbert Spencer are, as we before said, very similar to the direct descendants of the primitive germ-cell made use of by Professor Owen in his theory of parthenogenesis.

But even the very hypothesis of "Natural Selection" (or the "survival of the fittest") itself was in great part thought out not hundreds but thousands of years ago. For Aristotle notices the opinion that by the accidental occurrence of combinations, organisms have been preserved and perpetuated such as final causes, did they exist, would have brought about, disadvantageous combinations or variations being speedily exterminated. The Epicureans afterwards, according to Simplicius, held a similar opinion. We may be pardoned, then, if in our objections there is also some want of novelty.

In conclusion we once more tender our thanks to Mr. Darwin for his recent contribution to science, and earnestly hope that he may long be spared to carry on his zealous labours. We also hope that, before long, we may be able to benefit by studying his. observations on the variations of animals in a state of nature.

An Epitaph in a Devonshire Church.

[The following epitaph has never, we think, been printed, except in publications of chiefly local interest. It was thought by Southey to be the work of William Browne, the author of Britannia's Pastorals.]

If wealth, wit, beauty, youth, or modest mirth
Could hire, persuade, entice, prolong, beguile,
Death's fatal dart, this fading flowre on earth
Might, yet unquailed, have flourished awhile,
But mirth, youth, beauty, wit, nor wealth, nor all,
Can stay, or once delay, when Death doth call.

No sooner was she to a loving mate

From careful parents solemnly bequeathed,
The new alliance scarce congratulate,

But she from him, them, all, was straight bereav'd;
Slipping from bridal feast to funeral bere,

She soon fell sick, expir'd; lies buried here.

Oh, Death, thou mightest have waited in the field

On murd'ring cannon, wounding sword and spear;

Or there, where fearful passengers do yield

At every surge each blast of wind doth rear ;
In stabbing taverns, or infected towns,
On loathsome prisons, or on prince's frowns:

There not unlook't for many a one abides

Thy direful summons; but a nuptial feast
Needs not thy grim attendance; maiden brides

In strength and flower of age, thou may'st let rest.

With wings so weak mortality doth fly,

In height of flight death strikes, we fall and dy.

Beginnings of the Thirty Years' War.

SOME time ago* we showed how the flames of a civil war which was to rage in Germany for thirty years were enkindled, and the firebrand has been pointed out by the finger of history and truth. It is now our intention to describe the battles and sieges which took place only so far as they bear upon the task we have undertaken, viz., to sketch in brief outline some of the more conspicuous characters in this drama of blood. The Elector-Palatine Frederick had, as we have seen, almost without striking a blow in his own defence, secretly fled from Prague, and left that city to make what terms it could with the Emperor Ferdinand II. Beyond all doubt the chances of success on the side of Frederick were reduced to a minimum when, on behalf of the Emperor, Max of Bavaria and Tilly both took the field. The leading rebels of Bohemia were more ready to fish in the troubled waters than to oppose such adversaries. Counts Anhalt and Von Thurn had under their command a tolerable number of mercenaries, who cared more for securing their pay than for fighting the enemy; and as they could not obtain the former, they refused to do the latter. While Tilly, at the head of splendid and severely-disciplined troops, was in sight of Prague, open mutiny prevailed in the Bohemian lines. The authority of the leaders was gone, while Frederick had never had any influence beyond that of a paymaster. Count Mansfeld, who held an independent command, refused to assist Anhalt and Thurn in the decisive contest which he knew to be approaching. The feeble mind of Frederick could not fuse together the dissolving elements; he even appeared incapable of seeing that his hastily-built structure was rapidly falling into ruins. When face to face with Tilly, he wrote to his wife-"I have to-day witnessed a very beautiful and brisk skirmish. The approach of night cut short this amusement." His frivolity can scarcely be acquitted of a tinge of insanity. His followers could not compensate for these defects of their leader. About the same time, when Frederick's fortune was in the scales and a hair might turn the balance, he had occasion to call a council to meet at seven o'clock in the morning. His dutiful advisers sent to inform him that the hour

* MONTH, August, 1868.

named was too early, and that men who work must also have rest. If documents did not vouch for these facts as sober history, they would be justly regarded as a silly and absurd fable. "These were the men," remarks Onno Klopp, "who were to withstand Tilly."

The result was what might have been expected. After an appearance of opposition, Max and his general marched into Prague while Anhalt and Thurn made haste out of it. Frederick himself, without the slightest attempt to rally his friends around him and make good by arms his claim to the Bohemian crown, did not feel secure before he had put Bohemia and half Silesia between himself and his dreaded enemy. His disgraceful defeat however, instead of inspiring repentance, made him the instrument by which the discontent against the Catholics was rekindled and was eventually fanned into a universal war. For the present however, Frederick had to content himself with idle threats. None of his friends were willing to stake a farthing to reinstate him. His ally, Bethlen Gabor, was at this time at peace with Ferdinand, the Turk was occupied with Poland, the Dutch suddenly discovered their inability to give material support when the ElectorPalatine at length sought to lean on their long-proferred help. The German Princes were almost to a man against the pretensions of the Winter-King, and the German people did not show any of that sympathy which misfortune usually evokes. The news of the events at Prague was everywhere received with joy. Frederick's new subjects of Silesia, anxious to atone for their unsuccessful rebellion against Ferdinand, paid their equally unsuccessful leader a large sum of money to leave Breslau. The next stopping place for the wanderer was Wolfenbüttel. The Duke of this territory no sooner heard of the approach of Frederick than he left his Court and threw on his mother the task of ridding the country of the fugitive. "A curious sort of civility," wrote Frederick to his wife, when he found that the apartments assigned to him lay over some stables. "There is," he added, "a marriage in hand, at which we laugh a good deal, as the bride is so ugly. For the rest we do nothing but eat and drink." After a short stay here Frederick made his way to Segeberg. Here occurred an episode in the Palatine's history, which shows so well the feeling of the Princes of Northern Germany in respect of Frederick's exploits, that we quote the account of it given by Herr O. Klopp.*

Hither (to Sigeberg) Christian IV. of Denmark had called an assembly of the Princes. The triumph of the imperial arms, no