On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
minute accuracy of the chronicler , and the post mortem investigations of the philosophical dissector of character . We thank the publishers , therefore , for giving us just as mueh as , at the time , we want and they can obtain for us . The present volume contains thirty-one lives ** of celebrated persons who have died within the years 1830—1831 / together with * A General Biographical List' of the sidera minora which have become extinct during * that period . - The latter are taken , with some retrenchment , from the obituary department of the various periodicals of the year . They are not the worse for such retrenchment . The moral and religious reflections which naturally occur on the decease of an individual who is known to us , must needs be much the same as the reflections which occur to the minds of
others on the loss of their friends . Presented to those who are mourning , or to a small congregation where death is an event comparatively infrequent , they are likely to have a salutary effect . The case is different when the record is printed in the same pages with several others ; and when , from one record to another , and from month to month , or
from week to week , the same topics are repeated with little variation . Those who read them ( and if not to be read , why are they there ?) are likely to have the impression worn out of their minds , and to feel that what , in its singleness and appropriateness , was solemn , by its commonness becomes merely wearisome . A want of proportion is another
evil which attends the present plan of obituary writing . Our friend or relative , merely endured , in life and death , the common lot ; but his common lot is more to us than the extraordinary lot of others , and so we tell our nothing with the impressive manner of one who has
something to recount . The power of example is impaired ; for regret must eulogize , and the eulogy which may be most just in every particular instance acquires an indiscriminate and unmeaning appearance by the very fact of its frequency . Happily the practice is going out , of every death in a congregation being followed by a funeral sermon , with a
full-length character of the deceased . The custom was , however , not at all more inexpedient than the analogous one , which has prevailed so long in the obituary departments of religious periodicals .
Untitled Article
Critical Notices—Political Sci&iic&i History , and Biography . 2 \ A
Untitled Article
EDUCATION .
Geological Sketches ^ and Glimpses of the Ancient Earth . By Maria Hack . London . Harvey and Darton . Wje are often inclined to dispute with Mrs . Hack on the question of manner , but on that of the matter of her juvenile books we have scarcely a fault to find . The most praiseworthy diligence , the most indefatigable exactness , the most cautious forbearance on doubtful
points , distinguish all such of her productions as have met our eyes . Of these , decidedly the least pleasing , and , we are disposed to think , the least judicious , are her histories . Her plan of writing history is liable to many objections , and especially to that which , more or less , may be applied to all her works , namely , the constant interposition of a parent ' s commentary upon every fact presented to the mind of a child . We are aware that , in the eyes of many teachers , this will be regarded as a beauty , not a defect ; but we would beseech them to
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1832, page 213, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1808/page/69/
-