Literature.

establishment , and while he looks upon what he chooses to call Tractarians , as some of them earnest , and others as ecclesiastical fops , he yet steers a via media , and sees as much harm in the ? m-evangelical Low Churchman . Mr . Pycroft belongs to neither of these schools , but contends that thc church is wide enough for both , whilst he contents himself by remaining an active parish priest , ready at all times to minister in sacred thingsand no less read

, y to advise , launch , and work in secular things . Mr . Pycroft has , as wc confess to a similar leaning , a favourable opinion of corporal punishment ; he feels no mawkish sentimentality in recording the "brushings" of such a severe discip linarian as the late Dr . Keate , head master of Eton , and we hold with him in thinking the old saw , " spare the rod and spoil the child , " to hai'e lost none of its truism , although the feeling oftlie ago has thought proper to vote

all necessary punishment " degrading brutality . " These then are the points from which Mr . Pycroft takes his views of society , and keeping them in view , he carries his reader with him through some of thc most amusing incidents that fall to the lot of one person . to witness . The funeral baked meats of " Hamlet" have often met their companions in the memory of most of usand Mr . Pycroft tefls us : —

, ' 'I can tell you that , as to widows , I have learnt of late to hold my sympathies a little better in hand . There was our squire ' s wife at my first parish , who kept me in a painfully melting mood for a whole week , and , after all , it turned out to be only what they call ' a happy release . ' Literally , at the end of ten months , old Davy , our clerk , came to me one morning and said , ' Please sir , you are wanted . Our lady is comingafter a licence . '

A licence ! ' I replied , astonished : ' a certificate of her husband ' s death you mean . ' " ' So , sir , I do not , ' said Davy ; ' 'tis a licence . And 'tis the captain who came so regularly for the shooting in the squire ' s life time ; and they won't wait no longer to please any one , says my lady ' s maid . ' " In a rural parish the clergyman is generally looked up to as an arbitrator on all disputed points , but on one ivhich more nearly

concerned his sacred calling , ive will let him tell his story in his oivn way , premising for our reader ' s information that thc dispute was concerning the right to a grave , and was being argued by a farmer and the sick sexton who had risen from his bed to decide

the following case of circumstantial evidence : — " This he said standing by an open grave , ancl using no little eloquence to persuade Farmer Woollen that the grave opened for Betsy Small was the Small ' s , and nothing near the "Woollen ' s grave . This Woollen denied , and stoutly maintained that his father's bones wore those thus ruthlessly disturbed . He oven handled a thigh bone with much filial indignation ; and , though the said bone might have belonged to any other body , still ,

as thoy say ' seeing is believing , ' it carried weight with the crowd . "How was I to settle the dispute ? To tell the truth , I knit my brows with concentrated essence of thought as I approached the grave , ambitious , by remarking sex of skeleton , or apparent age , or time of burial , to show the superior wisdom of the church . But all in vain , Nothing co uld I make out of it , still less stop the quarrel . " Words waxed warmer . The farmer laid down the law with his supposed paternal thigh bono , and Simon found that numbers were

taking part against him : for anything so demonstrative as this bone seemed he sought in vain on his side . At last Simon was well nigh condemned to fill up tho AVoollen grave , to replace the scattered bones , and hide his diminished head as a false pretender to all mortuary lore , when all of a sudden : i bright thought flashed from beneath Simon ' s beetling brows . ' '' I'll soon tell ye , ' he cried out : ' I'll show ye—every mother ' s son of ye—a set of gaping , stupid , nasty , make believe chaps ,-to think to talk to sich ! he said

as me' , groping among the mould at every epithet . 'But , I say , I'll let ye see . There ! ' holding up a bit of the coffin , ' what d ' ye ye call that ? Oak—oak—Farmer AVoollen ! this be oak !' Still , I could not seo the logic of the matter . ' Yes , oak ! Wow your father was buried by the parish , ' he said , with a sarcastic thump in the ribs , ' and we all knows they don't givo oak . This ain't no grave o' yourn . ' " This turned the tide of popular opinion in a moment . Farmer AVoollen was crest fallen , and Simon was triumphant , and so happy in the victory that I had some trouble to make him go homo and take care of himself . "

Mr . Pycroft can also write forcibly , and the character of the good , kind , dear old aunt is so touchingly given that wc refrain from quoting auy portion , as ive should like our readers to peruse it for themselves , assuring them if they clo they will have had a perfect picture placed before them , well calculated to make them both wiser and better men . It is an admitted fact that thc clergy do not read well in general

that the effects of their sermons are often lost for want of a winning way to tell their story , and that the vulgar should be talked to in a way that would shock the more refined . Mr . Pycroft tells us" Another observation about Norlands was . that the poor are hard of

hearing , ancl comparatively deaf , as also slow of hearing or of receiving strong impressions . The barrister knows this , and the dissenter knows it , and both adopt a style to suit their dull and sleepy nature . They are lucid and energetic—they limit themselves to a few aud striking topics—they are not afraid of putting the same fact in an almost tedious variety of ways . "' Suppose , I say' —this is the remark of an intelligent

dissenter' My brethren , ' the heart is deceitful above all things , ancl desperately wicked . ' Honest John says to himself , 'AVhat ' s that ! I was't quite listening ; let us hear that again . ' AVoll , soon it comes a second time , and he thinks ' Very well ; now f like that , as much as I can catch of it . ' In a minute or two it comes a third timo , and ho can say both parts of the text over to himself . Then I divide it into two parts and pound away with , first : the heart is deceitful , with a remark or two , and an appeal to John ' s own experience . After that I tell the story of

David , ancl how Nathan made David feel the deceitfulness of his heart ; for David had overlooked in himself the very sin he so heartily condemned in another . John remembers that story , and tells it again at the stile or the almshouse as he goes home . I end with pounding away that the heart is also desperately wicked , and remind John of murders , and lying , and cheating , and swearing—all signs of a wicked heart ; ancl then I wind up by saying , AA'ho can alone make the heart less deceitful and less wicked , ancl who alone can blot out of God ' s book all the deceit and lying , and all sin ancl wickedness now written so black against us ? ' - ' ' Now , sir , ' he continued , ' pardon me ; but in one of your sermons

you will say ten times as much , but not givo John time to swallow and not a chance of digesting any one thing that you tell him . You think it is not like a scholar to use many words ; but remember , the barrister does not think so : he uses more words or few , according as he addresses a common jury of farmers or a special jury of educated men . Nay more , if you hear the same barrister arguing before the judges , he seems almost independent of all rules of speech . Reference to well known cases and brief suggestions convey as much as a long argument . '"

Mr . Pycroft winds up with a piece of advice to the young clergyman , ivhich is equally good for the laity , and brings to mind the copy slips of our school days , when ive were compelled to lvrite that " procrastination is thc thief of time . " He says : — " The idea of being settled and free from distractions in the path of duty is a vain dream and expectation— -that tho quiet little retreat imag ination pictureswherever the distant ire rises above some lofty elms

, sp is not too quiet to have cares and anxieties peculiarly its own—and that , we all must strive manfully against those little ties ancl greater hindrances from which , in some form or other , we never can be free . And , as to looking for a more convenient season , ancl waiting till we are ' settled / to perform our several parts in this life , it is like waiting till thc river shall have passed away ; for a man never is ' settled' in this world till ho is settled , at tho bottom of his grave . "

In taking leave of Twenty Years in ihe Church . , Ave cordially recommend its perusal to our readers , feeling assured that in its pages there is much to be learned suitable both for cleric and layman .

NOTES ON LITERATURE . SCIENCE , AND ART . LOUD BROUGHAM is about to issue his Mathematical AVorks in one volume , dedicated to the University of Edinburgh . Tho announcement is thus made : — " In the press , ancl speedily will be published , in one vol ., Svo ., dedicated to the University of Edinburgh . ' Tracts , Mathematical and Physical . ' B y Henry Lord Brougham , LL . D ., F . R . S . , Member of the National Institute of Franco , and Chancellor of tho

University of Edinburgh . " The tracts or essays are in number eleven . Mr . John Veitch , M . A ., author of the " Memoir of Dugalcl Stewart . " in the new edition of his works , and joint editor with Professor Manse ' of " Sir AVilliam Hamilton ' s " Lectures , " is a candidate for the chair o * Logic in the University of St . Andrew , vacant by the death oE Professor Spalding . Mr . AA ' . H . Russell , the Times correspondent in the Crimen , and India ,

is publishing , through thc Messrs . Routledge , a diary of his residence in India , which will be a work quite independent of any edition of his Indian letters to the leading journal . Messrs . Thaekor ancl Co ., of Newgate-street , announce " Rural Life in Bengal ; illustrative of Anglo-Indian Suburban Life , more particularly in connection with Planters aud Peasantry , the varied Produce of tho Soil and Seasons ; with a detailed account of the Culture and Manufacture op

Indigo . By the Author of ' Anglo-Indian Domestic Life , ' ' Rough Kotos of a Rough Trip to Rangoon , ' & c . " This , wo arc told , is " the first work giving a popular and pictorial description of native life ancl character , the industry ancl productions of Bengal , and the position and influence oi Europeans among the people . " If the promise of the prospectus be kept , it cannot fail to be a successful publication . During tho Christmas holidays Professor Faraday will deliver , in the Theatre of the Royal Institution , six lecture's on " Various Forces of