sanity, who is to be judged?
Not so are we to exempt great criminals from punishment and obloquy.
Robespierre knew thoroughly what he was about; and far as he was
misled in his motives, he must be held responsible for his actions.
Before entering on the desperate enterprise of demolishing all
existing institutions, with the hope of reconstructing the social
fabric, it was his duty to be assured that his aims were practicable,
and that he was himself authorised to think and act for the whole of
mankind, or specially commissioned to kill and terrify into his
doctrines. Instead of this, there is nothing to shew that he had
formed any distinct scheme of a government to take the place of that
which he had aided in destroying. All we learn is, that there hovered
in his mind's eye some vague Utopia, in which public affairs would go
on very much of themselves, through the mere force of universal
Benevolence, liberated from the bosom of Nature. For his folly and
audacity in nourishing so wild a theory, and still more for the
reckless butcheries by which he sought to bring it into operation, we
must, on a review of his whole character, adhere to the popular belief
on the subject. Acquitted, as he must necessarily be, of the charge of
personal ambition, he was still a monster, only the more dangerous and
detestable for justifying murder on the ground of principle.

W.C.

INFANT SCHOOLS IN HUNGARY.

The Austrian government has for some years been exerting itself, in
connection with the clergy, for the improvement and spread of
education in all the provinces of the empire, being anxious to do all
in their power to save the country from those excesses which are so
often found in connection with ignorance. As an Englishman, living in
friendly intercourse with members of the imperial family, and many
persons high in the administration, I am happy to avow my thorough
conviction, that such, pure and simple, is the object held in view in
the establishment of schools throughout the empire, and above all, in
that of the infant schools, which are now planted in every place where
there exists a sufficiency of population. I have all along taken a
deep interest in these little seminaries in the kingdoms of Bohemia
and Hungary, and am highly sensible of the liberal and humane
principles on which they are conducted.

Each contains from two to three hundred children, between one and a
half and five years of age, all of them being the