al diffusion of knowledge is the necessary condition of
civilisation. Poesy is no longer content to dwell at court. Chemistry
has chosen the path which Bacon pointed out to her; and whilst she has
found a new field of action, has been enriched by treasures of knowledge
hitherto concealed from her view. The sneering exclamation of Persius--

"Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter."

is the great truth and motto of this our century.

Even the universities of Germany have begun to popularise the results of
their laborious researches; although it cannot be said that they have
taken the lead of the age, we may at least affirm that they have gone
along with it. They have not lingered in the rear. They have adapted
their instruction and language to homely understandings, and have
increased rather than lessened their dignity by the condescension. They
have become more honoured and respected as the benefits of their labours
have grown more palpable to common sight; they have been more renowned
since the many have been permitted to appreciate the merits of the few.
Instruction itself has been more courted and made more welcome since it
took courage to cast aside its cumbrous wig and gown, and ventured to
appear before the world with the natural graces of pure humanity.

Professor Kinkel, to whom we owe the work whose title is placed at the
foot of the present article, is in every respect a specimen, and perhaps
a prototype, of the German professor of the nineteenth century. To the
deep and solid learning of a former generation, he adds the good taste
and social accomplishments indispensable in these more advanced times.
Thirteen years ago he was a student of theology in the university of
Bonn, and even at that period the extraordinary application and the
commanding faculties of the "studiosus Kinkel" had earned for him a
scholastic reputation, and won the respect of his fellow-students and of
the professors of the university. Indefatigable, then, in his
theological pursuits, he was the subject of general admiration on
account of the vast extent of his acquirements, and of the enthusiastic
interest with which he engaged in the sacred study of the fine arts. No
less general was the complaint that a mind so happily formed to range
through the boundless realms of philosophy, a genius so brilliant, a
soul so deeply imbued with a love of the beautiful and the great, should
be suffered to pine beneath the monotonous