of the prejudices by which they have been actuated, or, which is the same thing, to their ignorance. What other cause can be assigned for the religious massacres and persecutions that desolated Europe for so many ages, except that the ignorance of the people rendered them a prey to the grossest delusions of superstition and fanaticism? Would an enlightened populace, capable of appreciating the services they had rendered to their country, have imbrued their hands in the blood of that able and upright statesman, the Grand Pensionary De Witt, and his unhappy brother? Could the London riots of 1780, on account of the relaxation of the Catholic penal code, have happened, had the people been generally informed? What but the ignorance and infatuation of the Irish, could make them believe that a repeal of the union would be of advantage to Ireland? Or to give a still more striking example, could the enormities and atrocities of the French revolution of 1789 have been perpetrated, except by a mob, whose ignorance fitted them for the commission of every crime, by rendering them the willing and unsuspecting dupes of shallow and sanguinary sophists? It would be easy to quote myriads of similar instances of the baneful effects of ignorance on the public conduct and tranquillity of states. But what has been stated is more than sufficient to show, that instead of its being true, as has often been affirmed, that ignorance is the surest pledge of the submission of the lower orders to established authority, that it is, on the contrary, a prolific source of confusion and disorder. And hence it appears that it is the duty of governments, both in the view of promoting the happiness of their subjects, and of providing a security to themselves against the blind and dangerous impulses by which an uneducated and ill-informed populace are so apt to be actuated, to lend their aid to establish a really useful system of public instruction. OF NEW WORKS IN GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE, PUBLISHED BY MESSRS. LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. London: Printed by M. MASON, Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row. 2 Grant (Mrs.) Memoir and Corespondence 11 Hamilton's (Sir William) Essays Harrison On the English Language Holland's (Lord) Foreign Reminis cences Humphreys's Black Prince Jeffrey's (Lord) Contributions Kemble's Anglo-Saxons in England Macaulay's Essays History of England Mackintosh's Miscellaneous Works M'Culloch's Dictionary, Historical, Geo graphical, and Statistical Miscellaneous and General Literature. Allen on Royal Prerogative Coad's Memorandum Pages 19, 20 20 20 20 20 Maunder's Treasury of History 20 Hooker's Kew Guide 13 Merivale's History of Rome 21 Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History 22 Visits to Remarkable Places 16 Jardine's Treatise of Equivocation Rich's Companion to the Latin Dictionary Riddle's Latin Dictionaries and Lexicon Rowton's Debater Seaward's Narrative of his Shipwreck Sir Roger De Coverley Southey's Common-Place Books The Doctor etc. Stow's Training System Sydney Smith's Works Townsend's State Trials Willoughby's (Lady) Diary Zumpt's Latin Grammar Natural History in 14 - 15 - 16 - 19 24 Pycroft's Course of English Reading . 24 |