SCOTLAND.
A most respectable and brilliant party of ladies and gentlemen, to the number of 500, assembled on Friday at the Rooms in Ingram Street, Glasgow, to express their esteem and admiration for Mr. James Simpson, the distinguished lecturer on education ; Mr. Mills, the Lord Provost, in the chair. Eloquent speeches were delivered by Mr. Simpson, Mr. Weir, and Professor Wilson of the Ander- sonian University. We make room for a passage from Mr. Weir's speech, which was received with extraordinary enthusiasm. Having mentionod Lord Brougham as a great friend to education, in connexion with Mr. Simpson and Mr. Wyse, and the whole assembly having cheered vehemently, Mr. Weir proceeded- " Yes, that was a name that could scarcely be mentioned without thrilling some chord in any generous heart. He might be eccentric in his career—he i might blaze with ntermitting brilliancy—but the seeming eccentricity of this comet's orbit was only in our limited and inadequate apprehensions. IC was guided by laws, and for purposes, which we could not see. However they might deprecate and blame some of Lord Brougham's passages, there was a vigorous, healthy freeborn spirit about him, that worked on the whole for good. His debut in public life was in the cause of humanity—a protesting against the cold-blooded murders by starvation, perpetrated under the name of Milan decrees and paper blockades. Among the cultivated scholars of that day, he was one of the first to take Joseph Lancaster by the hand. He had stirred up the stagnant waters of English educational charities. He had pleaded for the rights of man in the person of the African. Ile had evinced the same enthu- siasin for the real worth and beauty of humanity' in opposition to tinsel rank, in his ' Isaac Tomkins.' He had promoted Mechanics Institutes—the labours of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Wherever any thing was to be done for the development of human intellect, or the assertion of dauntless and generous sentiment, there was his step first, and his blade keenest. Men caught contagious chivalry of soul from his voice. When the united power of the 'Throne and the Hierarchy of England conspired to crush a woman—when a partisan Opposition, after using her for their selfish purposes, were prepared to abandon her—Broughans stepped between her and her fate. He baffled the Throne—he baffled the desecrated altar—be baffled the more dangerous sapping of half-hearted professing friends: But if there were one lest at hie hi iii eresth yeener r it ore imperishable than another, it was tint which he had earned by his es notes in behalf of sdamtioa."
(Let Lord Brougham, when he reads this, reflect, that a year ago Mr. Weir would never have ventured on such an eulogistic flight, or if he hod, that it would have fallen dead.born from his tongue In any assembly. It is only since his political renovation, his abandon. meat of paltry courses in keeping with office-holding, courtiership, and Whiggery, that Lord Brougham's popularity has returned also.] The trades of Glasgow are preparing to get up a great public de- monstration in favour of Universal Suffrage in that city. It is fixed for the 21st of next month ; and Mr. Attwood and other friends from Birmingham are to be invited to attend. The trades are to come forward on this, as on former occasions, with flags, banners, and music.
A meeting of 2,000 persons held in Edinburgh on Monday, adopted a petition for the abolition of Negro Apprenticeship. The Lord Provost, with several Magistrates and clergymen, attended the meeting. Thanks were voted to Mr. Gibson Craig, for his support of Sir George Strickland's motion.
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