writing this letter is to describe to you, in part from my own feelings, what I conceive to be the ftate of many minds, which may derive important advantage from your inftructions. I fpeak, Sir, of those who, though bred up under our unfavourable fyftem of education, have yet held at times fome intercourse with nature, and with those great minds whofe works have been moulded by the spirit of nature; who, therefore, when they pass from the feclufion and constraint of early study, bring with them into the new scene of the world much of the pure sensibility which is the spring of all that is greatly good in thought and action. To fuch the feafon of that entrance into the world is a season of fearful importance; not for the feduction of its paffions, but of its opinions. Whatever be their intellectual powers, unless extraordinary circumftances in their lives have been fo favourable to the growth of meditative genius, that their speculative opinions must spring out of their early feelings, their minds are still at the mercy of fortune they have no inward impulse fteadily to propel them and must truft to the chances of the world for a guide. And fuch is our present moral and intellectual state, that these chances are little else than variety of danger. There will be a thousand causes confpiring to complete the work of a falfe education, and by inclofing the mind on every fide from the influences of natural feeling, to degrade its inborn dignity, and finally bring the heart itself under subjection to a cor rupted understanding. I am anxious to describe to you what I have experienced or feen of the dispofitions and feelings that will aid every other cause of danger, and tend to lay the mind open to the infection of all thofe falfehoods in opinion and fentiment, which constitute the degeneracy of the age. Though it would not be difficult to prove, that the mind of the country is much enervated fince the days of her strength, and brought down from its moral dignity, it is not yet so forlorn of all good, there is nothing in the face of the times fo dark and faddening and repulfive-as to shock the first feelings of a generous fpirit, and drive it at once to seek refuge in the elder ages of our greatness. There yet furvives fo much of the character bred up through long years of liberty, danger, and glory, that even what this age produces bears traces of those that are past, and it ftill yields enough of beautiful, and splendid, and bold, to captivate an ardent but untutored imagination. And in this real excellence is the beginning of danger: for it is the first spring of that exceffive admiration of the age which at last brings down to its own level a mind born above it. If there existed only the general difpofition of all who are formed with a high capacity for good, to be rather credulous of excellence than suspiciously and feverely juft, the error would not be carried far: but there are, to a young mind, in this country and at this time, numerous powerful causes concurring to inflame this disposition, till the excess of the af fection above the worth of its object is beyond all computation. To trace these causes it will be neceffary to follow the history of a pure and noble mind from the first moment of that critical passage from feclufion to the world, which changes all the circumstances of its intellectual existence, fhews it for the first time the real scene of living men, and calls up the new feeling of numerous relations by which it is to be connected with them. To the young adventurer in life, who enters upon his course with fuch a mind, every thing seems made for delufion. He comes with a spirit the dearest feelings and highest thoughts of which have sprung up under the influences of nature. He tranfers to the realities of life the high wild fancies of vifionary boyhood: he brings with him into the world the paffions of folitary and untamed imagination, and hopes which he has learned from dreams. Those dreams have been of the great and wonderful and lovely, of all which in these has yet been disclosed to him: his thoughts have dwelt among the wonders of nature, and among the loftieft spirits of men, heroes, and fages, and faints; those whose deeds, and thoughts, and hopes, were high above ordinary mortality, have been the familiar companions of his foul. To love and to admire has been the joy of his existence. Love and admiration are the pleasures he will demand of the world. For these he has searched eagerly into the ages that are gone; but with more ardent and peremptory expectation he requires - them of that in which his own lot is caft: for to look on life with hopes of happiness is a neceffity of his nature, and to him there is no happiness but fuch as is furrounded with excellence. See first how this spirit will affect his judgment of moral character, in those with whom chance may connect him in the common relations of life. It is of those with whom he is to live, that his foul firft demands this food of her defires. From their conversation, their looks, their actions, their lives, fhe asks for excellence. To ask from all and to ask in vain, would be too dismal to bear : it would disturb him too deeply with doubt and perplexity and fear. In this hope, and in the revolting of his thoughts from the poffibility of disappointment, there is a preparation for self-delufion there is an unconscious determination that his foul fhall be fatisfied; an obftinate will to find good every where. And thus his first study of mankind is a continued effort to read in them the expreffion of his own feelings. He catches at every uncertain shew and shadowy resemblance of what he seeks; and unfuspicious in innocence, he is first won with those appearances of good which are in fact only false pretenfions. But this error is not carried far for there is a fort of instinct of rectitude, which, like the pressure of a talisman given to baffle the illufions of enchantment, warns a pure mind against hypocrify. There is another delufion more difficult to refist and more slowly diffipated. It is when he finds, as he often will, fome of the real features of excellence in the purity of their native form. For then his rapid imagination will gather round them all the kindred features that are wanting to perfect beauty; and make for him, where he could not find, the moral creature of his expectation; peopling, even from this human world, his little circle of affection with forms as fair as his heart defired for its love. But when, from the eminence of life which he has reached, he lifts up his eyes, and fends out his spirit to range over the great scene that is opening before him and around him, the whole profpect of civilized life fo wide and so magnificent ;-when he begins to contemplate, in their various ftations of power or splendour, the leaders of mankind, those men on whose wisdom are hung the fortunes of nations, those whofe genius and valour wield the heroism of a people ;—or those, in no inferior pride of place, whofe fway is over the mind of fociety, chiefs in the realm of imagination, interpreters of the secrets of nature, rulers of human opinion; what wonder, when he looks on all this living scene, that his heart should burn with strong affection, that he should feel that his own happiness will be for ever interwoven with the interefts of mankind? Here then the fanguine hope with which he looks on life, will again be blended with his paffionate defire of excellence; and he will ftill be impelled to fingle out fome, on whom his imagination and his hopes may repose. To whatever department of human thought or action his mind -- |