grief, in its simplicity, is most affecting and beautiful. So is the happiness of children, on whom joy falls like the sunshine, and passes away. Such, too, is the admiration we feel for characters of awful greatness, who, in the humility of our reverence, seem to us lifted up far above our imitation. In these instances, and numberless others that will be supposed, all that we see of the Passion is the first simple emotion, strongly declared in the soul, but not passing on to the effects that naturally and properly arise out of the primary feeling.

as interrupting the integrity of the first emotion. They show merely how deeply the impression that is made by an object of affection may be carried into our natureinto what depths of our being its capacities of love are extended, when its highest, as well as its lowlier faculties can join in one single, full, unvarying emotion occupying the soul.

Or suppose that some upright and ingenuous mind, that had known no stain, is, under the sudden force of some stronger passion, or by fatal circumstances, betrayed into an act by which it feels itself dishonoured. Is it not certain, that the more oppressed it is with humiliation and shame, the more it feels only the weight of its offence, turning aside neither on the one hand to seek for palliatory cir cumstances and excuses, nor on the other yet imagining that there is any possible expiation or recovery for it,the more, in short, it is possessed and occupied with the single overwhelming consciousness of guilt and shame, the more undoubted evidence it then gives of the strength of moral and pure feeling in itself, and the surer hope it affords, that if there be expiation and recovery before it, its full powers will be exerted, when the mind rises at last to that better prospect, to redeem its transgression? Contrast that self-humbled, sunk spirit, with him who almost, in the moment he has violated his convictions of right, can throw off the one-half of his offence upon the recollection of the circumstances that betrayed him, and the other half on his confident anticipation of redeeming his error in the future. Both these, indeed, are the natural recoils of the mind from the oppressive sense of wrong committed by itself; but the first is an escape from pain, which a good mind will be cautious in allowing itself at all; the second is that by which such a mind will at last seek to blot out its fault; but it will be late in imagining that it is possible by such atonement to wipe

The tendency, therefore, of desire and will to arise out of the first feeling, does not depend on the strength of the emotion, but on many other circumstances. For it shall often be found to be an argument of deep sensibility, that the emotion passes into no other form. Its very force preserves the integrity and simplicity of the feeling. It seems reasonable, indeed, to think that the more deeply any passive emotion settles upon the mind, the less it will be disposed to stir into any new forms of feeling. It is possessed with the simple, single affection. Hence, I believe, it is found, that minds of great feeling are often very slow to derive any purpose from their emotion, even that which necessarily follows; or to conceive in what manner they shall act upon it; it being long before the first deep impression of emotion is sufficiently exhausted in the mind, to allow it to turn to any other mode of feeling, or to any spontaneous activity. And hence minds which have afterwards been found to be formed for great power and strong passion, have appeared in early life as slow in passion and in thought, because they had this nature of deep affection, and were of the kind that from strong emotion slowly resume their ordinary powers. It is evident that minds so constituted are least of all to be slighted. More is to be expected from them by far than from those which, from the impulse of emotion, are quick to change their state. It is doubtful, indeed, whe-away offence. ther a mind that is versatile in its emotions, can have the endowment of great power.

Let us imagine, for instance, in what manner the emo. tion of love possesses the mind of a mother looking at her child asleep. We can suppose it to be a deep still feeling that scarce looks more into the future than into the past, but is blest in present consciousness. The more fully her mind is occupied with the present feeling, with its single undisturbed consciousness, the deeper foundation is laid for that powerful and indestructible love which must afterwards be her support in the acts of maternal duty. But the remembrance of the feelings of such hours will afterwards give to her understanding an insight into the constitution of a mother's heart, which she could no otherwise have possessed; it will give her light as to the nature of human affections which she could not else have found. For (I suppose her mind not to be of the lowest order) she will perceive that in that feeling of tender and happy love, there was mysteriously mixed with the yearning of a parent bosom to the being that has sprung from it, the solemn regard of a spirit knowing its own power and destination towards a spirit to which its destination is unknown, and in which all its powers are folded up. And she will perceive how feelings from her highest being may thus mix with those of humblest sort, in such a manner that they shall be known only in the undivided emotion of one entire affection. She will thus understand in a manner no reason could ever teach her, to what a moral world we belong, with what a moral purpose we are framed, when she finds that the tenderest and most human of all her feelings opens up in her mind the consciousness of its sublimer nature, graciously blending in a mother's love the understanding of that sanctity in our being which the austere and awful tongue of religion is at other times required to proclaim, and often proclaims unheard. These higher perceptions making part of such a state of mind, do not destroy its simplicity. They imply nothing of that secondary activity of thought or will which I represented

Let us look at the same instance in the other point of view I have suggested, and consider what understanding such an event would give such a mind, both of itself and of our nature. No fancy, which an unsullied mind can form of the pangs of conscious guilt and dishonour, can approach to the reality. He might apprehend before that there were such pangs in human nature; now he has experienced, and knows what they are. He will never again feel the same proud opinion of himself which he once cherished. But he will ever after know with a certainty for which he had before no grounds, that man is framed as a moral being, when he finds, in addition to his former experience of the happiness of innocence, that there is laid in the very structure of his nature a provision of misery, for every violation of a moral law.

Our imagination, it is true, always goes beyond our present experience; and, in addition to that knowledge of our common nature, which every mind derives from the feelings that have been made realities to its intelligence by the presence of the real objects affecting it, it has derived a less certain and more ideal apprehension of other feelings, from its power of placing itself in imagination in the situation of those to whom other objects of pain and pleasure are real. But this visionary conception of feelings which we have not known-though it enlarges our understanding of ourselves and of humankind, (for if our understanding were rigorously restricted to our own experience, we must tread the earth in ignorance)— is always an unsubstantial knowledge. It is no foundation for virtue. It is no strength to support us in the harder tasks of duty. But the same feelings which we may thus ideally and imperfectly conceive, when they have once been our own, when they have been made real by the strong possession they have taken of our souls, directed upon real objects, then they become ever after a part of the strength of our nature. To speak of the case just supposed, he who has felt remorse, has in that remembrance a surer strength for his future virtue, than he had while he only imagined and dreaded it. We may

consider all other human beings, whose situation is different from our own, as proving the strength, the depths, the capacities of our common nature, under circumstances of which we can only imagine and conjecture the impression. They are making themselves acquainted with, and realizing in their own breasts, its powers and its miseries, the secrets of its high and awful constitution. They are collectively gathering up that moral knowledge which is the only effectual support of moral opinion. In this manner, humankind is going on making experience of its own nature. And each of us, in his confined and partial experience, must look upon himself as very imperfectly capable of understanding that common nature which he bears indeed in his soul; which may make itself a little felt in sympathy with the passions, the desires, the thoughts, the sufferings of others, but can never fully disclose itself, till the presence of the real objects of those feelings shall rouse up those possible feelings into realities.

without difficulty, we may trace the manner in which the design is accomplished.

IV.

INFLUENCE OF TIME ON SORROW.

When the first burst of Grief has subsided, the suffering that remains takes properly the name of Sorrow. But there are many tempers which prolong this state; and having once received deep cause of sorrow, will not again lift themselves up from it, but, nourishing their Į stretch one continuous gloom of melancholy over their remaining life. One might be disposed to think that there are few losses, and few minds, to which this extreme prolongation of sorrow can be natural, and that in many instances where it takes place, the mind itself has been too busy in seeking the means of continuing its own affliction. Time is the bringer of consolation; nor does it at all detract from the sincerity or the poignancy of grief, nor from the strength of love, that it has received consolation from time. For this allaying of bitterness is effected, not simply by the interposition of other objects, bringing other thoughts, feelings, and cares, and thus delivering the heart from grief by gaining it from its pristine affections-the ready alleviation of all sorrow to minds of little capacity of passion, and that which has been most spoken of by shallow moralists. But time, without injuring the reverence of the first affection, will bring relief by the natural course of the human spirit, as may be understood by considering some of the circumstances which constitute the exceeding bitterness that is felt in the freshness of grief, and the change which, in these respects, is necessarily made by time. Thus, time acts in part by the habitual conviction which it brings on in the mind of the sufferer, that the calamity he deplores is fixed and unalterable, and that, in struggling against it, he is striving with necessity and with the laws of nature. For passion, in its transport, does not bow even under these inflexible laws. Grief, while its loss is yet recent, struggles not merely with the pangs, but with the reality of its affliction. It cannot believe at first that he who was alive is dead. The living image still lives in the soul, and terribly returns upon it in its life and beauty, though the body lies stretched in death; and there is for a long time a dreadful and agonizing struggle between the thoughts of that which has been, and that which is, before the mind can tame down its own vivid recollections, and subdue the image of life, by the shadow of mortality. Its first effort is to bring that struggle to rest, which it will do with time. But when this sort of illusion, which almost unsettles the belief of what has happened, is dispelled or overcome, there still remains what was mixed with it-the impatience of the mind to submit itself to its evil. This, again, is a feeling which is contrary to nature and reality, and which therefore must be understood by considering the nature of passion. Under a calamity which has just befallen, there is the same feeling which possesses the mind under a calamity certainly announced and inevitable; a disposition to contend against it, with an obscure imagination of the possi bility that, by struggling, it may get free from that iron necessity by which it is held. It is no more than a man writhing and galling himself in the chains which he cannot break. Now, this impatient reluctance against his fate, which a brave man may feel for a time who is unexpectedly adjudged to death, but which he overcomes, merely by the conviction that it is inevitable, is precisely what takes place, though with still greater illusion, in the mind on which insupportable calamity has fallen. It struggles under its load, as if it were possible, by strug The purpose which we can trace so intelligibly in in-gling, to shake it off. It strives, in the impatience and stances like these, extends widely through human nature and life. Sometimes it requires the most sagacious and learned observer of nature to perceive that it is fulfilled. But every mind must also be full of examples, in which,

I have said that the first state of passion is simple emotion. The passion may end here, or it may not; there are instances, of which I have mentioned a few, in which it appeared to be most fitting that the passion should proceed no farther than this first simple affection of the sensibility. But this, as I observed, appears to be not in our nature the ultimate purpose for which these impressions on our feeling are made; and generally we are able to show that they are important, not only by the present state of mind they produce, but by their results, tending to produce an arousing of active power in the soul. And it will be easy to see how much we are aware of this general law and purpose of our nature, by observing in what manner we are affected by those instances in which the first impression is made, and the result that should follow does not take effect. As, for example, if a man had received some heavy blow in his fortunes, that he should be struck with consternation and pain at the intelligence of a misfortune which shook the security on which his mind had been accustomed to rest, and made the future look threatening, we should easily forgive. We should think it natural, and perhaps even fitting. But what should we say of him if, from that feeling of his calamity, he did not rise to exertion of his powers commensurate with the extent of his injury; if he rested in that fear and grief, that first sense of dismay which is useful while it serves to fix in the mind the conception of the magnitude of the injury to be redeemed, and to arouse all its faculties from their indolence of pleasure and accustomed ease, but which is known to us at once as pernicious and dishonouring, if it is prolonged but a little beyond its most necessary season, is recognised as fatal the moment we begin to perceive that it has laid prostrate that will which it should have provoked to the utmost effort of its strength? In such a case, we say that the man was too weak for his misfortune; and the stopping short of the mind in the first stage of emotion shocks us as with the discovery of some moral fault. What should we think of the sensibility of a father who, on seeing his child in danger, should be thrilled indeed with horror and fear at what he saw, but make no effort for his rescue? That anguish of fear seems then to us to produce its proper effect when it carries him with one strong impulse into the heart of flames for his child's deliverance.

We are perfectly prepared, then, by natural feeling to judge how far that first emotion may go, and when it must change from passive feeling to active power. We perfectly understand, in such instances, the provision of nature, and see in what manner the primary impression, though it should be useless in itself, may become useful by its immediate effects.

impotence of its grief, against that fate which has not spoken merely, but which has accomplished its decree. This is not the understanding, but the unsubdued blind will, that seems still to feel a power in itself, when all

IANTHE.

What's female beauty but an air divine,
Through which the mind's all gentle graces shine;
They, like the sun, irradiate all between,
The body charms, because the soul is seen.

I saw a lady, in a festal hall,

YOUNG.

Move through the dance to music's liveliest tone;
And ever as she pass'd, the eyes of all

Were fix'd intent on her-and her alone;
And she was fair!-and as she met their gaze,
None could restrain the whisper'd voice of praise!

Methought there was a language in her face,
More than mere beauty, few could comprehend;
A poetry, a music, and a grace,

That chain'd my soul at once to be her friend;
Such magic dwelt within her deep, dark eye,
I bless'd her, while I own'd its witchery!

But

power is taken from it. Now, this vain and harassing time may exert with respect to sorrow, as naturally enacontest of the unsubmitting mind against an evil, which bling and leading on the mind to exert its own means of it cannot bear to consider and to acknowledge as fixed and strength in overcoming the excess of its grief. That it unalterable for all existence, an evil it has not courage should overcome it altogether, is not to be desired. to bear, and which tries to change that in imagination that it should overcome the anguish of its suffering, and which is unchangeable in nature, time will relieve. For retain a softened sorrow, mixed with grateful recollections the mind resorts to its understanding, and judges its own of affection, is not only to be desired for the happiness, vain efforts. It perceives its folly, and, by repeated en- but is requisite to the virtue of a being, whose part in life deavours to subdue its will, brings itself into the frame it is not merely to be tender in affections, but strong for of submission, and uses itself to regard as inevitable that the performance of duties. a which indeed lies inevitably upon it. Time, theretu, inasmuch as it aids the mind to dispel or overcome these illusions of fresh-wounded and unacquainted grief, does necessarily bring repose to the vehement agitations of passionate sorrow. These may be considered as the first workings of the mind to its deliverance from passion, and to the attainment of a calmer sorrow, under the benefit of time. But, independently of these violent emotions of the spirit, which are thus laid in some degree to rest, there are other important changes which go on in the mind, and which it owes necessarily to the mediation of time. To those to whom loss is recent, the prominent consideration is their loss. The simple fact that the one they loved is taken from them and gone,—that fact, new, strange, and bitter to their souls, occupies them entirely; and the only light in which they can conceive of the child or the friend is, as so freshly, and terribly lost. But that grievous pain is not the only emotion which in their minds belongs to the remembrance of the person beloved. On the contrary, the mind is stored with a thousand emotions of love, which purely delightful, and which, though in the first moments of separation they enhance its anguish, have yet their native power of pleasure, and will re-exert it. The time must come, when those full recollections, which have been the treasure of happy love, will be the soothing of its affliction. All the gentle and gracious qualities which were beloved, all the remembered hours of kind and happy intercourse, will return, not as spectres, merely to haunt the mind with fear and sorrow, but as beatified visions, to console it with its own affections. They have been, through long years, the delight of the heart of affection: that is their natural power and virtue; and that is the power they must again exert, when the freshness of the loss is past, and the mind begins again to recover strength and liberty, to look with more composure on its situation, and to weigh together the good and the evil, which have been dealt to it in that affection. To love has been its happiness, and it may still find happiness in loving, though the object is no longer present. But grief, and the thought of death and of immortality, have made that happiness, which was once tender or unthinkingly gay, now solemn and divine. Time renders yet another change. For the sorrow that is felt is not for our loss alone; but it is sorrow, it is pity for the dead. The extinction of light and life, the snatching away of the spirit from all that it loved or delighted in, and the consigning of the living breathing frame to dissolution, seem to us a dire calamity to have fallen upon one that was full perhaps of young and gladsome life; and this feeling is strong and active in the midst of the fervour of grief. But as time bears us on from the event, and we reason more, we know that this misfortune is not felt by them; and the sorrow we retain is much more for ourselves than for those who are at rest.

Let me add one consideration more. Time brings the consolations of religion. The mind that turns itself to this source of strength, must find strength that will lift it up from the sorrows of a transitory world. All evil which is of this life, must seem lessened to the mind that looks habitually upon eternity. All suffering must be softened to the mind, which looks habitually to the hand from which it came, in humble and adoring gratitude for all the good it has given. In this, and in the other instances that have been mentioned, we see the power which

I stole aside-and silently apart

Long gazed on her-then turn'd to mark the throng, With whom she mingled, and I ask'd my heart

What spell to this one maiden could belong,— That she thus shone supreme in beauty there, While thousands seem to boast of charms as rare ?

But soon the mystery was resolved to light;
Soon did I feel, in all its power and truth,
How inward loveliness alone makes bright,
And lends a glory to the brow of youth!
Before whose dignity mere outward show
Fades into air, like bells on ocean's flow!

Ah! yes, 'tis true, as sunlight gilds the scene,
When soul shines pure through every word and look,
All minds must feel her majesty serene;

'Tis Heaven a radiance lends to Nature's book!
And as bright skies to streams their hues impart,
Her face reflected still the summer of the heart!

THE SHOEBLACK.
By Delta.

Ah, little kent thy mother,
That day she cradled thee,
The lands that thou shouldst travel in,
Or the death that thou shouldst dee.

GERTRUDE.

Old Song.

"THERE is no such thing as standing still in human life: the wheel of fortune is continually revolving; and we must either rise with it or fall."

“Very true,” said my friend, as he emptied his glass, and turned a little more round to me; "I will give you a case in point, of which I happened to know myself.

The room into

"Some years ago-say fifteen or eighteen-as I was returning from London by the mail-coach, I made halt for a night at one of the York inns. which I was ushered was full of bagmen and travellers of various cuts and kinds, and from the confused Babel

of sound I could occasionally hear a detached sentence on politics-on the theatres-on agriculture-on the late rainy weather-the price of stocks—soft goods—and the petitions of the Roman Catholics. A knot in one corner were discussing supper; others, lounging beside the hearth, toasted their toes; while a third, and more numerous party, half concealed amid puffy exhalations, washed down the flavour of their Havannahs with steaming savoury rum-punch. Being somewhat fatigued, and the assemblage not exactly quite to my taste, I tossed off a sneaker, and rang for Boots,-that indispensable actor of all drudgery work at your public establishments for board and lodging.

Mr Melville were shortly after thrown into disorder by unsuccessful speculations; and matters at length grew so bad as to involve bankruptcy and ruin. The old man was received into the country residence of a relation; but, brought up in habits of activity and business, his mind could not withstand the dread reverse; and, after a few listless months, one shock of palsy following another, hurried him off to a not unwelcome grave.

"The penniless and imprudent Henry soon found that he had wedded not only himself, but another, to misery, as the dark night of ruin closed around them. They were both young, and capable of exertion, but, living on the faith of future prospects, and a speedy reconcilement, they had contracted debts, from which they saw no possible way of extricating themselves. Matters grew worse and worse, and at length the poor fellow was afraid to

"In bustled a tall, thin, squalid, miserable-looking creature, his curly black hair seemingly long unkempt, hanging about his ears in most admired disorder.' His dress corresponded with his looks; his jacket and waist-leave his home from fear of bailiffs. coat were of dark fustian, and his trowsers, shabby and "At length he fell into their hands, and was dragged shrivelled, bore some traces of having been originally nankeen. Around his neck was twisted a blue cotton handkerchief, and the little of his linen seen, was not only ragged, but dirty. In one hand he carried a bootjack, and in the other a pair of slippers, while from under his arm depended a dingy towel, perhaps as a badge of office. I could not help thinking, as he crossed the room at my summons, here is a most lugubrious specimen of mortality; one of those night-hawks of society, whom it would scarcely be comfortable to meet with, unarmed, on a solitary road, towards the twilight.'

to jail; and, on the news being incautiously carried to his young wife, she was seized with convulsions, and perished in giving birth to a child, not unfortunately dead. The heart of the miserable man was rent asunder on learning his domestic calamities; scorned and despised, friendless and unpitied, he beheld from the ironbound windows of his prison, the coffin that contained the remains of his wife and child, carried through the streets by strangers to the place of interment, while, yearning with the feelings of the husband and father, he was denied the mournful solace of shedding a tear into their grave.

"With down-looking face, the fellow made a hurried approach to me, as if he had the feeling of his task being "Condemned to the social contamination of the base a disagreeable one, and the sooner got over the better. and vile, he endured the wretchedness and the disgrace of As he laid the slippers on the carpet, placed the boot-confinement for two months, when he was set at liberty jack at my foot, and was stooping his shoulder as a ful-by the benefit of the act which so provides, on making crum for assistance in my operations, I caught a distinct oath of surrendering up every thing. Into the world, glimpse of his faded features. I could not be mistaken. therefore, was he cast forth, branded and stigmatized, "Good Heavens!' said I to myself half aloud, can it destitute, and beggared in every thing but the generous possibly be Harry Melville!' pride which withheld him from soliciting charity. Bred to no profession, he knew not whereunto to turn his hand; and misery pressed so hardly upon him, that unhallowed thoughts of suicide began to suggest themselves to his troubled mind. From town to town he wandered, soliciting the situation of clerk in any countinghouse; but, alas! he had no references to make as to character, no certificates of former engagements faithfully fulfilled. For days and days together, he had not even a morsel of bread to satisfy the pangs of hunger. To add to his wretchedness, his clothes had become so shabby, from exposure to wind and rain, and sunshine, that he was ashamed to be seen in public, or during daylight,—so lay about the fields and wastes till sunset, when he ventured nearer to human dwellings.

"After the poor creature had shuffled out of the room in an agitation which did not wholly escape the remark, and provoke the idle laugh of some of the loungers, I hastily rang the bell, and was shown to my sleepingroom by the waiter, whom I requested to bid the person come up who had brought me my slippers.

"I was allowed to pace about for some time in a perplexed and downcast mood, haunted by many a recollection of departed pleasures-by many delightful associations of other years, which contrasted themselves with present dejection, when at length I heard a step timidly approaching the door, and a slight tap was given. I opened it eagerly, and there stood before me the same doleful apparition. I took hold of the poor fellow's hand, and led him to a chair; but no sooner was he seated, and the door shut upon us, than he put his hands over his face, and burst into a flood of tears. When he had become a little more tranquil, I soothed him in the best way I could, and ventured to open my mind to him.

"Oh! let me alone-let me alone,' he said, sobbing bitterly. I have deserved my fate. My own imprudence, more than misfortune, has reduced me to the state you see. Be not sorry for me; I am beneath your regard. I have deserved it all.'

"To have offered himself for any situation in such a squalid condition, would have been certain exposure to contumely, refusal, and suspicion; and at length the lingering rays of pride which had hitherto sustained him, sank amid the darkness of his destiny.

Necessity is a stern teacher. Even the face of man, which he had sought to shun in his misfortunes, became to him at length a sufferance necessary to be borne; so, as he was at first thrust from, so was he at length drawn back to the dominion of society. From the moorland wastes, where he could pick a few wild berries, and from the seashore, which afforded some shellfish, he came, by

"Having consoled him in the best manner I could, he voluntarily gave me the particulars of his history, which, as far as memory serves me, were nearly to the follow-degrees imperceptible but sure, to be a spectator at the ing effect:

Shortly after having been taken into the countinghouse of his father, at that time a considerable West India merchant, he had married, contrary to the will of his friends, in the hope that the affections of a parent could not long remain estranged to an only son, even though conscious that that son had injured him: Perhaps in this his calculations were not altogether wrong; but at this point foreknowledge failed, and unforeseen circumstances blasted his prospects. The affairs of old

corner of streets, and a hanger-on about stableyards, where he casually earned a few pence by assisting the grooms to carry water, or lead gentlemen's horses. Low is the lowest situation which admits not of promotion, and through course of time, my old schoolfellow came to be promoted to the office in which I found him.”

"Poor fellow! did you ever hear what became of him afterwards?"

"Yes I did, and a miserable end he had, though redeemed by the spirit of humanity which prompted it.