occupied her mind, and given value to her publications. Whenever distinguished persons come down from their pedestal, and mix with the crowd who "walk upon the ground, and are content to pick up from thence such broken fragments of experience as will turn to account, and which nobody has a chance of finding anywhere else, they speak from that in themselves, and address that in their hearers, which has reason on its side. "Always address yourself," says Dr. Whichcote, "to the reason of the thing;—there is an Almighty power in this."

But it was this poor lady's melancholy fate in returning to her native land after an absence of four years, to be shipwrecked with her husband and child, when nearly at the end of their voyage from Italy to the United States. So unexpected and deeply affecting a catastrophe, disarms all criticism, and leaves to us only the desire to deduce from her Memoirs, the broad, fundamental facts that can be generalized into principles ;-a result which gives to the study of history, whether it be that of nations or of individuals, its legitimate value and importance.

The mind in solitude within itself, continually feels a yearning for fellowship and communion with its kind, which is not to be satisfied by conventional intercourse. It desires that the door of other minds should be thrown open, and admission granted to it for entrance and observation there; and though, as in the present case, the view obtained is too

much obscured by mistiness and mistake to be a very satisfactory one, it leaves upon the thoughtful observer as I have already said, a valuable moral, in leaving him deeply impressed with a conviction of the necessity of self-control, instituted and directed by a redeeming principle superior to self.

In our mysterious and mixed condition, wherein, however guarded by outward restraints, or aided and comforted by friends, or amused and admired by society, our thoughts and feelings (those great realities) are all transacted in solitude, and in that silent world within which is to all intents and purposes, our only real world,-how essential is it perpetually to inquire, and well understand, what is going on, and who prompts and governs there!

Not that, nor those, be assured, of whom the general run of diaries, and memoirs, and prettilyphrased epistles, and "rose water" biography tells. No, no. Some strange unexpected incident in the individual's life, perhaps some wild disproportioned marriage, in a word, some quite unforeseen act which causes everybody to lift up hands and eyes,

and exclaim" You surprise me; who would have thought it!" these are historians which come forth now and then from the silent world to suggest to those who "have an ear to hear," the wisdom of keeping watch and ward at its portals, of displacing self-will as a usurper, and of establishing on its throne the rightful governor of those realms, even he who says

"Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. "For whoso findeth me, findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord.

"But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul; all they that hate me, love death." (Proverbs viii. 34-36.)

CHAPTER X.

O intense is the power of self-love and self-adoration in all of us till the love of God comes in and breaks it down, that the real beauty of humility is hardly possible to be conceived of by the natural mind; but I think some touches of it may be felt in the sweet sensations that accompany the pity one feels for the sufferings of the innocent and the helpless; such as sick or ill-used infants and children, poor animals, or anything else that is oppressed without manifesting any resentment, or having the will or power to manifest any, towards the oppressor.

I remember two pictures of extreme simplicity both in the conception and execution of them, which I could scarcely look at without even painful emotion, so forcibly did they penetrate to something in the depth of my nature that lovingly responded to the appeal. One represented a trial for witchcraft in the time of James the First,* in which a helpless

* Exhibited four or five years ago in the Annual Exhibition of the Royal Academy.

old woman was being dragged before a magistrate as a witch. The innocence of the poor creature's face, contrasted with the ferociousness of her accusers, one of whom was holding her cat over her head, her powerlessness and submission to her fate, and twenty other inexpressibly sweet touches of the artist, were quite irresistible.

The other picture pourtrayed the death of a French officer who was standing with his eyes bandaged, in front of a row of soldiers with their guns presented, and just about to shoot him. This would have been simply a very melancholy sight; but the artist, to break one's heart, had represented the culprit's faithful dog jumping up, and fawning, and looking up in his master's face, as if wondering why he stood there, and yet, half guessing the dreadful cause, looking so full of grief that one could almost fancy one heard the whining of the poor animal. I do not know what can be at the root of the feelings that affect one in these contemplations, unless it be the touching charm of helpless humility.

But why should I be puzzled that I do not know? seeing that we know nothing of the nature of those attractions or repulsions which ever and anon

"Striking the electric chain wherewith we're darkly bound,"

wake up associations of love or aversion, delight or dislike, which we can neither define nor understand.