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midnight. Even now a loftier speculation than we have yet attempted courts our endeavours. We would indite something about the solar system. Betty, bring the candles!

WILLIAM PALEY.

HAPPINESS OF THE ANIMAL WORLD.

(FROM "NATURAL THEOLOGY," PUBLISHED IN 1802.)

Ir is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water, teem with delighted existence. In a spring noon, or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view. "The insect youth are on the wing." Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their joy, and the exultation they feel in their lately-discovered faculties. A bee amongst the flowers, in spring, is one of the most cheerful objects that can be looked upon. Its life appears to be all enjoyment, so busy, and so pleased: yet it is only a specimen of insect life, with which, by reason of the animal being half-domesticated, we happen to be better acquainted than we are with that of others. The whole winged insect tribe, it is probable, are equally intent upon their proper employments, and under every variety of constitution, gratified, and perhaps equally gratified, by the offices which the Author of their nature has assigned to them. But the atmosphere is not the only scene of enjoyment for the insect race. Plants are covered with aphides, greedily sucking their juices, and constantly, as it should seem, in the act of sucking. It cannot be doubted but that this is a state of gratification. What else should fix them so close to the operation, and so long! Other species are running about, with an alacrity in

(1) "Paley's style is as near perfection in its kind as any in our language."— Mackintosh," Ethical Philosophy."

(2) Gray, "Ode on the Spring."

(3) Gratuitous, what one does for nothing, but is not called upon to do at all, spontaneous, what one does of one's own accord or will. This word would perhaps have been more correct above.

their motions which carries with it every mark of pleasure. Large patches of ground are sometimes covered with these brisk and sprightly natures. If we look to what the waters produce, shoals of the fry of fish frequent the margins of lakes, and of the sea itself. These are so happy that they know not what to do with themselves. Their attitudes, their vivacity, their leaps out of the water, their frolics in it (which I have noticed a thousand times with equal attention and amusement) all conduce to show their excess of spirits, and are simply the effects of that excess. Walking by the sea-side, in a calm evening, upon a sandy shore, and with an ebbing tide, I have frequently remarked the appearance of a dark cloud, or rather very thick mist, hanging over the edge of the water, to the height, perhaps, of half a yard, and of the breadth of two or three yards, stretching along the coast as far as the eye could reach, and always retiring with the water. When this cloud came to be examined, it proved to be nothing else than so much space filled with young shrimps in the act of bounding into the air, from the shallow margin of the water, or from the wet sand. If any motion of a mute animal could express delight, it was this: if they had meant to make signs of their happiness, they could not have done it more intelligibly. Suppose then, what I have no doubt of, each individual of this number to be in a state of positive enjoyment, what a sum, collectively, of gratification and pleasure have we here before our view!

The young of all animals appear to me to receive pleasure, simply from the exercise of their limbs and bodily faculties, without reference to any end to be attained, or any use to be answered by the exertions. A child, without knowing anything of the use of language, is in a high degree delighted with being able to speak. The incessant repetition of a few articulate sounds, or perhaps of the single word which it has learned to pronounce, proves this point clearly. Nor is it less pleased with its first successful endeavours to walk, or rather to run (which precedes walking), although entirely ignorant of the importance of the attainment to its future life, and even without applying it to any present purpose. A child is delighted with speaking, without having anything to say, and with walking, without knowing where to go. And prior to both these, I am disposed to believe that the waking hours of infancy are agreeably taken up with the exercise of vision, or, perhaps, more properly speaking, with learning to see.

JOHN FOSTER.1

HOWARD'S DECISION OF CHARACTER. (FROM "ESSAY ON DECISION OF CHARACTER," PUBLISHED IN 1805.)

In this distinction (that of decision of character), no man ever exceeded, for instance, or ever will exceed the late illustrious Howard. The energy of his determination was so great, that if instead of being habitual, it had been shown only for a short time on particular occasions, it would have appeared a vehement impetuosity; but by being unintermitted, it had an equability of manner, which scarcely appeared to exceed the tone of a calm constancy, it was so totally the reverse of anything like turbulence or agitation. It was the calmness of an intensity, kept uniform by the nature of the human mind forbidding it to be more, and by the character of the individual forbidding it to be less. The habitual passion of his mind was a measure of feeling almost equal to the temporary extremes and paroxysms of common minds: as a great river in its customary state is equal to a small or moderate one when swollen to a torrent. The moment of finishing his plans in deliberation, and commencing them in action, was the same. I wonder what must have been the amount of that bribe, in emolument or pleasure, that would have detained him a week inactive after their final adjustment. The law which carries water down a declivity was not more unconquerable and invariable, than the determination of his feelings toward the main object. The

(1) "I have read with the greatest admiration the essays of Mr. Foster. He is one of the most profound and elegant writers that England has produced."— Mackintosh.

"In simplicity of language, in majesty of conception, in the eloquence of that conciseness which conveys, in a short sentence, more meaning than the mind dares at once admit, his writings are unmatched."-North British Review.

(2) Energy, fr. Gr. évépyeca, act, operation; hence the moving power of the mind which works in the act. Energy is not necessarily much exhibited in outward show; but it is the maintaining power to which the result is at last due. It is, of course, as shown in the example above, a necessary ingredient of decision of character.

(3) Compare Burke's brief but emphatic sketch of Howard's character, p. 327. He also dwells, it will be seen, on Howard's subordination of his taste for the fine arts to the performance of what he considered the duties of his mission. Perhaps Foster's reference to this feature of Howard was suggested by Burke's expressions. There is, however, no visible trace of imitation.

importance of this object held his faculties in a state of excitement which was too rigid to be affected by lighter interests, and on which, therefore, the beauties of nature and of art had no power. He had no leisure feeling which he could spare, to be diverted among the innumerable varieties of the extensive scene which he traversed; all his subordinate feelings lost their separate existence and operation, by falling into the grand one. There have not been wanting trivial minds to mark this as a fault in his character. But the mere men of taste ought to be silent respecting such a man as Howard; he is above their sphere of judgment. The invisible spirits, who fulfil their commission of philanthropy among mortals, do not care about pictures, statues, and sumptuous buildings; and no more did he, when the time in which he must have inspected and admired them would have been taken from the work to which he had consecrated his life. The curiosity which he might feel, was reduced to wait till the hour should arrive when its gratification should be presented by conscience, which kept a scrupulous charge of all his time, as the duty of that hour. If he was still at every hour when it came, fated to feel the attraction of the fine arts but the second claim, they might be sure of their revenge, for no man will ever visit Rome under such a despotic consciousness of duty,' as to refuse himself time for surveying the magnificence of its ruins. Such a sin against taste is very far beyond the reach of common saintship to commit. It implied an inconceivable severity of conviction,' that he had one thing to do; and that he, who would do some great thing in this short life, must apply himself to the work with such a concentration of his forces as, to idle spectators, who live only to amuse themselves, looks like insanity. His attention was so strongly and tenaciously fixed on his object, that, even at the greatest distance, as the Egyptian pyramids to travellers, it appeared to him with a luminous distinctness as if it were nigh, and beguiled the toilsome length of labour and enterprise by which he was to reach it. So conspicuous was

(1) Despotic consciousness of duty; inconceivable severity of conviction. Such expressions as these, many of which may be found in Foster's writings, are characteristic of the writer, and show his power of condensation.

(2) Such a sin, &c. There is sometimes a sort of grimness in Foster's aspect, as mentally seen through the screen of words and phrases; yet it is the grimness of a good and amiable man, whose features not unfrequently relax into a smile, as, for instance, in this sentence.

(3) The influence exercised by the distant goal on the traveller's movements towards it is strikingly represented.

it before him, that not a step deviated from the direction, and every movement, and every day, was an approximation. As his method referred everything he did and thought to the end, and as his exertion did not relax for a moment, he made the trial, so seldom made—what is the utmost effect which may be granted to the last possible efforts of a human agent; and, therefore, what he did not accomplish, he might conclude to be placed beyond the sphere of mortal activity, and calmly leave to the immediate disposal of Providence.

SYDNEY SMITH.

THE CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION QUESTION. (FROM "LETTERS OF PETER PLYMLEY TO HIS BROTHER ABRAHAM,"2 PUBLISHED IN 1806.)

WHAT amuses me the most is to hear of the indulgences which the Catholics have received, and their exorbitance (unreasonableness) in not being satisfied with those indulgences. Now if you complain to me that a man is obtrusive and shameless in his requests, and that it is impossible to bring him to reason, I must first of all hear the whole of your conduct towards him; for you may have taken from him so much in the first instance, that in spite of a long series of restitution (restitutions), vast latitude for petition will still remain behind.

There is a village (no matter where) in which the inhabitants, on one day in the year, sit down to a dinner prepared at the

(1) "There is no man of this century whose works are richer in masculine sense, in earnest advocacy of what he (Sydney Smith) deemed great principles, or in general pureness of judgment; while for wit, shrewdness, and good Saxon English they are unsurpassed, or, taking those qualities together, unrivalled."-Angus, Handbook of English Literature, p. 498.

(2) These letters, so notable for their sarcasm and humour, conduced very much to the measure of Catholic emancipation passed in 1829.

(3) Exorbitance. We may speak of the exorbitance of a demand, &c., but not of a person.

(4) Series of restitution. Another inaccuracy: series must apply to numbers, not to an abstraction. Lower down we have "a series of concessions," which is quite correct.

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