forcible reasons that compel men to have recourse to this last appeal of human society? Let us consider it under each of these heads.

War has hitherto been considered as the inseparable ally of political institution. The earliest records of time are the annals of conquerors and heroes, a Bacchus, a Sesostris, a Semiramis and a Cyrus. These princes led millions of men under their standard, and ravaged innumerable provinces. A small number only of their forces ever returned to their native homes, the rest having perished of diseases, hardships and misery. The evils they inflicted, and the mortality introduced in the countries against which their expeditions were directed, were certainly not less severe than those which their countrymen suffered.

No sooner does history become more precise, than we are presented with the four great monarchies, that is, with four successful projects, by means of bloodshed, violence and murder, of enslaving mankind. The expeditions of Cambyses against Egypt, of Darius against the Scythians, and of Xerxes against the Greeks, seem almost to set credibility at defiance by the fatal consequences with which they were attended. The conquests of Alexander cost innumerable lives, and the immortality of Cæsar is computed to have been purchased by the death of one million two hundred thousand men.

Indeed the Romans, by the long duration of their wars, and their inflexible adherence to their purpose, are to be ranked among the foremost destroyers of the human species. Their wars in Italy continued for more than four hundred years, and their contest for supremacy with the Carthaginians two hundred. The Mithridatic war began with a massacre of one hundred and fifty thousand Romans, and in three single actions five hundred thousand men were lost by the Eastern Monarch. Sylla, his ferocious conqueror, next turned his arms against his country, and the struggle between him and Marius was attended with proscriptions, butcheries and murders that knew no restraint from humanity or shame. The Romans, at length, suffered the penalty of their iniquitous deeds; and the world was vexed for three hundred years by the irruptions of Goths, Vandals, Ostrogoths, Huns, and innumerable hordes of barbarians.

I forbear to detail the victorious progress of Mahomet and the pious expeditions of Charlemagne. I will not enumerate the crusades against the infidels, the exploits of Aurungzebe, Gengiskan and Tamerlane, or the extensive murders of the Spaniards in the new world. Let us examine Europe, the most civilized and favoured quarter of the world, or even those countries of Europe which are thought most enlightened.

France was wasted by successive battles during a whole century, for the question of the Salic law, and the claim of the Plantagenets. Scarcely was this contest terminated, before the religious wars broke out, some idea of which we may form from the siege of Rochelle, where, of fifteen thousand persons shut up, eleven thousand perished of hunger and misery; and from the massacre of St. Bartholomew, in which the numbers assassinated were forty thousand. This quarrel was appeased by Henry the fourth, and succeeded by the thirty years' war in Germany for superiority with the house of Austria, and afterwards by the military transactions of Louis the fourteenth.

In England the war of Cressy and Agincourt only gave place to the civil war of York and Lancaster, and again after an interval to the war of Charles the first and his parliament. No sooner was the constitution settled by the revolution, than we were engaged in a wide field of continental hostilities by King William, the Duke of Marlborough, Maria Theresa and the King of Prussia.

And what are in most cases the pretexts upon which war is undertaken ? What rational man could possibly have given himself the least disturbance for the sake of choosing whether Henry the sixth or Edward the fourth should have the style of king of England? What Englishman could reasonably have drawn his sword for the purpose of rendering his country an inferior dependency of France, as it must necessarily have been if the ambition of the Plan

tagenets had succeeded? What can be more deplorable than to see us first engagd eight years in war rather than suffer the haughty Maria Theresa to live with a diminished sovereignty or in a private station; and then eight years more to support the free-booter who had taken advantage of her helpless condition?

"Sometimes

The usual causes of war are excellently described by Swift. the quarrel between two princes is to decide which of them shall dispossess a third of his dominions, where neither of them pretends to any right. Sometimes one prince quarrels with another, for fear the other should quarrel with him. Sometimes a war is entered upon because the enemy is too strong; and sometimes because he is too weak. Sometimes our neighbours want the things which we have, or have the things which we want; and we both fight, till they take ours, or give us theirs. It is a very justifiable cause of war to invade a country after the people have been wasted by famine, destroyed by pestilence, or embroiled by factions among themselves. It is justifile to enter into a war against our nearest ally, when one of his towns lies venient for us, or a territory of land that would render our dominions round and compact. If a prince sends forces into a nation where the people are poor and ignorant, he may lawfully put the half of them to death, and make slaves of the rest, in order to civilize and reduce them from their barbarous way of living It is a very kingly, honourable and frequent practice, when one prince desires the assistance of another to secure him against an invasion, that the assistant, when he has driven out the invader, should seize on the dominions himself, and kill, imprison or banish the prince he came to relieve." (Gulliver's Travels, Part 4, Chap. 5.)

Certainly every man who takes a dispassionate survey of this picture, will feel himself inclined to pause respecting the necessity of the havoc which is thus made of his species, and to question whether the existing mode of protecting mankind against the caprices of each other is the best that can be devised. He will be at a loss which of the two to pronounce most worthy of regret, the misery that is inflicted, or the depravity by which it is produced. If this be the unalterable allotment of our nature, the eminence of our rational faculties must be considered as rather an abortion than a substantial benefit; and we shall not fail to lament that, while in some respects we are elevated above the brutes, we are in so many important ones destined for ever to appear their inferiors.-Godwin's Political Justice.

THE SIERRA MORENA.

THE Sierra Morena are mountains of Spain, dividing the province of Andalusia from Estremadura and New Castile. They are rendered famous by the wars of the Christians and Moors, for the possession of Spain, which ended in the expulsion of the latter; but are yet more memorable as the scene of the exploits of Cervantes' hero, Don Quixote.

Is it just or desirable that a country so beautiful should become a land of murder, an accursed and a desolate place, to gratify the bigotry or ambition of one man, whether a Ferdinand or a Napoleon? What is it to the Millions whether Carlos or Isabella have the privilege of robbing and murdering them, under the courtly names of taxation and necessary war? Will the victory of either usurper be a fit subject for national gratulation? Slavish men! when will ye rid yourselves of these hereditary plagues?)

*

THE DESECRATED.

As I did wander through Life's wilderness,
Plaining humanity's bewilderment,

Mine eyes beheld a glorious monument-
A temple of exceeding costliness,

Such as might be the high God's treasure-house :—
Sure, thought I, this must be the muniment

Of this world-city's dearest holiness!

But as I neared it many a flaw time-rent
And wanton ruin grew conspicuous,
Grimly defacing the far loveliness.
Seeking therein, I saw the giant forms
Of Divine Poetries, dead, marrowless,

And trampled on and soiled by loathsome worms;-
And knew the Heart of Man, and the hid wretchedness.

LIFE'S HYPOCRISY

Cameleon-like, our life's complexion
Hath various aspects, toned of many hues
According fellowship, a base reflexion
Staining the mirror in the soul. To choose
One Image for heart-worship, nor be won
By passing shadows weakly to unloose
Our earnest gaze of Love-methinks that this
Were nobler:-Doubt it not! but, in this world
Of the throned Hypocrite, 'tis treasonous
To let the spirit's true thoughts be unfurled;
And there be some whose lips most poisonous
Would trace foul lies on the fair scroll, thereon
Emblazoning constructions hideous:

Truth hath no beauty in their eyes, I wis.

THE "LEADERS."

Magnates of Knowledge, Leaders of "the Herd!"—
What! yonder wrangling idiots?-purposeless

And inconsistent, mockers of the Word

Whose earnestness rebukes the foul impress

Of the idol Custom on the littleness

Of their smooth minds, whose only moral code
Is but to wander from the beaten road
Because it is the beaten, who no less

Crawl deviously toward the old wilderness.-
Blind railers at the blind, whose lessons earn
Contempt, the full meed of your worthlessness-
If better guerdon ye would compass, learn
"To live, as if to love and live were one;"
Or, if ye must sneer, sneer at Vice alone!

Z.

24

PHILOSOPHICAL CHARITY.

THE philosophy of the human mind (and this is not the least of its excel-
lences) will fill the soul with charity, and keep the sacred flame always alive,
The errors of his fellow
and always bright. His equable and complaisant feelings who understands
it, will seldom be interrupted, and but for a moment.
mortals will not sever the link which binds him to all of human kind. Will-
ing to sacrifice on the altar of truth all that is dear in life and life itself, he
will deeply lament whatever obstructs his progress, and will exert himself to
He will bear in mind
the utmost of his ability to remove it; but even the grossest and most perni-
cious errors will excite in his bosom no resentment.

that men's opinions result from circumstances over which they have them-
selves little or no control: that if they are really and conscientiously be-
lievers in any doctrine, they must have such evidence of its truth, as appears
to them solid and conclusive; that they cannot believe it without such evidence,
and with it, if their discernment enable them to detect no fallacy in it, they
cannot avoid believing it; that it is not in the power of the mind to adopt or
reject what opinions it pleases; that the measure of knowledge possessed by
the individual determines entirely, independently of volition, the conclusion in
which he rests; and that to regard him with aversion because he rejects or
receives a particular doctrine, is as absurd as to resent his thinking the colour
of an object red which is red, or which, from some defect in his organ of
vision, or some deception in the medium through which he views it, appears to
him to be so. If he perceive that his own mind is better informed than those
around him, he will avail himself of every means in his power, to impart the
light of which they are destitute; but that he should regard them with ill will
for this which is their misfortune, that he should exclude them from his society
and heart, torture their bodies and enchain, as far as he can enchain, their
minds, is as impossible as that he should seriously propose to amputate their
hands or their feet in order to remedy a defect in their sight.

Not even on account of their crimes does he cherish the least degree of bitterness against them. Viewing them as placed in unfavourable circumstances for the cultivation of the better principle of their nature, either not knowing or not considering in what their true dignity, honour, and happiness consist, and accustomed to confound their immediate gratification with their ultimate felicity, and their direct gain with their final well being, he regards them with unfeigned compassion; and because these errors are productive of a deeper misery than any bodily maladies, he feels on their account a more Never does he think of the prison, or the manacle, or the profound sorrow. lash, or of the infliction of punishment in any shape, but as it may be the means of correcting their evil propensities, and of establishing better views and forming better dispositions. And the influence of these enlightened and generous principles extends to the closest and dearest connexions in life, imparting to the father, the husband, the friend, the master, a forbearance and benignity, which can be produced so fully and sustained so equally by no other means.-Dr. Southwood Smith.

Truth. Sincerity is the truth of the heart, and veracity the truth of the lips.

What truth is to the mind, that is good to the will, that is, its most proper object.-Watts' Ontology.

Beauty-Everything in creation is not, humanly speaking, beautiful; the ugly exists there beside the beautiful, the grotesque on the reverse of the sublime, deformity close to grace, evil with good, shade with light. What we call ugly harmonizes not with man, but with creation.-Victor Hugo.

RECORDS OF THE WORLD'S JUSTICE.
BY A HARDWAREMAN.

No. 1.- -The Pauper.

"Albion's helots!"

"What home will then remain for (him)?
A trampled Workhouse-grave."

Ebenezer Elliott

"MR. ASHTON! we cannot excuse you your church-rate. The vestry has resolved to excuse none who live in a house worth six pounds a year: you must get a smaller house."

"I don't know, gentlemen! where I shall get a cheaper: it is my own house. I never applied before to be excused a rate; and would not now, but I am old, and can't work."

"Oh! your own house, is it? we cannot think of excusing a freeholder. The collector will call on you in a week."

"It is very hard, gentlemen! I was born in that house, and have lived nearly seventy years in it: it is hard that I should leave it now:" and a tear slid down the old man's shrunken cheek-"I have not many years to live."

"We must not be interrupted: the time of the vestry cannot be wasted in this way: the gentlemen are attending to another case." And Mr. Ashton was civilly thrust forth to join the crowd of miserable appellants outside the door.

Richard Ashton lived in one of those peculiarly favoured villages, wherein a certain number of the community, who take their opinions upon trust and dutifully believe whatever the government professes, enjoy a vested right of robbing all those who claim the extraordinary liberty of thinking for themselves. In other words, the parish of Newbury was blessed with church-rates. Moreover, there was an annuity-rate of thirty-five years standing: the gentlemen of the parish having very disinterestedly and religiously advanced money for building the parish church, on condition of receiving handsome interest, in the shape of annuities to be levied on the poor of the parish (who might, if consulted, have been content with a less magnificent edifice), and more especially on those who, being chapel-goers, never used the church.

Ashton had been, as long as his strength permitted, a regular and hardworking day-labourer--one of those men whose sinews are sold to make carriage-springs for the nobly-born. He had laid by money; but sickness and hard times had exhausted his little store, and left him destitute in his old age. His character was irreproachable. His family had consisted of two sons and two daughters. The eldest son was kidnapped by a recruiting serjeant; and, after being once or twice flogged like a dog for some trifling acts of insubordination, was torn to pieces by wild beasts, or heroes, at Waterloo. The second son went into the merchant service, but was pressed into a king's ship and died "gloriously" at Navarino. One of the daughters was nursemaid at the Hall; and was there seduced by the Honourable Mr. Euston, who kept her till he grew tired of her, and then turned her into the streets: she soon found her way to the hospital. The other daughter, a poor infirm creature, at the time Ashton applied to be excused the rate, lived with her father, and by close labour at her needle earned a scanty pittance for herself and the old man.

The collector called. Ashton had no money: his daughter's little work scarcely procured them bread.-No matter, the parish would not relieve him unless he went into the house; and the old man's heart revolted from being a prisoner. Truly there is no such great crime in the suffering of poverty, that a human being should be shut up for life only because Acts of Parlia ment have prohibited him from earning an honest livelihood:-but I ask pardon for digressing.