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the poor, and the cause which he knows not he searches out.

In walking through a street in London, I saw a crowd of men, women, and children hooting and laughing at a woman, who, looking neither to the right hand or to the left, passed through the midst of them in perfect silence. Upon approaching her, I saw that all this derision was caused by her dress, which, equally unsuited to the weather, and her apparent rank in life, was, from head to foot, entirely white. Her bonnet, her shawl, her very shoes were white, and though all that she wore seemed of the coarsest materials, her dress was perfectly clean. As I walked past her I looked stedfastly in her face; she was thin and pale, of a pleasing countenance, and totally unmoved by the clamour around her. I have since learnt her story; the young man to whom she was betrothed, died on the bridal day, when she and her companions were dressed to go to church. She lost her senses, and has ever since, to use her own words, been "expecting her bridegroom."-Neither insult nor privation of any kind can induce her to change the colour of her dress; she is alike insensible of her bereavement by death, or of the lapse of time. "She is dressed for the bridal, and the bridegroom is at hand."

Such is the theory of Hobbes, from which it appears that the sudden feeling of superiority without sympathy is one cause of laughter. Whether it is the only cause, is another question.

SELFISH AND SOCIAL MAN.

SELFISH AND SOCIAL MAN.*

"THERE is a part of human nature which draws man asunder from his fellow, and engages him with his own peculiar interests and affairs, which isolates him and arms him in his own behalf, out of which grows the feeling of property, and personal right, and also of justice, and from the excess of which cometh pride, envy, jealousy, cunning, and every form of malice and malignity: and to work against this and hinder it from these fearful issues, there is another part of human nature which draws him to his kind, makes him thirst for fellowship and communion with kindred spirits, and which binds him in a thousand associations, out of which arise some of the most

* The following extracts are from Sermons by Edward Irving, who is now at rest from his labours. It was my good fortune to live in friendly intimacy with him soon after his first appearance in London: with what respect and affection do I think of his powerful intellect, great imagination, and warm affections: how clearly did I foresee his untimely fate.

"Misled by fancy's meteor ray,

By passion driven;

But yet the light that led astray

Was light from Heaven.

exquisite enjoyments of his life. A principle of attraction and communication diverse from and opposite to the other, by which he is carried from himself, and made to have pleasures in the giving to others that which by his own personal industry he hath acquired.

"Is knowledge that upon which he hath set his heart? Then he removes himself from affairs, and shuts himself up from company, and subjecteth youthful passions, and abstracteth himself from places of youthful gaiety and folly, that he may dig the mines of knowledge, which are richer than the mines of gold; carrying on the merchandize of wisdom, which is better than the merchandize of silver; and thereto he hath the convenience of a college cell, within gates which are shut betimes, as carefully as a besieged city, it being well thought by the fathers and founders of learning, that the outward world is not more adverse to knowledge than to true religion. Here he trims his midnight lamp, and paleth the bloom of his youthful cheek; he stinteth himself of sleep his books are his silent companions: the thoughts of the learned are his banquet his inward man engrosses him his outward man often altogether neglected health itself hardly cared for, while he is passing through this chrysalis state of the mind, and obtaining for his soul that plumage, which will bear it into the regions of thought and fancy hitherto unexplored, and re

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