society are built up of notions, whims and old wives' fables. They have not stood the test of time, they have been ever variable and insecure. The elements of discord are all abroad, and you must newcreate man before you can model his works to perfection and permanence. The world is a humbug,—a mere crust,-a luscious fruit in appearance, in reality, an apple of Sodom.

Your patriots are men of tongues and pockets, not of sound heads and pure hearts. Your fashion is a stalking-horse, a glamour of forms and colors, not the reality of soul and life. Your literature is no longer the language of truth and beauty, flowing freely from the heart. You have a host of scribblers,-philosophers who have indeed this merit, that their reasonings are beyond comprehension; grave doctors who expound the laws of mind with all the assurance of impudent ignorance; poets that draw their inspiration from any other source than Helicon; romancers that hammer away at their thunder-forge till all is din and confusion around, and when you look for the power that has mimicked the mighty storm, you find it mere words," vox et praeterea nihil." The world is a humbug,-the one half of it has gone into a hibernation, or has been drugged with the sleepy mandragora; the other must live a life of madness and folly for the want of hellebore❞—

This was too much, and I could not refrain from interrupting my excited friend with a long and loud ha, ha. "There is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous ;" and as I saw his eloquent face speaking in every feature, as if prompted by inspiration, and thought how that fun-machine had been thus suddenly transformed into a frantic oracle-it quite overcome me, and I laughed like a child. Then for a moment anger curled and fired his features,—a look of surprise and bewilderment followed, then that smooth face, unused to such stern tension, twinkled with smiles, and straight he raised a noisy chorus to my noisier prelude. After a brief pause, with a look and a tone of mingled merriment and apology, he said, “I was wild, but I believe I was more than half right after all.”

It were absurd ingratitude for the neophyte to ridicule the hierophant who has initiated him into the mysteries of life, and quite as absurd for him to place himself on the high presumption of superior sagacity, and attempt to cast reproach upon that knowledge, which has made him all that he is. Notwithstanding, this train of thought, when I again called it to mind, awakened one somewhat similar within myself, while, at the same time, I endeavored to extract the gall which embittered and blackened the whole, and still to find the world the same bright reality which it had ever been. Science and art still seemed twin guardian genii of humanity; the world was still irradiated with truth and beauty; instruction and pleasure, hand in hand, stili traversed all the scene-and man was yet a being of high aspirations and high destiny, ever pressing forward towards an unseen, yet real excellence, sometimes indeed mistaking the way, ever clogged and hindered by imperfection and ignorance; yet still aspiring and rising. Follow me then, kind reader, while I briefly review what friend

Bhad, with so much acrimony, improvised in his exasperation. By the way, I afterwards learned that he had been, just before, a tortured guest at a true blue-stocking, literary party, and could not censure his wrath.

Although men in the eye of the law are equal, although they have common social privileges and religious hopes, they are altogether diverse in thought, feeling and action. To hope then for equality, is to hope for an impossibility, if not an absurdity. Some characters in the picture of life must therefore be more, while others are less prominent; yet the whole were as imperfect without the one, as without the other. Each is, in the distribution of human allotments, the counterpart and accompaniment of some other. Light and shade, brilliancy and dullness, the great and the little, are set off against each other, and they all together form a master-piece which could have been inspired and penciled by only one artist, and that artist the soul and source of all excellence.

The all-pervading tide of excitement and action is ever moving. Men, as if prompted by some good genius or haunted by some evil one, are hurrying along various paths to some real or fancied destination. And what is this destination? It has countless phases, it is colored by all the diversity of individual character. Yet it is ever one and the same, and a single word can compass it. This world-wide tendency centers in happiness. But excellence of some sort is a necessary condition of any degree of happiness, and hence arises the strife for excellence. Now happiness may as truly dwell with the cottager as with the prince, and there seems to be a nice balance in the allotments of men, in that each condition has enjoyments, in a measure, peculiar to itself alone. No class can then, with truth or propriety, claim superiority over another in that which is of the highest value to all. Every one has, by choice or circumstances, been placed in some station to which he is bound only by choice and circumstances. And though these last at times assume despotic control, they are in general the creatures of man, contrary to the quiet prevalent notion that men are creatures of circumstance.

No one who studies himself or the manifestations of others' enjoyment, can fail to see that regular, engrossing pursuits are of the highest importance to happiness, both in themselves, as exercising the mind, and as relating to the hopes and prospects of that future bliss, which shines as a beacon light on all the vicissitudes of the present.

Some are by nature fitted for a more spiritual life than others. Some are wedded to imagination and make their lives a honey-moon of devotion to its radiant charms. Others take reason as a bosom companion and with it make a life-pilgrimage in search of truth. Others live in sense and in the present. All with few exceptions find their true sphere-their proper level.. All follow that which, in their own eyes at least, is most productive of good to themselves. Some doubtless are poorly requited for their toil. Some fall martyrs to their devotion to literary and artistic pursuits. Yet who would not gladly have the seal of darkness set upon his eyes, to become a Milton; who

does not deem Mozart happy, even while composing his own requiem; who would not be a Lamb, though he should become crazed by misfortune, or a Hood, though he must needs die of poverty? It may be true that

"Noblest minds

Sink soonest into ruin, like a tree

That with the weight of its own golden fruitage

Is bent down to the dust."

But they have accomplished their high mission, and they shrink not from their destiny. And if excellence is thus achieved, the achievement is proof of heroism on the part of genius, and is a sure passport to the highest admiration. Excellence is cheaply bought at almost any price, and is the noblest reward of human aspirations and toils.

But is society so falsely founded, so past redemption, as my friend so bitterly asserted? Man is by nature a progressive being. To doubt this obvious truism would bring upon the doubter the charge of want of civilization or of common sense. This progress is perfectly simple and rational, when viewed in its really great and catholic character. New light is reflected full on the gaze of a generation. That generation is soon gone to dwell in the dark halls of the past. But the light which was theirs still shines, and grows brighter. So that each successive generation, unless struck blind by barbarism, or dumb by despotism, or paralyzed by the shocks of extraordinary circumstances, rises, and must rise above those which went before. And our foundation is sure, for we are secured from retrogression by the sanction and support of all past time. Though the elements of ruin all survive, the chains which bind them are too ponderous and too securely bound to be shaken off. We fear no breaking up of the solid earth, though there be fire and strife within, before the final conflagration; and quite as little do we fear the disruption and disorganization of society. There is, and there must be change: old forms must vanish and new ones arise, but the ever-present and ever-active mind inspires every movement, and itself rises amid these constant vicissitudes.

It

The counterfeit of patriotism, now so common, has always existed. There have ever been these imitators as witnesses to the virtues of the great and good, clearly proving by their involuntary testimony that there is a real patriotism, and that this reality is of superior worth. is often a task of no small difficulty to assign to men of high claims their rightful position, whether among the truly great, or among the time-serving and hypocritical. But history is not given to falsehood, and, in a brief space, posterity is proud to render justice to the deserving. This may be a poor consolation to one who is under the ban of a misguided public opinion, yet his is a narrow spirit which cannot rejoice in the consciousness of rectitude, and which does not feel confidence in the faithful judgment of the future.

But how shall we defend fashion? Dress it up in all its gay graces, enclose it round about with its own exquisite exclusion of all that the most fastidious of its votaries could censure, and it is humbug still. Nevertheless it is a brilliant one, now radiant with gems, now flutter

ing luxuriously in the gayest plumage, now graced with smiles and set phrases, coined in the head, not inspired by the heart-dazzling the eyes and undermining the hearts of the inexperienced and superficial. What does it all mean? True politeness springs from within, and is not manufactured to order by the tailor and dancing master. Manners are a very good thing; they may make a man's fortune, but they can- · not make a man. There are certain conventional usages necessary to propriety of social intercourse. The high-minded and the low should be carefully discriminated. But a knave or a fool may wear as fair an outside as any other, and there is need of some other distinctions than those of mere etiquette to give the really deserving their high position, and to exclude from it the vicious and the low. Would that we could see a little more of nature in these days of art, and that conduct could be more left to the spontaneous impulses of the head and heart as they really are.

Literature is full of humbug. Those who look on books as enduring monuments of mind, would perhaps be astonished if told that more than three fourths of those which have seen the light since the infancy of printing, have perished. Yet so it is, and of most of these not a single copy is now in existence. If this forgotten host of authors could rise and speak before us, they would doubtless exclaim loudly against the injustice and the dullness of mankind. Books are thoughts, and thought is immortal; but unless it has the merit of originality, or is at least something more than mere commonplace, its immortality is the silent one of oblivion, not the glorious life of an everlasting rememberance. The two great objects of literature are to instruct and to amuse. Instruction and amusement are the measures of the merit and mainly of the success of all the works of mind. The province of the one is truth, that of the other is beauty. Seated on the same high throne, their jurisdiction is everywhere, and their inquisition depends not on spies and suspicions, but upon human nature and known facts and principles. Science shares the prerogative of instruction. That science which is based on obvious facts and invariable principles, and which is developed in accordance with fixed laws, has resulted in truth and is constantly progressing. But apart from this, there is science founded upon more hidden facts and laws. This brings us to the mysteries of metaphysics, and upon the confines of the boundless field of speculation. In this, not only have the doctors of successive generations disagreed, but at one and the same time it has been the theatre of the sway and the clashing of many and discordant systems. But there are also many miscalled sciences which rest on causes foreign to human nature, and the natural and known order of things; not on broad principles, but on isolated or extraordinary phenomena; not on laws deduced from these principles, but on the caprice or accuracy of the observers of these phenomena. The turbid waters of mystery have been in perpetual commotion-the world has been full of this confusion of ignorance, credulity and deception. There are no bounds to these knight-errant sciences but those of imagination and speculation, and their sway is limited only by man's capacity of deceiving and being deceived.

But to return to literature. That which aims at instruction depends mainly upon reason and common sense for its worth and influence-to these it appeals, and by these it must be tried. There must indeed be a certain artistic excellence in all composition, a vividness of conception, an energy of thought and a grace of expression. But the solid merit of this department of letters lies deeper, and no skill or beauty of expression can give consequence to matter essentially worthless. A craven may trick himself up in the garb of war, and swell and bluster till he shall seem to every child he meets a perfect hero-but if he fails or falters in the day of battle, it were better for him to perish in the first onset, than to abide the utter insignificance, or yet worse, the unmitigated scorn and contempt which await him. So the author who aims at excellence must show something more than mere style, or high-sounding words, or mysterious sublimity and profundity—or he will acquire a name only to lose it.

But poetry and fiction aim mainly to please. These are founded upon, and built up of, imagination. They require no more of reason than just enough to temper them with plausibility-enough to mould them to real or probable life. True, fiction has besides a great and philosophic work to perform; when properly conceived by the writer and appreciated by the reader, "it is to history what algebra is to arithmetic." But this is not its apparent character-this sort of influence, if felt at all, is inculcated silently and unconsciously. It is not the reader's chief object of pursuit, and it is not an essential condition of success. Thought, feeling and action, all combine to fill up the scenes, and every possible modification of these is subject to the choice or the genius of the author. In the mind rich in these it is not hard to conjure them up at will, and to throw the semblance of life in and around them, whether that life be a glow of beauty and joy, or a concentration of all that is ugly and wretched. But where there is not a native exuberance of these, or, if ready at hand, they are not under the control of a strong mind, a pure heart and an exact taste, mere commonplace, or ugly absurdity, or silly sentiment, or grinning folly, is the result. Such writers have flooded our century with trash. They have cherished immorality and false notions-they have vitiated true, romantic, chivalrous sentiment into low sensuality-they have changed real life into a sickly sighing after what cannot be-they have thrown many a serious stumbling block in the way to greatness and true fame. For a day they flutter gaily-in a day they are gone; but their influence is left behind them--a monument of the power of evil and of the frailty of human nature. It is amusing to see how many immortal productions-how many "profound views of human nature,” and “ exquisite delineations of fashionable manners," and "vernal, and sunny, and refreshing thoughts," and "high imaginings," and "young breathings," and " embodyings," and "pinings," and "minglings with the beauty of the universe," and "harmonies which dissolve the soul in a passionate sense of loveliness and divinity," the world has contrived to forget. The authors of these "immortal productions," no doubt rejoiced to see themselves in print," and counted on a futurity of fame; but

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