With screaming horror's funeral cry,

Despair, and fell disease, and ghastly poverty.

"Thy form benign, oh, goddess, wear,

Thy milder influence impart, Thy philosophic train be there,

To soften, not to wound, the heart. The generous spark extinct, revive, Teach me to love and to forgive, Exact my own defects to scan,

What others are to feel, and know myself a man."

All this is noble writing-sound philosophy, fine fancy, and very melodious numbers. Undoubtedly adversity does wear two forms, and we cannot dispute the truth of that which a great writer (I think it is Southey,) has laid down, that the worst consequence of misery is the moral evil which it creates. Such is the nature of man (with all his pride!) that when without faith and without hope-to which awful condition he is apt to be driven by calamity greater than he can bear-he becomes a very fiend he seems, as it were, delivered over to Satan, and follows his immediate lusts with a dreadful recklessness, which it would be improper to paint in detail. Let us remember, however, that it is "the bad" whom adversity "affrights," and that to the good it can bring only "affliction." He who possesses his mind in the frame that a Christian ought, has no selfexperience of despair. In the worst of cases,

he

“Waits the great teacher, Death; and God adores."

195

COMPETENCE.

A REMARKABLY interesting discussion took place lately among the representative sages of the city of London upon the abstract philosophy of income.* The respective merits of eight hundred and a thousand a year were at the same time very brilliantly canvassed. A wonderful circumstance attending this discussion was, that the eloquence of the Commoners was devoted to an exposition of the necessity of a thousand a year, in order to live as one ought, while the Lord Mayor, the head of civic dignity—the top of all gorgeousness-the monarch who sits enthroned at the Mansion House, surrounded (at least for his year) with all appliances of splendour and expense, not only decided for, but condescended to argue for, the superior philosophy of eight hundred a year.

The discussion arose upon the question of the remuneration to be paid to a chief commissioner or director of the City police. Two of the Common Council displayed great powers of rhetoric in favour of the round sum of a thousand a year. One of these councillors declared his opinion that their chief commissioner should be

* This was in settling the salary and emoluments to be given to the Chief of the City Police,

a gentleman, and should associate with gentlemen; and he the said councillor was at a loss to know how any one could keep up that character and provide for his family on less than a thousand a year. As for himself, the speaker declared that if he had but eight hundred a year he could not have entertained his friends in the manner he had done.

Far be it from me to think of deciding the matter which the worthy gentlemen of the City debated so stoutly, the rather as it might be wrong to say anything against economy, especially when backed by a Lord Mayor; and I own my prejudice to run more in favour of large, than of small allowances, for those who are placed in situations of high trust and responsibility; but our business is with the abstract philosophy of eight hundred a year, as compared with a thousand a year. Putting philosophy out of the question, I think I can see which way I myself, were I the party concerned, would decide. But as I am not the party concerned, I can afford to look at the case abstractedly, and with a most impartial view to the benefit of the whole world.

Now, I do not perceive (although the worthy councillor I have quoted seems to have perceived it) that a man's character as a gentleman, and an associate of gentlemen, is dependent upon his ability to spend at the rate of a thousand a year. Were such an opinion broached by any

one of less dignity than a common councillor of the city of London, I might have been hasty enough to call it a vulgar notion. As it is, I cannot but look upon it as erroneous philosophy. The hint of the respectable orator touching his own position and powers of finance, and especially the entertainment of his friends, is highly touching-redolent at once of warm feelings and of hot dinners. But may not the character of a gentleman, and the practice of association with gentlemen, be kept up without such entertainments as can only be compassed by means of something more than eight hundred a year ? Is it not rather hard to exclude (by ban of Common Council) from the position of a gentleman, and even a City gentleman, those who live with honourable simplicity upon the poor pittance of only fifteen pounds and some odd shillings per week?

Another worshipful councillor was yet more energetic in favour of a thousand a year, and very earnest in showing how reasonable it was that the salary of the new office should bear some proportion to the salaries of other offices, which other salaries he is in the habit of visiting with his patriotic and civic condemnation. It is not very easy to discover what were the abstract reasons operating on this gentleman's mind towards the necessity for a thousand a year. The reasons he offered were unfortunately all relative. He did not hint, like his modest

friend on the same side, that he was aware from his own experience of the necessity of having more than eight hundred a year in order to entertain his friends. I suppose this gentleman's expenditure is chiefly upon his theological library, for I perceive that in another debate he mentioned the important fact (important at least to himself) that he very seldom went to church, in consequence of not approving of the mode in which theology is taught in churches. Of course his private studies must be profound to enable him to be so critical. If, however, he were to honour the churches more frequently with his presence, he might perchance learn (even from the theology taught there) how an honest reputation, and the character of a gentleman, might be kept up even upon eight hundred a year.

But let the citizens of London manage these matters as they may, it is certainly a vice in England generally, that a man's worthiness and right to be respected as a gentleman, is held to be dependent upon his ability to spend a thousand a year or upwards. There is great baseness and vulgarity in this habitual association of a title to respect, with the possession of wealth, or with the expending of wealth, whether honourably or dishonourably come by, in giving entertainments, or in making a great show. In the grosser sort of society, there is no inferiority which a man is so soon made to feel, as an