wrong in resolving Beauty into Expression or Interest; it is quite distinct; indeed it is opposite, although not contrary. Beauty is an immediate presence, between (inter) which and the beholder nihil est. It is always one and tranquil; whereas the interesting always disturbs and is disturbed. I exceedingly regret the loss of those essays on Beauty, which I wrote in a Bristol newspaper. I would give much to recover them.*

After all you can say, I still think the chronological order the best for arranging a poet's works. All your divisions are in particular instances inadequate, and they de

* I preserve the conclusion of this passage, in the hope of its attracting the attention of some person who may have local or personal advantages in making a search for these essays, upon which Mr. C. set a high value. He had an indistinct recollection of the subject, but told me that, to the best of his belief, the essays were published in the Bristol Mercury, a paper belonging to Mr. Gutch. The years in which the inquiry should be made, would be, I presume, 1807 and 1808.-Ed.

stroy the interest which arises from watching the progress, maturity, and even the decay of genius.

I HAVE known books written on Tolerance, the proper title of which would be intolerant or intolerable books on tolerance. Should not a man who writes a book expressly to inculcate tolerance learn to treat with respect, or at least with indulgence, articles of faith which tens of thousands ten times told of his fellow subjects or his fellow creatures believe with all their souls, and upon the truth of which they rest their tranquillity in this world, and their hopes of salvation in the next, those articles being at least maintainable against his arguments, and most certainly innocent in themselves? Is it fitting to run Jesus Christ in a silly

parallel with Socrates the Being whom thousand millions of intellectual creatures, of whom I am a humble unit, take to be their Redeemer, with an Athenian philosopher, of whom we should know nothing except through his glorification in Plato and Xenophon? And then to hitch Latimer and Servetus together! To be sure, there was a stake and a fire in each case, but where the rest of the resemblance is I cannot see. What ground is there for throwing the odium of Servetus's death upon Calvin alone? Why, the mild Melancthon wrote to Calvin *, expressly to testify his concurrence in the act, and no doubt he spoke the sense of the German reformers; the Swiss churches advised the punishment in formal letters, and I rather think there are letters from the English divines, approving Calvin's conduct! Before a man deals out the slang

* Melancthon's words are: “Tuo judicio prorsus assentior. Affirmo etiam vestros magistratus juste fecisse quod hominem blasphemum, re ordine judicata, nterfecerunt." 14th Oct. 1554. - Ed.

of the day about the great leaders of the Reformation, he should learn to throw himself back to the age of the Reformation, when the two great parties in the church were eagerly on the watch to fasten a charge of heresy on the other. Besides, if ever a poor fanatic thrust himself into the fire, it was Michael Servetus. He was a rabid enthusiast, and did every thing he could in the way of insult and ribaldry to provoke the feeling of the Christian church. He called the Trinity triceps monstrum et Cerberum quendam tripartitum, and so on.

Indeed, how should the principle of religious toleration have been acknowledged at first? It would require stronger arguments than any which I have heard as yet, to prove that men in authority have not a right, involved in an imperative duty, to deter those under their control from teach

ing or countenancing doctrines which they believe to be damnable, and even to punish with death those who violate such prohibition. I am sure that Bellarmine would have had

small difficulty in turning Locke round his fingers' ends upon this ground. A right to protection I can understand; but a right to toleration seems to me a contradiction in terms. Some criterion must in any case be adopted by the state; otherwise it might be compelled to admit whatever hideous doctrine and practice any man or number of men may assert to be his or their religion, and an article of his or their faith. It was the same Pope who commanded the Romanists of England to separate from the national church, which previously their own consciences had not dictated, nor the decision of any council,—and who also commanded them to rebel against Queen Elizabeth, whom they were bound to obey by the laws of the land; and if the Pope had authority for one, he must have had it for the other. The only true argument, as it seems to me, apart from Christianity, for a discriminating toleration is, that it is of no use to attempt to stop heresy or schism by persecution, unless, perhaps, it be conducted upon