on the contrary, they think it a sign of a gentle and good soul for a man to dispense with his own advan. tage for the good of others; and that, by so doing, a good man finds as much pleasure one way as he parts with another; for, as he may expect the like from others when he may come to need it, so, if that should fail him, yet the sense of a good action, and the reflections that one makes on the love and gratitude of those whom he has so obliged, give the mind more pleasure than the body could have found in that from which it has restrained itself. They are also persuaded that God will make up the loss of those small pleasures with a vast and endless joy, of which religion does easily convince a good soul. Thus, upon an inquiry into the whole matter, they reckon that all our actions, and even all our virtues, terminate in pleasure, as in our chief end and great. est happiness; and they call every motion or state, either of body or mind, in which nature teaches us to delight, a pleasure. And thus they cautiously limit pleasure only to those appetites to which nature leads us; for they reckon that nature leads us only to those delights to which reason as well as sense carries us, and by which we neither injure any other person, nor let go greater pleasures for it, and which do not draw troubles on us after them; but they look upon those delights which men, by a foolish though com. mon mistake, call pleasure, as if they could change the nature of things, as well as the use of words, as things that not only do not advance our happiness, but do rather obstruct it very much, because they do so entirely possess the minds of those that once go into them with a false notion of pleasure, that there is no room left for truer and purer pleasures.

But of all pleasures, they esteem those to be the most valuable that lie in the mind; and the chief of these are those that arise out of true virtue, and the witness of a good conscience. They account health the chief pleasure that belongs to the body; for they think that the pleasure of eating and drinking, and all the other delights of the body, are only so far desirable as they give or maintain health. But they are not pleasant in themselves, otherwise than as they resist those impressions that our natural infirmity is still making upon us; and, as a wise man desires rather to avoid diseases than to take physic, and to be freed from pain rather than to find ease by remedies so it were a more desirable state not to need this sort of pleasure, than to be obliged to indulge in it. And if any man imagines that there is a real happiness in t.. is pleasure, he must then confess that he would be the happiest of all men, if he were to lead his life in a perpetual hunger, thirst, and itching, and by consequence in perpetual eating, drinking, and scratching himself, which, any one may easily see, would be not only a base but a miserable state of life.

These are, indeed, the lowest of pleasures, and the least pure; for we can never relish them but when they are mixed with the contrary pains. The

pain of hunger must give us the pleasure of eating: and here the pain outbalances the pleasure; and, as the pain is more vehement, so it lasts much longer. for, as it is upon us before the pleasure comes, so it does not cease; but with the pleasure that extinguishes it, and that goes off with it; so that they think none of those pleasures are to be valued, but as they are necessary. Yet they rejoice in them, and with due gratitude acknowledge the tenderness of the great Author of nature, who has planted in us appetites, by which those things that are necessary for our preservation are likewise made pleasant to us. For how miserable a thing would life be, if those daily diseases of hunger and thirst were to be carried off by such bitter drugs as we must use for those diseases that return seldomer upon us! And thus these pleasant, as well as proper gifts of nature, do main. tain the strength and the sprightliness of our bodies.

RESTRAINT.

JOHN RUSKIN.

As the plough is the typical instrument of indus try, so the fetter is the typical instrument of the restraint or subjection necessary in a nation—either literally, for its evil-doers, or figuratively, in accepted laws, for its wise and good men. You have to choose between this figurative and literal use; for depend upon it, the more laws you accept, the fewer penal. ties you will have to endure, and the fewer punish ments to enforce. For wise laws and just restraints are to a noble nation not chains, but chain-mail-strength and defence, though something also of an incumbrance. And this necessity of restraint, remember, is just as honorable to man as the necessity of labor. You hear every day greater numbers of foolish people speaking about liberty, as if it were such an honorable thing: so far from being that, it is, on the whole, and in the broadest sense, dishonorable, and an attribute of the lower creatures. No human being, however great or powerful, was ever so free as a fish. There is always something that he must, or must not do; while the fish may do whatever he likes. All the kingdoms of the world put together are not half so large as the sea, and all the railroads and wheels that ever were, or will be invented, are not so easy as fins. You will find, on fairly thinking of it, that it is his restraint which is honorable to man, not his liberty; and, what is more, it is restraint which is honorable even in the lower animals. A butterfly is much more free than a bee; but you honor the bee more, just because it is subject to certain laws which fit it for orderly function in bee society. And throughout the world, of the two abstract things, liberty and restraint, restraint is always the more honorable. It is true, indeed, that in these and all other matters you never can reason finally from the abstraction, for both liberty and restraint are good when they are nobly chosen, and both

are bad when they are badly chosen; but of the two, I repeat, it is restraint which characterizes the nigher creature and betters the lower creature; and, from the ministering of the archangel to the labor of the insect from the poising of the planets to the gravitation of a grain of dust—the power and glory of all creatures, and all matter, consist in their obedience, not in their freedom. The sun has no liberty -a dead leaf has much. The dust of which you are formed has no liberty. Its liberty will come—with its corruption. And, therefore, I say boldly, though it seems a strange thing to say in England, that as the first power of a nation consists in knowing how to guide the plough, its second power consists in knowing how to wear the fetter.

SOCIAL INTOLERANCE.

JOHN STUART MILL.

Though we do not inflict so much evil on those who think differently from us as it was formerly our custom to do, it may be that we do ourselves as much evil as ever by our treatment of them. Socrates was put to death, but the Socratic philosophy rose like the sun in heaven, and spread its illumination over the whole intellectual firmament. Christians were cast to the lions, but the Christian Church grew up a stately and spreading tree, overtopping the older and less vigorous growths, and stifling them by its shade. Our merely social intolerance kills no one, roots out no opinions, but induces men to disguise them, or to abstain from any active effort for their diffusion. With us, heretical opinions do not perceptibly gain or even lose ground in each decade or generation. They never blaze out far and wide, but continue to smoulder in the narrow circles of thinking and studious persons, among whom they originate, without ever lighting up the general affairs of mankind with either a true or a deceptive light.

.. A convenient plan for having peace in the intellectual world, and keeping all things going on therein very much as they do already. But the price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind. A state of things in which a large portion of the most active and inquiring intellects find it advisable to keep the genuine principles and grounds of their convictions within their own breasts, and attempt, in what they address to the public, to fit as much as they can of their own conclusions to premises which they have internally renounced, cannot send forth the open, fearless characters, and logical consistent intellects who once adorned the thinking world.

The sort of men who can be looked for under it are either mere conformers to commonplace or timeservers for truth, whose arguments on all great subjects are meant for their hearers, and are not those which have convinced themselves. Those who avoid

this alternative do so by narrowing their thoughts and interest to things which can be spoken of without venturing within the region of principles-that is, to small practical matters which would come right of themselves if but the minds of mankind were strengthened and enlarged, and which will never be made effectually right until then-while that which would strengthen and enlarge men's minds, free and daring speculation on the highest subjects, is abandoned.

EARTHLY HAPPINESS.

CALEB COLTON-" LACON."

What is earthly happiness? That phantom of which we hear so much and see so little; whose promises are constantly given and constantly broken, but as constantly believed; that cheats us with the sound instead of the substance, and with the blossom instead of the fruit. Like Juno, she is a goddess in pursuit, but a cloud in possession, deified by those who cannot enjoy her, and despised by those who can. Anticipation is her herald, but disappointment is her companion; the first addresses itself to our imagination, that would believe, but the latter to our experience, that must. Happiness, that great mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meanderings, but leads none of us by the same route. Aristippus pursued her in pleasure, Socrates in wisdom, and Epicurus in both; she received the attentions of each, but bestowed her endearments on neither, although, like some other gallants, they all boasted of more favours thar. they had received. Warned by their failure, the stoic adopted a most paradoxical mode of preferring his suit; he thought, by slandering, to woo her; by shuning, to win her; and proudly presumed that, by fleeing her, she would turn and follow him. She is deceitful as the calm that precedes the hurricane, smooth as the water on the verge of a cataract, and beautiful as the rainbow, that smiling daughter of the storm; but, like the mirage in the desert, she tantalizes us with a delusion that distance creates, and that contiguity destroys. Yet, when unsought, she is often found, and, when unexpected, often obtained; while those who seek for her the most diligently fail the most, because they seek her where she is not. Antony sought her in love; Brutus in glory; Cæsar in dominion; the first found disgrace, the second disgust, the last ingratitude, and each destruction. To some she is more kind, but not less cruel; she hands them her cup, and they drink even to stupefaction, until they doubt whether they are men with Philip, or dream that they are gods with Alexander. On some she smiles, as on Napoleon, with an aspect more bewitching than an Italian sun; but it is only to make her frown the more terrible, and by one short caress to embitter the pangs of separation. Yet is she, by universal homage and consent, a queen; and the passions are the vassal lords that crowd her

court, await her mandate, and move at her control. But, like other mighty sovereigns, she is so surrounded by her envoys, her officers, and her ministers of state, that it is extremely difficult to be admitted to ner presence-chamber, or to have any immediate communication with herself. Ambition, avarice, love, revenge, all these seek her, and her alone; alas! They are neither presented to her, nor will she come to them. She despatches, however, her envoys unto them-mean and poor representatives of their queen. To ambition, she sends power; to avarice, wealth; to love. jealousy; to revenge, remorse; alas! What are these, but so many other names for vexation or disappointment? Neither is she to be won by flattery or by brines; she is to be gained by waging war against her enemies, much sooner than by paying any partic ular court to herself. Those that conquer her adversaries, will find that they need not go to her, for she will come unto them. None bid so high for her as kings; tew are more willing, none more able, to purchase her alliance at the fullest price. But she has no more respect for kings than for their subjects; she mocks them, indeed, with the empty show of a visit, by sending to their palaces all her equipage, her pomp, and her train, but she comes not herself. What detains her? She is traveling incognita to keep a private assignation with contentment, and to partake of a tête-à-tête and a dinner of herbs in a cottage. Hear, then, mighty queen! What sovereigns seldom hear, the words of soberness and truth. I neither despise thee too little, nor desire thee too much; for thou wieldest an earthly sceptre, and thy gifts cannot exceed thy dominion. Like other potentates, thou also art a creature of circumstances, and an Ephemeris of time. Like other potentates, thou also, when stripped of thy auxiliaries, art no longer Competent to thine own subsistence; nay, thou canst not even stand by thyself. Unsupported by content on the one hand, and by health on the other, thou fallest an unwieldy and bloated fragment to the ground.

misery; a huge insensible force, beneath which all that is spiritual is sooner or later wounded, and is ever liable to be crushed. This conception of Fate is grand, is natural, and fully warranted to minds too lofty to be satisfied with the details of human life, but which have not risen to the far higher conception of a Providence to whom this uniformity and variety are but means to a higher end than they apparently involve. There is infinite blessing in having reached the nobler conception; the feeling of helplessness is re.ieved; the craving for sympathy from the ruling power is satisfied; there is a hold for veneration; there is room for hope: there is, above all, the stimulus and support of an end perceived or anticipated; a purpose which steeps in sanctity all human experience. Yet even where this blessing is the most fully felt and recognized, the spirit cannot but be at times overwhelmed by the vast regularity of aggregate existence-thrown back upon its faith for sup port, when it reflects how all things go on as they did before it became conscious of existence, and how all would go on as now, if it were to die to day. On it rolls-not only the great globe itself, but the life which stirs and hums on its surface, enveloping it like an atmosphere;-on it rolls; and the vastest tumult that may take place among its inhabitants can no more make itself seen and heard above the general stir and hum of life, than Chimborazo or the loftiest Himalaya can lift its peak into space above the atmosphere. On-on it rolls; and the strong arm of the united race could not turn from its course one planetary mote of the myriads that swim in space; no shriek of passion, nor shrill song of joy, sent up from a group of nations or a continent, could attain the ear of the eternal silence, as she sits throned among the stars. Death is less dreary than life in this view-a view which at times, perhaps, presents itself to every mind, but which speedily vanishes before the fa th of those who, with the heart, believe that they are not the accidents of fate, but the chil dren of a Father.

course,

ON FOR EVER ON!
DEERBROOK."

HARRIET MARTINEAU-"

The world rolls on, let what will be happening to the individuals who occupy it. The sun rises and sets, seed-time and harvest come and go, generations arise and pass away, law and authority hold on their while hundreds of millions of human hearts have stirring within them struggles and emotions eternally new!-an experience so diversified as that no two days appear alike to any one, and to no two does any one day appear the same. There is something so striking in this perpetual contrast between the external uniformity and internal variety of the procedure of existence, that it is no wonder that muititudes have formed a conception of Fate-of a mighty unchanging power, blind to the differences of spirits, and deaf to the appeals of human delight and

BIGOTRY.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.

Make a aith or a dogma absolute, and persecution becomes a logical consequence; and Dominic burns a Jew, or Calvin an Arian, or Nero a Christian, or Elizabeth or Mary a Paptist or Protestant; or their father both or either, according to his humor; and acting without any pangs of remorse,-but on the contrary, with strict notions of duty fulfilled. Make dogma absolute, and to inflict or suffer death becomes easy and necessary; and Mohammed's soldiers shouting "Paradise! Paradise!" and dying on the Christian spears, are not more or less praiseworthy than the saine men slaughtering a towniul of Jews, or cutting off the heads of all prisoners who would not acknowledge the prophet of God.

SCENES IN HELL.

DANTE "HELL, PURGATORY AND PARADISE."
"Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric mov'd:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.

All hope abandon ye who enter here."

Such characters in colour dim I mark'd
Over a portal's lofty arch inscrib'd:

Whereat I thus: "Master, these words import
Hard meaning." He as one prepar'd replied:
"Here thou must all distrust behind thee leave;
Here be vile fear extinguish'd. We are come
Where I have told thee we shall see the souls
To misery doom'd, who intellectual good

Have lost." And when hand he had stretch'd forth

To mine, with pleasant looks, whence I was cheer'd, Into that secret place he led me on.

Here sighs with lamentations and loud moans
Resounded through the air pierc'd by no star,
That e'en I wept at entering. Various tongues,
Horrible languages, outcries of woe,
Accents of anger, voices deep and hoarse,
With hands together smote that swell'd the sounds,
Made up a tumult, that for ever whirls

Round through that air with solid darkness stain'd,
Like to the sand that in the whirlwind flies.
I then, with error yet encompass'd, cried:
"O master! what is this I hear? what race
Are these, who seem so overcome with woe?"
He thus to me: "This miserable fate
Suffer the wretched souls of those, who liv'd
Without or praise or blame, with that ill band
Of angels mix'd, who nor rebellious prov'd
Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves
Were only. From his bounds Heaven drove them
forth,

Not to impair his lustre, nor the depth

Of Hell receives them, lest th' accursed tribe
Should glory thence with exultation vain."

I then: "Master! what doth aggrieve them thus,
That they lament so loud?" He straight replied:
"That will I tell thee briefly. These of death
No hope may entertain: and their blind life
So meanly passes, that all other lots

They envy. Fame of them the world hath none,
Nor suffers; mercy and justice scorn them both.
Speak not of them, but look, and pass them by."
And I, who straightway look'd, beheld a flag,
Which whirling ran around so rapidly,
That it no pause obtain'd: and following came
Such a long train of spirits, I should ne'er
Have thought, that death so many had despoil'd.
When some of these I recogniz'd, I saw

And knew the shade of him, who to base fear
Yielding, abjur'd his high estate. Forthwith
I understood for certain this the tribe
Of those ill spirits both to God displeasing
And to his foes. These wretches, who ne'er lived,
Went on in nakedness, and sorely stung

By wasps and hornets, which bedew'd their cheeks With blood, that mix'd with tears dropp'd to their feet,

And by disgustful worms was gather'd there.
Then looking farther onwards I beheld
A throng upon the shore of a great stream:
Whereat I thus: "Sir! grant me now to know
Whom here we view, and whence impell'd they seem.
So eager to pass o'er, as I discern
Through the blear light?" He thus to me in few:
"This shalt thou know, soon as our steps arrive
Beside the woeful tide of Acheron."

Then with eyes downward cast and fill'd with shame,

Fearing my words offensive to his ear,
Till we had reach'd the river, I from speech
Abstain'd. And lo! toward us in a bark
Comes on an old man hoary white with eld,
Crying, "Woe to you wicked spirits! hope not
Ever to see the sky again. I come

To take you to the other shore across,
Into eternal darkness, there to dwell

In fierce heat and in ice. And thou, who there
Standest, live spirit! get thee hence, and leave
These who are dead." But soon as he beheld

I left them not, " By other way," said he,

66

By other haven shalt thou come to shore, Not by this passage; thee a nimbler boat Must carry." Then to him thus spake my guide: "Charon! thyself torment not: so 't is will'd, Where will and power are one: ask thou no more.” Straightway in silence fell the shaggy cheeks

Of him the boatman o'er the livid lake,
Around whose eyes glar'd wheeling flames. Mean-
while

Those spirits, faint and naked, color chang'd,
And gnash'd their teeth, soon as the cruel words
They heard. God and their parents they blasphem'd
The human kind, the place, the time, and seed
That did engender them and give them birth.
Then all together sorely wailing drew
To the curs'd strand, that every man must pass
Who fears not God. Charon, demoniac form,
With eyes of burning coal, collects them all,
Beck'ning, and each, that lingers, with his oar
Strikes. As fall off the light autumnal leaves,
One still another following, till the bough
Strews all its honours on the earth beneath;
E'en in like manner Adam's evil brood
Cast themselves one by one down from the shore,
Each at a beck, as falcon at his call.

Thus go they over through the umber'd wave,
And ever they on the opposing bank
Be landed, on this side another throng

Sti gathers. "Son," thus spake the courteous guide,
"Those, who die subject to the wrath of God,
All here together come from every clime,
And to o'erpass the river are not loth:

For so heaven's justice goads them on, that fear
Is turn'd into desire. Hence ne'er hath past
Good spirit. If of thee Charon complain,
Now mayst thou know the import of his words."
This said, the gloomy region trembling shook
So terribly, that yet with clammy dews
Fear chills my brow. The sad earth gave a blast,
That, lightening, shot forth a vermilion flame,
Which all my senses conquer'd quite, and I
Down dropp'd, as one with sudden slumber seiz'd.
From the first circle I descended thus
Down to the second, which a lesser space
Embracing, so much more of grief contains
Provoking bitter moans. There Minos stands
Grinning with ghastly feature: he, of all
Who enter, strict examining the crimes,
Gives sentence, and dismisses them beneath,
According as he foldeth him around:

For when before him comes th' ill-fated soul,
It all confess s; and that judge severe
Of sins, considering what place in hell
Suits the transgression, with his tail so oft
Himself encircles, as degrees beneath
He dooms it to descend. Before him stand
Alway a num'rous throng; and in his turn
Each one to judgment passing, speaks, and hears
His fate, thence downward to his dwelling hurl’d.
"O thou! who to this residence of woe
Approachest,” when he saw me coming, cried
Minos, relinquishing his dread employ,
"Look how thou enter here; beware in whom
Thou place thy trust; let not the entrance broad
Deceive thee to thy harm" To him my guide:
"Wherefore exclaim st? Hinder not his way
By destiny appointed; so 'tis will'd

Where will and power are one. Ask thou no more."
Now 'gin the rueful wailings to be heard.
Now am I come where many a plaining voice
Smites on mine ear. Into a place I came
Where light was silent all. Bellowing there groan'd
A noise as of a sea in tempest torn

By warring winds. The stormy blast of hell
With restless fury drives the spirits on
Whirl'd round and dash'd amain with sore annoy.
When they arrive before the ruinous sweep,
There shrieks are heard, there lamentations, moans,
And blasphemies 'gainst the good Power in heaven.
I understood that to this torment sad
The carnal sinners are condemn'd, in whom
Reason by lust is sway'd. As in large troops
And multitudinous, when winter reigns,
The starlings on their wings are borne abroad;
So bears the tyrannous gust those evil souls.
On this side and on that, above, below,
It drives them: hope of rest to solace them

is none, nor e'en of milder pang. As cranes,

Chanting their dol'rous notes, traverse the sky,
Stretch'd out in long array: so I beheld
Spirits, who came loud wailing, hurried on
By their dire doom.

My sense reviving, that erewhile had droop'd With pity for the kindred shades, whence grief O'ercame me wholly, straight around I see New torments, new tormented souls, which way Soe'er I move, or turn, or bend my sight. In the third circle I arrive, of show'rs Ceaseless, accursed, heavy, and cold, unchang'd For ever, both in kind and in degree. Large hail, discolour'd water, sleety flaw Through the dun midnight air streamed down amain: Stank all the lind whereon that tempest fell.

Cerberus, cruel monster, fierce and strange, Through his wide threefold throat barks as a dog Over the multitude immers'd beneath.

His eyes glare crimson, black his unctuous beard,
His belly large, and claw'd the hands, with which
He tears the spirits, flays them, and their limbs
Piecemeal disparts. Howling there spread, as curs,
Under the rainy deluge, with one side

The other screening, oft they roll them round,
A wretched, godless crew. When that great worm
Descried us, savage Cerberus, he op'd

His jaws, and the fangs show'd us; not a limb
Of him but trembled. Then my guide, his palms
Expanding on the ground, thence filled with earth
Rais'd them, and cast it in his ravenous maw.
E'en as a dog, that yelling bays for food
His keeper, when the morsel comes, lets fali
His fury, bent alone with eager haste

To swallow it; so dropped the loathsome cheeks
Of demon Cerberus, who taund'ring stuns
The spirits, that i y for deafness wish in vain.
We, o'er the shades thrown prostrate by the brunt
Of the heavy tempest assing, set our feet
Upon their emptiness, that substance seem'd.
They all along the earth extended lay
Save one, that sudden rais'd himself to sit,
Soon as that way he saw us pass. "O thou!"
He cried, "who through the infernal shades art led,
Own, if again thou know'st me. Thou wast fram'a
Or ere my frame was broken." I replied:
"The anguish thou endur'st perchance so takes
Thy form from my remembrance, that it seems
As if I saw thee never. But inform
Me who thou art, that in a place so sad
Art set, and in such torment, that although
Other be greater, more disgustful none
Can be imagin'd." He in answer thus:
"Thy city heap'd with envy to the brim,
Aye that the measure overflows its bounds,
Held me in brighter days. Ye citizens
Were wont to name me Ciacco. For the sin
Of glutt'ny, damned vice, beneath this rain,
E'en as thou seest, I with fatigue am worn;
Nor I sole spirit in this woe: all these
Have by like crime incurr'd like punishment."