been betrayed into the admission of this questionable rule, because of his high reverence for the scriptures, and his evident reference to them as the ultimate standard of truth and morals. Not merely the precepts, but the whole spirit of that sublime volume is against expediency in all its formsand its grand axiom is, that good must be done, at whatever hazard, and irrespective of all consequences. It pronounces the severest sentence against making expediency a rule of action, and speaks of their condemnation as just, who even imputed to others the injurious motive, "Let us do evil, that good may come.” Dr. Paley is aware of this passage; and it is painful to witness, the perverted ingenuity with which he attempts to weaken its force, and to explain it away. It presents the melancholy and humiliating spectacle of a great mind consenting to wear the trammels of system, and fixed to support its own favourite hypothesis, at whatever price and hazard.

Dr. Johnson has, in a single sentence, exposed the impracticability of this doctrine, by an observation worthy of that great moralist, and immediately applicable to the advocates of expediency: "By presuming," he says, "to determine what is fit, and what is beneficial, they presuppose more knowledge of the universal system than man has attained; and therefore depend upon principles too complicated and extensive for our comprehension: and there can be no security in the consequence, when the premises are not understood." This just remark will apply to every system of expediency, under whatever modifications proposed, from whatever motives arising, or to whatever objects they are intended to apply, even should these be as wide as the principles which led a Hume and a Paley to adopt the same rule, and to admit similar conclusions.

The inadequacy of man to frame a system of expediency that shall tend to the general benefit is palpable from the fact, that when such a system lies before him, already prepared, wearing features of the most perfect beauty, and proceeding upon the most sublime and illimitable scale, he is incapable of appreciating, or even of apprehending, it. Providence is submitted to his inspection-he misjudges its intentions, misinterprets its indications, is bewildered amidst its movements, is unable to see its direction. His conclusions are, therefore, rash and erroneous. He calls evil, good, and good, evil: darkness, light, and light, darkness. If he is thus confounded with the plan, when it is chalked out before him, how shall he undertake to work upon a principle, which he does not understand, even when he sees

it in action, and compares it with some of its actual and most magnificent results?

Individual expediency is no more than discretionary power, which will yield always to interest, real or imaginary. The man is judge in his own cause, and he will take care that the verdict shall be in his favour. He is creditor in his own account, and he will always bring in society debtor to him. The general expediency will always, in fact, be subordinated to the individual advantage.

Expediency leads to infidelity, and has by experiment, alas, on too large a scale settled down upon it. It could not be otherwise. Surrounded by present objects, by present interests, by present motives, that was naturally deemed most expedient which contributed most directly to present ease, splendor, fame, and affluence. The sanctions of religion were trampled under foot as worthless, and its prospects despised as visionary. The decisions of conscience were disregarded, and its warnings absorbed in calculations of unlimited individual selfishness. Futurity faded from the sight, and this world, with the little span of human life, became the exclusive object of attention. To secure it, at every event, they dared all consequences. But what could they hazard, when futurity was a fable, the present the supreme good, expediency the rule, and, man the judge of its application? What is the happiness of the whole, but the happiness of the parts of which that whole is composed? What is the happiness of a nation, but that of the individuals constituting that nation? The system of Godwin commands us to extirpate those feelings which connect us with the relations of life, in order to have our faculties free and unbiassed to speculate for the general good. Suppose this done a prudent disciple of expediency will soon find that he is incompetent to the task; and his reason will suggest that the most compendious manner of securing the good of the whole, would be for every individual to secure the good of one-that one, of course, himself! This will be, sooner or later, the inevitable result of merging imperative duties, into mere intellectual calculations. Every individual will always be to himself the most important individual in the

universe.

The standard of expediency leads to licentiousness, because it allows individuals to pursue the most iniquitous and atrocious objects, provided they can connect them with any real or imaginary good; and it allows these objects to be pursued by the most criminal means; for it is surely enough that both the means and the ends be expedient,-if there be,

indeed, no appeal to any principle beyond expediency. Mr. Hume, who generally reasons with admirable accuracy, and whose conclusions can seldom be shaken, without attacking the premises on which they are built-admits the licentious tendency of his doctrines. He publicly stated, that according to his scheme of utility, adultery was a very little crime when known, and none at all when unknown. When asked, whether he thought the world would be happier if his principles were adopted? he declined answering in the affirmative, and evaded the question, by observing, that “Truth was paramount to every other consideration."

Expediency is worthy of our attention-but not as a standard of morals. Expediency is the ocean to which all morals tend, not the spring in which they originate. We must first establish the principles of morality on independent grounds, and then it will be a delightful exercise to trace their constant tendency to promote the tranquillity and happiness of the world.

We have now done with argument, and turn for one moment again to the examination of facts. A system which confounded all distinction of good and of evil, in one common point of expediency, and mistook great vices for great energies, led to the most fearful results, when speculation was reduced to practice. The anarchists of Paris, proposed to renovate the world, and to establish a philosophical millennium by means of atheism and revolutionthey thought it expedient, and it cannot be doubted that some of them were possessed of speculative minds of the first order. In an evil hour, Europe listened the experiment was made, and the desolations of twenty-five years, have given an awful solution to the problem of the competence of the intellect of man to calculate for the general good. What shall we say, then, of a system of morals which rests on no basis more solid, than the wavering opinions, and fluctuating caprice, of all the wise and foolish individuals of the human race? The French Revolutionists had, at least, the merit of reasoning correctly, and acting conformably with the principles which they laid down. These were followed with a sublime consistency, and we have seen the result-they opened the flood-gates of public and private licentiousness. They were doubtless animated by other motives than they avowed: but they proposed and defended their proceedings upon the principle of expediency; and if this principle be admitted, it is difficult to conceive how it will be possible to contest the propriety of their conduct.

We can never forget the tempest which beat upon society, desolating all that was beautiful, destroying all that was

magnificent, commingling in dreadful confusion all the social elements, and dispersing them broken and disorganized over the universe. Aloft on the whirlwind, careering amidst the portentous darkness, sat Expediency, as the demon of the storm raised by his power, he rejoiced in the ruin which it scattered. Wherever he turned, lightning darted from his eyes; a fire, as penetrating as rapid, consumed the temple and the palace, blasted the harvest, and withered the face of nature. He hurled the thunderbolts of war in every direction, and they burnt the cottage, while they overturned the throne. Posterity wil shudder, as they look back upon the tornado which has at length subsided. But to us, who so long witnessed these direful convulsions-the thunder seems scarcely to have ceased to roll, its echoes have not as yet wholly died away, the hurricane scarcely sleeps, and every principle of nature and religion, of reason and policy, demands, that we should exclude from moral beauty and social order-that spirit of anarchy which let it first loose upon society!

SONNET.

I ENVY thee, thou might'st on earth have shone,
But now to be a light in heaven hast gone!
Well-done! thou hast achieved a perfect birth,
Whose first new feeling hath more wisdom won
Than grey experience had, when left with none.

Clay-worn and prison-bound-Oh! Earth! Earth! Earth!
Thou 'ast nought so pure as toucheth and not sear❜th,
(Alas! my brother was a fated one!)

Th' electric chord within the "chosen breast,"

What music canst thou hope, then, from the crash,
Wherewith disdain oft strikes the tenderest
String of the exquisite spirit, which heav'n's flash
"But touches to fine issues?" Wondrest thou
Its echo should be harsh, and wrathful as thy blow?

THE

SIEGE OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

BOOK IV.

Argument.

Before day-break the Turks commence the assault; at first with such troops as Mahomet least values, and therefore devotes to slaughter, in order to weary the Christians before he makes his grand attempt. These are destroyed as fast as they approach. The horrors of the assault. After a conflict of some hours, Mahomet sends forward his Janizaries, and other of his best troops, whom the besieged are unable finally to withstand. Justiniani, being wounded, quits the breach, and his men, dispirited by the loss of their leader, retire. At last, Constantine, after having bravely resisted the whole force of the enemy, and seen all his friends fall around him, is slain. The Turks in multitudes rush into the city, plunder its treasures, and massacre its inhabitants, without regard to age or sex. After a pillage of three days, Mahomet enters in grand procession, and the Eastern empire is no more.

DAY had not reach'd th' horizon yet-no light
Flash'd from th' uplifted arms upon the sight;
Silent the Turks were moving through the gloom,
Like victims burried to a midnight tomb:
The foremost; those the tyrant valued not,
Soon to be slain-as soon to be forgot!
To certain slaughter doom'd-for him alone!
Their blood the stream to waft him to a throne.
For him as if he were a god on earth-
Or they but beings of inferior birth:
By thousands dash'd from life, and all its ties,
That he a little higher yet might rise:
Men nobler-wiser-hurried to their graves,
That one might rule a longer list of slaves:
Who in his march, perchance, would spurn aside
The corse, that living, fought for him and died;
Or crush beneath his chariot wheels the limb
That flash'd, despite of death, the sword for him:
Nor give a tear-nor haply ev'n a thought,

To all those thousands who his triumph wrought;
Without whom he and all his pride had sunk to nought.

How oft' men rush into the charnel field,
As pride or courage prompts the sword to wield;