predominates, so as to abstract the mind from the parts— the majestic. Where the parts by their harmony produce an effect of a whole, but there is no seen form of a whole producing or explaining the parts, i.e. when the parts only are seen and distinguished, but the whole is felt-the picturesque. Where neither whole nor parts, but unity, as boundless or endless allness-the sublime. Luck. It often amuses me to hear men impute all their misfortunes to fate, luck, or destiny, whilst their successes or good fortune they ascribe to their own sagacity, cleverness, or penetration. It never occurs to such minds that light and darkness are one and the same, emanating from, and being part of, the same nature. The Inadequateness of Reason. Is it then true, that reason to man is the ultimate faculty, and that, to convince a reasonable man, it is sufficient to adduce adequate reasons or arguments? How, if this be so, does it happen that we reject as insufficient the reasoning of a friend in our affliction for this or that cause or reason, yet are comforted, soothed, and reassured, by similar or far less sufficient reasons, when urged by a friendly and affectionate woman? It is no answer to say that women were made comforters; that it is the tone, and, in the instance of man's chief, best comforter, the wife of his youth, the mother of his children, the oneness with himself, which gives value to the consolation; the reasons are the same, whether urged by man, woman, or child. It must be, therefore, that there is something in the will itself, above and beyond, if not higher than, reason. Besides, is reason or the reasoning always the same, even when free from passion, film, or fever? I speak of the same person. Does he hold the doctrine of temperance in equal reverence when hungry as after he is sated? Does he at forty retain the same reason, only extended, and developed, as he possessed at four and twenty? Does he not love the meat in his youth which he cannot endure in his old age? But these are appetites, and therefore no part of him. Is not a man one to-day and another to-morrow? Do not the very ablest and wisest of men attach greater weight at one moment to an argument or a reason than they do at another? Is this a want of sound and stable judgment? If so, what then is this perfect reason? for we have shown what it is not. Sympathy. I have often been pained by observing in others, and was fully conscious in myself,1 of a sympathy with those of rank and condition in preference to their inferiors, and never discovered the source of this sympathy until one day at Keswick I heard a thatcher's wife crying her heart out for the death of her little child. It was given me all at once to feel, that I sympathized equally with the poor and the rich in all that related to the best part of humanity-the affections; but that, in what relates to fortune, to mental misery, struggles, and conflicts, we reserve consolation and sympathy for those who can appreciate its force and value. Philosophy and Religion. Whenever philosophy has taken into its plan religion, it has ended in scepticism; and whenever religion excludes philosophy, or the spirit of free inquiry, it leads to wilful blindness and superstition. Scotus, the first of the schoolmen, held that religion might be above, but could not be adverse to, true philosophy. Coleridge in a letter to Allsop, of March 4, 1822, with that simple candour of a man who is too genuine to shrink from stating the truth, says that, from Christ's Hospital onwards, he had looked on men of rank as his superiors. But he adds,—with equal simplicity,-"as individual to individual, from my childhood, I do not remember feeling myself superior or inferior" (the italics are ours) to any human being, except by an act of my own will in cases of real or imagined moral or intellectual superiority." 66 The "Friend "The Friend." is a secret which I have entrusted to the public; and, unlike most secrets, it hath been well kept. Humour. Humour is consistent with pathos, whilst wit is not. Reason, Understanding, and Goodness. All that is good is in the reason,' not in the understanding; which is proved by the malignity of those who lose their reason. When a man is said to be out of his wits, we do not mean that he has lost his reason, but only his understanding, or the power of choosing his means or perceiving their fitness to the end. Don Quixote (and in a less degree, the Pilgrim's Progress) is an excellent example of a man who had lost his wits or understanding, but not his reason. The Wisdom of Confiding our Griefs to a Friend. We can none of us, not the wisest of us, brood over any source of affliction inwardly, keeping it back, and as it were pressing it in on ourselves, but we must magnify it. We cannot see it clearly, much less distinctly; and as the object enlarges beyond its real proportions, so it becomes vivid; and the feelings that blend with it assume a proportionate undue intensity. So the one acts on the other, and what at first was effect, in its turn becomes a cause; and when at length we have taken heart, and given the whole thing, with all its several parts, the proper distance from our mind's eye, by confiding it to a true friend, we are ourselves surprised to find what a dwarf the giant May we intrude for once to say, that much of what is best is in neither, but in the heart,-" deceitful above all things, &c. &c.," as, no doubt, it is. shrinks into, as soon as it steps out of the mist into clear sunlight.-Sept. 15, 1821. Troilus and Cressida. "Read the Troilus and Cressida; dwelt much upon the fine distinction made by Shakspere between the affection of Troilus and the passion of Cressida. This does not escape the notice of Ulysses, who thus depicts her on her first arrival in the Trojan camp : 66 : Fie! fie upon her! There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks. Her wanton spirits look out At every joint of her body. Set such down1 For sluttish spoils of opportunity And daughters of the game." The profound affection of Troilus alone deserves the name of love."-Allsop loq. The Highest Good. Certainly the highest good is to live happily, and not through a life of mortification to expect a happy death. Should we attain felicity in life, death will be easy, as it will be natural and in due season. Whereas by the present system of religious teaching, men are enjoined to value chiefly happiness at the end of life, which, if they were implicitly to follow, they would, by neglecting the first great duty, that of innocent enjoyment during existence, effectually preclude themselves from attaining. Marriage. There is no condition (evil as it may be in the eye of For this line will be found in the original "At every joint and motive of her body. ACT IV. Sc. 5. reason), which does not include, or seem to include when it has become familiar, some good, some redeeming or reconciling qualities. I agree, however, that marriage is not one of these. Marriage has, as you say, no natural relation to love. Marriage belongs to society; it is a social contract. It should not merely include the conditions of esteem and friendship, it should be the ratification of their manifestation. Still I do not know how it can be replaced; that belongs to the future, and it is a question which the future only can solve. I however quite agree that we can now, better than at any former time, say what will not, what cannot be. Morality. Truly, when I think of what has entered into ethics, what has been considered moral in the early ages of the world, and even now by civilized nations in the east, I incline to believe that morality is conventional; but when I see the doctrines propounded under the name of political economy, I earnestly hope that it is so.-As illustrations of the opinions held by philosophers, which to us appear abominable or indecent, I refer to some of the rules of Zeno, some parts of the philosophy of Plato, the whole conduct of Phædon, and the practice of Cato the Censor. Pythagoras. Pythagoras first asserted that the earth was a globe, and that there were antipodes. He also seems to have been acquainted with the properties of the atmosphere, at least its weight and pressure. He was the most wonderful of those men whom Greece, that treasure-house of intellect, produced, to show her treasures, and to be the ornament and gaze of our nature during all time. In his doctrines, the Copernican system may clearly be traced. Pythagoras used the mysteries as one of the means to retain the doctrine of an unity while the multitude sunk into Polytheism. It is quite certain most of the ancient philosophers were |