establish the same freedom in France and then we are on a level-but you might as well complain that our free constitution is a reproach to your despotism, and therefore forsooth we must become slaves because we ought only to use our own freewill in acting so as not to injure others.-The conclusion is, whatever it would be wise for all to do, any one may do.

EXTRACTS

FROM LETTERS TO HIS FRIENDS.

Broad Street, 26th March, 1801.

It would not be very difficult to prove that the period which we spend at School is the happiest part of life; it is not therefore wonderful that we should look back on it with pleasure, as by a natural connexion we blend many circumstances in our recollection which then added perhaps but little to our happiness, and it is well known that we invariably view events with greater pleasure as we recede from them; just as in a distant retrospect on a wood, we view the mass of verdure with admiration, and forget the thorns and brambles through which we were obliged to effect our passage: but the pleasures of recollection can seldom be unalloyed; for either we are now happier than we then were, or we are less so: if the former be the case, recollection will soon be laid aside, for who will view a waste that is sporting in paradise; but if the latter, it is too plain that melancholy comparison will throw a dark shade over the prospect. Again, we are either better or worse; if better, conscience will upbraid us for the past, and if worse, for the present. Yet with all these disadvantages retrospection both is, and ought in moderation to be indulged, for as Johnson observes "whatever draws off our

attention from ourselves, whatever makes the past, the uncertain, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the scale of rational beings," and I think the world is under little obligation to those poetical moralists who recommend the fixing our attention on the present hour; they pretend indeed to inculcate a lesson of happiness, but they certainly cut off a great avenue to excellence; and it will be difficult to prove that he can increase our bliss, who diminishes our virtue. Such sentiments serve only to shew the miserable state of those who could find no better refuge from uncertainty, than by recommending that which they knew to be impossible, and degrading that reason which they so much boasted of, to a level with the beasts that perish: of such, it may be said most truly, what Bishop Horne applies to Hume and his infidel disciples:

Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram,

Perque domos Ditis vacuas, et inania regna.

Indeed the more one examines their systems of theology, the more despicable they appear; being dark and absurd in every part, except where they had obtained a little borrowed or traditional light from the Jews or their ancestors. Grotius among many other curious quotations, extracts this from the Hymns of Orpheus;

Νυκτα Θεων γενετειραν αείδομαι, ηδε . ... ανδρων.

which is in plain English "We are totally ignorant of the origin or creation of this World."

I have just begun to learn a law book by heart; it contains 30,000 lines, and I hope to get it through twice in six months, but it is most dry, and like learning so many proper names. -Are you meant for the Bar?-My eyes are nearly out, for

it is just ten at night, and I have written this between sleeping and waking, having been at work almost unremittingly since half-past nine in the morning, which is my daily dose.

Broad Street, June 11, 1801.

It would be absurd to advise you not to think upon the subject, but I am serious when I say, that it will be wise to restrain yourself from talking on it (for the present), not only generally, but totally. If you allow yourself to converse on the subject of your loss, you will unwarily say things which you may hereafter wish unsaid. It was my case, and therefore may be your's. To tell you the truth, the subject is to me even at this distance of time a very melancholy one. "I cannot but remember such things were, that were most precious to me," says Macduff, and this is my case. Your's is not less distressing at present, though you will still have opportunities of signalizing yourself at the university, and you may there prove more successful. At the time when I was in your situation, a relation of mine, a lady of very uncommon talents and acquirements, wrote to my father on the subject, and as what she says is far more sensible than any thing I can offer, I will transcribe part of it-" It will be far from a disadvantage to him to have met with this check, if it teach him not to make too sure of success in any particular points, but to look forward to the establishment of his reputation from the general tenor of his conduct. I believe there is no more common cause of the failure of young men of shining parts, than going on too long with the wind and tide in their favour. They trust to their sails and neg

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lect the rudder, and the first adverse gale oversets them. At school, boys should learn to bear their faculties meekly, and recollect there was but one Cæsar, and that was one too many." What my father said on the same subject, though much more solemn, is equally true, and was peculiarly appropriate at that time, because it was when he was under the greatest affliction, my sister being supposed to be on her deathbed. After observing, that it is something to have deserved success by our endeavours, he adds, "You have deserved it, and, if you persevere, you will at length attain a crown, which the Lord, the righteous Judge shall give you: and that crown should be the great end and aim of all our exertions; the applause of a few men and women, (and very few are judges even of an English composition), is as the small dust of the balance when compared with the applause of men and angels, enlightened by, and acceding to the sentence of that all wise and righteous Judge: 'Well done good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.'

Broad Street, 22d June, 1801. 10 P. M.

I thought the first short note had come from you, and under that idea was not at all surprized at its conciseness, as it was very natural you should avoid all explanation or discussion in the first moments of disappointment. "A man," (says Johnson), "is never deeply afflicted with any thing which he can bear to write about." And this is universally true as applied to the first effects of grief, but as the immediate pressure becomes lighter by degrees, and we are more habituated to its weight, the mind will feel