sessed; and, in spite of all things, it continued with him to the last. His love of ambition, perhaps deepened, in his wiser moments, his contempt of the world: for we are generally disapappointed before we despise. But the purer source of his inspiration seems to have been solemnly and fervently felt throughout life. At college, he was distinguished for his successful zeal in opposing the unbelief of Tindal. In literature, some of his earliest offerings were laid upon the altar of God. In the pulpit, where he was usually a powerful and victorious preacher, he is recorded once to have burst into tears on seeing that he could not breathe his own intense emotion into the hearts of a worldly audience. Naturally vain, he renounced the drama, in which he had gained so great a reputation, when he entered the church; and though called covetous, he gave-when his play of "The Brothers" was acted, not the real proceeds of the play, (for it was not successful,) but what he had imagined might be the proceeds—(a thousand pounds,) to the propagation of the Gospel

abroad. A religious vein distinguished his private conversation in health and manhood, no less than his reflections in sorrow, and his thoughts at the approach of death. May we hope with him that the cravings of his heart were the proof of an Hereafter

"That grief is but our grandeur in disguise,

And discontent is immortality."

While we admire his genius, let us benefit from his wisdom; while we bow in homage before the spirit that "stole the music from the spheres to soothe their goddess;" while we behold aghast the dread portrait he has drawn of Death, noting from his grim and secret stand the follies of a wild and revelling horde of bacchanals; while we shudder with him when he conjures up the arch fiend from his lair; while we stand awed and breathless beneath his adjuration to Night,

"Nature's great ancestor, Day's elder born,

And fated to survive the transient sun;"

let us always come back at last to his serene and holy consolation :

The muse has strayed, and much of sorrow seen
In human ways, and much of false and vain,
Which none who travel this bad road can miss;
O'er friends deceased full heartily she wept,
Of love divine the wonders she displayed;
Proved man immortal; showed the source of joy;
The grand tribunal raised; assigned the bounds
Of human grief. In few, to close the whole,
The moral muse has shadowed out a sketch
Of most our weakness needs believe, or do,
In this our land of travail and of hope,
For peace on earth, or prospect of the skies."

I have given the substance—and, as far as I could remember, the words of my friend's remarks the last conversation I ever held with him on his favourite poet-and although the reader, attached to more worldly literature, may not agree with L-as to the high and settled rank in which the poem thus criticised should be placed—I do not think he will be displeased to have had his attention drawn for a few moments towards one, at least, among the highest, but not the most popular, of his country's poets. And as for the rest-it is not perhaps amiss

to refresh ever and anon our critical susceptibilities to genius-its defects and its beauties, by recurring to those departed writers, who-being past the reach of our petty jealousies-may keep us as it were, in the custom to praise without envy, and blame without injustice. And I must confess, moreover that it appears to me a sort of duty we owe to the illustrious dead-to turn at times from the busier and more urgent pursuits of the world-and to water from a liberal urn the flowers or the laurels which former gratitude planted around their tombs.

325

CONVERSATION THE NINTH.

THE MEMORY BECOMES MORE ACUTE AS WE APPROACH DEATHL'S OBSERVATIONS ON THE SAYING THAT LIFE IS A JEST'THE VANITY OF AMBITION-OUR ERRORS ARISE FROM OUR DESIRE TO BE GREATER THAN WE ARE-THOUGHTS ON SUPERSTITIONTHE EARLY ASTROLOGERS-PHILANTHROPY-THE FEAR OF ASSISTING IN CHANGES OF WHICH THE GOOD TO A FUTURE GENERATION MAY NOT COMPENSATE THE EVIL TO THE PRESENT-CONTRAST BETWEEN THE TRANQUIL LIVES OF MEN OF GENIUS AND THE REVOLUTIONS THEIR WORKS EFFECT THE HOPE OF INTERCOURSE WITH GREAT MINDS IN A FUTURE STATE-THE SANCTITY OF THE GRAVE THE PHÆDO OF PLATO-THE PICTURE OF THE LAST MOMENTS OF SOCRATES-THE UNSATISFACTORY ARGUMENTS OF THE HEATHEN FOR THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL-REVEALED RELIGION HAS LED MEN MORE LOGICALLY TO THE ARGUMENTS FOR NATURAL THEOLOGY-DISBELIEF INVOLVES US IN GREATER DIFFICULTIES THAN FAITH-OUR DOUBTS DO NOT DISHEARTEN US IF WE ONCE BELIEVE IN GOD-L'S LAST HOURS--HIS FAREWELL TO NATURE-HIS DEATH.

THE day was calm and cloudless as, towards the end of August, I rode leisurely to L's solitary house; his strength had so materially declined