All the law can do is to give us hard bread, which we must earn with our toil, and then steep with our tears. Yet more, the law can guard our life-life! that possession which, of all others, man values the least; but it can give nothing that endears, or exalts it-nothing that confers on it either a value or a charm. The first records of our young world were those of tears and blood; its last records will be those of tears and blood also. I hear of the progress of civilization, and I marvel how it can be called happiness. We discovered America, and that word is now synonymous with a brave, enlightened, and free nation; but to make way for that prosperity, a whole people have perished from the face of the earth. Our ships have gone through the silent seas, and a new continent rose before their prows in fertility and beauty. We have emptied on it our prisons--and the untrodden wood echoes to the oath and the axe of the convict.

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Or, to come home again. The wealth of the world, its power, its intelligence, pours into London. We have the enjoyments of riches and of mind--our sciences and fine arts take every day some step to perfection; but none of these are happiness. Wealth, that mighty source of heartburnings, who shall distribute it? To take from industry is to give a premium to idleness. And yet how hard, that one man should possess millions, while to another a penny is a welcome gift! How are we to help this? Is it my fault," the rich man may say, "that I, or my father, or my grandfather, have been more prudent or more fortunate than you or yours? If you take that which is mine today, where is your security but that another may take it from you again tomorrow?" And yet poverty-how bitter it is first its disgrace, and then its want. I never, even in an advertisement praying for that charity which is too often denied, read the words "who have known better days," without a sympathy even to pain. And yet what statute can guard against extravagance, improvidence, or idleness? And even this property-the hinge on which all our social institutions turn; for whose sake we both make and break laws-does that give happiness? Ask the sick, the sad, or the dying, though their home be the palace, and their clothing the purple.

Then we have intellectual enjoyments, the works of genius, those of the fine arts. There was Mr. Canning, the eloquent and the patriotic, died, not three years ago,

of a fevered mind and a wornout body-worn out by the scoff, the obstacle, the vain excitement, the exhausting exertion. Genius-was Byron, whose life was divided between disappointment and resentment, was he happy? What is Genius but an altar richly wrought in fine gold, and placed in the most sacred and glorious part of the marble temple? but there the living victim is offered in sacrifice, and the wreath of flowers left to wither. The fine arts, they which add so much to the adornment of their time it is a sad page in life in which their annals are written. How few among the statutes which stand in grace and power, till they seem the incarnation of the diviner part of our nature-how few among the pictures which shed their dreamlike beauty on our walls-how few of these but are the fruit of lives passed in toil, in want, in the heartburning of hope, whose fulfilment comes not, and of cares that eat away the very soul! Look at the many diseases to which skill is of no avail-look at the many crimes, and crimes committed, too, by the educated, who have been trained from their youth upwards in good. Or look only within your own heart, and see there the germ of every sin and every sorrow;-and then tell me of the perfectibility or the happiness of humanity. In another world "the wicked may cease from troubling, and the weary be at rest;" but not in a world like ours-the weak, the erring, and the fallen. We forget we are living under a curse; and who can recall that curse save the God who pronounced it?

VOL. II.-7

CHAPTER X.

Ah, whence yon glare

That fires the arch of Heaven?-that dark red smoke
Blotting the silver moon?"

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"And what were earth and stars,

If to the human mind's imaginings

Silence and solitude were vacancy?"-SHELLEY.

THERE is something sublime in being out of humor with the whole world. Discontent against an individual is called anger; that against the many, misanthropy. There is a great deal of poetry in an epithet. Lorraine indulged in the latter mood of mind for a week. His brother called -he was denied: a first conciliating note from Mr. Delawarr was unanswered-the second met a cold but bitter reply. Both grew angry, and public dispute ended in private dissension.

It is a curious fact, how violent people get upon poli tical questions, particularly if they are such as do not concern them. A sedatelooking gentleman, who lives in Finsbury Square, perhaps, and whose money is in the funds, raves about the corn laws: another in a black coat, forgets to make his Sunday sermon, in the composition of a speech at a meeting for the abolition of West India Slavery. But from the affairs of our next door neighbor, to those of church and state, we take an intense interest in those of others. S―, when he came from Brussels, at the time of the revolution, was asked what it was like. "Like?" said he, "why, like a vestry meeting." We talk of vanity, discontent, patriotism; but the real first cause of the passion for politics is the love of talking, inherent in masculine nature.

In the mean time, Edward found that love and politics had been adverse influences on his destiny. His brother's most unlooked for marriage altered all his prospects as regarded his succession to the Etheringhame title and

:

estates his difference with Mr. Delawarr closed the principal avenue of his political career. His future path in life must be cleared by himself.

The energy with which he set about the task showed he was equal to it. He had inherited a handsome property from his mother. True, he had been extravagant, but not irretrievably so. He looked into his affairs. Two years of resolute economy, and his property was free. In two years there would be a general election. Two years of travel and study would equally benefit his fortune and his mind; both would be strengthened to meet the demands of public life.

There are epochs of change in every one's career; and it is in meeting these changes that a man shows his energies. Lorraine's plan was promptly laid down, and its execution was as prompt as its design. His affairs were investigated with that resolute industry which so soon finishes the business it begins. The sale of part of his property cleared the rest. A large portion of his income was put aside to accumulate. Horses, pictures, wines, bijouterie, German meerschaum, and Turkish hookahs, were alike brought to the hammer. His solicitor remonstrated on the loss in such a sale.

"Don't you see," replied his client, laughing, "I am selling my habits with them?"

Satisfied with the present, full of anticipation for the future, Edward took his seat on the mail-the best conveyance in the world for good spirits. It was a bright clear night, with a fresh and buoyant wind. Alas! for the safety of two respectable linen drapers, and the partner of a great tea house, inside-for Lorraine drove the first forty miles.

"What a pity he should be a gentleman--such a waste!" observed the coachman, when he resigned the reins.

Spain was the country he had decided upon visitingSpain, as a poet regularly begins,

"Land of the vine and the olive."

It is curious how much of its romantic character a Country owes to strangers; perhaps because they know least about it. Edward's motive for visiting it was, simply, that he had never been there before. Leaving vines, olives, the white walls of Cadiz, and the dark eyes of its ladies,

to be recorded in his diary, if he kept one, he travelled perfectly alone-sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback-through a considerable part of the country bordering on the sea coast; when, finding the residence of a Spanish nobleman, to whom he had letters of introduction, marked on his route, he paused at a little village to make inquiry of his way.

The village was pretty enough for a scene in a play. It was literally hidden in a grove, or thicket rather, of orange trees, at that most beautiful season of their year, when one branch is bowed down with its weight of golden fruit -on another the orange is still of a bright green; while the more shaded boughs are yet in the first luxuriance of their peculiarly odoriferous and delicate flowers-perhaps one of the softest and most beautiful whites in nature. There were but a few cottages, each of them covered with a luxuriant vine, whose glossy verdure reflected back every ray of the setting sun.

It was a saint's day, and the peasants were all out of doors. There were two or three groups of dancers, and the rest were gathered in a ring round them, or scattered on the grass beneath a few large old chestnut trees, that must have seen many such generations. The peasants themselves were, as a painter would haye said, excellent accessories to the scene: the women were, many of them, pretty; and their profuse black hair, bound up with that simplicity which is the perfection of good taste.

Uniformity in costume is very picturesque. To name a familiar instance :-how well a family of sisters dressed alike always looks! Each separate individual may be bad; still, as a whole, the effect is creditable. We do not seem sufficiently aware of the beauty of uniformity, or else it is interfered with by our personal vanity. The truth is, that general taste is always good; because, before it becomes general, it has been compared and corrected: but as for individual taste, the less we have of it the better.

The arrival of a stranger produced the effect it always does where such an occurrence is rare. Novelty is pleasure, and pleasure puts people into a good humor. All were ready to crowd round with some little offer of assistance; and when it was discovered that he spoke Spanish, their delight knew no bounds

People take a traveller's understanding their language as a personal compliment. Edward, besides, was very