And a certain Authority, considerably wiser and incomparably more charitable than the American divines already mentioned, recognized the fact, when He taught us to pray, "Lead us not into temptation!" We shall think, in a little while, of certain influences which may make or mar the human being; but it may be said here that I firmly believe that happiness is one of the best of disciplines. As a general rule, if people were happier, they would be better. When you see a poor cabman on a winter-day, soaked with rain, and fevered with gin, violently thrashing the wretched horse he is driving, and perhaps howling at it, you may be sure that it is just because the poor cabman is so miserable that he is doing all that. It was a sudden glimpse, perhaps, of his bare home and hungry children, and of the dreary future which lay before himself and them, that was the true cause of those two or three furious lashes you saw him deal upon the unhappy screw's ribs. Whenever I read any article in a review, which is manifestly malignant, and intended not to improve an author, but to give him pain, I cannot help immediately wondering what may have been the matter with the man who wrote the malignant article. Something must have been making him very unhappy, I think. I do not allude to playful attacks upon a man, made in pure thoughtlessness and buoyancy of spirit,—but to attacks which indicate a settled, deliberate, calculating rancor. Never be angry with the man who makes such an attack; you ought to be sorry for him. It is out of great misery that malignity for the most part proceeds. To give the ordinary mortal a fair chance, let him be reasonably successful and happy. Do not worry a man into nervous irritability, and he will be amiable. Do not dip a man in water, and he will not be wet.

Of course, my friend, I know who is to you the most interesting of all beings, and whose history is the most interesting of all histories. You are to yourself the centre of this world, and of all the interests of this world. And this is quite right.

There is no selfishness about all this, except that selfishness which forms an essential element in personality,—that selfishness which must go with the fact of one's having a self. You cannot help looking at all things as they appear from your own point of view; and things press themselves upon your attention and your feeling as they affect yourself. And apart from anything like egotism, or like vain self-conceit, it is probable that you may know that a great deal depends upon your exertion and your life. There are those at home who would fare but poorly, if you were just now to die. There are those who must rise with you, if you rise, and sink with you, if you sink. Does it sometimes suddenly strike you, what a little object you are, to have so much depending on you? Vaguely, in your thinking and feeling, you add your circumstances and your lot to your personality; and these make up an object of considerable extension. You do so with other people as well as with yourself. You have all their belongings as a background to the picture of them which you have in your mind; and they look very little when you see them in fact, because you see them without these belongings. I remember, when a boy, how disappointed I was at first seeing the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was Archbishop Howley. There he was, a slender, pale old gentleman, sitting in an arm-chair at a public meeting. I was chiefly disappointed, because there was so little of him. There was just the human being. There was no background of grand accessories. The idea of the Primate of England which I had in some confused manner in my mind included a vision of the venerable towers of Lambeth,—of a long array of solemn predecessors, from Thomas a Becket downwards,—of great historical occasions on which the Archbishop of Canterbury had been a prominent figure; and in some way I fancied, vaguely, that you would see the primate surrounded by all these things. You remember the Highlander in "Waverley," who was much mortified when his chief came to meet an English guest, unattended by any retinue, and who exclaimed, in consternation and sorrow, "He has come without his tail!" Even such was my early feeling. You understand later that associations are not visible, and that they do not add to a man's extension in space. But (to go back) you do, as regards yourself, what you do as regards greater men: you add your lot to your personality, and thus you make up a bigger object. And when you see yourself in your tailor's shop, in a large mirror (one of a series) wherein you see your figure all round, reflected several times, your feeling will probably be, What a little thing you are! If you are a wise man, you will go away somewhat humbled, and possibly somewhat the better for the sight. You have, to a certain extent, done what Burns thought it would do all men much good to do: you have "seen yourself as others see you." And even to do so physically is a step towards a juster and humbler estimate of yourself in more important things. It may here be said, as a further illustration of the principle set forth, that people who stay very much at home feel their stature, bodily and mental, much lessened when they go far away from home, and spend a little time among strange scenes and people. For, going thus away from home, you take only yourself. It is but a small part of your extension that goes. You go; but you leave behind your house, your study, your children, your servants, your horses, your garden. And not only do you leave them behind, but they grow misty and unsubstantial when you are far away from them. And somehow you feel, that, when you make the acquaintance of a new friend some hundreds of miles off, who never saw your home and your family, you present yourself before him only a twentieth part or so of what you feel yourself to be when you have all your belongings about you. Do you not feel all that? And do you not feel, that, if you were to go away to Australia forever, almost as the English coast turned blue and then invisible on the horizon, your life in England would first turn cloud-like, and then melt away?

But without further discussing the philosophy of how it comes to be, I return to the statement that you yourself, as you live in your home, are to yourself the centre of this world,—and that you feel the force of any great principle most deeply, when you feel it in your own case. And though every worthy mortal must be often taken out of himself, especially by seeing the deep sorrows and great failures of other men, still, in thinking of people of whom more might have been made, it touches you most to discern that you are one of these. It is a very sad thing to think of yourself, and to see how much more might have been made of you. Sit down by the fire in winter, or go out now in summer and sit down under a tree, and look back on the moral discipline you have gone through,—look back on what you have done and suffered. Oh, how much better and happier you might have been! And how very near you have often been to what would have made you so much happier and better! If you had taken the other turning when you took the wrong one, after much perplexity,—if you had refrained from saying such a hasty word,—if you had not thoughtlessly made such a man your enemy! Such a little thing may have changed the entire complexion of your life. Ah, it was because the points were turned the wrong way at that junction, that you are now running along a line of railway through wild moorlands, leaving the warm champaign below ever more hopelessly behind. Hastily, or pettedly, or despairingly, you took the wrong turning; or you might have been dwelling now amid verdant fields and silver waters in the country of contentment and success. Many men and women, in the temporary bitterness of some disappointment, have hastily made marriages which will embitter all their future life,—or which at least make it certain that in this world they will never know a joyous heart any more. Men have died as almost briefless barristers, toiling into old age in heartless wrangling, who had their chance of high places on the bench, but ambitiously resolved to wait for something higher, and so missed the tide. Men in the church have taken the wrong path at some critical time, and doomed themselves to all the pangs of disappointed ambition. But I think a sincere man in the church has a great advantage over almost all ordinary disappointed men. He has less temptation, reading affairs by the light of after-time, to look back with bitterness on any mistake he may have made. For, if he be the man I mean, he took the decisive step not without seeking the best of guidance; and the whole training of his mind has fitted him for seeing a higher Hand in the allotment of human conditions. And if a man acted for the best, according to the light he had, and if he truly believes that God puts all in their places in life, he may look back without bitterness upon what may appear the most grievous mistakes. I must be suffered to add, that, if he is able heartily to hold certain great truths and to rest on certain sure promises, hardly any conceivable earthly lot should stamp him a soured or disappointed man. If it be a sober truth, that "all things shall work together for good" to a certain order of mankind, and if the deepest sorrows in this world may serve to prepare us for a better,—why, then, I think that one might hold by a certain ancient philosopher (and something more) who said, "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content."

* * * * *

You see, reader, that, in thinking of People of whom More might have been Made, we are limiting the scope of the subject. I am not thinking how more might have been made of us originally. No doubt, the potter had power over the clay. Give a larger brain, of finer quality, and the commonplace man might have been a Milton. A little change in the chemical composition of the gray matter of that little organ which is unquestionably connected with the mind's working as no other organ of the body is, and, oh, what a different order of thought would have rolled off from your pen, when you sat down and tried to write your best! If we are to believe Robert Burns, some people have been made more of than was originally intended. A certain poem records how that which, in his homely phrase, he calls "stuff to mak' a swine," was ultimately converted into a very poor specimen of a human being. The poet had no irreverent intention, I dare say; but I am not about to go into the field of speculation which is opened up by his words. I know, indeed, that, in the hands of the Creator, each of us might have been made a different man. The pounds of material which were fashioned into Shakspeare might have made a bumpkin with little thought beyond pigs and turnips, or, by some slight difference beyond man's skill to trace, might have made an idiot. A little infusion of energy into the mental constitution might have made the mild, pensive day-dreamer who is wandering listlessly by the river-side, sometimes chancing upon noble thoughts, which he does not carry out into action, and does not even write down on paper, into an active worker, with Arnold's keen look, who would have carved out a great career for himself, and exercised a real influence over the views and conduct of numbers of other men. A very little alteration in feature might have made a plain face into a beautiful one; and some slight change in the position or the contractibility of certain of the muscles might have made the most awkward of manners and gaits into the most dignified and graceful. All that we all understand. But my present subject is the making which is in circumstances after our natural disposition is fixed,—the training, coming from a hundred quarters, which forms the material supplied by Nature into the character which each of us actually bears. And setting apart the case of great genius, whose bent towards the thing in which it will excel is so strong that it will find its own field by inevitable selection, and whose strength is such that no unfavorable circumstances can hold it down, almost any ordinary human being may be formed into almost any development. I know a huge massive beam of rough iron, which supports a great weight. Whenever I pass it, I cannot help giving it a pat with my hand, and saying to it, "You might have been hair-springs for watches." I know an odd-looking little man attached to a certain railway-station, whose business it is, when a train comes in, to go round it with a large box of a yellow concoction and supply grease to the wheels. I have often looked out of the carriage-window at that odd little man and thought to myself, "Now you might have been a chief-justice." And, indeed, I can say from personal observation that the stuff ultimately converted into cabinet-ministers does not at an early stage at all appreciably differ from that which never becomes more than country-parsons. There is a great gulf between the human being who gratefully receives a shilling, and touches his cap as he receives it, and the human being whose income is paid in yearly or half-yearly sums, and to whom a pecuniary tip would appear as an insult; yet, of course, that great gulf is the result of training alone. John Smith the laborer, with twelve shillings a week, and the bishop with eight thousand a year, had, by original constitution, precisely the same kind of feeling towards that much-sought, yet much-abused reality which provides the means of life. Who shall reckon up by what millions of slight touches from the hand of circumstance, extending over many years, the one man is gradually formed into the giving of the shilling, and the other man into the receiving of it with that touch of his hat? Who shall read back the forming influences at work since the days in the cradle, that gradually formed one man into sitting down to dinner, and another man into waiting behind his chair? I think it would be occasionally a comfort, if one could believe, as American planters profess to believe about their slaves, that there is an original and essential difference between men; for, truly, the difference in their positions is often so tremendous that it is painful to think that it is the self-same clay and the self-same common mind that are promoted to dignity and degraded to servitude. And if you sometimes feel that,—you, in whose favor the arrangement tends,—what do you suppose your servants sometimes think upon the subject? It was no wonder that the millions of Russia were ready to grovel before their Czar, while they believed that he was "an emanation from the Deity." But in countries where it is quite understood that every man is just as much an emanation from the Deity as any other, you will not long have that sort of thing. You remember Goldsmith's noble lines, which Dr. Johnson never could read without tears, concerning the English character. Is it not true that it is just because the humble, but intelligent Englishman understands distinctly that we are all of us people of whom more might have been made, that he has "learnt to venerate himself as man"? And thinking of influences which form the character, there is a sad reflection which has often occurred to me. It is, that circumstances often develop a character which it is hard to contemplate without anger and disgust. And yet, in many such cases, it is rather pity that is due. The more disgusting the character formed in some men, the more you should pity them. Yet it is hard to do that. You easily pity the man whom circumstances have made poor and miserable; how much more you should pity the man whom circumstances have made bad! You pity the man from whom some terrible accident has taken a limb or a hand; but how much more should you pity the man from whom the influences of years have taken a conscience and a heart! And something is to be said for even the most unamiable and worst of the race. No doubt, it is mainly their own fault that they are so bad; but still it is hard work to be always rowing against wind and tide, and some people could be good only by doing that ceaselessly. I am not thinking now of pirates and pickpockets. But take the case of a sour, backbiting, malicious, wrong-headed, lying old woman, who gives her life to saying disagreeable things and making mischief between friends. There are not many mortals with whom one is less disposed to have patience. But yet, if you knew all, you would not be so severe in what you think and say of her. You do not know the physical irritability of nerve and weakness of constitution which that poor creature may have inherited; you do not know the singular twist of mind which she may have got from Nature and from bad and unkind treatment in youth; you do not know the bitterness of heart she has felt at the polite snubbings and ladylike tortures which in excellent society are often the share of the poor and the dependent. If you knew all these things, you would bear more patiently with my friend Miss Limejuice, though I confess that sometimes you would find it uncommonly hard to do so.

As I wrote that last paragraph, I began dimly to fancy that somewhere I had seen the idea which is its subject treated by an abler hand by far than mine. The idea, you may be sure, was not suggested to me by books, but by what I have seen of men and women. But it is a pleasant thing to find that a thought which at the time is strongly impressing one's self has impressed other men. And a modest person, who knows very nearly what his humble mark is, will be quite pleased to find that another man has not only anticipated his thoughts, but has expressed them much better than he could have done. Yes, let me turn to that incomparable essay of John Foster, "On a Man's writing Memoirs of Himself." Here it is.

"Make the supposition that any given number of persons,—a hundred, for instance,—taken promiscuously, should be able to write memoirs of themselves so clear and perfect as to explain, to your discernment at least, the entire process by which their minds have attained their present state, recounting all the most impressive circumstances. If they should read these memoirs to you in succession, while your benevolence, and the moral principles according to which you felt and estimated, were kept at the highest pitch, you would often, during the disclosure, regret to observe how many things may be the causes of irretrievable mischief. 'Why is the path of life,' you would say, 'so haunted as if with evil spirits of every diversity of noxious agency, some of which may patiently accompany, or others of which may suddenly cross, the unfortunate wanderer?' And you would regret to observe into how many forms of intellectual and moral perversion the human mind readily yields itself to be modified.

* * * * *

"'I compassionate you,' would, in a very benevolent hour, be your language to the wealthy, unfeeling tyrant of a family and a neighborhood, who seeks, in the overawed timidity and unretaliated injuries of the unfortunate beings within his power, the gratification that should have been sought in their affections. Unless you had brought into the world some extraordinary refractoriness to the influence of evil, the process that you have undergone could not easily fail of being efficacious. If your parents idolized their own importance in their son so much that they never opposed your inclinations themselves nor permitted it to be done by any subject to their authority,—if the humble companion, sometimes summoned to the honor of amusing you, bore your caprices and insolence with the meekness without which he had lost his enviable privilege,—if you could despoil the garden of some nameless dependent neighbor of the carefully reared flowers, and torment his little dog or cat, without his daring to punish you or to appeal to your infatuated parents,—if aged men addressed you in a submissive tone, and with the appellation of 'Sir,' and their aged wives uttered their wonder at your condescension, and pushed their grandchildren away from around the fire for your sake, if you happened, though with the strut of pertness, and your hat on your head, to enter one of their cottages, perhaps to express your contempt of the homely dwelling, furniture, and fare,—if, in maturer life, you associated with vile persons, who would forego the contest of equality to be your allies in trampling on inferiors,—and if, both then and since, you have been suffered to deem your wealth the compendium or equivalent of every ability and every good quality,—it would indeed be immensely strange, if you had not become in due time the miscreant who may thank the power of the laws in civilized society that he is not assaulted with clubs and stones, to whom one could cordially wish the opportunity and the consequences of attempting his tyranny among some such people as those submissive sons of Nature in the forests of North America, and whose dependants and domestic relatives may be almost forgiven when they shall one day rejoice at his funeral."

What do you think of that, my reader, as a specimen of embittered eloquence and nervous pith? It is something to read massive and energetic sense, in days wherein mystical twaddle, and subtlety which hopelessly defies all logic, are sometimes thought extremely fine, if they are set out in a style which is refined into mere effeminacy.

* * * * *

I cherish a very strong conviction, (as has been said,) that, at least in the case of educated people, happiness is a grand discipline for bringing out what is amiable and excellent. You understand, of course, what I mean by happiness. We all know, of course, that light-heartedness is not very familiar to grown-up people, who are doing the work of life, who feel its many cares, and who do not forget the many risks which hang over it. I am not thinking of the kind of thing which is suggested to the minds of children, when they read, at the end of a tale, concerning its heroine and hero, that "they lived happily ever after." No, we don't look for that. By happiness I mean freedom from terrible anxiety and from pervading depression of spirits, the consciousness that we are filling our place in life with decent success and approbation, religious principle and character, fair physical health throughout the family, and moderate good temper and good sense. And I hold, with Sydney Smith, and with that keen practical philosopher, Becky Sharpe, that happiness and success tend very greatly to make people passably good. Well, I see an answer to the statement, as I do to most statements; but, at least, the beam is never subjected to the strain which would break it. I have seen the gradual working of what I call happiness and success in ameliorating character. I have known a man who, by necessity, by the pressure of poverty, was driven to write for the magazines,—a kind of work for which he had no special talent or liking, and which he had never intended to attempt. There was no more miserable, nervous, anxious, disappointed being on earth than he was, when he began his writing for the press. And sure enough, his articles were bitter and ill-set to a high degree. They were thoroughly ill-natured and bad. They were not devoid of a certain cleverness; but they were the sour products of a soured nature. But that man gradually got into comfortable circumstances: and with equal step with his lot the tone of his writings mended, till, as a writer, he became conspicuous for the healthful, cheerful, and kindly nature of all he produced. I remember seeing a portrait of an eminent author, taken a good many years ago, at a time when he was struggling into notice, and when he was being very severely handled by the critics. That portrait was really truculent of aspect. It was sour, and even ferocious-looking. Years afterwards I saw that author, at a time when he had attained vast success, and was universally recognized as a great man. How improved that face! All the savage lines were gone; the bitter look was gone; the great man looked quite genial and amiable. And I came to know that he really was all he looked. Bitter judgments of men, imputations of evil motives, disbelief in anything noble or generous, a disposition to repeat tales to the prejudice of others, envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness,—all these things may possibly come out of a bad heart; but they certainly come out of a miserable one. The happier any human being is, the better and more kindly he thinks of all. It is the man who is always worried, whose means are uncertain, whose home is uncomfortable, whose nerves are rasped by some kind friend who daily repeats and enlarges upon everything disagreeable for him to hear,—it is he who thinks hardly of the character and prospects of humankind, and who believes in the essential and unimprovable badness of the race.

* * * * *

This is not a treatise on the formation of character: it pretends to nothing like completeness. If this essay were to extend to a volume of about three hundred and eighty pages, I might be able to set out and discuss, in something like a full and orderly fashion, the influences under which human beings grow up, and the way in which to make the best of the best of these influences, and to evade or neutralize the worst. And if, after great thought and labor, I had produced such a volume, I am well aware that nobody would read it. So I prefer to briefly glance at a few aspects of a great subject just as they present themselves, leaving the complete discussion of it to solid individuals with more leisure at their command.

* * * * *

Physically, no man is made the most of. Look at an acrobat or a boxer: there is what your limbs might have been made for strength and agility: that is the potential which is in human nature in these respects. I never witnessed a prize-fight, and assuredly I never will witness one: but I am told, that, when the champions appear in the ring, stripped for the combat, (however bestial and blackguard-looking their countenances may be,) the clearness and beauty of their skin testify that by skilful physical discipline a great deal more may be made of that human hide than is usually made of it. Then, if you wish to see what may be made of the human muscles as regards rapid dexterity, look at the Wizard of the North or at an Indian juggler. I am very far, indeed, from saying or thinking that this peculiar preeminence is worth the pains it must cost to acquire it. Not that I have a word to say against the man who maintains his children by bringing some one faculty of the body to absolute perfection: I am ready even to admit that it is a very right and fit thing that one man in five or six millions should devote his life to showing the very utmost that can be made of the human fingers, or the human muscular system as a whole. It is fit that a rare man here and there should cultivate some accomplishment to a perfection that looks magical, just as it is fit that a man here and there should live in a house that cost a million of pounds to build, and round which a wide tract of country shows what may be made of trees and fields where unlimited wealth and exquisite taste have done their best to improve Nature to the fairest forms of which it is capable. But even if it were possible, it would not be desirable that all human beings should live in dwellings like Hamilton Palace or Arundel Castle; and it would serve no good end at all, certainly no end worth the cost, to have all educated men muscular as Tom Sayers, or swift of hand as Robert Houdin. Practical efficiency is what is wanted for the business of this world, not absolute perfection: life is too short to allow any but exceptional individuals, few and far between, to acquire the power of playing at rackets as well as rackets can possibly be played. We are obliged to have a great number of irons in the fire: it is needful that we should do decently well a great number of things; and we must not devote ourselves to one thing, to the exclusion of all the rest. And accordingly, though we may desire to be reasonably muscular and reasonably active, it will not disturb us to think that in both these respects we are people of whom more might have been made. It may here be said that probably there is hardly an influence which tends so powerfully to produce extreme self-complacency as the conviction, that, as regards some one physical accomplishment, one is a person of whom more could not have been made. It is a proud thing to think that you stand decidedly ahead of all mankind: that Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere; even in the matter of keeping up six balls at once, or of noting and remembering twenty different objects in a shop-window as you walk past it at five miles an hour. I do not think I ever beheld a human being whose aspect was of such unutterable pride as a man I lately saw playing the drum as one of a certain splendid military band. He was playing in a piece in which the drum music was very conspicuous; and even an unskilled observer could remark that his playing was absolute perfection. He had the thorough mastery of his instrument. He did the most difficult things not only with admirable precision, but without the least appearance of effort. He was a great, tall fellow: and it was really a fine sight to see him standing very upright, and immovable save as to his arms, looking fixedly into distance, and his bosom swelling with the lofty belief, that, out of four or five thousand persons who were present, there was not one who, to save his life, could have done what he was doing so easily.

So much of physical dexterity. As for physical grace, it will be admitted that in that respect more might be made of most human beings. It is not merely that they are ugly and awkward naturally, but that they are ugly and awkward artificially. Sir Bulwer Lytton, in his earlier writings, was accustomed to maintain, that, just as it is a man's duty to cultivate his mental powers, so is it his duty to cultivate his bodily appearance. And doubtless all the gifts of Nature are talents committed to us to be improved; they are things intrusted to us to make the best of. It may be difficult to fix the point at which the care of personal appearance in man or woman becomes excessive. It does so unquestionably when it engrosses the mind to the neglect of more important things. But I suppose that all reasonable people now believe that scrupulous attention to personal cleanliness, freshness, and neatness is a Christian duty. The days are past, almost everywhere, in which piety was held to be associated with dirt. Nobody would mention now, as a proof how saintly a human being was, that, for the love of God, he had never washed his face or brushed his hair for thirty years. And even scrupulous neatness need bring with it no suspicion of puppyism. The most trim and tidy of old men was good John Wesley; and he conveyed to the minds of all who saw him the notion of a man whose treasure was laid up beyond this world, quite as much as if he had dressed in such a fashion as to make himself an object of ridicule, or as if he had forsworn the use of soap. Some people fancy that slovenliness of attire indicates a mind above petty details. I have seen an eminent preacher ascend the pulpit with his bands hanging over his right shoulder, his gown apparently put on by being dropped upon him from the vestry ceiling, and his hair apparently unbrushed for several weeks. There was no suspicion of affectation about that good man; yet I regarded his untidiness as a defect, and not as an excellence. He gave a most eloquent sermon; yet I thought it would have been well, had the lofty mind that treated so admirably some of the grandest realities of life and of immortality been able to address itself a little to the care of lesser things. I confess, that, when I heard the Bishop of Oxford preach, I thought the effect of his sermon was increased by the decorous and careful fashion in which he was arrayed in his robes. And it is to be admitted that the grace of the human aspect may be in no small measure enhanced by bestowing a little pains upon it. You, youthful matron, when you take your little children to have their photographs taken, and when their nurse, in contemplation of that event, attired them in their most tasteful dresses and arranged their hair in its prettiest curls, you know that the little things looked a great deal better than they do on common days. It is pure nonsense to say that beauty when unadorned is adorned the most. For that is as much as to say that a pretty young woman, in the matter of physical appearance, is a person of whom no more can be made. Now taste and skill can make more of almost anything. And you will set down Thomson's lines as flatly opposed to fact, when your lively young cousin walks into your room to let you see her before she goes out to an evening party, and when you compare that radiant vision, in her robes of misty texture, and with hair arranged in folds the most complicated, wreathed, and satin-shoed, with the homely figure that took a walk with you that afternoon, russet-gowned, tartan-plaided, and shod with serviceable boots for tramping through country mud. One does not think of loveliness in the case of men, because they have not got any; but their aspect, such as it is, is mainly made by their tailors. And it is a lamentable thought, how very ill the clothes of most men are made. I think that the art of draping the male human body has been brought to much less excellence by the mass of those who practise it than any other of the useful and ornamental arts. Tailors, even in great cities, are generally extremely bad. Or it may be that the providing the human frame with decent and well-fitting garments is so very difficult a thing that (save by a great genius here and there) it can be no more than approximated to. As for tailors in little country villages, their power of distorting and disfiguring is wonderful. When I used to be a country clergyman, I remember how, when I went to the funeral of some simple rustic, I was filled with surprise to see the tall, strapping, fine young country lads, arrayed in their black suits. What awkward figures they looked in those unwonted garments! How different from their easy, natural appearance in their every-day fustian! Here you would see a young fellow with a coat whose huge collar covered half his head when you looked at him from behind; a very common thing was to have sleeves which entirely concealed the hands; and the wrinkled and baggy aspect of the whole suits could be imagined only by such as have seen them. It may be remarked here, that those strong country lads were in another respect people of whom more might have been physically made. Oh for a drill-sergeant to teach them to stand upright, and to turn out their toes, and to get rid of that slouching, hulking gait which gives such a look of clumsiness and stupidity! If you could but have the well-developed muscles and the fresh complexion of the country with the smartness and alertness of the town! You have there the rough material of which a vast deal may be made; you have the water-worn pebble which will take on a beautiful polish. Take from the moorland cottage the shepherd lad of sixteen; send him to a Scotch college for four years; let him be tutor in a good family for a year or two; and if he be an observant fellow, you will find in him the quiet, self-possessed air and the easy address of the gentleman who has seen the world. And it is curious to see one brother of a family thus educated and polished into refinement, while the other three or four, remaining in their father's simple lot, retain its rough manners and its unsophisticated feelings. Well, look at the man who has been made a gentleman,—probably by the hard labor and sore self-denial of the others,—and see in him what each of the others might have been! Look with respect on the diamond which needed only to be polished! Reverence the undeveloped potential which circumstances have held down! Look with interest on these people of whom more might have been made!

Such a sight as this sometimes sets us thinking how many germs of excellence are in this world turned to no account. You see the polished diamond and the rough one side by side. It is too late now; but the dull colorless pebble might have been the bright glancing gem. And you may polish the material diamond at any time; but if you miss your season in the case of the human one, the loss can never be repaired. The bumpkin who is a bumpkin at thirty must remain a bumpkin to threescore and ten. But another thing that makes us think how many fair possibilities are lost is to remark the fortuitous way in which great things have often been done,—and done by people who never dreamt that they had in them the power to do anything particular. These cases, one cannot but think, are samples of millions more. There have been very popular writers who were brought out by mere accident. They did not know what precious vein of thought they had at command, till they stumbled upon it as if by chance, like the Indian at the mines of Potosi. It is not much that we know of Shakspeare, but it seems certain that it was in patching up old plays for acting that he discovered within himself a capacity for producing that which men will not easily let die. When a young military man, disheartened with the service, sought for an appointment as an Irish Commissioner of Excise, and was sadly disappointed because he did not get it, it is probable that he had as little idea as any one else had that he possessed that aptitude for the conduct of war which was to make him the Duke of Wellington. And when a young mathematician, entirely devoid of ambition, desired to settle quietly down and devote all his life to that unexciting study, he was not aware that he was a person of whom more was to be made,—who was to grow into the great Emperor Napoleon. I had other instances in my mind, but after these last it is needless to mention them. But such cases suggest to us that there may have been many Folletts who never held a brief, many Keans who never acted but in barns, many Vandyks who never earned more than sixpence a day, many Goldsmiths who never were better than penny-a-liners, many Michaels who never built their St. Peters,—and perhaps a Shakspeare who held horses at the theatre-door for pence, as the Shakspeare we know of did, and who stopped there.

Let it here be suggested, that it is highly illogical to conclude that you are yourself a person of whom a great deal more might have been made, merely because you are a person of whom it is the fact that very little has actually been made. This suggestion may appear a truism; but it is one of those simple truths of which we all need to be occasionally reminded. After all, the great test of what a man can do must be what a man does. But there are folk who live on the reputation of being pebbles capable of receiving a very high polish, though from circumstances they did not choose to be polished. There are people who stand high in general estimation on the ground of what they might have done, if they had liked. You will find students who took no honors at the university, but who endeavor to impress their friends with the notion, that, if they had chosen, they could have attained to unexampled eminence. And sometimes, no doubt, there are great powers that run to waste. There have been men whose doings, splendid as they were, were no more than a hint of how much more they could have done. In such a case as that of Coleridge, you see how the lack of steady industry and of all sense of responsibility abated the tangible result of the noble intellect God gave him. But as a general rule, and in the case of ordinary people, you need not give a man credit for the possession of any powers beyond those which he has actually exhibited. If a boy is at the bottom of his class, it is probably because he could not attain its top. My friend Mr. Snarling thinks he can write much better articles than those which appear in the "Atlantic Monthly"; but as he has not done so, I am not inclined to give him credit for the achievement. But you can see that this principle of estimating people's abilities, not by what they have done, but by what they think they could do, will be much approved by persons who are stupid and at the same time conceited. It is a pleasing arrangement, that every man should fix his own mental mark, and hold by his estimate of himself. And then, never measuring his strength with others, he can suppose that he could have beat them, if he had tried.

* * * * *

Yes, we are all mainly fashioned by circumstances; and had the circumstances been more propitious, they might have made a great deal more of us. You sometimes think, middle-aged man, who never have passed the limits of Britain, what an effect might have been produced upon your views and character by foreign travel. You think what an indefinite expansion of mind it might have caused,—how many narrow prejudices it might have rubbed away,—how much wiser and better a man it might have made you. Or more society and wider reading in your early youth might have improved you,—might have taken away the shyness and the intrusive individuality which you sometimes feel painfully,—might have called out one cannot say what of greater confidence and larger sympathy. How very little, you think to yourself, you have seen and known! While others skim great libraries, you read the same few books over and over; while others come to know many lands and cities, and the faces and ways of many men, you look, year after year, on the same few square miles of this world, and you have to form your notion of human nature from the study of but few human beings, and these very commonplace. Perhaps it is as well. It is not so certain that more would have been made of you, if you had enjoyed what might seem greater advantages. Perhaps you learned more, by studying the little field before you earnestly and long, than you would have learned, if you had bestowed a cursory glance upon fields more extensive by far. Perhaps there was compensation for the fewness of the cases you had to observe in the keenness with which you were able to observe them. Perhaps the Great Disposer saw that in your case the pebble got nearly all the polishing it would stand,—the man nearly all the chances he could improve.

If there be soundness and justice in this suggestion, it may afford consolation to a considerable class of men and women: I mean those people who, feeling within themselves many defects of character, and discerning in their outward lot much which they would wish other than it is, are ready to think that some one thing would have put them right,—that some one thing would put them right even yet,—but something which they have hopelessly missed, something which can never be. There was just one testing event which stood between them and their being made a vast deal more of. They would have been far better and far happier, they think, had some single malign influence been kept away which has darkened all their life, or had some single blessing been given which would have made it happy. If you had got such a parish, which you did not get,—if you had married such a woman,—if your little child had not died,—if you had always the society and sympathy of such an energetic and hopeful friend,—if the scenery round your dwelling were of a different character,—if the neighboring town were four miles off, instead of fifteen,—if any one of these circumstances had been altered, what a different man you might have been! Probably many people, even of middle age, conscious that the manifold cares and worries of life forbid that it should be evenly joyous, do yet cherish at the bottom of their heart some vague, yet rooted fancy, that, if but one thing were given on which they have set their hearts, or one care removed forever, they would be perfectly happy, even here. Perhaps you overrate the effect which would have been produced on your character by such a single cause. It might not have made you much better; it might not even have made you very different. And assuredly you are wrong in fancying that any such single thing could have made you happy,—that is, entirely happy. Nothing in this world could ever make you that. It is not God's purpose that we should be entirely happy here, "This is not our rest." The day will never come which will not bring its worry. And the possibility of terrible misfortune and sorrow hangs over all. There is but One Place where we shall be right; and that is far away.

* * * * *

Yes, more might have been made of all of us; probably, in the case of most, not much more will be made in this world. We are now, if we have reached middle life, very much what we shall be to the end of the chapter. We shall not, in this world, be much better; let us humbly trust that we shall not be worse. Yet, if there be an undefinable sadness in looking at the marred material of which so much more might have been made, there is a sublime hopefulness in the contemplation of material, bodily and mental, of which a great deal more and better will certainly yet be made. Not much more may be made of any of us in life; but who shall estimate what may be made of us in immortality? Think of a "spiritual body"! think of a perfectly pure and happy soul! I thought of this, on a beautiful evening of this summer, walking with a much valued friend through a certain grand ducal domain. In front of a noble sepulchre, where is laid up much aristocratic dust, there are sculptured, by some great artist, three colossal faces, which are meant to represent Life, Death, and Immortality. It was easy to represent Death: the face was one of solemn rest, with closed eyes; and the sculptor's skill was mainly shown in distinguishing Life from Immortality. And he had done it well. There was Life: a care-worn, anxious, weary face, that seemed to look at you earnestly, and with a vague inquiry for something,—the something that is lacking in all things here. And there was Immortality: life-like, but, oh, how different from mortal Life! There was the beautiful face, calm, satisfied, self-possessed, sublime, and with eyes looking far away. I see it yet, the crimson sunset warming the gray stone,—and a great hawthorn-tree, covered with blossoms, standing by. Yes, there was Immortality; and you felt, as you looked at it,—that it was MORE MADE OF LIFE!

* * * * *

MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY.

That exquisite writer, Horae Subsecivae Brown, quotes, (without comment,) as a motto to one of his volumes, an anecdote from Pierce Egan, which I reproduce here:—

"A lady, resident in Devonshire, going into one of her parlors, discovered a young ass, who had found its way into the room, and carefully closed the door upon himself. He had evidently not been long in this situation before he had nibbled a part of Cicero's Orations, and eaten nearly all the index of a folio edition of Seneca in Latin, a large part of a volume of La Bruyere's 'Maxims' in French, and several pages of 'Cecilia.' He had done no other mischief whatever."

Spare your wit, Sir, or Madam! Why should you laugh, and apply the sting in Mr. Egan's story to the case of "Yours Truly"?

* * * * *

I scarcely know a greater pleasure than to be allowed for a whole day to spend the hours unmolested in my friend's library. So much privilege abounds there, I call it Urbanity Hall. It is a plain, modestly appointed apartment, overlooking a broad sheet of water; and I can see, from where I like to sit and read, the sail-boats go tilting by, and glancing across the bay. Sometimes, when a rainy day sets in, I run down to my friend's house, and ask leave to browse about the library,—not so much for the sake of reading, as for the intense enjoyment I have in turning over the books that have a personal history as it were. Many of them once belonged to authors whose libraries have been dispersed. My friend has enriched her editions with autographic notes of those fine spirits who wrote the books which illumine her shelves, so that one is constantly coming upon some fresh treasure in the way of a literary curiosity. I am apt to discover something new every time I take down a folio or a miniature volume. As I ramble on from shelf to shelf,

"Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,"

and the hours often slip by into the afternoon, and glide noiselessly into twilight, before dinner-time is remembered. Drifting about only a few days ago, I came by accident upon a magic quarto, shabby enough in its exterior, with one of the covers hanging by the eyelids, and otherwise sadly battered, to the great disfigurement of its external aspect. I did not remember even to have seen it in the library before, (it turned out to be a new comer,) and was about to pass it by with an unkind thought as to its pauper condition, when it occurred to me, as the lettering was obliterated from the back, I might as well open to the title-page and learn the name at least of the tattered stranger. And I was amply rewarded for the attention. It turned out to be "The Novels and Tales of the Renowned John Boccacio, The first Refiner of Italian Prose: containing A Hundred Curious Novels, by Seven Honorable Ladies and Three Noble Gentlemen, Framed in Ten Days." It was printed in London in 1684, "for Awnsham Churchill, at the Black Swan at Amen Corner." But what makes this old yellow-leaved book a treasure-volume for all time is the inscription on the first fly-leaf, in the handwriting of a man of genius, who, many years ago, wrote thus on the blank page:

"To MARIANNE HUNT.

"Her Boccacio (alter et idem) come back to her after many years' absence, for her good-nature in giving it away in a foreign country to a traveller whose want of books was still worse than her own.

"From her affectionate husband,

"LEIGH HUNT.

"August 23,1839—Chelsea, England."

This record tells a most interesting story, and reveals to us an episode in the life of the poet, well worth the knowing. I hope no accident will ever cancel this old leather-bound veteran from the world's bibliographic treasures. Spare it, Fire, Water, and Worms! for it does the heart good to handle such a quarto.

* * * * *

One does not need to look far among the shelves in my friend's library to find companion-gems of this antiquated tome. Among so many of

"The assembled souls of all that men held wise,"

there is no solitude of the mind. I reach out my hand at random, and, lo! the first edition of Milton's "Paradise Lost"! It is a little brown volume, "Printed by S. Simmons, and to be sold by S. Thomson at the Bishop's-Head in Duck Lane, by H. Mortlack at the White Hart in Westminster Hall, M. Walker under St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet Street, and R. Boulten at the Turk's Head in Bishopsgate Street, 1668." Foolish old Simmons deemed it necessary to insert over his own name the following notice, which heads the Argument to the Poem:—

"THE PRINTER TO THE READER.

"Courteous Reader, There was no Argument at first intended to the Book, but for the satisfaction of many that have desired it, I have procured it, and withall a reason of that which stumbled many others, why the Poem Rimes not."

The "Argument," which Milton omitted in subsequent editions, is very curious throughout; and the reason which the author gives, at the request of Mr. Publisher Simmons, why the poem "Rimes not," is quaint and well worth transcribing an extract here, as it does not always appear in more modern editions. Mr. Simmons's Poet is made to say,—

"The Measure is English Heroic Verse without Rime, as that of Homers in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin; Rime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter; grac't indeed since by the use of some famous modern Poets, carried away by Custom, but much to their own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worse then else they would have exprest them."

We give the orthography precisely as Milton gave it in this his first edition.

There is a Table of Errata prefixed to this old copy, in which the reader is told,

"for hundreds read hunderds. for we read wee."

Master Simmons's proof-reader was no adept in his art, if one may judge from the countless errors which he allowed to creep into this immortal poem when it first appeared in print. One can imagine the identical copy now before us being handed over the counter in Duck Lane to some eager scholar on the look-out for something new, and handed back again to Mr. Thomson as too dull a looking poem for his perusal. Mr. Edmund Waller entertained that idea of it, at any rate.

* * * * *

One of the sturdiest little books in my friend's library is a thick-set, stumpy old copy of Richard Baxter's "Holy Commonwealth," written in 1659, and, as the title-page informs us, "at the invitation of James Harrington Esquire,"—as one would take a glass of Canary,—by invitation! There is a preface addressed "To all those in the Army or elsewhere, that have caused our many and great Eclipses since 1646." The worms have made dagger-holes through and through the "inspired leaves" of this fat little volume, till much strong thinking is now very perforated printing. On the flyleaf is written, in a rough, straggling hand,

"WILLIAM WORDSWORTH,

"Rydal Mount."

The poet seems to have read the old book pretty closely, for there are evident marks of his liking throughout its pages.

* * * * *

Connected with the Bard of the Lakes is another work in my friend's library, which I always handle with a tender interest. It is a copy of Wordsworth's Poetical Works, printed in 1815, with all the alterations afterwards made in the pieces copied in by the poet from the edition published in 1827. Some of the changes are marked improvements, and nearly all make the meaning clearer. Now and then a prosaic phrase gives place to a more poetical expression. The well-known lines,

"Of Him who walked in glory and in joy, Following his plough along the mountain-side,"

read at first,

"Behind his plough upon the mountain-side."

* * * * *

In a well-preserved quarto copy of "Rasselas," with illustrations by Smirke, which my friend picked up in London a few years ago, I found the other day an unpublished autograph letter from Dr. Johnson, so characteristic of the great man that it is worth transcribing. It is addressed

"_To the Reverend Mr. Compton.

"To be sent to Mrs. Williams_."

And it is thus worded:—

"Sir,

"Your business, I suppose, is in a way of as easy progress as such business ever has. It is seldom that event keeps pace with expectation.

"The scheme of your book I cannot say that I fully comprehend. I would not have you ask less than an hundred guineas, for it seems a large octavo.

"Go to Mr. Davis, in Russell Street, show him this letter, and show him the book if he desires to see it. He will tell you what hopes you may form, and to what Bookseller you should apply.

"If you succeed in selling your book, you may do better than by dedicating it to me. You may perhaps obtain permission to dedicate it to the Bishop of London, or to Dr. Vyse, and make way by your book to more advantage than I can procure you.

"Please to tell Mrs. Williams that I grow better, and that I wish to know how she goes on. You, Sir, may write for her to,

"Sir,

"Your most humble Servant,

"SAM: JOHNSON.

"Octo. 24, 1782."

Dear kind-hearted old bear! On turning to Boswell's Life of his Ursine Majesty, we learn who Mr. Compton was. When the Doctor visited France in 1775, the Benedictine Monks in Paris entertained him in the most friendly way. One of them, the Rev. James Compton, who had left England at the early age of six to reside on the Continent, questioned him pretty closely about the Protestant faith, and proposed, if at some future time he should go to England to consider the subject more deeply, to call at Bolt Court. In the summer of 1782 he paid the Doctor a visit, and informed him of his desire to be admitted into the Church of England. Johnson managed the matter satisfactorily for him, and he was received into communion in St. James's Parish Church. Till the end of January, 1783, he lived entirely at the Doctor's expense, his own means being very scanty. Through Johnson's kindness he was nominated Chaplain at the French Chapel of St. James's, and in 1802 we hear of him as being quite in favor with the excellent Bishop Porteus and several other distinguished Londoners. Thus, by the friendly hand of the hard-working, earnest old lexicographer, Mr. Compton was led from deep poverty up to a secure competency, and a place among the influential dignitaries of London society. Poor enough himself, Johnson never shrank back, when there was an honest person in distress to be helped on in the battle of life. God's blessing on his memory for all his sympathy with struggling humanity!

* * * * *

My friend has an ardent affection for Walter Scott and Charles Lamb. I find the first edition of "Marmion," printed in 1808, "by J. Ballantyne & Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, Edinburgh," most carefully bound in savory Russia, standing in a pleasant corner of the room. Being in quarto, the type is regal. Of course the copy is enriched with a letter in the handwriting of Sir Walter. It is addressed to a personal friend, and is dated April 17, 1825. The closing passage in it is of especial interest.

"I have seen Sheridan's last letter imploring Rogers to come to his assistance. It stated that he was dying, and concluded abruptly with these words 'they are throwing the things out of window.' The memorialist certainly took pennyworths out of his friend's character.—I sate three hours for my picture to Sir Thomas Lawrence during which the whole conversation was filled up by Rogers with stories of Sheridan, for the least of which if true he deserved the gallows."

Ever Yours, "WALTER SCOTT."

In the April of 1802 Scott was living in a pretty cottage at Lasswade; and while there he sent off the following letter, which I find attached with a wafer to my friend's copy of the Abbotsford edition of his works, and written in a much plainer hand than he afterwards fell into. The address is torn off.

"SIR,

"I esteem myself honored by the polite reception which you have given to the Border Minstrelsy and am particularly flattered that so very good a judge of poetical Antiquities finds any reason to be pleased with the work.—There is no portrait of the Flower of Yarrow in existence, nor do I think it very probable that any was ever taken. Much family anecdote concerning her has been preserved among her descendants of whom I have the honor to be one. The epithet of 'Flower of Yarrow' was in later times bestowed upon one of her immediate posterity, Miss Mary Lillias Scott, daughter of John Scott Esq. of Harden, and celebrated for her beauty in the pastoral song of Tweedside,—I mean that set of modern words which begins 'What beauty does Flora disclose.' This lady I myself remember very well, and I mention her to you least you should receive any inaccurate information owing to her being called like her predecessor the 'Flower of Yarrow.' There was a portrait of this latter lady in the collection at Hamilton which the present Duke transferred through my hands to Lady Diana Scott relict of the late Walter Scott Esq. of Harden, which picture was vulgarly but inaccurately supposed to have been a resemblance of the original Mary Scott, daughter of Philip Scott of Dryhope, and married to Auld Wat of Harden in the middle of the 16th century.

"I shall be particularly happy if upon any future occasion I can in the slightest degree contribute to advance your valuable and patriotic labours, and I remain, Sir,

"Your very faithful

"and obt. Servant

"WALTER SCOTT."

This letter is worthy to be printed, and the readers of the "Atlantic Monthly" now see it for the first time, I believe, set in type.

* * * * *

Old Bernard Lintott, at the Cross-Keys in Fleet Street, brought out in 1714 "The Rape of the Lock, an Heroi-Comical Poem, in Five Cantos, written by Mr. Pope." He printed certain words in the title-page in red, and other certain words in black ink. His own name and Mr. Pope's he chose to exhibit in sanguinary tint. A copy of this edition, very much thumbed and wanting half a dozen leaves, fell into the hands of Charles Lamb more than a hundred years after it was published. Charles bore it home, and set to work to supply, in his small neat hand, from another edition, what was missing from the text in his stall-bought copy. As he paid only sixpence for his prize, he could well afford the time it took him to write in on blank leaves, which he inserted, the lines from

"Thus far both armies to Belinda yield,"

onward to the couplet,

"And thrice they twitch'd the Diamond in her Ear, Thrice she look'd back, and thrice the Foe drew near."

Besides this autographic addition, enhancing forever the value of this old copy of Pope's immortal poem, I find the following little note, in Lamb's clerkly chirography, addressed to

"Mr. Wainright, on Thursday.

"Dear Sir,

"The Wits (as Clare calls us) assemble at my cell (20 Russell Street, Cov. Gar.) this evening at 1/4 before 7. Cold meat at 9. Puns at——a little after. Mr. Cary wants to see you, to scold you. I hope you will not fail.

"Yours &c. &c. &c.

"C. LAMB."

There are two books in my friend's library which once belonged to the author of the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." One of them is "A Voyage to and from the Island of Borneo, in the East Indies: printed for T. Warner at the Black Boy, and F. Batley at the Dove, in 1718." It has the name of T. Gray, written by himself, in the middle of the title-page, as was his custom always. Before Gray owned this book, it belonged to Mr. Antrobus, his uncle, who wrote many original notes in it. The volume has also this manuscript memorandum on one of the fly-leaves, signed by a well-known naturalist, now living in England:—

"August 28, 1851.

"This book has Gray's autograph on the title page, written in his usual neat hand. It has twice been my fate to witness the sale of Gray's most interesting collection of manuscripts and books, and at the last sale I purchased this volume. I present it to —— as a little token of affectionate regard by her old friend, now in his 85th year."

Who will not be willing to admit the great good-luck of my friend in having such a donor for an acquaintance?

But one of the chief treasures in the library of which I write is Gray's copy of Milton's "Poems upon several occasions. Both English and Latin. Printed at the Blew Anchor next Mitre Court over against Fetter Lane in Fleet Street." When a boy at school, Gray owned and read this charming old volume, and he has printed his name, school-boy fashion, all over the title-page. Wherever there is a vacant space big enough to hold Thomas Gray, there it stands in faded ink, still fading as time rolls on. The Latin poems seem to have been most carefully conned by the youthful Etonian, and we know how much he esteemed them in after-life.

* * * * *

Scholarly Robert Southey once owned a book that now towers aloft in my friend's library. It is a princely copy of Ben Jonson, the Illustrious. Southey lent it, when he possessed the magnifico, to Coleridge, who has begemmed it all over with his fine pencillings. As Ben once handled the trowel, and did other honorable work as a bricklayer, Coleridge discourses with much golden gossip about the craft to which the great dramatist once belonged. The editor of this magazine would hardly thank me, if I filled ten of his pages with extracts from the rambling dissertations in S.T.C.'s handwriting which I find in this rare folio, but I could easily pick out that amount of readable matter from the margins. One manuscript anecdote, however, I must transcribe from the last leaf. I think Coleridge got the story from "The Seer."

"An Irish laborer laid a wager with another hod bearer that the latter could not carry him up the ladder to the top of a house in his hod, without letting him fall. The bet is accepted, and up they go. There is peril at every step. At the top of the ladder there is life and the loss of the wager,—death and success below! The highest point is reached in safety; the wagerer looks humbled and disappointed. 'Well,' said he, 'you have won; there is no doubt of that; worse luck to you another time; but at the third story I HAD HOPES.'"

* * * * *

In a quaint old edition of "The Spectator," which seems to have been through many sieges, and must have come to grief very early in its existence, if one may judge anything from the various names which are scrawled upon it in different years, reaching back almost to the date of its publication, I find this note in the handwriting of Addison, sticking fast on the reverse side of his portrait. It is addressed to Ambrose Philips, and there is no doubt that he went where he was bidden, and found the illustrious Joseph all ready to receive him at a well-furnished table.

"Tuesday Night.

"Sir,

"If you are at leisure for an hour, your company will be a great obligation to

"Yr. most humble sev't.

"J. Addison.

"Fountain Tavern."

That night at the "Fountain," perchance, they discussed that war of words which might then have been raging between the author of the "Pastorals" and Pope, moistening their clay with a frequency to which they were both somewhat notoriously inclined.

My friend rides hard her hobby for choice editions, and she hunts with a will whenever a good old copy of a well-beloved author is up for pursuit. She is not a fop in binding, but she must have appropriate dresses for her favorites. She knows what

"Adds a precious seeing to the eye"

as well as Hayday himself, and never lets her folios shiver when they ought to be warm. Moreover, she reads her books, and, like the scholar in Chaucer, would rather have

"At her beddes head A twenty bokes, clothed in black and red, Of Aristotle and his philosophy, Than robes rich, or fiddle, or psaltrie."

I found her not long ago deep in a volume of "Mr. Welsted's Poems"; and as that author is not particularly lively or inviting to a modern reader, I begged to know why he was thus honored. "I was trying," said she, "to learn, if possible, why Dicky Steele should have made his daughter a birth-day gift of these poems. This copy I found on a stall in Fleet Street many years ago, and it has in Sir Richard's handwriting this inscription on one of the fly-leaves:—

"ELIZABETH STEELE Her Book Giv'n by Her Father RICHARD STEELE. March 20th, 1723.

"Running my eye over the pieces, I find a poem in praise of 'Apple-Pye,' and one of the passages in it is marked, as if to call the attention of young Eliza to something worthy her notice. These are the lines the young lady is charged to remember:—

"'Dear Nelly, learn with Care the Pastry-Art, And mind the easy Precepts I impart: Draw out your Dough elaborately thin. And cease not to fatigue your Rolling-Pin: Of Eggs and Butter see you mix enough; For then the Paste will swell into a Puff, Which will in crumpling Sounds your Praise report, And eat, as Housewives speak, exceeding short.'"

Who was Abou Ben Adhem? Was his existence merely in the poet's brain, or did he walk this planet somewhere,—and when? In a copy of the "Bibliotheque Orientale," which once belonged to the author of that exquisite little gem of poesy beginning with a wish that Abou's tribe might increase, I find (the leaf is lovingly turned down and otherwise noted) the following account of the forever famous dreamer.

"Adhem was the name of a Doctor celebrated for Mussulman traditions. He was the contemporary of Aamarsch, another relater of traditions of the first class. Adhem had a son noted for his doctrine and his piety. The Mussulmans place him among the number of their Saints who have done miracles. He was named Abou-Ishak-Ben-Adhem. It is said he was distinguished for his piety from his earliest youth, and that he joined the Sofis, or the Religious sect in Mecca, under the direction of Fodhail. He went from there to Damas, where he died in the year 166 of the Hegira. He undertook, it is said, to make a pilgrimage from Mecca, and to pass through the desert alone and without provisions, making a thousand genuflexions for every mile of the way. It is added that he was twelve years in making this journey, during which he was often tempted and alarmed by Demons. The Khalife Haroun Raschid, making the same pilgrimage, met him upon the way and inquired after his welfare; the Sofi answered him with an Arabian quatrain, of which this is the meaning:—

"'We mend the rags of this worldly robe with the pieces of the robe of Religion, which we tear apart for this end;

"'And we do our work so thoroughly that nothing remains of the latter,

"'And the garment we mend escapes out of our hands.

"'Happy is the servant who has chosen God for his master, and who employs his present good only to acquire those which he awaits.'

"It is related also of Abou, that he saw in a dream an Angel who wrote, and that having demanded what he was doing, the Angel answered, 'I write the names of those who love God sincerely, those who perform Malek-Ben-Dinar, Thaber-al-Benani, Aioud-al-Sakhtiani, etc.' Then said he to the Angel, 'Am I not placed among these?' 'No,' replied the Angel. 'Ah, well,' said he, 'write me, then, I pray you, for love of these, as the friend of all who love the Lord.' It is added, that the same Angel revealed to him soon after that he had received an order from God to place him at the head of all the rest. This is the same Abou who said that he preferred Hell with the will of God to Paradise without it; or, as another writer relates it: 'I love Hell, if I am doing the will of God, better than the enjoyments of Paradise and disobedience.'"

* * * * *

With books printed by "B. Franklin, Philadelphia," my friend's library is richly stored. One of them is "The Charter of Privileges, granted by William Penn Esq: to the Inhabitants of Pennsylvania and Territories." "PRINTED AND SOLD BY B. FRANKLIN" looks odd enough on the dingy title-page of this old volume, and the contents are full of interest. Rough days were those when "Jehu Curtis" was "Speaker of the House," and put his name to such documents as this:—

"And Be it Further Enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any Person shall wilfully or premeditately be guilty of Blasphemy, and shall thereof be legally convicted, the Person so offending shall, for every such Offence, be set in the Pillory for the space of Two Hours, and be branded on his or her Foreshead with the letter B, and be publickly whipt, on his or her bare Back, with Thirty nine Lashes well laid on."

* * * * *

But I am rambling on too far and too fast for to-day. Here is one more book, however, that I must say a word about, as it lies open on my knee, the gift of PUIR ROBBIE BURNS to a female friend,—his own poems,—the edition which gave him "so much real happiness to see in print." Laid in this copy of his works is a sad letter, in the poet's handwriting, which perhaps has never been printed. Addressed to Captain Hamilton, Dumfries, it is in itself a touching record of dear Robin's poverty, and a' that.

"SIR,

"It is needless to attempt an apology for my remissness to you in money matters; my conduct is beyond all excuse.—Literally, Sir, I had it not. The Distressful state of commerce at this town has this year taken from my otherwise scanty income no less than L20.—That part of my salary depends upon the Imposts, and they are no more for one year. I inclose you three guineas; and shall soon settle all with you. I shall not mention your goodness to me; it is beyond my power to describe either the feelings of my wounded soul at not being able to pay you as I ought; or the grateful respect with which I have the honor to be

"Sir, Your deeply obliged humble servant,

"ROBT. BURNS.

"Dumfries, Jany. 29, 1795."

And so I walk out of my friend's leafy paradise this July afternoon, thinking of the bard who in all his songs and sorrows made

"rustic life and poverty Grow beautiful beneath his touch,"

and whose mission it was

"To weigh the inborn worth of man."



THE NAME IN THE BARK.

The self of so long ago, And the self I struggle to know, I sometimes think we are two,—or are we shadows of one? To-day the shadow I am Comes back in the sweet summer calm To trace where the earlier shadow flitted awhile in the sun.

Once more in the dewy morn I trod through the whispering corn, Cool to my fevered cheek soft breezy kisses were blown; The ribboned and tasselled grass Leaned over the flattering glass, And the sunny waters trilled the same low musical tone.

To the gray old birch I came, Where I whittled my school-boy name: The nimble squirrel once more ran skippingly over the rail, The blackbirds down among The alders noisily sung, And under the blackberry-brier whistled the serious quail.

I came, remembering well How my little shadow fell, As I painfully reached and wrote to leave to the future a sign: There, stooping a little, I found A half-healed, curious wound, An ancient scar in the bark, but no initial of mine!

Then the wise old boughs overhead Took counsel together, and said,— And the buzz of their leafy lips like a murmur of prophecy passed,— "He is busily carving a name In the tough old wrinkles of fame; But, cut he as deep as he may, the lines will close over at last!"

Sadly I pondered awhile, Then I lifted my soul with a smile, And I said,—"Not cheerful men, but anxious children are we, Still hurting ourselves with the knife, As we toil at the letters of life, Just marring a little the rind, never piercing the heart of the tree."

And now by the rivulet's brink I leisurely saunter, and think How idle this strife will appear when circling ages have run, If then the real I am Descend from the heavenly calm, To trace where the shadow I seem once flitted awhile in the sun.



AGNES OF SORRENTO.

CHAPTER XII.

PERPLEXITIES.

Agnes returned from the confessional with more sadness than her simple life had ever known before. The agitation of her confessor, the tremulous eagerness of his words, the alternations of severity and tenderness in his manner to her, all struck her only as indications of the very grave danger in which she was placed, and the awfulness of the sin and condemnation which oppressed the soul of one for whom she was conscious of a deep and strange interest.

She had the undoubting, uninquiring reverence which a Christianly educated child of those times might entertain for the visible head of the Christian Church, all whose doings were to be regarded with an awful veneration which never even raised a question.

That the Papal throne was now filled by a man who had bought his election with the wages of iniquity, and dispensed its powers and offices with sole reference to the aggrandizement of a family proverbial for brutality and obscenity, was a fact well known to the reasoning and enlightened orders of society at this time; but it did not penetrate into those lowly valleys where the sheep of the Lord humbly pastured, innocently unconscious of the frauds and violence by which their dearest interests were bought and sold.

The Christian faith we now hold, who boast our enlightened Protestantism, has been transmitted to us through the hearts and hands of such,—who, while princes wrangled with Pope, and Pope with princes, knew nothing of it all, but, in lowly ways of prayer and patient labor, were one with us of modern times in the great central belief of the Christian heart, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain."

As Agnes came slowly up the path towards the little garden, she was conscious of a burden and weariness of spirit she had never known before. She passed the little moist grotto, which in former times she never failed to visit to see if there were any new-blown cyclamen, without giving it even a thought. A crimson spray of gladiolus leaned from the rock and seemed softly to kiss her cheek, yet she regarded it not; and once stopping and gazing abstractedly upward on the flower-tapestried walls of the gorge, as they rose in wreath and garland and festoon above her, she felt as if the brilliant yellow of the broom and the crimson of the gillyflowers, and all the fluttering, nodding armies of brightness that were dancing in the sunlight, were too gay for such a world as this, where mortal sins and sorrows made such havoc with all that seemed brightest and best, and she longed to fly away and be at rest.

Just then she heard the cheerful voice of her uncle in the little garden above, as he was singing at his painting. The words were those of that old Latin hymn of Saint Bernard, which, in its English dress, has thrilled many a Methodist class-meeting and many a Puritan conference, telling, in the welcome they meet in each Christian soul, that there is a unity in Christ's Church which is not outward,—a secret, invisible bond, by which, under warring names and badges of opposition, His true followers have yet been one in Him, even though they discerned it not.

"Jesu dulcis memoria, Dans vera cordi gaudia: Sed super mel et omnia Ejus dulcis praesentia.

"Nil canitur suavius, Nil auditur jocundius, Nil cogitatur dulcius, Quam Jesus Dei Filius.

"Jesu, spes poenitentibus, Quam pius es petentibus, Quam bonus te quaerentibus, Sed quis invenientibus! Nec lingua valet dicere, Nec littera exprimere: Expertus potest credere Quid sit Jesum diligere."[A]

[Footnote A:

Jesus, the very thought of thee With sweetness fills my breast; But sweeter far thy face to see, And in thy presence rest!

Nor voice can sing, nor heart can frame, Nor can the memory find A sweeter sound than thy blest name, O Saviour of mankind!

O hope of every contrite heart, O joy of all the meek, To those who fall how kind thou art, How good to those who seek!

But what to those who find! Ah, this Nor tongue nor pen can show! The love of Jesus, what it is None but his loved ones know.]

The old monk sang with all his heart; and his voice, which had been a fine one in its day, had still that power which comes from the expression of deep feeling. One often hears this peculiarity in the voices of persons of genius and sensibility, even when destitute of any real critical merit. They seem to be so interfused with the emotions of the soul, that they strike upon the heart almost like the living touch of a spirit.

Agnes was soothed in listening to him. The Latin words, the sentiment of which had been traditional in the Church from time immemorial, had to her a sacred fragrance and odor; they were words apart from all common usage, a sacramental language, never heard but in moments of devotion and aspiration,—and they stilled the child's heart in its tossings and tempest, as when of old the Jesus they spake of walked forth on the stormy sea.

"Yes, He gave His life for us!" she said; "He is ever reigning for us!

"'Jesu dulcissime, e throno gloriae Ovem deperditam venisti quaerere! Jesu suavissime, pastor fidissime, Ad te O trahe me, ut semper sequar te!'"[B]

[Footnote B:

Jesus most beautiful, from thrones in glory, Seeking thy lost sheep, thou didst descend! Jesus most tender, shepherd most faithful, To thee, oh, draw thou me, that I may follow thee, Follow thee faithfully world without end!]

"What, my little one!" said the monk, looking over the wall; "I thought I heard angels singing. Is it not a beautiful morning?"

"Dear uncle, it is," said Agnes. "And I have been so glad to hear your beautiful hymn!—it comforted me."

"Comforted you, little heart? What a word is that! When you get as far along on your journey as your old uncle, then you may talk of comfort. But who thinks of comforting birds or butterflies or young lambs?"

"Ah, dear uncle, I am not so very happy," said Agnes, the tears starting into her eyes.

"Not happy?" said the monk, looking up from his drawing. "Pray, what's the matter now? Has a bee stung your finger? or have you lost your nosegay over a rock? or what dreadful affliction has come upon you?—hey, my little heart?"

Agnes sat down on the corner of the marble fountain, and, covering her face with her apron, sobbed as if her heart would break.

"What has that old priest been saying to her in the confession?" said Father Antonio to himself. "I dare say he cannot understand her. She is as pure as a dew-drop on a cobweb, and as delicate; and these priests, half of them don't know how to handle the Lord's lambs.—Come now, little Agnes," he said, with a coaxing tone, "what is its trouble?—tell its old uncle,—there's a dear!"

"Ah, uncle, I can't!" said Agnes, between her sobs.

"Can't tell its uncle!—there's a pretty go! Perhaps you will tell grandmamma?"

"Oh, no, no, no! not for the world!" said Agnes, sobbing still more bitterly.

"Why, really, little heart of mine, this is getting serious," said the monk; "let your old uncle try to help you."

"It isn't for myself," said Agnes, endeavoring to check her feelings,—"it is not for myself,—it is for another,—for a soul lost. Ah, my Jesus, have mercy!"

"A soul lost? Our Mother forbid!" said the monk, crossing himself. "Lost in this Christian land, so overflowing with the beauty of the Lord?—lost out of this fair sheepfold of Paradise?"

"Yes, lost," said Agnes, despairingly,—"and if somebody do not save him, lost forever; and it is a brave and noble soul, too,—like one of the angels that fell."

"Who is it, dear?—tell me about it," said the monk. "I am one of the shepherds whose place it is to go after that which is lost, even till I find it."

"Dear uncle, you remember the youth who suddenly appeared to us in the moonlight here a few evenings ago?"

"Ah, indeed!" said the monk,—"what of him?"

"Father Francesco has told me dreadful things of him this morning."

"What things?"

"Uncle, he is excommunicated by our Holy Father the Pope."

Father Antonio, as a member of one of the most enlightened and cultivated religious orders of the times, and as an intimate companion and disciple of Savonarola, had a full understanding of the character of the reigning Pope, and therefore had his own private opinion of how much his excommunication was likely to be worth in the invisible world. He knew that the same doom had been threatened towards his saintly master, for opposing and exposing the scandalous vices which disgraced the high places of the Church; so that, on the whole, when he heard that this young man was excommunicated, so far from being impressed with horror towards him, he conceived the idea that he might be a particularly honest fellow and good Christian. But then he did not hold it wise to disturb the faith of the simple-hearted by revealing to them the truth about the head of the Church on earth.

While the disorders in those elevated regions filled the minds of the intelligent classes with apprehension and alarm, they held it unwise to disturb the trustful simplicity of the lower orders, whose faith in Christianity itself they supposed might thus be shaken. In fact, they were themselves somewhat puzzled how to reconcile the patent and manifest fact, that the actual incumbent of the Holy See was not under the guidance of any spirit, unless it were a diabolical one, with the theory which supposed an infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit to attend as a matter of course on that position. Some of the boldest of them did not hesitate to declare that the Holy City had suffered a foul invasion, and that a false usurper reigned in her sacred palaces in place of the Father of Christendom. The greater part did as people now do with the mysteries and discrepancies of a faith which on the whole they revere: they turned their attention from the vexed question, and sighed and longed for better days.