possess them, have at all availed him in a case like this. Horror, blank horror, seized him upon seeing a woman, a young woman, a woman of captivating beauty, whom God had adorned so eminently with gifts of person and of mind, breathing sentiments that to him seemed fresh from the mintage of hell. He could have apostrophized her (as long afterwards he himself told me) in the words of Shakspeare's Juliet

"Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical !

for he was one of those who never think of Christianity as the subject of defence. Could sunshine, could light, could the glories of the dawn call for defence? Not as a thing to be defended, but as a thing to be interpreted, as a thing to be illuminated, did Christianity exist for him. He, therefore, was even more unserviceable as a champion against the deliberate impeacher of Christian evidences. than my reverend guardian.

Thus it was that he himself explained his own position in after days, when I had reached my sixteenth year, and visited him upon terms of friendship as close as can ever have existed between a boy and a man already gray headed. Him and his noiseless parsonage, the pensive abode for sixty years of religious revery and anchoritish self-denial, I have described farther on. In some limited sense he belongs to our literature, for he was, in fact, the introducer of Swedenborg to this country; as being himself partially the translator of Swedenborg; and still more as organizing a patronage to other people's translations; and also, I believe, as republishing the original Latin works of Swedenborg. To say that of Mr. Clowes, was, until lately, but another way of describing him as a delirious dreamer. At present, '1853,) I presume the reader to be aware that Camoridge has, within the last few years, unsettled and even

revolutionized our estimates of Swedenborg as a philosopher. That man, indeed, whom Emerson ranks as one amongst his inner consistory of intellectual potentates cannot be the absolute trifler that Kant, (who knew him only by the most trivial of his pretensions,) eighty years ago, supposed him. Assuredly, Mr. Clowes was no trifler but lived habitually a life of power, though in a world of religious mysticism and of apocalyptic visions. To him, being such a man by nature and by habit, it was in effect the lofty Lady Geraldine from Coleridge's "Christabel" that stood before him in this infidel lady. A magnificent witch she was, like the Lady Geraldine; having the same superb beauty; the same power of throwing spells over the ordinary gazer; and yet at intervals unmasking to some solitary, unfascinated spectator the same dull blink of a snaky eye; and revealing, through the most fugitive of gleams, a traitress couchant beneath what else to all others seemed the form of a lady, armed with incomparable pretensions one that was

"Beautiful exceedingly,

Like a lady from a far countrie."

The scene, as I heard it sketched long years afterwards by more than one of those who had witnessed it, was painful in excess. And the shock given to my mother was memorable. For the first and the last time in her long and healthy life, she suffered an alarming nervous attack. Partly this arose from the conflict between herself in the character of hostess, and herself as a loyal daughter of Christian faith; she shuddered, in a degree almost incontrollable and beyond her power to dissemble, at the unfeminine intrepidity with which "the leopardess" conducted her assaults upon the sheepfolds of orthodoxy; and partly, also, this internal conflict arose from concern

on behalf of her own servants, who waited at dinner, and were inevitably liable to impressions from what they heard. My mother, by original choice, and by early training under a very aristocratic father, recoiled as austerely from all direct communication with her servants as the Pythia at Delphi from the attendants that swept out the temple. But not the less her conscience, in all stages of her life, having or not having any special knowledge of religion, acknowledged a pathetic weight of obligation to remove from her household all confessedly corrupting influences. And here was one which she could not remove. What chiefly she feared, on behalf of her servants, was either, 1st, the danger from the simple fact, now suddenly made known to them, that it was possible for a person unusually gifted to deny Christianity; such a denial and haughty abjuration could not but carry itself more profoundly into the reflective mind, even of servants, when the arrow came winged and made buoyant by the gay feathering of so many splendid accomplishments. This general fact was appreciable by those who would forget, and never could have understood, the particular arguments of the infidel. Yet, even as regarded these particular arguments, 2dly, my mother feared that some one - brief, telling, and rememberable might be singled out from the rest, might transplant itself to the servants' hall, and take root for life in some mind sufficiently thoughtful to invest it with interest, and yet far removed from any opportunities, through books or society, for disarming the argument of its sting. Such a danger was quickened by the character and pretensions of Mrs. Lee's footman, who was a daily witness, whilst standing behind his mistress's chair at dinner, to the confusion which she carried into the hostile camp, and might be supposed to renew such discussions in the servants' hall with singular advantages for a favorable

attention. For he was a showy and most audacious Londoner, and what is technically known in the language of servants' hiring offices as a man of figure." He might, therefore, be considered as one dangerously armed for shaking religious principles, especially amongst the female servants. Here, however, I believe that my mother was mistaken.

Women of humble station, less than any other class, have any tendency to sympathize with boldness that manifests itself in throwing off the yoke of religion. Perhaps a natural instinct tells them that levity of that nature will pretty surely extend itself contagiously to other modes of conscientious obligation; at any rate, my own experience would warrant me in doubting whether any instance were ever known of a woman, in the rank of servant, regarding infidelity or irreligion as something brilliant, or interesting, or in any way as favorably distinguishing a man. Meantime, this conscientious apprehension on account of the servants applied to contingencies that were remote. But the pity on account of the poor lady herself applied to a danger that seemed imminent and deadly. This beautiful and splendid young creature, as my mother knew, was floating, without anchor or knowledge of any anchoring grounds, upon the unfathomable ocean of a London world, which, for her, was wrapped in darkness as regarded its dangers, and thus for her the chances of shipwreck were seven times multiplied. It was notorious that Mrs. Lee had no protector or guide, natural or legal. Her marriage had, in fact, instead of imposing new restraints, released her from old ones. For the legal separation of Doctors' Commons technically called a divorce simply à menså et thoro, (from bed and board,) and not à vinculo matrimonii (from the very tie and obligation of marriage) had removed her by law from the control of her husband; whilst, at the same time, the matrimonial condition, of course, enlarged that

berty of action which else is unavoidably narrowed by he reserve and delicacy natural to a young woman, whilst vet unmarried. Here arose one peril more; and, 2dly, arose this most unusual aggravation of that peril - that Mrs Lee was deplorably ignorant of English life; indeed, of life universally. Strictly speaking, she was even yet a raw, untutored novice, turned suddenly loose from the twilight of a monastic seclusion. Under any circumstances, such a situation lay open to an amount of danger that was afflicting to contemplate. But one dreadful exasperation of these fatal auguries lay in the peculiar temper of Mrs. Lee, as connected with her infidel thinking. Her nature was too frank and bold to tolerate any disguise; and my mother's own experience had now taught her that Mrs. Lee would not be content to leave to the random call of accident the avowal of her principles. No passive or latent spirit of freethinking was hers-headlong it was, uncompromising, almost fierce, and regarding no restraints of place or season. Like Shelley, some few years later, whose day she would have gloried to welcome, she looked upon her principles not only as conferring rights, but also as imposing duties of active proselytism. From this feature in her character it was that my mother foresaw an instant evil, which she urged Miss Wesley to press earnestly on her attention, viz., the inevitable alienation of all her female friends. In many parts of the continent (but too much we are all in the habit of calling by the wide name of "the continent," France, Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium) my mother was aware that the most flagrant proclamation of infidelity would not stand in the way of a woman's favorable reception into society. But in England, at that time, this was far otherwise. A display such as Mrs. Lee habitually forced upon people's attention would at once nave the effect of banishing from her house all