That it may be, in some cases, the interest of the governed to submit to such a state of things, we would not be supposed to deny. Many are the instances in which the renunciation of such power would be a far greater evil to the subject state, than its acquisition. Where, from the debased and degenerate state of the public mind, the timidity and corruption of the inhabitants, the last, the capital, and by far the most indispensable element of government is perverted and abused-peace, safety, the dearest rights and interests of mankind, the chief objects which society is instituted to maintain, can be but ill provided for. Such a people is unfit for political freedom. In this state of things, submission to a foreign power, by which the pure and upright administration of justice is ensured, must be a relief from still greater and more lasting evils. The lover of mankind may, in these cases, console himself by observing the strict connexions that must always exist between the real interests of those who govern, and the actual prosperity of those who must obey. He will see, that where the province is impoverished, the metropolis cannot be enriched; that the increase of the ruler's commerce and revenue, must be the reward of his just and liberal dominion. But where these exceptions do not operate, a period must arrive, after which empire over flourishing and distant provinces can no longer be main

tained; with the gradual diffusion of light and knowledge among the governed, deference to the institutions by which they are held in vassalage will inevitably cease. The crisis may be

postponed by the lenity and moderation of the ruler. Dexterity may conceal, events may modify, concession may once and again avert it, but sooner or later it must take place; and the struggle must end in the complete emancipation of the province, or the established despotism of the metropolis. All this must follow where inequality exists, discontent in some shape or other must prevail. The elements of hostility may be soothed into temporary repose, they never can be moulded into perfect union. How, before this destined period arrives, protected freedom may be reconciled with supreme authority, how constitutional assemblies in different countries may be blended into one harmonious whole, or how, without the intervention of such a body, the jealousy of trade may be restrained, and the authority of a single delegate, irresponsible unless to the parent state, be circumscribed within proper limits, by what laws, what institutions, what tribunals, the rights of distant subjects may be guarded, their welfare enhanced, their sufferings relieved, their allegiance corroborated, these are questions which Mr Lewis has ventured to approach, and which Burke or Hume would have been competent

to answer.

66

WHEN I inform the courteous reader that, if it shall please Providence to spare my unworthy existence until the seventh day of July next ensuing, I shall have reached the sixty-fourth year of my age; and that, of that number, as many as forty have been spent in the exercise of my duties at the attorney's office, from which I now write-will he not be tempted to exclaim, can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" and decline at once the perusal of what is written solely for his edification and improvement in life? But herein would he do me injustice, and his own understanding dishonour. I have moved amongst men long enough to know, that there is as little propriety in estimating the individual according to his caste, as there would be in forming an idea of a class from the observation of an individual. But that it might seem presumptuous, and savour, indeed, of vanity on my part, how easy were it for me to show that the loveliest flowers, the sweetest gems of earth, are often found in quiet and scarce-trodden lanes, and here and there adorning hard and uneven roads, too rugged for the delicate foot to travel! What can be more noxious and forbidding than the clayey and damp bowels of the earth, to which we consign with a shudder all that we love best? and yet dig deep enough, and behold the bright silver and still brighter gold! In the muddied oyster lurks the shining pearl, and golden threads come from the creeping worm. Truly, it is not in this situation of life, or in that, that every virtuous or superior spirit is collected; but the good seed is strewn abroad, and it waxes and strengthens on every side-not less at times when cared for only by the sun, than when the cunning hand of art is busy in the rearing. Nature has not her choicest treasures in golden caskets, nor is the honest heart always beneath the soft est skin. Far be it from me to arrogate to myself the conclusion that I would draw from such propositionspoorest of mortals that I am! I trust

Un

I know myself. I am about to leave the world; and, of man, I ask nothing but tenderness towards his fellow man, and a love of something larger than the speck of which his self consists. There are more reasons than one why, at this moment, when the period appointed by the Psalmist for our sojourn here is for me fast expiring, and when, as I may say, I have but the last stage of existence to travel, that I deem it proper to place upon paper the following few occurrences and remembrances of my time. til I am cold in the grave, they will not see the light; and then, I flatter myself, they will bring comfort to a few quiet and happy spiritssuch as knew me in my early days, and judged it not becoming to desert me, because poor and humble, in middle life and in declining age. There is a holy seriousness in the thoughts which we bestow upon the tombs of those we love; and haply, when I am no more, the perusal of some familiar passage may strike a tender chord in the bosom of the venerable pilgrim, whose hand I shall have long before clasped for the last time. His aged eye may be filled with a faithful tear, and his heart yearn with humanity and love. The young, to whom I come as a stranger, will learn from my failings, no less than from my experience, the difficult and thorny path of life; the sanguine and overflowing temper be taught patience and self-denial, and the unobtrusive and desponding find animation and encouragement; and, above all, I trust every soul that reads will acknowledge, from what I have suffered and have seen, the wisdom of God's dispensations, his everlasting justice, truth, and mercy.

Whilst such are the principal motives that incline me to my task, there is still another which has a due proportion of influence with me. Let not the charitable reader reproach the old man's infirmity, when he avows a natural affection for this earth, a willingness to cling to it, when he him

Self shall be no longer a dweller there

on.

Although I have found friends, I have lived as it were alone amongst men. Mine has not been the consolation of the tender and beloved companion, to share the joys and alleviate the sorrows of my condition. No soft and delicate hand has ministered at my dreary couch of sickness; and as a wayfarer, I have found no warm and feminine bosom to offer a refuge from the storms and killing frosts of the world. No partner will live to mourn me, no child to prosper under a father's blessing. I shall die a solitary one, and my name will be blotted out from the page of life. The longing that we have to leave behind us something of ourselves is human, and rather to be deemed worthy than condemned; and the common lot being denied me, I have a secret and abiding joy in reflecting that, after me, these few pages will still live on for many a long year, and ifeven read but by a few, for scarcely read, and hastily put away, they will still live tranquilly on, assuming "a local habitation and a name," whilst I am passing into the original elements of my nature-van. ishing becoming nothing. This

-

may be weakness-to an extent I feel it is but such as may assuredly be ranked amongst the privileges rather than the vices of old age.

As I have already notified, I was born on the 7th day of July and in the year 1777. My father carried on a respectable business in the city of London, and was reputed, by all who knew him, a worthy tradesman and well to do in life. He had married young, and of seven children that had blessed their union, when he had reached the age of sixty, and my mother that of fifty-eight, I only remained to cheer and enliven the sunset of their days. My parents were both seriously disposed, and they lived in perfect simplicity and peace. There was an air of stillness and repose about them and their proceedings, and a calm atmosphere flowed throughout their habitation, forming, in truth, a strong and happy contrast to the scene of business, activity and tumult, beyond it. The recollections of this house, situated as it was in the very heart of the great city, with its regular, precise, but by no means unsocial or cold-hearted inhabitants, are

at this moment vivid and fresh. It seems scarcely a year; although, alas! too many have elapsed since the day that I quitted the happy roof beneath which I drew my first breath, and heard for the last time the accents of a fond mother bidding me adieu. They murmur still in my ear, like the melancholy and hollow gushings of the sea-shell, bringing to my view the shadows of times and feelings that are entombed in the irrevocable past. I left my home on this occasion to take up my abode in Cambridge, at which University I had entered a few months previously. From my earliest boyhood, I had expressed a desire to be educated for the church; and my father, by every means in his power, encouraged, because he contemplated with delight, the growing inclination of his last remaining hope. I was between seventeen and eighteen years of age.

Five years had passed under the eye of a clergyman, who, having himself gone out "high in honours," spent his time in preparing a select number of young gentlemen for the same distinction. I now "went up," as it is called, with a fair prospect of realizing, in a measure, the sanguine expectations that the indulgent parent so naturally, but as the result every day proves, too eagerly, entertains of his offspring, when he leaves his home, and enters for the first time upon the pursuits of men-whether it be in the academy or in the arena of busier life. Long is the list of fathers who have experienced the bitter pangs of disappointment and of shame; and how many a youth, fortified with the strongest resolutions, and protected by the warmest sensibilities, has been doomed to behold both, by a process and a transition almost imperceptible in their workings, dwindling away and utterly disappearing, before the contaminating influence of evil example! On the evening prior to my departure, my father quitted his counting-house at an earlier hour than usual; and I, whilst still busy in arrangements for my removal, was summoned to his presence. My mother and he were seated in their cool and quiet parlour; and the former, although she appeared, to the exclusion of every thing else, wholly ingrossed in the duties of the tea-table, bore upon her mild and benignant countenance the marks of recent sorrow and ofpresent trouble. We

all three sat down, and in silence par took of that meal which is sanctified by an association with our best affec

tions.

Ah! could the humble man but see and appreciate the many advantages of his situation, not amongst the least would he account the enjoyment so peculiarly his own, of that unstimulating repast, over which the soft Vesper sheds her hallowed influence. Nor wealth, nor power, can purchase the luxuries that are collected at the poor man's banquet of contentment. What an accumulation of sweet thoughts and grateful sensations hover round the lowly tea-board! Here did the man of business unbind his strong and active mind, and with his young ones become himself once more a child. Here sat for many a year the ever-watching and regardful mother, mistress of the happy feast; and here day by day met brother and sister, growing in love together, full of youthful life, melancholy only when sickness interfered, and one or the other was doomed to hear, without its little partner, the pleasant hissing of the familiar kettle. Who is there living, of the privileged class to which I refer, that looking back to the remote and innocent beginnings of his life, when his world was his home, his home a sanctuary, can call to mind, without a thrilling emotion, the daily recurrence of this family meal, at which he and those he loved best were assembled, and there was no fear of separation or thought of sorrow, and every heart was united, and the spirit of true socialism reigned triumphant amongst them!

For the first time in my life, my meal was a troubled one-there was a weight about my heart, and I could not eat. Oh, how I loved my home, that happy evening, and how the thought of leaving it oppressed and sickened me!

Contrary to my expectation, my father spoke little to me: he had evidently intended to say much; but the uneasiness of my mother prevented him, and his own heart was full. I saw this in his every movement-his hand shook, and his eye filled more than once with involuntary tears. I felt a momentary relief when at length he pressed my hand, and wished me good-night. I did not answer him-I could not for worlds.

A

sickening pain at my throat overpowered me. My heart was bursting when I reached my room, and threw myself on my bed, my own dear bedin which I had slept from infancy, and on which perhaps I might never sleep again. Exquisitely delicious were the tears that came to my relief

I cried, until repose came, and a glow of comfort such as passionate tears will bring at last. I look back I but revoke the past. I do not exaggerate.

Reader, I speak of one, young in years and in the world's ways, whose imagination and fond heart had grown wild in the sweet gardens beyond whose precincts he had never cared to stray, whose nature it was to love and to be loved, and whose soul was still pure-pure as it might be here.

The prayers that I offered up that night to the throne of goodness and of grace were fervent, and, it may be, extravagantly expressed-but I deemed, and felt them, to be honest. I was at that time innocent of the lesson that was taught to me with some pains at a later period of my life; when the Serpent, amongst other secrets, whispered into my ear the miserable intelligence, that passion is not always truth, and that the signs and symbols of sensibility may be nothing loftier than false and hypocritically contrived inventions. With what intensity did I implore blessings for my dear father and mother! What Vows of obedience, duty, and abiding love, did I not then make! Again and again did I invoke my Maker to protect and support the beloved authors of my existence, through all the trials and dangers of this life-to spare them yet for a short period, until I might return to them a hundred fold the many acts of kindness, the thousand evidences of the tenderest affection, that I had received at their hands. With resolutions firm, I believed, and immovable as the eternal hills, I at length closed my eyes. I had been asleep about an hour, when I awoke so placid that it was as if I had been restored to life from the arms of an angel. The storm had died away, and my bosom was unruffled even by a sigh. But a sigh, and a deep one, flowed through the room. I raised myself on the bed. At the foot, gazing intently upon me, sat my mother. "You sleep quietly, my dear