Crede mihi, non eft parvæ fiducia, polliceri opem decertantibus, confilium dubiis, lumen cæcis, fpem dejectis, refrigerium felis. Magna quidem hæc funt, fi fiant; parva, fi promittantur. Verum ego non tam aliis legem ponam, quam legem vobis mea propria mentis exponam; quam qui probaverit, teneat; cui non placuerit, abjiciat. Optarem, fateor, talis effe, qui prodeffe poffem quam plurimis.

PETRARCH. De vita folitaria.*

Believe me, it requires no little confidence, to promife help to the ftruggling, counfel to the doubtful, light to the blind, hope to the defpondent, refreshment to the weary. Thefe are indeed great things, if they be accomplished; trifles if they exift but in a promife. I, however, aim not fo much to prefcribe a law for others, as to fet forth the law of my own mind; which let the man, who shall have approved of it, abide by; and let him, to whom it shall appear not reasonable, reject it. It is my earnest wish, I confefs, to employ my understanding and acquirements in that mode and direction, in which I may be enabled to benefit the largest number poffible of my fellow-creatures.

NTECEDENTLY to all history, and long glimmering through it as a holy tradition, there presents itself to our imagination an indefinite period,

* Lib. I. tract. iv. c. 4. Some claufes in the original

dateless as eternity; a ftate rather than a time. For even the sense of succeffion is loft in the uniformity of the stream.

It was toward the close of this golden age (the memory of which the self-diffatisfied race of men have everywhere preferved and cherished) when confcience acted in man with the ease and uniformity of instinct; when labour was a sweet name for the activity of fane minds in healthful bodies, and all enjoyed in common the bounteous harvest produced, and gathered in, by common effort; when there existed in the sexes, and in the individuals of each sex, juft variety enough to permit and call forth the gentle restlessness and final union of chaste love and individual attachment, each feeking and finding the beloved one by the natural affinity of their beings; when the dread Sovereign of the universe was known only as the univerfal parent, no altar but the pure heart, and thanksgiving and grateful love the fole facrifice.

In this bleft age of dignified innocence one of their honoured elders, whofe abfence they were beginning to notice, entered with hurrying steps the place of their common assemblage at noon, and inftantly attracted the general attention and wonder by the perturbation of his geftures, and by a strange trouble both in his eyes and over his whole countenance. After a fhort but deep filence, when the

are omitted, and one or two changes of words have been made, by the Author, in this quotation.—Ed.

first buzz of varied inquiry was becoming audible, the old man moved toward a small eminence, and having afcended it, he thus addreffed the hushed and listening company :

"In the warmth of the approaching mid-day, as I was repofing in the vast cavern, out of which, from its northern portal, issues the river that winds through our vale, a voice powerful, yet not from its loudness, suddenly hailed me. Guided by my

ear I looked toward the supposed place of the found for some form, from which it had proceeded. I beheld nothing but the glimmering walls of the cavern. Again, as I was turning round, the fame voice hailed me: and whithersoever I turned my face, thence did the voice seem to proceed. I ftood ftill therefore, and in reverence awaited its continuation. Sojourner of earth!' (these were its words)' haften to the meeting of thy brethren, and the words which thou now heareft, the fame do thou repeat unto them. On the thirtieth morn from the morrow's fun-rifing, and during the space of thrice three days and thrice three nights, a thick cloud will cover the sky, and a heavy rain fall on the earth. Go ye therefore, ere the thirtieth fun arife, retreat to the cavern of the river and there abide, till the clouds have paffed away and the rain be over and gone. For know ye of a certainty that whomever that rain wetteth, on him, yea, on him and on his children's children will fall-the spirit of madness.' Yes! madness was the word of the voice what this be, I know not! But at the

found of the word trembling came upon me, and a feeling which I would not have had; and I remained even as ye beheld and now behold me." The old man ended, and retired. Confused murmurs fucceeded, and wonder, and doubt. Day followed day, and every day brought with it a diminution of the awe impreffed. They could attach no image, no remembered sensations, to the threat. The ominous morn arrived, the prophet had retired to the appointed cavern, and there remained alone during the appointed time. On the tenth morning, he emerged from his place of shelter, and fought his friends and brethren. But alas! how affrightful the change! Instead of the common children of one great family, working towards the fame aim by reason, even as the bees in their hives by instinct, he looked and beheld, here a miserable wretch watching over a heap of hard and innutritious small substances, which he had dug out of the earth, at the cost of mangled limbs and exhausted faculties. This he appeared to worship, at this he gazed, even as the youths of the vale had been accustomed to gaze at their chosen virgins in the first season of their choice. There he faw a former companion speeding on and panting after a butterfly, or a withered leaf whirling onward in the breeze; and another with pale and distorted countenance following close behind, and still stretching forth a dagger to ftab his precurfor in the back. In another place he observed a whole troop of his fellowmen famished and in fetters, yet led by one of their