of action, and in the Beauty, and the Author, no less than n the Soldier, it is often the master passion of the soul.

"This is the principle which parents recognize with joy in their infant offspring, which is diligently instilled and nurtured in advancing years, which under the names of honourable ambition, and of laudable emulation, it is the professed aim of schools and colleges to excite and cherish."" -Wilberforce's Practical View of Christianity.

Saadi." If the desire of fame is to be expelled from the human breast,-if the spirit-stirring impulse of emulation is no longer to prompt to noble enterprise, we must cease to recur with enthusiastic admiration to the heroic ages. Farewell to the delights experienced when, travelling through Greece, I wandered along the classic borders of the Ilissus, or viewed the magnificent ruins of Athenian greatness. But you must not, Douglas, deprive me of these delightful associations: surely you cannot avoid sympathizing in the raptures of one of the sublimest of your poets, who, when traversing the eternal city, exclaimed, Rome, thy very weeds are beautiful!' What have you to offer in exchange for those exquisite feelings inspired by the sight of objects sacred to patriotic bravery and to exalted virtuea?”

a The general outline of the principles of legislation adopted by Lycurgus is very happily drawn in the following passage from Anacharsis.

"Nature is almost always in opposition to the laws; because

Douglas."Think not, my friend, that we hold in light estimation those noble instances of devotedness to the public good, recorded in the history of the Grecian and Roman states: on the contrary, we look back to them with exultation, as exhibiting the most triumphant proofs of the all-powerful influence of education, and of national institutions, in moulding the human mind to any predetermined character; to characters preferring torture and even death itself, to a life of ease or of luxury, when unattended with the esteem of their fellow-citizens. But while we admire the magnanimity of Leonidas and his brave associates, let us not be unmindful of the genius of the lawgiver whose wisdom produced a nation of heroes. No legislator either of ancient or modern times under

she labours for the happiness of the individual, without regard to the other individuals who surround him : while the laws only direct their attention to the relations by which he is united to them; and because she infinitely diversifies our character and inclinations, while it is the object of the laws to bring them back to unity. The legislator, therefore, whose aim it is to annihilate, or at least to reconcile these contrarieties, must consider morals as the most powerful spring, and most essential part, of his political institutions. He must take the work of nature almost at the first moment she has produced it, retouch its form and proportions, and soften without entirely effacing its great outlines; till at length he has converted the independent man into the free citizen."

stood better than Lycurgus the principle upon which the human character was formed: but we must distinguish between this principle and the character formed. However well adapted the Spartan character was to the circumstances of that isolated state, surrounded by hostile nations, it is far from being worthy of imitation in the present period, enlightened as it is by the accumulated wisdom of succeeding ages. Nevertheless, those means employed with such extraordinary success by Lycurgus in generating the martial character, we have applied with equal success, and with the certainty of more lasting effect, in producing the intelligent and benevolent. Those means are comprehended in the following principles:

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"1st, An unremitting attention to the early asso

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ciation of ideas.

2nd, The formation of good habits.

"3rd, In all our regulations preserving a conformity between the duties of individuals and their most pleasurable and early imbibed ideas, thus uniting the agreeable with the useful."

Saadi." There is much truth in your remarks; but I cannot as yet surrender at discretion. You, who so well understand the tenacity of early associations,

must allow me to extricate myself by degrees from the fascinations of ancient lore b. "

Douglas." We will then defer any further discussion on this interesting subject for the present: but before we quit this cottage I would invite your attention to a most curious relic of the darker ages deposited in the library, and entitled 'Report from the Select Committee on the Employment of the Poor in Ireland.""

"There are few men to be found, among those who have received the advantages of a liberal education, who do not retain, through life, that admiration of the heroic ages of Greece and Rome, with which the classical authors once inspired them. It is, in truth, a fortunate prepossession on the whole, and one, of which I should be sorry to counteract the influence. But are there not others of equal importance to morality and to happiness, with which the mind might at the same period of life be inspired? If the first conceptions, for example, which an infant formed of the Deity, and its first moral perceptions, were associated with the early impressions produced on the heart by the beauties of nature, or by the charms of poetical description, those serious thoughts which are resorted to by most men, merely as a source of consolation in adversity; and which on that very account are frequently tinctured with some degree of gloom, would recur spontaneously to the mind in its best and happiest hours; and would insensibly blend themselves with all its purest and most refined enjoyments."-Stewart's Phil. of Mind. vol. i. p. 41.

CHAPTER V.

"Train up thy children, England,
In the ways of righteousness,-and feed them
With the bread of wholesome doctrine.

Where hast thou thy mines-but in their industry?
Thy bulwarks where-but in their breasts? thy might-
But in their arms?

Shall not their Numbers 2, therefore, be thy Wealth,
Thy Strength, thy Power,-thy Safety,- and thy Pride?
O grief then-grief and shame,

If in this flourishing land there should be dwellings,
Where the new-born babe doth bring unto its parent's soul
No joy! where squalid Poverty receives it at the birth,
And, on her wither'd knees,

Gives it the scanty bread of discontent."-Southey.

DOUGLAS took from the library a folio volume, observing, that "a committee of examination had been appointed in consequence of a dreadful famine in Ireland, which had destroyed many thousands of

a "When the parent was unable to maintain his child, the state took the charge upon itself, and the infant was educated at the expense of the public: and this law Constantine directed to be engraved on marble, that he might perpetuate it through all successive ages.”—Belisarius.

b The miseries of Ireland are not merely of a modern date : as far back as the year 1729, Dean Swift, in one of his ironical