One thing more. I trust he will recollect the difference between the English and the Polish intellect. Our national character excels in perseverance: theirs in talent. They can learn many languages with facility. A friend—I may call him such of my own, a Pole, had extraordinary faculties of this kind. He told me all his countrymen shared it. The name of Count Streleczki is known to some of you. His talent is multifarious-universal. Froin the colonial capacities of Australia to the diameter of an extinct crater in one of the Polynesian islands, from the details of an Irish poor-law to the chemical composition of malachite, he is at home in all departments of literature and science. M. Zaba's son, a most intelligent young gentleman-has exhibited wonderful knowledge. But I askhe has had experience—how far is the system applicable to our obtuse and low English intellects? How long will an AngloSaxon boy be occupied in mastering the system?

CXXXIII.

Last night I began Margaret Fuller Ossoli. The reviews had prejudiced me against her by most unfair extracts, which give no idea whatever of her character as a whole; and it is only one more out of many lessons to judge for one's self, and not to accept the offices of a taster. I got through the first volume almost before I went to bed. I was much pleased: an exceedingly rich nature-growing weeds luxuriantly, but fewer than might have been expected. At the commencement are some remarkably well-put observations respecting the hackneyed subject of the Greeks and Romans; but I agree with one of the editors in what he says about being 'almost' Christian. For self-development is not the aim of Christianity, much higher though it be than ordinary paganism, and better too than Evangelicalism, which does not mean quite so much by its watchword, 'Save your own soul.'

Old friends are quite as easy to put off as old gloves, but not quite so easy to draw on again—they have been damped, dried, and cannot open themselves as largely as before. How few

can, like Margaret Ossoli, keep the threads of many acquaintances and friendships in the hand, without breaking any, or entangling any? I have begun the third volume-her' Residence in Europe;' in the first pages are some beautiful passages; but her 'Residence in Paris' rather startles and revolts me. The words 'noble,' 'good,' &c. &c., which she bestows upon that profligate and licentious George Sand, are profanation. What are they worth if they are given indiscriminately? Paris seems to warp and injure every spirit that comes within its unnatural atmosphere. It is the natural birthplace of Phædras and Pasiphaës, and all that is refinedly brutal. My beau-ideal of a devil or rather imp nature, is a Parisian woman, thoroughly refined and thoroughly corrupted. And I knew one or two who were admirable approximations. . . .

CXXXIV.

I have nearly read through Latham on the 'English Language,' a tough book; and also his ' English Grammar.' I have begun them again, in the way of slow and patient study. Once master of the subject, I shall be able to teach it. The great mistake in teaching, is to suppose that, in order to teach elements, only rudimentary knowledge is required. I believe the foundations must have been approfondis; not that such teaching need be deep, but it must rest on depths. Results are for production and the public; but it may cost years to get the freedom of stroke which passes for an off-hand inspiration of the moment; and long familiarity with a subject is the only condition on which facility of expression, abundance of illustration, and power of connecting the smallest parts with principles and with the whole, can be obtained.

I have resolved to master Latham, Physical Geography, and Wallenstein, before I leave for Ireland; also to get through the visiting of my congregation. It is always a good plan to fix definite periods for completing work, else it drags on uncompleted for months, perhaps for ever. This, with my other work, will be all that I can manage, for I am no longer able to read hard. I sat up late two nights ago, and am suffering from it still.

How admirable those extracts are which you quote from Margaret F. Ossoli's 'Life'! I agree with what she says about diffuseness in giving out an idea. I am sure the opposite has been my fault, and caused much to fall to the ground inoperatively. I am trying to get over it, and will yet more.

CXXXV.

It is now nearly midnight--the only enjoyable time for writing, thought, or contemplation during this intense heat. By the side of a wall with a southern aspect the heat is of tropical sultriness, the sunbeams striking off almost as in the focus of a convex glass, and you look along the stones expecting to see the lizards basking in numbers as in the South of Europe. Several persons, I am told, have fallen dead in the open field: yet, severe as it is here, they say it is much worse inland, for during some hours of the day we have a refreshing sea-breeze. Indeed, I am speaking more of others' feelings than my own, for to me the intensest heat is always delightful. At this moment, sheetlightnings are, from time to time, transforming a very dark sky into a brilliant sheet of fire.

What you remark about Margaret Ossoli's 'Life' is quite true. I think there is an apparent decline in power and intellect during her stay in Italy; but then it is to be remembered, in the first place, that the painful and stirring scenes of war and revolution in which she was called to act, called out the woman's heart more than the brain, and the sad realities of the hospital dulled all inclination to soar into realms of speculation, philosophy, and past history. What was the question of 'woman's future position' side by side with splints and bandages, and all things apparently going backwards? Then, in the second place, we must not forget that the whole of her papers concerning Italy were lost in the shipwreck, and in them alone could we expect her intellectual powers to have found a field. It is a life suggestive of much, and that not all pleasing. There is much

out of joint in the body social and politic; say rather in our own hearts.

I have received a letter from an intelligent lady, which, I confess, pained me. In reply, I told her there was one thing of which she could not deprive me—the certainty of having done her much good; that having listened for years with reliance and trust, the truths of feeling and life which I have taught must have mixed with her life-cannot be separated from her being-. must grow and produce a harvest which I shall claim hereafter as my harvest, and of which no power in the universe can rob me. I briefly explained her misconception of my views, telling her that the difference between them and those of the party whose views she expounds does not lie in the question of the Atonement—we agree in this—but in the question, what in that atonement was the element that satisfied God? They say, pain. I say, because I think the Scriptures say so, the surrender of self-will, as is clearly and distinctly asserted in John x. 17: and also in Hebrews x. 5, 6, 7, 10, where the distinction is drawn between the sacrifices of blood and suffering, which were mere butchery, and the Sacrifice which atones, in this special point, that one is moral, an act of 'WILL '-the other un-moral, merely physical, and therefore worthless. Indeed, this is the whole argument of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and a glorious one it is. But I strongly recommended her to persevere in her resolve to quit Trinity, since it is not views which mould character, but a spirit; since our mysterious being is only capable of being stirred by the higher springs of action, trust, reliance, reverence, love; and when trust is gone, neither wisdom nor truth from the lips of a teacher can avail anything.

However, as a specimen of a class, the circumstance pained me. How long will the rest remain? Only until they clearly comprehend what I surely try to make plain as my meaning ; then I shall be alone, as I expected years ago. Still, this desertion one by one is painful.

Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land?
All fear, none aid you, and few understand.

Well, all the dearer will be the true and few who remain. was with Him.

The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel.

Wise, profound Shakspeare!

My dear

CXXXVI.

So it

-Receive all grateful thanks for your nice list, nearly all of which I have already selected for my brother, and sent by this day's post. I feel bound in honour to make the amende honorable for my hasty acceptance of the verdict of reviews on Margaret Fuller Ossoli, and acknowledge that she was a noble creature, and that I have read her life with increasing depth of interest, with respect, admiration, and—no! not with tears, but—a certain moisture on the eyelids, the result of reading by a bad light, or too long, or too late—nothing else! I honour her because she was not a man, and could not have been if she had tried; nor a blue, but a woman, whose brain was all heart, and who fulfilled her mission of the friend, and her more sacred mission of the comforter, right nobly. There-I was wrong, and you can make as ungenerous a use of the acknowledgment as you can—that is, as you have it in you to make; which is a moral inability. But it only corroborates my convictions on the general subject. Margaret never looked at one single subject from the point of view from which a man would have contemplated it, and her high-sounding abstractions only veiled her intense belief in and love of living personalities. She was a splendid proof of 'how divine a thing a woman may be made.'

CXXXVII.

The poor ignorant Roman Catholics, are they to be taught their duty by leaving them to the priests, or by living among them and showing them who are their true friends? There is a fearful debt due to Ireland which has been accumulating for centuries, through absenteeism and landlords whose interests