me microscopic points of aconite, to my benevolent enjoyment of his credulity. They can do nothing, and they all tell me so ; only they disagree as to the amount of danger. One hinted idiotcy. Others advised relaxed toil. Now, as I cannot toil, and do so no longer, this advice is in vain.

A curious circumstance occurred yesterday. A member of the Trinity congregation, a chemist, fancied galvanism would do me good, and kindly offered his battery for my use one hour a day. I called to thank him and decline the offer. But in conversation he persuaded me just to go and look at his apparatus. I took the ends of the wire, completed the circuit, and experienced the usual pleasurable tingling. Then holding it in one hand, and he holding the other wire in his, he touched the back of my head and neck, where I have lately felt pain and numbness. Not a sensation did it elicit, though the spot which is generally, he says, most sensitive. Then he touched my forehead. It was but for a second. Instantly a crashing pain shot through as if my skull was stove in, and a bolt of fire were burning through and through. I sprang to my feet, stood for a second or two wild with pain, and then sank down, and should have had another ladylike swoon, if he had not run to the shop and fetched some poignant aromatic. He seemed much astonished, frightened, and perplexed at what had taken place. I was not surprised. I knew that something was wrong there. Allen thinks nothing organically as yet (I have not told him this), but the sensations are very strange and startling which I experience in twenty-four hours. It has nothing to do with 'tic,' which always attacks the chest, &c. &c. The worst sensation now is numbness in the neck.

You will perhaps think me a hypochondriac. But a man who knits his teeth together in solitude for hours, without a groan, in torture, and is guilty of nothing effeminate except fainting, and upon whose life a sentence of death for to-morrow would scarcely bring any other words than Nunc dimittis, is hardly hypochrondriacal. Nevertheless, it is my conviction that my work is done. I do not mean my life; that may drag on for many years to come; but all that makes life worth the having,

and which certainly I had once-power. What would you have me do? I go through as little work as possible, nor could I diminish except by totally giving up. Give up I cannot because I cannot afford it; among other reasons, my generous congregation have munificently put funds at my disposal which will enable me to provide a curate's assistance for two years—so that is a great step, and I have thought it right to accept their offer. But I acknowledge that the sensations of brain by day and night now are so new, strange, and unnatural, that I feel they have only contrived, by their kindness, to keep among them a wornout Chelsea pensioner, with leave to wear a red coat, and play at shouldering arms.

You mistook me in thinking I did not sympathise. A few years ago, when I felt less, you would have been more satisfied, when the eyes showed moisture, the voice emotion, and when I had a gentler manner and a more ready show of responding to what was expected. Now, a certain amount of iron has gone into my blood; and a sardonic sentence often conceals the fact that I wince to the very quick from something that has gone home.

Oh, many a shaft at random sent
Finds mark the archer little meant !

I no longer wear my heart upon my sleeve, 'for daws to peck at.' But there is not a conversation, there is not a book I read, there is not a visit I pay, that does not cut deep traces in the 'Calais' of my heart.

CLXI.

'Castaway.'

I answer some of your questions: 1 Cor. ix. 27. The meaning is-Lest after having preached to others the doctrine of self-abridgment of indulgences in things lawful, I myself should fail when put to the test; literally, should be that which will not stand proof. The advice to abstain from things lawful, he gave them in the 8th chapter-see verses 9 and 13; then, in chapter 9, he shows that he had only done what he advised; he had a right to a wife (verse 5), and a right to be

supported by pay; but he had abridged himself of both these rights (though every principle of the Old Testament, chapter ix. 8 . . . 13, 14, established his right), simply in order to be beyond suspicion and gain the more to Christ. Read the two chapters 8 and 9 as one argument, and the whole will become intelligible. 'If there be any virtue :'—'if,' &c., is not an oddlyconstructed phrase; it is purely classical Greek. It means, whatever is virtuous, praiseworthy, &c., think upon such things. An old poet writes, 'nor if old Anacreon wrote aught sportively has time destroyed it.' He does not mean to hazard a doubt, but simply to say, whatever Anacreon wrote is undestroyed. It is a Greek idiom, and only sounds curious in English.

You would not like —'s preaching. It is not what it was once-concise, sinewy, masculine, and clear as crystal, defying any listener to suspend attention. He has degenerated into verbiage; and in the last sermon I heard, he took ten minutes to say what three sentences might have settled. He has lost his power, which was once the greatest I ever knew. The sentimental people of his congregation attribute it to increase in spirituality; but it is, in truth, a falling-off of energy of grasp. I heard four sermons from him with scarcely four thoughts, and much absolutely false logic. But how can a man preach for ten years without exhausting himself, or else pandering to popularity? Talk, talk, talk for ever, and no retreat to fructifying silence!

That is a well-put criticism you quote respecting Currer Bell. Her talk is of duty, her sympathies lie with passion. And the dangers of that style of composition are great; but she never blinks the question of right and wrong, and her right is of a stern order, though her wrong may be very tempting. In point of power she is a giant to the authoress of 'Ruth,' but her book is less sweet and human.

Poor - how bounded every life seems, judged as we judge; yet the results are for ever; and it has been again and again declared, the deepest philosophy in the universe is repeated in every cubic inch, and all the laws of the ocean in a cup of

tea-why not be satisfied, then, with the cup of tea whose sphere is not absolutely illimitable?

CLXII.

I have found pain a humbling thing, and, what surprises me, certainly not a souring one. Many and many an hour have I spent lately incapable of even conceiving enjoyment or pleasure, and feeling as if youth and hope were settling down into premature decrepitude, my very limbs having shrunk to the dimensions of Shakspeare's lean and slippered pantaloon; yet I am grateful to say that not for years has the feeling been so true or mixed with so little bitterness-'not as I will.'

On Sunday, after service, a lady came up to me whom I had known in the very outset of my ministry. She talked with me of the past; and then said, with tears, 'But, oh, you are so changed in mind, it is quite heart-aching to hear you preach; it was no longer the bright, happy Mr. Robertson.' The truth is, I had been preaching on St. Paul's thorn in the flesh, and this would partly account for what she remarked. Yet conversation with her brought back those days at Winchester strongly, and I felt that she was right, and that the shadows of life had settled down. Yet is not this the common experience for the first fourfifths of life at least?

Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast, Full of sad experience moving towards the stillness of his rest.

CLXIII.

I must acknowledge the truth of what you say in the main, that I do not admire any one who is not in robust health. Of course I must bate a little exaggeration in the form of statement; but I acknowledge that I think health more beautiful than illhealth, and a normal state more pleasant than an abnormal. There may be some apparent exceptions to the rule, as in the case of recovery from illness there is a certain delicacy which is very attractive; but then it is the first flush of health that gives

the beauty, just like that which makes spring more interesting than summer. Still it is not merely delicacy that is beautiful, but delicacy pervaded by health and conquered by it-life in its first fresh rising, like a new childhood; but I acknowledge that I cannot acquire the sickly taste of admiring the delicacy of ill-health. Beauty, in my eyes, depends much upon association; and delicacy that calls up one's knowledge of morbid anatomy, and suggests the thought of disordered functions, and abnormal states, and physicians' attendance, never affects me with a sense of beauty. This may be an unfashionable view, but I am certain that it is a sound and healthy one, fresh from Nature's heart. The other taste is of the same family as that which makes the Chinese admire feet quashed into smallness. I admire refinement in a female form; but the moment that it appears as the result of ill-health, I reject it as a counterfeit. For this reason I cannot even admire the hectic of consumption; it puts me in mind at once of glaring eyes and panting breath, and I see what will be. I have a fastidiousness of taste in this respect, almost painful, and I acknowledge that I admire the beauty which God made-health —immeasurably above the counterfeit which man procures. A country girl, modest and neat, is not my beau ideal of beauty; but I admire her far more than a pale, languid girl of fashion, just as I like brown bread better than bled-white veal; but I think you are much mistaken if you mean by delicacy that I do not admire refinement. I cannot admire anything that reminds one of the mould above the rose,' and forces upon one the question, whether an allopathic or homœopathic druggist could best get rid of that delicate look. I delight not in anything unnatural or diseased. Lord Byron has well described this unhealthy taste about beauty, in his description of the Spanish ladies, as compared with the 'languid, wan, and weak' forms of others.

I rejoice that you like Wordsworth's 'Life.' Badly and coldly as it is written, the extracts from his own letters give some insight into his inner life. And it seems to me, in reading lives, the question too often is, whether it be one which in all respects answers our ideal of a life? whereas the question ought to be,