passover, orders marks to be placed on those houses which he means to destroy. In this way he pours a secret poison, a "leprous distilment," into the easy, or wicked ear of man, and calls himself, not a knave, but a benefactor. What is remarkable, ten thousand fools believe him! Of this character were almost all the leading madmen who acted in the French Revolution, after they had torn up the ancient constitution by the roots, with a view to amend it. Much did it want amending, but enthusiasm destroyed it. Why? Because the principal enthusiasts being vicious in themselves, became wicked, bloody, and self-interested in regard to their country. We shall see how this is developed and illustrated in the following narrative, Less wicked in intention, but almost equally bloody, ruthless, and unjust, how do some of the most vaunted patriots of our own history disgust and terrify us, in the Protestant bigotry of the Popish plot. What crimes, what murders were not committed! What perjuries not rewarded! Men of the highest rank and education, and even of benevolent dispositions in all other things (for such was Russell), became phrenzied with religious zeal, to the utter destruction of justice, and even of decency. When the object was to destroy the accused of popery, innocence little booted them, any more than the accused of royalty in France; and the revolting institution of the undefined crime of being suspected, which imprisoned and murdered so many unfortunates in France, was almost equalled in England, by hateful bigots who are yet, from party failings, canonized in history. Observe Yet the blood of Lord Stafford, if nothing else, cries out against this; and the ruthless cruelty of the enthusiast Russell, who doubted the power of the king to remit the horror of tearing Stafford's heart out while alive, revolts us for ever. On the other hand, the perjured Oates, who was the instrument of all their miseries, was taken to their bosoms, and fostered by them with every mark of gratitude and approbation.* But turn we to holier and happier scenes. the enthusiasm of the Sciences; of the scholar, whatever his study; of the antiquary, whatever his inquiry; of the natural philosopher, whatever his search; of the moralist, whatever his creed. Day and night are to them the same; they are consecrated to their happy labour. The lamp of the scholar is proverbial; one of the greatest of our scholars as well as poets wished that his might often "At midnight hour What worlds, or what vast regions hold He was pensioned, (I believe £1,000 a-year,) visited, and a table and equipage kept for him, but always retained at hand to be ready when a life was to be sworn away. Such crimes will ill-directed enthusiasm commit! Lord Russell was This was Milton's enthusiastic lamp. Behold another, but it is on the freezing heights of Torneo. On its top stands an astronomer, who sweeps the sky with his miraculous telescope. He has left his warm home amid Parisian delights, and encounters Nova Zembla miseries to measure a degree. This was Maupertuis. See another labouring in clouds of smoke, and panting with perpetual heat, the mysterious crucible in hand, pregnant with wonders!-It is Davy. See a third, exposing himself to all the dangers of a thunder-storm to ascertain the nature of electricity, and he dies in the attempt.-It is Muschenbroke. Or, lastly, a grave and noble Roman, struggling with lava on the brink of Vesuvius, and perishing in the enterprise!It is Pliny. But, alas! we approach the chambers of death. A faded and sinking form is in agony. It is the plague; and all comfort is fled with those who, but for their fears, might have given him comfort. Every one has fled, save only one, who exhausts and endangers himself in the endeavour to save, though in vain. In him we see the beautiful energy of the enthusiastic Physician. Through almost as much danger; encountering the was held by all to be an amiable man, when his phrenzy was not concerned; and the affection and exertions of his sainted wife prove it. What can we say then to this contrast, but alas! poor human nature? I have no hesitation in saying that the legal murders of the popish plot equalled in iniquity those of Jeffries, execrable as they were. rough and squalid looks of barbarians, and exposed to all that is noisome, mephitic, and disgusting, what but the enthusiasm of benevolence could prompt yonder person, human indeed, but allied to angels, to pass half his life in visiting prisons?-It is Howard. More gratified, but not more useful, I view a solitary enthusiast, with no companion but his own mind. He feeds upon past recollections, and to do so he rises at the peep of dawn, and stretches his listless length under an oak till noon. There, he will pore upon the brook that runs at foot, and mutter wayward fancies: "Now smiling as in scorn, Now drooping, woeful, wan, like one forlorn." -This can be nobody but Rousseau. A very different, but far better person-equally, but perhaps more sincerely fond of solitude, like him flies the city to seek the flowers of the garden, and reason on the beauties, as well as wonders of the creation; or he meditates among the tombs, and reasons on a world to come. See him by moonlight, silent and slow, contemplating the "starry heavens." His arms are folded, but his looks love not the ground. Though abstracted, he has much mental talk, and ever and anon bursts into fervent soliloquy.-Does not the reader here recognize the happy enthusiast, Hervey ? There is another devotee of thought and recollection whom I would class among these. The Antiquary: the admirer of old times. I mean not him who would pore for hours over a rusty medal, or write folios upon a cave or gateway, (though he is an enthusiast in his way;) but him whose heart is full of classical or historical associations. Such a man loves the aisles of a Gothic cathedral, and feels himself, as Johnson says he will, a poet, when he contemplates its ancient pillars rearing their marble heads, "To bear aloft its arch'd and pond'rous roof, By its own weight made steadfast and immoveable, Such a man will revel by the hour, and think it too short, in exploring "storied urn, or consecrated bust." His mind runs, over with the recollections of ages, and events the most stirring are recalled by the swords and pennons that still threaten the air. Such a man, too, would make a pilgrimage barefoot to the house and tomb of Shakspeare, and feel a holy inspiration swelling in his heart when he viewed them. But how will not his soul overflow at the sight of the groves and ancient palaces of Oxford and Cambridge! when he thinks of the various sons of science, the philosophers, and theologians, the poets and polite writers, who have done honour to those most venerable and most interesting of all institutions consecrated to learning. How often in summer have I not myself paced till midnight, the walk formed by Addison! A man of this sort, and in such a place, is independent of the world, and will feel the force of, perhaps he will repeat, the beautiful burst of Cicero: "Movemur enim, nescio quo pacto, locis ipsis in quibus eorum quos diligimus aut admiramur, adsunt vestigia. Me quidem ipsæ illæ nostræ Athenæ, non |