Let us, then, raise ourselves above the pressures of life: let us not furnish our unmerited enemies, nor our ungrateful friends, with any opportunity to boast of having dejected our intellectual powers. Their malicious attempts will only compel those who would have remained satisfied with cultivating the milder affections, to aspire to the pursuit of Glory. Since, then, it must be so; let us grasp at the bright attainment. These efforts of ambition will, indeed, be of little avail to assuage the sorrows of the soul; but they will shed a gleam of honour on the career of life. To devote our days wholly to the ever-deceitful hopes of happiness, would only tend to make them more miserable. Better is it to concentrate the whole of our endeavours, that we may travel with some dignity, and with some reputation, down that road which leads from the morning of youth to the night of the grave.

OF THE IMPORTANCE OF LITERATURE, AS IT CONCERNS AND IS CONNECTED WITH

VIRTUE.

PERFECT Virtue is the ideal beautiful of the moral world: and there is some similitude and affinity between the impression which Virtue makes upon us, and that sentiment which is inspired by whatever is sublime, either amidst the productions of the finer arts or in the aspect of the physical world. The regular and graceful proportions of antique statues, the calm and pure expression of certain paintings, the harmony of music, the amenity of a beautiful prospect over a fruitful country, transport us with an enthusiasm by no means uncongenial to that admiration to which we are raised by the contemplation of generous and heroic actions. Fantastic appearances, whether the result of Nature or of Art, may strike the imagination with a momentary surprise; but the operations of thought can dwell only upon order and regularity.

In endeavouring to convey some idea of a future life, it has been said that the soul of man returned into the bosom of his Creator. This

was describing in some measure the emotion we feel, when, after being long bewildered in the labyrinth of the passions, we suddenly hear the august and awful voice of Virtue, of Pride, or of Pity, and when our whole soul becomes alive to the call.

Literature can only derive its permanent beauties from the most delicate and refined morality. Men may devote their actions to vice; but vice can never control their judgment. Never was it in the power of any poet, however ardent his fancy or vivid his imagination, to draw forth a tragic effect from an incident which admitted the smallest tendency to an immoral principle. Opinion, which fluctuates so much respecting the events of real life, assumes a character of constancy and decision, when it has to pronounce on the productions of the imagination. Literary criticism is not unfrequently, indeed, a sort of treatise on morality. By yielding merely to the impulse and guidance of their talents, eminent writers might discover every thing that is heroic in self-devotion, and all that is affecting in the sacrifices we make of our interests or passions. By studying the art of moving the affections, we explore the recesses and discover the secrets of Virtue.

The master-pieces of Literature, independent of the fine models which they furnish, produce a kind of moral and physical emotion, an agitating transport of admiration, which excites us to the performance of generous deeds. The legislators of Greece attached no mean importance to the effect that might be produced by music of a martial or a voluptuous strain. Our organs are also acted upon by eloquence, poetry, the incidents of the dramatic scene, and the gloom of melancholy thoughts, though these are properly the objects of reason and reflection: it is then that Virtue becomes a voluntary impulse, a movement that communicates itself to the blood, and hurries us irresistibly along like the most violent and imperious passions. It is much to be regretted, that the works which appear in our days, do not more frequently kindle that noble enthusiasm: our taste is, doubtless, formed by the study of the already received and acknowledged master-pieces of Literature: but we become accustomed to them from our infancy: each of us is struck with their beauties at different periods of life, and separately receives the impressions they should produce. Were we to assist together in crowds at the first representation of a tragedy worthy of Racine,―were we to read together the enchanting

pages of Rousseau, or have our ears saluted, for the first time, with the modulated periods of Cicero, the interest excited by surprise and curiosity would rivet our attention upon truths that are now unheeded; and genius, assuming its empire over every mind, would repay to morality something of what it has received from morality: it would re-establish that homage to which it owes its inspiration.

The connection that exists between all the faculties of man is such, that, even by improving his literary taste, you contribute to raise and dignify his character. We experience, within ourselves, a certain impression from the language which we use: the images it calls up in our minds, contribute to the better modification of our dispositions. Thus, when hesitating between different expressions, the writer or the orator gives a decided preference to that which suggests the most pure and delicate idea; his taste chooses between these expressions, in the same manner as his mind ought to determine respecting the actions of life; and the former habit often may conduce to the latter.

The sentiment of the intellectual beautiful, while it is employed upon literary objects, must inspire a repugnance for every thing mean or