powered every consideration, and at last burst forth, “Excuse me, Mr., but do pray put your cushion straight: it annoys me, beyond measure, to see it otherwise!"

My third offence was displacing the snuffer-stand from its central position between the candlesticks; my fourth, leaving a pamphlet I had been perusing on the piano-forte; its proper place being a table in the middle of the room, on which all books in present use were ordered to repose; my fifth — but, in short, I should never have done, were I to enumerate eve ry separate enormity of which I was guilty. My friend S.'s drawing-room had as good a right to exhibit a placard of "steel traps and spring guns," as any park I am acquainted with:

In one place, you are in danger of having your legs snapped off; and in another, your nose. There never was a house so the atrociously neat: every chair and table knew its duty; very chimney ornaments "had been trained up in the way they should go;" and woe to the unlucky wight who should make them depart from it!

Even those chartered libertines," the children and dogs, were taught to be as demure and hypocritical as the matronly tabby cat herself, who sat with her two fore-feet together and her tail curled round her, as exactly as if she had been worked in an urn-rug, instead of being a living mouser. It was the utmost stretch of my friend's marital authority, to get his favourite spaniel admitted to the honour of the parlour; and even this privilege is only granted in his master's presence. If Carlo happens to pop his unlucky brown nose into the room when S. is from home, he sets off directly with as much consciousness in his ears and tail, as if he had been convicted of larceny in the kitchen, and anticipated the application of the broomstick. As to the children, I believe that they look forward to their evening visit to the drawing-room with much the same sort of feeling. Not that Mrs. S. is an unkind mother, or, I should rather say, not that she means to be so; but she has taken it into her head, that, as young people have sometimes short memories, it is necessary to put them verbally in mind of their duties, "from morn till dewy eve."

So it is with her servants. If one of them leaves a broom or a duster out of its place, for a second, she hears of it for a month afterwards. I wonder how they endure it! I have sometimes thought that from long practice, they do not heed it, as a friend of mine who lives in bustling street in the

city tells me he does not hear the noise of the coaches and carts, in front of his house, nor even of a brazier, who hammers away in his near neighbourhood, from morning till night.

The worst of it is, that while Mrs. S. never allows a moment's peace to her husband, children, or servants, she thinks herself a jewel of a wife; but such jewels are too costly for every-day wear. I am sure poor S. thinks so in his heart, and would be content to exchange half-a-dozen of his wife's tormenting good qualities, for the sake of being allowed a little common-place repose.

I never shall forget the delight I felt on entering my own house, after enduring her thraldom for two months. I absolutely revelled in disorder, and gloried in my litters. I tossed my hat one way, my gloves another; pushed all the chairs into the middle of the room, and narrowly escaped kicking my faithful Christopher, for offering to put it "in order" again, straightening," as they call it in Cheshire. That cursed "spirit of order!" I am sure it is a spirit of evil omen. For my own part, I do so execrate the phrase, that if I were a member of the house of commons, and the "order" of the day were called for, I should make it a "rule" to walk out.

EXERCISE CLVIII.

THE GRANDAM.

Lamb.

On the green hill top,

Hard by the house of prayer, a modest roof,
And not distinguished from its neighbour-barn,
Save by a slender-tapering length of spire,
The grandam sleeps. A plain stone barely tells
The name and date to the chance passenger.
For lowly born was she, and long had ate,
Well-earned, the bread of service:

- hers was else

A mounting spirit, one that entertained
Scorn of base action, deed dishonourable,
Or aught unseemly.

I remember well

Her reverend image: I remember, too,

With what a zeal she served her master's house,
And how the prattling tongue of garrulous age

Delighted to recount the oft-told tale
Or anecdote domestic. Wise she was,
And wondrous skilled in genealogies,
And could in apt and voluble terms discourse
Of births, of titles, and alliances;
Of marriages, and intermarriages;
Relationship remote, or near of kin ;
Of friends offended, family disgraced,
Maiden high-born, but wayward, disobeying
Parental strict injunction, and, regardless
Of unmixed blood and ancestry remote,
Stooping to wed with one of low degree.
But these are not thy praises; and I wrong
Thy honoured memory, recording chiefly
Things light or trivial. Better 'twere to tell,
How with a nobler zeal, and warmer love,
She served her heavenly Master. I have seen
That reverend form bent down with age and pain,
And rankling malady. Yet not for this
Ceased she to praise her Maker, nor withdrew
Her trust in Him, her faith, and humble hope,

So meekly had she learned to bear her cross;

For she had studied patience in the school

Of Christ; much comfort she had thence derived,
And was a follower of the Nazarene.

EXERCISE CLIX.

COTTAGE NAMES. Miss Mitford.

FROM the time of Goldsmith, down to the present day, fine names have been the ridicule of comic authors, and the aver sion of sensible people; notwithstanding which the evil has increased almost in proportion to its reprobation. Miss Clementina Wilhelmina Stubbs was but a type of the Julias, and Isabels, and the Helens of this accomplished age.

I should not, however, so much mind if this folly were comprised in that domain of cold gentility, to which affectation usually confines itself. One does not regard seeing Miss Arabella seated at the piano, or her little sister Leonora tottling across the carpet, to show her new pink shoes. That is

ual combination. An object naturally disagreeable, becomes beautiful, because we have often seen the sun shine or the dew sparkle upon it, or it has been grouped in a scene of peculiar interest. Thus the powers of fancy and of taste, blend associations in the mind, which disguise the original nature of moral qualities. A liberal generosity, a disinterested selfdevotion, a powerful energy, or deep sensibility of soul, a contempt of danger and death, are often so connected in story with the most profligate principles and manners, that the latter are excused and even sanctified by the former. The impression, which so powerfully seizes all the sympathies, is one; and the ardent youth becomes almost ambitious of a character he ought to abhor. So too sentiments, from which, in their plain form, delicacy would revolt, are insinuated with the charms of poetical imagery and expression; and even the coarseness of Fielding is probably less pernicious than the seducing refinement of writers like Moore; whose voluptuous sensibility steals upon the heart, and corrupts its purity, as the moonbeams, in some climates, are believed to poison the substances on which they fall.

But in no productions of modern genius is the reciprocal influence of morals and literature more distinctly seen, than in those of the author of Childe Harold. His character produced the poems; and it cannot be doubted, that his poems are adapted to produce such a character. His heroes speak a language, supplied not more by imagination, than consciousness. They are not those machines, that, by a contrivance of the artist, send forth a music of their own, - but instruments, through which he breathes his very soul, in tones of agonized sensibility, that cannot but give a sympathetic impulse to those who hear. The desolate misanthropy of his mind rises, and throws its dark shade over his poetry, like one of his own ruined castles: we feel it to be sublime; but we forget, that it is a sublimity it cannot have, till it is abandoned by every thing that is kind and peaceful and happy, and its halls are ready to become the haunts of outlaws and assassins.

Nor are his more tender and affectionate passages those, to which we can yield ourselves without a feeling of uneasiness. It is not that we can here and there select a proposition formally false or pernicious; but that he leaves an impression unfavourable to a healthful state of thought and feeling, peculiarly dangerous to the finest minds and most susceptible hearts. They are the scene of a summer evening, where all

is tender and beautiful and grand; but the damps of disease descend with the dews of heaven, and the pestilent vapours of night are breathed in with the fragrance and balm; and the delicate and fair are the surest victims of the exposure.

Although I have illustrated the moral influence of literature, principally from its mischiefs; yet it is obvious, if what I said be just, it may be rendered no less powerful, as a means of good. Is it not true that within the last century a decided and important improvement in the moral character of our literature, has taken place; and, had Pope and Smollett written at the present day, would the former have published the imitations of Chaucer, or the latter the adventures of Pickle and Random? Genius cannot now sanctify impurity or want of principle; and our critics and reviewers are exercising jurisdiction not only upon the literary but moral blemishes of the authors, that come before them. We observe, with peculiar pleasure, the sentence of just indignation, which the Edinburgh tribunal has pronounced upon Moore, Swift, Goethe, and in general the German sentimentalists. Indeed, the fountains of literature into which an enemy has sometimes infused poison, naturally flow with refreshment and health. Cowper and Campbell have led the muses to repose in the bowers of religion and virtue; and Miss Edgeworth has so cautiously combined the features of her characters, that the predominant expression is ever what it should be; she has shown us, not vices ennobled by virtues, but virtues, degraded and perverted by their union with vices. The success of this lady has been great; but had she availed herself more of the motives and sentiments of religion, we think it would have been greater. She has stretched forth a powerful hand to the impotent in virtue; and had she added, with the apostle, - "In the name of Jesus of Nazareth,". we should almost have expected miracles from its touch.

The incorporating of religion with morality we mention, in the last place, as a means of practical influence. Those we have hitherto noticed, have a more particular reference to the higher and intellectual classes; but this extends to every order in society. It is not the fountain, which plays only in the gardens of the palace, but the rain of heaven which descends alike upon the enclosures of the rich and the poor, and refreshes the meanest shrub, no less than the fairest flower. The sages of antiquity seem to have believed, that morality had nothing to do with religion; and Christians of the middle age, that religion had nothing to do with morality;