semble him in this generation-none who thus can put a spirit into their work, which may make cobweb-sophistries look golden, and change a laborious life into one long holiday!

pect as when, in my boyish days, I felt my | chuckling over the fall of a brother into a trap heart beating with a strange feeling of mingled set artfully for him in the fair guise of liberal pride and reverence on becoming one of its pleading-now whispering a joy past joy in a members. The fountain yet plays among the stumble of the Lord Chief Justice himself, old trees, which used to gladden my eye in among the filmy cords drawn about his path! spring for a few days with their tender green, When the first bottle was despatched, arrived to become so prematurely desolate. But the the time for his wary host to produce his front of the Inner Temple hall, upon the papers in succession, to be drawn or settled terrace, is sadly altered for the worse. When by the joyous pleader. The well-lauded inspiI first knew it, the noble solidity of its appear- ration of a poet is not more genuine than that ance, especially of the figure over the gateway, with which he then was gifted. All his nice cut massively in the stone, carried the mind discernment-all his vast memory-all his back into the deep antiquity of the scene. skill in drawing analogies and discerning prinNow the whole building is white-washed and ciples in the "great obscurity" of the Year plastered over, the majestic entrance supplied Books-were set in rapid and unerring action. by an arch of pseudo-gothic, and a new library On he went-covering page after page, his pen added, at vast cost, in the worst taste of the "in giddy mazes running," and his mind modern antique. The view from the garden growing subtler and more acute with every is spoiled by that splendid nuisance, the Water- glass. How dextrously did he then glide loo Bridge. Formerly we used to enjoy the through all the strange windings of the case, enormous bend of the river, far fairer than the with a sagacity which never failed, while he most marvellous work of art; and while our eyes garnished his discourse with many a legal dwelt on the placid mirror of water, our imagi-pun and learned conceit, which was as the nation went over it, through calm and majestic light bubble on the deep stream of his knowwindings, into sweet rural scenes, and far in-ledge! He is gone!-and I find none to reland bowers. Now the river appears only an eblong lake, and the feeling of the country once let into the town by that glorious avenue of crystal, is shut out by a noble piece of mere human workmanship! But nature never changes, and some of her humble works are In the greater world, I have observed, with ever found to renew old feelings within us, not-sorrow, a prevailing disregard of the past, and withstanding the sportive changes of mortal a desire to extol the present, or to expatiate in fancy. The short grass of the Temple garden is visionary prospects of the future. I fear this the same as when forty years ago I was accus- may be traced not so much to philanthropy as tomed to refresh my weary eyes with its green- to self-love, which inspires men with the wish ness. There I have strolled again; and while I personally to distinguish themselves as the bent my head downwards and fixed my eyes teachers and benefactors of their species, inon the thin blades and the soft daisies, I felt as stead of resting contented to share in the vast I had felt when last I walked there-all be- stock of recollections and sympathies which tween was as nothing, or a feverish dream- is common to all. They would fain persuade and I once more dreamed of the Seals, and of us that mankind, created "a little lower than the living Sophia!—I felt—but I dare not trust the angels," is now for the first time "crowned myself on this subject farther. with glory and honour;" and they exultingly The profession of the law is strangely altered point to institutions of yesterday for the means since the days of my youth. It was then surely to regenerate the earth. Some, for example, more liberal, as well as more rational, than I pronounce the great mass of the people, through now find it. The business and pleasure of a all ages, as scarcely elevated above the brutes lawyer were not entirely separated, as at pre- which perish, because the arts of reading, sent, when the first is mere toil, and the second writing, and arithmetic, were not commonly lighter than vanity. The old stout-hearted diffused among them; and on the diffusion of pleaders threw a jovial life into their tremen- these they ground their predictions of a golden dous drudgeries, which almost rendered them age. And were there then no virtuous hardidelightful. Wine did but open to them the hood, no guileless innocence, no affections most curious intricacies of their art: they rose stronger than the grave, in that mighty lapse from it, like giants refreshed, to grapple with of years which we contemptuously stigmatize the sternest difficulties, and rejoiced in the en- as dark? Are disinterested patriotism, concounter. Their powers caught a glow in the jugal love, open-handed hospitality, meek selfseverity of the struggle, almost like that arising sacrifice, and chivalrous contempt of danger from strong exertion of the bodily frame. Nor and of death, modern inventions? Has man's did they disdain to enjoy the quaint jest, the great birth-right been in abeyance even until far-fetched allusion, or the antique fancy, which now? Oh, no! The Chaldæan shepherd did sometimes craftily peeped out on them amidst not cast his quiet gaze through weeks and their laborious researches. Poor T-Wyears in vain to the silent skies. He knew was one of the last of the race. He was the not, indeed, the discoveries of science, which heartiest and most romantic of special pleaders. have substituted an immense variety of figures Thrice happy was the attorney who could engage on space and distance, for the sweet influences him to a steak or broiled fowl in the old coffee of the stars; yet did the heavens tell to him room in Fleet-street, were I have often met him. the glory of God, and angel faces smile on How would he then dilate, in the warmth of his him from the golden clouds. Book-learning heart, on all his professional triumphs-now is, perhaps, the least part of the education of

the species. Nature is the mightiest and the | such a change as shall make the printed Bible kindliest of teachers. The rocks and unchang-alone the means of regenerating the species. ing hills give to the heart the sense of a dura-"An age of Bibles" may not be an age of tion beyond that of the perishable body. The Christian charity and hope. The word of God flowing stream images to the soul an everlast-may not be revered the more by becoming a ing continuity of tranquil existence. "The common book in every cottage, and a drug in brave o'er-hanging firmament," even to the the shop of every pawnbroker. It was surely most rugged swain, imparts some conscious- neither known nor revered the less when it ness of the universal brotherhood of those over was a rare treasure, when it was proscribed whom it hangs. The affections ask no leave by those who sat in high places, and its torn of the understanding to "glow and spread and leaves and fragments were cherished even kindle," to shoot through all the frame a tre- unto death. In those days, when a single mulous joy, or animate to holiest constancy. copy chained to the desk of the church was We taste the dearest blessedness of earth in alone in extensive parishes, did it diffuse less our childhood, before we have learned to ex-sweetness through rustic hearts than now, press it in mortal language. Life has its uni- when the poor are almost compelled to possess versal lessons far beyond human lore. Kind-it? How then did the villagers flock from disness is as cheering, sorrow as purifying, and tant farms, cheered in their long walks by the aspect of death as softening to the ignorant thoughts not of this world, to converse for a in this world's wisdom, as to the scholar. The short hour with patriarchs, saints, and apostles! purest delights grow beneath our feet, and all How did they devour the venerable and wellwho will stoop may gather them. While sages worn page with tearful eyes, or listen delighted lose the idea of the Universal Parent in their to the voice of one gifted above his fellows, subtleties, the lowly "FEEL after Him and find who read aloud the oracles of celestial wisdom! Him." Sentiment precedes reason in point of What ideas of the Bible must they have entime, and is a surer guide to the noblest reali-joyed, who came many a joyful pilgrimage to ties. Thus man hopes, loves, reveres, and en-hear or to read it! Yet even more precious was joys, without the aid of writing or of the press the enjoyment of those who, in times of perseto inspire or direct him. Many of his feelings cution, snatched glances in secret at its pages, are even heartier and more genuine before he and thus entered, as by stealth, into the parahas learned to describe them. He does not disiacal region, to gather immortal fruits and perpetually mistake words for things, nor cul- listen to angel voices. The word of God was tivate his faculties and affections for a dis- dearer to them than house, land, or the "ruddy cerning public. His aspirations "are raised, drops which warmed their hearts." Instead of not marked." If he is gifted with divine ima- the lamentable weariness and disgust with gination, he may "walk in glory and in joy which the young now too often turn from the beside his plough upon the mountain side," perusal of the Scriptures, they heard with mute without the chilling idea that he must make attention and serious joy the histories of the Old the most of his sensations to secure the ap- Testament and the parables of the New. They plause of gay saloons or crowded theatres. heard with revering sympathy of Abraham reThe deepest impressions are worn out by the ceiving seraphs unawares-of Isaac walking multiplication of their copies. Talking has out at eventide to meditate, and meeting the almost usurped the place of acting and of feel-holy partner of his days-of Jacob's dream, and ing; and the world of authors seem as though their hearts were but paper scrolls, and ink, instead of blood, were flowing in their veins. "The great events with which old story rings, seem vain and hollow." If all these evils will not be extended by what is falsely termed the Education of the Poor, let us at least be on our guard lest we transform our peasantry from men into critics, teach them scorn instead of humble hope, and leave them nothing to love, to revere, or to enjoy!

of that immortal Syrian Shepherdess, for whose love he served a hard master fourteen years, which seemed to him but a few days-of Joseph the beloved, the exile, the tempted, and the forgiver of all the wonders of the Jewish story-and of the character and sufferings of the Messiah. These things were to them at once august realities, and surrounded with a dream-like glory from afar. "Heaven lay about them in their infancy." They preserved the purity-the spirit of meek submission-the The Bible Society, founded and supported, patient confiding love of their childhood in no doubt, from the noblest motives, also puts their maturest years. They, in their turn, inforth pretensions which are sickening. Its ad- stilled the sweetness of Christian charity, drop vocates frequently represent it as destined to by drop, into the hearts of their offspring, and change all earth into a paradise. That a com-left their example as a deathless legacy. plete triumph of the principles of the Bible Surely this was better than the dignified pa would bring in the happy state which they look tronage now courted for the Scriptures, or the for can never be disputed; but the history of pompous eulogies pronounced on them by our religion affords no ground for anticipating rival orators! The reports of anniversaries such a result from the unaided perusal of its of the Bible Society are often, to me, inexpres pages. Deep and extensive impressions of the sibly nauseous. The word of God is praised truths of the gospel have never been made by in the style of eulogy employed on a common mere reading, but always by the exertions of book by a friendly reviewer. It is evidently living enthusiasm in the holy cause. Provi-used as a theme to declaim on. But the praise dence may, indeed, in its inscrutable wisdom, of the Bible is almost overshadowed by the impart new energy to particular instruments; flatteries lavished on the nobleman or county but there appears no sufficient indication of member who has condescended to preside, and

A CHAPTER ON "TIME."

BEING AN ATTEMPT TO THROW NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD SUBJECT.

[NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.]

"We know what we are," said poor Ophelia, the past and future in each fragment of the in"but we know not what we may be." Perhaps she would have spoken with a nicer accuracy had she said, "we know what we have been." Of our present state we can, strictly speaking, know nothing. The act of meditation on our selves, however quick and subtle, must refer to the past, in which alone we can truly be said to live. Even in the moments of intensest enjoyment, our pleasures are multiplied by the quick-revolving images of thought; we feel

casting their delicate shadows on the fu

ture.

of a being which should have no end. When this sense has been weakened, as it was amidst all the exquisite forms of Grecian mythology, the brevity of life has been forgotten. There is scarcely an allusion to this general sentiment, so deep a spring of the pathetic, through

also to prevail in individuals in proportion as they meditate on themselves, or as they nurse in solitude and silence the instinct of the Eternal.

Time, then, is only a notion-unfelt in its passage a mere measure given by the mind to its own past emotions. Is there, then, any abstract common measure by which the infinite variety of intellectual acts can be meted-out all the Greek tragedies. It will be found any real passage of years which is the same to all-any periodical revolution, in which all who have lived, have lived out equal hours? Is chronology any other than a fable, a "tale that is told?" Certain outward visible actions have passed, and certain seasons have rolled over them; but has the common idea of time, as applicable to these, any truth higher or surer than those infinite varieties of duration which have been felt by each single heart? Who shall truly count the measure of his own days-much more scan the real life of the millions around him?

The doctrine that Time exists only in remembrance, may serve to explain some apparent inconsistencies in the language which we use respecting our sense of its passage. We hear persons complaining of the slow passage of time, when they have spent a single night of unbroken wearisomeness, and wondering how speedily hours, filled with pleasure or engrossing occupations, have flown; and The ordinary language of moralists respect- yet we all know how long any period seems ing time shows that we really know nothing which has been crowded with events or feelrespecting it. They say that life is fleeting ings leaving a strong impression behind them. and short; why, humanly speaking, may they In thinking on seasons of ennui we have nonot as well affirm that it is extended and last- thing but a sense of length-we merely reing? The words "short" and " "long" have member that we felt the tedium of existence; only meaning when used comparatively; and but there is really no space in the imagination to what can we compare or liken this our hu- filled up by the period. Mere time, unpeopled man existence? The images of fragility-thin with diversified emotions or circumstances, is vapours, delicate flowers, and shadows cast but one idea, and that idea is nothing more from the most fleeting things—which we em- than the remembrance of a listless sensation. ploy as emblems of its transitoriness, really | A night of dull pain and months of lingering serve to exhibit its durability as great in com- weakness are, in the retrospect, nearly the same parison with their own. If life is short, com- thing. When our hands or our hearts are busy, pared with the age of some fine animals, how we know nothing of time-it does not exist for much longer is it than that of many, some of us; but as soon as we pause to meditate on whom pass through all the varieties of youth, that which is gone, we seem to have lived long maturity, and age, during a few hours, accord- because we look back through a long series ing to man's reckoning, and, if they are en- of events, or feel them at once peering one dowed with memory, look back on their early above the other like ranges of distant hills. minutes through the long vista of a summer's Actions or feelings, not hours, mark all the day! An antediluvian shepherd might com- backward course of our being. Our sense of plain with as much apparent reason of the the nearness to us of any circumstance in our brevity of his nine hundred years, as we of our life is determined on the same principles-not threescore and ten. He would find as little to by the revolution of the seasons, but by the confute or to establish his theory. There is relation which the event bears in importance nothing visible by which we can fairly reckon to all that has happened to us since. To him the measure of our lives. It is not just to com- who has thought, or done, or suffered much, pare them with the duration of rocks and hills, the level days of his childhood seem at an imwhich have withstood "a thousand storms, a measurable distance, far off as the age of chithousand thunders;" because where there is vairy, or as the line of Sesostris. There are no consciousness, there is really no time. The some recollections of such overpowering vastpower of imagination supplies to us the place ness, that their objects seem ever near; their of ages. We have thoughts which "date be- size reduces all intermediate events to nothing; yond the pyramids." Antiquity spreads around and they peer upon us like "a forked mounus her mighty wings. We live centuries in tain, or blue promontory," which, being far contemplation, and have all the sentiment of off, is yet nigh. How different from these apsix thousand years in our memories:pears some inconsiderable occurrence of more recent date, which a flash of thought redeems for a moment from long oblivion;-which is seen amidst the dim confusion of half-forgotten things, like a little rock lighted up by a chance gleam of sunshine afar in the mighty waters!

"The wars we too remember of King Nine, And old Assaracus and Ibycus divine."

Whence, then, the prevalent feeling of the brevity of our life? Not, assuredly, from its comparison with any thing which is presented to our senses. It is only because the mind is formed for eternity that it feels the shortness of its earthly sojourn. Seventy years, or seventy thousand, or seven, shared as the common lot of a species, would seem alike sufficient to those who had no sense within them

What immense difference is there, then, in the real duration of men's lives! He lives longest of all who looks back oftenest, whose life is most populous of thought or action, and on every retrospect makes the vastest picture. The man who does not meditate has no real consciousness of being. Such a one goes to

death as to a drunken sleep; he parts with ex- | fortune, or the events which have called forth istence wantonly, because he knows nothing their affections. Their first parting from home of its value. Mere men of pleasure are, therefore the most careless of duelists, the gayest of soldiers. To know the true value of being, yet to lay it down for a great cause, is a pitch of heroism which has rarely been attained by man. That mastery of the fear of death which is so common among men of spirit, is nothing but a conquest over the apprehension of dying. It is a mere victory of nerve and muscle. Those whose days have no principle of continuity-who never feel time but in the shape of ennui-may quit the world for sport or for honour. But he who truly lives, who feels the past and future in the instant, whose days are to him a possession of majestic remembrances and golden hopes, ought not to fancy himself bound by such an example. He may be inspired to lay down his life, when truth or virtue shall demand so great a sacrifice; but he will be influenced by mere weakness of resolution, not by courage, if he suffer himself to be shamed, or laughed, or worried out of it! Besides those who have no proper consciousness of being, there are others even perhaps more pitiable, who are constantly irritated by the knowledge that their life is cut up into melancholy fragments. This is the case of all the pretending and the vain; those who are ever attempting to seem what they are not, or to do what they cannot; who live in the lying breath of contemporary report, and bask out a sort of occasional holiday in the glimmers of public favour. They are always in a feverish struggle, yet they make no progress. There is no dramatic coherence, no unity of action, in the tragi-comedy of their lives. They have hits and brilliant passages perhaps, which may come on review before them in straggling succession; but nothing dignified or massive, tending to one end of good or evil. Such are self-fancied poets and panting essayists, who live on from volume to volume, or from magazine to magazine, who tremble with nervous delight at a favourable mention, are cast down by a sly alliteration or satirical play on their names, and die of an elaborate eulogy "in aromatic pain." They begin life once a quarter, or once a month, according to the will of their publishers. They dedicate nothing to posterity; but toil on for applause till praise sickens, and their "life's idle business" grows too heavy to be borne. They feel their best days passing away without even the effort to build up an enduring fame; and they write an elegy on their own weaknesses! They give their thoughts immaturely to the world, and thus spoil them for themselves for ever. Their own earliest, and deepest, and most sacred feelings become at last dull common-places, which they have talked of and written about till they are glad to escape from the theme. Their days are not "linked each to each by natural piety," but at best bound together in forgotten volumes. Better, far better than this, is the lot of those whose characters and pretensions have little "mark of likelihood;"whose days are filled up by the exercises of honest industry, and who, on looking back, recognise their lives only by the turns of their

is indelibly impressed on their minds-their school-days seem to them like one sweet April of shower and sunshine-their apprenticeship is a long week of toil;-but then their first love is fresh to them as yesterday, and their marriage, the births of their children, and of their grand-children, are events which mark their course even to old age. They reach their infancy again in thought by an easy process, through a range of remembrances few and simple, but pure, and sometimes holy. Yet happier is the lot of those who have one great aim; who devote their undivided energy to a single pursuit; who have one idea of practical or visionary good, to which they are wedded. There is a harmony, a proportion, in their lives. The Alchemist of old, labouring with undiminished hope, cheering his solitude with dreams of boundless wealth, and yet working on, could not be said to live in vain. His life was continuous-one unbroken struggle-one ardent sigh. There is the same unity of interest in the life of a great verbal scholar, or of a true miser; the same singleness of purpose, which gives solidity to floating minutes, hours, and years.

The great Lawyer deserves an eminent rank among true livers. We do not mean a political adventurer, who breathes feverishly amidst the contests, the intrigues, and petty triumphs of party; nor a dabbler in criticism, poetry, or the drama; nor even a popular nisi-prius advocate, who passes through a succession of hasty toils and violent excitements to fortune and to oblivion. But we have respect to the real dull plodder-to him who has bidden an early "Farewell to his Muse," if he ever had one: who anticipates years of solitary study, and shrinks not back; who proceeds, step by step, through the mighty maze with a cheerful heart, and counts on his distant success with mathematical precision. His industry and self-denial are powers as true as fancy or eloquence, and he soon learns to take as hearty a pleasure in their exercise. His retrospect is vast and single-of doubt solved, stoutest books mastered, nicest webs disentangled, and all from one intelligible motive which grows old with him, and, though it "strengthened with his strength," will not diminish with his decline. It is better in the end to have had the pathway of life circumscribed and railed in by forms and narrow observances, than to have strayed at will about the vast field open to human enterprise, in the freest and most graceful wanderings; because in the latter case we cannot trace our road again, or call it over; while in the first, we see it distinctly to the end, and can linger in thought over all the spots where our feet have trodden. The "old names" bring back the "old instincts" to our hearts. Instead of faint sympathies with a multitude of things, a kind of small partnership with thousands in certain general dogmas and speculations, we have all our own past individual being as a solid and abiding possession.

A metaphysician who thinks earnestly and intensely for himself, may truly be said to live