eagerly engaged in an experiment, without making himself acquainted with the principles and details of procedure. He had purchased a pamphlet on the subject, perhaps too sanguinely written; even that he did not thoroughly examine, but contented himself with the introductory statement that mangel-wurzel was a most excellent thing, and ought by all means to be cultivated, and the closing anticipation of most profitable results from its being extensively adopted. The intermediate directions for the preparation and culture he completely overlooked; or at least contented himself with handing it over to his men, who were either too inattentive and indolent to follow the plans laid out, or too confident in their own skill to be willing to receive instruction. So between master and men, the experiment was not fairly tried, and the result was any thing but satisfactory. Mr. Kennedy found the returns of his crops to fall two or three hundred pounds short of the foregoing year; and he resolved never to sow another grain of mangelwurzel as long as he lived.

Mr. Kennedy was a novelist-(I do not mean a writer of novels, but a lover of novelty) in building and planting. I do consider it one of the innocent pleasures of a wealthy country gentleman to alter and improve his residence and estate, provided such expensive gratifications are kept within the bounds of justice, prudence, and moderation, so as neither to injure his creditors, nor impoverish his family, nor engross the resources that ought to be devoted to the claims of benevolence and piety. This was perhaps one of the least exceptionable of King Solomon's experiments, when he was making trial of the various expedients adopted by the sons of men to find gratification in worldly things, Eccles. ii. 4-6.

But Mr. Kennedy's taste for novelty and variety was carried to such excess as to defeat its own end. Nothing was left long enough to give a fair trial of its merits. Every alteration that presented itself to his own imagination, or that was suggested by a visitor, or of which he had seen an example on any other estate, was immediately adopted; and these changes took place in such rapid succession that his grounds never presented the same aspect for two successive seasons; his plantations had scarcely time to take hold on the earth before they were to be

re-arranged; hedges, walls, and invisible fences displaced each other with almost as great rapidity as the master of the estate changed his coat; and it was frequently said of his house, that the mortar was never dry. In the course of a few years the timber on the estate, which to former possessors yielded a rich revenue, was comparatively worthless, and even the estate itself was mortgaged.

For several years, Mr. Kennedy was in a very indifferent state of health; his maladies, there is every reason to believe, greatly aggravated, if not entirely originating, in his sudden and capricious changes of diet and regimen, and his rash adoption of every novelty in medicine, or rather in quackery. Nor was he content with practising his whims on his own proper person. All who came under his control became the subjects of his experiments, and the sufferers for his folly. In his eagerness to embrace the new thing proposed to him, Mr. Kennedy never gave himself the trouble to consider how far it might be applicable to existing circumstances. For example: he somewhere met with the remark that modern luxury was not conducive to health and vigour; that carpets, curtains, and heated rooms tended to enfeeble the constitution. Mrs. Kennedy, a sensible woman, admitted the justice of the remark, and said she would immediately make arrangements for reducing both the nursery and sleeping rooms to a temperature more congenial to hardihood. But gradual reductions would by no means suit the ardent theorist. "Wait for a change in the weather ?" and "do it by degrees ?" No such thing. It should be done immediately and entirely. That very day the carpets should be taken up, and the curtains removed, the chamber windows should remain open all night, and the children should be plunged in cold water; he wished to see them as robust and vigorous as the hardy mountain children described by the theorist with whose work he was so delighted. In defiance of all remonstrance, he carried his plan into effect, and in a few days Mrs. Kennedy was laid up with an alarming attack of inflammation on the lungs, and the youngest child died of croup.

At one time, Mr. Kennedy was a great admirer of count Rumford's digester, and thought that animal jellies and broths were the most nutritious and digestible food; they were adopted almost

exclusively in his family, much to the dissatisfaction of some, who, though they would have liked soups, stews, and jellies to come in by way of occasional variety, wished also to partake of the good substantial roasted sirloin, or fillet; and who complained, too, that however warm the room might be, and however well the cookery might be carried on by means of stoves, digesters, and other modern apparatus, there was nothing so cheerful and agreeable as a good visible English fire. During the reign of stoves and invisible heat, one or two of the servants took their departure in disgust. But the obnoxious novelty soon passed away; Mr. Kennedy discovered that broths, stews, and jellies, impart no nourishment whatever, except in the bread of which they form the vehicle; and that of meat much done, the nutritive properties are neither to be found in the meat nor in the gravy. The table once more groaned under solid joints of meat; which, however, the capricious master insisted should be not more than half roasted. The stoves, also, were abolished, and in their place were introduced large shallow grates, without hobs, presenting a front of clear fire, several feet in extent, both of width and height. "Bright and cheerful enough, now," said one of the servants to another, "only one cannot get near it without danger of being roasted alive. I do wish our master could be content with moderation; but with him it is all one way or all the other; and this new contrivance will last as many nights as days, but nobody can guess how many." It needs scarcely be said, that the master, on whom such remarks can be fairly made, loses much of the weight and respectability attaching to stability of character.

The versatility and caprice of Mr. Kennedy, in reference to the physical management of his children, has already been alluded to. The same fickle disposition was no less manifest in regard to their moral discipline. According to the theory of the last writer on education with whom he happened to meet, and perhaps with only a superficial and one-sided view even of the scheme for the present adopted by their father, the little Kennedys were now treated with the utmost tenderness and indulgence, and now with the most rigorous severity. The effects of such a course were most disas

trous. Both the happiness of the children and the influence of the parents were sacrificed by this injudicious treatment, and in the tempers and habits thus formed, or left unformed, during the pliant years of childhood, a harvest of misery was laid up for future years. The mother, indeed, exerted herself for the real welfare of her children; but, comparatively speaking, what can a mother do, who is liable to be continually thwarted by some incalculable freak on the part of her husband? Not one of the children grew up thoroughly amiable and desirable as a family connexion. Each was in some way eccentric, capricious, disorderly, and ill-tempered.

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Mr. Kennedy was a great patronizer of almost every new pill, powder, drop, elixir, and embrocation that was nounced in the newspapers. If he chanced to read an advertisement, setting forth the wonderful cures effected by these nostrums, he directly fancied that he discovered in himself, or in some one with whom he had influence or authority, symptoms of the various maladies against which these powerful batteries were levelled; and forthwith the party must be put under their operation, I need scarcely say with no advantage, and sometimes with serious injury. Perhaps one of the most harmless of his medical whims, was the use of the patent metallic tractors, which made a great but short-lived noise at the commencement of the present century. So fully persuaded was Mr. Kennedy of their universal efficiency, that he purchased two pairs. (The price was considerable, I forget whether one guinea or five.) He invited all the poor to come to his hall, and be operated upon by these infallible instruments of good, and kept two persons constantly employed in applying them. Nervous people fancied they found benefit; poor people really found benefit, from having their wants brought under the notice of those who were able and inclined to relieve them; but some, who were labouring under real disease, were thus diverted from the use of proper remedies, until their maladies had become doubly intractable, if not altogether incurable. Mr. Kennedy was also a great reader of medical books, and very fond of picking up, and acting upon a smattering of chemistry or medicine. I recollect once, when going to London, being commissioned to procure for him,

at Apothecaries' Hall, "an ounce or two of bismuth." I requested a medical gentleman, at whose house I was visiting, to procure it for me: he smiled, and said, Why your practice must be very extensive; I do not think I have had as much in my shop since I commenced." I told him that it was not for my own use, but was a commission from a friend, and was probably wanted for some experiment. Indeed it was; a few weeks afterwards Mr. Kennedy was alarmingly ill. Happening to meet the surgeon who attended him, I inquired after him, and was told that he had almost brought himself to death, by the ignorant and altogether unnecessary, and, therefore, improper use of a powerful drug, called bismuth.

Mr. Kennedy's fickle disposition was exercised on politics. I must confess myself so little of a politician, that I scarcely know one side from the other; and when I knew Mr. Kennedy, I was too young to enter at all into the matter. I only know that I have heard him talk loudly, by the hour together, about king and parliament, and the rights of the people, and the impolicy of the measures adopted; and the one only thing that could save the nation; but of what it was all about, I have no clear recollection; only I know that I have heard my uncle say, that in the course of seven years he had veered to every point of the political compass, and, for the time being, was equally zealous for each. He was, at one time, ardently favourable to the French Revolution, and at another, as eager an advocate for the war commenced by Great Britain in opposition to it.

Mr. Kennedy was fond of speculating in money affairs, and was, on several occasions, duped by persons or companies that professed to have devised some infallible plan for turning every thing to gold. Mr. Kennedy was not naturally a mercenary man, but his numerous expensive whims, during a series of years, had seriously injured his property, and led him eagerly to grasp at any thing that seemed to promise to reinstate him in his former comfortable circumstances. It will be concluded, by those who know any thing of life, that the expedient proved worse than the original difficulty. Happily, the estate could not be alienated from Mrs. Kennedy and her children, but it was clogged and impaired in every possible way; and I believe that,

for years, while keeping up the appearance of wealth and gentility, that family knew straits, to which the careful, prudent tradesman, or labouring man, is a stran ger.

Among the many schemes eagerly adopted by this lover of novelty, he was one of the earliest and most zealous advocates of phrenology. As soon as it was broached, he received it, not with the spirit of candid examination and patient inquiry, but as a matter of absolute, universal, and infallible certainty, and fully expected that this science (for so he boldly denominated it, when at most it could but be regarded, by sober people, as a matter of interesting inquiry) was to work a most beneficial change on the face of society. He gravely said to my uncle that it would effectually guard us against imposition, and especially against admitting improper persons into our houses as domestics or friends, or in any family connexion; and that in all transactions of importance he should think himself perfectly justified in claiming to examine the protuberances of the person in whom he was about to confide. He was exceedingly anxious to make proselytes to this system; and, as he was repeatedly outvoted in his attempt to introduce to the reading society with which he and my uncle were connected all publications treating on that subject, he purchased two sets at his own expense, gained over the secretary of the institution, and, through his instrumentality, put them in circulation through the society; allowing twice as many days for perusal as would have been assigned to any other books of the same size.

As to religion, I hope and believe that Mr. Kennedy was a good man, but here his native eccentricity was most unhappily displayed. He was one of whom it might justly be said, "unstable as water, thou shalt not excel." In the course of his religious career, he touched at the various points of pharisaical rigidity and antinomian latitudinarianism : at one time, he maintained that human effort was every thing; at another that, by the absolute sovereignty of Divine grace, it was rendered absolutely needless. At one time, he was the eager partisan of some one of the various departments of pious labour, for the sake of which he neglected and deprecated all the rest; all funds, all exertions, not devoted to his favourite object, he con

lified all their freeness. At another time, he would speak of the full confidence and persuasion he had of his safety, in such a way as, to Christians of more sober views or more humble attain. ments, seemed at best very questionable. At one stage of his religious experience, he measured his growth in grace by the rapidity of his movements from one place of worship to another, and the quantity of sermons he could contrive to cram into a given portion of time; at another, he regarded preaching as a carnal ordinance, and the separation of men to the work of the ministry as an infringement on the teaching of the Holy Spirit, of which all believers partake. He was the ready disciple of every new and visionary teacher. He listened with eagerness to explanations of unrevealed mysteries, and detailed expositions of unfulfilled prophecy. He was certain that this and that would take place exactly as Mr. Somebody had described it; and, not content with his own full assurance on the subject, he was ready to denounce all who did not receive his views or go all his lengths. At one time he was the zealous advocate of uniformity in order to Christian communion; at another, he maintained such a universal liberality of sentiment and practice as would speedily amalgamate the church and the world.

sidered misapplied: at another time, he thought all human efforts presumptuous interferences with the Divine purpose: if it pleased God to convert children, He could do so without parental instruction and discipline; if sinners were elected to salvation, they would be saved without ministers, missionaries, Bible, tracts, and schools. It was in vain to argue with him that God had made it our duty to exercise the means, and that, though the efficacious blessing was at His own sovereign disposal, it was usually bestowed on a diligent and humble employment of the appointed instrumentality; that though, doubtless, Omnipotence could carry on its own work without human effort, yet since that was, in mercy and condescension, employed, the honour ought to be earnestly desired, and the opportunity thankfully embraced, of being workers together with God. I cannot recollect his answers to these and similar arguments; but I know that, somehow or other, he contrived to reject them all. Of several popular preachers, very different in their scale of theological sentiments and in their method of preaching, it might be said in succession, that at one time he would have plucked out his eyes for them; at another, that he regarded them as ignorant misguided men, blind leaders of the blind. He read a popular and able work on the covetousness and worldly-mindedness of Christian professors. He pronounced it the best book that ever was written; that it ought to be circulated universally, and its principles carried out to their widest extent, and minutest details. In less than a year another book came out on the opposite side of the question; then that book was the very best, and the former was grossly erroneous. Equally versatile were his religious feelings; sometimes he laboured under most distressing apprehensions about his eternal salvation, lest he should not be among the elect. In vain was he urged to lay hold on the express and general invitations and promises of the gospel, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"- "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth"-" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved"—“Him | that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out"-"Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." No; to all these he contrived to attach some restrictive meaning that completely nul

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But it is needless to extend the sketch, especially as I wish to add a few sayings of my uncle, called forth at different times by the opposite errors and absurdities of antiquity and novelty. I will only add, that when in declining health, Mr. Kennedy was the subject of gloom, distress, and uncertainty, it was extremely hard for him to shake off his vain speculations, and come with humble and unprejudiced mind to the pure fountain of truth and consolation. It was there, however, that he was at last brought, through many painful and perplexing exercises of mind, and there alone he found rest and satisfaction. With no common emphasis his feeble lips pressed on those around him the apostolic exhortations, henceforth no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine," Eph. iv. 14; "Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace," Heb. xiii. 9; Be ye stedfast and unmoveable, 1 Cor. xv. 58; "Hold fast the

Be ye

form of sound words," 2 Tim. i. 13; 1 Tim. vi. 20; "Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing," Phil. iii. 16.

I close with my uncle's remarks.

It indicates a weak mind to estimate things merely as they are new or old. The proper question is, Are they true and good?

Those who attach great importance to the date of things, are taken up with trifling circumstances, and overlook matters of real importance connected even with the things they admire. They pride themselves on possessing a rare piece of antiquity, or in outstripping others in adopting the newest inventions; but are strangers to the solid satisfaction which belongs to the possession of what is truly valuable and the adoption of something really useful. "I have a sampler of my great-grandmother's," says one; "it is ugly and moth-eaten, but I value it for its antiquity; it must have been in the family more than a hundred years.” “I have some letters of my great-grandmother's," says a sister of the first-mentioned young lady, "which indicate that she was an excellent woman. She evidently possessed sound judgment, hightoned principle, and generous magnanimity and genuine piety. I often read her letters with deep interest, I sympathize in her trials, and derive instruction from her example for my own guidance and support."

The idolaters either of antiquity or novelty continually expose themselves to petty vexations. One possesses some trifle of which he boasts as being the most an.. tique in existence and altogether unique; another values himself on an article of dress or furniture because it is the very first of the kind, nobody else has one like it; but the former finds out that one antiquarian has a gem exactly like his own, and another has one some years older; the latter finds himself outstripped in the chase of fashion by some one perhaps whom he considers his inferior, and immediately the things in question have lost all their value. What wise man would place any portion of his happiness on such trifles ?

The slave of antiquity bars the door against improvement. The hunter after novelty opens it to ruin.

He who spends all his attention and energies on securing and admiring what he has, is not likely to gain more or

better. He who devotes himself to grasping after something that he does not possess, is very likely to lose what he has.

Truth is immutable. It is neither old nor new. It cannot change with the little changing circumstances by which we are surrounded. If therefore we take our stand by truth and excellence, we join all the wise and good among the ancients; and we shall be joined by all the wise and good of the present and future generations.

The Bible is a blessed book. It teaches us to set a due value upon every thing, to judge of things by their real importance, to choose or reject them as they are suitable or otherwise to our character, circumstances, and duties; and amidst all the changing opinions and customs of men, it gives us something to direct our steps, to satisfy our souls, and to sustain our expectations, that can neither be worn out by antiquity nor superseded by novelty. C.

A DIALOGUE ON OLD TIMES AND NEW TIMES

Between Robert Arnold and Henry Milman.

Robert. WELL, Henry! Here we are again on the eve of another Christmas; it seems but as yesterday since this time last year. Do you remember that you and I met in a party last Christmas eve?

Henry. Oh yes, I remember it well. There is much that is pleasant in Christmas parties, when children, and parents, and friends assemble together with thankfulness to God, and good will and affection towards one another; and yet there is something solemn in them, too; for we are travellers to another world, and these meetings are like so many milestones that tell us we are getting nearer and nearer to our journey's end.

Robert. Ay! Time flies apace.

Henry. It does fly apace, and, what is still more important, we are flying apace with it. If we are going in a wrong direction, it is a fearful thing; but if we are going right, it does not much signify.

Robert. Well! From what I have heard, things are not now what they had used to be. New times are not to be compared with old times.

Henry. In what respect do you mean, Robert ?

Robert. Why, I mean that in many respects things have got worse instead of better.

Henry. That may be, but it does not