Though bred a Presbyterian, and brought up a merchant, he was the finest gentleman of his time. He had not one system of attention to females in the drawing-room, and another in the shop or at the stall. I do not mean that he made no distinction; but he never lost sight of sex, or overlooked it in the casualties of a disadvantageous situation. I have seen him stand bare-headed -smile if you please—to a poor servant-girl while she has been inquiring of him the way to some street, in such a posture of unforced civility as neither to embarrass her in the acceptance, nor himself in the offer of it. He was no dangler, in the common acceptation of the word, after women; but he reverenced and upheld, in every form in which it came before him, womanhood. I have seen him nay, smile not-tenderly escorting a marketwoman whom he had encountered in a shower, exalting his umbrella over her poor basket of fruit, that it might receive no damage,

To the

with as much carefulness as if she had been a countess. reverend form of Female Eld he would yield the wall (though it were to an ancient beggar-woman) with more ceremony than we can afford to show our grandams. He was the Preux Chevalier of Age; the Sir Calidore or Sir Tristan to those who have no Calidores or Tristans to defend them. The roses that had long faded thence still bloomed for him in those withered and yellow cheeks.

He was never married; but in his youth he paid his addresses to the beautiful Susan Winstanley,old Winstanley's daughter, of Clapton, who, dying in the early days of their courtship, confirmed in him the resolution of perpetual bachelorship. It was during their short courtship, he told me, that he had been one day treating his mistress with a profusion of civil speeches, the common gallantries, to which kind of thing she had hitherto manifested no repugnance; but in this instance with no effect. He could not obtain from her a decent acknowledgment in return: she rather seemed to resent his compliments. He could not set it down to caprice; for the lady had always shown herself above that littleness. When he ventured on the following day, finding her a little better humored, to expostulate with her on her coldness of yesterday, she confessed, with her usual frankness, that she had no sort of dislike to his attentions; that she could even endure some high-flown compliments; that a young woman placed in her situation had a right to expect all sort of civil things said to her; that she hoped that she could digest a dose of adulation, short of insincerity, with as little injury to her humility as most young women: but that - a little before he had commenced his compliments she had overheard him, by accident, in rather rough language, rting a young woman who had not brought home his cravats quite to the appointed time; and she thought to

a

herself, "As I am Miss Susan Winstanley, and a young lady, reputed beauty, and known to be a fortune, I can have the choice of the finest speeches from the mouth of this very fine gentleman who is courting me; but if I had been poor Mary Such-a-one (naming the milliner), and had failed of bringing home the cravats at the appointed hour, though perhaps I had sat up half the night to forward them, what sort of compliments should I have received then? And my woman's pride came to my assistance, and I thought, that, if it were only to do me honor, a female like myself might have received handsomer usage; and I was determined not to accept any fine speeches to the compromise of that sex, the belonging to which was, after all, my strongest claim and title to them."

I think the lady discovered both generosity and a just way of thinking in this rebuke which she gave her lover; and I have sometimes imagined that the uncommon strain of courtesy which through life regulated the actions and behavior of my friend toward all of womankind indiscriminately, owed its happy origin to this seasonable lesson from the lips of his lamented mistress.

I wish the whole female world would entertain the same notion of these things that Miss Winstanley showed: then we should see something of the spirit of consistent gallantry, and no longer witness the anomaly of the same man a pattern of true politeness to a wife, of cold contempt or rudeness to a sister, the idolater of his female mistress, the disparager and despiser of his no less female aunt, or unfortunate (still female) maiden cousin. Just so much respect as a woman derogates from her own sex, in whatever condition placed,- her handmaid or dependant, she deserves to have diminished from herself on that score, and probably will feel the diminution when youth and beauty, and advantages not inseparable from sex, shall lose of their attraction. What a woman should demand of a man in courtship, or after it, is, first, respect for her as she is a woman; and, next to that, to be respected by him above all other women. But let her stand upon her female character as upon a foundation; and let the attentions incident to individual preference be so many additaments and ornaments as many and as fanciful as you please to that main structure. Let her first lesson be with sweet Susan Winstanley, to reverence her sex.

ESSAYISTS AND CRITICS.

WILLIAM COBBETT.—1762-1835.

"Rural Rides," "Cottage Economy," and

works on America. JOHN FOSTER. - 1770-1843. "Decision of Character," and other able essays. WILLIAM HAZLITT. 1778-1830. Author of "The Characters of Shakspeare's Plays," "Table-Talk," "Lectures upon the English Poets," and "Life of Napoleon."

SYDNEY SMITH. 1771-1845. First editor of "The Edinburgh Review." The most brilliant wit of his time. Author of Letters on the Subject of the Catholics, by Peter Plymley,' ," "Letters to Archdeacon Singleton," and "Letters on the Pennsylvania Bonds."

FRANCIS, Lord JEFFREY.-1773-1850. The distinguished critic of "The Edinburgh Review." The article on "Beauty," at the beginning of this book, was taken from his volume of "Essays and Criticisms."

WALTER S. LANDOR.- -1775-1864. Author of "Imaginary Conversations," "Gebir," "Count Julian," and other shorter poems.

JOHN HORNE TOOKE.-1736-1812. "The Diversions of Purley."

WILLIAM COMBE.-1741-1823. "Letters of the late Lord Lyttleton," "Tour of Dr. Syntax."

ARCHIBALD ALISON.-1757-1838. Celebrated "Essay on Taste."

ISAAC DISRAELI. -1766-1848.

thors,'
"Calamities of Authors."

"Curiosities of Literature," "Quarrels of Au

HENRY, Lord BROUGHAM. - 1778-1868. "Observations on Light," "Statesmen of George III.," "England under the House of Lancaster."

Sir EGERTON BRYDGES.-1762-1837. "Censuria Literaria,' ""Letters on the Genius of Byron."

JOHN WILSON CROKER. .-1780-1857. "Lord Hervey's Memoirs of the Court of George II."

SCIENTIFIC WRITERS AND SCHOLARS.

DISTINGUISHED CHEMISTS.

Sir HUMPHRY DAVY.-1778-1829. Many valuable papers in "Transactions of the Royal Society," ," "Salmonia," and "The Last Days of a Philosopher."

Sir JOHN HERSCHEL. 1790. Distinguished astronomer. "Treatises on Sound and Light," "Outlines of Astronomy."

JEREMY BENTHAM.-1748-1832. Celebrated writer on law and politics. "Fragments on Government," ," "Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation," and others. A utilitarian, his motto was, "The greatest happiness to the greatest number."

DUGALD STEWART.-1753-1828. Metaphysician. Human Mind," "Outlines of Moral Philosophy."

"The Philosophy of the

," "The Principles

DAVID RICARDO. -1772-1823. "The High Price of Bullion,' of Political Economy and Taxation."

THOMAS BROWN.

Mind."

1778-1820.

"Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human

GEORGE COMBE.-1788-1858. "Essays on Phrenology;' "The Constitution of Man," a celebrated text-book.

JOHN ABERCROMBIE. 1781-1844. "The Intellectual Powers and the Investigation of Truth,' Philosophy of the Moral Feelings."

66

99 66

J. RAMSAY M'CULLOCH.

1766-1813. "American Ornithology,"

- 1790-1864. "Elements of Political Economy," Dictionary of Commerce," ,"Statistical Account of the British Empire." ADAM CLARKE. 1760-1832. Eminent divine; Wesleyan Methodist. "A Com

mentary on the Bible,' Bibliographical Dictionary."

ROBERT HALL.

1764-1831. Distinguished Baptist preacher. "An Apology for the Freedom of the Press," "A Sermon on Modern Infidelity," and other eloquent sermons.

EDWARD IRVING.

-1792-1834. Sermons and lectures.

RICHARD PORSON.-1759-1808. Classical scholar. 66 "Eschylus," and "Herodotus;" "Notes on Greek Poets."

Euripides," "Homer,"

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON.

1788-1824.

The most distinguished poet of his time. His famous retort upon the Edinburgh critics," English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," shows how elegantly invective, inspired by contempt and hate, speaks English. His best known works are "Childe Harold," "The Giaour," "The Bride of Abydos,' "The Corsair," "Don Juan," and many shorter poems, “The Prisoner of Chillon," "The Lainent of Tasso," "The Prophecy of Dante,' ," "The Vision of Judgment," and others well known.

THE DYING GLADIATOR.

THE seal is set. Now welcome, thou dread power,
Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here
Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight-hour
With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear!
Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear
Their ivy mantles; and the solemn scene
Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear,
That we become a part of what has been,
And grow unto the spot, all-seeing, but unseen.

And here the buzz of eager nations ran
In murmured pity or loud-roared applause,
As man was slaughtered by his fellow-man.
And wherefore slaughtered? wherefore, but because
Such were the bloody circus' genial laws,
And the imperial pleasure? Wherefore not?
What matters where we fall to fill the maws

Of worms, on the battle-plains, or listed spot?

Both are but theaters where the chief actors rot.

I see before me the gladiator lie:

He leans upon his hand; his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony;
And his drooped head sinks gradually low;
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower. And now
The arena swims around him: he is gone

Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.

He heard it; but he heeded not: his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away:
He recked not of the life he lost, nor prize;
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play;
There was their Dacian mother: he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday!

All this rushed with his blood. Shall he expire,
And unavenged? Arise, ye Goths, and glut your ire !

APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN.

THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain :
Man marks the earth with ruin; his control
Stops with the shore: upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed; nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths; thy fields
Are not a spoil for him; thou dost arise

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,

Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray,
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay;

And dashest him again to earth, there let him lay!