you and I as well satisfied in the enjoyment of the wholesome nutritious food we have just taken, as the lords of the earth are in the possession of their tasteless feasts, their pomp, their su-, perfluities? I say 'possession,' for 'enjoyment' they have none: to such a pitch of ennui have wealth and idleness, and luxurious sloth brought them; so restless and dissatisfied are they, that like the bee, they perish from the sting they leave: they gnaw their own fingers with vexation, as the scorpion is said to wound herself to death. So true is it, that a dereliction of nature must at last invert itself, must begin all afresh at its first point of commencement. They grow up so cased in prejudice and pride, that their fellow-men are to them as footstools, as clay under the potter's hand, to be plastic to their will; as tools of iron, wood, and stone, to cut, to pierce, to wedge, to crush, at their beck and nod. yet I blame them not; suppose we had been born of their number, should not we do like to them? Is not the mind of infancy moulded to the caprice of those who fashion it as ductile clay, warpped like a green twig, tied in knots, as men bend and plait the ashen saplings, to grow and unbend no more? Let us not be unjust, let us condemn principles, not men: let us hope the worst is over; it is not too late. Man

And

has reached perhaps the climax of folly; he has sought diligently, and has not found, because he looked for the goal of happiness in a path where it was not. Perhaps he will be wise enough to retrace his steps, to profit by past experience; to own he has been misled by an ignis fatuus, a shadow untangible. He seems at last to pause, breathless, dejected, fearful; to say, 'fool that I have been! where am I, whither shall I turn?' And when once he is ingenuous enough to confess his error, to say, 'God is just to man, but man is unjust to himself, let us see what we must do to regain the direction, the road to real happiness;' then, and not before, we may safely pronounce the cure of evil to be begun. That such may be the joyful result of past error, is my unceasing wish. That error is at the bottom of the system now, no one will be impudent enough to deny, but those who gorge and fatten on the entrails of civil society. Let us fondly hope their number and power will decrease daily."

LETTER XVIII.

"To-day," said L, "I think I shall be able to point out some fresh instances of the discrepancy and contradiction which tear us in pieces! I allude to the dissentions among men in matters of religious worship: we will go out, as we did yesterday, and cull a few by way of sample."

We went accordingly, but had hardly gone a few paces before I observed something unusual in the general appearance; the streets were silent, the shops with closed shutters, and bells were tolling dismally at every turn: "What," said I, "is the meaning of this? Has some public misfortune befallen the city?" "This," said L, "is the Sabbath, the day of periodical cessation from labour to man and beast, or which rather should be so; a day which, if properly observed, would be an excellent national institute; which I hold in veneration, which ought, and which would, in a better state of things, be a day of increased hilarity and decent festival, not of noisy, periodical drunkenness and brutality. However,

let us see what's to be seen; who comes here? Example the first: there's a pretty specimen of degradation! videlicet, Human nature disguised in a state of beastly intoxication. The probability is, that that man, being one of the cogs in the wheels of the 'engine,' videlicet, a mechanic, has been working hard, and faring worse, all the week; it is not unlikely he has been engaged on taskwork, labouring by the piece at over-hours, and what not: by these six days of preceding machinery, his whole frame is worked up to an unnatural pitch; perhaps aided by the commotion of inward irritation at the bitter reflection, that all his toil, his deprivation of light and liberty, (for he has been immured in an apartment under-ground) will scarce suffice to procure bread for a hungry family. This morning, and not before,his wages were pushed at him he passed a house where the stimuli of liquors are sold; his blood boils: beer will cool it, at least will allay its ferment, will afford a temporary lull: the temptation is irresistible, he enters-and soon the fumes of inebriety overpower his weak frame, his faculties benumbed with intensic fatigue. We have just seen him; in a few hours his stupor will pass away, he will wake sick in body and mind,

:

1

to misery more acute, more destitute than before..

"A man approached, wearing his beard unshorn, with a peculiar thoughtfulness in his eye, and a cast of features peculiar also. "That," said L--, "is a Jew; one of that race who remain unshaken in the faith of their forefathers, who, smiling at Christian obloquy, yet hope to see the beauty of Zion restored in her high places, that her temporal deliverer (he will tell you his ancestors expected no other Messiah,) will yet place her supreme over the tribes of the earth: observe his cast of countenance, retained for three thousand years, by intermarriage with his own people, only. I venerate a conscientious Jew; he at least worships Unity, the great 'I AM;' who said, 'let there be light and there was light,' the God of his fathers, Jehovah, who he verily . believes revealed himself to Moses, the lawgiver of his race. There is something amiable in his steady credulity, his fond expectancy. And this is he who is lumped with Turks, Heretics, and Infidels, and as such to be penned in the fold of Christian orthodoxy, if possibly he can be driven there: depend on it, he never will. Can he love the religion of those who, with universal charity on the tip of their tongues, mock and spit on him in his daily walks?