size, yet large enough to blast the last hope of a proud, broken, forlorn heart; there they stood out like figures of fate-1780-exactly sixteen years after Hogarth had died.

PART IV.

"A LETTER, please, sir, marked immediate,' and the waterman says he was directed to have an answer!"

I broke the seal hurriedly, and my worst fears were realised. Making a hasty toilette, I was quickly on shore, and under the guidance of the old waterman, I found the humble dwelling of Adrian Luttrell. There, stretched on four miserable chairs, lay the once brilliant cavalier, the victim of blighted love, of cold, calculating ambition. And there, kneeling by his side, her hands clasped in his, her head pillowed on his breast, was the constant, high-minded, noble Mabel Stair. Now her own mistress, she had sought out her "Last Stake," and to offer him name, fame, and fortune, had travelled unceasingly, and from afar.

I must now draw the curtain. What his high sense of honour prevented him from seeking whilst life and hope remained, the faithful heart of his first and only love came to offer him in his extremity, but too late. The burning tears coursed silently down my cheeks, as I perused the last chapter of a chequered life; in a short twenty minutes, I supported a fainting form to the carriage which awaited her, and returned alone to the chamber of the dead!

Let any of my readers who may chance to visit the collection amongst which hangs this famous "Hogarth," remember my little yarn; for, with the exception of names, it is an "ower" true tale.

COURAGE FOR LIFE.

Look at life bravely!-shrink not in fear,
Tho' long be the path, and forlorn and drear;
Tho' vanished for ever the wild, gladdening dreams
That brightened thy path, like the young morn's beams.
Thank God for the sunshine-look bravely at life,
With new strength in thy soul for its sadness and strife;
Sadness that may but depart with thy breath-
Strife that scarcely may cease until death.
Still look at life bravely!-shrink not in fear,
Each hour that flies bringeth evening near.

Look at life bravely!-turn not away;
Bear it thou canst, if thou look up and pray;
Nerve thy weak soul for strong sorrow and pain,
Bearing in silence, new strength thou shalt gain.
Murmur not-murmuring addeth to grief-
Chafe not at fate, it will bring no relief;
Wish not the past, with its joys, might return,
Tho' deep in thy soul their memories burn.
Look bravely at life!-set thy face to it now,
With strong, faithful spirit, with calm, cheerful brow.

Look at life bravely !-look at it with hope,
Trusting in God, with the worst thou may'st cope:
It is not all darkness, unvarying sorrow-

Where are shadows to-day, may be sunshine to-morrow;
On the dark cloud of sadness Hope's rainbow shines fair,
Look upward, be trustful, and never despair.

Waste not thy life-know that work is a boon-
Work steadily, faithfully-rest cometh soon;
And look at life bravely, be steadfast and true-
Time passes swiftly with heaven in view.

X.

584

ON THE RELATION OF ETHICS AND LAW.

WHAT is law? Is it a mere embodiment of the will of a government, arbitrarily imposed, and sustained by force? Is it the shifting reflexion of public opinion, cast into rules, which may be changed at pleasure? Are its depositaries, codes, statutes, edicts, reports, mere chaotic expressions of supreme power; are its instruments, tribunals, magistracies, and judicatures, mere agencies of authority? Or, has law really any relation to, or deviation from, these ethical truths whose voice is the harmony of the moral world? Is there, in fact, any "law within that law," which, in every state, marks out those rights and duties, a comprehension of which is the lawyer's business? In this age of legal education, we may fitly inquire shortly, whether municipal law has any original, and what is its relation to it.

We venture to think, that if we define law in the abstract, as "an ordinance of understanding," we shall include in this definition the principal conceptions of it. Now, this definition implies two thingsan intelligent ruler, and a rule of action. Action, however, presupposes some subject; and hence, in its highest sense, and applied to its most extensive subject-matter, law signifies the rule of action impressed by the Creator upon the Universe, by which it was from the first called into being, and ever since, in all its manifold relations, has been kept in order. The universe, however, for this purpose, has well been divided into natural and voluntary agents-the former meaning these creations which fulfil their operations necessarily, and the latter those which, to some extent at least, work by their own will; and thus we arrive at the true idea of law in general, namely, "That rule of action prescribed by Infinite Wisdom to nature and to man." The knowledge of the one implies a perception of the entire constitution of natural things, from what elements it is formed in all its parts, by what process it is carried on in all its operations, and what are the conditions of its being and continuance. The knowledge of the other requires an insight into the principles of human action, into its true end and fitting object, and into the requisites for its development and completion. It is needless to observe, that a perfect comprehension of these things is not attainable by a finite intelligence; that many of the rules which direct the world of nature and of man will always remain unknown, and that of the reason of them we are generally ignorant; but wherever groups of these rules, associated by the common character of their subject, have been discovered, expounded, and reduced into a system, there we say we are masters of a science. Law, in general, thus comprises science in all its branches.

But though our understandings are too weak to grasp the entire scheme of the operations of natural and of voluntary agents, and, at best, can catch but glimpses of "that mighty maze though not without a plan," we can sufficiently discern their general object and purpose. Reason would lead us to expect, that what is created and set in motion

by Infinite Wisdom, can have good for its only object, and Revelation expressly confirms the conclusion. But here we must notice an essential distinction between natural and voluntary agents: for while we doubt not that the works of nature, necessarily obedient to the impulse which animates and regulates their operation, are all directed to good absolutely, man, who is free, while in his every thought, purpose, and action, he proceeds to some fancied good, has not any certain tendency to actual and perfect good, however we may feel that such should be his course of conduct. Why this is so-why in the constitution of the world man is not made the passive doer of perfect good-and why, in this life, he is permitted to be lured into the course of evil by the counterfeit of good, we need not here inquire, and, perhaps, is beyond our inquiry. But from this difference in the conduct of natural and of voluntary agents, it follows that a knowledge of the law which guides the former, cannot be of such practical importance as a knowledge of that which directs the latter. The one, with all nature for its subject, unfolds to our eyes parts of the scheme of the universe; the working of causation reducing all phenomena to method and order, the harmony of systems linked to systems, distinct, and yet each running into the other, and that which, not inaptly, has been termed the "concordant discord" of creation. The other, confined to the consideration of man, teaches us the steps and processes by means of which, in life, we can so rule our conduct as to secure the chief good-happiness. Leaving, then, the contemplation of natural law as foreign to our subject, except so far as it is a part of law in general, let us briefly consider moral law, or that rule of action by which voluntary agents attain the chief good-happiness. For, we think, we shall see that this law is the original and justification of all human law, and, in the poet's words, is the "spirit which feeds from within, and the mind which moves," that far-spreading mass of rules of action.

All human action is towards something desirable, that is, something that, at the time, appears good to the agent. Action towards evil, deliberately ascertained to be evil, and without any supposed good to counterpoise or neutralise it, is contrary to the nature of man. The exclamation, "Evil be then my good, my port, and haven of repose,' put by Milton into the mouth of Satan, finds no echo in the human heart. Not indeed that good, as such, is necessarily sought, or evil, as such, necessarily shunned by human action, for then the world would not present its actual appearance of perversity, error, and degradation; but, that our course of conduct, while often, nay generally, wandering away from positive good, has even an imaginary good for its object. "There is," says Hooker, "in the will of man, naturally, that freedom whereby it is apt to take or refuse any particular object whatsoever being presented to it. Whereupon it followeth that there is no particular object so good, but it may have the show of some difficulty, or unpleasant quality annexed to it, in respect whereof the will may shrink and decline it; contrariwise (for so things are blended) there is no particular evil which hath not some appearance of goodness whereby to insinuate itself. For evil, as evil, cannot be desired; if that be desired which is evil, the cause is, the goodness which is, or which seemeth to be, joined with it." And again, "Nor let any man think that this doth

make anything for the just excuse of iniquity. For there was more sin committed, wherein a less good was not preferred beyond a greater, and that wilfully, which cannot be done without the singular disgrace of nature, and the utter disturbance of that Divine order, whereby the pre-eminence of chiefest acceptation is by the best things worthily challenged." And very similar are the opening lines of the "Nichomachean Ethics :"-" Every art, every line of instruction, every act, and every purpose, has some good for its object." We know too the proverbs, "That Providence deranges the man whom he means to destroy," and that "Evil appears good to him whose mind God gives over to ruin ;" and these assert that the end of action is that imagined good into which, by moral delusion, evil has been converted. It may, therefore, we think, be assumed that conceived good is the end of all human, that is, all mental and moral, action; that although real good is rarely, such is our perversity, our object, yet that we never act, or form a purpose, without some fancied good in view; and therefore that evil, considered as such, and without any overpoise of imagined good, is not within the range of human objects.

The end, then, of all human actions, on every possible occasion, is conceived good; but the different ends of human action are, for the most part, referrible to some ulterior end, and therefore, compared with it, are merely means. Thus we build a house for comfort, we buy a picture for pleasure, we become subjects of a state for security, we master a science for instruction; but all these ends are pursued for one greater and more complete. This end, then, must be that which includes in itself all other ends, and to which they all converge and direct themselves. Now, though men, in all the variety of occasions of action, show a very different preference for subordinate ends, they all agree that this final end is happiness. This, it will be at once admitted, is the sum of our desires and aspirations, to attain which all human action is directed, and to which all arts, sciences, governments, institutions, and, in a word, all mental and moral action, mediately or immediately, are bent and turned. But as each particular end of human action is conceived good to the agent, and the final end comprises in itself all the subordinate ends, it follows that happiness is the greatest good of which man can have a conception. What, then, is happiness? We feel that it is not to be placed in pleasure, for this is transient and shortlived, and is so mingled with pain, that we all echo the poet's mournful exclamation--"That something bitter springs from the very fountain of joy." We feel that it cannot rest in reputation; since this would be to base it on the shifting and insecure foundation of external opinion, often deluded, rarely able to form a perfectly correct judgment, and varying according to the natures of those who create it. We cannot set it in riches, or titles, or wealth, or knowledge, or power, for the possession of these we feel to be that of means only; and, finally, it is not repose, since this implies a passive suspense of our faculties, and is rather absence of evil than fruition of good; or, as Aristotle quaintly expresses it, "the felicity of sleep."

Two methods of reasoning lead to the conclusion, that happiness consists in the practice of moral excellence, or, as it is commonly termed, virtue. The first draws its inference from a contemplation of man's