and kind-hearted pastor of his flock for half a century, say Man is a strange compound of greatness and littleness. There is some

thing so great in our frame that we cannot be happy without such substantial happiness as will stand the test of our severest reflections; and yet withal something so little in our composition, that we cannot do altogether without such innocent amusements as may take our minds off from their abstractions, and gently lead them into the more familiar traces of thought. And he who applies himself to his studies, or any other employment with proper intervals of refreshment to recruit his spirits, will, upon the whole, do more good, as he bids fairer to prolong his life, than he who by too eager and uninterrupted application, deadens his spirits, impairs his health, and wears out the very springs of life.'-'And,' he continued, — If it be asked when we exceed the bounds of reason, in pursuing our diversions? I answer, if after having made a party in some entertainments, the soul can recall her wandering thoughts, and fix them with the same life and energy, as is natural to us in other cases, upon any subject worthy of a rational creature: it is

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plain we have not gone too far. Under these regulations we may be gay without folly, and virtuous without moroseness. But if they leave behind them a disrelish, or an indisposition for better things; if the thoughts of what we have seen, heard, or done, intrude into our minds, quite dissipate our attention, and demand an audience of the soul, we have acted contrary to the end of diversions, which is to unbend, and not to enfeeble the vigour of the soul.'- And within these limits, I, also, ask you, Mr. Alworthy, whether you would deny our repairing occasionally either to the ball-room, or to the public concert?"

"I will prohibit neither," said I, taking up the question, "provided they do not recur too often. I have never known nor heard of any evil arising from dancing, but on the contrary much kindness, and real friendship and good feeling to result from it; and though I give a decided preference for such amusement in private to that which is public, yet where the intention is to make the old happy, and the young cheerful, at the expense of no duty, but rather for the furtherance of innocence; there I conceive we are not verging upon the restricted

bounds. For, to use a scripture simile, as no wise man would put new effervescent wine into old leathern bottles, so neither, I conceive, would any think of putting old wine from old bottles into new. As to concerts, whether public or private, I am an advocate for both for

The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.'

And here it is to be remembered, that the ear is to be kept open, and though the eye be not closed, yet the lips ought; and how any mischief can arise from this, as a diversion, none but the unharmonious cynic can devise. On the same grounds I would say that, to as much of the Italian opera as constitutes a concert of exquisite vocal and instrumental music, there can be no objection; beyond that I can admit of little; on the contrary, I might justly blame the vitiated taste of giving a preference to what is difficult, rather than to what is pleasing; retaining that which is both unnatural and disgusting for what might be easy and graceful.”

"After all," said Mr. Burke, " you are to bear in mind that pleasure is not the sole, nor the chief concern of our temporary existence. We are all placed here for something much better and more exalted; it is only to be admitted as refreshment to the pilgrim on the journey of life, to take off the mind from serious abstractions, that it may return to them again with renewed vigour and attention. If men be 'lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God,' they do not answer the expectation nor the ends the Almighty proposed in placing them in the world. Amusements, let them carry with them what pleasure they will, cannot satisfy the soul panting for immortality; and this, though the young cannot be expected to see or feel it with that force which strikes upon the heart of him who has experienced the vanity of all sublunary joys, yet the time will assuredly come when they will discover it. In the meanwhile it is certainly our duty to show it to them as early as possible; but it is both unwise and imprudent to deny rational, moderate diversions, to those who have strong feelings implanted in them for their enjoyment. The Almighty does not deny such, and the Gospel

is not supported by making it unfriendly to rational and chaste amusement.

I say to the

young, as bishop Porteus has said before, 'Look not on Christianity in that gloomy light in which it sometimes appears to you; far from being an enemy to cheerfulness, it is the truest friend to it. That sober and temperate use of diversions which it allows and recommends, is the surest way to preserve their power to please, and your capacity to enjoy them.'-At the same time bear in mind what Johnson has said in his Rasselas: Pleasure in itself harmless, may become mischievous, by endearing to us a state which we know to be transient and probatory, and withdrawing our thoughts from that of which every hour brings us nearer to the beginning, and which no length of time will bring us to the end.””

Here a stop was put to the conversation by the notification of coffee being carried into the drawing-room, whither we instantly repaired.