which he has a perfect control. Wind up your conscience, like a watch, every day, and examine minutely whether you are fast or slow. If the hands of a watch go right, the internal machinery cannot be far wrong.

On the education of youth, Archbishop Tillotson makes the following judicious remark:-"Men glory in raising great and magnificent structures, and find a secret pleasure to see sets of their own planting, from the small beginnings and advantages we have given them, to grow up into a considerable fortune, to take root in the world, and to shoot up to such a height, and spread their branches so wide, that we who first planted them may ourselves find comfort under their shadow."

CHAPTER V.

PEMBERTON'S EULOGY.-THE MIRAGE OF LIFE

UNRIDDLED.

ARE OUR OPINIONS FORMED BY CIRCUMSTANCES?

A MOST honest and sincere votary of truth, of whom it is difficult to speak in terms of too great admiration—(the late W. C. Pemberton), makes the following observation:-"I have been told by clever and close-thinking practical men, that all attempts to improve the moral and social condition of the people at large, high and low, will be useless till a great political improvement and better government be established: but I think the political bettering will and must tread on the heels of the social and moral advancement; that the political bettering cannot advance without that precursor;—or at least it will be an illustration of the snail's pace on the wall-one foot up, and eleven inches and three quarters down; and there are thousands of miles to climb; for every struggle will be made in the eagerness of self-interest only by one party, in total indifference or wilful injury of another. No expansive and genial good will be effected or attempted; all will be the strife of meum; while the mass-those who need most the benefit of good government, will be squeezed -ground-tortured more than ever. No! reform educa

tion-teach the teachers. GOD knows they are most in want of teaching. Reform education in the upper classes -aye, and in the middle classes too; both need this reform, much more than the lower classes require political reform. Instruct, enlarge the minds of all. Education is now a narrowing of the mind: let the warm currents of good, which are fountained in every man's heart, be permitted to flow;-not curdled nor thrown back by a teaching which makes the precepts of virtue a mockery. Let every one be taught that his best security for happiness, is not in a selfishness of defence, nor in skill in attack. Let him learn that suspicion is a false watchman, and caution an unnecessary guard. Tear the whole fabric of education as it is called-into atoms; the particles are easily separated; the good may be retained—the rest buried and forgotten, or if it live, let it live to the scorn it merits. I insist upon it, that the bettering of the condition of mankind can never be effected but by a reform in education. Let this be done, and a vicious government will sicken of its labours, and die of sheer feebleness."

The "Miles Gordon" of social improvement, whose fitful dream is over, we may say of him as the Greek said of Fabricius-"It would be easier to turn the sun from its course, than this man from the paths of integrity." We know nothing nobler in human praise.

Pemberton's personal qualities, however, were doubtless not of that kind which gain the good-will and affections of men. If amiability was wanting, strength, force of soul, and indomitable moral courage were there to compensate for sins of omission. On one occasion he said to

the author of these pages-"Oh! for ten years of health and strength! I do not covet life for the mere sake of living, but that I may put my shoulder to the wheel; that I may say my say-do my little all in pushing, urging, entreating, and in ripping away mystifying cobwebs— tearing away masks, and cloaks, and all deceptive coverings, and shew truths and realities, and set them rolling on their resistless and immortal course." Those who have not read the life of this gifted man, whose vast mind was never fathomed by the plummet of any human beingwho, we may truly say, had his patent of nobility from the King of kings, have a rich intellectual treat in store. You are presented with a rare and finished portraiture of a master-mind; you see pourtrayed high-souled intelligence, pure from baser matter; one who is well entitled to stand on a pedestal in the lustrous line of the immortals. He was, with all his fiery impulses, unapproachable, except by kindred spirits. But why attempt to paint the lily, or perfume the rose? Truly, we may entertain angels unawares! The five weeks during which Pemberton was a guest of the author's, we can truly say we never saw more clearly exemplified in practice, the way, the truth, and the life, as prescribed in the Divine oracles.

Certainly Mr. Fox's remarks on his character and genius are not overdrawn.* How little the world knew of this man! As Mr. Fox truly says-"His hatred sprang from love, and his sarcasms were full of reverence for humanity. The rights of all were to him a sacred thing;

* See page 501, Life and Literary Remains of Pemberton,
edited by Mr. Fowler.

and truthfulness the jewel of his soul. Those who are so sorely shocked at the pungency of his style, should remember that charity has other vocations in the world besides palliating the inflictions of the wrong-doer, and recognising the respectability of conventionalism. A few such critics as Pemberton upon the newspaper press, would do much for public taste and appreciation both of players and plays. His Shaksperian lectures in London were delivered chiefly to the members of Mechanics' Institutions, by whom they were highly relished; while the criticisms read by other classes were evidently furnished by writers far less competent. It is indeed much to be regretted that the substance of these lectures was not preserved, as he once intended, in a series of theatrical annotations upon the dramas of Shakspere. He took an interleaved copy with him for that purpose, on his melancholy expedition. His kind friend Mr. Fox, and the author of these pages, were witnesses to his severe privations. He was often (writes Fox) but scantily supplied with the means of subsistence. The world does not want its taste to be refined, its heart expanded, or its conventional admiration rendered intelligent; and whoso undertakes such a work without "distinguished patronage," should lay his account with a beggarly remuneration. He felt the wrong, and it sometimes made him irritable, but never mean; for he had both the sensibility and the pride of genius. Yet while with a tattered coat, an empty stomach, a wearied frame, and an aching heart, he would have spurned back the proffered donation of a supercilious patron, the cordiality of kindness ever elicited his frank and overflowing gratitude.