form; we cannot say, "We are sorry we cannot wait on " an acquaint ance, unless we feel an unmixed desire for his society, and are prevented by some strictly insurmountable impediment. Now, I conceive that this consequence by no means follows.

I will suppose myself invited to dine abroad, and my inclination to do so counteracted by a prior engagement. No one can, I presume, charge me with the slightest breach of truth, if I decline in the usual way, though there is surely no absolute or physical impossibility in the case. Why then, if I have sufficient reasons of another nature for refusing an invitation, am I not at liberty to use the same courtesy? If I feel that my time may be more profitably spent at home, or if I have grounds for fearing that, in the company I expect to meet, such conversation or amusements may be introduced as are unsuitable to my sentiments, surely I may consider these obstacles at least as important as a prior engagement to another place. In such cases, then, I use the term "cannot," in its received import, as implying, not a strict impossibility, but an impediment sufficiently real to influence my conduct.

But is there no insincerity in professing that "I am sorry?" By no means. I may feel a decided disinclination to accept an invitation, and at the same time regret that I cannot oblige my acquaintance by compliance. I may experience, and should experience, real sorrow, if the impediment arises from any thing irregular in his mode of life. And with such sentiments I may, in perfect candour, accompany my refusal with an expression of sorrow; reserving to myself, as every wise man will, those secret reasons and motives, which it would be, perhaps, only mischievous to divulge.

But what if there be no serious motive, no moral consideration, nothing that can be called a reason in the case-can I, in these circumstances, refuse an invitation in the

usual form? Can I, in short, profess myself, with truth, "sorry" at not being able to accept it, when my own whim or fancy is the only obstacle? In soberness 1 do not think Ican-I see no possible argument by which such expressions can in this case be reconciled with truth, unless we admit the ridiculous supposition that the writer is heartily sorry he is whimsical and capricious.

But, in fact, when we look for a high and delicate sense of truth, we naturally look for a great deal more. We expect to find a symmetry of character, an assemblage of those virtues, without which a mere insulated love of truth would be absolutely monstrous. And perhaps the advocates for truth have unintentionally betrayed its cause in nothing more than in even supposing it in association with depravity or folly, and in giving rules for cases where the sole intricacy arises from the impossibility of consistently preserving truth, where good sense and good nature are deliberately violated. In such an instance, then, were I asked how a man shall reconcile sincerity with caprice; how, where a courteous invitation is re jected from mere whim, that rejection shall be worded so as to accord with truth, my answer should be this: " Cease to be whimsical and capricious, and there will be no difficulty in the case." Leaving then such persons to the correction of their follies, we may safely pronounce, that no sober and consistently moral man is obliged to depart from established custom, in the particular we are now considering.

Let persons object as they please to thus gravely moralizing on the wording of a card; for my part, I conceive that no instance can be trivial in which the sincerely conscientious are disburdened of one needless scruple, or in which truth ̧ is vindicated from the charge of involving in its strictest exercise either coarseness or indecorum. If,

in fact, this charge were founded, the whole symmetry of the Christian character would be at an end, and that charity which" rejoiceth in the truth," and which "behaveth itself not unseemly," would be selfcontradictory, and, consequently, unattainable.

That sincerity and politeness are not indeed always reconcilable, we freely grant, and we have already noticed one instance in which they are not so. But whence does this arise? Not surely from the contrariety of the two, but from the intervention of counteracting causes: just as two pure and congenial liquids may refuse to blend, or,by their blending, may produce a noxious compound, if committed to an im pure vessel. But is it therefore ne, cessary, or wise, to throw both, or either of them, away? No, the fault is in the vessel, and not in the liquids, and you have only to cleanse the former to produce the effect you want. Let us then apply this principle to ourselves. The Chris tian virtues are all harmonious and congenial; but Christian virtues can live and centre only in a Christian heart. If we find, then, in ourselves any obstruction to their kindly blendure and harmonious exer, cise, shall we renounce them alto gether? or shall we, if that were possible, be contented with being virtuous by halves? Shall we not rather look to our own hearts, and purify the medium in which they refuse to blend?

But, in reality, truth and polite. ness are so far from inconsistent, that it is, perhaps, the union of these two virtues which gives the last finishing to the Christian character. For let it be observed, that, reconcilable as we admit them to be, the sole principle on which they are so is that which in all ages has been the acknowledged criterion of true goodness, namely, that we be inwardly what we would appear outwardly. What, in fact, can follow from a sincere desire to please, accompanied by a no less real ha

tred of all false pretences, but a constant endeavour to cultivate kind, and benevolent, and charitable affections; that, so as far as is possible, we may live in the habitual exercise of "love without dissimulation?” Nor is this mere speculation. I tave myself known, in living persons, the united disinclination to falsify or to offend, produce a general softening of the character. I have seen it lead to the closest self-discipline, to the exclusion of hasty prejudice, of capricious dislike, of unnecessary singularity, and in constant daily action, as an influential, corrective, and governing principle.

One more observation, and I have done. Will it be thought visionary if I suggest that a wise and delicate regard to truth naturally imparts a peculiar grace to polished conversation and that not merely by its native dignity and simplicity, but by a certain dexterity and felicity of address, which imperceptibly results from it. Blunt truth and blunt falsehood are at least agreed in one thing, they are both straight for ward; they require no choice of terms, no suitableness of manner, no fitness of occasion. Every animal endued with speech, can offend by truth, or flatter by a lie. But there is in intellectual things, as in corporcal substances, a line of beauty : and this probably derives its claim to preference from the same source in both; the curbed or undulating line, or movement, bespeaking ease and softness: not, as it were, ad. vancing to its destined point with a directness which implies necessity, nor with a defiance of obstruction which implies resistance; but (to exemplify what could not perhaps be otherwise described) flowing like a gentle river, which moves only where it can move with grace; which yields to every obstacle, but which still pursues its course, deriving from impediments themselves at once its extended utility and characteristic beauty.

The distinction between polished and vulgar intercourse consists, per

haps, in nothing more than in the line in which conversation runs; all that is elegant in the one, proceeding from the constant action of those restraints which check its right-forward movement; and all that is repulsive in the other, from those home thrusts and random shots, which no dexterity can escape, and no obstacle turn aside.

My meaning will be at once il lustrated by two well-known instances: that of Sir James Melvil, who, being asked by Queen Elizabeth whether he esteemed herself or his mistress to have the fairest person, replied, that her Majesty was the fairest person in England, and bis mistress in Scotland; and that of Cyrus, as related by Xenophon, who being inquired of by his mother which he thought the handsomest, his father or his grand father, answered," of the Persians, O mother, my father is much the handsomest; and of all the Medes I have seen, this, my grandfather, is the handsomest."

What was it, I would ask, which gave to these answers their value or their perpetuity? It was the impediment which the case presented to a direct reply, and the necessity which it imposed of evading and, as it were, steering round those obstacles which forbid a right-forward

movement.

Prudential caution, and not moral principle, was assuredly the obstacle, at least in the former of these instances; but still they both serve to illustrate my position; they both atford memorable examples of the effect of restraint upon conversation, and of the opportunities it furnishes for the exercise and exhibition of skill, of management, and of address.

But let these restraints be of a moral nature; let truth and genuine politeness be substituted for calculation and superficial polish; and surely the general operation of these principles on conversation cannot be questioned. Let it be tried by the acknowledged rules of

To the Editor of the Christian Observer,

THE question whether persons who are at home may deny themselves without offence to religion or morals, has been perhaps sufficiently discussed; yet the opinion and practice of Dr. Samuel Johnson may have its weight with some of your readers. I have therefore sent yon the following extract from Boswell's Life of him, vol. i. p. 401, ed. 2.

Dr. Johnson's library was contained in two garrets over his chambers.

He told me that he went up thither without mentioning it to his servant, when he wanted to study secure from interruption; for he would not allow his servant to say he was not at home, when he really was. A servant's strict regard for truth, said he, must be weakened by such a practice. A philosopher may know that it is merely a form of denial, but few servants are such nice distinguishers. If I accustom a servant to tell a lie for me, have I not reason to apprehend that he will tell many lies for himself?"

Boswell adds (not in the spirit of his master) "I am, however, satisfied that every servant, of any degree of intelligence, understands saying his master is not at home, not at all as the affirmation of a fact, but as customary words, intimating that his master wishes not to be seen; so that there can be no effect from it.”

Allowing Boswell's premises to be true, the conclusion by no means follows.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. I WAS greatly interested by an article in the Christian Observer for March last, respecting the state of infant chimney sweepers, and have resolved in future only to make use of the machine to cleanse chimneys, recommended by the Society for ameliorating the condition of those unfortunate boys. I have found it answer the purpose, in most respects, better than the usual method; and the only instance where it failed, in my house, was in a flue, where, by an alteration of the situation of the chimney, the angle was become too acute to admit of the passage of the machine. I have, however, gone a step farther: the sufferings of the unhappy children, as represented in your work, made so deep an impression on my mind, that I determined to investigate the facts of the case, with a view to discover whether the sad account of young Reily, which you have given, was a solitary instance of inhumanity, or was to be ranked among the ordinary incidents of the trade. To the distress of every feeling heart, I find the latter to be the real case. I think it to be, therefore, my duty, to lay before that part of the public, who are in the habit of reading your interesting work, the following statement, collected for the most part by a friend of mine, who is

This letter is already inserted in our

vol. for 1808, p. 303.

also deeply interested in the subject. Had I been disposed to enlarge the number of horrid facts, they would have far exceeded any space that I could hope for in your publication: I have therefore only selected a few, which are supported by undeniable evidence.

CASES.

1. A few years ago a chimney belonging to the house of Messrs Coutts and Co. Bankers, Strand, being on fire, a boy was sent up to extinguish it. He climbed up part of the way, but was not able to proceed farther, on account of the fire. This was in a sloping part of the flue, when, having thrust some of the burning soot behind him, be might literally be said to be between two fires. In order to save his hie, it became necessary to make a hole in the wall from the inside, and he was luckily taken out alive.

A

2. About the beginning of the year 1806, a boy was sent up a chimney in the house of Mr. Creed, Navy Agent, No. 23, Hans Place, Knightsbridge. Being unable to extricate himself, he remained there for about half an hour, while a person went to fetch assistance. hole was made through the brickwork, and the boy, at length, released. It appeared, that, in consequence of the unusual construction of the flue in one part, a vast quantity of soot had accumulated there, into which the boy had plunged, and was not able, probably from partial suffocation, to get back again. So dangerous was the sweeping of this chimney considered, that James Dunn, chimney sweeper, No. 46, Hans Town, refused to let his apprentice ascend the flue.

3. Extract from the Public Ledger, Thursday, August 24, 1809.—" An information was on Tuesday heard before the sitting magistrate at Bow Street, against a master sweep, named Henry Doe, residing in the parish of Mary-le-bone, for having in his service, as an apprentice, a child under the age of eight years,

contrary to the act of parliament for regulating the ages of children apprenticed to that trade. The circumstances of this case were truly distressing, and exhibited an instance of human depravity rarely to be equalled. It appeared that the mother of the child went some distance from London, and left her little son, a fine boy, five years of age, under the care of his father, who is a working plumber, named Miller. She remained out of town about a twelvemonth, and on her reurn with anxious hopes to the lodgings of her husband; but how great was her disappointment and misery, when she was informed, by the unnatural parent, that during her absence he had had the inhuma nity to place his infant offspring in the service of a sweep, and thus early to expose its tender frame to all those melancholy vicissitudes so often experienced by the unfortunate children who are doomed to that employment. Her sensations may be more easily imagined than described. She rushed from the presence of her husband, almost frantic, and with some difficulty found the den (for it could not be called a human habitation), where her infant, initiated into the horrid mysteries of chimney sweeping, was doomed to pass its existence, without the fostering care of a parent, and subject to all the barbarity of au inexorable master. The measure of her distress, however, was not yet full, for now she heard the horrid account that the father had absolutely sold the child for three guineas, without the reproduction of which its equally unnatural master refused to restore it to the embraces of its distracted mother. The only recourse now left her, was to apply to a solicitor, for advice. A Mr. Humphries humanely took the case in hand, and summoned the master before the magistrate, who, without the least hesitation, ordered the child to be restored to its mother, and imposed a fine of 51. on the master."

4. A boy named Sharpless, in the

employ of Mrs. Whitfield, Little Shire Lane, Temple Bar, fell from the upper part of a chimney, in July or August, 1804, in Devereux Court. The chimney pot falling, or upper part of the chimney giving way, occasioned this accident. The boy had several bones fractured, and be, ing carried to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, died there in a short time.

5. In the improvement made some years since by the Bank of England in Lothbury, a chimney belonging to a Mr. Mildrum, a ba ker, was taken down; but before he began to bake, in order to see that the rest of the flue was clear, a boy was sent up; and after remaining some time, and not answering to the call of his master, another boy was ordered to descend from the top of the flue, and to meet him half way. But this being found impracticable, they opened the brick-work in the lower part of the flue, and found the first-mentioned boy dear!. In the mean time, the boy in the upper part of the flue called out for relief, saying, he was completely jammed in the rubbish, and was unable to extricate himself. Upon this a bricklayer was employed with the utmost expedition, but he succeeded only in obtaining a lifeless body. The bodies were sent to St. Margaret's Church, Lothbury, and a coroner's inquest, which sat upon them, returned the verdict, Accidental Death.

6. In the beginning of the year 1808, a chimney sweeper's boy, being employed to sweep a chimney in Marsh Street, Walthamstow, in the house of Mr. Jeffery (carpenter), unfortunately, in his attempt to get down, stuck in the flue, and was unable to extricate himself. Mr. Jellery being within hearing of the boy, immediately procured assistance. As the chumney was low, and the top of it easily accessible from without, the boy was taken out in about ten minutes, the chimney pot and several rows of bricks having been previously removed. If he had remained in