them up to ye myself to head or hang, and you may begin with me the very first man.'

"*

A. But such instances as this are the effect of habit and strong prejudice. We can hardly argue from so barbarous a state of society.

B. Excuse me there. I contend that our preference of ourselves is just as much the effect of habit, and very frequently a more unaccountable and unreasonable one than any other.

A. I should like to hear how you can possibly make that out.

B. If you will not condemn me before you hear what I have to say, I will try. You allow that D, in the case we have been talking of, would perhaps run a little risk for you or me; but if it were a perfect stranger, he would get out of the way as fast as his legs could carry him, and leave the stranger to shift for himself.

A. Yes; and does not that overturn your whole theory?

B. It would if my theory were as devoid of common sense as you are pleased to suppose; that is, if because I deny an original and absolute distinction in nature (where there is no such thing,) it followed that I must deny that circumstances, intimacy, habit, knowledge, or a variety of incidental causes could have any influence on our affections and actions. My inference is just the contrary. For would you not say that Dcared little about the stranger for this plain reason, that he knew nothing about him?

A. No doubt.

B. And he would care rather more about you and me, because he knows more about us?

A. Why yes, it would seem so.

B. And he would care still more about a sister, (according to the same supposition) because he would be still better acquainted with her, and had been more constantly with her?

A. I will not deny it.

B. And it is on the same principle (generally speaking) that a man cares most of all about himself, because he knows more about himself than about any body else, that he is more in the secret of his own most intimate thoughts and feelings, and more in the habit of providing for his own wants and wishes, which he can anticipate with greater liveliness and certainty than those of others, from being more nearly "made and moulded of things past." The poetical fiction is rendered easier, and assisted by my acquaintance with myself, just as it is by the ties of kindred or habits of friendly intercourse. There is no farther approach made to the doctrines of self-love and personal identity.

D. E. here is B. trying to persuade me I am not myself.

E. Sometimes you are not.

D. But he says I never am.-Or is it only that I am not to be so? B. Nay, I hope "thou art to continue, thou naughty varlet❞—

Here and hereafter, if the last may be !"

You have been yourself (nobody like you) for the last forty years of your life you would not prematurely stuff the next twenty into the account, till have had them fairly out?

you

Waverley, vol. iii, P. 201.

D. Not for the world, I have too great an affection for them.

B. Yet I think you would have less if you did not look forward to pass them among old books, old friends, old haunts. If you were cut off from all these, you would be less anxious about what was left of yourself.

D. I would rather be the Wandering Jew than not be at all.

B. Or you would not be the person I always took you for.

D. Does not this willingness to be the Wandering Jew rather than nobody, seem to indicate that there is an abstract attachment to self, to the bare idea of existence, independently of circumstances or habit. B. It must be a very loose and straggling one. You mix up some of your old recollections and favourite notions with your self elect, and indulge them in your new character, or you would trouble yourself very little about it. If you do not come in in some shape or other, it is merely saying that you would be sorry if the Wandering Jew were to disappear from the earth, however strictly he may have hitherto maintained his incognito.

D. There is something in that; and as well as I remember there is a curious but exceedingly mystical illustration of this point in an original Essay of yours which I have read and spoken to you about.

B. I believe there is; but A is tired of making objections, and I of answering them to no purpose.

D. I have the book in the closet, and if you like, we will turn to the place. It is after that burst of enthusiastic recollection (the only one in the book) that Southey said at the time was something between the manner of Milton's prose-works and Jeremy Taylor.

B. Ah! I as little thought then that I should ever be set down as a florid prose-writer as that he would become poet-laureat!

J. D. here took the volume from his brother, and read the following passage from it.

"I do not think I should illustrate the foregoing reasoning so well by any thing I could add on the subject, as by relating the manner in which it first struck me. There are moments in the life of a solitary thinker which are to him what the evening of some great victory is to the conqueror and hero -milder triumphs long remembered with truer and deeper delight. And though the shouts of multitudes do not hail his success-though gay trophies, though the sounds of music, the glittering of armour, and the neighing of steeds do not mingle with his joy, yet shall he not want monuments and witnesses of his glory - the deep forest, the willowy brook, the gathering clouds of winter, or the silent gloom of his own chamber, 'faithful remembrancers of his high endeavour, and his glad success,' that, as time passes by him with unreturning wing, still awaken the consciousness of a spirit patient, indefatigable in the search of truth, and the hope of surviving in the thoughts and minds of other men. I remember I had been reading a speech which Mirabaud (the author of the System of Nature') has put into the mouth of a supposed Atheist at the last judgment; and was afterwards led on, by some means or other, to consider the question, whether it could properly be said to be an act of virtue in any one to sacrifice his own final happiness to that of any other person or number of persons, if it were possible for the one ever to be made the price of the other? Suppose it were my own case—that it were in my power to save twenty other persons by voluntarily consenting to suffer for them: Why should I not do a generous thing, and never trouble myself about what might be the consequence to myself the Lord knows when?

"The reason why a man should prefer his own future welfare to that of

How fondly our loving lips falter'd,
"What further can grandeur bestow?"
My heart is the same,-is yours alter'd?
My own Araminta, say "No!

Remember the thrilling Romances
We read on the bank in the glen;
Remember the suitors our fancies

Would picture for both of us then:
They wore the red cross on their shoulder,
They had vanquish'd and pardon'd their foe-
Sweet friend, are you wiser or colder?-
My own Araminta, say 'No!'

You know, when Lord Rigmarole's carriage
Drove off with your Cousin Justine,
You wept, dearest girl, at the marriage,
And whisper'd "How base she has been!"
You said you were sure it would kill
If ever your husband look'd so;
And you will not apostatize,-will you?—
My own Araminta, say "No!'

you

We parted! but sympathy's fetters
Reach far over valley and hill;

I muse o'er your exquisite letters,

And feel that your heart is mine still.
And he who would share it with me, Love,
The richest of treasures below,-

If he's not what Orlando should be, Love,
My own Araminta, say ' No!'

If he wears a top-boot in his wooing,
If he comes to you riding a cob,
If he talks of his baking or brewing,
If he puts up his feet on the hob,
If he ever drinks port after dinner,
If his brow or his breeding is low,
If he calls himself "Thompson,"
My own Araminta, say "No!"

or

Skinner,"

If his lips are not redder than roses,

If his hands are not whiter than snow,
If he has not the model of noses,-
My own Araminta, say 'No!'
If he speaks of a tax or a duty,

If he does not look grand on his knees,
If he's blind to a landscape of beauty,

Hills, valleys, rocks, waters, and trees,
If he dotes not on desolate towers,

If he likes not to hear the blast blow,
If he knows not the language of flowers,-
My own Araminta, say No!'

He must walk like a God of old story,

Come down from the home of his rest;
He must smile, like the sun in his glory,
On the buds he loves ever the best;
And oh, from its ivory portal

Like music his soft speech must flow!-
If he speak, smile, or walk, like a mortal,-
My own Araminta, say 'No!'

Don't listen to tales of his bounty,

Don't hear what they tell of his birth,
Don't look at his seat in the county,
Don't calculate what he is worth;
But give him a theme to write verse on,
And see if he turns out his toe ;-

If he's only an excellent person,—
My own Araminta, say 'No!"

Φ.

SKETCH OF A LATE NAVAL CHARACTER.

THERE are people in the world so constitutionally fortunate that, do what they will, they always fall upon their legs like cats. Without one

grain of talent, without any abilities whatever, without any exertion on their part, and almost against their will, they succeed in whatever they undertake; indeed, in some cases, without undertaking any thing, fortune is as it were forced upon them. Captain was one of these he had none of the advantages either of manners, appearance, or education; he had got on by sheer good fortune, and shrewd common sense; he was brave from ignorance of fear, and kind and benevolent from natural goodness of heart. He had prevented his friends from bestowing on him any of the advantages of education in early life, by running away from them; and had indulged his aquatic propensities by commencing his career on board a coal-barge. Of course he was lost to his family for some time; for who could have imagined that any human being in the rank of a gentleman could possibly have selected such a profession from choice? But Will did not do things like any body else, and God knows to what honours he might have risen in the coal-trade, had he not been accidentally discovered by his friends.

It so happened that two of his sisters were on a visit to a family which resided on the coast of Kent, and the whole party were very much alarmed one evening by a prodigious uproar in the kitchen. On hastily proceeding in a body to learn the cause of this disturbance, the sisters, to their great astonishment, found their long lost brother

established on the fat cook's lap, with a can of ale in his band, roaring out "Tom Bowline," or some favourite sea song. It may easily be imagined they did not suffer him to return to his collier, but did all they possibly could to inspire him with better taste, and make him forego his low propensities. But all in vain; Will had a will of his own, which no persuasion could overcome,- -an obstinacy of purpose which lasted all his life, and on this occasion prompted him to set off again; so that it was long ere his family heard any thing of him—indeed, they had almost given him up.

The first accounts they received were from the Cape of Good Hope; they informed them that he had been pressed into H. M. Ship Lfrom an Indiaman, on board of which he was serving in the honourable and lucrative capacity of cook's mate. He was now in the way to be made a gentleman of, in spite of himself; for his family, exerting themselves in his behalf, got him rated a midshipman on board the ship into which he was pressed, and his career in the service was as fortunate as his forced entrance into it had been extraordinary.

The service was not then quite the same as it is now; naval officers were not such fine gentlemen as they are at present; but I doubt if they had more honourable devotion to their country's welfare. Be that as it may, the L-proceeded to the East Indies, and Will underwent the usual routine of a midshipman's life. The season happened to have been unusually sickly, and there was a great want of officers on the station, so that Will, before his time was served, was appointed acting lieutenant of the ——, a small brig mounting sixteen nine-pounders, then under orders for the Cape station. Here his usual good fortune followed him; for he had not been long at the Cape of Good Hope before the first lieutenant was taken ill and obliged to go to the hospital, so that he became commanding officer whenever the Captain was absent; and in this state of things the — proceeded to, I forget the name of the Bay, where a number of Indiamen were at anchor, to protect them from attack.

It so happened that a French frigate of forty-four guns had been long cruising off the coast; and coming into the Bay, disguised as an Indiaman, in hopes of taking a few prizes, she anchored in the midst of them without being aware that there was a man-of-war in the roadstead. Will, who had a sort of instinct for discovering an enemy, and could tell a Frenchman under any disguise, determined, with a very unusual exertion of prudence, to wait until it was dark before he commenced his operations against the intruder. By a still more strange coincidence, he was left on this occasion entirely to his own resources; for the Captain was on shore, and the surf ran so tremendously high that it was quite impossible to communicate with him, and still more so for him to have got off had he known what was the matter. Will quietly prepared for action, harangued his men, whose numbers were greatly reduced by sickness, and, as soon as it was dark, slipped his cable without the least noise; and getting athwart-hawse of the frigate within pistol-shot, opened a most destructive fire of grape and canister on the unfortunate Frenchman, who was quite unprepared for such an attack. I have said before that Will was as brave as a lion, and it required no small exertion of bravery to engage so very superior an enemy; but, taking advantage of his first success, he kept up such an