ylon, does reason return, with sentiments of praise and honour to the Most High.

"He touched his harp, and nations heard, entranced,

And praised.

Thus full of titles, flattery, honour, fame;

Beyond desire, beyond ambition full

He died- he died of what? Of wretchedness.
Drank every cup of joy; then died of thirst.
Cut from the sympathies of life,

And cast ashore from pleasure's boisterous surge, A wandering, weary, worn and wretched thing; Scorched and desolate, and blasted soul." POLLOK. These lines, it is supposed, refer to Lord Byron; they might be applied to any highly gifted intellect that makes shipwreck of reason, of conscience and of faith, dashing upon the rocks of sensual pleasure and of passion.

In the season of youth, the mind, if intellectual, often loves its own musings more than all the enjoyments procured by reality. During such moments," says Rousseau, "my soul loses itself and roves through the universe upon the wings of imagination in an extacy, which exceeds all other enjoyment." In this state of excited fancy should not truth be presented and even pressed upon the youthful mind, too probably may its energies be wasted upon idealities; fiction carrying with it a higher charm, for the very reason that reality as we find it in our imperfect world, has something repulsive to the

refined perceptions of the imagination, which has the ability to pencil out its own forms of beauty, and give to them its own colourings. Lamentable indeed is the condition of those who thus reject the guidance of reason and abandon themselves to the leadings of an erratic imagination. By the power of this wonderful magician they rove in fields of light, where fountains flow with nectar, and trees drop down ambrosia; but one stroke of his wand turns this fairy land to a wilderness, and the common current of life becomes more bitter from the contrast. The poor visionary is often too miserable for endurance. See this in the history of Rousseau, of Burns, and of Byron.

The imaginative person forms the beau ideal of characters in accordance with his own fancied perfection, and then worshipping the creature of his imagination, the every day personages around him have but little hold upon his affections. He is the most unstable of all friends because forever disappointed in his expectations from them. Of Rousseau it was said, that it was scarcely possible to continue long on an intimate footing with him. He selfishly indulged his own feelings, and loved more than any beings the imaginary creations of his own brain. Said Madame De Stael of him, "I am certain that the woman he loved most, or perhaps that

he loved at all, was his own Julia, the heroine of his romance." The more the imagination is under the influence of the sensual understanding, the more it wanders into the labyrinths of fiction, perhaps of falsehood. The further the mind departs from the truth, the more imperfect does its sense become of moral obligation; the nobler emotions of the soul evaporate in frothy sensibilities that have no foundation in nature or in duty, and the holiest ties are often by the sentimentalist snapped asunder as cords that touch the fire. Dean Swift and Sterne in their trifling with the most sacred affections of the heart shewed their extreme selfishness, as well as destitution of moral principle.

Of this want of principle we have an illustration in the insatiable novel-reader. Absorbed in the woes of some fancied heroine, she finds it difficult to tear herself away, even to minister to the wants of an invalid mother, or to bestow the requisite cares upon a suffering sister. How can she return to the common train of household affairs while the accomplished Augustus is still suffering from the stings of wounded feeling, or engaged in some adventure of intense interest?

A young woman whose education had been just sufficient to give her a relish for works of fiction, married at an early age. The husband was an industrious mechanic, who could not

afford a servant for his wife, and she could not give up what she called her literary pursuits, but continued in her lonely hours to read every charming novel she could procure. The young husband frequently came home expecting a dinner, and found his wife upon her bed, hastily concealing one of those intoxicating books, while she complained of a severe headache; no dinner was in preparation. An increasing family, it would seem might have called the mother's attention from the objects of her ideality, but it was not so; the Helens and the Julias, the Henrys and the Edwards of romance, inspired sufficient interest to make her forget her own offspring. From a comfortless home, the husband retreated to a tavern, while the children in rags, and dirt, and starvation, hung round a mother, whose sentimentality now expended itself in loud complaints against an unfeeling world and a hard fate. This case is no fiction. Not many years ago it was a melancholy reality to those whose benevolence drew them to the assistance of the suffering family; and sad was it to behold the proud and infatuated woman, repulse with the scorn of an injured heroine, those, who in kindness, offered to provide fitting employment for her almost naked and starving children. Her darlings nurtured with such fond affection should never become the menials of

others; heaven would provide for them better than an unfeeling world, and would reward her hereafter for the miseries she endured here. Mrs. B. continued to read novels and sentimentalize until she was carried to the poor-house.

It is to be feared that this perverted use of the imagination by which the mind is led to delight in works of fiction, has been, in innumerable instances, attended with consequences as disastrous as those just related. Our sex are especially injured by this kind of reading. To write a good story requires an effort of mind not at all necessary in its perusal; and to those who dislike the labour of thinking, such reading is a most desirable occupation; it creates that dreamy excitement, allied to sensitive pleasure, which, as Rousseau, describing his own case, says, "attracts the senses, and supplying the place of mental operations, causes me to feel a pleasure in my existence, without the labour of thought.” The mind, thus indulged, becomes feeble and incapable of that exercise required by study. A young person who has suffered her fancy thus to rove, will obtain her knowledge of History from Sir Walter Scott, her ideas of life from Miss Edgworth, and her religion from Mrs. Sherwood.

By this observation, my young friends, I mean no disparagement to the eminent authors thus