letter has trespassed beyond the usual limits, I will hasten to conclude.

It has been remarked by some one, that honesty is no very exalted virtue-that it is, in fact, one of the commonest qualities we meet with, and that the line of Pope's

"An honest man's the noblest work of God-"

implies but a pitiful estimate of human excellence. Looking at the subject, however, in the comprehensive view already suggested, taking the term as importing that spirit of rectitude which rejects all undue advantages of whatever kind, and judges of our own claims and those of others with equal impartiality; which will not wantonly wound the feelings of another any more than destroy his property; which is as scrupulous not to deprive a neighbour of a pleasure, as not to defraud him of his wealth; which equally forbids to disappoint expectations we have raised, and to refuse the payment of debts we have contracted, I should pronounce Pope not far wrong. A rectitude like this is, undoubtedly, one of the most exalted of the virtues. He who possesses it cannot be a bad

man: he who is destitute of it cannot be a good one. Without it the most unbounded benevolence (could we suppose them to exist apart) would deservedly sink into boundless contempt.

Farewell.

F. R.

LETTER XVI.

A Public Meeting-Passages from a Speech delivered thereEffect of the Presence of Large Numbers on the Nerves— Difficulty to a Speaker of estimating the Effect produced on his Audience.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

A few days ago I attended a public meeting, held in a neighbouring town, to petition Parliament on the subject of the Catholic claims. You know sufficiently well how these affairs are conducted, and I therefore will not trouble you with any detailed account of what passed on the occasion. The speeches consisted of the usual arguments, a little modified, indeed, by the handling, but still essentially the same as those which all of us have heard a hundred times before.

There was, indeed, only one passage in the whole display of eloquence, which impressed itself on my mind with sufficient vividness to

enable me to report it. It formed part of the speech of a little, pale-looking, meagre man in black, with a quick eye and a broad forehead. Who he was I could not learn, but I was struck with the peculiar turn of his imagery. "All

"that I have heard for

the reasons," said he, excluding Catholics from Parliament, are allegations of mere possibilities. Should they be admitted (it is said), they may vote away our rights, get possession of our churches, form a majority in the ministry and privy council, or even elevate one of their own body to the throne, if not convert the monarch already upon it. And these, which are hardly to be called possibilities, are to be received as reasons for continuing to exclude them from the legislature. Of all weak things, of all foolish things, acting on mere possibilities is the weakest and most foolish. Any one who did so in ordinary life would cut a ridiculous figure. It is possible that his house may fall, he therefore runs out of doors, but, in rushing out of doors, he is met by the possibility that he may be bitten by a mad dog, or assassinated by a Catholic being thus prevented by his fears of what may happen from remaining either within

or without, being thus bandied from one possibility to another, he can have no resource, no tertium quid, that I can see, but some impossibility, and I should advise him to ascend to the moon as the fittest place, according to etymology at least, for lunatics of his description.

"These apprehended dangers are, in fact, mere bugbears, and require only to be handled to vanish. Those who are frightened by them, are like a timid girl in bed, who, starting in the night, half dreaming, half awake, fancies she sees an apparition in her chamber, and, covering her head with the bed-clothes, lies, trembling, the victim of imaginary terrors. A bold man in the same circumstances jumps out of bed, and, on approaching the object, finds it to be nothing but a cloak hung against the wall, or, perhaps, the light of the moon stealing through the curtains of the window. Just so it is with the Catholic Question. If you look at the consequences of concession while lying with drowsy faculties in the darkness of your own indolence, they will assume a terrific aspect to the hurried glance which you cast on them, before you bury your terrors in the exclusive laws to which you cling for defence