et sa légèreté rendent la circulation du sang plus rapide, et l'exercice plus facile. L'imagination, la bienveillance embellissent encore cette scène, en nous présentant des idées de richesse, d'abondance, de fertilité. L'innocence et le bonheur des oiseaux, des troupeaux, des animaux domestiques contraste agréablement avec le souvenir des fatigues et des agitations de notre vie. Nous prêtons aux habitans des campagnes tout le plaisir que nous éprouvons nous-mêmes par la nouveauté de ces objets. Enfin, la reconnaissance pour l'Etre Suprême, que nous regardons comme l'auteur de tous ces bienfaits, augmente notre confiance et notre admirationa.

KNOWLEDGE HUMANIZES THE POSSESSOR.

1. Upon the capture of prisoners in the European settlements in America, they are tortured by every pain which the mind of man ingenious in cruelty

* Jer, Bentham: and see note N, at the end of this tract.

can invent; and the women, transformed into something worse than furies, exceed the men in these scenes of horror. "This serves," says Burke, "to shew to what an inconceiveable degree of barbarity the passions of men let loose will carry them. It will point out to us the advantages of a religion that teaches a compassion to our enemies, which is neither known nor practised in other religions; and it will make us more sensible than some appear to be of the value of commerce, the arts of a civilized life, and the lights of literature; which, if they have abated the force of some of the natural virtues by the luxury which attends them, have taken out likewise the sting of our natural vices, and softened the ferocity of the human race without enervating their courage."

2. Ignorant of all things, a young boy will in very wantonness destroy nests, which have been patiently built, with a watchful eye, and a weary wing, and a cheated appetite, and a fond instinct, till all should

a See Burke's European Settlements in America, p. 198.

be warm and ready for the expected brood; and that very brood, so carefully lodged and so tenderly watched, he shall dash to the ground without pity, for he is without knowledge. Not so the poet:

Thy wee-bit housie now in ruin,
Its silly wa's the winds are strewin!
An' naething now to build a new one,
O' foggage green!

And bleak December's winds ensuin!

Baith snell and keen.

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,

An' weary winter comin fast,

An' cozie here, beneath the blast,

Thou thought to dwell,

Till crash, the cruel coulter past

Out thro' thy cell.

That wee-bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,

Has cost thee many a weary nibble !

Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,

But house or hald,

To thole the winter's sleety dribble,

An' cranreuch caulda!

Not so the prophet! who describes the highest

a Robert Burns.-" To a Mouse, on turning her up in her nest with the plough."

intelligence, as caring for the cattle in Nineveh, and not only preserving his people in the desert, but gently leading the kids that were with young. 3. It is an assured truth which is contained in these

verses:

Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes
Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.

It taketh away the wildness and barbarism and fierceness of men's minds. But indeed the accent had need be upon fideliter; for a little superficial learning doth rather work a contrary effect. It taketh away all levity, temerity, and insolency, by copious suggestion of all doubts and difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on both sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits of the mind, and to accept of nothing until it is examined and trieda.

4. Si Descartes eut quelques foiblesses de l'humanité, il eut aussi les principales vertus du philosophe. Sobre, tempérant, ami de la liberté et de

a Bacon.

la retraite, reconnoissant, libéral, sensible à l'amitié, tendre, compatissant, il ne connoissoit que les passions douces et savoit résister aux violentes. Quand on me fait offense, disoit-il, je tâche d'élever mon ame si haut, que l'offense ne parvienne pas jusqu'à elle. L'ambition ne l'agita pas plus que la vengeance. Il disoit, comme Ovide: Vivre caché, c'est vivre heureux.-Newton étoit doux, tranquille, modeste, simple, affable, toujours de niveau avec tout le monde, ne se démentit point pendant le cours de sa longue et brillante carriere. Il auroit mieux aimé être inconnu, que de voir le calme de sa vie troublé par ces orages litteraires, que l'esprit et la science attirent à ceux qui cherchent trop la gloire. Je me reprocherois, disoit-il, mon imprudence, de perdre une chose aussi réelle que le repos, pour courir après une ombre.

5. I thank God, amongst those millions of vices I do inherit and hold from Adam, I have escaped one, and that a mortal enemy to charity, the first and father sin, not only of man, but of the devil,

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