the forms, or to taste the pleasures, of London. I retired to my estate in the country, where I have lived for almost forty years in the society of a maiden sister, happy if an old friend came for a few days to visit me, but chiefly delighting to cherish in silence the remembrance of my only love, and to anticipate the time when I shall be laid beside her. At last, a wish to settle an orphan nephew in my own profession, has compelled me to visit the scenes of my early days, and to mingle, for a short time, with the world. My resolution once taken, I felt a melancholy pleasure in the expectation of seeing the places with which I was once familiar, and which were ever linked in my mind with sweet and blighted hope. Every change has been to me as a shock. I have looked at large on society too, and there I see little in brilliant innovation to admire. Returned at last to my own fire-side, I sit down to throw together a few thoughts on the new and boasted Improve'ments, over which I mourn. If I should seem too querulous, let it be remembered, that my own happy days are long past, and that recollection is the sole earthly joy which is left me.

My old haunts have indeed suffered comparatively small mutation. The princely hall of the Middle Temple has the same venerable aspect as when, in my boyish days, I felt my heart beating with a strange feeling of mingled pride and reverence on becoming one of its members. The fountain yet plays among the old trees, which used to gladden my eye in spring for a few days with their tender green, to become so prematurely desolate. But the front of the Inner Temple hall, upon the terrace, is sadly altered for the worse. When I first knew it, the noble solidity of its appearance, especially of the figure over the gateway, cut massively in the stone, carried the mind back into the deep antiquity of the scene. Now the whole building is white-washed and plastered over, the majestic entrance supplied by an arch of pseudo-gothic, and a new library added at vast cost in the worst taste of the modern antique. The view from the garden is spoiled by that splendid nuisance, the Strand Bridge. Formerly we used to enjoy the enormous bend of the river, far fairer than the most marvellous work of art; and while our eyes dwelt on the placid mirror of water, our imagination went over it, through calm and majestic windings, into sweet rural scenes, and far inland bowers. Now the river appears only an oblong lake, and the feeling of the country once let into the town by that glorious avenue of crystal, is shut out by a noble piece of mere human workmanship! But nature never changes, and some of her humble works are ever found to renew old feelings within us, notwithstanding the sportive changes of mortal fancy. The short grass of the Temple garden is the same as when forty years ago I was accus

tomed to refresh my weary eyes with its greenness. There I have strolled again; and while I bent my head downwards, and fixed my eyes on the thin blades and the soft daisies, I felt as I had felt when last I walked there-all between was as nothing, or a feverish dream-and I once more dreamed of the Seals, and of the living Sophia!-I felt-but I dare not trust myself on this subject further.

The profession of the law is strangely altered since the days of my youth. It was then surely more liberal, as well as more rational, than I now find it. The business and pleasure of a lawyer were not entirely separated, as at present, when the first is mere toil, and the second lighter than vanity. The old stouthearted pleaders threw a jovial life into their tremendous drudgeries, which almost rendered them delightful. Wine did but open to them the most curious intricacies of their art they rose from it, like giants refreshed, to grapple with the sternest difficulties, and rejoiced in the encounter. Their powers caught a glow in the severity of the struggle, almost like that arising from strong exertion of the bodily frame. Nor did they disdain to enjoy the quaint jest of the far-fetched allusion, or the sweetness of the antique fancy, which sometimes craftily peeped out on them amidst their laborious researches. Poor TW- was one of the last of the race. He was the heartiest and most romantic of special pleaders. Thrice happy was the attorney who could engage him to a steak or broiled fowl in the old coffee-room in Fleet-street, where I have often met him. How would he then dilate, in the warmth of his heart, on all his professional triumphs-now chuckling over the fall of a brother into a trap set artfully for him in the fair guise of liberal pleadingnow whispering a joy past joy in a stumble of the Lord Chief Justice himself, among the filmy cords drawn about his path! When the first bottle was dispatched, arrived the time for his wary host to produce his papers in succession, to be drawn or settled by the joyous pleader. The well-lauded inspiration of a poet is not more genuine than that with which he then was gifted. All his nice discernment-all his vast memory-all his skill in drawing analogies and discerning principles in the "great obscurity" of the Year Books-were set in rapid and unerring action. On he went-covering page after page, his pen" in giddy mazes running," and his mind growing subtler and more acute with every glass. How dextrously did he then glide through all the strange windings of the case, with a sagacity which never failed, while he garnished his discourse with many a legal pun and learned conceit, which was as the light bubble on the deep stream of his knowledge! He is gone! and I find none to resemble him in this generation--none who thus can put a spirit into their work, which may make cobweb

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sophistries look golden, and change a laborious life into one long holiday!

In the greater world, I have observed with sorrow, a prevailing disregard of the past, and a desire to extol the present, or to expatiate in visionary prospects of the future. I fear this may be traced not so much to philanthropy as to self-love, which inspires men with the wish personally to distinguish themselves as the teachers and benefactors of their species, instead of rejoicing to share in the vast stock of recollections and sympathies which is common to all. They would fain persuade us that mankind, created, "a little lower than the angels," is now for the first time "crowned with glory and honour;" and they exultingly point to institutions of yesterday for the means to regenerate the earth. Some, for example, pronounce the great mass of the people, through all ages, as scarcely elevated above the brutes which perish, because the arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic, were not commonly diffused among them; and on these they ground their predictions of a golden age. And were there then no virtuous hardihood, no guileless innocence, no affections stronger than the grave, in that mighty lapse of years which we contemptuously stigmatize as dark? Are disinterested patriotism, conjugal love, open-handed hospitality, meek self-sacrifice, and chivalrous contempt of danger and of death, modern inventions? Has man's great birthright been in abeyance even until now? Oh, no! The Chaldæan shepherd did not cast his quiet gaze through weeks and years in vain to the silent skies. He knew not, indeed, the chill discoveries of science, which have substituted an immense variety of figures on space and distance, for the sweet influences of the stars. Yet did the heavens tell to him the glory of God, and angel faces seem to smile on him from the golden clouds. Book-learning is, perhaps, the least part of the education of the species. Nature is the mightiest and the kindliest of teachers. The rocks and unchanging hills give to the heart the sense of a duration beyond that of the perishable body. The flowing stream images to the soul an everlasting continuity of tranquil existence. The brave o'erhanging firmament," even to the most rugged swain, imparts some consciousness of the universal brotherhood of those over whom it hangs. The affections ask no leave of the understanding to "glow and spread and kindle," to shoot through all the frame a tremulous joy, or animate to holiest constancy. We taste the dearest blessedness of earth in our childhood, before we have learned to express it in mortal language. Life has its universal lessons far beyond human lore. Kindness is as melting, sorrow as purifying, and the aspect of death as softening to the ignorant in this world's wisdom, as to the scholar. The purest delights grow tenderly beneath our feet, and all who will stoop

may gather them. While sages lose the idea of the Universal Parent in their subtleties, the lowly "FEEL after Him and find Him." Sentiment precedes reason in point of time, and is a surer guide to the noblest realities. Thus man hopes, loves, reveres, and enjoys, without the aid of writing or of the press to inspire or direct him. Many of his feelings are even heartier and more genuine before he has learned to describe them. He does not perpetually mistake words for things, nor cultivate his faculties and affections for a discerning public. His aspirations "are made, not marked. "If he is gifted with divine imagination, he may" walk in glory and in joy beside his plough upon the mountain side," without the chilling idea that he must make the most of his sensations to secure the applause of gay saloons or crowded theatres. The deepest impressions are worn out by the multiplication of their copies. Talking has almost usurped the place of acting and of feeling; and the world of authors seem as though their hearts were but paper scrolls, and ink, instead of blood; were flowing in their veins. "The great events with which old story rings, seem vain and hollow." If all these evils will not be extended by what is falsely termed the Education of the Poor, let us at least be on our guard lest we transform our peasantry from men into critics, teach them scorn instead of humble hope, and leave them nothing to love, to revere, or to enjoy!

The Bible Society, founded and supported, no doubt, from the noblest motives, also puts forth pretensions which are sickening. Its advocates frequently represent it as destined to change all earth into a paradise. That a complete triumph of the principles of the Bible would bring in the rapturous state which they look for can never be disputed; but the history of our religion affords no ground for anticipating such a result from the unaided perusal of its pages. Deep and extensive impressions of the truths of the Gospel have never been made by mere reading, but always by the exertions of living enthusiasm in the holy cause. Providence may, indeed, in its inscrutable wisdom, impart new energy to particular instruments; but there appears no sufficient indication of such a change as shall make the printed Bible alone

the means of regenerating the species. An of Bibles" may

age

not be an age of Christian charity and hope. The word of God may not be revered the more by becoming a common book in every cottage, and a drug in the shop of every pawnbroker. It was surely neither known nor revered the less when it was a rare treasure, when it was proscribed by those who sat in high places, and its torn leaves and fragments were cherished even unto death. In those days, when a single copy chained to the desk of the church was alone in extensive parishes, did it diffuse less sweetness through rustic hearts than now, when the poor

How then did the

are almost compelled to possess it? villagers flock from distant farms, cheered in their long walks by thoughts not of this world, to converse for a short hour with patriarchs, saints, and apostles! How did they devour the venerable and well-worn page with tearful eyes, or listen delighted to the voice of one gifted above his fellows, who read aloud the oracles of celestial wisdom! What ideas of the Bible must they have enjoyed, who came many a joyful pilgrimage to hear or to read it! Yet even more precious was the enjoyment of those who, in times of persecution, snatched glances in secret at its pages, and thus entered, as by stealth, into the paradisiacal region, to gather immortal fruits and listen to angel voices. The word of God was dearer to them than house, land, or the " ruddy drops which warmed their hearts." Instead of the lamentable weariness and disgust with which the young now too often turn. from the perusal of the Scriptures, they heard with mute attention and serious joy the divine histories of the Old Testament and sweet parables of the New. They heard with a solemn sympathy of Abraham receiving seraphs unawares-of Isaac walking out at even-tide to meditate, and meeting the holy partner of his days-of Jacob's dream, and of that immortal Syrian Shepherdess, for whose love he served a hard master fourteen years, which seemed to him but a few days-of Joseph the beloved, the exile, the tempted, and the sweet forgiver-of all the wonders of the Jewish story and of the character and sufferings of the Messiah. These things were to them at once august realities, and surrounded with a dream-like glory from afar. "Heaven lay about them in their infancy." They preserved the purity--the spirit of meek submission-the patient confiding love of their childhood in their maturest years. They, in their turn, instilled the sweetness of Christian charity, drop by drop, into the hearts of their offspring, and left their example as a deathless legacy. Surely this was better than the dignified patronage now courted for the Scriptures, or the pompous eulogies pronounced on them by rival orators! The reports of anniversaries of the Bible Society are often to me, inexpressibly nauseous. The word of God is praised in the style of eulogy employed on a common book by a friendly reviewer. It is evidently used as a theme to declaim on. But the praise of the Bible is almost overshadowed by the flatteries lavished on the nobleman or county member who has condescended to preside, and which it is the highest ambition of the speakers ingeniously to introduce and to vary. Happy is he who can give a new turn to the compliment, or invent a new alliteration or antithesis for the occasion! The copious nonsense of the successful orators is even more painful than the failures of the novices. After a string of false metaphors and poor conceits, applauded to the echo, the