pride and power demanding their victims fresh every day, and yet unsated, cry, "More, more:" Ignorance triumphant over cultivated intellect, cruelty playing at tortures with passiveness-in a word, good called evil, and evil good.

"You draw," said I, "a frightful picture of civilization; already I feel my ardour for knowledge damped and mortified: if description thus daunts me, what must I expect to feel when drawn within the vortex itself? Are religion, virtue, honour, empty sounds without a meaning? If so, how have I deceived myself, L, looking at me for a second or two, replied, with a benignant smile, “No, that would be indeed a dreadful state of things, which every good man would contemplate with horror; they do exist, and will exist much more at large, but not exactly in the shapes at present assigned to them. But perhaps I was wrong in drawing this gloomy prospect; perhaps I drew it prematurely; you must see with your own eyes, and prepare to judge for yourself. Fear not your mind will not fail to discern truth, when the mists of ignorance which now envelope your ideas, are dispersed by the beams of knowledge. We will together range through the haunts of men; we will endeavour to learn their secret springs of action; to

unravel the thread of their destiny. Each will be a mutual assistance and check on the other : I shall listen with delight to your artless remarks, and note the workings of an untutored mind, while your reflections, but slightly warped by prejudice, and unshackled by early lessons of error, will correct and reduce the explanations of passing events, which I will endeavour to delineate with fidelity."

Here our conversation ended: I have hastened to transmit it entire to thee.

LETTER III.

London.

I SHALL address you no more in the language of my two first: I find it is the style of discourse among a particular religious sect here, and L has a decided aversion to all sectarian distinctions whatever: he says, it is the height of absurdity for men to form any distinctions by garb or form of speech; that the real criterion of difference must consist in sentiments and principles, followed up by conduct. Lis certainly a singular man; he his eccentric without effort, apparently without consciousness of his eccentricity. To those who see no deeper than the surface, he would appear a man of common-place character; to those who see more than meets the eye, he is an extraordinary being.

On the evening of our arrival here, after bidding me kindly welcome to what he was pleased to call his poor sample of English hospitality, he addressed me as follows:

"From the specimens you have already 'had, you must certainly have long since begun to think me a very strange being; and if ec

centricity consists in a thorough deviation from the routine of action both corporeal and mental, pursued by the common herd of our species, eccentric I am, and glory in being so. "But," said I, "you are at any rate a subject of England, a member of her civil compact: "I am so, certainly," he replied: "as a birthright I inherit protection from, and am amenable to her laws; and while within the pale of her dominion, am one of her community: and from the protecting spirit of her Government, so too, are you now. And yet, strange as it may sound to your raw notions, (such they must of necessity be,) I am so far from being satisfied with my situation, that at this moment I am penetrated with profound regret at holding the rank I do."-"Indeed!" said I, "then that must be the effect of your knowing more than I do, of the formation of what is called the Civilized World; but I do not scruple to own my ignorance."—"Then," said he, "you are in a fair way of amendment: I will, by degrees, try to set you somewhat right, to show you things more in their true light, and by their right names: I have no wish to assume authority over your mind, to fashion your notions by my own; that would be a vile usurpation, at which my nature recoils. You possess free agency, see and judge for yourself:

all I can do, will be to assist you in drawing correct conclusions from true premises; to guard you from error and deception by outside appearances. And this office I may, from experience and prior trial, claim with as much justice and good intention, as one may warn another from venturing on ice, which he who warns, has just found too weak to bear his weight. You have only beheld as a spectator, the automatons who dance their parts, and sink from view: I have sedulously strove to detect the true position of the wires and hands, which, unseen, direct their movements."

"But," I exclaimed, "you hint I have been already misled by appearances; how do I know but that you will unintentionally deceive me by your expositions? nay, how can I tell but that you are yourself mistaken? I demand a touchstone, a scale by which I may reduce to the standard of truth, your explanations, your arguments; some sure and certain test by which all opinion, all assertion may be put to the severest proof, their several natures will admit." You need not wander far in search of that which lies within your own bosom," said he: "your conscience, that voice whose still small whispers you yet scarce hear through the mist of ignorance, that voice which soon shall speak loud as the trumpet's