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tional rapture, and taste, as it were, the religion of beauty. He dedicated to the divinities the finest and most faultless forms of real existence, devoting himself to their production with the combined enthusiasm of the senses and of the spirit. This is the whole secret of the beau idéal, about which so much has been written there is no rising above nature without going out of nature,-which is deformity, not beauty. The phrase is an invention of modern sculptors, who can never reach the perfection of the ancient artists, because they are unimbued by the same stimulating feelings. Chiselling out men and monuments, human virtues and vices, their sensations as well as their works are of a lower order. Portrait-painters, gazing more frequently upon stupid and repulsive countenances than upon those that are attractive or intelligent, and brought into perpetual collision with human foibles and vanities, can have no very ardent impulse or lofty sensations: but the landscape-painter's is probably the most delicious pursuit to which human talent can be devoted. Perpetually looking out upon a face of eternal youth and beauty, whose smiles and frowns, in their inexhaustible variety, form but so many alternations of loveliness, he derives from every minute form, from every tint of earth, rock or leaf, from every passing variety of cloud or sky, a charm that has reference to his art over and above the natural one that addresses itself to his sense ;-looking through nature up to nature's God, he feels the placid influence of the scene he paints; and in his solitary rambles,

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Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing."

He who draws out the hidden harmonies of Nature into new combinations, possesses a fountain of pure and inexhaustible gratification. The musician has a perpetual resource against ennui; he can soothe the heart, while he delights the ear; his art, like charity, is twice blessed-" it blesseth him that gives, and him that takes ;"-he is generally a happy man.

We have considered some of those avocations that associate us with Nature and the physical world; let us now briefly notice some of those that place us in relation with man and morals, beginning with the professions. Nothing so strikingly illustrates the total nullity and blindness to which human reason may be reduced by the force of long-continued habit, titular honours, and external pomp, as the fact, that men of even good sense and humanity can become enamoured of a military life. As a matter of necessity, I arraign not its existence; but that it should be ever embraced as an affair of preference, is somewhat astounding. Strip it of its externals, view it abstractedly, analyze its nature and object, and if the word glory cannot alter the immutable truth of principles, nor a gold epaulette metamorphose every action of its wearer, we cannot cease to wonder that men should be so infatuated as to worship a painted devil for an angel. That it is the road to wealth, honours, rank, may be very true; but does it conduce to happiness? That is an inquiry which may be left to its professors to solve.

Medicine and surgery will hold out few attractions to those who are not prepared to sear their hearts as a preliminary qualification for their practice. Painful and distressing profession! that turns to us perpetually the darkest side of human nature, subjects us to the harrowing repetition of mental woe and bodily anguish, to sickness, decay, death; while it exposes to us moral as well as physical deformity, by bringing to our cognisance the selfishness of friends, the hollowness of relatives, the hypocrisy of heirs. It has been observed, that as we become acquainted with physical evils we despise death, and as we are familiarised with the evils of society we despise life. Medical men are liable to both impressions, and the result is not unfrequently manifest in their sentiment and temperament, which are rarely enviable. There may be some, who, in the lofty consciousness of dispensing health or allaying pain, of preserving domestic ties unsevered, and the link of friendship unbroken, enjoy an exquisite gratification, that atones to them for manifold annoyances and miseries. Let such men be venerated; for what are the momentary sufferings of the martyr, who gives his body to the flames, compared to his who offers up his mind as a perpetual and living sacrifice for the good of others?

The Law is nothing but a vast arena of the vices and evil passions of mankind, where its professors, stripping off their moral clothing, appear as gladiators to fight for victory, not for justice! To stand in the midst of a wrangling crowd, and constitute a focus for all its hateful feelings, to be made the confident

of "wretched rogues forlorn," to be the depositary of their offences, to witness perjury, to advocate wrong, and oppose truth and justice, when hired to do it by a client; and finally, to be promoted to the Bench, that you may listen all day long to the evidence of repulsive crimes, and condemn their miserable perpetrators to the prison or the gallows:-this, too, is a course which, as society is constituted, must be run by some, and may be run by many, with public applause and the rewards of dignity and riches; but is it a career to be selected by him who is balancing as to what course of life to choose? I submit questions without presuming to apply an answer.

But the Church—ay, here, indeed, we cannot be at a loss; and he who feels within himself that he can faithfully, conscientiously, and holily discharge the duties of a minister of the Gospel, may be assured that he is embracing the happiest and most dignified of all professions. But if he be actuated by the spirit of a church rather than of a religion-if the odium theologicum can find a place in his bosom, and he seek to establish or oppose a sect rather than a principleabove all, if he be capable of desecrating the office, by associating it with political feeling and interested motives-let him pause upon the threshold, for he cannot probably step forward with advantage to others, and certainly not with benefit to himself.

The career of Politics will find few advocates among those who are more solicitous for mental peace than for worldly advancement. The field is narrow, the combatants fierce: cupidity and shame em

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bitter their exertions: triumph is exposed to acerbity and perpetual irritation; failure adds the stings of envy to the mortification of defeat. Such are the trials to which the actors are exposed, and even the writers upon politics cannot altogether escape the contagion of their hatefulness. Machiavel could not have been a happy man, any more than the kings, ministers, and diplomatists, who were eager to avail themselves of his crooked, unprincipled, and heartless subtlety.

This analysis might easily be extended; but if I have not said enough to determine "What life to choose," I have at least indicated what to avoid; so that if the reader be wise in his wishes, I may safely ejaculate, in bidding him adieu—“ Dii tibi dent quæ velis !"

MIND AND BODY.

Veluti in speculum.

SAYS Mind to Body, t'other day,
As on my chin I plied my razor,
Pray tell me does that glass pourtray
Your real phiz, or cheat the gazer?

That youthful face, which bloom'd as sleek
As Hebe's, Ganymede's, Apollo's,
Has lost its roses, and your cheek
Is falling into fearful hollows.

The crow's fell foot hath set its sign

Beside that eye which dimly twinkles;

And look! what means this ugly line?

Gadzooks, my friend, you're getting wrinkles!

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