the man who knocks at my door, whilst a thousand persons, as worthy, go by it, to whom I give no regard. It is enough that these particulars speak to me. A few anecdotes, a few traits of character, manners, face, a few incidents, have an emphasis in your memory out of all proportion to their apparent significance, if you measure them by the ordinary standards. They relate to your gift. Let them have their weight, and do not reject them, and cast about for illustration and facts more usual in Literature. Respect them, for they have their origin in deepest nature."-p. 145, The following just and powerful statement may well put to shame the questionings of casuistry, whether virtue may not sometimes be sacrificed to expediency, if there be no third party to be injured by this violation of right. Always as much virtue as there is, so much appears; as much goodness as there is, so much reverence it commands. All the devils respect virtue. The high, the generous, the self-devoted sect, will always instruct and command mankind. Never a sincere word was utterly lost, never a magnanimity fell to the ground. Always the heart of man greets and accepts it unexpectedly. A man passes for that he is worth. What he is, engraves itself on his face, on his form, on his fortunes, in letters of light, which all men may read but himself. Concealment avails him nothing; boasting, nothing. There is confession in the glances of our eyes, in our smiles, in salutations and the grasp of hands. His sin bedaubs him, mars all his good impression. Men know not why they do not trust him; but they do not trust him. His vice glasses his eye, demeans his cheek, pinches the nose, sets the mark of the beast on the back of his head, and writes, O fool! fool! on the forehead of a king."—p. 159. Many of the sentiments of this book breathe a Christianized Stoicism, if the expression may be allowed, which will render them doubly welcome to those whose minds have something of that heroic spirit which gave birth to the bold Aphorisms of Zeno : "To speak the truth, even with some austerity, to live with some rigour of temperance, or some extremes of generosity, seems to be an asceticism which common good nature would appoint to those who are at ease and in plenty, in sign that they feel a brotherhood with the great multitude of suffering men. And not only need we breathe and exercise the soul by assuming the penalties of abstinence, of debt, of solitude, of unpopularity, but it behoves the wise man to look with a bold eye into those same dangers which sometimes invade men, and to familiarize himself with disgusting forms of disease, with sounds of execration, and the vision of violent death."-p. 263. The Essay on Friendship contains too much of stoical indifference, and too little of the warm glow of fraternal feeling, to satisfy the longings of most hearts: as for instance,— "I do then with my friends, as I do with my books; I would have them where I could find them, but I seldom use them. We must have society on our own terms, and admit and exclude it on the slightest cause. I cannot afford to speak much with my friend. If he is great, he makes me so great, that I cannot descend to converse. In the great days, presentiments hover before me, far before me, in the firmament. I ought then to dedicate myself to them. I go in that I may seize them, I go out that I may seize them. I fear only that I may lose them receding into the sky, in which now they are only a patch of brighter light. Then though I prize my friends, I cannot afford to talk with them and study their visions, lest I lose my own. It would indeed give me a certain household joy to quit this lofty seeking, this spiritual astronomy, or search of stars, and come down to warm sympathies with you; but then I know well I shall mourn always the vanishing of my mighty gods."-p. 217. But the heart refuses its assent to a union like this; our author does not maintain his lofty but isolating theory; and speaking now from the heart instead of the head, draws a noble picture of this divine sentiment. "The end of friendship is a commerce the most strict and homely that can be joined; more strict than any of which we have experience. It is for aid and comfort through all the relations and passages of life and death. It is fit for serene days, and graceful gifts, and country rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and persecution. It keeps company with the sallies of the wit and the trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other the daily needs and offices of man's life, and to embellish it by courage, wisdom, and unity. It should never fall into something usual and settled, but should be alert and inventive, and add rhyme and reason to what was drudgery."-p. 208. The criticism on " Art" has not satisfied us; but we suspect that when the Author tells us, that in the Picture and Sculpture Galleries in Rome he saw only "the plain you and me he knew so well," that he has not quite correctly interpreted his consciousness, but that he received from them healthful nourishment for those ideal tendencies, which he has so exquisitely pourtrayed in the following: "There is no statue like this living man, with his infinite advantage over all ideal sculpture, of perpetual variety. What a gallery of art have I here! No mannerist made these varied groups and diverse original single figures. Here is the artist himself improvising, grim and glad, at his block. Now one thought strikes him, now another; and with each moment he alters the whole air, attitude, and expression of his clay. Away with your nonsense of oils and easels, of marble and chisels : : except to open your eyes to the witchcraft of eternal art, they are hypocritical rubbish."-p. 360. The Essay on "Compensation," seems to us the gem of the work, in vividness of illustration perhaps not equal to some others, but superior to them all in the completeness of its logic. It does not indeed state an unknown truth, but it is the development of one which we never before saw worked out with such power. 66 Experienced men of the world know very well that it is always best to pay scot and lot as they go along, and that a man often pays dear for a small frugality. The borrower runs in his own debt. Has a man gained any thing who has received an hundred favours and rendered none? Has he gained by borrowing through indolence or cunning his neighbour's wares or horses or money? There arises on the deed the instant acknowledgment of benefit on the one part, and of debt on the other; that is, of superiority and inferiority. The transaction remains in the memory of himself and his neighbour; and every new transaction alters, according to its nature, their relation to each other. He may soon come to see he had better have broken his own bones, than to have ridden in his neighbour's coach, and that the highest price he can pay for a thing is to ask for it.' 66 A wise man will extend this lesson to all parts of life, and know that it is always the part of prudence to face every claimant, and pay every just demand on your time, your talents, or your heart. Always pay; for, first or last, you must pay your entire debt. Persons and events may stand for a time between you and justice, but it is only a postponement. You must pay at last your own debt. If you are wise, you will dread a prosperity which only loads you with more. Benefit is the end of nature. But for every benefit which you receive a tax is levied. He is great who confers the most benefits. He is base—and that is the one base thing in the universe-to receive favours, and render none. In the order of nature we cannot render benefits to those from whom we receive them, or only seldom. But the benefit we receive must be rendered again, line for line, deed for deed, cent for cent, to somebody. Beware of too much good staying in your hand. It will fast corrupt and worm worms. Pay it away quickly in some sort." -p. 113. Willingly would we proceed to remark on each separate Essay, but our space is limited, and we feel we should be justly chargeable with one-sidedness in our statements, did we not point out some defects which have materially diminished our pleasure in perusing this volume. Occasionally there is a want of reverence in the manner in which the most serious and important subjects are treated, which grates harshly on the ear: as for instance, "This one fact the world hates, that the soul becomes; for that for ever degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to a shame; confounds the saint with the rogue; shoves Jesus and Judas equally aside."—p. 70. We sometimes meet with sentiments unworthy the dignity of the Essayist, which violate the principle so admirably urged by Schleiermacher in defence of his Monologues, "that though the life of each man fluctuates between his beau-ideal and his caricature, yet it is only such portions of it as take the former direction which are suited for public communication." 66 I shun father and mother, and wife and brother; when my genius calls me, I would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim. I hope it is something better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation. Expect me not to show cause why I seek or why I exclude company."-p. 52. We now and then find ridicule thrown upon important and useful institutions, which, on account of their obvious utility, it shows a want of good sense to despise, and if they are only attacked on account of the undue importance some persons attach to them, it still shows a want of magnanimity to throw contempt upon them; for a great man may be despised by an inferior-minded man, because he is incapable of comprehending the good he does; but a noble-minded man will not despise one of inferior abilities, because he is able to understand the good he is attempting to do. “Then again do not tell me, as a good man did to-day, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me, and to whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought and sold: for them I will go to prison, if need be; but your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; the building of meeting houses, to the vain end to which many now stand; alms to sots, and the thousand-fold Relief Societies: though I confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar, which by and by I shall have the manhood to withhold."-page 52. Compare pages 135-6. We cannot help regretting that social benevolence should be brought beneath our notice under such bizarre forms without the writer taking any trouble to point out to us the unity of that spirit which develops itself in such variety of outward manifestation, whether it be in going to prison to serve our friends, or labouring for food wherewith to feed our enemies. All these are but forms of that true benevolence of which the poet has wisely said, ‘Friend, parent, neighbour first, it will embrace, His country next, and next all human race; Wide and more wide the o'erflowings of the mind, Earth smiles around with boundless bounty blest, It is however possible that our author may be exposed to social trials, of which we, resting in the repose of hundreds of years of civilization, can form but little idea; and indeed most of the Essays seems to us written in a spirit of opposition to that " pressure from without," which in America seems to be so strong as to require convulsive efforts to cast it aside. We fear that there an attempt is made to mould the face of society into an uniformity, which must ever lay a painful weight on the efforts of individuals; and that there is too little sympathy with the more intellectual and refined objects of human pursuit, which must ever cause the most talented to be among the least satisfied portion of the community. There seems also to be too little recognition of the necessity of that division of mental labour which is requisite in order to produce the finest combination. All nations however wish to possess the results of talent, and if higher motives fail in causing sufficient honour to be paid to it, it may not be amiss to urge the economical maxim of Dr. Adam Smith, that the more we pay in honour, the less we have to pay in money for anything. America will therefore act wisely to change in many respects her estimate of polite literature and the fine arts, if she wishes to attain them at the same rate as they are obtained in this quarter of the globe. In England the love of wealth causes perhaps too much attention to be paid to its exclusive acquisition; but in Germany the wise direction of the public patronage has had an astonishing influence; showing that Literature and the Fine Arts may flourish where there is but little store of this world's goods. The Germans themselves consider that there is nothing so powerful as literary pursuits in keeping down discontent, and |