NOTE 23. p. 58. 1. 745.

Her hands could earn her bread, and freely give.

THE character here described is well pourtrayed in the following passage of Newton's Letters : "We have lost another of the people here; a person of much experience, eminent grace, wisdom, and usefulness. She walked with God forty years. She was one of the Lord's poor; but her poverty was decent, sanctified, and honourable. She lived respected, and her death is considered as a public loss. It is a great loss to me : I shall miss her advice and example, by which I have been often edified and animated. Almost the last words she uttered were, The Lord is my portion, saith my soul.'"

I have known many instances of such persons. The character is indeed most highly respectable; but it does not obtain that respect and support which it so well merits. In truth, wealth is so devotedly worshipped, that virtuous poverty must of necessity be neglected, if not despised. Every

man is aspiring to the imaginary dignity of the person who happens to be a little richer than himself. The distinction of wealth is gradually absorbing every other. I would prefer the aristocracy of pedigree to that of riches.

P. 59. 1. 761.

There courage that expects no tongue to praise.

To private soldiers and sailors the voice of praise very seldom reaches; yet is their courage not less conspicuous than that which their superiors in rank display. Our military establishment, both at sea and on shore, is indeed penurious in reward, while it is liberal in punishment. By extending the one, and restricting the other, the regular army would be more expeditiously recruited than by increase of bounties. Let the experiment of less severe punishments be tried. The immediate consequence would be, (to speak in mercantile phrase,) a fall in the price of the article. But there is still another, and a more

Follow

effectual way of recruiting the army. the advice of that man, who, through good report and through bad report, has stood the stedfast friend of justice and of freedom,—to whose intuitive ken the most complicated subjects are simple, the most opaque transparent. His advice (but, alas! his prescient advice is seldom regarded until the event verifies the prediction) was, to restrict the term of service to a moderate period, to five, six, or seven years. If a man engaging himself for half a year as a common servant were asked, for what higher rate of wages he would bind himself during life? his answer would probably be, that no reward would tempt him to bind himself for life. Or, if he were to be so allured, would he not ask an enormous hire? To indent one's person for life, is a tremendous engagement.-But a limitation of the term of service would be highly expedient in another view. Reckoning the regular troops of Britain at 200,000, —if each man were to be discharged at the end of seven years from the time of his enlistment, is

it not obvious, that we should have a yearly addition of about 27,000 thorough-bred soldiers, ready to fall into the ranks of the strictly defensive department of our national armament? Say that the addition were to be only 20,000, what an accession of real strength, of discipline, of experience, of confidence, would be the result! In five years there would be nearly 100,000 veterans (for a soldier who has served seven years I would call a veteran) added to our home-force. No one can form a probable guess at the duration of the present war; nor is it likely that many of the present generations will see the day, when they may with safety turn their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks. We must continue in the attitude of an armed nation. We must labour with the one hand, and wield our weapons with the other.

NOTE 24. p. 60. I. 781.

Or cheering, with inquiries from the heart. In some hospitals, the patients are supposed to be treated with all due justice, if the bolus and the knife be liberally administered. Nothing is done to amuse or to console.

P. 64. 1. 839.

Blest be the female votaries.

THE nuns called Beguines devote the whole of their time to attendance on the sick, whether in hospitals or in private houses. They are habited in black, and when going abroad they wear deep black veils.

P. 66. 1. 859.

Call forth the dead, and re-unite the dust
(Transform'd and purified) to angel souls.

EVERY one has experienced how much contrast enhances pleasure, and aggravates pain. Perhaps