ever penned a line. Is it wonderful, then, that his views, and the manner in which he presented them, are unpalatable, and that men should decline to accept his theory? People applaud a play that exposes the worst features of their character, if in the end virtue is rewarded and vice punished. Indeed, they prefer a drama of that sort to another in which there is nothing but virtue served up for their entertainment. Show them their nature vicious if you will, only let the vice be occasional and accidental, not permanent and radical, and they are satisfied.

If the aim of satire is rightly defined to be the correction, by exposure, of vice and folly, it must be admitted that Swift, the most powerful of all satirists, fails, because he satirized what it is impossible to correct.

"Qui vitia odit homines odit,"

was the conclusion at which he had arrived, and he boldly satirized our nature itself. Yet, in spite of this limitation, he has performed a vast and permanent service by making people behold themselves in a light wherein they seldom care to regard themselves, but in which it is well they should sometimes be seen.

THE LITERARY MAN AS PATRIOT.

MAZZINI.

OVE for one's native soil, and desire for personal consideration in the place of one's birth, are sentiments whichthough proveably not innate-have been found to exist very extensively in every race that has hitherto attained to the dignity and advantages of a settled mode of life. Moreover, they are not confined to vulgar minds, but have exercised a predominating influence over some of the noblest men that ever lived. The privilege of triumphal entry into one city has been held sufficient reward for the conquest of great countries, and the huzzas of an enthusiastic multitude have effectually drowned the echo of the innumerable groans of slaughtered foreigners. To such minds as are thus influenced, exile, whether voluntary or enforced, is a misfortune

to be evaded at any cost. Their happiness is centred in their country. In the twelfth century, as we have seen, Giraldus Cambrensis, the most eminent man of his age, roamed up and down Europe venting his rage, and bearding kings and popes for keeping him from the see of St. David. He had been offered an archbishopric, and the choice of more than one bishopric; but he would accept nothing whilst the throne of the miserable little city in which he had been bred was withheld. Prolonged absence from Florence poisoned the life of Dante, and undoubtedly shortened the great poet's existence. These men were influenced by the feelings that influenced Jacob when he charged his sons to bury him in the field of the Hittite. "There they buried Abraham and "Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Re"becca his wife; and there I buried Leah."

This attachment to locality this belief that Abana and Pharpar are better than all the waters of Israel is not in itself Patriotism; but it is obviously the source whence it springs, and on which it feeds. The sentiment is repeated on a large scale; men mass their feelings; and the result is what has been termed "greatest of virtues" by the ancients, and is even now highly esteemed. After all, what does this sentiment mean? By chance, or agreement, or compulsion, an imaginary cordon is thrown around a

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certain district, whereupon all within the circle are regarded as compatriots, while those who remain without are treated as enemies. The history of our own country affords us an eminent instance of the ill effect of such an arrangement. There were once seven Englands. The England which had its headquarters at Winchester did not consider itself unpatriotic when it made war upon the England represented by Canterbury, or that at Canterbury while it acted similarly towards those whose capital was at York. At length, however, a persistent course of unpatriotic attempts at fusion was successful, and these seven Englands eventually became one. From that time it was no longer regarded patriotic in the Englishman at Durham to make aggression upon the Englishman at Dorchester; the attempt would have been civil war then. But there was consolation for him. Across the northernmost river was the land of an enemy from whom he might still honestly steal, and whom he might still conscientiously kill. In time that land, too, became an integral part of England, and consequently legitimate patriotism could no more discharge itself within the four seas; it must thenceforth exercise itself only against distant countries.

The tendency of events is indefinitely to enlarge the area enclosed by the cordon to which we have

alluded. The tendency of patriotism, ancient and modern, has, on the contrary, been invariably to maintain it as it is, or to restore it to the limits it occupied at some former time. The attitude of Belgium in view of French invasion is a manifestation by that country of its desire to accomplish the one. Polish insurrections, Irish conspiracies, and the recent action of the American slave States, are conspicuous instances of attempts at effecting the other.

It frequently happens that a man disposed to be patriotic, and willing to take upon himself responsible action, finds it impossible to determine his course by the current maxims of patriotism. This may arise from either of two causes he may have doubts as to where his country is, or he may be unable to determine what it is. A well-known instance of doubt, arising from the former, is presented in the case of "Stonewall" Jackson, at the outbreak of the late contest in America. Jackson was by profession a soldier, owing allegiance to a country that stretched across a vast continent. He had no inclination to be false to this country. One day, however, he found that the inhabitants of an area of 70,000 miles had resolved to sever themselves from the rest of the community; and he, having been born in the district, considered it his duty as a patriot to join them, notwithstanding his disapproval of the course they