evil into another channel. It may in some cases be useful as a temporary relief till safer means can be applied, and more efficacious rèmedies adopted. But the soul itself can only acquire its proper elevation by attempting to arrive at the deiform nature, by disentangling itself from the pleasures of sense, from the captivity of idle fancy and mere human ambition. It must endeavour to imitate that nature the essence of which is good, and the operations of which are the distribution and communication of good.

Temple. The imitation of the Supreme Being must be a noble principle, but it seems, from the conduct of mankind, that it has generally been misunderstood; and many, whilst they have affected to pursue 'such a purpose, have given themselves up to mere reveries, and have quitted the cares and the duties of life to exist in a state of idle abstraction.

More. The exercises which I recommend have nothing to do with monastic seclusion, though perhaps solitude may have something mystical in its effects on the mind, when considered not as an object of desire itself, but as a discipline for the mind, and as the parent of holy contemplations. But the mind of a sensible man is, as Tully remarks, never less alone than when alone. It then puts forth its inmost strength, and makes vigorous shoots in the region of meditation and pious self-devotion.

The spirit must be freed from the clog of sensuality, from the mire and intemperance of this animal nature. It must quit the cabals and contests of vulgar life, with the jealousies and heartburnings which they produce, and venture to expatiate in a freer range, and in a purer atmosphere. When thus cleared and disentangled, it can soar aloft on the wings of contemplation, and wrapt in a sacred enthusiasm, can become absorbed and lost in the pervading spirit of the universe. All the lees

of existence, all the dross and refuse of this mortal coil, are in such moments left behind. The soul asserts her native vigour, purified from such adhesions and incumbrances. Every selfish feeling, every narrow and personal interest is forgotten. How often, when walking in the beautiful walks at Cambridge, on some fine summer's evening, has my soul been carried away from itself and steeped in the bliss of Elysium! My spirit has shot from me like a star, and pierced through realms of space invisible to human ken.* I have been identified with the character of the giant sun, who was at that moment sinking to the west in a flood of glory, and whose radiant beams gave a parting kiss to every shady grove, and whose tufted arbour then glanced over each pinnacle and tower and gilded steeple, and melted at last in the fitful blushes of the vaulted heavens. My heart has dilated with the scene, and the very rapture of the moment has been too powerful for me. The rustling of the trees in glad salutation of the gentle breeze of evening, and the carolling of the throstle from the topmost bough as he bade farewell to the day, have seemed to me the impulses of my own spirit.

Penn. I have had my experiences of such blissful states of mind, but these upon more serious occasions. I never was so oppressed with the revelation of the holy life as in my first interview with my truly respected friend Elizabeth, (now with the Lord,) and with Anna

* Some of the expressions here are not strained beyond the Doctor's usual fervour, when in an enthusiastical mood.

+ See Penn's Letters to the Princess Elizabeth of the Rhine, and to the Countess of Hornes.

Maria de Hornes, styled Countess of Hornes. My testimony was how Death reigned from Adam to Moses; how that Moses was till the prophets, the prophets till John, and John til! Christ. I explained to them what Christ's day was, how few see this day, and, whilst people are talking of being under grace and not under the law, death reigneth over them, and they are not come to Moses nor the shaking or quaking mountain, the thunderings and lightnings and whirlwinds, and what was the way which led to the true grace. I declared the nature and manner of the appearing and operating of this principle, and appealed to their own consciences; and that that was before the world began was richly manifested in and amongst us. Of those dear distant friends I think now with delight. Time nor place can never separate our joy, divide our communion, or wipe away the remembrance that I have of them. What shall separate me from those who are truly the Lord's ? Shall principalities or powers?-things present or things to come? shall life or death? No; neither time nor mortality. Elizabeth was - amongst the first to receive our testimony; but even with them that worship was much thought of. Ay, we must beware of the delusions of vanity. These little conformities with the sinful world lead to other enormities; and from such beginnings the pride of the eye, and the lusts of the flesh, the empire of Satan prevail.

More. True religion, Mr. Penn, cannot consist in contesting about petty observances. What is this cap honour? Is it any thing more than a customary expression of the respect we bear to creatures of our own mould and shape? and such respect to the persons of others, so far from being contrary to scripture, is but a recognition of God's image in man. And what more is meant by such a form, than kind inclination and readiness to serve one another? I fear much, Mr. Penn, that the ardour of your friends, on this and similar occasions, is not the infusion of the good spirit, but is the vehemence of a mind carried away by undue passions and by mistaken apprehensions of things.

Penn.-Thou claimest to thyself the exercise of thy reason and the indulgence of the visitations of thy inward spirit, and I think thou dost not do well in imputing that to folly in other men, which in thy own case thou attributest to grace and to divine favour.

More. The spirit must be judged by its effects; and I must tell you frankly, that those yearnings after separation, that fondness for peculiarities in forms and external ceremonies, that inkling after distinction, which characterize many of the leaders of your party, seem to me marks of the workings of the evil one; and I doubt not to say, that in many of them, the fanatic raptures they attain to, so far from being any divine enthusiasm, are mere aberrations of mind.

Penn.-I should have expected to find thy zeal on points of speculation more tempered with knowledge of the heart of man; and I have been long willing to believe that thy charity would prevail, and that thou, who art sincere thyself in thy most extraordinary raptures, wouldst recognize and esteem the same sincerity in others.

More.-You know, Mr. Penn, how truly I love and value yourself; but I grieve to see you carried away to such heats and excesses as you sometimes give way to; and many of your friends are, I am well assured, (and I think I am but little subject to be mistaken in my judg ment of these matters) led into mere madness by their pride and enthusiasm, and admiration of their own rhetorical heats.

Penn.-When thou art mad in thy own fashion, I yet honour thee; for I know thou meanest well; and I am willing to interpret thy boldest flights of fancy, and thy most daring extravagancies, in some sober sense; and yet thou wilt not indulge the weakness of a brother, or tolerate any, unless his imagination just jumps in measure with thine: this surely is not well of thee.

More. It is a difficult thing, Mr. Penn, to distinguish between the holy utterance of the soul and the wild delusions of the melancholy fancy. The imagination is a dangerous faculty, and we must beware of attributing to inspiration what may be merely the oozings out of a distempered nature, the vapours of a splenetic mood.

Penn. The brightest ecstasies may be of equally little use, though they may be more agreeable to the soul possessed with them; and there is occasion to fear that thy admirers may retain thy words and be wrapt in thy visions, without exercising their duties as thou hast done, or cultivating thy virtues. By its fruits shall the tree be known.

Temple.-I fear we are approaching dangerous ground. I do not see how freedom of reason can be allowed, without allowing freedom of imagination at the same time. There must be free scope for all; and in distributing rewards amongst those who have had the gifts of prophecy, and have been blest with the power of seeing visions, one can only be impartial by awarding alike honourably to all, as where the good shepherd in Virgil cried out, "Et vitolâ tu dignus et hic."

More. Neither can that abstraction be called idle by which the mind learns to comprehend the vast chain of nature, to observe an uniformity of design and consistency of operation throughout the fabric of the universe. There is an incessant stock for contemplation in the structure of organized bodies, in the laws of the material world, in the instincts of animals. My friend the Bishop of Chester* has shewn how much probability there is that other worlds exist inhabited like our own, and that what seem to us to be petty specks of light, are systems crowded with life and enjoyment; and that, far beyond our knowledge or even conjecture, the range of creation still extends unexhausted, and happiness is diffused, and the choral voice of praise and gratitude raised to one mighty author, the soul of souls, and father of spirits.

Temple. Such rational pursuits may be well attended to without any retirement at all from the world. They may be pursued in the midst of its gaieties and its pleasures, and the intermingling of philosophical recreations will give an additional zest to the pleasures of sense. More.—What are the transient pleasures of sense compared with the enjoyments of reason when exercised upon its appropriate objects? and what are the enjoyments of the reasoning power itself when compared with the raptures and transports of that still more divine part of our nature, by which we sympathise in the enjoyments of others, and are sensible that it is the nature of good to be communicative and to dif fuse itself? True religion does not consist in rhetorical flourishes or scholastic subtilties, as many seem to suppose, but in the practice of self-command, in the exercise of virtue, in the diffusion of charity. Pagan christianity has had its day, and will, after a while, give way to purer schemes and more enlightened conceptions; when there will be less disputation about forms and creeds, conduct in life will be con

*Wilkins.

sidered, and the interests of the heart cultivated. I have felt strong and sure anticipations of the progress of knowledge and virtue; and if, like an old man, I dream dreams, they are at least of a consolatory cast, and, I will confess it, they leave a firm and indelible impression on my mind in its more waking moments.

Penn. My heart is moved within me, and my soul bears witness to the truths which thou utterest. There is already spread over the creation the dawn of a brighter day; and I trust we shall live to see its more complete and entire effulgence. It is the day-spring from on high which visiteth us: and peace and good will among men are wafted along on the wings of the morning. But the minds of men must be prepared for the influx of better things by due discipline and reformation of habits.

THE LION FIGHT.

ONE of the most pleasing reflections for those of our generation who are in the habit of watching the progress of the human mind, and following those rapid strides in civilization which may be so justly styled the glory of our day, is the obliteration of the coarse and brutal diversions, which have too lorg imparted a character of ferocity to the habits and recreations of the noble and plebeian vulgar. That refinement of manners, and a more just appreciation of right and wrong, as regards the duties of social man and the value of humanity, have already made great progress in diminishing these detestable scenes, is known by looking into the records of our past history, and comparing the manners of our own time with the disclosures that there unfold themselves. This advancement in refined manners is the best proof that the evils of this kind which remain, will at no great distance of time disappear before the censures of public opinion. Leaving them to this remedy appears far preferable to exterminating them at once, by any sweeping legislative enactments. The laws as they stand are sufficient to put down such sports as are of a character to promote breaches of the peace, and endanger public security; that is, if the authorities do their duty. In some parts of the country, however, there are magistrates who are reluctant to interrupt brutal exhibitions, because they participate largely with the mob in the vulgar pleasure they afford. Let Mr. Peel look to it, and take care that bull-baiting and pugilistic magistrates be no longer suffered to hold the commissions which they disgrace, and of a main rule of which they live in open violation. It is a curious circumstance that the agricultural population of Great Britain, at the present moment, should be the most backward in intellect. That part of the population which is employed in commerce and manufactures, has a far greater share of knowledge and refinement. In like manner, the better class of merchants and men of business are far superior to the country gentlemen in acquirements, manners, and the savoir faire. The distance of a town from the coast, and from commercial and manufacturing cities, imparts to it, as a whole, a similar character of backwardness, especially if it has remained stationary in size, can boast of no manufactories, and its inhabitants, from their non-intercourse with the rest of the country, are found clinging to those ridiculous ideas of class and gentility, from the squire to the attorney, from the parson's wife to the exciseman's, that were formerly so rife in the provinces. When one visits such a place, and ob

serves its anti-social habits, caste only visiting with caste, and that with more ceremony than nobles receive visitors with in town, when few new buildings appear, and the ill character of local regulations comes under the observation of every stranger, a pretty close guess may be formed of the state of the population, its bias, degree of mental culture, and amusements. Such towns seem to slumber in a stagnant existence. They frequently lie out of the high roads, but do not depend for character upon remoteness from the capital, but upon commerce and manufactures, and whether men of the new or old time are leading residents in them,-in short, whether any exciting cause has acted upon them, and infused into them the spirit so visible at present in most parts of the country. In places of this character the assizes are a sort of jubilee. The dignity of justice, the misery of crime, the trial and execution of the criminal, never cross the minds of the people. The gaiety of the assize ball, and the sermon before the judges, the sheriffs' show, and the feasting of his men, the throng which business or pleasure may allure thither for a week, embrace the entire thoughts and conversation of the inhabitants for the preceding six months. The dinners and bustle are perhaps the only incidents that resuscitate the neighbourhood for a time from Lethean dullness; while the money the good tradesmen pocket, helps them through the rest of the year. Thus this scene of misery is looked upon as a sort of“ revival” (as the methodists style a fresh outbreaking among their converts) from the experience of which they fall back to their dormouse-like slumber and monotony. To places of this description an assemblage of high or low blackguards, gamblers, and thieves, at a boxing match, a dog-fight, a bull-bait, (or a bloody combat of gladiators, could such a thing be now) is esteemed a sort of God-send. The inns are filled, drunkenness requires liquor, and money, that covers every sin, is plentifully pocketed. Those who might and ought to prevent such vicious exhibitions, refrain from interference, that their townsmen may be benefited; tacitly acknowledging that they fear the tradesmen and pedlars of the neighbourhood may frown upon them, and besides that sports of the kind have been customary from time immemorial, and therefore, like Court of Chancery abuses, must have every indulgence conceded to them, from being ancient usages.

These observations struck me forcibly as I saw the people crowding to the Lion fight at Warwick. I was walking on the road which leads from Leamington to Warwick, and a friend coming up at that moment drove me over in his tilbury. I had resided some weeks at that beautiful watering-place, and often entering the county town, had been struck with its dullness and the solitude of its strects. My inquiries respecting its inhabitants were, with some few exceptions, not at all favourable to their social habits, their manners, and the culture and liberality of their minds. Plodding on in the steps of their fathers, jealous of the rising town of Leamington, which is rapidly outshining them in all but situation, (which latter few places in the kingdom can equal,) the town seems losing ground, and is decidedly among the class of places I have before characterized. With the exception of a few of the sober inhabitants, the lion fight was hailed with as great pleasure as the recent pugilistic contests were that have so disgraced it. The mayor, to his own honour, but much to the astonishment and in