arrogance with which the authors and pro selytes of every new proposal were ready to realize it, be the cost what it might in the established rights, or even in the lives, of men; in short, to restlessness, presumption, sensual indulgence, and the idolatrous reliance on false philosophy in the whole domestic, social, and political life of the stirring and effective part of the community: these all acting, at once and together, on a mass of materials supplied by the unfeeling extravagance and oppressions of the government, which 'shewed no mercy, and very heavily laid its yoke.'

Turn then to the chapter from which the last words were cited, and read the following seven verses; and I am deceived if you will not be compelled to admit, that the Prophet Isaiah revealed the true philosophy of the French revolution more than two thousand years before it became a sad irrevocable truth of history. And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it. Therefore, hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else besides me! I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the

loss of children. But these two things shall come to thee in a moment, in one day; the loss of children, and widowhood; they shall come upon thee in their perfection, for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the abundance of thine inchantments. For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness; thou hast said, there is no overseer. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and none else besides me. Therefore shall evil come upon thee, thou shalt not know* from whence it riseth and mischief shall fall upon thee, thou shalt not be able to put it off; and

*The Reader will scarcely fail to find in this verse a remembrancer of the sudden setting-in of the frost, a fortnight before the usual time (in a country too, where the commencement of its two seasons is in general scarcely less regular than that of the wet and dry seasons between the tropics) which caused, and the desolation which accompanied, the flight from Moscow. The Russians baffled the physical forces of the imperial Jacobin, because they were inaccessible to his imaginary forces. The faith in St. Nicholas kept off at safe distance the more pernicious superstition of the Destinies of Napoleon the Great. The English in the Peninsula overcame the real, because they set at defiance, and had heard only to despise, the imaginary powers of the irresistible Emperor. Thank heaven, the heart of the country was 'sound at the core.

desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know. Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest prevail. Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels: let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee.'

There is a grace that would enable us to take up vipers, and the evil thing shall not hurt us: a spiritual alchemy which can transmute poisons into a panacea. We are counselled by our Lord himself to make unto ourselves friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness: and in this age of sharp contrasts and grotesque combinations it would be a wise method of sympathizing with the tone and spirit of the Times, if we elevated even our daily newspapers and political journals into COMMENTS ON THE BIBLE,

When I named this Essay a Sermon, I sought to prepare the inquirers after it for the absence of all the usual softenings suggested by worldly prudence, of all compro

mise between truth and courtesy. But not even as a Sermon would I have addressed the 'present Discourse to a promiscuous audience; and for this reason I likewise announced it in the title-page, as exclusively ad clerum; i. e. (in the old and wide sense of the word) to men of clerkly acquirements, of whatever profession. I would that the greater part of our publications could be thus directed, each to its appropriate class of Readers. But this cannot be! For among other odd burs and kecksies, the misgrowth of our luxuriant activity, we have now a READING PUBLIC

* Some participle passive in the diminutive form, ERUdituLORUM NATIO for instance, might seem at first sight a fuller and more exact designation; but the superior force and humor of the former become evident whenever the phrase occurs as a step or stair in a climax of irony. By way of example take the following sentences, transcribed from a work demonstrating that the New Testament was intended exclusively for the primitive converts from Judaism, was accomodated to their prejudices, and is of no autho rity, as a rule of faith, for Christians in general. "The READING PUBLIC in this ENLIGHTENED AGE, and THINKING NATION, by its favorable reception of LIBERAL IDEAS, has long demonstrated the benign influence of that PROFOUND PHILOSOPHY which has already emancipated us from so many absurd prejudices held in superstitious awe by our deluded forefathers. But the Dark Age yielded at length to the dawning light of Reason and CommonSense at the glorious, though imperfect, Revolution. THE PEOPLE can be no longer duped or scared out of their imprescriptible and inalienable RIGHT to judge and decide for themselves on all im

as strange a phrase, methinks, as ever forced a splenetic smile on the staid countenance of Meditation; and yet no fiction! For our

portant questions of Government and Religion. The scholastic jargon of jarring articles and metaphysical creeds may continue for a time to deform our Church-establishment; and like the grotesque figures in the nitches of our old gothic cathedrals may serve to remind the nation of its former barbarism; but the universal suffrage of a FREE And enlightened Public,' " &c. &c.!

Among the Revolutions worthy of notice, the change in the nature of the introductory sentences and prefatory matter in serious Books is not the least striking. The same gross flattery which disgusts us in the dedications to individuals in the elder writers, is now transferred to the Nation at large, or the READING PUBLIC: while the Jeremiads of our old Moralists, and their angry denunciations concerning the ignorance, immorality, and irreligion of the People, appear (mutatis mutandis, and with an appeal to the worst passions, envy, discontent, scorn, vindictiveness, &c.) in the shape of bitter libels on Ministers, Parliament, the Clergy: in short, on the State and Church, and all persons employed in them. Likewise, I would point out to the Reader's attention the marvellous predominance at present of the words, Idea and Demonstration. Every talker now a days has an Idea; aye, and he will demonstrate it too! A few days ago, I heard one of the READING PUBLIC, a thinking and independant smuggler, euphonize the latter word with much significance, in a tirade against the planners of the late African expedition:-"As to Algiers, any man that has half an IDEA in his skull, must know, that it has been long ago dey-monstered, I should say, dey-monstrified, &c." But, the phrase, which occasioned this note, brings to my mind the mistake of a lethargic Dutch traveller, who returning highly gratified from a showman's caravan, which he had been tempted to enter by the words, THE LEARNED PIG, gilt on the pannels, met another caravan of a similar shape, with THE READING FLY on it, in