a clear and steady lustre for a long period, so that a little mist of scandal will not eclipse it. Therefore, in almost all cases, a forgiving disposition arises from a consciousness of merit, an indifference to trifles, and a greatness of soul.

"To err is human; to forgive, divine.”

The actions of men, or the medium through which people in general view them, resembles an optical instrument, which, if held in one direction, will magnify, in the other will diminish. Now, the illtempered man magnifies and excites himself to retaliation; the worthy person diminishes, and thus composes his own mind, and leaves others to their reflection. Some men have telescopic eyes, they discover all the defects that lie at a distance, but they never look at home. Every person else is faulty. They never view themselves as evil. They never err in thoughts, in words, or actions according to their own opinion; and yet, perhaps, they are continually culpable in all. Shall we deem it likely that the man who is the most easily incensed, and the most desirous of revenging insults, real or imaginary, will be also the most pure and free from blame in regard to his own conduct to others? By no means; the opposite is almost universally the case. He that is most susceptible, most alive to the faults of one man against another, or the misconduct of any with respect to himself, is the most liable, and the most frequently guilty of the very same offences.

There may be such a thing as counterfeit forgiveness. A man may stifle his feelings through

fear. But this is no argument against the genuine principle. Otherwise fortitude, mercy, honesty, virtues of all kinds, and piety of all degrees, must be useless, because some men are base enough to imitate them.

The feeling of revenge is odious and disgraceful, in the same degree as that of forgiveness is amiable and exalted. All savage and uncultivated nations have been marked by this repulsive peculiarity. All the basest men in every age, and Satan himself, the great model of all iniquity, have been lovers of revenge. Those, therefore, who cherish this disposition in the present day may claim for their ancestry fiends, the most barbarous nations of antiquity and of modern times, tyrannical governors, cruel taskmasters, and even the most despicable and ferocious brute beasts. How many, and how disgraceful were some of the practices of the French revolutionists! Revenge, in its most diabolical form, was then indulged; and so it was in the commonwealth of Rome, and so it has been in almost all monarchical governments. Collet d'Herbois, during the French revolution, proposed to rase the city of Lyons, and murder the inhabitants. But what was the occasion of this horrid proposal? He had been formerly hissed off the stage in that city! Alexander the Great acted from a low and disgraceful feeling of revenge towards Betis, the governor of Gaza, who had defended the place with much valour against the Macedonian army. He caused him to have his feet bored, and to be dragged at the tail of a cart

his own soldiers, and he prided himself on his valour: how then could that have been worthy of punishment in one man which was so praiseworthy in another? But men do not, in general, love what is abstractedly excellent, so much as what is contributive to their own interest.

Sometimes revenge arises and operates most severely for a trifling injury or neglect. An act of incivility in Cæsar, who sat on some public occasion when the senate waited on him, is supposed to have been the principal cause of his ruin. But Cæsar, it seems, was unwell. And thus a man should not only avoid the appearance of disrespect in his actions and his words, but if he be compelled to act differently, by some unavoidable occurrence, he should satisfactorily explain the reason. Men, too, frequently fancy that, because their motive is good, no one can be offended; but they must take care to show that it is good. On the other hand, many persons are too apt to catch at every thing; to paint it in the most inconsistent and odious colours, and then to breathe retaliation and injury, when no harm had been intended, and where none exists, except in their own discomposed imaginations.

Revenge is sweet, it has been said; but it is sweet only to an acquired taste, or to one which has not been properly regulated. A studied or long-continued purpose of revenge is disgraceful. Because Darius would not forget the affront which he had received from the Athenians, he caused an attendant to proclaim in his hearing three times, immediately before dinner, "Remember the

Athenians!" A protracted exercise of a revengeful spirit is fiendish. A friend of Tiberius had offended him; and the king kept him languishing in prison for a long time, so that life was become a burden. Some one advised Tiberius to liberate him, or to put him to death; but the monarch, in a refined feeling of revenge, replied, "I have not yet forgiven him." The celebrated John Wesley heard General Oglethorpe declare one day that he never forgave. "Never forgive!" exclaimed the worthy divine. "Do you ever repeat the Lord's

prayer ?"

Retaliation is in some cases proper. It is, for instance, with regard to public justice. But it should never degenerate into revenge. It should be used to prevent, or to warn ; but never to occasion pain, merely for the sake of tormenting the criminal. Suffering is necessary in order to serve as a warning -and only for that purpose. In barbarous times, punishment was a species of revenge. In this country, malefactors, and especially traitors, were tortured shamefully. It has been the same in other European countries. In the East, the utmost refinement of suffering was sometimes employed.

In private life retaliation may be occasionally allowed; as, for instance, in the regulation of a family, of domestics, or of labourers: but it should always have reference to an improvement of conduct, rather than a pleasure in beholding the mortification or suffering of those who have acted disobediently or injuriously.

thrones by the great body of oppressed subjects; but this is rather an operation of justice than revenge for it is no more unjust for a whole nation to rise up against a cruel monster, who bears the sceptre only to stain it with human blood, than it is for a monarch to suppress a disorderly and uncalled for disturbance among his subjects. In the barbarous ages, when justice could not be obtained, and the oppressed person lay groaning beneath the cruel weight of the oppressor, it was almost allowable to take the sword of justice, and to bury it in the bosom of the tyrant. When Alboin, king of the Lombards, had defeated and killed his enemy, Cunimund, king of the Gepidæ, he compelled Rosamunda, the beautiful wife of the latter, to marry him. On a day of festivity, the anniversary of his victory, he filled the skull of Cunimund with wine, and sent it to the unfortunate Rosamunda to drink; but she was so much horrified and exasperated at this inhuman request, that she persuaded several of her friends to assassinate Alboin; and thus the monster received his desert.

Revenge is sometimes indulged in trifling and ludicrous matters. The Mahomedans, for instance, always kill a particular kind of lizard, which they call Hardeen, because they fancy the posture of its head is an imitation of the form in which they place themselves when they say their prayers! A man stumbles over a step or a chair, or strikes his corn against a stone, or runs against a post, or walks in the dark against a buttress, or falls over a step, and, almost invariably, he anathematises