--a splendid reputation with posterity. Now, how is the case at present? If Fox's name were not eternally repeated by a party from interested motives-if this party did not eternally chant his praise to preserve itself from infamy-he would be even now either forgotten, or only remembered to be compassionated by the few, and condemned by the many. While this is the case with Fox, Burke, although no party has an interest in protecting his fame, and almost all have an interest in injuring it, is already, in the eyes of the independent part of the nation, taking his place among the most illustrious of our departed statesmen. When the inte.rests, passions, and prejudices of the present generation shall have passed away, the most dazzling blaze of glory that ambition could sigh for, will encircle the grave of Burke, while Fox will only be remembered as a man who employed great powers in the most injurious, and the least excusable, manner.-Blackwood's Magazine.

SELECTED FOR THE MUSEUM,

FROM MR. SHEPPARD'S THOUGHTS ON PRIVATE DEVOTION.

Mr. Sheppard to Lord Byron.

Frome, Somerset, Nov. 21, 1821.

MY LORD-More than two years since, a lovely and beloved wife was taken from me, by lingering disease, after a very short union. She possessed unvarying gentleness and fortitude, and a piety so retiring as rarely to disclose itself in words, but so influential, as to produce uniform benevolence of conduct. In the last hour of life, after a farewell look on a lately born and only infant, for whom she had evinced inexpressible affection, her last whispers were, "God's happiness,""God's happiness!" Since the second anniversary of her decease, I have read some papers which no one had seen during her life, and which contain her most secret thoughts. I am induced to communicate to your lordship a passage from these papers, which, there is no doubt, refers to yourself; as I have more than once heard the writer mention your agility on the rocks at Hastings.

"O my God! I take encouragement from the assurance of thy word, to pray to Thee in behalf of one for whom I have lately been much interested. May the person to whom I allude, (and who is now, we fear, as much distinguished for his neglect of Thee as for the transcendent talents Thou hast bestowed upon him,) be awakened to a sense of his own danger, and led to seek that peace of mind in a proper sense of religion, which he has found this world's enjoyments unable to procure! Do Thou grant that his future example may be productive of far more extensive benefit than his past conduct and writings have been of evil; and may the Sun of righteousness, which, we trust, will, at some future period, arise on him, be

bright in proportion to the darkness of those clouds, which guilt has raised around him, and the balm which it bestows, healing and soothing in proportion to the keenness of that agony which the punishment of his vices has inflicted on him!" &c.

'Hastings, July 31, 1814."

There is nothing, my lord, in this extract, which in a literary sense, can at all interest you; but it may, perhaps, appear to you worthy of reflection, how deep and expansive a concern for the happiness of others, the Christian faith can awaken in the midst of youth and prosperity. Here is nothing poetical and splendid, as in the expostulatory homage of M. Delamartine; but here is the sublime, my lord; for this intercession was offered, on your account, to the supreme Source of happiness. It sprang from a faith more confirmed than that of the French poet; and from a charity, which, in combination with faith, showed its power unimpaired, amidst the languors and pains of approaching dissolution. I will hope that a prayer, which, I am sure, was deeply sincere, may not be always unavailing.

It would add nothing, my lord, to the fame with which your genius has surrounded you, for an unknown and obscure individual to express his admiration of it. I had rather be numbered with those who wish and pray, that "wisdom from above," "and peace and joy," may enter such a mind.

Lord Byron's answer.

Pisa, Dec. 8, 1821.

SIR, I have received your letter. I need not say, that the extract which it contains has affected me, because it would imply a want of all feeling to have read it with indifference. Though I am not quite sure, that it was intended by the writer for me, yet the date, the place where it was written, with some other circumstances which you mention, render the allusion probable. But, for whomsoever it was meant, I have read it with all the pleasure that can arise from such a melancholy topic. I say pleasure, because your brief and simple picture of the life and demeanor of the excellent person whom I trust you will again meet, cannot be contemplated without the admiration due to her virtues, and her pure and unpretending piety. Her last moments were particularly striking; and I do not know, that in the course of reading the story of mankind, and still less in my observations of the existing portion, I ever met with any thing so unostentatiously beautiful. Indisputably, the firm believers in the gospel have a great advantage over all others, for this simple reason:-that, if true, they will have their reward hereafter; and if there be no hereafter, they can be but with the infidel in his eternal sleep, having had the assistance of an exalted hope through life, without subsequent disappointment, since (at the worst for them) "out of nothing, nothing

can arise," not even sorrow. But a man's creed does not depend on himself; who can say, I will believe,-this,-that, or the other; and least of all, that which he can least comprehend? I have, however, observed, that those who have begun life with an extreme faith, have in the end greatly narrowed it, as Chillingworth, Clarke, (who ended as an Arian), Bayle, and Gibbon, (once a Catholic) and some others; while, on the other hand, nothing is more common than for the early sceptic to end in a firm belief, like Maupertuis and Henry Kirke White. But my business is to acknowledge your letter, and not to make a dissertation. I am obliged to you for your good wishes and more than obliged by the extract from the papers of the beloved object whose qualities you have so well described in a few words. I can assure you, that all the fame which ever cheated humanity into higher notions of its own importance, would never weigh in my mind against the pure and pious interest which a virtuous being may be pleased to take in my welfare. In this point of view, I would not exchange the prayer of the deceased in my behalf, for the united glory of Homer, Cæsar, and Napoleon, could such be accumulated upon a living head. Do me at least the justice to suppose that

"Video meliora proba-que,”

however the "Deteriora sequor" may have been applied to my conduct.

I have the honour to be,

Your obliged and obedient servant,

BYRON.

P.S. I do not know that I am addressing a clergyman; but I presume that you will not be affronted by the mistake (if it is one) on the address of this letter. One who has so well explained, and deeply felt, the doctrines of religion, will excuse the error which led me to believe him its minister.

Mr. Sheppard successfully combats the idea suggested by his noble correspondent, that believing is an act merely intellectual, and in no respect moral; and clearly proves, that unbelief in divine truth, whether general or merely partial, is strictly connected with moral evil; that "there can be in truth, no moral void, no blank or neutral state of mind. Into the heart of man evil thoughts and principles must rush when good ones are excluded; nay, the former are already there, generated and evolved within; and to describe unbelief under the figure of a vacuum, is merely to say that the mind is void of the principles of good, because it is preoccupied and filled with those of evil. The less there is of religious belief, the more of irreligious sentiment; and the greater the evolution or the influx of this, by the agency of bad passions, or of bad associations, the more is religious faith expelled or excluded.”

SELECTED FOR THE MUSEUM.

INSURANCE AND ASSURANCE.

Bernardine.-I have been drinking hard all night, and will have more time to prepare me, or they shall beat out my brains with billets. I will not consent to die this day, that's certain.

Duke.—Oh, Sir, you must; and therefore I beseech you look forward on the journey you shall go.

Bernardine.-I swear I will not die to day for any man's persuasion.

Measure for Measure.

"IT is inconceivable to the virtuous and praiseworthy part of the world, who have been born and bred to respectable idleness, what terrible straits are the lot of those scandalous rogues whom Fortune has left to shift for themselves!" Such was my feeling ejaculation when, full of penitence for the sin of urgent necessity, I wended my way to the attorney who had swept together, and, for the most part, pecked up, the crumbs which fell from my father's table. He was a little grizzled, sardonic animal, with features which were as hard as his heart, and fitted their leather jacket so tightly that one would have thought it had shrunk from washing, or that they had bought it second-hand and were pretty nearly out at the elbows. They were completely emblematic of their possessor, whose religion it was to make the most of every thing, and, amongst the rest, of the distresses of his particular friends, amongst whom I had the happiness of standing very forward. My business required but little explanation, for I was oppressed by neither rentrolls nor title-deeds; and we sat down to consider the readiest means of turning an excellent income for one year into something decent for a few more. My adviser, whose small experienced eye had twinkled through all the speculations of the age, and, at the same time, had taken a very exact admeasurement of my capabilities of turning them to advantage, seemed to be of opinion that I was fit for nothing on earth. For one undertaking I wanted application; for another I wanted capital. "Now," said he, "as the first of these deficiencies is irremediable, we must do what we can to supply the latter. Take my advice,-Insure your life for a few thousands; you will have but little premium to pay, for you look as if you would live for ever; and from my knowledge of your rattle-pated habits, and the various chances against you, I will give you a handsome sum for the insurance." Necessity obliged me to acquiesce in the proposal, and I assured the old cormorant that there was every likelihood of my requiting his liberality by the most unremitting perseverance in all the evil habits which had procured me his countenance. We shook hands in mutual ill-opinion, and he obligingly volunteered to accompany me to an Insurance Office, where they were supposed to estimate the duration of a man's life to a quarter of an hour and odd seconds.

We arrived a little before the business hour, and were shown into a large room, where we found several more speculators waiting

ruefully for the oracle to pronounce sentence. In the centre was a large table, round which, at equal distances, were placed certain little lumps of money, which my friend told me were to reward the labours of the Inquisition, amongst whom the surplus arising from absentees would likewise be divided. From the keenness with which each individual darted upon his share and ogled that of his absent neighbour, I surmised that some of my fellow-sufferers would find the day against them. They would be examined by eyes capable of penetrating every crevice of their constitutions, by noses which could smell a rat a mile off, and hunt a guinea breast high. How indeed could plague or pestilence, gout or gluttony, expect to lurk in its hole undisturbed when surrounded by a pack of terriers which seemed hungry enough to devour one another? Whenever the door slammed, and they looked for an addition to their cry, they seemed for all the world as though they were going to bark; and if a straggler really entered and seized upon his moiety, the intelligent look of vexation was precisely like that of a dog who has lost a bone. When ten or a dozen of these gentry had assembled, the labours of the day commenced.

Most of our adventurers for raising supplies upon their natural lives, were afflicted with a natural conceit that they were by no means circumscribed in foundation for such a project. In vain did the Board endeavour to persuade them that they were half dead already. They fought hard for a few more years, swore that their fathers had been almost immortal, and that their whole families had been as tenacious of life as eels themselves. Alas! they were first ordered into an adjoining room, which I soon learnt was the condemned cell, and then delicately informed that the establishment could have nothing to say to them. Some indeed had the good luck to be reprieved a little longer, but even these did not effect a very flattering or advantageous bargain. One old gentleman had a large premium to pay for a totter in his knees; another for an extraordinary circumference in the girth; and a dowager of high respectability, who was afflicted with certain undue proportions of width, was fined most exorbitantly. The only customer who met with any thing like satisfaction was a gigantic man of Ireland, with whom Death, I thought, was likely to have a puzzling contest.

"How old are you, Sir?" inquired an examiner.

"Forty."

"You seem a strong man."

"I am the strongest man in Ireland."

"But subject to the gout?"

"No.-The rheumatism.-Nothing else, upon my soul." "What age was your father when he died?

"Oh, he died young; but then he was killed in a row."

"Have you any uncles alive?"

"No: they were all killed in rows too."

1

"Pray, Sir, do you think of returning to Ireland?"