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And they glide back by night to their little cot,
O absent long, but by none forgot!"
The Boat with its snow-white sail is gone,
And the Creatures it brought to shore are
flown!

Still the crowd of water-lilies shake,
And a long bright line shines o'er the Lake,
But nought else tells that a bark was near;
While the wildered Shepherd seems to hear
A wild hymn wandering through the wood,
Till it dies up the mountain solitude;
And a dreamy thought, as the sounds depart,
Of Edith and Nora comes o'er his heart.
At Morning's first pure silent glow,
A band of simple Shepherds go
To the Orphan's Cot, and they there behold
The Dove so bright, with its plumes of gold,
And the radiant Lamb, that used to glide
So spirit-like by fair Edith's side.

Fair Creatures! that no more were seen
On the sunny thatch or the flowery green,
Since the lovely Sisters had flown away,
And left their Cottage to decay!
Back to this world returned again,
They seem in sadness and in pain,
And coo and bleat is like the breath'
Of sorrow mourning over death.
Lo! smiling on their rushy bed,
Lie Edith and Nora-embraced and dead!
A gentle frost has closed their eyes,
And hushed-just hushed-their balmy
sighs.

;

Over their lips, yet rosy red,
A faint, pale, cold decay is shed:
A dimness hangs o'er their golden hair,
That sadly tells no life is there;
There beats no heart, no current flows
In bosoms sunk in such repose;
Limbs may not that chill quiet have,
Unless laid ready for the grave.
Silence lies there from face to feet,

And the bed she loves best is a winding

sheet.

Let the Coffin sink down soft and slowly,
And calm be the burial of the holy !
One long look in that mournful cell-
Let the green turf heave and then, farewell!
No need of tears! in this church-yard shade
Oft had the happy orphans played
Above these quiet graves! and well they lie
After a calm bright life of purity,
Beneath the flowers that once sprung to meet
The motion of their now still feet!
The mourners are leaving the buried clay,
To the holy hush of the Sabbath day,
When a Lamb comes sadly bleating by,
And a Dove soft wavering through the sky,

And both lie down without a sound,
In beauty on the funeral mound!
What may these lovely creatures be?
-Two sisters who died in infancy,
And thus had those they loved attended,
And been by those they loved befriended!
Whate'er fair Creatures! might be their

birth

Never more were they seen on earth; But to young and old belief was given

OF THE EFFECTS OF KNOWLEDGE UPON SOCIETY.

TOWARDS the close of last century, it was thought by many philosophers, that the faults and vices of mankind arose chiefly from intellectual darkness, and that if prejudice and misconception were removed from the earth, moral evil would speedily depart also. The French metaphysicians seemed to consider man as a being in whom reason was the predominating faculty. They concluded, too hastily, that his desires and inclinations resulted from his opinions, and were posterior to the conclusions of his understanding. Their attention had been so much directed towards the evils which spring from prejudices of education, that they supposed the root and essence of the mischief lay in the prejudices themselves, and did not advert to the fact, that prejudices serve only as domicils for the elementary passions, which, although they may change their abode and their apparel, never change their nature. Opinion can do no more than transfer the operations of the passions from one object to another; and in doing so, it may effect either good or mischief, according to circumstances. Vanity and ambition, for instance, have always the same bent, namely, that of seeking after pre-eminence and distinction; but what constitutes distinction depends, in a great measure, upon the opinions of society. If value is set upon useless objects, so much human energy is expended to no purpose; if value is set on pernicious objects, so much ambition is turned to so much mischief; but if the palm is affixed to useful and noble objects, the nature of the ambitious man is improved in pursuing them, and society profits by his activity.

For rendering service to society, vanity and ambition are much more to be depended on than the feeling of duty. They are personal sentiments,

and therefore much more active and constant in their operation. But it is by the virtuous feelings of society at large that they are controled and guided towards beneficial ends. It would be the interest even of a profligate society, to reward nothing but serviceable and well directed ambition with admiration and consequence; but here

That with Edith and Nora they went to the natural feelings of mankind are

Heaven.

N.

found to work too powerfully against

and making them acquainted with opportunities of action; but if the sentiments do not exist, its words are idle, and are of no more use than the compass is to the pilot when there is no wind to fill his sails. Forms of government are equally unproductive in the species of their influence. A free government only gives fair play to the human character, and allows national energies, talents, and virtues to manifest themselves in their greatest strength and beauty. A bad government stifles and oppresses the talents and energies of a nation, and exerts a destructive power; but a good government exerts no creative power, nor does more for mankind than is done for the different kinds of animals by free air and exercise, which perfect their natural qualities, but confer no

the calculations of their own interest. Men every where confer their admiration upon those things in which they themselves wish to excel, and accordingly a profligate society gives premiums to so many spurious kinds of ambition, that little of the useful sort is produced. Thus no ambitious man can ever be tempted to pursue a much more virtuous course than corresponds with the habits of thought prevalent in the society where he lives. The services done to society, through motives purely conscientious, must always be a precarious and uncertain fund, from what we know of the average constitution of human nature; and no nation can count upon great and meritorious exertions, until it has drawn into its service the personal passions, which constitute the main spring of activity in the minds of mankind. A degenerate and vicious so- To suppose that the intellectual calciety thus is constantly giving way to culation of utility can ever become the feelings which react perniciously up-regulating principle of human exison itself. It is insincere or divided in its approbation of what is good; and therefore it is not rewarded by the growth of what is good. The good deeds which happen to be performed in such a society, by disinterested persons, are like contributions casually dropt into an alms-box.

The more we reflect upon the nature of man, the more we shall be convinced, that what decides his fate is to be found chiefly within himself, and not in extrinsic circumstances. The philosophers of the last century overlooked the mechanism which nature implants in nations and individuals, and sought for the cause of every thing from without. They attributed an almost creative power to knowledge and to institutions. But there is reason to suspect, that the power exerted by mere intellect over human destiny is much less than they were inclined to suppose. Man is of a nature which includes part of the brute, and part of the percipient being; but the elements which decide his destiny are his passions and his moral sentiments. All that knowledge can do is to remove errors and mistakes. It operates as a guide in relation to the human character, but it has no productive power. It cannot create a single new moral impulse or propension which does not already exist within us. It is often of service in awakening the latent sentiments, VOL. IV.

new ones.

tence, is to suppose that the elements of human nature exist in totally different proportions from the real ones. Remote views of interest, however clear, give way to the personal feelings of the moment; and it is only by the continual activity of just sentiments throughout society, that a nation can be sure of preserving itself from political disasters. Vainly do knowledge and foresight hope to regulate the course of moral events, by inves tigating into the sequence of causes and effects, if knowledge and foresight are unable, when the crisis arrives, to evoke those virtues and energies which would be necessary to form part of the chain upon which a fortunate result depends. In controling the movements of the physical world, man finds no scarcity of objects by which to act upon their objects, and accomplish his desires; but the causes which elevate or degrade the moral nature of his species can only be grasped now and then; and even when he does not appear "to ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm," it is scarcely by means of his own power that he assumes such an office, but rather because the whirlwind happens to stoop of its own accord, and take up the puny rider. When legislators succeed in establishing a good system of laws, they have to thank the course of events for presenting them with what was most essential to their enterprize, Ꮮ

namely, a set of people sufficiently virtuous or sufficiently docile to concur in supporting their system. Any improvements that are offered on the moral nature of man, by means of institutions, go on slowly, and lie at the mercy of so many collateral trains of events, originating from unforeseen sources, that they can hardly be said to be under human control. The character of modern European nations has been disciplined all along by the falling out of events, and not by any legislating influence, except Christianity, which rather affects the private nature of individuals, than operates directly upon the laws of their political aggregation. The minds of European nations have grown up and ripened, as they best could, under institutions not originally planned by reason, but worked out of circumstances by the blind contentions of the different members of the body politic. Even England herself has owed her advantages to the propitious movements of her inborn energies, which have made room for themselves. Bad fortune may have had its share in retarding the progress of the other nations, but there is reason to believe that the moral elements produced within them have been of inferior quality. The common stock of European reflection, and the wisdom produced by experience, have now inspired the nations with a philosophical love of liberty; but all sentiments, resulting from the exercise of the understanding, are weaker and less to be depended upon than those which develope themselves spontaneously; and therefore, while the nations justly rejoice in the advantages of knowledge as an antidote against despotism, they should remember that their endeavours after liberty will be successful chiefly in proportion as they are connected with the demands of their sentiments and passions. The love of liberty breaks forth in its most beautiful and dignified form, when the soul, having become pregnant with great aspirations and lofty desires, finds it necessary to have a theatre adapted to the illimitability of their nature. But this is only the beautiful ideal of liberty. There is another species of the love of freedom, more homely in its nature, and which is founded merely upon enlightened views concerning the every-day rights and worldly interests of mankind. This kind of liberty, as

well as the other, requires virtuous sentiments to support it; and, if modern Europe is so fortunate as to obtain it, her children are not likely to aspire to any thing farther. Christianity has absorbed into itself all that towering and indefinite enthusiasm which of old exerted itself upon the worldly affairs of Greece and Rome. Human nature has now found a wider outlet for its hopes. They no longer embody themselves in the same objects as before; and hence the modern world presents fewer visible indications of the greatness of the human mind. The divine part of our nature has ceased to spend its force in creating monuments of its own power, or gilding the possessions of a transitory existence. The whole aspect of life is changed; and what is greatest in the world is almost silent and invisible. Even national power is less majestic and more vulgar than during the ages of antiquity, because it is imbued with a smaller proportion of those emanations of the higher soul which confer dignity on whatever they mingle with. But to withdraw human aspirations from the channel which they have now found, and turn enthusiasm again adrift, to seek for the infinite upon earth, would evidently be to make a preposterous exchange. The notion of the perfectibility of man sprung up as natural succedaneum, after men had quarrelled with Christianity; and the desire of such a succedaneum was a favourable indication of the quantity of sentiment which remained behind. But what need chiefly now be dreaded is, that the human soul may become dwarfish, and remain contented without great hopes or aims of any kind.

In the history of every race of mankind there seems to be always some era when their character unfolds its greatest vigour, and teems with the most energetic sentiments. This era does not coincide with the period of a nation's highest civilization, nor yet of its greatest knowledge. Yet in the history of Greece these periods were not far distant from each other. Has modern Europe already developed the most energetic sentiments she will ever give birth to, or is there something greater still to come? If greater things are yet to come, it is to be suspected that we must look for them from those" European nations which have hitherto

slumbered most; for, among those which have shone already, we certainly do not find any symptoms which denote increasing force and productive ness of sentiment. All national manifestations proceed radically from the sentiments which are at work in private life. But we hear universal complaints, that private life is debased by selfishness and indifference. Pride has discovered the art of folding its arms and sitting still, and irony against others is substituted for exertions of our own. When a sincere admiration of what is great pervades society, men foster and cherish all the noblest movements of each others minds, but at present such admiration is scarce, not merely because of the existence of superciliousness, but apparently from absolute barrenness of mind. For those things in which a person has not himself any desire to excel, it is impossible that he can feel much earnest admiration; and although he may confer upon them the approbation of his understanding, that approbation is too cold and ineffective to fan the ambition either of public virtue or genius, which can only attain their full growth amidst a general blaze of sympathy and consentaneous passion diffused throughout society. To make great artists, a whole nation must consist of enthusiastic amateurs, and the case is the same with respect to public virtue as with respect to art.

If we wish to trace the influence of knowledge upon society, we must look more to the habits of mind which its diffusion engenders in private life, than to the light which it throws upon the defects of political institutions, and the improvements which it suggests to be made upon their structure. Reading has one important effect, which well deserves to be considered. It supplies us artificially with a far more rapid series of impressions and causes of feeling, than any human being could ever be subjected to by his own individual experience. In real life, objects approach and depart by degrees; and suggestions follow each other at long intervals; at least, such would be the case before the invention of printing, and among men who had few books. But reading now subjects the mind, at once, to the action of a crowd of thoughts, which of old could only have been gathered slowly, and separately, during the course of a whole

existence. Literature presents nourishment for every sentiment, good or bad, and leaves men still to follow the bias of their own nature. Whether the rapidity of the impressions it communicates, has a tendency to increase or exhaust the energy of our moral nature, is a difficult question. Fineness of perception is augmented by it, and the intellectual faculties, in general, are brightened up; but the source of motion, in the moral world, consists of passions and sentiments, and the destiny of nations depends altogether upon their activity in the affairs of life. If reading communicates vigour to their internal spring, and increases their impulsive power, then every thing is to be expected from the diffusion of knowledge; but if reading enervates and renders them passive, there can be no doubt that the splendour of human existence will diminish in proportion.

The consideration of these things would lead one also to inquire, what is the nature of that irony which exercises so much sway over modern society. It seems as if knowledge made us acquainted with so many vast ob◄ jects and conceptions, that most individuals are overwhelmed with despondency, on account of their own impotence and insignificance. A mixture of listlessness and pride takes possession of them. Whatever a person attempts can always be contrasted with something of the same kind so huge, as to tarnish all his glory, and prevent him from feeling, during his exertions, any of those sentiments of triumph, exultation, or sanguine hope, which are as necessary to great achievements as air is to combustion. Men's minds are most intimately linked to each other, and where sympathy and admiration have ceased, action also becomes languid. Nil admirari is followed by nil moliri, nil facere. Yet self-love is never extinguished; and if we accomplish nothing ourselves, and can therefore put in no claim for honour, we are, at the same time, obliged by our pride to find some plea for disdaining others. The true disciple of modern society has a separate bucket of cold water ready for every different sort of pretension that can possibly make its appearance; and he would think himself a simpleton, if he were found, on any occasion, unprovided.

This seems to be the nature of irony, which does not spring from the love of pleasantry, but from the demands of our self-love-a staunch principle, that never loses sight of its objects. It is to be regretted that this disheartening spirit exists in its greatest force among the highest and best informed classes of society, who, of course, feel no inclination to be put out of countenance, by a greater activity and productiveness in any other class. They are, therefore, more apt to load with ridicule, than to reward with sympathy, the aspirations of fresher though less cultivated minds, who, finding that they cannot move under the auspices, and with the good wishes, of superior refinement, are naturally induced to adhere, more doggedly than ever, to the errors of their own vulgarity. A house divided against itself cannot prosper. National greatness and splendour must depend upon a sympathy in pursuit of great objects being spread from the most enlightened, free-leisured, and respected classes, through all the rest; so that the moral sentiments of the more mechanical orders may enjoy the advantage of being carried towards their aim, in union with those of others, who have more time than opportunity for developing the lights and higher elements of human nature.

But, alas! what can speculations and complaints avail, if the human spirit is undergoing the influence of vitiating causes? Who can retard the steps of destiny?

AN ACCOUNT OF THE SYSTEM OF THE WEATHER OF THE BRITISH

of the west; and if the wind is both east and west on any day, it is then termed a variable wind; and if the wind is in the north or south on any day, this also is termed variable, because it partakes of the nature of both east and west.

"At the end of a season, the number of entire days east wind are first summed up, after which the same of the west; the sum of the variables is next found, and the proper proportion of these given to the entire days east and west by the rule of three, thus, taking an extreme case by way of example: The winter 1816-17 had 21 entire days of east wind, and 123 entire days of west, and there were 24 days of variable. Now, in order to find the proportion of the variables which should go to the east and west wind, the entire days of each of these winds are added together, which make a sum total of 144; then say, if 144 give 24 variables, what will 21, the number of entire days east give; then multiplying 24 by 21, in the usual manner, the product is 504, which being divided by 144, gives 3 as the proentire days east wind, with a remainder; portion of the variables, going to the 21 this makes 24 days of east wind for the season; the fraction, or remainder, going always to the greatest sum of entire days wind, whether of east or west. The 21 remaining days of variable are then added to the 123 entire days west wind, which makes a sum total of 144 days west wind for the rule of three be sufficient for the general season. Though the bare mention of the reader, it has appeared proper to give the process of finding the sum of wind in de

tail.

"The next phenomenon observed, demanding particular explanation, is the rain Thus the time when it commences and terminates, with the intensity of the fall, is always stated; if the fall in a day, that is, a day and a night, which is always signified in the weather, is under three hours, it is termed a short rain; and if two or more such falls happen in a day, and toge ther consist of more than three hours of

ISLANDS, DISCOVERED BY LIEUT. heavy rain, it is termed a moderate rain;

GEORGE MACKENZIE.

*

THE System of the Weather, recently published by Mr Mackenzie, is founded upon a series of meteorological observations made by himself since the year 1802. His observations were made principally, but with great care, upon the Wind and the Rain, and were registered upon the following principles: "If the wind is in the easterly points during the whole of a natural day, it is termed an entire day of east wind, and the same

*The work in which this system is described is entitled "The System of the Weather of the British Islands; discovered in 1816 and 1817, from a Journal commencing November 1802." Edinburgh, 1818. 4to.

but less value is attached to rains which fall at considerable intervals in the day, than when in continuity, but the distinction ma made on this score is slight; all above three hours are termed moderate rains, until it continues seven or eight hours, when it is termed a great rain, that is, if heavy, for sometimes rains very slightly a whole day, and yet comes under the denomination of short or moderate rain, according to the intensity; and if there is any doubt to which class a rain may belong, it is always stated as of the next lowest class; thus, if a rain is considered more than a moderate, but rather less than a great rain, it is always classed as a moderate rain, and the same rule when it is doubtful whether it should be short or moderate, it being in this case termed a short rain; and if it should rain the whole day and night, it is

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