man may never have hoped; desperate is deprived of hope; hopeless is wanting hope. Affairs are said to be hopeless when their state is such as not to raise any hope of their being successful. An enterprise is said to be desperate when all hope is lost which we once entertained of its success. To be desperate, we must have previously hoped.

[Hel. Oft expectation fails, and most oft there

Where most it promises; and oft it hits,

Where hope is coldest and despair most sits. All's Well, &c., ii. 1.

Richard II., i. 3

K. Rich. The hopeless word of-never to return,
Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.
Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair!

Nor am I in the list of them that hope:
Hopeless are all my evils, all remediless.
And oft his cogitations sink as low
As, through the abysses of a joyless heart,
The heaviest plummet of despair can go.
For years to me are sad and dull;
My very moments are too full
Of hopelessness and fear.

Exercise.

P. L., iv. 74.

S. A., 648.

WORDSWORTH. 'Dion.'

'Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots."]

"In a part of Asia, the sick, when their case comes to be thought

are carried out and laid on the earth, before they are dead, and left there." Are they indifferent, being used as signs of immoderate and

entation for the dead?

I am a man of

lam

fortunes, that is, a man whose friends are dead;

for I never aimed at any other fortune than in friends.

66

"The Eneans wish in vain their wanted chief,

of flight, more —— of relief."

is the thought of the unattainableness of any good, which works differently in men's minds, sometimes producing uneasiness or pain, sometimes rest and indolence."

66

of ransom, and condemned to lie

In durance, doomed a lingering death to die."

"We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but

not in

Disability—Inability.

Inability is a natural want of power to act; disability is a want of qualification. One who confesses his inability to account for some phenomenon, gives us to understand that nature has not endowed him with power to explain its cause. One who is disqualified, by reason of his nonage, from entering into a contract, labours under a legal disability.

[Val. Leave off discourse of disability.

Exercise.

Two Gent. of Verona, ii. 4.]

There are many questions which have baffled the most sagacious penetration of the human intellect, and which the deepest philosophy is to this day obliged to confess its to fathom.

In the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Jews were persecuted in England with unrelenting cruelty, and even at this moment they labour under many legal in that country.

He accepted, though much against his will, the office vacant by the death of the professor, as he could plead neither ignorance nor

cuse for refusing it.

as an ex

The party on the other side grounded their hopes of success on the alleged of the plaintiff, and on the presumption that as he was a minor, he could not be a party to the contract in question.

One who confesses his

declares that he is not able to perform

some action, or explain some question. He who labours under

unable to enter into certain contracts or agreements.

"It is not from

in practice."

Want of age is a legal

to discover what they ought to do, that men err

to contract a marriage.

This disadvantage which the Dissenters at present lie under, of a

to receive church preferments, will be easily remedied by the repeal of

the test.

Disbelief-Unbelief.

Unbelief is a want of belief; disbelief is an unwillingness or refusal to believe. I express my unbelief of what I am willing to believe, but am not convinced is true. I express my disbelief of what I have reason to think is false. Unbelief is open to conviction; disbelief is already convinced of the falseness of what it does not believe. Many men have

expressed their unbelief in Christianity. I disbelieve the Unbelief is properly applied to

statement of a perjured man.
opinions, truths, &c. ; disbelief, to facts.

The magistrate having heard the prisoner's story, expressed his unqualified of every word he had uttered, and turning to the clerk of the office,

directed him immediately to make out his committal.

Notwithstanding all the pretensions to the art of magic which this impostor so unblushingly asserted, few, even in those superstitious times, were so far deceived by his artifices as not to suspect him of fraud, and many even openly expressed their of the art he professed.

It is well known that a firm faith in the power of magic is to this day common in all parts of the East; and a dangerous experiment would it be for any European traveller who, in the pride of his philosophy, should venture there publicly to express his in its agency.

One of the most pernicious effects of a close acquaintance with the world is, that it renders us so familiar with the worst parts of human nature, as almost to lead to our in many good qualities which really

exist among men.

Freedom-Liberty.

Freedom represents a positive-liberty, a negative quality. The former denotes a natural state; the latter, an exemption from bonds or slavery. Those who have never been slaves enjoy freedom; Those who are exempt from slavery enjoy liberty. Freedom supposes a right; liberty supposes a previous restraint. Freedom is the birthright of every Englishman. A prisoner who is set at liberty regains his freedom. We are at liberty to speak on any subject we choose, but circumstances may prevent our speaking with freedom.

[Bru. And, waving our red weapons o'er our heads,

Let's all cry, Peace! Freedom! and Liberty! Julius Cæsar, iii. 1.

Pro. Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou
Shalt have the air at freedom

Tempest, iv. 1.

I must have liberty

As You Like It, ii. 7.

To blow on whom I please

The conquered also, and enslaved in war

Shall, with their freedom lost, all virtue lose. P. L., xi. 798.

After ten years' confinement, the prisoner's friends contrived to raise the sum necessary for his ransom, and he was at length set at

The question was discussed with great bers of the society took part in the debate.

and most of the mem

The ancient Greeks cherished the deepest and most heartfelt love for their country; they fought and bled for their

thousand deaths to slavery or oppression.

and preferred a

He was one of the most amiable characters of his time, and his disposition was marked by the and frankness with which he communicated

his opinions and sentiments to his friends.

; they seem to

Some men appear to have had singular ideas of have thought that it meant a privilege to do whatever their evil passions might dictate, and to have looked upon it as a state in which the most atrocious crimes might be committed with impunity.

at

After having suffered three years' imprisonment for this libel, he was set and he determined thenceforth to express himself with less on the character and conduct of others.

"The of the press is a blessing when we are inclined to write against others, and a calamity when we find ourselves overborne by the multitude of our assailants."

A Lie-An Untruth.

A lie is positively-an untruth is negatively false. The former is intentional, the latter involuntary. He who says

what he knows to be untrue, with an intention to deceive, tells a lie. He who says what is untrue, but who is not aware of its falseness, utters an untruth. The word untruth is not unfrequently used as a softened expression for a lie, but this is not a correct use of the word. These two words might also be distinguished by their active and passive meanings—for a lie is the active, and an untruth the passive false.

"There is little hope for common justice in this dispute, from a man who lays the foundations of his reasonings in so notorious an

"When I hear my neighbour speak that which is not true, and I say to him: This is not true,' or This is false,' I only convey to him the naked idea of his error; this is the primary idea: but if I say, 'It is a

word

-,' the

carries also a secondary idea; for it implies both the falsehood of the speech, and my reproach and censure of the speaker." "I can hardly consider this observation as an condemn the person who made it as a —

part,

Wise is thy voice, and noble is thy heart."

"In matter of speculation or practice, no

patron and defender long."

much less can I

can possibly avail the

"That a vessel filled with ashes will receive the like quantity of water that it would have done if it had been empty is utterly

will not go in by a fifth part."

for the water

than the will can

"Truth is the object of our understanding, as good is of our will; and the understanding can no more be delighted with a — choose an apparent evil."