Hume, the trade of Mr. Cobbett, the calling of Mr. Hunt, and the clerical vocation of that gentleman who enjoys the enviable title of the Devil's Chaplain; but if we delude ourselves with the idea that we exert any happy influence over our country, or our own peace, by the unceasing agitation of political questions, we have formed a mistaken notion of our duties, as well as of our recreations. It is not to politics we must look for the enjoyment of tranquil leisure, nor from them we are to expect that happiness which in a great degree depends upon ourselves.

"How small of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure
Still to ourselves in every place consigned,
Our own felicity we make or find."

In fact, the domineering passion for politics which so largely prevails in provincial towns, it it deserve the name of a recreation, is one of that sort which his Plutonic majesty may be supposed to feel a peculiar interest in promoting, in those dominions where hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness are presumed to dwell. The tendency of literature, on the other hand, is to turn the current of our thoughts into the more gentle streams of private happiness; and it is literature alone, that can banish the demon of party discord

from the social board, where the sound of politics is the signal for strife; from the private circle, where calumny has been putting "rancours in the vessels of our peace; and even from the precincts of the boudoir, where the breath of scandal not unfrequently contaminates, the rosy atmosphere of love itself. If the tea-table has ceased to be the terrible areopagus of village politics, where private reputation used formerly to be consigned to the tender mercies of maiden gentlewomen and venerable matrons, whose leisure had no other occupation-it is because literature has afforded them an employment more pleasing to themselves, and less injurious to others. It would be idle to expatiate on the good which literary pursuits are calculated to effect in every circle. The country gentleman need not be reminded that literature, of all sports, even when pursued as a mere desultory pastime, is the noblest pleasure that can be chased. The military man is well aware that the days of Ensign Northerton are long gone by, and that it has ceased to be the fashion to shoot maledictions at literature, even through the sides of Homer. The learned professions are no longer ashamed to couple their graver studies with the lighter graces of erudition, whose tendrils may cling around the loftiest branches of science

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without encumbering its technical attainments, the higher orders are well aware, that when the blood of all the Howards" cannot ennoble an unenlightened lord, a literary name may afford a title to immortality that any nobleman might be proud to aspire to. The middling classes of society have too much of that "strong, sound, roundabout common sense" which Locke has ascribed to them, to deceive themselves with the pretext that the duties of any avocation are incompatible with literary pursuits, or to need the authority of Seneca for the conviction that “leisure without books is the sepulture of the living soul." The first advantage of a literary and scientific institution in provincial towns, is the bringing of those together who only require to see one another in the social light of literary intercourse, to esteem each other's worth more highly than individuals of the same community often do.

Nothing tends more to the small sweet courtesies of life than the extension of knowledge, the removal of ignorance and prejudice. "The commonwealth of letters," to use the elegant language of a modern philosopher, "is of no party, and of no nation; it is a pure republic, and always at peace; its shades are disturbed not by domestic malice, or foreign levy; they

resound not with the cries of faction, or public animosity; falsehood is the only enemy their inhabitants denounce; Truth, and her minister Reason, is the only guide they follow." In a word, every mode of developing the god-like apprehension which is the connecting medium between mere organic and spiritual existence, is a vindication of our title to immortality, and an evidence of the nobility of that attribute on which we rest our superiority over the brute creation. "It is through literature and science," says Davy, "that we may look forward with confidence to a state of society in which the different orders and classes of men, will contribute more effectually to the support of each other than they have hitherto done. Considering and hoping that the human species is capable of becoming more enlightened and more happy, we can only expect that the different parts of the great whole of society should be intimately united by means of knowledge; that they should act as the children of one great Parent, with one determined end, so that no power may be rendered useless, and no exertions thrown away."

CHAPTER III.

ABUSES OF LITERARY PURSUITS.

THE disadvantages of literature, and consequently the advantages of ignorance, are much better understood in Turkish countries, and a more salutary terror entertained of them than in any Christian clime. But even in the latter, there are many good and able men-amongst whom we are happy to be able to place that very respectable and consistent gentleman, Mr. William Cobbett-who regard the march of intellect with no very favourable eyes, and who think, with the martyr of the gridiron, that the progress of crime is in a direct ratio with the pace of "the schoolmaster," and that the result of the labours of that great functionary has been neither conducive to the peace of Europe, or the tranquillity of England. If the schoolmaster has been abroad, verily it must be acknowledged, the democrat has followed so closely at his heels, that the energies awakened by the former have been seized on and perverted by the latter. And truly it must be confessed, the benevolent in