vered, and the late object of popular admiration, and the ideal advocate of liberty has usurped a more absolute sway, than the injured monarch against whom the fury of his wrath has been directed. Then the aim is to deprive him of that power which he had just attained as the idol of the people. Civil war becomes the result, and anarchy, instead of liberty, the event of that supposed reformation which was so arduously undertaken, and whose progress was marked with the violation of every tie, both civil and political. So when Sylla wished to restore to his unhappy country that liberty which it had lost, he found it impossible to accomplish his purpose; for he rightly considered that its virtue must have been gone before its liberty had perished.

The misguided notion which some men have entertained of liberty, is calculated to make us doubt whether they were worthy the name of reasonable beings. We shall find instances of men who were enjoying all the liberty consistent with the political state of their nation, but who, led away by the blind infatuation of tumult, have rushed into an engagement with the meanest of their fellowsubjects to extirpate that ideal tyranny which existed only in their own heated imaginations. With what horror must we observe the desolating progress of such a lawless crew, who, in order to satisfy an illegal appetite, drench their country in blood, waste its treasure, destroy its resources, and plunge it into a state of anarchy and confusion before unknown, under the erroneous idea of procuring liberty without its fundamental principle, legal restraint. Liberty, whilst confined by the limits of laws, and sought after through the medium of virtue, is enjoyed to its utmost extent; but when divested of all curb, it then degenerates into anarchy and licentiousness.

I think it will be found that those who pretend to the greatest zeal for liberty are themselves the greatest despots; wherever their efforts have been crowned with success, what has been the result of that boasted liberty which they have promised to procure for their adherents? A state of enjoyment has been removed, or, at worst, a state of puny despotism has been abolished, to make way for a system of tyranny as complete as possible. The present age is pregnant with events which fully prove the truth of this assertionevents which must fill the mind of every impartial observer with horror and amazement; and although this error is too gross to be long concealed, it is too powerfully settled to be soon removed, and the advocates of freedom are doomed to writhe under the iron rod of tyranny, established by themselves, in the person of one of their most ardent votaries; but, fortunately for mankind, arbitrary power

must always sink under its own weight, and thus free the people from an humiliating debasement, and lay down for them and their posterity a lesson gained by dear-bought experience.

But, notwithstanding the monitions which may be thus collected, it is lamentable to think upon the abuse which is made of liberty, and happy would it be for mankind, could they see the error of trying to obtain it, by violating every tie, and setting all law at defiance. Every man who lives in a civilized state enjoys certain advantages, which he could not enjoy but as a member of that society. There are, on the other hand, certain sacrifices, which every one must expect to make, to that power which preserves him in the uninterrupted enjoyment of his possessions;-take but that power away, and what protection does there remain for private property or personal safety? It is the undoubted duty of every individual to conform to the laws of the country in which he resides, and, instead of exclaiming, "I can no longer bear the tyranny under which I groan," consider within himself, whether tyranny does at all exist, or whether he could, by rash efforts, better his situation. Civil liberty, confined by political prudence, and restrained by just laws, is that state of enjoyment in this life at which all men aim, and of which so few are sensible when they possess it. This is the only state that can ensure that cup of rational delight which is the portion of man on earth, and the destruction of which strews the path of life with so many more obstructions than Heaven in mercy has allotted.

Norwich, July 7.

T. H.

MELANCHOLY HOURS.

No. VII.*

If the situation of man, in the present life, be considered in all its relations and dependencies, a striking inconsistency will be apparent to a very cursory observer. We have sure warrant for believing that our abode here is to form a comparatively insignificant part of our existence, and that on our conduct in this life will depend the happiness of the life to come: yet our actions daily give the lie to

My predecessor, the Spectator, considering that the seventh part of our time is set apart for religious purposes, devoted every seventh lucubration to matters connected with Christianity, and the severer part of morals: I trust none of my readers will regret that, in this instance, I follow so good an example.

this proposition, inasmuch as we commonly act like men who have no thought but for the present scene, and to whom the grave is the boundary of anticipation. But this is not the only paradox which humanity furnishes to the eye of a thinking man, It is very generally the case, that we spend our whole lives in the pursuit of objects, which common experience informs us are not capable of conferring that pleasure and satisfaction which we expect from their ́enjoyment. Our views are uniformly directed to one point;-happiness, in whatever garb it be clad, and under whatever figure shadowed, is the great aim of the busy multitudes, whom we behold toiling through the vale of life, in such an infinite diversity of occupation, and disparity of views. But the misfortune is, that we seek for happiness where she is not to be found, and the cause of wonder, that the experience of ages should not have guarded us against so fatal and so universal an error.

It would be an amusing speculation to consider the various points after which our fellow mortals are incessantly straining, and in the possession of which they have placed that imaginary chief good, which we are all doomed to covet, but which, perhaps, none of us, in this sublunary state, can attain. At present, however, we are led to considerations of a more important nature. We turn from the inconsistencies observable in the prosecution of our subordinate pursuits, from the partial follies of individuals to the general delusion which seems to envelope the whole human race;—the delusion under whose influence they lose sight of the chief end of their being and cut down the sphere of their hopes and enjoyments to a few rolling years, and that too in a scene where they know there is neither perfect fruition nor permanent delight.

The faculty of contemplating mankind in the abstract, apart from those prepossessions which, both by nature and the power of habitual associations, would intervene to cloud our view, is only to be obtained by a life of virtue and constant meditation, by temperance, and purity of thought. Whenever it is attained, it must greatly tend to correct our motives-to simplify our desires-and to excite a spirit of contentment and pious resignation. We then, at length, are enabled to contemplate our being, in all its bearings, and in its full extent, and the result is that superiority to common views, and indifference to the things of this life, which should be the fruit of all true philosophy, and which, therefore, are the more peculiar fruits of that system of philosophy which is called the Christian.

To a mind thus sublimed, the great mass of mankind will appear like men led astray by the workings of wild and distempered

imaginations---visionaries who are wandering after the phantom of their own teeming brains, and their anxious solicitude for mere matters of worldly accommodation and ease, will seem more like the effects of insanity than of prudent foresight, as they are esteemed. To the awful importance of futurity he will observe them utterly insensible, and he will see, with astonishment, the few allotted years of human life wasted in providing abundance they will never enjoy, while the eternity they were placed here to prepare for, scarcely employs a moment's consideration. And yet the mass of these poor wanderers in the ways of error, have the light of truth shining on their very foreheads. They have the revelation of Almighty God himself, to declare to them the folly of worldly cares, and the necessity of providing for a future state of existence. They know by the experience of every preceding generation, that a very small portion of joy is allowed to the poor sojourners in this vale of tears, and that too, embittered with much pain and fear; and yet every one is willing to flatter himself that he shall fare better than his predecessor in the same path, and that happiness will smile on him which hath frowned on all his progenitors.

Still it would be wrong to deny to the human race all claim to temporal felicity. There may be comparative although very little positive happiness;---whoever is more exempt from the cares of the world and the calamities incident to humanity---whoever enjoys more contentment of mind and is more resigned to the dispensations of Divine Providence-in a word, whoever possesses more of the true spirit of christianity than his neighbours, is comparatively happy. But the number of these, it is to be feared, is very small. Were all men equally enlightened by the illuminations of truth, as emanating from the spirit of Jehovah himself, they would all concur in the pursuit of virtuous ends by virtuous means---as there would be no vice, there would be very little infelicity. Every pain would be met with fortitude, every affliction with resignation. We should then all look back to the past with complacency, and to the future with hope. Even this unstable state of being would have many exquisite enjoyments---the principal of which would be the anticipation of that approaching state of beatitude to which we might then look with confidence, through the medium of that atonement of which we should be partakers, and our acceptance, by virtue of which, would be sealed by that purity of mind of which human nature is, of itself, incapable. But it is from the mistakes and miscalculations of mankind, to which their fallen natures are continually prone, that arises that flood of misery which

means.

overwhelms the whole race, and resounds wherever the footsteps of man have penetrated. It is the lamentable error of placing happiness in vicious indulgences, or thinking to pursue it by vicious It is the blind folly of sacrificing the welfare of the future to the opportunity of immediate guilty gratification, which destroys the harmony of society, and poisons the peace not only of the immediate procreators of the errors-not only of the identical actors of the vices themselves, but of all those of their fellows who fall within the reach of their influence or example, or who are in any wise connected with them by the ties of blood.

I would therefore exhort you earnestly-you who are yet unskilled in the ways of the world-to beware on what object you concentre your hopes. Pleasures may allure-pride or ambition may stimulate, but their fruits are hollow and deceitful, and they afford no sure, no solid satisfaction. You are placed on the earth in a state of probation-your continuance here will be, at the longest, a very short period, and when you are called from hence you plunge into an eternity, the completion of which will be in correspondence, to your past life, unutterably happy or inconceivably miserable. Your fate will probably depend on your early pursuits-it will be these which will give the turn to your character and to your pleasures. I beseech you therefore, with a meek and lowly spirit, to read the pages of that book, which the wisest and best of men have acknowledged to be the word of God. You will there find a rule of moral conduct, such as the world never had any idea of before its divulgation. If you covet earthly happiness, it is only to be found in the path you will find there laid down, and I can confidently promise you, in a life of simplicity and purity, a life passed in accordance with the divine word, such substantial bliss, such unruffled peace, as is no where else to be found. All other schemes of earthly pleasure are fleeting and unsatisfactory. They all entail upon them repentance and bitterness of thought. This alone endureth for ever-this alone embraces equally the present and the future-this alone can arm a man against every calamity-can alone shed the balm of peace over that scene of life when pleasures have lost their zest and the mind can no longer look forward to the dark and mysterious future. Above all beware of the ignes fatui of false philosophy: that must be a very defective system of ethics, which will not bear a man through the most trying stage of his existence, and I know of none that will do it but the christian.

W&