laugh at their expense. Persuading a man to drink more than his head can bear, by assurances that the wine is not strong, and that he has not drank as much as he thinks he has, in order to make him intoxicated, is a lie of second-rate malignity. Complimenting either a man or woman on the qualities which they do not possess, in hopes of imposing on their credulity; praising a lady's work or dress to her face, and then, as soon as she is no longer present, abusing not only both her dress and work, or person, but laughing at her weakness in believing the praise sincere, is one of those lies of second rate malignity, which cannot be exceeded in base and petty treachery.. Lies of interest are very various, and more excusable and less offensive than many others. The pale and ragged beggar who, to add to the effect of his or her ill looks, tells of the large family which does not exist, has a strong motive to deceive in the penury which does exist and the tradesman, who tells you he can not afford to come down to your price because he gave almost as much for the goods you are cheapening, is only labouring diligently in his calling, and telling a falsehood which custom authorizes, and which you may believe or not as you choose. It is not from persons like these that the worst, or most disgusting marks of falsehood are found. It is when habitual and petty lying profanes the lips of those, whom independence preserves from the temptation to violate the truth, and whom education and religion ought to have taught to value it.

Lies of convenience are next in my list, and are super-eminent in extent and frequency. The order to your servant to say, "Not at home," is a lie of convenience; and one which custom authorizes, and which even some moralists defend, because, say they, it deceives no one. But this I deny-It is often meant to deceive-but were it not so, and were it understood amongst equals as a simple and legitimate excuse, it still is very objectionable, because it must have a pernicious effect on the minds of our servants, who cannot be supposed parties to this implied compact among their superiors, and must therefore understand the order à la

lettre, and that order is, "Go and tell a lie for my convenience." How then, I ask, in the name of justice and common sense, can I, after giving such an order, resent any lie which a servant may think proper to tell me for his convenience, or his pleasure, or his interest? But amongst the most frequent lies of convenience are those, which are told relative to engagements which they who make them are averse to keep. Head-aches,' "bad colds," 66 unexpected visitors from the country." All these in their turn are used as lies of convenience, and gratify indolence or caprice at the expense of integrity. How often have I pitied the wives and children of professional men for the number of lies, which they are obliged to tell in the course of the year!" Dr. is very sorry, but he was sent for to a patient just as he was coming"

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Papa's compliments, and he is very sorry, but he was forced to attend a commission of bankruptcy, but will certainly come, if he can, bye and bye," when the chances are, that the physician is enjoying himself over his book and his fire, and the lawyer also congratulating themselves on having escaped that terrible bore, a party, at the expense of teaching their wife and daughter, or son, to tell what they call a white lie! I would ask those fathers, I would ask mothers who make their children the bearers of similar excuses, whether they could conscientiously resent any breach of veracity committed by their children in matters of more importance. Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute, and I believe that habitual, permitted, and encouraged lying in little and unimportant things, leads undoubtedly to want of truth and principle in greater and serious matters. The barrier, the restrictive principle once thrown down, no one can presume to say where the inroads and the destruction will end; and however exaggerated, however ridiculously rigid my ideas and opinions may appear, I must repeat, it is my firm conviction, that on no occasion whatever is truth to be violated or withheld.

I come now to lies of wantonness, &c. There are some persons who, I am certain, lie from a love of lying

lie to shew their contempt of truth,

and for those scrupulous men or women of their acquaintance who look on it with reverence, and endeavour to act up to their principles. I know more than one person of this description, and I have listened with horror and disgust to lies apparently uttered without a motive-but, as all actions must have motives, I was forced to search for their's, and I could only find them in a depraved fondness for uttering and inventing falsehood. Not that these persons confine their lies to this sort of lying on the contrary, it is to the having exhausted the strongly-motived and more natural sorts of lying, that I attribute these comparatively unnatural and weakly-motived indulgences in falsehood. For such as these, there is no more hope of amend

ment than there is of cure for the profligate who has exhausted life of its pleasure, and his constitution of its energy. Such persons must go despised and (terrible state of human degradation!) untrusted, unbelieved in, to their grave!

I shall now treat of practical lies, not uttered, but acted, and dress will furnish me with most of my illustrations of this sort of falsehood.

It has been said, that the great art of dress is to conceal defects, and heighten beauties; therefore, as concealment is deception, this great art of dress is founded on falsehood. -But if the false hair be so worn that no one can fancy it natural; if the cheek be so highly rouged that its bloom cannot be mistaken for nature; or if the person who thus conceals defects, and heightens beauties, openly avows the deceptions practised, then is the material false hood of the practice in a measure annihilated, and, consequently, its immorality; but, if the cheek be so artfully tinted that its hue is mistaken for natural colour; if the false hair be so judiciously woven and even, that it passes for natural hair; if the crooked person or a meagre form be so cunningly assisted by dress, that the uneven shoulder disappears, and that becoming fulness takes place of unbecoming thinness of figure, while the man or woman, so assisted by art, hopes and expects that these charms will be attributed to nature alone; then the aids of

dress partake of the nature of other lying, and become vicious in the eyes of the moralist, as well as of the religionist. I have said, the man or woman so assisted by art; and I trust, that in accusing the stronger, as well as the weaker sex, of having recourse to art in personal decoration, I have only been strictly just.

While men hide their baldness by gluing a piece of false hair to the top of their heads; while they pad their coats, in order to give their shoulders and chests the breadth which nature has denied them; while their boots are so constructed, that they add an inch or more to their height, and then, as is not unfrequently the case, a false calf gives muscular beauty to a shapeless leg, can the just observer, on human life and manners, do otherwise than include the wiser sex in the list, which tells of those who indulge in the permitted artifices and mysteries of the toilet?

But still greater have been and are, daily I doubt not, the excursions, even of distinguished men, into the sacred mysteries of art, in personal admiration; for I have seen the cheek of a distinguished poet, glowing with the tint of art, and his grey eyebrow frowning with youthful black; and who is there that, during the last twenty or thirty years, has perambulated Bond-street, or joined the drive in Hyde Park, without seeing certain notorious men of fashion glowing in immortal bloom, and rivalling in tint the dashing belle beside them.

I shall now give another sort of practical lie.-The medical man, who desires his servant to call him out of church, or out of a party, in order to give him the appearance of the great business which he has not, is guilty not of uttering, but acting a falsehood; and the author also, who makes his publisher put second and third editions before a work, of which, perhaps, not even the first edition is sold.

But the most false of practical lies is that acted by men, who know themselves to be in the gulph of bankruptcy, but, either from wishing to put off the evil day, or from the visionary hope, that a sort of miracle will be worked to save them, launch out into new expenses and

During the foregoing transactions, my mind was in a state I cannot well describe; my thoughts were all confusion, while, at the same time, I struggled to be calm and composed. Poignant as were my feelings, I gazed on my dying relative with a sort of apathy of grief; and, at the moment when nature was yielding up the contest, I could not shed a tear; in a short time, all quitted the apartment, and I was left alone. The branches of the huge elm trees, with their thickening foliage partially screening the window, made the scene, under such circumstances, awfully gloomy and tranquil. I took several turns about the room; and, with a soft step, I approached the bed, gazed a moment, turned away, and then going up to the window, strove to divert my thoughts, by looking at the surrounding land

scape.

Twilight was descending, and the sober hues of evening gradually enveloped the lofty hills; no sound struck my ear, except the faint and low murmurs of the brook, which brawled down the valley at the bot tom of the flinty knowe-the shout, softened by distance, of the peasant, committing his steeds to the pasture and now and then, the solitary barking of a shepherd's dog among echoing dales, attendant on his mas ter folding the charge for the night. I had not stood at the casement many minutes, when my cousins, all talking in a rude, noisy, and indecorous manner, came into the room with the will, which, it seems, they had departed in search of, the moment the testator had expired.I was a good deal shocked at the frivolity they manifested, and could not help reproving them, though in a mild and gentle manner, for the little respect they paid to the memory of the deceased." Why, ye ken," said one, "he tauld us to read the will amaist as soon as he died." "Aye," cried another," and sae, in conformity wi' his command, we went straught up the stairs, and rummaged o'er his auld kist, till we found it." "Mind yea ain concerns,

gude man, and we'll mind our's," rejoined a third, rather gruffly, so that my well-meant admonitions had no better effect than to cause me to be more disliked by the party; for I could perceive, before this, that they looked upon me in the light of an unwelwelcome intruder.

The will was now read, to which all paid the greatest attention; a mute anxiety and deep interest sat upon every countenance :- their aspects were, however, instantly changed into those of intense disappointment and vexation, on hearing that my uncle had made a stranger, whom none of us knew, the heir of all his property, real and personal. For my own part, this circumstance did not affect me in the least; I had not had any expectation of inheriting the smallest portion, therefore, could not feel disappointed on the occasion. But with the others it was different; they had clung to him like so many leeches, or like the ivy to an old ruin; and with about as much affection as the two beforementioned things have for the objects to which they so closely adhere. A most appalling and disgusting scene now took place among the disappointed legacy-hunters-they abused the old man in the most shocking terms; they taxed him with injustice and villainy, and even proceeded to call down imprecations upon his lifeless corse.-I shuddered at the conduct of the unprincipled villains; I trembled at the impiety of men, who could, at a time the most solemn and impressive to a human being, act in a manner sufficient to call down upon them immediate and divine vengeance.I was chilled with horror; I almost expected every moment to see the lifeless corpse of my uncle start from the bed on which it lay, to take vengeance on the audacious wretches.Once, indeed, I actually thought I saw his lips quiver with rage, his eyebrows knit together, and all the muscles of his countenance contract into a dreadful frown.-I shuddered at the sight, and withdrew my gaze.

At length, they went into the kitchen, and left me, once more,

alone in the chamber of death. I went to the bed-side, and the scene I had just witnessed operated so upon my feelings, that I burst into tears, and uttered aloud my lamentations over my lifeless relative. When this ebullition had somewhat subsided, I began to reflect a little where I was, and a sort of timidity came creeping over me. There is an un definable apprehension which we feel while we are in company with the dead. We imagine, in spite of the efforts of reason, that the departed spirit is hovering near its former tenement; at least, it is the case with myself. It now being quite dark, and having these feelings in a strong degree, it is no wonder that I rather preferred the company of the wretches in the kitchen, than remain alone where I was.

I accordingly proceeded thither, where I found them all carousing round a large table; on which was placed the fragments of the dinner, and plenty of liquor. I reminded them of our promise, to place my uncle's old two-armed chair at the head of the table, as he had requested, which they had neglected to do, and which they now strenuously opposed me in doing. I was, however, reso lutely determined to have it done, and at length succeeded. I then retired to the fire-side, where I sat without taking any part in the conversation, or in any thing that passed during the whole evening. I shall pass over the several succeeding hours, the whole of which they sat drinking, till they were all, in a greater or less degree, intoxicated, and generally brawling, wrangling, and swearing, in a loud and boisterous manner. The night became stormy as it advanced; the wind rose, and, at intervals, moaned, sighed, and whistled shrilly with out, roared in the wide chimney, and, as it furiously bent the trees, in which the house was embosomed, made a sound similar to the dashing of waves on the shore of the ocean. -The rain fell in torrents, and the large drops pattered against the window with a ceaseless and melancholy cadence.

It was now getting nigh the "witching time o' night," and I saw no signs of the revellers quitting the

table; on the contrary, they grew more loud and boisterous. In obedience to their imperious commands, yet, evidently, with the greatest reluctance, Peggy had kept replenishing the exhausted vessels with more liquor, and their demands increased in proportion to the reluctance with which they were satisfied. At length, however, on receiving an intimation from me that I would interpose, she absolutely refused to draw any more liquor for them, telling them, they had had plenty, and that it was time to retire to bed. The scene that now ensued was such, as it is impossible for me to describe.-Maddened and inflamed with rage at being thus refused, the wretches began to throw the furniture up and down the house, break the glasses and jugs, and to abuse the servant, from whom they attempted to wrest the key of the cellar, yelling out, at the same time, the most horrid oaths and imprecations.

The table was shortly overset, and the lights put out in the scuffle; in a few moments, we should, in all probability, have had blood shed, as I felt myself roused to a pitch of fury, and was advancing with the large heavy-headed fire-poker to the assistance of the servant, who was loudly shrieking for help. Just then, the old clock struck twelve rapid strokes, and the bell had not ceased to vibrate, when we heard three heavy knocks, as if given by a mallett, upon the wall which separated the kitchen from the parlour, where my uncle lay.

There appeared to be something supernatural in this. The whole house seemed to shake to its very foundation.-A deep silence ensued.

I stood still; the wretches instantly became sober.-We all gazed earnestly and wildly at the place from whence the noise proceeded. Scarcely had we recovered from the shock, when we were again thunderstruck with a noise in the parlour; it was unlike any sound that I had ever heard before; it seemed as if all the furniture of the room was violently crashed together, mingled with the noise of fire-arms; shrieks and exclamations burst from all.

The windows shook, and every door of the habitation gave a mo