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of curiosity in moral science, to gauge the dimensions of wretchedness, and to see how deep the miseries of man can reach; if this be any object of curiosity, look for the man who has practised a vice so long, that he curses it and clings to it; that he pursues it, because he feels a great law of his nature driving him on towards it; but, reaching it, knows that it will gnaw his heart, and tear his vitals, and make him roll himself in the dust with anguish. Say everything for vice which you can say, magnify any pleasure as much as you please, but don't believe you can keep it; don't believe you have any secret for sending on quicker the sluggish blood, and for refreshing the faded nerve.

THE ORBIT OF HABIT.

THE period of time in which a habit renews its action, or (if I may be allowed the expression) the orbit of a habit, is of very different dimensions. We may have a habit of shrugging up the shoulders every half-hour; or, of eating three eggs every morning; or, of dining at a club once a month; or, of going down to see a relation once a year: but it is difficult to conceive any habit forming itself for a period greater than a year. I can easily conceive that a person who sets off on every 1st of June, to pay a visit, might have the force of habit added to his other inducements, and go, partly because he loved the persons, partly because he had done it before; but is it easy to believe that there is a habit of doing anything every other year? or, how very ridiculous it would sound for two persons to say, "We agreed a long time ago to dine together every Bissextile, or leap year, and it is now grown into a perfect habit!" This limitation of habits to the period of a year, — which I by no means

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lay any great stress upon, but which has some degree of truth in it, depends somewhat upon the revolution of names and appearances. To do anything the first day of a month, or on one particular day every year, is to strengthen a habit by the recurrence of names or seasons; but if an action be performed every third or fourth year, the same name and the same appearances have occurred, without being connected with the same deed, and therefore the habit is impaired.

EFFECTS OF HABIT ON HUMAN NATURE.

THERE is no degree of disguise, or distortion, which human nature may not be made to assume from habit; it grows in every direction in which it is trained, and accommodates itself to every circumstance which caprice or design places in its way. It is a plant with such various aptitudes, and such opposite propensities, that it flourishes in a hot-house, or the open air; is terrestrial, or aquatic; parasitical, or independent; looks well in exposed situations, thrives in protected ones; can bear its own luxuriance, admits of amputation; succeeds in perfect liberty, and can submit to be bent down into any of the forms of art: it is so flexible and ductile, so accommodating and vivacious, that of two methods of managing it completely opposite, neither the one nor the other need to be considered as mistaken and bad.

HABIT OF SECLUSION.

WHO could imagine that men and women would shut themselves up in monasteries, and nunneries, living the absurd life which they do, in such sort of places? yet, the greater part of nuns and friars, who came over

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THE FIRE OF LIFE..

here, immediately shut out the day-light of common sense, and fell to forming nunneries and monasteries again.

THE FIRE OF LIFE.

THE passions are in morals, what motion is in physics: they create, preserve, and animate; and without them, all would be silence and death. Avarice guides men across the deserts of the ocean; pride covers the earth with trophies, and mausoleums, and pyramids; love turns men from their savage rudeness; ambition shakes the very foundations of kingdoms. By the love of glory, weak nations swell into magnitude and strength. Whatever there is of terrible, whatever there is of beautiful in human events, all that shakes the soul to and fro, and is remembered while thought and flesh cling together, -all these have their origin from the passions. As it is only in storms, and when their coming waters are driven up into the air, that we catch a sight of the depths of the sea, it is only in the season of perturbation that we have a glimpse of the real internal nature of man. It is then only, that the might of these eruptions shaking his frame, dissipate all the feeble coverings of opinion, and rend in pieces that cobweb veil, with which fashion hides the feelings of the heart. It is then only that Nature speaks her genuine feelings; and, as at the last night of Troy, when Venus illuminated the darkness, Æneas saw the gods themselves at work,-so may we, when the blaze of passion is flung upon man's nature, mark in him the signs of a celestial origin, and tremble at the invisible agents of God i

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THE POWER OF THE HEART.

THE history of the world shows us that men are not to be counted by their numbers, but by the fire and vigour of their passions; by their deep sense of injury; by their memory of past glory; by their eagerness for fresh fame; by their clear and steady resolution of ceasing to live, or of achieving a particular object, which, when it is once formed, strikes off a load of manacles and chains, and gives free space to all heavenly and heroic feelings. All great and extraordinary actions come from the heart.

ENGLISH READING.

IN the time you can give to English reading you should consider what it is most needful to have, what it is most shameful to want,-shirts and stockings, before frills and collars. Such is the history of your own country, to be studied in Hume, then in Rapin's History of England, with Tindal's Continuation. Hume takes you to the end of James the second, Rapin and Tindal will carry you to the end of Anne. Then, Cox's "Life of Sir Robert Walpole," and the " Duke of Marlborough ;" and these read with attention to dates and geography. Then the history of the other three or four enlightened nations of Europe. For the English poets, I will let you off at present with Milton, Dryden, Pope, and Shakspeare; and remember, always in books keep the best company.

Don't read a line of Ovid till you have mastered Virgil ; nor a line of Thomson till you have exhausted Pope; nor of Massinger, till you are familiar with Shakspeare. [Letter to his Son, 1819.]

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UNHAPPINESS AT SCHOOL.-RESPECT.

UNHAPPINESS AT SCHOOL.

My son writes me word he is unhappy at school. This makes me unhappy; but, 1st. There is much unhappiness in human life: how can school be exempt? 2ndly. Boys are apt to take a particular moment of depression for a general feeling, and they are in fact rarely unhappy; at the moment I write, perhaps he is playing about in the highest spirits. 3rdly. When he comes to state his grievance, it will probably have vanished, or be so trifling, that it will yield to argument or expostulation. 4thly. At all events, if it is a real evil which makes him unhappy, I must find out what it is, and proceed to act upon it; but I must wait till I can, either in person or by letter, find out what it is. - [Memoir.]

THE ATMOSPHERE OF RELIGION.

Not only is religion calm and tranquil, but it has an extensive atmosphere round it, whose calmness and tranquillity must be preserved, if you would avoid misrepresentation.[Memoir.]

RESPECT.

Nor only study that those with whom you live should habitually respect you, but cultivate such manners as will secure the respect of persons with whom you occasionally converse. Keep up the habit of being respected, and do not attempt to be more amusing and agreeable than is consistent with the preservation of respect.