scene changes! Instead of a dark blank curtain what interesting visions appear as the five acts of human existence go on! This expectation

"Qui ravit à l'espoir du vice,

"L'asile horrible du néant,"

is so consolatory to better persons, that a good and wise man has told us he often prayed God to make him better and better and take him when he was best.

Instances we must all have known of many who look forward to their own departure with tranquillity; but the decease of our near and dear connections it is very hard to bear; sometimes harder after a time than just when the calamity happens, for then it appears like a common temporary absence, but too soon alas! it is found to be for ever. In this affliction it is amiable as well as natural to exaggerate our loss, and, in truth, if we may believe the tomb-stones, all the virtues lie buried in the church-yard. There, however, the living may learn many a useful lesson, which the youngest should read with awe, and the proudest with humiliation.

ON POLITICAL AGITATIONS.

A FRENCH gentleman said to Monsieur Colbert"You found the state-carriage overturned on one side,

you

have overturned it on the other"

This

"and was probably untrue, but it must be confessed, that there is always some danger of destroying institutions by unskilful or violent changes. A conflagration may be extinguished without a deluge.

It is not only hard to distinguish between too little and too much, but between the good and evil intentions of the different reformers. One man calls

out "Fire" that he may save the house, another, that he may run away with the furniture.

I am inclined to believe, that in revolutions, more harm is done by hurry and self-conceit, than by mischievous purposes. Very few indeed should presume to lay their hands on the Ark, but

"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread "

and unluckily,

"A down-hill reformation rolls apace"

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When honest men infer from their desire to do good, that they have the knowledge and talents requisite to govern wisely, it is incalculable what evil-doers they may innocently become! What an eternal shock of purposes where each man pursues his own crude schemes, with all the obstinacy of self-satisfied integrity! And such schemes, as have often been proposed, are scarcely wiser, or more feasible than that of the whimsical fellow in the Spectator who said "St. Paul's does not please me: "I think to pull it down, and rebuild it." Yet to leave serious grievances imperfectly redressed, or indisputable improvements unattained, merely through a vague apprehension of innovation, is at once a great and a common evil. There is much truth in Bacon's complaint "That some men object too much, "consult too long, adventure too little, repent too "soon, and seldom drive business home"

Even moderation itself may sometimes be folly or cowardice. On the Exclusion-bill being opposed in the House of Commons, Colonel Titus exclaimed both wisely and eloquently, "We are advised to be

"moderate: but I do not take moderation to be a If I were flying

prudential virtue in all cases.

"from thieves, should I ride moderately, lest I "break my horse's wind? If I were defending my

own life or the lives of my wife and children, "should I strike moderately, lest I put myself out "of breath? And if, Mr. Speaker, we were in a sinking ship, (no unapt representation of our decaying commonwealth,) ought we to pump "moderately, lest we bring on a fever?"

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Gradual improvements, notwithstanding, are not only safer but better than sudden ones, and more, much more, may be learnt from their example, when well recorded: but history is addicted to dwell on the latter, and rarely investigates the former. Their effects also are more permanent and more extensive; anarchy being only the stakeholder for tyranny. There is, besides, something more terrible to the imagination in the disorderly violences of the multitude, than in the organised oppression of a Despot; something more hideous in myriads of reptiles, than in a gigantic beast of prey. If there were no alter

native but either the absolute government of St. Giles's or of St. James's, who in his senses could hesitate a moment which to prefer?

Besides its other innumerable benefits, a really representative government has the advantage of exempting individual persons from the necessity of becoming political agitators; and, by increasing the competition while it diminishes the rewards, it lessens the numbers of those who can be advanced in reputation or in fortune by office. The young people of this country, in every rank, from a peer's son to a street-sweeper's, are drawn aside from a praiseworthy exertion in honest callings, by having their eyes directed to the public treasure. The rewards of persevering industry are too slow for them, too small, and too insipid. They fondly trust to the great lottery, although the wheel contains so many blanks and so few prizes, hoping that their ticket may be drawn a place, a pension, or a contract, a living, or a stall, a ship, or a regiment, a seat on the bench, or the great-seal.

It is, indeed, most humiliating to witness the