them the emphasis was laid on the last word, as with us on the first, in the phrase " French nobleman.”

There is something very amusing in this writer's sudden change of feeling as soon as a villain, a monster, or even a murderer himself, is about to be murdered. And the levis macula on the conscience, when these murders are effected by duels, however unfair and savage, is curious as a proof how much of what superstition calls conscience is mere love of reputation, character, admission into accustomed society, &c. Hence the utility of penal laws, death, [&c.] not so much as deterring to the crime when tempted to it, but as by prior blind horror precluding the temptation to the very thought. O Mr. Clarkson and Co., think how much of the guilt of murder, &c., in men's consciences originates in the gallows and the Newgate Calendar!

NOTES ON SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S "RELIGIO MEDICI." 1802.*

Strong feeling and an active intellect conjoined, lead almost necessarily, in the first stage of philosophising, to Spinozism. Sir T. Browne was a Spinozist without knowing it.

If I have not quite all the faith that the author of the Religio Medici possessed, I have all the inclination to it; it gives me pleasure to believe.

The postscript at the very end of the book is well

* Communicated by Mr. Wordsworth.-ED.

worth reading. Sir K. Digby's observations, however, are those of a pedant in his own system and opinion. He ought to have considered the R. M. in a dramatic, and not in a metaphysical, view, as a sweet exhibition of character and passion, and not as an expression, or investigation, of positive truth. The R. M. is a fine portrait of a handsome man in his best clothes; it is much of what he was at all times, a good deal of what he was only in his best moments. I have never read a book in which I felt greater similarity to my own make of mind-active in inquiry, and yet with an appetite to believe-in short an affectionate visionary! But then I should tell a different tale of my own heart; for I would not only endeavour to tell the truth (which I doubt not Sir T. B. has done), but likewise to tell the whole truth, which most assuredly he has not done. However, it is a most delicious book.

His own character was a fine mixture of humourist, genius, and pedant. A library was a living world to him, and every book a man, absolute flesh and blood! and the gravity with which he records contradictory opinions is exquisite.

Part I. Sect. 9.

Now contrarily, I bless myself, and am thankful that I lived not in the days of miracles, that I never saw Christ nor his disciples, &c.

So say I.

Ibid. Sect. 15.

I could never content my contemplation with those general pieces of wonder, the flux and reflux of the sea, the increase of Nile, the conversion of the needle to the north; and have studied to match and parallel those in the more obvious and

neglected pieces of nature; which without further travel I can do in the cosmography of myself; we carry with us the wonders we seek without us. There is all Africa and her prodigies in us; we are that bold and adventurous piece of nature, which he that studies wisely learns in a compendium what others labour at in a divided piece and endless volume.

This is the true characteristic of genius; our destiny and instinct is to unriddle the world, and he is the man of genius who feels this instinct fresh and strong in his nature; who perceiving the riddle and the mystery of all things, even the commonest, needs no strange and out-of-the-way tales or images to stimulate him into wonder and a deep interest.

Ibid. Sect. 16, 17.

All this is very fine philosophy, and the best and most ingenious defence of revelation. Moreover, I do hold and believe that a toad is a comely animal; but nevertheless a toad is called ugly by almost all men, and it is the business of a philosopher to explain the reason of this.

Ibid. Sect. 19.

This is exceedingly striking. Had Sir T. B. lived now-a-days, he would probably have been a very ingenious and bold infidel in his real opinions, though the kindness of his nature would have kept him aloof from vulgar prating obtrusive infidelity.

Ibid. Sect. 35.

An excellent burlesque on parts of the Schoolmen, though I believe an unintentional one.

Ibid. Sect. 36.

Truly sublime-and in Sir T. B.'s very best

manner.

Ibid. Sect. 39.

This is a most admirable passage. Yes, the history of a man for the nine months preceding his birth, would, probably, be far more interesting, and contain events of greater moment than all the three score and ten years that follow it.

Ibid. Sect. 48.

This is made good by experience, which can from the ashes of a plant revive the plant, and from its cinders recall it into its stalks and leaves again.

Stuff. This was, I believe, some lying boast of Paracelsus, which the good Sir T. B. has swallowed for a fact.

Part II. Sect. 2.

I give no alms to satisfy the hunger of my brother, but to fulfil and accomplish the will and command of my God.

We ought not to relieve a poor man merely because our own feelings impel us, but because these feelings are just and proper feelings. My feelings might impel me to revenge with the same force with which they urge me to charity. I must therefore have some rule by which I may judge my feelings, and this rule is God's will.

Ibid. Sect. 5, 6.

I never yet cast a true affection on a woman; but I have loved my friend as I do virtue, my soul, my God.

We cannot love a friend as a woman; but we may love a woman as a friend. Friendship satisfies the highest parts of our nature; but a wife, who is capable of friendship, satisfies all. The great business of real unostentatious virtue is not to eradicate any genuine instinct or appetite of human nature; but to establish a concord and unity betwixt all parts of our nature, to give a feeling and a passion to our purer intellect, and to intellectualise our feelings and passions. This a happy marriage, blest with children, effectuates in the highest degree of which our nature is capable, and is therefore chosen by St. Paul as the symbol of the union of the church with Christ; that is, of the souls of all good men with God. "I scarcely distinguish," said once a good old man, "the wife of my old age from the wife of my youth; for when we were both young, and she was beautiful, for once that I caressed her with a meaner passion, I caressed her a thousand times with love-and these caresses still remain to us." Besides, there is another reason why friendship is of somewhat less value than love, which includes friendship, it is this-we may love

many persons, all very dearly; but we cannot love many persons all equally dearly. There will be differences, there will be gradations. But our nature imperiously asks a summit, a resting-place; it is with the affections in love as with the reason in religion, we cannot diffuse and equalise; we must have a supreme, a one, the highest. What is more common than to say of a man in love," he idolises her," he makes a god of her?" Now, in order that a person should continue to love another better than all others,

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