(the object of all political speculation) be in any dram. Animal flesh, in its effects on the human degree attainable, it is attainable only by a commu-stomach, is analogous to a dram. It is similar to the nity, which holds out no factitious incentives to the kind, though differing in the degree, of its operation avarice and ambition of the few, and which is inter- The proselyte to a pure diet must be warned to exnally organized for the liberty, security and comfort pect a temporary diminution of muscular strength. of the many. None must be intrusted with power The subtraction of a powerful stimulus will suffice (and money is the completest species of power) who to account for this event. But it is only temporary, do not stand pledged to use it exclusively for the and is succeeded by an equable capability for exergeneral benefit. But the use of animal flesh and tion, far surpassing his former various and fluctuating fermented liquors, directly militates with this equal- strength. Above all, he will acquire an easiness of ity of the rights of man. The peasant cannot gratify breathing, by which such exertion is performed, with these fashionable cravings without leaving his family a remarkable exemption from that painful and diffito starve. Without disease and war, those sweeping cult panting now felt by almost every one, after curtailers of population, pasturage would include a hastily climbing an ordinary mountain. He will be waste too great to be afforded. The labor requisite equally capable of bodily exertion, or mental applito support a family is far lighter than is usually supposed. The peasantry work, not only for themselves, but for the aristocracy, the army, and the manufacturers.

cation, after as before his simple meal. He will feel none of the narcotic effects of ordinary diet. Irritability, the direct consequence of exhausting stimuli, would yield to the power of natural and tranquil impulses. He will no longer pine under the lethargy of ennui, that unconquerable weariness of life, more

The advantage of a reform in diet is obviously greater than that of any other. It strikes at the root of the evil. To remedy the abuses of legislation, to be dreaded than death itself. He will escape the before we annihilate the propensities by which they are produced, is to suppose, that by taking away the effect, the cause will cease to operate. But the efficacy of this system depends entirely on the proselytism of individuals, and grounds its merits, as a benefit to the community, upon the total change of the dietetic habits in its members. It proceeds securely from a number of particular cases to one that is universal, and has this advantage over the contrary mode, that one error does not invalidate all that has gone before.

epidemic madness, which broods over its own injurious notions of the Deity, and "realizes the hell that priests and beldams feign." Every man forms as it were his god from his own character; to the divinity of one of simple habits, no offering would be more acceptable than the happiness of his creatures. He would be incapable of hating or persecuting others for the love of God. He will find, moreover, a system of simple diet to be a system of perfect epicurism. He will no longer be incessantly occupied in blunting and destroying those organs from which Let not too much however be expected from this he expects his gratification. The pleasures of taste system. The healthiest among us is not exempt from to be derived from a dinner of potatoes, beans, peas, hereditary disease. The most symmetrical, athletic, turnips, lettuces, with a dessert of apples, gooseber and long-lived, is a being inexpressibly inferior to ries, strawberries, currants, raspberries, and, in winter, what he would have been, had not the unnatural oranges, apples and pears, is far greater than is suphabits of his ancestors accumulated for him a certain posed. Those who wait until they can eat this plain portion of malady and deformity. In the most per- fare with the sauce of appetite will scarcely join fect specimen of civilized man, something is still with the hypocritical sensualist at a lord-mayor's found wanting by the physiological critic. Can a feast, who declaims against the pleasures of the table. return to nature, then, instantaneously eracidate pre- Solomon kept a thousand concubines, and owned in dispositions that have been slowly taking root in the silence of innumerable ages?—Indubitably not. All that I contend for is, that from the moment of the relinquishing all unnatural habits, no new disease is generated and that the predisposition to hereditary maladies gradually perishes, for want of its accustomed supply. In cases of consumption, cancer, gout, asthma, and scrofula, such is the invariable tendency of a diet of vegetables and pure water.

:

despair that all was vanity. The man whose happiness is constituted by the society of one amiable woman, would find some difficulty in sympathizing with the disappointment of this venerable debauchee.

I address myself not only to the young enthusiast, the ardent devotee of truth and virtue, the pure and passionate moralist, yet unvitiated by the contagion of the world. He will embrace a pure system, from its abstract truth, its beauty, its simplicity, and its Those who may be induced by these emarks to promise of wide-extended benefit; unless custom has give the vegetable system a fair trial, should, in the turned poison into food, he will hate the brutal pleasfirst place, date the commencement of their practice ures of the chase by instinct; it will be a contem from the moment of their conviction. All depends plation full of horror and disappointment to his mind, upon breaking through a pernicious habit resolutely that beings capable of the gentlest and most admiraand at once. Dr. Trotter asserts, that no drunkard ble sympathies, should take delight in the deathwas ever reformed by gradually relinquishing his pangs and last convulsions of dying animals. The elderly man, whose youth has been poisoned by in* It has come under the author's experience, that some temperance, or who has lived with apparent moderaof the workmen on an embankment in North Wales, who, tion, and is afflicted with a variety of painful malain consequence of the inability of the proprietor to pay dies, would find his account in a beneficial change them, seldom received their wages, have supported large produced without the risk of poisonous medicines. families by cultivating small spots of sterile ground by The mother, to whom the perpetual restlessness moonlight. In the notes to Pratt's Poem, "Bread of the of disease, and unaccountable deaths incident to Poor," is an account of an industrious laborer, who, by her children, are the causes of incurable unhap working in a small garden, before and after his day's piness, would on this diet experience the satisfaction of beholding their perpetual health and natural

task. attained to an enviable state of independence.

† See Trotter on the Nervous Temperament.

playfulness.* The most valuable lives are daily de- Οὐδὲν γὰρ ἔοικε τὸ ἀνθρῶπου σῶμα των επὶ σαρκοφαγία stroyed by diseases, that it is dangerous to palliate γεγονότων, οὐ, χρωπότης χείλους, οὐκ ὀξύτης ὄνυχος οὐ and impossible to cure by medicine. How much longer will man continue to pimp for the gluttony of death, his most insidious, implacable, and eternal foe!

̓Αλλὰ ὁρακώντας ἀγριούς καλεῖτε καὶ παρδελέις καὶ λέοντας, αὐτοὶ δε μιαφονεῖτέ εἰς ὠμότητα καταλιπόντες ἐκεινοις οὐδέν. ἐκεινοις μέν ὁ φόνος τροφὴ, ἡμῖν δέ ἔψον ἐστίν.

Οτι γάρ οὐκ ἔστιν ανθρώπῳ κατὰ φύσιν τό σαρκοφαγεῖν, πρῶτον μὲν ἀπὸ των σωμάτων δηλοῦται τῆς κατασκευης.

* See Mr. Newton's book. His children are the most beautiful and healthy creatures it is possible to conceive; the girls are perfect models for a sculptor; their disposi, tions are also the most gentle and conciliating; the judi. cious treatment, which they experience in other points, may be a correlative cause of this. In the first five years of their life, of 18,000 children that are born, 7,500 die of various diseases; and how many more of those that sur· vive are not rendered miserable by maladies not immedi ately mortal? The quality and quantity of a woman's milk are materially injured by the use of dead flesh. In

an island near Iceland, where no vegetables are to be got,

the children invariably die of tetanus, before they are three weeks old, and the population is supplied from the main land.-Sir G. MACKENZIE'S Hist. of Iceland. See also Emile, chap. i. pages 53, 54, 50.

τραχύτης οδόντων πρόσεστιν, οὐ κοιλίας ευτονία, καὶ πνέυματος θερμότης, τρέψαι, καὶ κατεργάσασθαι δυνατὴ τὸ βαρύ καὶ κρεῶδες ; ἀλλ ̓ αὐτόθεν ἡ φύσις τῇ λειότητι των ὀδόντων, καὶ τη σμικρότητι τοῦ σομάτος, καὶ τῇ μαλακότητι τῆς γλώσσης, καὶ τῇ προς πέψιν ἀμβλύτητα του πνέυματος, εξόμνυται τὴν σαρκοφαγιάν. Ει δε λεγείς πεφυκέναι σεαυτὸν ἐπὶ τοιαῦτην ἐδώδην, ὅ βούγει φαγεῖν, πρῶτον αὐτός απόκτεινον. ἀλλ ̓ αὐτός, διὰ σεαυτοῦ μὴ χρησάμενος κοπίδῃ, μὴδὲ τυμπανῳ μὴδὲ πελέκει. ἀλλὰ ὡς λύκοι, καὶ ἄρκτοι, καὶ λεόνες αὐτοι ὡς ἐσφιούσι φονευούσιν, ἄνελε δήγματι βοῦν, ἢ σώματι σῦν, ἢ ἄρνα ἢ λαγὼον διάῤῥηξον, καὶ φάγε προστ πεσὼν ἔπι ξῶντος ὡς ἐκεῖνα.

Ἡμεῖς δὲ οὕτως εν τῳ μιαιφόνῳ τρυφῶμεν, ὥστε ὄψον τὸ κρέας προσαγορεύομεν, εἶτα ὄψων προς αυτό τὸ κρέας δέομεθα, ἀναμιγνύντες ἔλαιον, οἶνον, μέλι, γὰρον, ὄξος, ἡ δύσ μασι Συριακοῖς, ̓Αῤῥαβικοῖς, ὥσπερ ὅντως νεκρόν, ἐνταφι αξοντες. Καὶ γὰρ ὅτως αὐτων διαλυφέντων καὶ μαλαχφέντων καὶ τρόπον τινά κρευσαπέυντων ἔργον ἐστὶ τὴν πέψιν κρατῆσαι καὶ διακρατηθείσης δέ δεινάς βαοῦτητας ἐμποιεῖ καὶ νοσῶδεις απεψιάς.

Οὕτω τὸ πρῶτον ἄγριόν τι ξῶον ἐβρώθη καὶ κακοῦργον εἶτα ὄρνις τις ἢ ἰχθύς εἴλκυστο· καὶ γεύομενον, οὔτο καὶ προμελετῆσαν εν ἐκείνοις τὸ νικοῦν ἐπι βοῦν ἐργάτην ἦλθε, καὶ τὸ κόσμον πρόβατον παὶ τὸν οἰκουρον ἀλεκτρύονα· καὶ καταμικρὸν οὔτο τὴν ἀπληστιάν πονώσαντες, ἐπισφαγὰς ανθρωπῶν, καὶ φόνους καὶ πολέμους προῆλθεν.

Πλουτ. περί της σαρκοφαλίας.

Alastor; or the Spirit of Solitude.

Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quærebam quid amarem amans amare.
Confess. St. August.

PREFACE.

embodies his own imaginations unites all of wonder ful, or wise, or beautiful, which the poet, the philoso pher, or the lover could depicture. The intellectual faculties, the imagination, the functions of sense, have their respective requisitions on the sympathy of corTHE poem entitled "Alastor," may be considered as responding powers in other human beings. The Poet allegorical of one of the most interesting situations is represented as uniting these requisitions, and atof the human mind. It represents a youth of uncor- taching them to a single image. He seeks in vain rupted feelings and adventurous genius led forth by for a prototype of his conception. Blasted by his an imagination inflamed and purified through fami- disappointment, he descends to an untimely grave liarity with all that is excellent and majestic, to the The picture is not barren of instruction to actual contemplation of the universe. He drinks deep of men. The Poet's self-centred seclusion was avenged the fountains of knowledge, and is still insatiate. by the furies of an irresistible passion pursuing him The magnificence and beauty of the external world to speedy ruin. But that power which strikes the sinks profoundly into the frame of his conceptions, luminaries of the world with sudden darkness and and affords to their modifications a variety not to be extinction, by awakening them to too exquisite a perexhausted, So long as it is possible for his desires ception of its influences, dooms to a slow and poisonto point towards objects thus infinite and unmeasured, ous decay those meaner spirits that dare to abjure its he is joyous, and tranquil, and self-possessed. But dominion. Their destiny is more abject and inglorithe period arrives when these objects cease to suf-ous, as their delinquency is more contemptible and fice. His mind is at length suddenly awakened, and pernicious. They who, deluded by no generous erthirsts for intercourse with an intelligence similar to ror, instigated by no sacred thirst of doubtful knowitself. He images to himself the being whom he ledge, duped by no illustrious superstition, loving loves conversant with speculations of the sublimest nothing on this earth, and cherishing no hopes beand most perfect natures, the vision in which he yond, yet keep aloof from sympathies with their kind

rejoicing neither in human joy nor mourning with Enough from incommunicable dream, human grief; these, and such as they, have their And twilight phantasms, and deep noonday thought apportioned curse. They languish, because none Has shone within me, that serenely now, feel with them their common nature. They are And moveless as a long-forgotten lyre, morally dead. They are neither friends, nor lovers, Suspended in the solitary dome

nor fathers, nor citizens of the world, nor benefactors Of some mysterious and deserted fane, ɔf their country. Among those who attempt to exist I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain without human sympathy, the pure and tender-hearted May modulate with murmurs of the air, perish through the intensity and passion of their And motions of the forest and the sea, search after its communities, when the vacancy of And voice of living beings, and woven hymns their spirit suddenly makes itself felt. All else, sel- Of night and day, and the deep heart of man. fish, blind, and torpid, are those unforeseeing multitudes who constitute, together with their own, the lasting misery and loneliness of the world. Those who love not their fellow-beings, live unfruitful lives, and prepare for their old age a miserable grave. The good die first,

And those whose hearts are dry as summer's dust,
Burn to the socket!

December 14, 1815.

ALASTOR;

OR, THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE.

EARTH, ocean, air, beloved brotherhood!
If our great Mother has imbued my soul
With aught of natural piety to feel
Your love, and recompense the boon with mine;
If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even,
With sunset and its gorgeous ministers,
And solemn midnight's tingling silentness;
'f autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood,
And winter robing with pure snow and crowns
Of starry ice the gray grass and bare boughs;
If spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes
Her first sweet kisses, have been dear to me;
If no bright bird, insect or gentle beast
I consciously have injured, but still loved
And cherish'd these my kindred-then forgive
This boast, beloved brethren, and withdraw
No portion of your wonted favor now!

Mother of this unfathomable world!
Favor my
solemn song, for I have loved
Thee ever, and thee only; I have watch'd
Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps,
And my heart ever gazes on the depth
Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed
In charnels and on coffins, where black death
Keeps record of the trophies won from thee,
Hoping to still these obstinate questionings
Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost,
Thy messenger, to render up the tale

Of what we are. In lone and silent hours,
When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness,
Like an inspired and desperate alchemyst
Staking his very life on some dark hope,
Have I mix'd awful talk and asking looks
With my most innocent love, until strange tears,
Uniting with those breathless kisses, made
Such magic as compels the charmed night
To render up thy charge: and, though ne'er yet
Thou hast unveil'd thy inmost sanctuary,

No human hands with pious reverence rear'd,
There was a Poet whose untimely tomb
But the charm'd eddies of autumnal winds
Built o'er his mouldering bones a pyramid
Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness;
A lovely youth!-no mourning maiden deck'd
With weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath,
The lone couch of his everlasting sleep:
Gentle, and brave, and generous, no lorn bard
Breathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh:
He lived, he died, he sung, in solitude.
Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes,
And virgins, as unknown he past, have sigh'd
And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes.
The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn,
And Silence, too enamor'd of that voice,
Locks its mute music in her rugged cell.

By solemn vision and bright silver dream,
His infancy was nurtured. Every sight
And sound from the vast earth and ambient air,
Sent to his heart its choicest impulses.
The fountains of divine philosophy

Fled not his thirsting lips; and all of great,
Or good, or lovely, which the sacred past
In truth or fable consecrates, he felt
And knew. When early youth had past, he left
His cold fireside and alienated home,
To seek strange truths in undiscover'd lands.
Many a wide waste and tangled wilderness
Has lured his fearless steps; and he has bought
With his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men,
His rest and food. Nature's most secret steps
He, like her shadow, has pursued, where'er
The red volcano overcanopies

Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice
With burning smoke; or where bitumen lakes,
On black bare pointed islets ever beat
With sluggish surge; or where the secret caves,
Rugged and dark, winding among the springs
Of fire and poison, inaccessible

To avarice or pride, their starry domes
Of diamond and of gold expand above
Numberless and immeasurable halls,
Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines
Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.
Nor had that scene of ampler majesty

Than gems of gold, the varying roof of heaven
And the green earth, lost in his heart its claims
To love and wonder; he would linger long
In lonesome vales, making the wild his home,
Until the doves and squirrels would partake
From his innocuous hand his bloodless food,
Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks,

At midnight The moon arose and lo! the ethereal cliffs |Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone