Wakening a lonely echo; and the leaves Low through the lone cathedral's roofless aisles Within the massy prison's mouldering courts, With a pale and sickly glare, then freely shone These ruins soon left not a wreck behind : Their elements, wide scatter'd o'er the globe, To happier shapes were moulded, and became Ministrant to all blissful impulses: Thus human things were perfected, and earth. Even as a child beneath its mother's love, Was strengthen'd in all excellence, and grew Fairer and nobler with each passing year. Now Time his dusky pennons o'er the scene Yet, human Spirit! bravely hold thy course, Of all events is aggregated there Fear not then, Spirit! death's disrobing hand, The fairy waves her wand of charm, Speechless with bliss the Spirit mounts the car, That roll'd beside the battlement, Bending her beamy eyes in thankfulness. Again the enchanted steeds were yoked, The vast and fiery globes that roll'd Such tiny twinklers as the planet orbs Earth floated then below: The spirit then descended : The restless coursers paw'd the ungenial soil, Snuff'd the gross air, and then, their errand done, Unfurl'd their pinions to the winds of heaven The Body and the Soul united then. A gentle start convulsed Ianthe's frame: Her veiny eyelids quietly unclosed; Moveless awhile the dark-blue orbs remain'd: She look'd around in wonder, and beheld Henry, who kneel'd in silence by her couch, Watching her sleep with looks of speechless love, And the bright beaming stars That through the casement shone. NOTES. Note 1, page 106, col. 1. The sun's unclouded orb Roll'd through the black concave. BEYOND our atmosphere the sun would appear a ray less orb of fire in the midst of a black concave. The equal diffusion of its light on earth is owing to the refraction of the rays by the atmosphere, and their reflection from other bodies. Light consists either of vibrations propagated through a subtle medium, or of numerous minute particles repelled in all directions from the luminous body. Its velocity greatly exceeds that of any substance with which we are acquainted: observations on the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites have demonstrated that light takes up no more than 8' 7" in passing from the sun to the earth, a distance of 95,000,000 miles. Some idea may be gained of the immense distance of the fixed stars, when it is computed that many years would elapse before light could reach this earth from the nearest of them; yet in one year light travels 5,422,400,000,000 miles, which is a distance 5,707,600 times greater than that of the sun from the earth. Note 2, page 106, col. 2. Whilst round the chariot's way The plurality of worlds,—the indefinite immensity of the universe, is a most awful subject of contemplation. He who rightly feels its mystery and grandeur, is in no danger of seduction from the falsehoods of religious systems, or of deifying the principle of the universe. It is impossible to believe that the Spirit that pervades this infinite machine, begat a son upon the body of a Jewish woman; or is angered at the consequences of that necessity, which is a synonyme of itself. All that miserable tale of the Devil, and Eve, and an Intercessor, with the childish mummeries of the God of the Jews, is irreconcilable with the knowledge of the stars. The works of his fingers have borne witness against him. The nearest of the fixed stars is inconceivably distant from the earth, and they are probably proportionably distant from each other. By a calculation | of the velocity of light, Sirius is supposed to be at least 54,224,000,000,000 miles from the earth.* That which appears only like a thin and silvery cloud streaking the heaven, is in effect composed of innu merable clusters of suns, each shining with its own light, and illuminating numbers of planets that revolve around them. Millions and millions of suns are ranged around us, all attended by innumerable worlds, yet calm, regular, and harmonious, all keeping the paths of immutable necessity. Note 3, page 112, col. 1. These are the hired bravoes who defend The tyrant's throne. To employ murder as a means of justice, is an idea which a man of an enlightened mind will not dwell upon with pleasure. To march forth in rank and file, and all the pomp of streamers and trumpets, for the purpose of shooting at our fellow-men as a mark; to inflict upon them all the variety of wound and anguish; to leave them weltering in their blood; to wander over the field of desolation, and count the number of the dying and the dead,—are employments which in thesis we may maintain to be necessary, but which no good man will contemplate with gratulation and delight. A battle, we suppose, is won:-thus truth is established, thus the cause of justice is confirmed! It surely requires no common sagacity to discern the connexion between this immense heap of calamities and the assertion of truth or the maintenance of justice. Kings, and ministers of state, the real authors of the calamity, sit unmolested in their cabinet, while those against whom the fury of the storm is directed are, for the most part, persons who have been trepanned into the service, or who are dragged unwillingly from their peaceful homes into the field of battle. A soldier is a man whose business it is to kill those who never offended him, and who are the innocent martyrs of other men's iniquities. Whatever may become of the abstract question of the justifiableness of war, it seems impossible that the soldier should not be a depraved and unnatural being. To these more serious and momentous considera tions it may be proper to add, a recollection of the ridiculousness of the military character. Its first constituent is obedience: a soldier is, of all descriptions of men, the most completely a machine; yet his profession inevitably teaches him something of dogma tism, swaggering, and self-consequence: he is like the puppet of a showman, who, at the very time he is made to strut and swell and display the most fareical airs, we perfectly know cannot assume the most insignificant gesture, advance either to the right or to the left, but as he is moved by his exhibiter.-GoDWIN'S Enquirer, Essay v. I will here subjoin a little poem, so strongly expres sive of my abhorrence of despotism and falsehood, that I fear lest it never again may be depictured so vividly. This opportunity is perhaps the only one that ever will occur of rescuing it from oblivion. FALSEHOOD AND VICE; A DIALOGUE. WHILST monarchs laugh'd upon their thrones * See Nicholson's Encyclopedia, art. Light. Those thrones, high built upon the heaps Brother! arise from the dainty fare Which thousands have toil'd and bled to bestow, A finer feast for thy hungry ear Is the news that I bring of human woe. VICE. And, secret one! what hast thou done, What have I done!-I have torn the robe Must shine upon our grave. Yet know, proud Vice, had I not given And know, that had I disdain'd to toil, In this cold grave beneath my feet, Will our hopes, our fears, and our labors, meet. I brought my daughter, RELIGION, on earth: Of the many mingling miseries, VICE. I have extinguish'd the noonday sun, Wrung from a nation's miseries; While the snakes, whose slime even him defiled, In ecstasies of malice smiled They thought 't was theirs,-but mine the deed! Thy daughter, that relentless maid, FALSEHOOD. It little boots: thy toil and pain, Thus do the generations of the earth Go to the grave, and issue from the womb. One generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the south and turneth about unto the north, it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full; unto the place whence the rivers come, thither shall they return again.Ecclesiastes, chap. i. Note 6, page 113, col. 1. The mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings. Suave mari magno turbantibus æquora ventis E terrå magnum alterius spectare laborem; Non quia vexari quemquam 'st jucunda voluptas, Sed quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suave's Suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri, Per campos instructa, tua sine parte pericli; Sed nil dulcius est bene quam munita tenere Edita doctrina sapientum templa serena; Despicere unde queas alios, passimque videre Errare atque viam palanteis quærere vita; Certare ingenio; contendere nobilitate; Nocteis atque dies niti præstante labore Ad summas emergere opes, rerumque potiri. O miseras hominum menteis! O pectora cæca! 372 Luc. lib. it Note 7, page 113, col. 2. And statesmen boast Of wealth! vantages the rich, and from the latter the poor, by the inevitable conditions of their respective situations, are precluded. A state which should combine the advantages of both, would be subjected to the evils There is no real wealth but the labor of man. of neither. He that is deficient in firm health, or Were the mountains of gold and the valleys of silver, vigorous intellect, is but half a man: hence it folthe world would not be one grain of corn the richer; lows, that, to subject the laboring classes to unnecesno one comfort would be added to the human race. sary labor, is wantonly depriving them of any op In consequence of our consideration for the precious portunities of intellectual improvement; and that metals, one man is enabled to heap to himself luxu- the rich are heaping up for their own mischief the ries at the expense of the necessaries of his neigh- disease, lassitude and ennui by which their existence bor; a system admirably fitted to produce all the is rendered an intolerable burthen. varieties of disease and crime, which never fail to English reformers exclaim against sinecures,-but characterize the two extremes of opulence and penury. the true pension-list is the rent-roll of the landed A speculator takes pride to himself as the promoter proprietors: wealth is a power usurped by the few. of his country's prosperity, who employs a number to compel the many to labor for their benefit. The of hands in the manufacture of articles avowedly laws which support this system derive their force destitute of use, or subservient only to the unhallow- from the ignorance and credulity of its victims: they ed cravings of luxury and ostentation. The noble- are the result of a conspiracy of the few against the man, who employs the peasants of his neighborhood many, who are themselves obliged to purchase this in building his palaces, until "jam pauca aratro ju- pre-eminence by the loss of all real comfort. gera regia moles relinquunt," flatters himself that he The commodities that substantially contribute to has gained the title of a patriot by yielding to the the subsistence of the human species form a very impulses of vanity. The show and pomp of courts short catalogue: they demand from us but a slender adduces the same apology for its continuance; and portion of industry. If these only were produced, many a fête has been given, many a woman has and sufficiently produced, the species of man would eclipsed her beauty by her dress, to benefit the labor- be continued. If the labor necessarily required to ing poor and to encourage trade. Who does not see produce them were equitably divided among the that this is a remedy which aggravates, whilst it pal- poor, and, still more, if it were equitably divided liates the countless diseases of society? The poor among all, each man's share of labor would be light, are set to labor,-for what? Not the food for which and his portion of leisure would be ample. There they famish: not the blankets for want of which was a time when this leisure would have been of their babes are frozen by the cold of their miserable small comparative value: it is to be hoped that the hovels: not those comforts of civilization without time will come, when it will be applied to the most which civilized man is far more miserable than the meanest savage; oppressed as he is by all its insidious evils, within the daily and taunting prospect of its innumerable benefits assiduously exhibited before him-no; for the pride of power, for the miserable isolation of pride, for the false pleasures of the hundredth part of society. No greater evidence is af forded of the wide-extended and radical mistakes of It was perhaps necessary that a period of monopoly civilized man than this fact: those arts which are and oppression should subsist, before a period of culessential to his very being are held in the greatest tivated equality could subsist. Savages perhaps would contempt; employments are lucrative in an inverse never have been excited to the discovery of truth ratio to their usefulness:* the jeweller, the toyman, and the invention of art, but by the narrow motives the actor, gains fame and wealth by the exercise of which such a period affords. But surely, after the his useless and ridiculous art; whilst the cultivator savage state has ceased, and men have set out in the of the earth, he without whom society must cease to subsist, struggles through contempt and penury, and perishes by that famine which, but for his unceasing exertions, would annihilate the rest of mankind. important purposes. Those hours which are not required for the production of the necessaries of life, may be devoted to the cultivation of the understanding, the enlarging our stock of knowledge, the refining our taste, and thus opening to us new and more exquisite sources of enjoyment. * * * glorious career of discovery and invention, monopoly and oppression cannot be necessary to prevent them from returning to a state of barbarism.-GODWIN'S Enquirer, Essay II. See also POL. Jus., book VIII. chap. 11. I will not insult common sense by insisting on the doctrine of the natural equality of man. The ques- It is a calculation of this admirable author, that all tion is not concerning its desirableness, but its prac- the conveniences of civilized life might be produced, ticability so far as it is practicable, it is desirable. if society would divide the labor equally among its That state of human society which approaches nearer members, by each individual being employed in labor to an equal partition of its benefits and evils should, two hours during the day. Note 8, page 113, col. 2. Or religion I am acquainted with a lady of considerable ac cæteris paribus, be preferred: but so long as we conceive that a wanton expenditure of human labor, not for the necessities, not even for the luxuries of the mass of society, but for the egotism and ostentation of a few of its members, is defensible on the ground of public justice, so long we neglect to approximate complishments, and the mother of a numerons family, to the redemption of the human race. whom the Christian religion has goaded to incurable Labor is required for physical, and leisure for insanity. A parallel case is, I believe, within the exmoral improvement: from the former of these ad-perience of every physician. * See Rousseau, "De l'Inégalité parmi les Hommes," note 7. Nam jam sæpe homines patriam, carosque parentes Note 9, page 114, col. 2. Even love is sold. in both cases, excludes us from all inquiry. The language of the votarist is this: The woman I now love may be infinitely inferior to many others; the Not even the intercourse of the sexes is exempt creed I now profess may be a mass of errors and from the despotism of positive institution. Law pre-absurdities; but I exclude myself from all future tends even to govern the indisciplinable wanderings information as to the amiability of the one and the of passion, to put fetters on the clearest deductions truth of the other, resolving blindly, and in spite of of reason, and, by appeals to the will, to subdue the conviction, to adhere to them. Is this the language involuntary affections of our nature. Love is inevi- of delicacy and reason? Is the love of such a frigid tably consequent upon the perception of loveliness. heart of more worth than its belief? Love withers under constraint: its very essence is The present system of constraint does no more, in liberty it is compatible neither with obedience, the majority of instances, than make hypocrites or jealousy, nor fear: it is there most pure, perfect, and open enemies. Persons of delicacy and virtue, ununlimited, where its votaries live in confidence, happily united to one whom they find it impossible equality, and unreserve. to love, spend the loveliest season of their life in un How long then ought the sexual connexion to last? productive efforts to appear otherwise than they are, what law ought to specify the extent of the griev- for the sake of the feelings of their partner, or the ances which should limit its duration? A husband and welfare of their mutual offspring: those of less wife ought to continue so long united as they love generosity and refinement openly avow their disapeach other any law which should bind them to co-pointment, and linger out the remnant of that union, habitation for one moment after the decay of their which only death can dissolve, in a state of incurable affection, would be a most intolerable tyranny, and bickering and hostility. The early education of their the most unworthy of toleration. How odious a children takes its color from the squabbles of the usurpation of the right of private judgment should parents; they are nursed in a systematic school of that law be considered, which should make the ties ill-humor, violence, and falsehood. Had they been of friendship indissoluble, in spite of the caprices, suffered to part at the moment when indifference the inconstancy, the fallibility, and capacity for im- rendered their union irksome, they would have been provement of the human mind, And by so much spared many years of misery; they would have conwould the fetters of love be heavier and more unen- nected themselves more suitably, and would have durable than those of friendship, as love is more found that happiness in the society of more congenial vehement and capricious, more dependent on those partners which is for ever denied them by the des delicate peculiarities of imagination, and less capable potism of marriage. They would have been sepaof reduction to the ostensible merits of the object. rately useful and happy members of society, who, The state of society in which we exist is a mixture whilst united, were miserable, and rendered misanof feudal savageness and imperfect civilization. The thropical by misery. The conviction that wedlock is narrow and unenlightened morality of the Christian indissoluble holds out the strongest of all temptations religion is an aggravation of these evils. It is not to the perverse: they indulge without restraint in even until lately that mankind have admitted that acrimony, and all the little tyrannies of domestic life, happiness is the sole end of the science of ethics, as when they know that their victim is without appeal. of all other sciences; and that the fanatical idea of If this connexion were put on a rational basis, each mortifying the flesh for the love of God has been would be assured that habitual ill temper would terdiscarded. I have heard, indeed, an ignorant colle- minate in separation, and would check this vicious gian adduce, in favor of Christianity, its hostility to and dangerous propensity. every worldly feeling!* Prostitution is the legitimate offspring of marriage But if happiness be the object of morality, of all and its accompanying errors. Women, for no other human unions and disunions; if the worthiness of crime than having followed the dictates of a natural every action is to be estimated by the quantity of appetite, are driven with fury from the comforts and pleasurable sensation it is calculated to produce, then sympathies of society. It is less venial than murder: the connexion of the sexes is so long sacred as it and the punishment which is inflicted on her who contributes to the comfort of the parties, and is natu- destroys her child to escape reproach, is lighter than rally dissolved when its evils are greater than its the life of agony and disease to which the prostitute benefits. There is nothing immoral in this separation. is irrecoverably doomed. Has a woman obeyed the Constancy has nothing virtuous in itself, independent- impulse of unerring nature;-society declares war ly of the pleasure it confers, and partakes of the against her, pitiless and eternal war: she must be temporizing spirit of vice in proportion as it endures the tame slave, she must make no reprisals; theirs is tamely moral defects of magnitude in the object of the right of persecution, hers the duty of endurance. its indiscreet choice. Love is free: to promise for She lives a life of infamy: the loud and bitter laugh ever to love the same woman, is not less absurd than of scorn scares her from all return. She dies of long to promise to believe the same creed: such a vow, and lingering disease; yet she is in fault, she is the criminal, she the froward and untamable child,* The first Christian emperor made a law by which se- and Society, forsooth, the pure and virtuous matron, duction was punished with death: if the female pleaded who casts her as an abortion from her undefiled her own consent, she also was punished with death; if the bosom! Society avenges herself on the criminals of parents endeavored to screen the criminals, they were her own creation; she is employed in anathematizing banished and their estates were confiscated; the slaves the vice to-day, which yesterday she was the most who might be accessory were burned alive, or forced to zealous to teach. Thus is formed one-tenth of the swallow melted lead. The very offspring of an illegal love were involved in the consequences of the sentence.-| population of London: meanwhile the evil is twofold. GIBBON'S Decline and Fall, etc. vol. ii. page 210. See also, Young men, excluded by the fanatical idea of chasfor the hatred of the primitive Christians to love, and tity from the society of modest and accomplished even marriage, page 269. women, associate with these vicious and miserable |