none of your friends ever read. Billiards you play but seldom; and chess you have not brains for. The dinners, and the wine?-why, there you have the advantage, certainly,-though not even there, be it understood, when you dine (absolute) in Bond Street. Messrs L- and S- may do for those to whom it is "Life!" to be at Messrs L or S's; but they certainly won't do for anybody who has pretensions even to a palate. And, after all (give me only a little of the French wine) and I never was so well for these seven years past, as I am now upon boiled fowl and broiled Severn salmon-and, in your whole circle-take it all round-Park, and Opera, and Almack's included,you find anything-do you think you can?-to compare with this beautiful Eliza here?-who, with nothing ever, I'll lay my existence, beyond a country boarding-school education-swinging, or "making cheeses," in the garden, all day, and arguing about the prettiest colour for garters, with some other incipient plague of one's life, all night-has a thousand times more delicacy of perception-ten thousand times more captivatingness and natural taste-than half your women (of one class) who think only about how they shall manage to marry one, or all your women (of another class) whom I have no nerves to think of at all!

-can

For your friend's prattle of their "fortune," with whom, and where, tell me, is the "fortune" found? Not much among the girls, you know,even as regards notice; for they fall in love with the dancing-master-or the popular preacher. Then the ladies of a certain age-take them, vice and folly and all-are caught (and again you know it) by a very different kind of people. Is not the "fortune,” in truth, found, where, in the end, most of the fortune is lost? Among ladies with thin legs, who are divine because they dance at the Academie de Musique; or others who have risen into estimation by successively disgusting some dozen different people? I do protest, I give thanks every morning when I get up, that I succeeded to an estate of five thousand a-year, instead of being born to one-so have I escaped some of the asinosities of those "strange flies" who swarm past your door every day about three o'clock! The gamblers

are perhaps the most reasonable of them; and yet what shocking dogs they are! Then the drinking men-who get up about dusk! And the "Fancy" gentlemen-who are worse to me than all! I saw a "lord" of your particular acquaintance, just before I left town, sitting in a "coffee-shop," by Covent-Garden, "talking dogs," as the French idiom would be, with the keeper of it. There was the "Turn out," standing at the door-servants in red coats and white hats.-Peer buying foundered curs, as dogs" of highest market.”"Flash," and familiar.-The vulgarity of the "coaching stables," but not the wit.-Fancied he was astonishing, and condescending at the same time; and, really, viewed with almost undisguised contempt, even by the rascal who was cheating him!-Oh! that exquisite Sir Giles Overreach !-Had not the dog feeder, now, here the best of it? And this same man shall get you up in the House of Lords, andoppose" (if he be bit that way) "the views of the minister!".

And I detest this regardlessness to decencies and received opinions, for the sickening trick of heartlessness that it generally brings along with it. It is dangerous sometimes to get over one's prejudices; they often prevent an ill beginning. The drover who strikes at a sheep very heavily to-day, would scarcely strike very lightly at his own child, on occasion, to-morrow. The truth is, that our 66 ingenuous youth"-I am turning pedagogue, you will think are ill educated. We flog a boy through the classics; and then turn him out to inhabit among men. From seventeen to twenty-five we allow him for folly and extravagance; and the odds are great, but he does some act within that time, which he repents to the last hour of his life. Since the day of Chesterfield, I know of no writer on the education of MEN, who is worth a farthing. If he was a

courtly scoundrel," and I don't think he was,-why, if he was, he was only so much better than an uncourtly one. The feeling of a gentleman, next to a pure moral feeling, is the best check upon that excess which forms the atrocity of vice. Habits have changed since Chesterfield's time; and the detail of his precepts, had he lived, would have altered with them: But the principle upon which he set out was a correct one. He legislated for

MAN; and looked to what he could get, rather than to what he could wish for. Fine a man five pounds, and perhaps he may pay it; fine the same man fifty, and you only perhaps send him to prison. Are there not steps in the scale of moral, as well as of political offence? A larceny is less mischievous to society than a burglary; a burglary without personal outrage, better than a burglary with personal outrage; a robbery on the highway bad, but better than a "cutting and maiming," or a murder. And why should we look nowhere but in the Old Bailey, at redeeming the circumstances of crime? Mark, when you hear any act of very outrageous baseness or folly-when a man is a town jest for his mummeries; a published dupe to courtesans and black-legs; a rioter in the streets par excellence; a brute, or, in other words, a "choice spirit"-Mark if he be not some parvenu, or halftrained lad broke loose from school. Why! up to the last moment before a man starts in life, is not the world so described to him, that he must find it rather anything than the thing it has been represented? The grand fault of our moral instruction, is the high tone in which it is conveyed. Sin, we are told, is death; and there the teacher leaves us. The restraint is peremptorily insisted upon, and even the advantages of it are not half explained. We are not only commanded to be angels, and, if we cannot be angels, left to be anything we please; but really little or no pains are taken to shew us why we should be angels if we could.

Say that a thoughtless lad, just launched from college into a society like your present circle, seduces a girl of decent family, and abandons her, like a scoundrel, to her fate.-You and I must not talk about such cases "not occurring;" we know that they do occur, and that men are damned for them, if men are damned at all.— This booby has been told that seduction is a “ high crime;" and he sees many" high crimes," hourly, in very respectable commission. He has heard that punishment for such offences will follow in "another world,”and he believes that "other world" to be a very long way off. What would be the effect upon thieves of twenty, if a law were to enact, that present highwaymen (bating repentance)

should be hanged at the age of eighty years? Has any creature, friend, or relative, pointed out to this silly boy the immediate consequences (which pass repentance) of the crime which he has committed? Has any one asked-will he sell his favourite horse to be whipped to death in a sand cart?-or his spaniel to be worried and fought by butchers?-or on what principle is it that he is dooming a creature, for whom he has once felt affection-to rum, insult, want, and public infamy? He hears nothing at all of this from his associates-and yours. They congratulate him upon his triumph. He is a "fine fellow"he has" bonne fortune"-the world will "hear of him"-the women find him "irresistible !" Is it not so?-Has any one said to a wretched unthinking blockhead like this-who-what-are these people to whose commendation you are listening?-They are "friends." Ay-as you have been-"friends," to their own gratification.-Friends! Why-you are boon companionssworn brothers-every one of you!When the last of the club was carried to prison, who came forward to give bail for him?-When the bankrupt, last week, destroyed himself-one less

-Was it not so ?-sat down to table. Is there a man among these, your "friends," in whom you even think you can confide? Is there one who (if you were in want) you believe would help you with a shilling?— Their talents, or their worth-Come!

which is it you would first bear witness to? Is it the gentleman who packed the "fight" at Moulsey, that you love best; or he who poisoned the "favourite" at Newmarket ;-he who fled yesterday (this was your "dear friend") from his ball; or he who, the day before, "gave" the Insolvent act to his creditors? Nay, answer-for these "friends" are all complimenting you upon your "success" —except the one who whispers (and lies) that he was acquainted with the lady before you are you most proud of the gentleman's applause who appears in the long skirted coat, or of his who has pinned his character in life, to the short jacket? Is it he who was thrashed (last) by the "boxer, that immortalizes you; or he who backed "the bull dog" to eat "the monkey" in " four minutes?"-Come! look at your triumph-'tis as noble at least

might have prevented, discovers, and -this is the ultra " Triumph !"-salutes you with the name of Father!" The human mind wants that its attention should be called-sometimes

dragged to the contemplation of plain truth. It is not enough to say to men merely-" Be virtuous!" If you would do good-one case is worth a hundred arguments-shew them the misery that arises out of evil. Men are ill enough, Heaven knows; but, in the mass, I doubt if they are cruel. Shew the miserable, thoughtless boy whom I have described, the effect of his impertinence; shew him merely the havoc that it is making; and a hundred to one but he will shrink from it. The mere animal instinct that teaches him to quail from pain, will go far to make him honest. What is he-where is he -when consciousness overtakes him? When he finds that there is a hell the hell of vain regret and recollection -earlier to be encountered than that with which he has been threatened; that there are tortures, which make sure of him on this side the grave, however (until it comes to the point) he may fancy he discredits those beyond it.

But these, you will say, are the reveries, and the acerbities of approaching age; or, if you do not say so, it is not because I am only four-and-thirty, but because you are two years my senior. Still, even if you could convict me of being-shall I say thirty-six ? Heaven knows! my own condition I give up. Of all men living, he is the most to be pitied, who is competent to pity other people. To know is, of necessity, to have suffered moral impalement—to have been mentally broken upon the wheel! It is to have suffered ingratitude from men, and (still worse) deceit from women; to have seen courage and honour starve in rags, where vice and cowardice stood successful; to have waited, and so to have learned patience; to have been baffled, and so to have acquired perseverance; to have been taught caution by being cheated, and coolness by the use of injury. To be wise, is to know only that nothing can be known with certainty! It is to know that honesty to day is no pledge for honesty to-morrow; conduct in one state, no security for conduct in another. It is to have seen strict principle coupled with the coldest selfishness, and the seeds

of destruction quickening in warmheartedness and kind feeling: to have learned to doubt where all find certainty, and to deny confidence even where we repose trust; to have discovered that there is little in life worth really caring for, and nothing-not even one's own opinion-that can safely be relied upon.

Will you answer that these discoveries are not always the concomitants of age; that there are men who, even to death, retain their wonted spirits and their wonted follies? The spirits are oftener of the constitution, than of the mind. We laugh, and it is with gaiety and good humour, at twenty-five; and we still laugh at fifty-but it is with satire and misanthropy. The calculating point, according to circumstances, comes earlier in life, or later. The enthusiastic find it first; the wealthy born (whom all the world is interested in blinding) are commonly last in the discovery. Fools antic even to the grave, unconscious either of the scoff, or the jestings of mankind. The dull soul has never dreamed of happiness; he cannot fall, for he has been always upon the ground. But, for the man of real mind and energy, who feels his strength upon the wane; who has soared like the rash youth of Crete, and who finds that his wings are failing under him; whose mental perceptions are yet acute, though his physical forces desert him; who is alive to the sense of his own futility-of his weakness, and fallen condition! For such a man, what resource?—Alas! resource there is none.

For, first among those bright illusions which have beguiled him up to this dark hour-first, and hardest !— he loses his sensibility to-his capacity for being cheated by the charms of woman! Take man as you find him before his fellow man, and he is dark, mysterious, inexplicable. Envy and fear disturb him; and a touch perhaps of that instinctive dislike which prevents males, even among animals, from ever meeting with much friendliness of feeling. But with woman he is happy; for, with her, nature teaches him that he is safe. By turns, her despotic sovereign, and her implicit slave. I know not in which condition his fortune is the highest. If it is his pride to command, it is his pleasure to obey.

Her triumphs, her happiness, her injuries-all are his. Her jealousy will

but flatter him-her waywardness amuse. Faults may compel him to upbraid her-misconduct may drive him to abandon; but she has this security -let it guide her choice in all intercourse with a man of heart and feeling, that his dearest wish is incomplete, while the least of hers remains ungratified.

But there is one fault, which no tears, no penitence, can atone for; one act which murders at once, man's love-his confidence-and his pride; one crime which may be pardoned, but, while life holds, cannot be forgotten; -beyond which there is no hope, and from which-sooner from the grave, there is return! The mask which man wears abroad, to hide his follies, and his interests—the armour in which he clothes himself against man—against MAN, whether friend or foe-all this is stripped off before the woman that he loves; and nature springs rejoicing in her proper, though unwonted freedom. But, thus naked, let him once be wounded, and he never stands secure again! He does not take fright hastily. The last thing-it is so ordered by a merciful Providence !—the last thing that a man doubts, is a woman's fidelity. Tell him that she is proud-and prodigal-and negligent -and vindictive-that her folly has blasted his prospects-her extravagance dissipated his fortune-all this he will listen to, for it does not quite shut out all hope; but tell him that she is unfaithful, and his very heart and soul reject the charge, for slander! Hint only that there has been thoughtlessness-indiscretion-a momentary indulgence of vanity-that a smile has, even accidentally, called forth a corresponding simper from the world-say that his ruin has been imagined-dreamed of―resolved against that the thing has occurred as possible-the hundred thousandth portion of an atom-the amount for which algebra has noname-the line's breadth, which is mathematically nothing-of approach to a thought of it-and the very vital principle throws back the charge, for life cannot go forward in connection with it! He will not lightly credit that as true, which he feels he is lost if he does but pause to think of! He will not confess that woundeven to himself-for which all nature affords no remedy:-that stain which blood may change the hue of, but

which even blood cannot wash out! but let the truth-spite of disgust!once be forced upon him; and it lives with him-body and soul-through his existence he is lost to the woman who betrays him-to the whole sex-and to happiness for ever—assu— rances of truth, he shall smile at ; its appearances shall have no weight with him; he has learned the hard lesson, that he is not (as he thought he was) infallible;—and though the reality of security may be restored to him, the belief of it can never be !

It is a hard lesson this to learn, Fletcher, and one which it disturbs a man even to think of. Is it written, I wonder, that I am to go through the horrible ordeal of acquiring it; or am I to glide drowsily on, and easily, into nonentity and forty! Shall I arrive at the mildest, or the most painful, condition of a man whose youth is past? Endure an agony of recollection; or go off in apathy of feeling ?-knowing that the mass of men are knaves, and myself little better than the rest; looking to probabilities rather than to statements, in every transaction; ceasing to have any virtue very active, but knowing vice too well to be misled by it; desiring wealth as children covet counters; thinking of my own funeral as a matter of possibility; and gradually-this is the "mere oblivion"-forgetting that such a thing as gratification ever existed?

Ah! Fletcher, this is no new, no questionable shape of feeling! What led the knight of old to the hermitage, the sovereign to the cloister-what but a sense that virtual death required a virtual tomb? The warrior lived but upon the tears of his enemies, the smiles of his mistress: His music was the neighing of his battle-steed, or the song of the minstrel on the feast-night in his hall! Alas! if the trumpet sounds now, it does but call abler champions to the combat; the minstrel's song is of his deeds, but it is of deeds which he can do no more! Oh! those words which no man, perhaps in any state, was pleased to hear-the fiat thatbars possibility—the "Never again! -never!" Release me from torture with those words, and their chilling import arrests my gratitude for the moment. Take a man from misery— "for ever"-and he doubts for an instant-" was it misery?"

Be sure I will never be content to