age of a hundred he was able to read and write without spectacles; not better, perhaps, than he did at fifteen, but as well. At a hundred, he was truly an old boy, and no more thought of putting on spectacles than an eagle. Why should he? His blood had run clear for a century with exercise and natural living. He had not baked it black and "heavy thick" over a fire, and dimmed the windows of his perception with the smoke.

But he wanted a soul to turn his perceptions to their proper account?-He did so. Let us then, who see more than he did, contrive to see fair-play between body and mind. It is by observing the separate extremes of perfection, to which body and mind may arrive, in those who do not know how to unite both, that we may learn how to produce a human being more enviable than either the healthiest of fox-hunters or the most unearthly of saints. It is remarkable, that the same ancient family which, among the variety and fineness of its productions, put forth this specimen of bodily humanity, edified the world not long after with as complete a specimen of the other half of human nature. Mr William Hastings's soul seems to have come too late for his body, and to have remained afterwards upon earth in the shape of his fair kinswoman, the Lady Elizabeth Hastings, daughter of Theophilus, seventh Earl of Huntingdon. An account of her follows that of her animal kinsman, and is a most extraordinary contrast. This is the lady who is celebrated by Sir Richard Steele in the Tatler, under the name of Aspasia,-a title which must have startled her a little. But with the elegance of the panegyric she would have found it hard not to be pleased, notwithstanding her modesty. "These ancients would be as much astonished to see in the same age so illustrious a pattern to all who love things praiseworthy as the divine Aspasia. Methinks I now see her walking in her garden like our first parent, with unaffected charms, before beauty had spectators, and bearing celestial, conscious virtue in her aspect. Her countenance is the lively picture of her

mind, which is the seat of honour, truth, compassion, knowledge, and innocence :-

'There dwells the scorn of vice, and pity too.'

In the midst of the most ample fortune, and veneration of all that beheld and knew her, without the least affectation, she consults retirement, the contemplation of her own being, and that Supreme Power which bestowed it. Without the learning of schools, or knowledge of a long course of arguments, she goes on in a steady course of uninterrupted piety and virtue, and adds to the severity and privacy of the last age all the freedom and ease of this. The language and mien of a Court she is possessed of in the highest degree; but the simplicity and humble thoughts of a cottage are her more welcome entertainments. Aspasia is a female philosopher, who does not only live up to the resignation of the most retired lives of the ancient sages, but also to the schemes and plans which they thought beautiful, though inimitable. This lady is the most exact economist, without appearing busy; the most strictly virtuous, without tasting the praise of it; and shuns applause with as much industry as others do reproach. This character is so particular that it will very easily be fixed on her only, by all that know her; but I dare say she will be the last that finds it out." (Tatler, No. 42, July 16, 1709.)

This character was written when Lady Elizabeth was twentyeight. She passed the rest of her life agreeably to it, relieving families, giving annuities, contributing to the maintenance of schools and university-scholars, and all the while behaving with extraordinary generosity to her kindred, and keeping up a noble establishment. Those whom such a description incites to know more of her, will find a good summary of her way of life in Miss Hays's "Female Biography,"-a work, by the way, which contrives to be at once deferential and liberal, and ought to be in the possession of all her intelligent countrywomen.

Miss Hays informs us that the close of this excellent person's

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life was as suffering as it was patient. An accidental contusion in her bosom, at an early period of life, had left the seeds of a cancer, which for many years she disregarded. About a year and a half before her death, she was obliged to undergo an amputation of the part affected; which she did with a noble and sweet fortitude, described in a very touching manner by another of her biographers. "Her ladyship," he tells us, underwent this painful operation with surprising patience and resolution she showed no reluctancy; no struggle or contention, or even any complaint, did she make; only, indeed, towards the end of the operation, she drew such a sigh as any compassionate reader may when he hears this." This is one of the truest and most pathetic things we ever remember to have read. Unfortunately, the amputation, though it promised well for a time, did no good at last. The disorder returned with increased malignity, and, after submitting to it with her usual patience, and exhorting her household and friends upon her death-bed in a high strain of enthusiasm, she expired on the 22d December 1739, in the fifty-seventh year of her age. "Her character in miniature," says the biographer just quoted, "is this. She was a lady of the exactest breeding, of fine intellectual endowments, filled with divine wisdom, renewed in the spirit of her mind, fired with the love of her Creator, a friend to all the world, mortified in soul and body, and to every thing that is earthly, and a little lower than the angels." He has a mysterious anecdote of her in the course of his account. "The following remarkable circumstance happened to her in her youth :—A young lady, of less severity of manners than herself, invited her once to an entertainment over a romance, and very dear did she pay for it: what evil tinctures she took from it I cannot tell; but this I can, that the remembrance of it would now and then annoy her spirit down into declining life." Miss Hays concludes the memoir in the "Female Biography" with informing us that "she was fond of her pen, and frequently employed herself in writing; but, previous to her death, destroyed the greater part of her papers.

Her fortune, beauty, and amiable qualities, procured her many solicitations to change her state; but she preferred, in a single and independent life, to be mistress of her actions, and the disposition of her income."

It seems pretty clear from all these accounts that this noblehearted woman, notwithstanding her beauty and sweet temper, was as imperfect a specimen of the comfortable in body as her kinsman was in mind. We are far from meaning to prefer his state of existence. We confess, indeed, that there are many we have read of, whom we would prefer being, to the most saintly of solitary spirits; but the mere reflection of the good which Lady Elizabeth did to others would not allow us a moment's hesitation, if compelled to choose between inhabiting her infirm tenement and the jolly vacuity of Honourable William. At the same time, it is quite evident to us that the fair saint neglected the earthly part of herself in a way neither as happy-making nor as pious as she took it for. Perhaps the example of her kinsman tended to assist this false idea of what is pleasing to heaven, and to make her a little too peremptory against herself; but what had not her lovers a right to say? For our parts, had we lived then, and been at all fitted to aspire to a return of her regard, we should have thought it a very unfair and intolerable thing of her to go on doing the most exquisite and seducing actions in the world, and tell us that she wished to be mistress of her own time and generosities. So she might, and yet been generous to us too, as well as to the charity-boys. But, setting all this aside (and the real secret of it is to be found perhaps in matters into which we cannot inquire), a proper attention to that beauteous form which her spirit inhabited might have done great good to herself. She not only lived nearly half a century less than her kinsman, and thus shortened a useful life; but the less healthy state of her blood rendered even a soul like hers liable to incursions of melancholy to the last moment of her existence. If it may be said that this stimulated her the more to extract happiness out of the happiness of others, we do not

deny that it may have done so; nor do we pretend to say that this might not have been her best state of existence, for herself and all of us, if we could inquire into matters hidden from our sight. But, upon that principle, so might her relation's. It is impossible to argue to any purpose upon these assumptions, which are only good for patience, not for action. William

Hastings was all bodily comfort; Elizabeth Hastings was all mental grace. How far the liability of the former to gusts of passion, as well as his other circumstances of being, settled the balance with her necessity for being patient, it is impossible to say; but it is very easy to say that nobody would like to undergo operations for a cancer, or to die at fifty-seven, when they could live healthily to a hundred.

What, then, is our conclusion? This:-that the proper point of humanity lies between these two natures, though not at equal distances, the greatest possible sum of happiness for mankind demanding that great part of our pleasure should be founded in that of others. Those, however, who hold rigid theories of morality, and yet practise them not (which is much oftener the case with such theories than the reverse), must take care how they flatter themselves they at all resemble Lady Elizabeth Hastings. Their extreme difference with her kinsman is a mere cant, to which all the privileged selfishness and sensuality in the world give the lie, all the pomps and vanities, all the hatreds, all the malignities, all the eatings and drinkings, such as William Hastings himself would have been ashamed of. In fact, their real instincts are generally as selfish as his, though in other shapes, and much less agreeable for everybody. When cant lives as long a life as his, or as good a one as hers, it will be worth attending to. Till then, the best thing to advise is, neither to be canting, nor merely animal, nor over-spiritual; but to endeavour to enjoy, with the greatest possible distribution of happiness, all the faculties we receive from nature.