A PARSON'S LIFE.

The life of a parson, of a conscientious clergyman, is not easy. I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain. I would rather have Chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls. No, sir, I do not envy a clergyman's life as an easy life, nor do I envy the clergyman who makes it an easy life.

MANDEVILLE'S PRIVATE VICES PUBLIC BENEFITS. The fallacy of that book is, that Mandeville defines neither vices nor benefits. He reckons among vices everything that gives pleasure. He takes the narrowest system of morality, monastic morality, which holds pleasure itself to be a vice, such as eating salt with our fish, because it makes it eat better; and he reckons wealth as a public benefit, which is by no means always true. Pleasure of itself is not a vice. Having a garden, which we all know to be perfectly innocent, is a great pleasure. At the same time, in this state of being, there are many pleasures vices, which however are so immediately agreeable that we can hardly abstain

from them. The happiness of Heaven will be, that pleasure and virtue will be perfectly consistent. Mandeville puts the case of a man who gets drunk at an alehouse, and says it is a public benefit, because so much money is got by it to the public. But it must be considered, that all the good gained by this, through the gradation of alehouse-keeper, brewer, maltster, and farmer, is overbalanced by the evil caused to the man and his family by his getting drunk. This is the way to try what is vicious, by ascertaining whether more evil than good is produced by it upon the whole, which is the case in ali vice. It may happen that good is produced by vice, but not as vice: for instance, a robber may take money from its owner, and give it to one who will make a better use of it. Here is good produced; but not by the robbery as robbery, but as translation of property. I read Mandeville forty, or, I believe, fifty years ago. He did not puzzle me; he opened my views into real life very much. No; it is clear that the happiness of society depends on virtue. In Sparta, theft was allowed by general consent. theft, therefore, was there not a crime, but then

there was no security: and what a life they must have had when there was no security. Without truth there must be a dissolution of society. As it is, there is so little truth, that we are almost afraid to trust our ears; but how should we be, if falsehood were multiplied ten times! Society is held together by communication and information; and I remember this remark of Sir Thomas Brown's, "Do the devils lie? No: for then hell could not subsist."

GIVING A REASON.

Sir, you are giving a reason for it; but that will not make it right. You may have a reason why two and two should make five; but they will still make but four.

ADVERSE CRITICISM BETTER THAN NONE.

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing, but starving it is still worse. An assault may be unsuccessful; you may have more men killed than you kill, but if you starve the town you are sure of victory.

C

HOW TO FOSTER A LOVE OF READING.

I am always for getting a boy forward in his learning, for that is a sure good. I would let him at first read any English book which happens to engage his attention; because you have done a great deal when you have brought him to have entertainment from a book. He'll get better books afterwards.

ANALYSATION.

To be distinct, we must talk analytically. If we analyse language, we must speak of it grammatically; if we analyse argument, we must speak of it logically.

TRAVELLING.

Books of travels will be good in proportion to what a man has previously in his mind; his knowing what to observe; his power of contrasting one mode of life with another. As the Spanish proverb says, "He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him." So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

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THE DISADVANTAGE OF PERSONAL CRITICISM. Nobody has a right to put another under such a difficulty, that he must either hurt the person by telling the truth, or hurt himself by telling what is not true. The man who is asked by an author what he thinks of his work is put to the torture, and is not obliged to speak the truth, so that what he says is not considered as his opinion, yet he has said it and cannot retract it; and this author, when mankind are hunting him with a canister at his tail, can say, "I would not have published had not Johnson, or Reynolds, or Musgrave, or some other good judge commended the work." Yet I consider it as a very difficult question in conscience, whether one should advise a man not to publish a work if profit be his object; for the man may say, "Had it not been for you I should have had the money." Now you cannot be sure; for you have only your own opinion, and the public may think very differently.

THE INFLUENCE OF WINE.

Wine gives great pleasure, and every pleasure is of itself a good. It is a good, unless coun