THE DEATH OF HARLEY.

Harley was one of those few friends whom the malevolence of fortune had yet left me; I could not, therefore, but be sensibly concerned for his present indisposition; there seldom passed a day on which I did not make inquiry for him.

The physician who attended him had informed me the evening before that he thought him considerably better than he had been for some time past. I called next morning to be confirmed in a piece of intelligence so welcome to me.

When I entered his apartment, I found him sitting on a couch, leaning on his hand, with his eye turned upward in the attitude of thoughtful inspiration. His look had always an open benignity, which commanded esteem; there was now something more-a gentle triumph in it.

He rose, and met me with his usual kindness. When I gave him the good accounts I had had from his physician, 'I am foolish enough,' said he, 'to rely but little in this instance to physic. My presentiment may be false; but I think I feel myself approaching to my end by steps so easy that they woo me to approach it. There is a certain dignity in retiring from life at a time when the infirmities of age have not sapped our faculties. This world, my dear Charles, was a scene in which I never much delighted. I was not formed for the bustle of the busy, nor the dissipation of the gay; a thousand things occurred where I blushed for the impropriety of my conduct when I thought on the world, though my reason told me I should have blushed to have done otherwise. It was a scene of dissimulation, of restraint, of disappointment. I leave it to enter on that state which I have learned to believe is replete with the genuine happiness attendant upon virtue. I look back on the tenor of my life with the consciousness of few great offences to account for. There are blemishes, I confess, which deform, in some degree, the picture; but I know the benignity of the Supreme Being, and rejoice at the thoughts of its exertion in my favour. My mind expands at the thought I shall enter into the society of the blessed, wise as angels, with the simplicity of children.'

He had by this time clasped my hand, and found it wet by a tear which had just fallen upon it. His eye began to moisten too-we sat for some time silent. At last, with an attempt at a look of more composure, 'There are some remembrances,' said Harley, which rise involuntarily on my heart, and make me almost wish to live. I have been blessed with a few friends who redeem my opinion of mankind. I recollect with the tenderest emotion the scenes of pleasure I have passed among them; but we shall meet again, my friend, never to be separated. There are some feelings which perhaps are too tender to be suffered by the world. The world is in general selfish, interested, and unthinking, and throws the imputation of romance or melancholy on every temper more susceptible than its own. I can not think but in those regions which I contemplate, if there is any thing of mortality left about us, that these feelings will subsist; they are called-perhaps they are--weaknesses here; but there may be some better modifications of them in heaven, which may deserve the name of virtues.' He sighed as he spoke these last words. He had scarcely finished them when the door opened and his aunt appeared leading in Miss Walton. My dear,' says she, 'here is Miss Walton, who has been so kind as to come and inquire for you herself.' I could observe a transient glow upon his face. He rose from his seat. If to know Miss Walton's goodness,' said he, be a little to deserve it, I have some claim.' She begged him to resume his seat, and placed herself on the sofa beside him. I took my leave. Mrs. Magery accompanied me to the door. He was left with Miss Walton alone. She inquired anxiously about his health. 'I believe,' said he, 'from the accounts which my physicians unwillingly give me, that they have no great hopes of my recovery.' She started as he spoke ; but recollecting herself immediately, endeavoured to flatter him into a belief that his apprehensions were groundless. I know,' said he, that it is usual with persons at my

time of life to have these hopes which your kindness suggests, but I would not wish to be deceived. To meet death as becomes a man is a privilege bestowed on few. I would endeavour to make it mine; nor do I think that I can ever be better prepared for it than now; it is that chiefly which determines the fitness of its approach.' 'Those sentiments,' answered Miss Walton, are just; but your good sense, Mr. Harley, will own that life has its proper value. As the province of virtue, life is ennobled; as such, it is to be desired. To virtue has the Supreme Director of all things assigned rewards enough even here to fix its attachment.'

The subject began to overpower her. Harley lifted his eyes from the ground. 'There are,' said he, in a very low voice, 'there are attachments, Miss Walton.' His glance met hers. They both betrayed a confusion, and were both instantly withdrawn. He paused some moments: 'I am in such a state as calls for sincerity, let that also excuse it-it is perhaps the last time we shall ever meet. I feel something particularly solemn in the acknowledgment, yet my heart swells to make it, awed as it is by a sense of my presumption, by a sense of your perfections.' He paused again. 'Let it not offend you to know their power over one so unworthy. It will, I believe, soon cease to beat, even with that feeling which it shall lose the latest. To love Miss Walton could not be a crime; if to declare it is one, the expiation will be made.' Her tears were now flowing without control. 'Let me entreat you,' said she, to have better hopes. Let not life be so indifferent to you, if my wishes can put any value on it. I will not pretend to misunderstand you-I know your worth -I have known it long-I have esteemed it. What would you have me say? I have loved it as it deserved.' He seized her hand, a languid colour reddened his cheek, a smile brightened faintly in his eye. As he gazed on her it grew dim, it fixed, it closed. He sighed, and fell back on his seat. Miss Walton screamed at the sight. His aunt and the servants rushed into the room. They found them lying motionless together. His physician happened to call at that instant. Every art was tried to recover them. With Miss Walton they succeeded, but Harley was gone forever!

I entered the room where his body lay; I approached it with reverence, not fear. I looked; the recollection of the past crowded upon me. I saw that form which, but a little before, was animated with a soul which did honour to humanity, stretched without sense or feeling before me. 'Tis a connection we can not easily forget. I took his hand in mine. I repeated his name involuntarily; I felt a pulse in every vein at the sound. I looked earnestly in his face; his eye was closed, his lip pale and motionless. There is an enthusiasm in sorrow that forgets impossibility; I wondered that it was so. The sight drew a prayer from my heart; it was the voice of frailty and of man! The confusion of my mind began to subside into thoughts;

I had time to weep.

I turned with a last farewell on my lips, when I observed old Edwards standing behind me. I looked him full in the face, but his eye was fixed on another object. He pressed between me and the bed, and stood gazing on the breathless remains of his benefactor. I spoke to him I know not what; but he took no notice of what I said, and remained in the same attitude as before. He stood some minutes in that posture, then turned and walked towards the door. He paused as he went; he returned a second time; I could observe his lips move as he looked; but the voice they would have uttered was lost. He attempted going again; and a third time he returned as before. I saw him wipe his cheek; then, covering his face with his hands, his breast heaving with the most convulsive throbs, he flung out of the room. He had hinted that he should like to be buried in a certain spot near the grave of his mother. This is a weakness, but it is universally incident to humanity; it is at least a memorial for those who survive. For some, indeed, a slender memorial will serve; and the soft affections, when they are busy that way, will build their structures were it but on the paring of a nail.

He was buried in the place he had desired. It was shaded by an old tree, the only

one in the churchyard, in which was a cavity worn by time. I have sat with him in it, and counted the tombs. The last time we passed there, methought he looked wistfully on the tree; there was a branch of it that bent towards us, waving in the wind; he waved his hand, as if he mimicked its motion. There was something predictive in his look! perhaps it is foolish to remark it, but there are times and places when I am a child at those things.

I sometimes visit his grave; I sit in the hollow of the tree. It is worth a thousand homilies; every noble feeling rises within me! Every beat of my heart awakens a virtue; but it will make you hate the world. No; there is such an air of gentleness around, that I can hate nothing; but as to the world, I pity the men of it.

Mackenzie's contributions to the 'Mirror,' and the 'Lounger,' were very numerous; and some of his papers in these periodicals are equal to the finest parts of his more extended novels. The tale of La Roche is of this class.

CLARA REEVE was the daughter of a clergyman of Ipswich, and was born in 1725. An early admiration of Walpole's romance, 'The Castle of Otranto,' induced Miss Reeve to attempt to imitate it, in a Gothic story, entitled The Old English Baron, and published in 1777. In some respects the lady has the advantage of Walpole; her supernatural machinery is better managed, to produce mysteriousness and effect; but her style has not the point or elegance of that of her prototype. Miss Reeve wrote several other novels, 'all marked,' says Sir Walter Scott, 'by excellent good sense, pure morality, and a competent command of those qualities which constitute a good romance.' They are now, however, so nearly forgotten, that the writer's fame now rests on her 'Old English Baron,' which is usually printed along with the story of Walpole. Miss Reeve died in 1803, at the advanced age of seventy-eight.

With Jenyns, Birch, Hartley, Tucker, Campbell, Guthrie, and Sale, though all writers of a very different character from those novelists who have hitherto occupied our attention in this lecture, we shall close our present remarks.

SOAME JENYNS was born in London, in 1704. He was privately educated preparatory to the university, and then entered St. John's College, Cambridge, where he devoted himself closely to his studies, but took no degree. He was early distinguished as a gay and witty writer, both in poetry and prose; but afterwards applying himself to serious subjects he produced, in 1757, A Free Inquiry into the Nature of Evil; in 1776, A View of the Internal Evidences of the Christian Religion; and in 1782, Disquisitions on Various Subjects. These works all contain much ingenious speculation, but they have now lost most of their early popularity.

As a writer, Jenyns is distinguished for the purity of his language, the elegance of his style and diction, the critical accuracy of his knowledge, and his delicate and lively humor. It is remarkable that from a serious be

liever in the Christian Revelation, he became a deist; and again, after wandering in the labyrinth of skepticism for some years, he became a devout convert to Christianity, and on his death-bed gloried in the reflection that his 'View of the Internal Evidences of the Christian Religion,' had proved useful. He died on the eighteenth of December, 1787.

THOMAS BIRCH was born in the parish of St. John, Clerkenwell, on the twenty-third of November, 1705. His father was a quaker, coffee-mill maker, but the son's fondness for learning early became so great, that, rather than follow the calling of his father, he left his home, became assistant in Hernel Hampstead school, and there received his education. He had hitherto adhered to the tenets of the quakers, but he now abandoned them, and was soon after ordained, by the bishop of Salisbury. He rose very rapidly in the church, and being honored with the degree of doctor of divinity, by the Marischal College of Aberdeen, he became a very considerable personage. He died by a fall from his horse, between London and Hampstead, on the ninth of January, 1766.

Dr. Birch wrote the Historical Memoirs and Lives of Queen Elizabeth, Raleigh, Boyle, Tillotson, and Henry, Prince of Wales, besides a History of the Royal Society, of which he was one of the secretaries. He was a diligent explorer of records and public papers: he threw light on history, but was destitute of taste, and the skill of historical arrangement.

DAVID HARTLEY, an eminent physician, was born in 1705. Having learned from Locke the principles of logic and metaphysics, and from a hint from Newton, the doctrine that there were vibrations in the substance of the brain that might throw light on the phenomena of the mind, he formed a system which he developed in an elaborate work, published in 1749, under the title of Observations on Man, his Frame, his Duty, and his Expectations. This is a remarkably ingenious production, but its tendency, though not thus designed by the author, is to materialism. Dr. Hartley died in 1757, at the age of fifty-two.

ABRAHAM TUCKER was born at Betchworth castle, Surrey, in 1705. He was educated as a gentleman, possessed an ample fortune, and, instead of pursuing the pleasures of the chase, passed his life in the pursuits of literature. After the laborious study of years, he published, under the fictitious name of Edward Search, an elaborate metaphysical work under the title of The Light of Nature Pursued, which Dr. Paley said contained more original thinking and observation than any other work of the kind in the language. The death of this truly great man occurred in 1774.

Tucker has, himself, truly and beautifully characterized his own favorite metaphysical studies in the following short sentence:The science of abstruse learning, when completely attained, is like Achilles' spear, that healed the wounds it had made before. It cast no additional light upon the paths VOL. II.-2 L

of life, but disperses the clouds with which it had overspread them; it advances not the traveller one step on his journey, but conducts him back again to the spot from whence he had wandered.'

JOHN CAMPBELL was a Scot by birth, and was born in Edinburgh, on the eighth of March, 1708. When five years of age he left Scotland, which he never again saw, for the neighborhood of Windsor; and as soon as his age would permit, he was placed as clerk to an attorney, with the view of following the legal profession. He, however, abandoned the law for the more congenial pursuits of literature, and thenceforth lived in the enjoyment of his literary occupations in so secluded a manner that few had the happiness of his acquaintance; but those who visited him found him amiable in his manners, instructive in his conversation, and in his general deportment mild, humane, and religious. He died in London, on the twenty-eighth of December, 1775.

Dr. Campbell's principal literary productions are the Military History of the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, Lives of the Admirals, a considerable part of the Biographia Britannica, a History of Europe, and a Political Survey of Britain. He was a candid and intelligent man, well acquainted with the subjects of which he treated, and though not an elegant, a truthful writer.

WILLIAM GUTHRIE was born at Brechin, in Scotland, in 1708. He was educated at King's College, Aberdeen, and afterwards settled in London as an author, was pensioned by the government, and died in 1770.

Guthrie was an indefatigable writer, and produced a History of England, in three folio volumes; a History of Scotland, in ten volumes; and a Universal History, in thirteen volumes. He also translated Quintillian, and Cicero's Offices and Epistles.

GEORGE SALE, who died at an early age, in 1736, belongs also to this period, and has given us the best translation of the Koran ever produced in the English language. His memory is also to be cherished on another account-he was one of the founders of a society for the encouragement of learning.