boon to her children; they have partaken its sweets, but the means of enjoyment have fled. Delight no longer sparkles in the eye, the heart no longer palpitates at the voice of our beloved, no genial ardour fires the soul; the flame is quenched-expiring sensibilities proclaim their own decay. How slight the chain, how weak has ever been the bond which held the aërial inmate within its earthly mansion! intelligible warnings announce approaching flight; they speak of endless separation-perchance another state. Dire forebodings fill the breast; the spirit flutters. But resignation hastens to make the timid tranquil: patience pacifies the perturbation of the bold; and then do they hail the next as an auspicious moment, which shall set the incorporeal portion free. "O man, what is your life! it is even as a vapour, which appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away."

APPENDIX.

NOTES AND CORRECTIONS.

Vol. 1. p. 6. In regard to the perils of human existence, various observers have drawn different conclusions; for it is likely that the materials whereon definite opinions may be founded are not sufficiently explicit. Many important remarks are concentrated in Peuchet Statistique Elementaire de la France, p. 242, 243.

Vol. I. p. 18. It is not improbable that profound erudition, combined with acute observation and a more accurate knowledge than now subsists of human nature, may restrict the elements of the passions to very few principles. Possibly like animal instincts, properly so called, their radical agents are less numerous than is deduced from their aspect and consequences. In all things, perhaps, the greatness of the artist is proved by the simplicity of the work.

Vol. I. p. 43. If there be any authentic instances recorded of the regular accusation of animals, probably it may have been to involve their own

ers in a question of indemnification of injury; or to obtain forfeiture, in the same way as when death comes by means of a living creature in England it is confiscated to the king. This has been repeatedly exemplified; nay, the whole or part of an inanimate object has been forfeited; and lawyers have gravely debated, what portion of a mine shall be liable for a man who is crushed to death by the earth falling in; or if one tumble into a mill-pond, and is sucked under the wheel, whether the whole mill or only the wheel shall be forfeited. It has been affirmed, that one of the judges of the revolutionary tribunal in Paris, proposed in open court to put on trial the dog of an invalid named St Prix, because he bit the Jacobins, and daily went to howl on the spot where his master had been executed; and it was his opinion that he should be carried to the foot of the scaffold, and be there put to death by the public executioner. Prudhomme Dictionnaire, tom. i. Reflexions Preliminaires, p. lv.

Vol. I. p. 45. Instances of the vengeance of wo men against their injurers seem the more remarkable, because they have greater difficulty to accomplish it. About 60 years ago it is said, that the indiscretion of some malevolent person led him to slander the reputation of a lady, dwelling in a city in the north of Britain, to her husband; she felt the wound so deep, that, clothing herself in male attire, she sent for the offender to a tavern, where,

offering one of two pistols which was declined, she immediately shot him through the head, and then made her escape to Holland.

Vol. I. p. 58. Among the Karatṣchai, or Black Circassians, a similar principle subsists as with the American Indians: "When one man has killed another, the relatives of the latter, by all means, strive to avenge his blood by the death of the murderer; and thus, according to their notions, to give rest to his and their own souls." Klaproth, Travels in the Caucasus and Georgia, p. 289.

Vol. I. p. 58. The duty of vengeance is held imperative among the ruder tribes of North American Indians. "A young Chactaw having done something deserving reproof, he was therefore chid by his mother; this he took so ill as, in the fury of his shame, to resolve his own death, which he effected with a gun. His sister, as his nearest relative, thought herself bound to avenge his death; and knowing the circumstance, told her mother she had caused her brother's death, and must pay for his life. The old woman resigned herself to her fate, and died by the hands of her daughter, who shot her with a gun which she had provided for the catastrophe." Romans, Natural History of Florida, p. 88.

Vol. I. p. 59. Duel. It was computed that, from the accession of Henry IV. in 1588 to the year