in the category of those described by the dramatic writers of the seventeenth century, under the title of "the blades,” who think it gentlemanly to be profligate, to roar, and break win, dows, to resemble that Count Lodovico, to whom Antonelli says, "All the damnable degrees of drinking have you staggered through." Then, in the lower classes, thus turned aside from their natural bent, "any thing is a truth, when it is their interest to have it so." Without being eagles, in an intellectual sense, they will be where the carcase is, and that shall be their faith, which is best able to pay them for it. “ Periit judicium ubi res transiit in affectum.' So it is witnessed here. And now, let us both look grave,—and now, dear little schoolmate, let the tear-drop steal into the corner of your eye. That sparkle is always ready there, you know, at your command. The diamonds twinkle in your eyes when the least little tiny thing goes wrong. Here is real cause for them. Never, never, could there be more occasion for them than now; for when things come to this pass, then, even in this place of lover's meeting, can be found the hapless victims of an entire system, all desiring to act better, all pleading ignorance, as when one poor coster-girl said to Mayhew, "I don't think I could forgive an enemy, if she injured me very much. I'm sure I don't know why I couldn't, unless it is that I'm poor, and never learnt to do it." Then all public worship, all form of religion, all faith, all hope in a future life, are abandoned, absolutely ignored; sleep, eternal sleep, that is the best and last prospect, even in a valentine. A mechanic's wife said to Mr. Mayhew, "We don't go to church or chapel, on a Sunday, we're so tired out after the week's work. But John reads a tract that a young lady leaves, till he falls asleep over it." Some might tell another reason, perhaps, for his doing so, but that might be less to our purpose. A scavenger said to him, "I never goes to any church or chapel. Sometimes I hasn't clothes as is fit, and I 'spose I couldn't be admitted into sich fine places in my working dress. I was once in a church, but felt queer, as one does in them strange places, and never went again." Some might be no less able to explain this result, but the consideration of it belongs rather to others, and so we may let it pass. The same author says elsewhere, speaking of another class, and we cannot help his saying so, though it seems to invite us on the very ground we protested against entering on,-"I ascertained that only those belonging to the old common faith were attendants on public worship." "O yes," said a coster, one of the victims of whom we speak, "I've heard of God; He made heaven and earth; I never heard of his making the sea; that's another thing, and you can best learn about that at Billingsgate. Yes, I've heard of our Redeemer. Well, I only wish I could redeem my Sunday togs from my uncle's." Beyond the love of self," concludes this author, "the coster-boys have no tie that binds them to existence." There is again another suggestive testimony, which for the same reason we must refer to the hearing of others. Thus, in short, is the circle completed. The original departure from the common thoughts, sentiments, and usages of mankind, leading from the ambitious heights of intellectual fame to these lowest depths, where, if any contest with truth be attempted, one might perhaps, without exaggeration, represent it, when stript of accidental distinctions, and reduced to its strict elements, as the combat of good sense with a contrary sense,—of a sound mind with extravagance,—of hope with despair of all things. It seems to me that we have proved our case, and made out clearly that uncommon ways of thinking in relation to truth of this order are not to be depended on. I hope you do not think that the subject was quite out of place here? Of course not. It is the girl herself who so replies. CHAPTER XXII. WELL, I suppose we have done it this time, and scared away the stranger, if no one else is frightened. However, we are at last near the end of our extracts, and so may take courage; for I believe we are both equally impatient to leave even the bower; for, as the learned Varro you must know says, "pulcherrimus locus semper assidenti odibilis est; gaudet natura varietate," which in plain English is to say that even the Lover's Seat becomes hard and tiresome when we have sat too long on We it, without the change and variety which nature requires. may soon now be thinking about going home to the dingy sparrows, whose smoky feathers, as Dickens would say, will seem, in such company as yours, like the plumage of the tropics. We shall soon be recurring to unconscious bliss, without striving to understand it, to the delightful, unsubstantial, happy, foolish impressions, which we felt on first coming here, as we played hide and seek on the broom-clad hill, and you kept pressing me to take your blackberries, saying so archly it would do me good. Our whispers and listening must soon come to an end, and we shall be leaving here only "the dry-tongued laurels' pattering talk," till other lovers come to waken fresh echoes. Our subject has long been grave enough in all conscience for any circumstances; and too severe, perhaps, notwithstanding the late assurance to the contrary, for the sweet place we have been occupying. It is time that Lovers at least should cry truce to such reflections. There remains, however, a theme more congenial with their disposition, from which we cannot turn away without leaving our task incomplete; and, after briefly considering it, the little audience may rise and give us liberty to depart-with them shall I say? Ah, yes! by all means, with them; for to the last I would cling to such company. For to depart alone, and take in imagination a last farewell of such associations, would leave us only the experience of the sorrowing poet when he broke forth in these words,— "Alas! dear Clio, every day Some sweet idea dies away; Echoes of songs and dreams of joys We have seen, without pretending to any judgment or sagacity of our own, more than belongs to all the world,—that the common thoughts of humanity are excellent in relation to truth-excellent in regard to the objects of learning-excellent in philosophy and in religion. But it cannot have escaped our notice, how all persons in relation to these subjects have need of breathing the atmosphere of this bower-of a generous and expansive sympathy with all that is human-of great mutual forbearance and charity,-or, in other words, of that intellectual grace which is called tolerance, without which learning degenerates into pedantic pride, philosophic training into cabals, and religion into injustice and ferocity. It remains, therefore, to show that tolerance is the dictate of a common thought, and that this thought is like all other natural and ordinary sentiments, deserving of our love and of our admiration. God, we know from what has been told to us all at school, is the author and archetype of humanity: the excellence of our nature consists in conformity with Him, who, in the natural order, makes his sun to shine on all,-and who in his revealed will has left these adorable words, " And whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him *." Humanity, still retaining so many traces of the divine image, has not wholly lost this feature, in which it resembles its archetype. The thought of tolerance, with all the good-humour, equity, and moderation that the word implies, is inherent in it,-is constantly, though perhaps unconsciously, familiar to it, -is daily invoked by it,-and is only expelled from it by the suggestions of intellectual or political ambition, seeking selfaggrandizement, in some relation or other, by what is extraordinary and transcendental. To have religious enmities, and all out of the way quarrels rising out of them in horror,-to treat all men as our brothers,-to love one another, to fold the arms of benevolence round all," this," said Hough, the friend of Dyer, "is Christianity, if I know it;" and this, which seems as old and easy as any baby's song, that the little children can sing when they first begin to prattle, would be in accordance with the common thoughts of men if they were not induced to relinquish it by some influence that exists out of the common path of human life as marked out by nature and revelation. The common life of humanity, which is that of labour, has not in fact time for religious quarrels, and that fact alone might suffice to show what was intended in that respect by revelation * Matt. xii. as well as by nature. But this is not all. Even those who are exposed by leisure and ambition to adopt extraordinary thoughts in regard to this subject, will often betray the presence of tolerance in their nature. It is the remark of a great author, that some men are at times better than their politics or than their theology. Their daily life, he says, gives it the lie. Every ingenuous and aspiring soul leaves something behind him in his own experience; and all men feel sometimes the falsehood which they cannot demonstrate. For men are wiser than they know. That which they hear in schools and public assemblies without after-thought, if said in conversation, would probably be questioned in silence. If a man dogmatize in a mixed company on mystical themes, or such as are above human competency, he is answered by a silence which conveys well enough to an observer the dissatisfaction of the hearer, but his incapacity to make his own statement. However, it is from the Lover's point of view that all this will be best understood; for elsewhere men who seek intellectual distinction will not be inclined to follow common thoughts on this subject. You need not look so wise and solemn, stranger, as if you condemned us already for saying so. History reveals what your grave, deliberative, and reasoning men, with the best intentions, are capable of doing in the way of intolerance. They must pardon us of the bower, if we like to listen to what impulsive, comparatively ignorant, and, in their estimation, very frivolous people, will say and propose respecting such a theme as this; they must pardon me for observing, that at the Lover's Seat, where is an interchange of those affectionate looks of congratulation which, whatever some may think, enlarge the mind, the passionate declamation of intolerant zealots, and even the learned and elaborate pleading with which others defend their views, would only excite astonishment. In truth, here we find better birds: here at least are cheerful, lively, human hearts, that will lead us right, even when reason, on the wing of owls and ravens, might be prepared elsewhere to lead us wrong; here are minds that will deem it virtue to make the sum of mischief less, and to be joyful "If they can warm and angry men persuade |