Shall we build to Affection and Love? Or fled with the spirit above. Friends, brothers, and sisters are laid side by side, Unto sorrow ?-the Dead cannot grieve; Which Compassion itself could relieve. Unto Death, to whom monarchs must bow? And here there are trophies enow! Beneath the cold dead, and around the dark stone, The first tabernacle to Hope we will build, The second to Faith, which insures it fulfilled; And the third to the Lamb of the great sacrifice, Who bequeathed us them both when He rose to the skies. THOMAS BROWN, 1778-1820. THOMAS BROWN, the distinguished metaphysician, was born at Kirkmabreck,' in Scotland, and was the youngest son of the Rev. Samuel Brown, minister of the parish. His father having died when he was an infant, he was placed by his maternal uncle, from his seventh till his fourteenth year, at different schools near London, in all of which he made great progress in classical literature. Upon the death of his uncle in 1792, he returned to his mother's house in Edinburgh, and entered as a student in the university. His attention was at once directed to metaphysical studies by Dugald Stewart's "Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind" being put into his hands, and the next winter he attended Mr. Stewart's class. Here he immediately distinguished himself by his acute and profound observations upon this subject, and a friendship commenced between the illustrious teacher and his no less illustrious pupil which continued through life. In 1798, he published "Observations on the Zoonomia of Dr. Darwin," which was considered a remarkable production for one so young. In 1803, having attended the usual medical course, he took his degree of Doctor of Medicine. In the same year he brought out the first edition of his poems, In the county of Kirkcudbright, in the south-west part of Scotland, about eighty miles south-west of Edinburgh, near Solway Frith. in two volumes, which exhibit marks of an original mind, and a refined taste. His next publication was an examination of the principles of Mr. Hume respecting causation, which Sir James Mackintosh pronounced the finest model in mental philosophy since Berkeley and Hume. A second edition was published in 1806, and a third in 1818, so enlarged as to be almost a new work, under the title of “ An Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect." Up to the year 1808, Dr. Brown continued a practising physician in Edinburgh, though it was not the calling suited to his taste and studies. This year a circumstance occurred that placed him in a situation that entirely harmonized with his inclinations. The health of Professor Stewart had been declining for some time, and he applied to Dr. Brown to supply his place for a short time, with lectures of his own composition. He did so, and gave universal satisfaction; and in 1810 he was, agreeably to Mr. Stewart's wishes, appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy, in conjunction with him. He entered upon his duties with great ardor and untiring industry, and prepared for his students that series of lectures on which his fame rests. In the summer of 1814, he published anonymously his poem entitled "The Paradise of Coquettes," which met with a very favorable reception; and in the next year two others, "The Wanderer of Norway," and "The Bower of Spring." In the autumn of 1819, he commenced his text-book for the benefit of his students. He was then in good health, but in December he became indisposed, and during the summer recess his health seemed evidently to be failing. "When he again met his class in the fall, his lecture unfortunately happened to be one which he was never able to deliver without being much moved, and from the manner in which he recited the very affecting lines from Beattie's 'Hermit,' it was conceived by many that the emotion he displayed arose from a foreboding of his own approaching dissolution."'1 "Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more; I mourn, but ye woodlands I mourn not for you; For morn is approaching your charms to restore, Perfum'd with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew: Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn; Kind nature the embryo blossom shall save; But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn? O, when will it dawn on the night of the grave! This was the last lecture he ever delivered. Day after day he became weaker, and he died on the 2d of April, 1820. The most prominent features of Dr. Brown's character were great gentleness, kindness, and delicacy of mind, united with great independence of spirit, a strong love of liberty, and a most ardent desire for the diffusion of knowledge, and virtue, and happiness among mankind. The predominating quality of his intellectual character was, unquestionably, his power of analysis, in which he had few equals. In his prose he has shown great powers of "Encyclopædia Britannica," vol. v. eloquence. His poetry has never been popular, though it contains very many choice passages. His character as a philosopher will chiefly rest upon his "Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind," which were published in two volumes, after his death. A more instructive and interesting book can hardly be found in the compass of English literature. It is full of passages of exquisite beauty and lofty eloquence. THE POWER OF HABIT. That the frequent repetition of any action increases the tendency to it, all of you must have experienced in yourselves, in innumerable cases, of little importance, perhaps, but sufficiently indicative of the influence; and there are few of you, probably, who have not had an opportunity of remarking in others the fatal power of habits of a very different kind. In the corruption of a great city, it is scarcely possible to look around, without perceiving some warning example of that blasting and deadening influence, before which, everything that was generous and benevolent in the heart has withered, while everything which was noxious has flourished with more rapid maturity; like those plants, which can extend their roots, indeed, even in a pure soil, and fling out a few leaves amid balmy airs and odors, but which burst out in all their luxuriance only from a soil that is fed with constant putrescency, and in an atmosphere which it is poison to inhale. It is not vicenot cold and insensible and contented vice, that has never known any better feelings-which we view with melancholy regret. It is virtue at least what once was virtue-that has yielded progressively and silently to an influence scarcely perceived, till it has become the very thing which it abhorred. Nothing can be more just than the picture of this sad progress, described in the wellknown lines of Pope: "Vice is a monster of such frightful mien, In the slow progress of some insidious disease, which is scarcely regarded by its cheerful and unconscious victim, it is mournful to mark the smile of gaiety as it plays over that very bloom, which is not the freshness of health, but the flushing of approaching mortality, amid studies perhaps just opening into intellectual excellence, and hopes, and plans of generous ambition, that are never to be fulfilled. But how much more painful is it to behold that equally insidious, and far more desolating progress, with which guilty passion steals upon the heart-when there is still sufficient virtue to feel remorse, and to sigh at the remembrance of purer years, but not sufficient to throw off the guilt, which is felt to be oppressive, and to return to that purity in which it would again, in its bitter moments, gladly take shelter, if only it had energy to vanquish the almost irresistible habits that would tear it back! "Crimes lead to crimes, and link so straight, What first was accident, at last is fate; The unhappy servant sinks into a slave, And virtue's last sad strugglings cannot save."-MALLET. We must not conceive, however, that habit is powerful only in strengthening what is EVIL; though it is this sort of operation which, of course, forces itself more upon our observation and memory-like the noontide darkness of the tempest, that is remembered, when the calm, and the sunshine, and the gentle shower are forgotten. There can be no question that the same principle, which confirms and aggravates what is evil, strengthens and cherishes also what is good. The virtuous, indeed, do not require the influence of habitual benevolence or devotion to force them, as it were, to new acts of kindness to man, or to new sentiments of gratitude to God. But the temptations, to which even virtue might sometimes be in danger of yielding in the commencement of its delightful progress, become powerless and free from peril when that progress is more advanced. There are spirits which, even on earth, are elevated above that little scene of mortal ambition with which their benevolent wishes, for the sufferers there, are the single tie that connects them still. All with them is serenity; the darkness and the storm are beneath them. They have only to look down, with generous sympathy, on those who have not yet risen so high; and to look up, with gratitude, to that heaven which is above their head, and which is almost opening to receive them. Lecture xliii. BENEVOLENCE. That benevolence, the moral link which connects man with man, is in itself virtuous, may indeed appear, to some very rigid questioners of every feeling, to require proof; but it can appear to require it only to those who deny altogether the very moral distinction of virtue and vice, in that general scepticism which has been already fully considered by us. Of those who allow virtue to be more than a name, there is no one who will refuse to benevolent exertions the praise of this excellence-no one who can read the history of any of those heroes of the moral scene, whose life has been one continued deed of generosity to mankind, without feeling that, if there be virtue on earth, there has been virtue in that bosom which has suffered much, or dared much, that the world might be free from any of the ills which disgraced it. The strong lines, with which the author of the "Botanic Garden" concludes his praise of one of the most illustrious of these heroes of benevolence, scarcely express more than we truly feel on the contemplation of such a character. It does seem as if man, when he acts as man should act, is a being of some higher order than the frail, erring creatures among whom we ourselves pass a life, that, with all its occasional acts of generosity and self-command, is still, like theirs, a life of frailty and error: CHARACTER OF HOWARD. And now, Philanthropy! thy rays divine Power's rigid heart, and opes his clenching hands; Or guides awaken'd Mercy through the gloom, To her fond husband liberty and life. |