shed the blood of his fellow-men. Why will man continue to pursue the phantom which mocks his grasp? Why will he seek happiness where long and sad experience teaches him it is not to be found? Why will he not turn to the pure enjoyments of his being, to his peculiar enjoyments as a rational creature, to the investigation of the material and immaterial world, by the light of true knowledge; to his own true position in the universe? Why will he continue to suffer imagination to lead judgment astray, in opposition to internal selfconviction? Every real blessing of which his nature is susceptible, is within his reach, his easy reach; and he, ungrateful, spurns them, to clear his path to the attainment of what he can keep no longer than the philosopher could cage the sunbeams. He enters into combinations foreign to the elements of his existence, and then stares in stupid wonder, because they produce not the expected pleasurable compound, which their essential properties deny. Often driven to despair by those worst of evils, the evils of the imagination, tormented with the fear of encountering the censure of the weakest or worst of his species, he terminates his existenee by self-murder, as being a burthen too heavy to be borne. Did you ever hear of an insolvent savage, cutting

his throat from fear of a creditor's jail? I trow

not.

"Nature seemingly says to her children, 'Come to my arms, my offspring, there is room for you all in my bosom; you are all equally dear to me: I gave you birth for suitable enjoyment, why will you not be virtuous and happy, as you may, by conforming to my simple and easy precepts? Why will you so wantonly disobey the commands issued to every one of you by my secret dictation? Why will you madly become vicious and unhappy, by wandering from my paths so flowery, so charming? How often must the monitor I have given to each of you, exert her warning voice in hoarse appeal, which should only breathe in softest whisper? How long will you be deceived by that monstrous progeny I scorn to call mine, who, forsaking my laws, delight in leading others into their own labyrinths of wickedness and craft, unknown to me, and those who still wisely love my purity, my benevolence, my forgiveness?'

"Here we may remark, what an accession has been made to the virulence of some diseases, which seem interwoven with the thread of animal life, and how large an addition has been made to the Natural Catalogue, by the introduction of Luxury and

the excessive use of flesh as a nutriment. How few are the accidents and diseases peculiar to animal existence in general, or to any one species in particular, when continuing in the sphere assigned to them by Nature! To what natural ailments are the horse and the dog liable? perhaps to none, unless those may be called such to which she herself applies a corrective. It is when they enter on a state of foreign excitement in the service of man, that disease extends its influence, and becomes so fatal and so it is with man himself; Idleness and Luxury enervate the faculties of his body and mind, and blunt that acumen of intellect which should constitute his glory. Certainly, his teeth and stomach are well able to masticate and digest flesh, he may well be defined as both carnivorous and frugivorous; but I am satisfied, that if he performed no more than needful natural labour, his powers, bodily and mental, might be kept in full vigour by a diet of milk and vegetables, and the palate sufficiently pleased by their compounds.

"Spirituous liquors are in the highest degree detrimental, unless taken in the greatest moderation; their use might be well restricted to perform the office of medicines. This last position will, of course, only apply to man,

'as man;' when he parts with what is curiously termed superfluity of labour,' and becomes a passive machine, played on at the caprice of his species, his insensible perspiration is so much increased, his whole absorbent system so unduly excited, that doubtless few constitutions could endure such unnatural functional discharge, for any length of time, without clogging or failing entirely: he is therefore obliged to have recourse to flesh, and fermented liquors, as extra stimulants.

"I shall never forget the impression made on me one day, at seeing two labourers sit down, or rather recline against a bank, at one o'clock P. M. to a meal of bread and cheese, and a jug of water from an adjacent spring. They had been mending fences round the ample enclosures of a rich proprietor, who had added field to field, who had heaped up wealth, and could not tell who should gather it his mansion, surrounded with outoffices and court-yards, crowned the height which frowned over the valley where these men were taking their scanty repast; who, after many hours of incessant, preter natural toil, were going to slake their burning thirst, occasioned by its concomitant, profuse perspiration, in the pure element, refreshing to natural excitement, but to them in the highest

degree pernicious. On my remarking the hardness of the fare, and giving a trifle to purchase malt-liquor, one of them, whose head seemed prematurely silvered from care and suffering, said, in a voice tremulous from faintness, 'Ah! Sir, how easy it is for those who do not work as we do, to bid us be humble and meek, and not to hanker after the good things of this world: our parson only works once a week, and not over hard then; and last Sunday he told us to be sober and temperate in all things, to be sure not to be entrapped by gluttony and drunkenness; and when he said so, I saw Master nod in his pew, as much as to say, 'very true, mind that:' and then, they went to dinner together, on the fat of the land. But I'm thinking, if our squire and the parson instead of doing nothing all day, and getting a skinful of beef and wine at night, were to work with us for only one week, they would tell another story: it is easy for people with a full belly, to wonder how other folks can be hungry.'

"As to what we call accidents, bruises, cuts, dislocations, fractures, to how few would man be liable, if he did not act ridiculously, contrary to Nature! Still I am always proud to pay my humble tribute of acknowledgment to those whose lives are passed in the study of