stay with me-they faded away, and left me in all my dark wretchedness again. I cannot describe all my inward torture-if I could, my reader (happily for him!) would not understand it. There is a point beyond which thoughts and feelings of agony cannot be communicated and explained to others. My sufferings exhausted my health, and I sunk under a slow fever. The kindness of the woman in whose cottage I lodged seemed wonderful to me. Then I thought how I had only to say one word, and all this kindness would be suddenly turned into abhorrence. But during my illness I wept under a sense of the kindness of my attendant, and my tears relieved me.

I recovered; but I could not rest in my situation. A blind impulse drove me away; with a few hoarded shillings in my pocket, I wandered through the country, and (why I knew not), directed my steps towards the north. I could not bear my suspense. I felt as if something was dragging me on to Fordenton, and to that terrible Robert's Fold, where I always saw the dead old man stretched out upon the floor! The reader may believe it or not, according to his knowledge of human nature; but all human actions are not to be accounted for. I went on, day after day,-on, on, on, until I arrived at a village within fifty miles of Fordenton. I sought out the obscurest public-house-I cast my usual glance of suspicion about the place, then entered, and sat down in a corner to take refreshment. I had not sat half-an-hour when the door opened. I started, as usual; but Heavens! what did I feel as I recognised the face of Harry, Fanny's brother, who had lived in the Fold. He stepped up to me, with a hearty look of recognition. "Ha, ha!" said he, "a pretty midnight flitting you made of it, and rare and dull the old man has been ever since you went, for some one to abuse. He goes very lame of the rheumatism now, and I dare say if you'd come back he'd forgive you all, (though 'twas a rough parting you had,) and leave you the cash, my man!" This, I believe, was what he said; but I hardly heard it. "I am very ill," said I (and it was true), hastening out of the house. I felt as if I must faint; but the fresh air restored my consciousness. The old man alive!" thought I ; and that thought made the earth seem too happy a place for me to live in. Then, again, I thought, this must be all a dream, or the young man was an agent in a plot for my apprehension. Not until the next morning was I restored to a clear consciousness of my altered situation; and then what a morning! what a new-created world!

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New heavens and a new earth shone upon me! I will attempt no description of my feelings. A conversation with Harry assured me of my happiness. "I am a man again!" thought I, "and now let poverty, sickness, hard labour, death itself come, I fear not!" But it was months before I could drag myself to Robert's Fold, and dare to look upon the supposed dead man alive. Not until I heard of his serious illness did I venture to go. He had sunk into half-imbecility, but conscience was awake within him.

"Richard's come again! is he?" said he, as the housekeeper mentioned my name to him. "Well, well, Richard, take care of the money; don't stay out late at nights; don't idle about; go to church, Richard; take care of the money, Richard; but stop! there are some we've paid short, Richard; Sally Dunn-both her lads run away, they say; sad job! pay Sally Dunn her wages; make all straight, Richard." He chattered on in this way day after day, whenever aroused from the stupor into which he was disposed to sink. The clergyman visited him and tried to make the precepts of truth, justice, and mercy, intelligible to his benumbed faculties; but he only kept muttering about "Sally Dunn, and both her lads run away from her! "Oh," thought I, "if they had but taught this poor man better when he was young and well !" I must end my story here. The old man died. His money fell into my hands; but I have never felt that it was my own. It belongs to the poor. I have worked hard for my own livelihood ever since, and so I mean to do as long as I can handle a spade. I have built a school in Fordenton, and have endeavoured to expend ill-got treasures in relieving those circumstances of ignorance, poverty, neglect, and misery, which impel men to evil passions, to crime, and to such misery as I have felt, and which I would have no other human being feel again! And if I had the ability, as I have the will, to influence others; if I had the tongue of an orator, or could wield the pen of a ready writer, I would spend all my strength, and sum up all my arguments, in saying to the rich men, the legislators, the judges, the clergy, to all who deplore the increase of crime and misery among the people,-"Oh, good sirs, do not be satisfied with punishments; do not be satisfied with death-bed penitence; but unite all your wisdom and all your benevolence, and prevent! prevent! prevent!"

J. G.

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THE STANDARD OF PROGRESS.

A LEAF FROM THE RECORD OF A DISCOURSING SOCIETY.

All other creatures are impelled by the mere spirit of nature, and by it maintain their individuality; in man alone, as in the centre, rises the soul, without which the world would be as nature without the sun.-SCHELLING.

Anselm. This, I think, we may assume as an incontrovertible fact, that we are all agreed as to the existence of a progressive power in humanity,-that we all believe we should contribute, to the best of our ability, towards the development of this power. Nevertheless, we differ on an important point-namely, as to what progress actually is; wanting, as it were a certain measure, whereby we can ascertain the degree of advancement that may have taken place.

Lorenzo. Most true, O Anselm, and we want even more than thou sayest. For not only do we want a standard to distinguish the greater from the less degree of advancement, but we have need of one to distinguish an advancement or progression from a backsliding.

Antonio. An important matter. For it were useless for the traveller to know simply that he was to proceed, without knowing whether he were to go to the north, south, east, or west. Lorenzo. Yet such is exactly our predicament. Some of us are for promoting a moral culture, considering proficiency in art or science, as a defect rather than an addition. Others would go less far, and spread the knowledge of science and of facts, esteeming the offspring of the imagination to be unworthy of serious regard. Others again would promote only culture in the arts and sciences, and think that virtue would flow as a consequence. Such being the case, it is clear that although the hope of us all for the progress of humanity bespeaketh a kindly, and, I may say, a noble feeling, the notions as to what is properly to be called progress, vary so much, that what seemeth to one a cause of rejoicing, is to another food for lamentation. Nor do I see, although we have much discoursed, that any approach is made to a certain standard, whereby one may indicate one's own position, or correct one's opponent of a fallacy.

Anselm. Then as we are all equally interested, and all labour not so much for victory as for truth, let us endeavour to release ourselves from our present difficulty; and in the first place let uз endeavour to set down a sort of nullity in progress. By regarding this we may be able to judge of the departures from it.

Suppose then a man placed in a small island, surrounded by a narrow water, with beautiful fruits growing on the opposite side, that are pleasant to his sight, but beyond his ability to attain. Suppose that he has no means of shelter against the inclemencies of the weather, not from privation, but from ignorance; that as surrounding inanimate nature grows pleasant he grows happier, and that when the same inanimate nature ceases to be pleasant, he feels misery. Of a truth I cannot consider this other than a very low state of humanity.

Ernest. And yet the man in this state is free from much unhappiness, which belongeth to what is called a more civilised condition.

Anselm. Very true, and the dog that is placed in similar circumstances is still more free, for he hath a thick coat to protect him from much misery to which the man is subject. It seemeth to me, that in our whole discussion we have assumed a distinctive nature in man; and that if we remain satisfied with the state which he may enjoy in common, and even in a less degree than other animals, the question should have been, whether it is better to be a man or a horse, or something of the kind.

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Lorenzo. Ay, truly, we are not endeavouring to answer a Voyage of Gulliver," but we will assume that the progress of man meaneth that of man in his particular nature, and not towards mere happiness as an animal.

Anselm. Let us again suppose the little island inhabited by divers persons, whereof one ordereth the rest to build huts and to lay down a rude bridge that they may cross the narrow water and reach the fruit. Would this be a progress from the other state? and if so, wherefore?

Ernest. I see, by our assumption, I must not answer that it is a progress because they can taste the fruits formerly denied them, since the bird can attain the same end; and thou wilt not admit a comparison between creatures of various kinds.

Anselm. Look you; the answer, methinks, will be something in this wise. Assuming, as we all have done, that man is a progressive being, and that he is not fixed to the immoveable natural

laws that determine the brute or the vegetable, we must conclude that a mere submission to these laws is less consonant to his own particular essence, than an assertion of his distinctiveness. The man in the first case, was but a plaything of nature-no joys or sorrows sprang from himself, but were the gift of things themselves unconscious of what they bestowed-of the tree, the stream, the hurricane. You could almost have calculated his condition by the state of the thermometer.

Now look at the chief in the second case; he does not follow in the track of inanimate nature. He has made a path of his own; he stands as an instance of the peculiar essence of man triumphing over external obstacles. Therefore do we pronounce the second state to be one of progression from the first, because the peculiar essence of man is more manifest.

Lorenzo. Would it not be better if for this somewhat clumsy periphrasis, "the peculiar essence of man, we substituted the current word "freedom?" for it seemeth to me, that all predicated of the one, may as well be predicated of the other.

Anselm. Right, good Lorenzo! If you would express the peculiar nature of man-of mind, you cannot find a better word than "freedom;" for that alone is free, which can shape its own course, and only that which shapes its own course, can overcome the influence of surrounding nature. If we talk of progress we necessarily imply freedom; and we may therefore say that the more there is of freedom the more there is of progress.

Lorenzo. And now I see, that even by thy second case, thou designest to figure forth but a small degree of progress. The chief indeed triumphed over external nature, and used the rest as his instruments. But they in their turn originated nothing. The chief was to them, what nature had been to the man in the first case.

Antonio. Not quite, Lorenzo. Nature treated the man as a mere sensitive being, capable of physical pain or pleasure. The chief, on the other hand, must have made the people understand his orders, the whole capacity of communication between man and man must, it seems to me, have been created, before a transition from the first to the second state was possible. In the very act of obedience, methinks, there must have been somewhat of freedom.

Anselm. True, Lorenzo; and therefore, judging by the standard of more or less freedom, the condition of slavery to man, however