my distinguished patient is." With this, the apothecary, making himself up for the important task, softly quitted the room. And you 're sure you have the right man?" asked Snipeton of the constable.

Never made a blunder in all my life, sir," answered Tipps, with a mild pride.

"Mr. Justice Wattles," cried Nicholas, big with the words, and showing the magistrate in.

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Mr. Snipeton," said Wattles, "this business is—”

But the Justice was suddenly stopped by the doctor. Crossbone rushed in, slightly pale and much agitated, exclaiming, "The patient's gone!"

"Not dead!” cried Snipeton, exultingly, and rubbing his hands. "Dead! no! But he's gone-left the house-vanished ;-come and see!" Crossbone, followed by all, rushed to the room in which, some minutes before, lay the murdered St. James.

He was gone! All were astonished. So great was the surprise, not a word was spoken; until Dorothy Vale, who had crept into the room, with her cold, calm voice, addressed the apothecary. Pointing to the stains in the couch, she said, If you please, sir, can you give me nothing to take out that blood?”

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THE MISANTHROPE.

Ir requires no great amount of erudition to know that the word "misanthrope," if regard be had to its etymology, signifies neither more nor less than "man-hater." The humblest Hellenist could give you the Greek verb signifying "to hate," and the Greek substantive signifying "man," and point out how "misanthrope" was compounded from them.

Then let us only think what a misanthrope must the powerful rich man be, who uses all his power and all his wealth to crush and depress rather than to elevate mankind ;—what a misanthrope must be the wretched attorney who twists, turns, and tortures justice, to swell his own miserable bill;—what a misanthrope must be the keeper of a hell! And let us turn to the page of history. Some of those atrocious Roman emperors,-those Borgias, Medicis, with a list of horrible etceteras-what misanthropes in the grand, stupendous scale they must all have been !

Strange to say, not one of these man-haters, ancient or modern, obtains the name of misanthrope. They may be branded with the appellation of tyrant, villain, miscreant, wretch; but "misanthrope" never touches them. They may kill, pilfer, cheat, rack, burn; but that does not make them misanthropes,-does not stamp them as "man-haters" par excellence. We must look elsewhere for the terrible hater of his species.

We have found a specimen ;-we need not give his name; it is enough for our purpose that all his acquaintance recognise him as a misanthrope; he walks through the world with this character tacked to his back. When we ask what earned him his reputation, we find, that from assemblies where unmeaning compliments are the order of the day he is generally absent; that when interest and vanity assume the disguise of self-denying virtue, he has got a singular knack of discovering the fact of the case, and an equal facility of communicating it. A whole lot of conventionalities, which most people think of inestimable value, he considers to have none. He finds much wrong where nought but right is admitted to exist; he keeps out of the way of the social circles which have nothing in common with his own thoughts; and therefore—therefore-therefore he is a misanthrope. As for doing anybody any harm, his worst enemy does not accuse him of that; but he refuses to take interest in that great machine called society, and therefore he is a misanthrope.

Oh! shut up your lexicons when you would learn the meaning of this word, or they will mislead you. The misanthrope is no hater of man, but of all the littlenesses, the frivolities, the chicaneries, the worldly wisdom, with which man is enveloped. Shall a man be said to hate another because he dislikes the colour of his waistcoat? With no greater right shall those whom the world calls misanthropic be termed haters of man. Or, perhaps, some satirical dog adopted the word, who could no more conceive man other than as a compound of mean materials than honest Crambe could conceive a lord mayor without his chain and gown.

We heard our misanthrope talk, when no stranger was by. His voice swelled with the noblest predictions for humanity; his heart beat high with the love of justice, of truth, of freedom; his indignation was levied at fraud, bigotry, and contented ignorance; and the man was not deceiving us ;-we saw he spoke as he felt. The fact was, he was so impressed with the lofty ideal of humanity,— was so convinced of man's high purpose, that he could not endure

the contrast which the real world presented; he could not bear to see the purpose missed. The easy, good-natured folk looked on the world as something to eat in-drink in-sleep in-gossip in ; and as long as these ends were attained, the world was a very good world. They were satisfied, happy, sleek-minded ;—were not misanthropic.

The man who looked upon humanity as a high, holy thing, was a misanthrope; the men who were content with the grovellings that adhered to it, and fattened thereupon, were the reverse.

The man who felt how vast were the stores of wisdom, science, beauty, virtue, that might be evolved from the microcosm man; who felt that in that microcosm alone the universe could find an expression, and that humanity ought to be impressed, nay imbued with the importance of its mission,-such a man sighed over misplaced energics, and mistaken happiness, and was called a misanthrope.

He who considered man as a possible angel was a misanthrope; he who was content with him as an animal of a depraved kind was the reverse.

This is a strange condition of affairs! It is within an ace of formulizing itself into this definition: "A misanthrope is one who reveres the ideal of humanity." How the word reels and swerves from its etymology!

True, but then those sneers, those sarcasms, those utterances of discontent, that mark the misanthrope, do they not in some measure fit the origin? My friends, these very bitternesses show that the utterer has some high notion of humanity within his bosom. Why should he grumble at interestedness and servility, unless he perceived a capability in man to be disinterested and unservile? We do not grumble at a cow because she has no taste for music.

There is a sort of misanthrope, who rejoices over the weak parts of humanity, because he sees in them so many gates and wickets to his own advantage. He too utters his jibes and his jeers, and flaunts about in his disbelief of good. But him we exclude from our category. It is the mourning, repining, solitudeseeking misanthrope of whom we speak,-in whose laugh may be heard the sound of mournfulness.

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It was a profound remark of Rousseau's, when he said that the "Misanthrope" of Molière was the only honest man in the play. But the misanthrope is not faultless,

no more than the

*

morbidness of whereof we spoke lately is all right. He solely compares erring individuals with the ideal, but he compares not age with age, so as to see that the present are nearer the ideal than many that preceded. His nobility consists in the loftiness of his standard; his uncharitableness in the absoluteness of its application.

The misanthrope loves man, but he loves not men. The word, after all, may veer back to its etymology.

Oh, my friends, believe in progress, believe that mankind advances from bad to good,-believe that evil is a night-phantom that will vanish before the light of a better day,-nay, believe more, believe that it has its uses as a foil, as a stimulant, as a touchstone, till the end arrives. Believe in progress, if it be true -believe in it if it be not true. As Cicero preferred wrong with Plato, to right with any one else; so prefer being mistaken with your faith in progress, to being correct without such faith. ButI forget, the faith in progress cannot be wrong,-if we believe in it really, truly, heartily-we effect it.

AN OPTIMIST.

THE TOWN-POOR OF SCOTLAND.

THERE is a rhetorical figure very rife among the writers of leading articles,-" The Public Mind." The monster intelligence which these words are meant to designate is very much influenced, as to the subjects which shall occupy it, by the public press. Hence, it may be regarded as a great joint-stock, of which the newspaper people are the directors, and in which the rest of the community are share-holders. Its chief employment is speechifying and boiling over with indignation against wrong. Wrongs, however, to be warmly denounced by it, must have a touch of romance in them; for the Public Mind is a sentimental mind. To commonplace, every-day woes and sufferings, the journalist finds it extremely difficult to direct its attention. The wronged, to obtain speedy consideration, must be a long way off;-up the Niger,

Vol.. Page 489.

beyond the Rocky Mountains, or in South Africa. Victims of poverty and partial legislation, who starve at home, at our own back-doors, may be attended to at any time. Meanwhile the Public Mind is busy sending out tracts and missionaries to Ashantee, or ploughs, flax seed, and theoretical farmers to Eboe-land; and the time for snatching its next-door neighbours from starvation and the grave is either long protracted or never comes. Thus it was that the South-Sea Islanders were converted, and two of the South African tribes made quite comfortable years ago; whilst any show of enlarged desire to ameliorate the condition of destitute Britons only began to be earnestly entertained during the winter of 1842. Even now, the Public Mind is very superficially informed on the subject.

For instance, no further off than Scotland, an amount of destitution has for the last dozen years existed which may be safely described as harrowing; and it is only till within the last month or two that we, on this side of the Cheviots, knew anything about it. A parliamentary inquiry was, it is true, instituted; but this had no effect on the Public Mind; for it could not wade through three uncommonly thick blue books of evidence. The most it could do was to glance over the thin report which accompanied them; and in that they found it decided, that the poor of Scotland are so well taken care of, that little or no legal interference in their favour is necessary. This was the decision of the six Scotch commissioners of inquiry; and although the seventh, and only English commissioner, was so convinced that the deductions in the report from the evidence were unwarrantable, that he refused to sign it, yet the Public Mind was not roused. It thought, perhaps, that the testimony of the six unanimous Scots ought to outweigh that of the single dissentient Englishman; forgetting, that, amongst themselves, the Scotch are an outrageously unanimous people. But the most harmonious community will have its little disagreements; and to one such fall-out the Public Mind is indebted for enlightenment on some very dark shadows in the picture of Scottish institutions.

It is well known that the national unanimity by which Scotland is characterised has been recently interrupted by a split in the church. Last year, a vast body of the people went out from the establishment and erected places of worship of their own, wherever they could. It happened that on applying for sites in some of the