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this particular principle brings to the indolent and selfish parts of us all-of being pushed ever on and on, until at last we find ourselves confronting all the cruelty, waste, brutishness, that make such havoc within us and without us, with nothing better than the dulled vision and the impotent right-hand of a philosophic fatalism. The element of good in Rousseau's passionate declamation was the impulse which it gave in the direction opposite to this. He went as far from the truth on the other side, believing that we have only to frame our conception of human nature in the abstract, and then to deduce from that conception all the maxims which are necessary for the construction of a perfect social system. The extreme view of the easy modifiableness of society is just as untrue and just as perilous as the extreme view of the difficulty of modifying it. Safety lies nowhere but in the mean between the stationary fatalism of one school, and the retrogressive dream of the other; and this mean we can only secure by fixing our eyes on the past experience of the race by contrasting the condition of the most backward tribes, I will not say of savages, but of those who have taken some of the decisive steps that lead away from savagery, with the most advanced western communities, many and deep as are the stains still defacing our civilization, and marking even in the empirical and tentative manner which is all that the present development of social study permits us, the long road and the many haltingplaces and the critical turning-points by which the vast hosts of humanity have sadly or jubilantly made their way from the old lands of night. This was the experience from which Rousseau turned away

his face, and it was because he turned away his face from it, and had no thought nor reverence nor gratitude either for the great intellectual leaders who had, one after another and little by little, laboriously worked out a progressive modification of knowledge and laws to meet more satisfactorily the eternal exigencies of human nature, nor for the great moral leaders who had gradually elevated our conception of the height to which human nature is capable of rising, as well as by noble and holy example kindled in men the burning desire and strong thirst to rise to this height,-it was because he thus thrust behind him the intellectual and moral endeavor of the past that his own ideal was smitten with scientific and moral barrenness, and after a space fell to the ground like a tower without foundation or a tree with no earth about its roots. His true influence lies apart from his ideal, in the impulse which he gave to the motives for search after social truth. He set forth as no one had ever done before the nullity of a civilization whose consummating benefits only the few partake of and he brought into a prominence of which it can never be again deprived the truth that the very aim of all our art and science and organization is missed, so long as the great majority of men are as Gentiles, standing without the gates and having no inheritance in these things. After all, as I have said elsewhere, it was much to induce thinkers to ask themselves and the bondmen of society to ask their masters, whether the last word of social philosophy had been uttered, and the last experiment in the relation of men to one another decisively tried and irrevocably accepted.

JOHN MORLEY.

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But who, living and dying, serene, still, and free,

Trusts in God that as well as he is, he shall be."

But neither orator nor poet, we may be sure, had the slightest idea of the lines they perpetrated appearing on their tombstones. Shakspeare is supposed to have dictated the entreating, blessing, threatening quatrain that has kept sacrilegious hands from disturbing his dust; and Chatterton, Churchill, Coleridge, and Gay provided inscriptions for their own gravestones. Possibly they were actuated by a not unreasonable distrust of friendly epitaph writers; the poets of to-day need have no such fear; we affect simplicity if we love it not, the affectation serving as a cover to our barrenness of invention. We can not nowadays rise to any thing higher than a name and a date-mere undertaker's work the writing of epitaphs, like that of epigrams, is a lost art.

Sir Thomas More aired his scholarship and his vanity in a long-winded Latin epitaph, detailing at length his lineage, his own and his father's services to the state, and finishing up with twelve tedious verses. Ralph Tyrer, sometime vicar of Kendal, Westmoreland, contrived to condense his earthly career and anticipate his future in the curious lines:

"London bred me, Westminster fed me,
Cambridge sped me, my sister wed me,
Study taught me, living sought me,
Learning brought me, Kendal caught me,
Labor pressed me, sickness distressed me,
Death oppressed me, the grave possessed me,
God first made me, Christ did save me,
Earth did crave me, and Heaven would have
me."

Not less sure of his reward was William
Huntington, the once notorious "inspired
coal-heaver;" when he felt the end draw-
ing near, Huntington took his pen in hand
and wrote: "Here lies the coal-heaver,
who departed this life
in the

year of his age; beloved of his God, but abhorred by men. The Omniscient Judge, at the Great Assize, shall ratify and confirm this, to the confusion of many thousands; for England and its metropolis shall know that there hath been a prophet among them.-W. H., S. S." And these vain - glorious words were duly placed above the resting-place of the Sinner Saved at Lewes.

Hearne, the antiquary, contented himself with vindicating the use he had made

of his life, and calling upon others to imitate him, by directing the following verses to be inscribed on his tomb: "Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father and he will show thee: thy elders, and they will tell thee. Inquire, I pray thee, of the former ages, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers; for we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow. Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their hearts ?" Beazley, the architect and dramatist, who wrote his own epitaph years before it was wanted, made a couple of lines suffice:

"Here lies Samuel Beazley,

Who lived hard and died easily." Brief as this is, of the three assertions made in it, but two were true ones. Beazley suffered greatly in his last illness; so greatly, that in writing to a friend he adopted a melancholy strain quite unusual to him, which made his correspondent write back complaining that his letter resembled the last chapter of Jeremiah. "You are mistaken," answered the dying wit; "it is the last chapter of Samuel!"

Job Orton, son of the inventor of Stilton cheese, an innkeeper at Kidderminster, put up a tombstone in the church-yard there, inscribed:

"Job Orton, a man from Leicestershire, When he dies, he will be buried here."

He was a queer character altogether; while his wife yet lived to plague him, he wrote her epitaph:

"Esther Orton, a bitter sour weed, God never loved her, nor increased her seed;" and in order that he might have the start of her at the last day, desired to be buried upright, in a coffin that had served him many years as a wine-bin. Job was, however, by no means singular in thus providing for a grave necessity. Having a presentiment that his death was not far off, Mr. Brookman of Reading called upon an undertaker, persuaded him to take a walk to the church-yard, and pointed out the exact spot where he wished to be laid. Having made his mind easy on that score, he went home, had out an old oak-chest he had long reserved for a coffin, saw it thoroughly cleaned, then retired to bed, and in four days was a dead man. Ned Dawson of Nottingham, who was found

drowned in 1828, used his coffin as a cupboard for twenty years. Being a staunch Tory, he had painted it true blue, and when his birthday came round was wont to extend himself within it, to make sure he had not outgrown its dimensions; this ceremony performed, the coffin was filled with substantial viands, hoisted upon the shoulders of some of his cronies, and carried through the house, Ned following as chief mourner, bearing in his arms an enormous pitcher of jolly good ale and old. Coulson, another Nottingham man, indulged his fancy in a similar way; but he was a joiner, and having a coffin returned upon his hands by a dissatisfied customer, consoled himself with a "Never mind; if it is not good enough for him, it will do for me!" as it did after the lapse of many years.

The falling of a great branch of the brave old oak of Fairlop, was such a grievous event in the eyes of Daniel Day, who all but worshiped the ancient giant of the woods, in whose honor he instituted Fairlop Fair, that there was nothing extraordinary in the old pump-maker resolving to utilize the limb of his revered tree, by converting it into a coffin for himself, especially as he took it into his head that the accident was an omen of his approaching end. When the coffin was finished, Day took the precaution of trying whether there was room enough for him within its narrow walls; but to make assurance doubly sure, gave instructions that if his body should prove too long, his head was to be cut off and placed between his legs! The timbers of L'Orient formed a fitting shrine for the victor of the Nile; but why Wombwell, the menagerie man, should desire to be buried in a similar relic of the ocean, is a mystery our philosophy can not fathom. Had he reserved a lion or tiger skin for a shroud, the whim would have been intelligible, but what was the Royal George to him, or he to the Royal George, that the old showman must needs have his bones coffined in its timbers? Such was his fancy, however, and he was enabled to gratify it. Wombwell, happening to hit upon the cause of a strange mortality among Prince Albert's harriers, stayed the destroying plague, and refused to accept any recompense save enough wood of what was left of Kempenfelt's unlucky ship to make himself a coffin. He obtained it, and the showman had the NEW SERIES.-VOL. XVI., No. 1.

pleasure of superintending the manufacture of his coffin by one of his own carpenters, and in due time was buried in it. Other men, who like Wombwell cheated the undertaker by having their own materials made up, displayed a little more reason in their eccentric providence. When Dr. Fidge gave up a place he had long held in Portsmouth dockyard, he broke up a favorite boat in which he had passed many a pleasant hour, and transformed it into a coffin, which he kept under his bed. A curious bit of sentiment on the part of a man so matter-of-fact, that, when he felt life ebbing away, he told the nurse to straighten his legs and lay him out as a dead man, as it would save her trouble by and by. John Wilkinson, a famous iron-founder in his day, determining that the metal which had brought him ease and comfort in his life should inclose him in death, had an iron coffin made. When he died, it proved too small for the occasion, so his corpse was temporarily deposited in the grave he had marked out in his garden, until another coffin could be procured; this time the coffin turned out too deep, and had to be taken up that the rock beneath might be excavated; and at the third time of asking, Mr. Wilkinson was actually buried. Not for the last time, however; for, in 1823, the estate was sold; and the new owner, not thinking the presence of the old proprietor desirable, the iron-founder's coffin was removed once more, to find a final resting-place in the chapel-yard of Lindale.

Thinking, perhaps, with the Irishman,. that a stone coffin would last a man his lifetime, a Cornish clergyman provided himself with one, which he placed in an open grave in his church-yard till he should be ready to occupy it. Dr. Donne is generally credited with having kept a coffin containing his own effigy, by his bedside; but he really prepared for the end in another fashion. Donne's friend, Dr. Fox, wanted him to prepare his monument so as to insure one to his taste. Donne contented himself with providing a pattern. First he had an urn carved, then he engaged a painter to take his portrait. Urn and painter being both ready, the doctor stripped, put on a winding-sheet, tied in orthodox fashion, placed himself with his feet on the urn, and arranged the sheet so as to disclose his pale, lean face. Thus was his portrait painted; and when he

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died, a statue was sculptured from it to serve as a monument; a statue that some thirty years ago was still in existence, lying about with other remains of old St. Paul's. John Wheatley of Nottingham, when the General Cemetery of that town was opened in 1838, bought a square plot of ground sufficient for three ordinary graves; this he inclosed, and used it as a retreat where he could read and meditate above his intended grave which lay gaping before him, partly filled up by his coffin. The tenantless grave and its odd proprietor attracted so many sight-seers to the cemetery, that the thing became a nuisance; the authorities put down the exhibition; and after all his preparation, Wheatley was buried elsewhere. Captain Backhouse, a retired Indian officer, dwelling at Great Missenden, Berkshire, vowed he would have nought to do with church or church-yard, but lie, with his good sword by his side, in his own wood on the hill, and there defy the assaults of all the evil spirits in existence. To this end he built a tomb in a thick fir plantation, upon a hill near his residence, in the shape of a dwarf pyramid. It was constructed of flints strengthened with brick-work, and measured eleven feet square at the base. The walls, perpendicular to a height of four or five feet, then tapered pyramidically, and terminated in a flat slab three feet square. This specimen of amateur architecture was provided with two Gothic windows, one in the northern, and one in the southern wall, each side of the structure being well covered with ivy. The captain died in 1800, and was sepulchred according to his desire, with his trusty weapon by his side, and his coffin placed upright in a niche in the western wall, and there bricked up. Here the old soldier was allowed to rest for a few years, until his son came home; when he, having no sympathy with his sire's fancy for isolation, removed Backhouse's coffin to the parish church-yard, and deprived Great Missenden of its one lion-the haunted tomb on the hill.

Horne Tooke selected his kitchen-garden at Wimbledon as his place of sepulture, and nearly brought about the end he prepared for, in superintending the erection of a brick vault bearing a black marble slab inscribed, "John Horne Tooke, late proprietor, and now occupier of this spot, was born in June, 1736, and died

in the year of his age, contented and grateful." The blanks were never filled up, for when he shuffled off this mortal coil, his executors, consulting their own notions of propriety, had Tooke buried like ordinary folks. A worm-doctor named Gardner built himself a tomb in the churchyard of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, on which passers-by could read "Dr. J. Gardner's last and best bedroom." Those who saw it naturally concluded that the doctor was taking his last long sleep there, and he soon found patients grow scarce in Norton-Folgate. This was paying too dearly for his joke, so he set matters right by amending the inscription by the addition of the word "intended." Pat Power, of Kilkenny, we suppose, had no customers to lose, when, confident in his prophetic instinct, he chose his grave in the chapelyard, and set up a headstone, twelve months before date, upon which appeared "Erected in Memory of Patrick Power, of Maudlin Street, Kilkenny, who died in 1869, aged 73 years. May his soul rest in peace. Amen!" Pat paid regular visits to the place to say his prayers over his own grave; but whether his presentiment was fulfilled, or whether he lives to laugh at it, is more than we know. The poor Irishman's simplicity excused his folly; but there was no question of simplicity in the egregious absurdity perpetrated by one who was a statesman, if filling offices of state entitles a man to be so called. This vain specimen of humanity had his monument put up in the church of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, four years before his death; and sculptured thereon a deed, signed and sealed, running thus, "To all Christian people to whom this present writing shall come, know ye that I, Julius Dalmare, alias Julius Cæsar, Knight, Doctor of Laws, Judge of the High Court of Admiralty, and one of the Masters of Request to Queen Elizabeth; Privy Councillor to King James, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Master of the Rolls, have confirmed or granted by this my personal writing, that I will, with the Divine assistance, willingly pay my debt to nature, whenever it shall please God. In witness whereof I have set my hand and seal. Dated the 27th of February, 1635."

Stevenson, the beggar of Kilmarnock, who bade good-by to his wallet at the age of eighty-five, prepared for the celebration of his funeral rites in a cheery spirit.

He ordered in a supply of sweet biscuits, twelve dozen burial-cakes, and plenty of wine and spirits; then sending for a carpenter, gave him instructions to make a good sound dry coffin; afterward arranging with the sexton of Riccarton Church for a roomy grave in a pleasant part of the church-yard, and paying money down for the above items. Upon his decease, it was found that he had left no less than nine hundred pounds behind him, to be divided among some relatives, after deducting sufficient to entertain all beggars who chose to come and see his body lie in state. The invitation was accepted by a large number of the fraternity, who "kept it up" after the funeral in a style that would have delighted the heart of the founder of the feast.

Farrazine, the shrewd button-maker of Ghent, who, in 1697, took the quartering and provisioning of Marlborough's army off the hands of the troubled authorities of the city, to their immense relief, and the making of his own fortune, had a soul above buttons, his ambition taking the unusual shape of a desire for posthumous rather than present honor. He erected a magnificent monumental tomb for himself in the Church of the Capuchin Friars, and when it was finished, Farrazine resolved to rehearse his obsequies, so that there might be no mistakes or shortcomings, when they were celebrated in sad earnest. a handsome consideration, the holy brotherhood consented to act their share in the mock ceremonial. The button-maker provided a sumptuously adorned coffin, for which the friars found bearers in their novices, while they themselves marched in solemn procession before it. It was a proud day for Farrazine when he took part in his own funeral rites, amid a profusion

For

Of velvet, gilding, brass; and no great dearth Of aught save tears.

Tears were necessarily lacking; the hero of the hour, although officiating as chief mourner, was too elated to shed them, as he walked triumphantly to the tomb and saw his coffin deposited in the place it was intended to occupy when a more serious performance came off. Alas for the hopes of vanity! Farrazine had not measured the rapacity of his Capuchin friends aright; and although he did not forget them in his will, the legacy he bequeathed fell so much below their expectations, that in angry disgust, the brethren demolished the monument, and bundled coffin and all out of their church; refusing even to perform a single mass for the poor fellow's soul, whose body, after all his pains, found a grave in the yard of an obscure chapel. Romanos, a Greek devotee of the seventh century, adopted a surer method of securing his burial in the place of his choice. He was a native of Constantinople, but lived his religious life at Barakar in Abyssinia, where he founded a chapel in a narrow, romantic ravine, screened by noble sycamores, but made his home in a cave close by, which he had all but closed up with brick-work, leaving only a small opening, through which food was passed to him, until he ceased to require it, and there his bones still lie.

The oddest story connected with our subject comes to us from France: M. Gannel, the Parisian embalmer, once celebrated his birthday by inviting Jules Janin and half a dozen other friends to dinner, and put the finishing touch to his hospitality by handing each guest, while the wine was circulating, a slip of paper, on which were written the recipient's name and the words "Good for embalmment." Within less than ten years all, save one of these slips, came back to the giver, and were duly honored an appropriate ending to a very grim unpleasantry, of which only a Frenchman could have been capable.

St. Paul's.

THE BODY AND

MUCH mischief has been occasioned by the prevalent habit of speaking of the mind and the body as distinct in such a sense that character and conduct can be dealt with in the absence of a just regard to their correlations. I have as much dislike as any man can possibly have of the

THE CHARACTER.

trick which has lately become fashionable, among certain classes of scientific men, of attempting to state moral and religious truth in terms of physiology. Nor can we, consistently with any effective religious belief, treat the moral and spiritual force at the command of any given human being

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