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strong soever this pleasure, therefore may appear, it only the more implies the misery of that state which produces it. For as the most cruel bodily pains do by intervals of assuagement produce the highest bodily pleasure, so the fiercest and most raging torments of the mind, do, by certain movements of relief, afford the greatest of mental enjoyments, to those who know little of the truer kind.

The men of gentlest dispositions, and best tempers, have, at some time or other, been sufficiently acquainted with those disturbances, which, at ill hours, even small occasions are apt to raise. From these slender experiences of harshness and ill humour, they fully know and will confess the ill moments which are passed, when the temper is ever so little galled or fretted. How must it fare, therefore, with those who hardly know any better hours in life; and who, for the greatest part of it, are agitated by a thorough · active spleen, a close and settled malignity, and rancour?

Now as to the consequences of this unnatural state, in respect of interest, and the common circumstances of life, upon what terms a person who has in this manner lost all which we call nature, can be supposed to stand, in respect of the society of mankind, how he feels himself in it, what sense he has of his own disposition towards others, and of the mutual disposition of others toward himself: this is easily conceived.

What enjoyment or rest is there for one who is not conscious of the merited affection or love, but on the contrary, of the ill will and hatred of every human soul? What ground must this afford for honour and despair? What foundation of fear, and continual apprehension from mankind, and from superior powers? How thorough and deep must be that melancholy, which being once moved, has nothing soft or pleasing from the side of friendship, to allay or divert it? Wherever such a creature turns himself, which ever way he casts his eye, every thing around must appear ghastly and horrid; every thing hostile, and as it were, bent against a private and single being, who is thus divided from every thing, and at defiance and war with the rest of nature.

It is thus, at last, that a mind becomes a wilderness, where all is laid waste, every thing fair and goodly removed, and nothing extant besides what is savage and deformed. Now if banishment from one's country, removal to a foreign place, or any thing which looks like solitude or desertion, be so heavy to endure, what must it be to feel this inward banishment, this real estrangement from human commerce; and to be after this manner in a desert, and in the horridest of solitudes, even when in the midst of society?

Upon the whole, there is not, I presume, the least degree of certainty wanting, in what has been said concerning the preferableness of the mental pleasures to the sensual; and even of the sensual, accompanied with good affection, and under a temperate

and right use, to those which are no ways restrained, nor supported by any thing social or affectionate.

Nor is there less evidence in what has been said of the united structure and fabric of the mind, and of those passions which constitute the temper, or soul, and on which its happiness or misery so immediately depend. It has been shown, that in this constitution, the impairing of any one part must instantly tend to the disorder and ruin of other parts, and of the whole itself; through the necessary connexion and balance of the affections: that those very passions through which men are vicious, are of themselves a torment and disease; and that whatsoever is done which is knowingly ill, must be of ill consciousness; and in proportion, as the act is ill, must impair and corrupt social enjoyment, and destroy both the capacity of kind affection, and the consciousness of meriting any such. So that neither can we participate thus in joy or happiness with others, or receive satsfaction from the mutual kindness or imagined love of others; on which, however, the greatest of all our pleasures are founded.

If this be the case of moral delinquency, and if the state which is consequent to this defection from nature, be of all others the most horrid, oppressive, and miserable, it will appear, "that to yield or consent to any thing ill or immoral, is a breach of interest, and leads to the greatest ills;" and, "that, on the other side, every thing which is an improvement of virtue, or an establishment of right affection and integrity, is an advancement of interest, and leads to the greatest and most solid happiness and enjoyment."

So that virtue, which of all excellences and beauties is the chief and most amiable; that which is the prop and ornament of human affairs; which upholds communities, maintains union, friendship, and correspondence amongst men; that by which countries, as well as private families, flourish and are happy; and for want of which every thing comely, conspicuous, great, and worthy, must perish and go to ruin; that single quality, thus beneficial to all society, and to mankind in general, is found equally a happiness and good to each creature in particular; and is that by which alone man can be happy, and without which he must be miserable.

And thus, virtue is the good, and vice the ill of every one.

THE MORALISTS;

A Philosophical Rhapsody.

P. 186. No work of wit can be esteemed perfect without that strength and boldness of hand, which gives it body and proportions. A good piece, the painters say, must have good muscling, as well as colouring and drapery. And surely no writing or discourse, of any great moment, can seem other than enervated,

when neither strong reason, nor antiquity, nor the records of things, nor the natural history of man, nor any thing which can be called knowledge, dares accompany it, except perhaps in some ridiculous habit, which may give it an air of play and dalliance.

P. 189. It is no wonder if in this age the philosophy of the alchymists prevail so much, since it promises such wonders, and requires more the labour of hands than brains. We have a strange fancy to be creators, a violent desire at least to know the knack or secret by which nature does all. The rest of our philosophers only aim at that in speculation, which our alchymists aspire to in practice. For with some of these it has been actually under deliberation how to make man, by other mediums than nature has hitherto provided. Every sect has a recipe. When you know it you are master of Nature: you solve all her phenomena, you see all designs, and can account for all her operations. If need were, you might, perchance too, be of her laboratory, and work for her. At least one would imagine the partizans of each modern sect had this conceit. They are all Archimedes' in their way and can make a world upon easier terms than he offered tomove one.

In short, there are good reasons for our being thus superficial, and, consequently, thus dogmatical in philosophy. We are too lazy and effeminate, and withal a little too cowardly to dare doubt. The decisive way best becomes our manners. It suits as well with our vices as with our superstition. Whichever we are fond of is secured by it. If in favour of religion we have espoused an hypothesis on which our faith, we think depends, we are superstitiously careful not to be loosened in it. If, by means of our ill morals, we are broken with religion, it is the same case still we are as much afraid of doubting. We must be sure to say, "It cannot be ;" and "It is demonstrable; for otherwise who knows? And not to know is to yield !"

P. 193. I did my cause no service, when in behalf of the fair, I pleaded all the fine things which are usually said, in this romantic way, to their advantage. You attacked the very fortress of gallantry, ridiculed the point of honour, with all those nice sentiments and ceremonials belonging to it. You damned even our favourite novels; those dear sweet natural pieces, writ most of them by the fair sex themselves. In short, this whole order and scheme of wit you condemned absolutely, as false, monstrous, and gothic; quite out of the way of nature, and sprung from the mere dregs of chivalry or knight errantry; a thing which in itself you preferred, as of a better taste than that which reigns at present in its stead. For at a time when this mystery of gallantry carried along with it the notion of doughty knighthood; when the fair were made witnessess, and, in a manner, parties to feats of arms, entered into all the points of war and combat, and

were won by dint of lance and manly prowess; it was not altogether absurd (you thought) on such a foundation as this, to pay them homage and adoration, make them the standard of wit and manners, and bring mankind under their laws. But in a country where no she-saints were worshipped by any authority from religion, it was as impertinent and senseless, as it was profane, to deify the sex, raise them to a capacity above what nature had allowed, and treat them with a respect which in the natural way of love they themselves were the aptest to complain of.

P. 197. Think not that I would willingly break my chain, nor count me so degenerate or unnatural, as whilst I hold this form, and wear a human heart, I should throw off love, compassion, kindness, and not befriend mankind. But oh, what treacheries! what disorders! and how corrupt is all! Did you not observe even now, when all this space was filled with goodly rows of company, how peaceful all appeared. What charms there are in public companies! What harmony in courts and courtly places! How pleased is every face! How courteous and humane the general carriage and behaviour! What creature capable of reflection, if he thus saw us, mankind, and saw no more, would not believe our earth a very heaven? What foreigner (the inhabitant, suppose, of some nearer planet) when he had travelled hither, and surveyed this outward face of things, would think of what lay hid beneath the mask? But let him stay awhile. Allow him leisure, till he has gained a nearer view, and following our dissolved assemblies to their particular recesses, he has the power of seeing them in this new aspect.

Here he may behold those great men of the ministry, who not an hour ago in public appeared such friends, now plotting craftily each other's ruin, with the ruin of the state itself, a sacrifice to their ambition. Here he may see too those of a softer kind, who knowing not ambition, follow only love. Yet (Philocles) who would think it?.

And

P. 200. But you were still upon extremes. Nothing could serve to excuse the faults or blemishes of this part of the creation, Mankind; even though all besides were fair, without a blemish. The very storms and tempests had a beauty in your account, those alone excepted, which arose in human breasts. It was only for this turbulent race of mortals you offered to accuse nature. I now found why you had been so transported with the story of Prometheus. You wanted such an operator as this for mankind, and you were tempted to wish the story could have been confirmed in modern divinity, that clearing the supreme powers of any concern or hand in the ill-workmanship, you might have the liberty of inveighing against it, without profaneness.

(To be continued.)

Printed and Published by RICHARD CARLILE, 62, Fleet-street, where all Communications, post paid, or free of expence, are requested to be left.

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The Lion.

No. 8. VOL. 4.] LONDON, Friday, August 21, 1829. [PRICE 6d.

INFIDEL MISSION-THIRTEENTH BULLETIN.

Liverpool, August 16, 1829.

THE contrast between Liverpool and other parts of Lancashire is indeed great. Here, we see not Starvation, with its gaunt features, preying upon our sympathies, and making well-fed life itself miserable. Here, we have not the plying sound of the shuttle which proclaims the worst of slavery, labour without reward, ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, yet excessive labour. To see a man starving amidst full employ, which may be seen in a hundred thousand instances in Lancashire, is indeed a woeful sight. It is frightful to contemplate war, famine, or pestilence; but not half so frightful as to contemplate starving industry. A breaking up of the present state of things in the country generally, is now every politician's sentiment as to a desideratum, the only question is, as to which way it shall be begun, in what manner it shall be carried on, and where it shall end; points on which there will never be any agreement, so as to produce planned, congregated, and united action; but to walk through Lancashire, to visit the cottage, the cellar, and the garret, and to converse with the weaver, is enough to induce one to say, that, as far as Lancashire is concerned, this breaking up should be no longer delayed. It is no wild prediction to announce, that, in and under a continuation of the present state of things, in Lancashire, ten thousand full-grown persons and a hundred thousand children, will die from the want of life's sustenance and care in the ensuing winter. Like the grim spectres of a romance, gaunt Starvation stalks its day-light hour through the streets and roads of Lancashire, and such is the subdued character of its victims, that they have not enough of life's fire remaining to express their honest indignation. To add to their misery, their last energies

Printed and Published by R. CARLILE, 62, Fleet Street.

No. 8.-Vol. 4.

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