their commands. I have oft-times remarked, with great pleasure, that in commonwealths, where to be free was accounted the greatest glory, nothing reigned save frugality, and nothing was rich save the common treasure. But under those monarchies which have degenerated into tyranny, care is taken to have those who get the public pay spend it luxuriously, to the end, that those they employ may still want, and so may be obliged to that contemptible slavery, to which none would bow if they could otherwise live. It is also very observable that those who dwell in the richest countries, which incline men to luxury, such as Greece and Italy, are poor and slaves; whercas the hard rocks of Switzerland breed men who think themselves rich and happy. I like well his reply, who, being tempted to comply with what his conscience could not digest, said to him who tempted him, I can contentedly walk on foot, but you cannot live without a coach. I will be advised by my innocency; consult you with your grandeur. Rulers can bestow treasures, but virtue only can bestow esteem.

From these reflections may arise remedies against luxury to any thinking man: for though when we consider the luxurious as they shine at courts, live in sumptuous palaces, saluted in the streets, adorned with panegyrics; it is probable that most men will think that philosophers and divines have only writ against luxury, because they could not attain to the riches that are necessary for maintaining it: yet, to balance this, let us consider the vast numbers of those whom it has drowned in pleasures, others whom it has sent to starve in prisons, and dragged to scaffolds by its temptations. I have ofttimes seen the luxurious railed at with much malice by those they had sumptuously entertained, who envied the entertainer for being able to treat them so highly, and for living so far above their own condition: concluding, that they were rather called to be witnesses of the entertainer's abundance than sharers in his bounty. And though some think to make an atonement for their oppression, by living sumptuously upon its spoils; yet no wise man will pardon a robber, because he gives back a small share of the great riches he has taken. Some think riches necessary for keeping great tables, and excuse this by the hopes they have of good company. And a great man told me, he wished such a man's estate, that he might keep us all about him. But my answer was, that the luxurious gathered about them ordinarily the worst of company; and worthy men valued more virtuous conversation than sumptuous diet, which they rather shunned than followed. I believe there are few so prodigal of their money, but that they have oft some regrets for having spent it; from which the frugal man is exempted, by the assurance he has from his virtue that he can live happily upon the little he has, and can with pleasure find, that he is neither oppressed with the weight of riches, nor terrified by the fear of want; breeding up his posterity not to need these great patrimonies, which he cannot give.

This discourse tends not to forbid the use of all pleasure, nor even the pleasing our senses; for it is not to be imagined that God Almighty brought man into the world to admire his greatness, and taste his goodness, without allowing him to rejoice in these things which he sees and receives. The best way to admire an artist is to be highly pleased with what he has made; and a benefactor is ill rewarded, when the receiver is not pleased with what is bestowed: his joy being the justest measure and standard of his esteem. We find that in Eden the tasting of all the sweet and delicious fruits was allowed, save only that of the Tree of Knowledge. And why should all these fruits have been made so pleasant to the eye, and so delicious to the taste, if it had not been to make man, his beloved guest, happy there? And I really think that the eye has got the quality of not being satisfied long with any object, nor the ear with hearing any sound, to the end that they might, by this curiosity, be obliged to seek after that variety in which they may every moment dis

cover new proofs of their master's greatness and goodness. But I condemn the pleasing of the senses only, where more pains is taken, and more time is spent in gratifying them, than is due to those inferior or less noble parts of the reasonable creature. The soul being the nobler and more sublime part, our chief care should be laid out in pleasing it, as a wise subject should take more care in pleasing the king than his ministers, and the master than his servants. The true and allowable luxury of the soul consists in contemplation and thinking, or else in the practice of virtue, whereby we may employ our time in being useful to others: albeit, when our senses and other inferior faculties have served the soul in these great employments, they ought to be gratified as good servants, but not so as to make them wild masters, as luxury does, when it rather oppresses than refreshes them. I do also think that our chief pleasure should not be expected from the senses; because they are too dull and inactive to please a thinking man; they are only capable to enjoy little, and are soon blunted by enjoyment: whereas religion and virtue do, by the ravishing hopes of what we are to expect, or the pleasant remembering of what we have done, afford constantly new scenes of joy, and which are justly augmented by the concurring testimonies of the best of mankind, who applaud our virtuous actions and decry the vicious. So that the virtuous man is by as many degrees pleased beyond the vicious, as the past and future exceed the single moment of the present time, or as many suffrages exceed one. Nor doubt I but those who have relieved a starving family by their charity have feasted upon the little which they have bestowed with more joy, than ever Lucullus or Apicius did in all the delicacies their cooks could invent. I am convinced, that any generous gentleman would be much more troubled to think that his poor tenants, who toil for him, are screwed up to some degrees that look too like oppression, than he could be pleased with any delicacies which that superplus of rent could buy for him: and that he who has rescued a poor innocent creature from the jaws of a ravenous oppression, finds a greater joy irradiated on his spirit, by the great and just Judge, than any general does in that night, wherein he has defeated his enemies merely for his glory. We remember to this day, with veneration and esteem, John the Baptist's locusts and wild honey; but the deliciousness of Herod's feasts lasted no longer than the taste: and even the pleasure of the present moment, which the luxurious only enjoy, is much lessened, by the prevailing conviction which arises from that small remaining force, which is still left in the reasonable faculty of the most corrupted man: and which can never be so blinded, as not to have some glimmerings whereby it can discover the ugliness and deformity of vice.

[The following extract is from a remarkable work, ‘Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers,' (3d edit.) Those brothers were Julius and Augustus Hare. For some years after Augustus had "been raised from the earth to the full fruition of that truth of which he had first been the earnest seeker, and then the dutiful servant and herald," Julius lived to benefit the world by the exercise of his sacred duties as a pastor. He died in 1855.]

Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat ?* In the first place, all the sour faces in the world, stiffening into a yet more rigid asperity at the least glimpse of a smile. I have seen faces, too, which, so long as you let them lie in their sleepy torpor, unshaken and unstirred, have a creamy softness and smoothness, and might beguile you into suspecting their owners of being gentle: but, if they catch the sound of a laugh, it acts on them like thunder, and they also turn sour. Nay, strange as it

• What forbids one to say what is true ir a laughing manner?

may seem, there have been such incarnate paradoxes as would rather see their fellow-creatures cry than smile.

But is not this in exact accordance with the spirit which pronounces a blessing on the weeper, and a woe on the laugher?

Not in the persons I have in view. That blessing and woe are pronounced in the knowledge how apt the course of this world is to run counter to the kingdom of God. They who weep are declared to be blessed, not because they weep, but because they shall laugh: and the woe threatened to the laughers is in like manner, that they shall mourn and weep. Therefore, they who have this spirit in them, will endeavour to forward the blessing and to avert the woe. They will try to comfort the mourner, so as to lead him to rejoice: and they will warn the laugher, that he may be preserved from the mourning and weeping, and may exchange his passing for lasting joy. But there are many who merely indulge in the antipathy, without opening their hearts to the sympathy. Such is the spirit found in those who have cast off the bonds of the lower earthly affections, without having risen as yet into the freedom of heavenly love-in those who have stopped short in the state of transition between the two lives, like so many skeletons stripped of their earthly, and not yet clothed with a heavenly, body. It is the spirit of Stoicism, for instance, in philosophy, and of vulgar Calvinism, which in so many things answers to Stoicism, in religion. They who feel the harm they have received from worldly pleasures are prone at first to quarrel with pleasure of every kind altogether: and it is one of the strange perversities of our self-will to entertain anger, instead of pity, towards those whom we fancy to judge or act less wisely than ourselves. This, however, is only while the scaffolding is still standing around the edifice of their Christian life, so that they cannot see clearly out of the windows, and their view is broken up into disjointed parts. When the scaffolding is removed and they look abroad without hindrance, they are readier than any to delight in all the beauty and true pleasure around them. They feel that it is their blessed calling not only to rejoice always themselves, but likewise to rejoice with all who do rejoice in innocence of heart. They feel that this must be well-pleasing to Him who has filled His universe with ever-bubbling springs of gladness; so that whithersoever we turn our eyes, through earth and sky as well as sea, we behold the úvýpiμov yéλaoμa* of nature. On the other hand, it is the harshness of an irreligious temper clothing itself in religious zeal, and not seldom exhibiting symptoms of mental disorganisation, that looks scowlingly on every indication of happiness and mirth.

Moreover, there is a large class of people who deem the business of life far too weighty and momentous to be made light of; who would leave merriment to children, and laughter to idiots; and who hold that a joke would be as much out of place on their lips as on a grave-stone or in a ledger. Wit and wisdom being sisters, not only are they afraid of being indicted for bigamy were they to wed them both, but they shudder at such a union as incestuous. So, to keep clear of temptation and to preserve their faith where they have plighted it, they turn the younger out of doors; and if they see or hear of any body taking her in, they are positive he can know nothing of the elder. They would not be witty for the world. Now, to escape being so, is not very difficult for those whom nature has so favoured that wit with them is always at zero, or below it. Or, as to their wisdom, since they are careful never to over-feed her, she jogs leisurely along the turnpike-road, with lank and meagre carcass, displaying all her bones, and never getting out of her own dust. She feels no inclination to be frisky, but, if a coach or a waggon passes her, is glad, like her rider, to run behind a thing so big. Now, all these people take

* Boundless laughter.

grievous offence if any one comes near them better mounted, and they are in a tremor lest the neighing and snorting and prancing should be contagious.

Surely, however, ridicule implies contempt: and so the feeling must be condemnable, subversive of gentleness, incompatible with kindness?

Not necessarily so, or universally; far from it. The word ridicule, it is true, has a narrow, one-sided meaning. From our proneness to mix up personal feelings with those which are more purely objective and intellectual, we have in great measure restricted the meaning of ridicule, which would properly extend over the whole region of the ridiculous, the laughable, where we may disport ourselves innocently, without any evil emotion; and we have narrowed it, so that in common usage it mostly corresponds to derision, which does indeed involve personal and offensive feelings. As the great business of wisdom in her speculative office is to detect and reveal the hidden harmonies of things, those harmonies which are the sources and the ever-flowing emanations of Law, the dealings of Wit, on the other hand, are with incongruities. And it is the perception of incongruity, flashing upon us, when unaccompanied, as Aristotle observes (Poet. c. v.), by pain, or by any predominant moral disgust, that provokes laughter, and excites the feeling of the ridiculous. But it no more follows that the perception of such an incongruity must breed or foster haughtiness or disdain, than that the perception of any thing else that may be erroneous or wrong should do so. You might as well argue, that a man must be proud and scornful because he sees that there is such a thing as sin, or such a thing as folly in the world. Yet, unless we blind our eyes, and gag our ears, and hood-wink our minds, we shall seldom pass through a day without having some form of evil brought in one way or other before us. Besides, the perception of incongruity may exist, and may awaken laughter, without the slightest reprobation of the object laughed at. We laugh at a pun, surely without a shade of contempt either for the words punned upon or for the punster; and if a very bad pun be the next best thing to a very good one, this is not from its flattering any feeling of superiority in us, but because the incongruity is broader and more glaring. Nor, when we laugh at a droll combination of imagery, do we feel any contempt, but often admiration at the ingenuity shown in it, and an almost affectionate thankfulness toward the person by whom we have been amused, such as is rarely excited by any other display of intellectual power, as those who have ever enjoyed the delight of Professor Sedgwick's society will bear witness.

It is true, an exclusive attention to the ridiculous side of things is hurtful to the character, and destructive of earnestness and gravity. But no less mischievous is it to fix our attention exclusively, or even mainly, on the vices and other follies of mankind. Such contemplations, unless counteracted by wholesomer thoughts, harden or rot the heart, deaden the moral principle, and make us hopeless and reckless. The objects toward which we should turn our minds habitually are those which are great, and good, and pure; the throne of virtue, and she who sits upon it; the majesty of truth, the beauty of holiness. This is the spiritual sky through which we should strive to mount, "springing from crystal step to crystal step," and bathing our souls in its living, life-giving ether. These are the thoughts by which we should whet and polish our swords for the warfare against evil, that the vapours of the earth may not rust them. But in a warfare against evil, under one or other of its forms, we are all of us called to engage and it is a childish dream to fancy that we can walk about among mankind without perpetual necessity of remarking that the world is full of many worse incongruities besides those which make us laugh. Nor do I deny that a laugher may often be a scoffer and a scorner. Some jesters are fools of a worse breed than those who used to wear the cap. Sneering is commonly found along with a bitter splenetic misanthropy; or it may be a man's

mockery at his own hollow heart, venting itself in mockery at others. Cruelty will try to season or to palliate its atrocities by derision. The hyæna grins in its den; most wild beasts over their prey. But though a certain kind of wit, like other intellectual gifts, may coexist with moral depravity, there has often been a playfulness in the best and greatest men-in Phocion, in Socrates, in Luther, in Sir Thomas Morewhich, as it were, adds a bloom to the severer graces of their character, shining forth with amaranthine brightness when storms assail them, and springing up in fresh blossoms under the axe of the executioner. How much is our affection for Hector increased by his tossing his boy in his arms, and laughing at his childish fears! Smiles are the language of love: they betoken the complacency and delight of the heart in the object of its contemplation. Why are we to assume that there must Leeds be bitterness or contempt in them, when they enforce a truth or reprove an error? On the contrary, some of those who have been richest in wit and humour have been among the simplest and kindest-hearted of men. I will only instance Fuller, Bishop Earle, Lafontaine, Matthes Claudius, Charles Lamb. "Le méchant n'est jamais comique," is wisely remarked by De Maistre, when canvassing the pretensions of Voltaire (Soirées, i. 273); and the converse is equally true: le comique, le vrai comique, n'est jamais méchant. A laugh, to be joyous, must flow from a joyous heart; but without kindness there can be no true joy. And what a dull, plodding, tramping clanking would the ordinary intercourse of society be, without wit to enliven and brighten it! When two men meet, they seem to be kept at bay through the estranging effects of absence, until some sportive sally opens their hearts to each other. Nor does any thing spread cheerfulness so rapidly over a whole party, or an assembly of people, however large. Reason expands the soul of the philosopher; imagination glorifies the poet, and breathes a breath of spring through the young and genial; but if we take into account the numberless glances and gleams whereby wit lightens our every-day life, I hardly know what power ministers so bountifully to the innocent pleasures of mankind.

Surely, too, it cannot be requisite, to a man's being in earnest, that he should wear a perpetual frown. Or is there less of sincerity in Nature during her gambols in spring, than during the stiffness and harshness of her wintry gloom? Does not the bird's blythe caroling come from the heart quite as much as the quadruped's monotonous cry? And is it then altogether impossible to take up one's abode with Truth, and to let all sweet homely feelings grow about it and cluster around it, and to smile upon it as on a kind father or mother, and to sport with it, and hold light and merry talk with it, as with a loved brother or sister; and to fondle it, and play with it, as with a child? No otherwise did Socrates and Plato commune with Truth; no otherwise Cervantes and Shakspere. This playfulness of Truth is beautifully represented by Landor, in the conversation between Marcus Cicero and his brother, in an allegory which has the voice and the spirit of Plato. On the other hand, the outcries of those who exclaim against every sound more lively than a bray or a bleat, as derogatory to truth, are often prompted, not so much by their deep feeling of the dignity of the truth in question, as of the dignity of the person by whom that truth is maintained. It is our vanity, our self-conceit, that makes us so sore and irritable. To a grave argument we may reply gravely, and fancy that we have the best of it; but he who is too dull or too angry to smile, cannot answer a smile, except by fretting and fuming. Olivia lets us into the secret of Malvolio's distaste for the Clown.

For the full expansion of the intellect, moreover, to preserve it from that narrowness and partial warp which our proneness to give ourselves up to the sway of the moment is apt to produce, its various faculties, however opposite, should grow and be trained up side by side-should twine their arms together, and strengthen each other by love-wrestles. Thus will it be best fitted for discerning and acting upon