easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy."

"The wisdom from above is, first, pure." This purity of the mind and spirit is peculiar to the gospel. Our Saviour says, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." A mind free from all pollution of lusts shall have a daily vision of God, whereof unrevealed religion can form no notion. This it is that keeps us unspotted from the world; and hereby many have been prevailed upon to live in the practice of all purity, holiness, and righteousness, far beyond the examples of the most celebrated philosophers.

Our

It is "peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated.". The Christian doctrine teacheth us all those dispositions that make us affable and courteous, gentle and kind, without any morose leaven of pride or vanity, which entered into the composition of most heathen schemes; so we are taught to be meek and lowly. Saviour's last legacy was peace; and he commands us to forgive our offending brother unto seventy times seven. Christian wisdom is full of mercy and good works, teaching the height of all moral virtues, of which the heathens fell infinitely short. Plato, indeed (and it is worth observing), has somewhere a dialogue, or part of one, about forgiving our enemies, which was, perhaps, the highest strain ever reached by man without Divine assistance; yet, how little is that to what our Saviour commands us ! "To love them that hate us; to bless them that curse us; and to do good to them that despitefully use us."

Christian wisdom is without partiality;" it is not calculated for this or that nation of people, but the whole race of mankind; not so the philosophical schemes, which were narrow and confined, adapted to their peculiar towns, governments, or sects: but, "in every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him.”

Lastly, It is "without hypocrisy ;" it appears to be what it really is; it is all of a piece. By the doctrines of the gospel, we are so far from being allowed to publish to the world those virtues we have not, that we are commanded to hide even from ourselves, those we really have, and not to let our right hand know what our left hand does; unlike several branches of the heathen wisdom, which pretended to teach insensibility and indifference, magnanimity and contempt of life, while, at the same time, in other parts, it belied its own doctrines.

I come now, in the last place, to show that the great examples of wisdom and virtue among the Grecian sages were produced by personal merit, and not influer ced by the doctrine of any particular sect; whereas, in Christianity, it is quite the contrary.

The two virtues most celebrated by ancient moralists were fortitude and temperance, as relating to the government of man in his private capacity, to which their schemes were generally addressed and confined; and the two instances wherein those virtues arrived at the greatest height were Socrates and Cato. But neither those, nor any other virtues possessed by these two, were at all owing to any lessons or doctrines of a sect. For Socrates himself was of none at all; and although Cato was called a Stoic, it was more from a resemblance of manners in his worst qualities, than that he avowed himself one of their disciples. The same may be affirmed of many other great men of antiquity. Whence I infer that those who were renowned for virtue among them were more obliged to the good natural dispositions of their own minds than to the doctrines of any sect they pretended to follow.

On the other side, as the examples of fortitude and patience among the primitive Christians have been infinitely greater and more numerous, so they were altogether the product of their principles and doctrine; and were such as the same persons, without those aids, would never have arrived to. Of this truth, most of the Apostles, with many thousand martyrs, are a cloud of witnesses beyond exception.

358.-THE MODERN DRAMATIC POETS.- V.

LEIGH HUNT.

THE following scene between a gentle wife, driven to despair by her most captious and irritating husband, is as beautifully managed as anything we could compare with it in the whole compass of that dramatic poetry which may be called domestic. The whole play is full of grace and tenderness-the work of a true artist.]

Gin. (cheerfully). The world seems glad after its hearty drink

Of rain. I fear'd, when you came back this morning,

The shower had stopp'd you, or that you were ill.

Ago. You fear'd! you hoped. What fear you that I fear,

Or hope for that I hope for? A truce, madam,

To these exordiums and pretended interests,

Whose only shallow intent is to delay,

Or to divert, the sole dire subject,-me.

Soh! you would see the spectacle! you, who start
At openings of doors, and falls of pins.

Trumpets and drums quiet a lady's nerves;
And a good hacking blow at a tournament

Equals burnt feathers or hartshorn, for a stimulus
To pretty household tremblers.

Gin.

I express'd

No wish to see the tournament, nor indeed
Anything, of my own accord; or contrary
To your good judgment.

Ago.
Oh, of course not. Wishes
Are never express'd for, or by, contraries;
Nor the good judgment of an anxious husband
Held forth as a pleasant tning to differ with.

Gin. It is as easy as sitting in my chair,
To
say I will not go and I will not.

Be pleased to think that settled.

Ago.

The more easily,

As 'tis expected I should go, is it not?

And then you will sit happy at receipt

Of letters from Antonio Rondinelli.

Gin. Return'd unopen'd, sir.

Ago. You are correct as to those three. How many
Open'd?-Your look, madam, is wondrous logical;
Conclusive by mere pathos of astonishment;
And cramm'd with scorn, from pure unscornfulness.

4TH QUARTER.

I have, 'tis true, strong doubts of your regard
For him, or any one ;-of your love of power
None, as you know I have reason;-tho' you take
Ways of refined provokingness to wreak it.
Antonio knows these fools you saw but now,
And fools have foolish friendships, and bad leagues
For getting a little power, not natural to them,
Out of their laugh'd-at betters. Be it as it may
All this, I will not have these prying idlers
Put my domestic troubles to the blush
Now you sit thus, in ostentatious meekness,
Playing the victim with a pretty breath,

And smiles that say "God help me."-Well, madam,
What do you say?

Gin.

I

say I will do whatever

What can I say,

Or what, alas! not say, and not be chided?
You should not use me thus.
So great as you may think.
Has left me weak.

I have not strength for it,
My late sharp illness

Ago.
I've known you weaker, madam,
But never feeble enough to want the strength
Of contest and perverseness. Oh, men too,
Men may be weak, even from the magnanimity
Of strength itself; and women can take poor
Advantages, that were in men but cowardice.

Gin. [Aside.] Dear Heaven! what humblest doubts of our self knowledge Should we not feel, when tyranny can talk thus.

Ago. Can you pretend, madam, with your surpassing

Candour and heavenly kindness, that you never

Utter'd one gentle-sounding word, not meant

To give the hearer pain? me pain? your husband?
Whom in all evil thoughts you so pretend

To be unlike ?

See there you have! you own it! how pretend then
To make such griefs of every petty syllable,

Wrung from myself by everlasting scorn?

Gin. One pain is not a thousand; nor one wrong, Acknowledged and repented of, the habit

Of unprovoked and unrepented years.

Ago. Of unprovoked! Oh, let all provocation

Take every brutish shape it can devise

To try endurance with; taunt it in failure,

Grind it in want, stoop it with family shames,

Make gross the name of mother, call it fool,
Pander, slave, coward, or whatsoever opprobrium
Makes the soul swoon within its rage, for want
Of some great answer, terrible as its wrong,
And it shall be as nothing to this miserable,
Mean, meek-voiced, most malignant lie of lies;
This angel-mimicking non-provocation

From one too cold to enrage, too weak to tread on ;
You never loved me once-you loved me not—
Never did-no-not when before the altar

With a mean coldness, a worldly-minded coldness
And lie on your lips, you took me for your husband, ·
Thinking to have a house, a purse, a liberty,

By, but not for, the man you scorn'd to love!

Gin. I scorn'd you not-and knew not what scorn wasBeing scarcely past a child, and knowing nothing

But trusting thoughts and innocent daily habits.

Oh, could you trust yourselfBut why repeat

What still is thus repeated, day by day,

Still ending with the question, "Why repeat ?" [Rising and moving about.

You make the blood at last mount to my brain,

And tax me past endurance. What have I done,

Good God! what have I done, that I am thus

At the mercy of a mystery of tyranny,
Which from its victim demands every virtue,
And brings it none?

So help me Heaven !-I but spoke in consciousness
Of what was weak on both sides. There's a love

In that, would you but know it, and encourage it.
The consciousness of wrong, in wills not evil,
Brings charity. Be you but charitable,

And I am grateful, and we both shall learn.

Ago. I am conscious of no wrong in this dispute,
Nor when we dispute ever,—except the wrong
Done to myself by a will still more wilful,
Because less moved, and less ingenuous,

Let them get charity that show it.

Gin. (who has reseated herself.) I pray you,
Let Fiodilisa come to me. My lips
Will show you that I faint.

2

[The Reverend James White has written several dramas of high merit,-chiefly historical. This form of poetry, in spite of the little encouragement to scenic representation in our times, has attractions for some of our best living writers, as we have shewn; and Mr. White has a worthy niche amongst them. The story of the Gowrie conspiracy is familiar to every reader of Scotch history; and its mysterious interest is well kept up in this tragedy.]

Gowrie,

Enter Gowrie.

James Stewart,

What moved you that you came into this house?
James. Oh! speak not so severely spare me, cousin,

I will do all you ask.

Gowrie. I ask you nothing.

James. I think I see a softening in your eye.

Your voice is not so ruthless as your mother's.

Gowrie. Name not my mother's name, if you are wise.
What brought you hither?

James.

'Twas with Restalrig;

I came, with Restalrig, to see you, cousin,

To be more neighbours. We are both scholars, cousin,
We should be friends. I never read a letter,

Not Cicero's, or Pliny's, half so wise

Or eloquent, as the short note you sent me
From Padua. We should meet much oftener,
And speak in the auld Roman tongue.

Gowrie.
What thoughts
Rise in that slavish, cruel heart of yours,
Worthy to robe themselves in the great words
Of a brave Roman? Where, in all their language
Find you two words that speak so base a mixture,
As King and Falsehood?

James.

"Falsitas," and "Rex,"

Quite common words; the adjective is "falsus,"
Thus, "falsus rex," false or deceitful king,

It's a far commoner phrase than Bonus vir."

Gowrie. (walking hurriedly). It makes me pause, ere I can give my faith To truths in holy writ, that there's a power

That guides our human destiny; but rather

That we're the puppets of blind chance, to see

The government and rule of countless men,

Committed to such hands as this mere thing's !

Jarnes. As I'm some years your senior, gentle cousin,

And had advantage of a schoolmaster,

Such as has seldom shewed he loved the child

By such extravagance in birken rods,

I might be helpful to your Latin style,—

And if ye'll stay with me at Falkland

Your voice will move me from my fixed resolve.

James. I pray it may-I pray that it may move you-
I'm in your power, I'm helpless, powerless, friendless,
Your mother threatens vengeance for her wrongs,