At first sight Mr. Tremlett presented a grand and imposing appearance. The thin silver grey hair, which had long receded from the forehead, lent to the latter an undue proportion and a false air of benevolence; the calm which rate beings present types of progressive degradation. This progression may attain such limits that humanity is only preserved by the very excess of the evil. And the reason is plain: the existence of degenerate beings is necessarily bounded, and it is not even necessary that they should reach the last degree of degeneracy, in order to be smitten by sterility, and become incapable of transmitting the type of their degradadation."

M. Morel gives the following résumé of the ordinary train of phenomena involved in these considerations. We see,

In the first generation, immorality, depravity, alcoholic excess, brutish disposition.

In the second, hereditary drunkenness, maniacal accessions, and general paralysis.

In the third, sobriety, hypochondriac and lypomaniacal tendencies, systematic ideas of persecutions, and homicidal impulses.

In the fourth, weak intelligence originally, access of mania, stupor, transition to idiotcy, finally extinction of the race. Vide Traité des Dégénérescences Physiques, Intellectuelles et Morales de l'Espèce Humaine, et des Causes qui produisent ces Variétés maladives: par le Docteur B. A. Morel. Paris, 1857. (Of course, every case does not necessarily present itself in this regular order, nor is every stage marked by the same amount of severity in the symptoms; but most medical men will recognize the general features of this arrangement as correct.)

rested on the features was not the repose of strength, but the absence of energy; the mildness of the eye was not the softened light of old age, but the filmy lacklustre glaze of a premature decay: a venerable picture indeed, but only a picture.

His personal history was not quite unknown to me. He had, along with many others, lived the life of the prodigal of old, in the days when George the Third was King, and the heir to the crown the foremost roysterer of the unruly spirits who were then banded together, comprising, unfortunately, some of the best names in England. In all this he in nowise departed from the traditions of his race. What he did, or attempted to do, his fathers had done before him. They had drunk deeply, gamed heavily, and lost gaily: rioted and committed every sort of excess in their time; and he would follow in their paths.

Fortunately for him his health gave way, and to this fact he owed the preservation of his already burdened acres. They were made of sounder materials, and after a time were completely restored;

he was flung on a bed of sickness, from which, after long suffering, he rose a prematurely aged man, with an intellect-never very strong-a good deal impaired, and the seeds of disease well planted in his own person. In some respects he appeared a feeble and somewhat imperfect specimen of a gentleman of the old school; but his views were narrow, his discourse inane, and his prejudices insurmountable. He was not, however, without some of the virtues of his class, and his manner, though a little pompous, was studiously

courteous.

"You will, perhaps, feel astonishment to see me here, sir?"

There was no reason, that I knew of, why I should: so I simply bowed, and expressed a hope that I did not owe his visit to his own health.

"No, sir, certainly not. It is certainly not all that could be desired, but it is in a far more satisfactory state than I have enjoyed for some time. My visit is with reference to my son; I am somewhat uneasy about him."

"I regret to hear it, Mr. Tremlett."

VOL. I.

4

"There has been an unsteadiness, an irritability, a flightiness, if I may be permitted to use such a term, respecting which I am anxious to consult you. I think his health must be deranged: in no other way can I account for it." He paused, and cleared his throat.

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"Pray proceed, Mr. Tremlett; I am all attention."

"My son has ceased in some measure to pay me that respect which is due to me, or to regard my counsel with consideration and obedience. Young men will be young men, sir."

To this I made no response, as it is an axiom I always hear with a certain amount of contempt. Take it literally, and it is a platitude. Give it the usual breadth of signification, and I demur. I never could see the necessity for young men to make themselves less than men and worse than brutes; to waste their health and strength, and impoverish their brains, for that which is less than vanity, and leaves behind it worse than vexation of spirit. I intimated, that if this were the case, a clergyman cr a tutor would, next to a father, be

the proper person to take cognizance of young men's irregularities. Eventually, perhaps, they would come into our hands, but not in the first stage.

"I would wish to prevent serious consequences, sir: there are reasons why the preservation of my son's health is of the first importance, and reasons, which it is not necessary to explain, why I notice any deviations with the utmost solicitude." Poor old man! how tightly he clutched the key of the closet which contained his "skeleton in the house." "Reasons which it is not necessary to explain," even to a medical man from whom he was seeking counsel! Mr. Tremlett was by no means aware that long ago I had received exact information of all that he was now seeking to conceal with such an odd mixture of pomp and trepidation. Probably he would have been happier had he condescended to be more explicit.

One need not be a Roman Catholic to see that the necessity for confession is deeply rooted in the very nature of humanity. Not, indeed, to confess to any one, or all things at all times and in all