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with, the best feelings of the heart. The people see that there is no bargain for these moral qualities with

them, more than with the horses or the threshing machine. Of course all the virtues of the former generation come to be gradually obliterated; like the plow-share, that has been forgotten on the fallow field, they are left to rust and be corroded away.

What is to be the consequence of all this, said I, and where is the remedy to come from? Legislative interference would be in vain, and yet it were well if any obstruction could be thrown in the way of the increasing evil.

"The evil, like all other evils, will work its own cure, or it will be productive of good in some way or other, that we had not yet foreseen; when we have no former example to direct our judgment, perhaps we may be assisted in our conjectures by attending to analogy. The feudal state of so ciety has been compared to a tree; the old connexions of master and servant, that we have seen broken asunder before our eyes, were the terminating branches; they had ceased to shoot and grow, but they still continued to bear leaves, and sometimes a little fruit. The filial affection, generosity, and self-devotion of the clans are no more; but neither is their individual helplessness, indolence, and servility. Men value themselves more as individuals, and they feel their own powers more, and they exert them; they are more selfish, but they are more industrious and manly. The clans of people we have been considering have no doubt degenerated greatly in some respects, but they by no means remained stationary during the late rapid diffusion of knowledge. This, the greatest good that they can enjoy, and the foundation of all others, may be misused likewise, but in time it will perhaps produce better feelings; the rural labourers will learn to disdain to be compelled to work, and to be overlooked like slaves, lest they cheat their employer. Those who have most industry and proper pride will begin to prefer piece-work, and those who do their work conscientiously will be best employed, and best paid, and Labour, as she has no doubt been intended for it, will come at last to be the Schoolmistress of Virtue.

A COUNTRY MINISTER.

HOSPITAL SCENE IN PORTUGAL.

Officer, in a Series of Letters to a Friend.)

(Extracted from the Journal of a British

Our

THE French army had long suffered terrible privations. We all knew that Massena could not much longer retain his position, and the Great Lord," (so the Spaniards call Wellington) allowed famine to do the work of a charge of bayonets. army was weary of the lines. It felt as if cooped up by an enemy it yet despised, and would have gladly marched out to storm the formidable French encampment; and such was the first idea that struck many of us, when, on the 5th of March, the army was put in motion, and the animating music of the regimental bands rang through the rocky ridges of Torres Vedras.

But it was soon universally understood, that the French were in full retreat; there was now no hope of a great pitched battle, and all that I could expect was, that as our regiment formed part of the advance, we might now and then have a brush with the rear-guard of the French, which was, you know, composed of the flower of the army, and commanded by Michael Ney, the "bravest of the brave."

I will give you, in another letter, an account of the most striking scenes I witnessed during the pursuit after our ferocious enemy. They had been cheated out of a victory over us (so they said, and so in Gallic presumption they probably felt), when, some months before, Massena beheld that army, which he threatened to drive into the sea, frowning on him from impregnable heights, all bristling with cannon. Instead of battle, and conquest, and triumph, they had long remained in hopeless inactivity, and at last, their convoys being intercepted by the Guerillas, they had endured all the intensest miseries of famine. Accordingly, when they broke up, the soul of the French army was in a burning fever of savage wrath. The consummate skill of their leaders, and the unmitigated severity of their discipline, kept the troops in firm and, regular order; and certainly, on all occasions, when I had an opportunity of seeing the rear-guard, its movements were most beautiful. I could not help admiring the mass moving slowly away, like a multitude of de

mons, all obeying the signs of one master spirit. Call me not illiberal in thus speaking of our foe. Wait till you have heard from me a detailed account of their merciless butcheries, and then you will admit, that a true knight violates not the laws of chivalry in uttering his abhorrence of blood-thirsty barbarians. The ditches were often literally filled with clotted and coagulated blood, as with mire the bodies of peasants, put to death like dogs, were lying there horribly mangled-little naked infants, of a year old, or less, were found besmeared in the mud of the road, transfixed with bayonet wounds-and in one instance, a child, of about a month old, I myself saw with the bayonet left still sticking in its neck-young women and matrons were found lying dead with cruel and shameful wounds; and, as if some general law to that effect had been promulgated to the army, the priests were hanged upon trees by the road-side. But no more of this at present.

I wish now to give you some idea of a scene I witnessed at Miranda de Cervo, on the ninth day of our pursuit. Yet I fear that a sight so terrible cannot be shadowed out, except in the memory of him who beheld it. I entered the town about dusk. It had been a black, grim, and gloomy sort of a day-at one time fierce blasts of wind, and at another perfect stillness, with far-off thunder. Altogether there was a wild adaptation of the weather and the day to the retreat of a great army. Huge masses of clouds lay motionless on the sky before us; and then they would break up suddenly, as with a whirlwind, and roll off in the red and bloody distance. I felt myself, towards the fall of the evening, in a state of strange excitement. My imagination got the better entirely of all my other faculties, and I was like a man in a grand but terrific dream, who never thinks of questioning any thing he sees or hears, but believes all the phantasms around with a strength of belief seemingly proportioned to their utter dissimilarity to the objects of the real world of nature.

Just as I was passing the great Cross in the principal street, I met an old haggard-looking wretch,-a woman, who seemed to have in her hollow eyes an unaccountable expression of cruelty-a glance like that

of madness; but her deportment was quiet and rational, and she was evidently of the middle rank of society, though her dress was faded and squalid. She told me (without being questioned) in broken English, that I would find comfortable accommodation in an old convent that stood at some distance among a grove of cork-trees: pointing to them at the same time, with her long shrivelled hand and arm, and giving a sort of hysterical laugh. You will find, said she, nobody there to disturb you.

I followed her advice with a kind of superstitious acquiescence. There was no reason to anticipate any adventure or danger in the convent; yet the wild eyes, and the wilder voice of the old crone powerfully affected me; and though, after all, she was only such an old woman as one may see any where, I really began to invest her with many most imposing qualities, till I found, that in a sort of reverie, I had walked up a pretty long flight of steps, and was standing at the entrance to the cloisters of the convent. I then saw something that made me speedily forget the old woman, though what it was I did see, I could not, in the first moments of my amazement and horror, very distinctly compre hend.

Above a hundred dead bodies lay and sat before my eyes, all of them apparently in the very attitude or posture in which they had died. I looked at them for at least a minute, before I knew that they were all corpses. Something in the mortal silence of the place told me that I alone was alive in this dreadful company. A desperate courage enabled me then to look stedfastly at the scene before me. The bodies were mostly clothed in mats, and rugs, and tattered great-coats; some of them merely wrapped round about with girdles of straw; and two or three perfectly naked. Every face had a different expression, but all painful, horrid, agonized, bloodless. Many glazed eyes were wide open; and perhaps this was the most shocking thing in the whole spectacle. So many eyes that saw not, all seemingly fixed upon different objects; some cast up to Heaven, some looking straight forward, and some with the white orbs turned round, and deep sunk in the

sockets.

It was a sort of Hospital. These

wretched Beings were mostly all desperately or mortally wounded; and after having been stripped by their comrades, they had been left there dead and to die. Such were they, who, as the old Hag said, would not trouble me.

I had begun to view this ghastly sight with some composure, when I saw, at the remotest part of the hospital, a gigantic figure sitting, covered with blood and almost naked, upon a rude bedstead, with his back leaning against the wall, and his eyes fixed directly on mine. I thought he was alive, and shuddered; but he was stone dead. In the last agonies he had bitten his under lip almost entirely off, and his long black beard was drenched in clotted gore, that likewise lay in large blots on his shaggy bosom. One of his hands had convulsively grasped the wood-work of the bedstead, which had been crushed in the grasp. I recognised the corpse. He was a sergeant in a grenadier regiment, and, during the retreat, distinguished for acts of savage valour. One day he killed, with his own hand, Harry Warburton, the right-hand man of my own company, perhaps the finest made and most powerful man in the British army. My soldiers had nicknamed him with a very coarse appellation, and I really felt as if he and I were acquaintances. There he sat, as if frozen to death. I went up to the body, and raising up the giant's muscular arm, it fell down again with a hollow sound against the bloody side of the corpse.

My eyes unconsciously wandered along the walls. They were covered with grotesque figures and caricatures of the English absolutely drawn in blood. Horrid blasphemies, and the most shocking obscenities in the shape of songs, were in like manner written there; and you may guess what an effect they had upon me, when the wretches who had conceived them lay all dead corpses around my feet. I saw two books lying on the floor. I lifted them up. One seemed to be full of the most hideous obscenity; the other was the Bible! It is impossible to tell you the horror produced in me by this circumstance. The books fell from my hand. They fell upon the breast of one of the bodies. It was a woman's breast. A woman had lived and died in such a VOL. III.

place as this! What had been in that heart, now still, perhaps only a few hours before? I knew not. It is possible, love strong as death,—love, guilty, abandoned, depraved, and linked by vice unto misery,-but still love, that perished but with the last throb, and yearned in the last convulsion_towards some one of these grim dead bodies. I think some such idea as this came across me at the time; or has it now only arisen?

Near this corpse lay that of a perfect boy, certainly not more than sev◄ enteen years of age. There was a little copper figure of the Virgin Mary round his neck, suspended by a chain of hair. It was of little value, else it had not been suffered to remain there. In his hand was a letter. I saw enough to know that it was from his mother, -Mon chere fils, &c. It was a terrible place to think of mother-of home

of any social human ties. Have these ghastly things parents, brothers, sisters, lovers? Were they once all happy in peaceful homes? Did these convulsed, and bloody, and mangled bodies once lie in undisturbed beds? Did those clutched hands once press in infancy a mother's breast? Now all was loathsome, terrible, ghostlike. Human nature itself seemed here to be debased and brutified. Will such creatures, I thought, ever live again? Why should they? Robbers, ravishers, incendiaries, murderers, suicides (for a dragoon lay with a pistol in his hand, and his skull shattered to pieces), heroes! The only two powers that reigned here, were agony and death. Whatever might have been their characters when alive, all faces were now alike. I could not, in those fixed contortions, tell what was pain from what was anger-misery from wickedness.

It was now almost dark, and the night was setting in stormier than the day. A strong flash of lightning suddenly illuminated this hold of death, and for a moment shewed me more distinctly the terrible array. A lɔud squall of wind came round about the building, and the old window-casement gave way, and fell with a shivering crash in upon the floor. Something rose up with an angry growl from among the dead bodies. It was a huge dark-coloured wolf-dog, with a spiked collar round his neck; and seeing me, he leaped forwards with

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“The happy child in dragon's way Shall frolic with delight;

The lamb shall round the leopard play, And all in love unite ;

A Hebrew Melody, by the Ettrick Shepherd. The dove on Zion's hill shall light,

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That all the world must see. Hail to the Journeyer, in his might, That comes to set us free!"

DIALOGUES ON NATURAL RELIGION.

[The Editor has had committed to his charge two Dialogues on Natural and Revealed Religion, written by an admirer, but certainly no disciple, of David Hume. They are obviously formed on the model of that philosopher's celebrated Dialogues on Natural Religion, and the argument is carried on by the same interlocutors. It seems to have been the intention of the author (who died in youth, not without high distinction among his most distinguished contemporaries) to bring forward such views of the evidences of religion, both natural and revealed, as might have the best chance to meet the minds of those who have been somewhat spoiled by scepticism. Very possibly, with this view, he may not always have selected the best grounds of defence, but may both have hazarded positions that are not quite tenable, and have kept back truths which, in a more regular treatise, it would have been his duty to enforce. The Editor however trusts, that, with all their defects, these Dialogues will be found serviceable to the interests of religion, having received a written assurance to that effect from a Divine of the Church of England, no less distinguished for his erudition and philosophical genius, than for the high rank which they adorn. In the original MS. the two Dialogues are divided each into six parts. No farther liberty shall be taken with them, than to make a few verbal alterations, connecting the different parts with each other. They shall be continued regu larly through twelve Numbers of the Magazine. Pamphilus sends to Hermippus an account of the Dialogues; and they are supposed to have taken place after several years had elapsed since the date of those former Dialogues between the same interlo cutors, given by Mr Hume.]

DIALOGUE I.

Who's this," he cried, "comes by the way PHILO had succeeded to a pleasant

And all the birds of prey.

Of Edom, all divine,

property, which he was now employed

in improving and adorning. We found that he was greatly esteemed by his neighbours, and beloved by his dependants; and he seemed to be wholly occupied with the desire of rendering himself useful in the sphere in which he moved. He received Cleanthes and me with the utmost cordiality, and expressed himself highly gratified with the renewal of old remembrances which our arrival had occasioned.

"I know not, Cleanthes," said he one morning, as we were walking with him in one of his favourite retreats, "whether any hours in the decline of life are so agreeable as those which unexpectedly revive the feelings of our early years, and bring friends together after a long absence, recalling all the grateful emotions which they formerly experienced in the society of each other. They may have changed, perhaps, in many particulars, in the intervening season, yet they almost forget, when they meet as we do now, that they are not in every respect the same characters as at the time of their first intimacy. I am not one of those," said Cleanthes, "who are inclined to quarrel with the effects of age. The progress of time, in many respects, makes us wiser; and although most people, in the course of their lives, have been guilty of follies which they look back upon with regret, yet no man who possesses the principles of probity and prudence, does not feel himself, towards the close of his life, happier, on the whole, than in his first outset. It is pleasing to recollect the lively hopes and warm feelings of youth; but a wise man recollects them without any serious regret that they are past."

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"I find, my friend," said Philo, "that you still retain the even and philosophical tone of your character, and I imagine that you have changed less than either Pamphilus or myself, in the intervening period of our separation." "For myself," said I, perience has taught me some rude unmethodical lessons, in the hurry of a life which called upon me to act, while it left me little leisure for thought; but now that I have returned to the society of my first instructors, I am really much inclined to resume all the simple and docile dispositions of youth." "But pray, Philo," said Cleanthes, "what changes have befallen you?" "None," replied Philo," but what it was full time to

experience, if I was ever to acquire any thing like settled and serious opinions. I have reflected with somewhat more care than I used to do, and have become more studious of finding truth, than of exercising ingenuity.' "Seriousness," said Cleanthes, " I have always approved of; but there are some opinions which are really narrow and contracted, while they seem to be the fruits of grave 'reflection. I hope my once lively friend has not lost the gayety of his heart, with that versatility of fancy which led him often into sallies that wisdom could not approve, but which were yet accompanied with so much good humour, that philosophy could scarcely condemn them. If you have become serious, I hope it is the seriousness not of a bigot, but of a philosopher."

"I am willing," said Philo," since we seem to be coming on the subject of a former conversation, to state my opinions as unreservedly now as I did then; and you shall yourselves judge whether they are become, in any respect, contracted and illiberal." "Nothing," said I, 66 can give me more satisfaction (and I may say the same for Cleanthes) than such a proposal. I beg also, Philo, that you will renew the discussion from the outset, and first point out to us the greater grounds of assurance which natural reason has afforded you on the sublime subject of religion, before you speak of a higher source of instruction, to which, I understand, you have at length submitted a mind that seemed incapable of yielding to any authority."

Cleanthes will recollect," said Philo, "that on the proofs of religion from reason, he and I did not in fact differ very materially. We both admitted the same principles, and we differed only concerning the degree of weight which was to be allowed them. On the fundamental point, for instance, of the existence of the Deity, we both acquiesced in the supposition, that the proof is the result of an argument from analogy, which, from the resemblance of the universe to the known works of design among men, infers that design was employed in its formation. To this argument Cleanthes ascribed more weight than it seemed to me to possess, yet I could not be so blind as to overlook its force, and I confessed that the instances of design in nature were so numerous, there was no avoiding the supposition

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