you an inveterate opposer, you are too fond of contemplating the darker shades of human life, and have little sympathy with your fellows;-but even with these weak claims to the world's favor, you might avoid obloquy and persecution, did you not possess, in a most eminent degree, an inveterate and irresistible propensity to give utterance to your thoughts without reserve and withont restraint-with the most absolute disregard of time, place or circumstance; this is the chief cause of that obloquy you are obliged to brave.

What can be more absurd, in any professional character, than to practise rigid honesty, especially in a highly civilized age; the very term civilization, implies a departure from natural honesty to artificial or expedient honesty. What has been the consequence of your almost continually recommending your patients to trust to nature, exercise and temperance, instead of physic? Of the hundreds on whom you have exhausted your eloquence to prove these natural modes of cure the most effectual, how many have relied on your advice? have not ninety nine out of every hundred, immediately left your door for those of the less conscientious? By advising Sir John Waddle to forsake gluttony and wine bibbing, he forsook you and cast the care of his corpulency on a more prudent practitioner? By rashly telling the fat Duchess of D- that her disorder was sloth, and

might be speedily cured by battledore and shuttlecock, you gained her grace's anger and lost her custom; when called on to administer to the rich young widow E, in desperate hysterics for the death of her old gouty protector, what was your prescription? Three weeks and a young husband. Oh, fie, Ben; these humours are too expensive! By continually exposing the weakness of your profession and the ignorance of your brethren, you have lost your practice, and gained the hearty contempt and hatred of the faculty and very naturally, not to say justly. What would become of you as a body, were the world to grow wiser by your advice? When temperance, exercise and nature, shall be considered the best physicians, your craft, my dear Ben, will be in danger; many a fine establishment and fine equipage will come to the hammer; an honest lawyer is a fool, an honest doctor not more wise. But lauded be learning and science, and blessings on the diffusers of knowledge, the days of ignorance are passed away; this is the nineteenth century, the world is too wise to fall in with your shallow maxims, or to listen to the utopian schemes of honest men.

By too much freedom of speech, you have obtained the hatred of the clergy and the religious of all denominations. Is your subscrip tion requested on behalf of Missionaries, Bible Societies, education schemes, for the translation of the bible into Irish or Cingalese, or any other godly purpose, you are not content with merely refusing, but never fail to shew the why and wherefore of your refusal, and seldom let the applicant pass without impugning his motives, or turning his objects into ridicule. This has proved a dangerous practice; these parties are not the most discriminating characters, they have repaid your refusal by exhibiting you as an irreligious deist, or an abominable atheist; this is a character too sinful to be forgiven;

the greatest virtues, the highest rank, the most brilliant talents, will not protect such an one from general destestation; and though I know you to be a better practical Christian and a more sincere believer in the truths of Christianity, than nine tenths of its perverters and most zealous professors, yet the world is not so practically forgiving and just, as to give you credit for any virtue but that of acquiescence in all their plans and opinions.

Let me now instance a few of those general topics that have assisted in confirming the slanders you have gained by your loquacity and love of argument. Virgil's fame has been gradually increasing, for 2,000 years, with that of many less eminent of the ancient poets. Do you not attempt to pluck the evergreen from their wreaths. Every body rapturously extols the superior knowledge of the ancients, you are pepetually underrating their pretensions. You deny Milton to be the most sublime poet, and make long speeches to prove the merit of Shakespear overrated. When all the world thought Buonaparte a tyrant who defied the laws of God and man to accomplish his ends, you pronounced daily eulogiums on his greatness. When every body was decrying the profligacy of Lord Byron, you spoke twenty speeches a day in his praise. Every body admires the Scotch novels, you call them the panegyrics of fools, maniacs, rogues and vagabonds, well adapted to please the vicious taste of the age. In short, you are a decided oppositionist, whom few have the skill to confute, but on whom all have the power to retaliate. Your hand is against every man, and every man's haud against you.

With hypocrisy you carry on a perpetual war, and all are your enemies; for who, according to your theory, is sincere ?-What can more glaringly shew the contempt you entertain for the civil institutions of your country, or rather for the pretended piety of your countrymen than this fact. A party had been to hear a celebrated divine, and a young lady, equally witty and agreeable, had pronounced a panygeric on the preacher's powers, when you delivered this untimely oration. "From your employment this morning may be estimated the exact amount of the national religion; they that do not attend church are decidedly irreligious; but are they that do attend, less so ? Are their motives purely pious? Do they go, as they affirm, even to the Deity, "with pure hearts and humble voices-to thank him for his goodness, and to beseech him to deliver them from pride, vain glory and hypocrisy, from envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness ?" Nothing of the sort. Some go to hear popular preachers, others to inspect bonnets, caps, feathers, and faces: others to note who are absent, to wonder at the cause, and find food for scaudal; while the majority go because it is the fashion, or from fear, because their neighbours would think them very atheistical sort of people if they never went to church! Look at the faces of any given congregation, do not their eyes, their manners unequivocally declare their impiety; and incontestably prove their thoughts to be on other matters? A popular preacher is injurious to the sincerity of prayer, his voice, manner, face, eyes, nose, hair, and handkerchief, are the importaut objects of attention and admiration for the gaping throng; and thus

a sprinkling of peculiarity in a vain worm, is sufficient to call the attention and admiration of the most religious people in the world, from their professed object-the praise of the Deity. Prayers and thanksgivings are replete with expressions of love and admiration of his power, of gratitude for his mercy and of beneficent feelings towards man; but what have the hearts of the congregation to do with these expressions: they know not what they say. But, can there be conduct more daringly hypocritical, or more decidedly blasphemous than this direct mockery of heaven? and yet how clearly do these same people, with mountains in their eyes, see to pluck the beam from their neighbours; totally deficient as the world is in sincere religion, they persecute with the most unrelenting ferocity, all who attempt to disturb their faith, or weaken their belief: how glaringly can they depict the absurd formalities of every religion but their own. man is so unwillingly forgiven as the opposer of opinions, even opinions which produce no practical good. A Thurtell can command admiration; a Carlisle obtains no sympathy! so tender are ignorant mortals of mere opinion."

No

A very fine rhapsody truly! Do you recollect the profound silence that followed, the looks of those pretty girls; really Ben, thou art a most egregious ass; what did you gain by this precious exposition of popular hypocrisy? But bow much more intemperate, undisguised, and uncharitable, are your daily conversations on the politics of the day, taxing one party with ignorance, another with imbecility, and all with interested views; thus have you brought on yourself general contempt, and without conferring any benefit on society.

Let me then advise you to renounce your prevailing propensity; cherish such opinions as your observation, experience and knowledge may force upon you; but don't promulgate your notions, 'tis dan. gerous; disturb not the hornets, they will sting you to death. Your temper is already soured by opposition, desist 'ere you die of the spleen. Opinions that are flattering to the self love of man, you may speak without hazard ; but attempt not to push back the tide, nor stem the torrent, or you will be overwhelmed. Be guided by the practice of all parties; let the customs, the opinions, the example of the majority have more influence: rail not against the evil, but praise the good. There is good in every thing, in every man, except such as you, there is something worthy of praise; even the highwayman often partakes of gallantry and generosity. If you meet with a fool, don't expose his folly: if with a clever man, tell him not of his vanity: if you converse with a Quaker, praise Barclay and industry; if with a Calvinist, talk of predestination, election, and John Knox if with a Methodist, a few anecdotes of John Wesley, and a detail of the sufferings and benefits of their missionaries will be highly acceptable. To a Unitarian, rail against the bishops.—If chance brings you in company with an old dowager, pat her lap-dogs and call them "dear sweet creatures;" if with a lady fond of her children, praise their pretty faces, pat their cheeks, ask silly questions, and with a "God bless me," express your astonishment at their immense likeness to mama. Say little to religious or political

zealots; if you meet with a poor curate, talk of the unequal division of church funds; if with a rich dignitary, launch out against the Catholics and Dissenters. With the Whigs, praise Charley Fox, the Earl of Chatham, and the aristrocacy; with the Tories, let Billy Pitt, and the prosperity of Old England under our happy constitution, be the theme, not forgetting a few anathemas against the radicals and infidels of the age, with the lamentable loss of popularity of the Whigs. With the Radicals, talk of the consistency of Major Cartwright, and prove the right of universal suffrage. If parents deceive their children, children their parents, kings their ministers, and ministers their king and the people; if doctors deceive their patients, lawyers their clients, priests their flocks; if leaders of all parties, deceive all parties; if every man deceive his neighbour; if public writers are a pack of hypocritical cowards, who pamper the vices, and flatter the prejudices of their readers; if hypocrisy is universal, what inferences are to be drawn ;—that sincerity is a virtue in theory only; that every body loves to be deceived and flattered, and what every body loves, must be better than that which every body hates; that hypocrisy and lying are more indispensible to the benefit of this generation than sincerity and truth, and that a perpetual promulgation of opinions, contrary to the established and legal ones, is a breach of good manners, good sense and sound discretion.

Let me then, my dear Ben, conjure you to adopt a different course, flatter men and they will flatter you, follow my directions, and consider your fellow men, as "Children of a larger growth," fond of ease, old habits, and old actions; and you will thus be esteemed a very gentlemanly personage, a very nice man, a very intelligent character. In short, the most polite, good natured, sensible, genteel, feeling, affable, learned, popular man of your time, in favor with old and young, rich and poor, with all parties and all sects, your reputation will be firmly established, and you will flourish like a goodly vine; and when the hand of time shall close your mortality; the gratitude of your cotemporaries will raise a flattering monument to your memory. Be discreet, my dear doctor, and forget not, that a still tongue maketh a wise head. I am, my dear Ben, your's most sincerely. CHRISTOPHER COUNCIL.

THE WANING MOON.

And like a dying lady, lean and pale,
Who totters forth, wrapt in a gauzy veil,
Out of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The moon arose up in the murky earth,
A white and shapeless mass.

THE GRAVE.

THERE is a mournful pleasure in stealing from the noisy haunts of life, at that soul-soothing hour when the twilight sheds its softening influence over each distant prospect, and the last faint vestiges of the declining day are vanishing from the heavens. It is sweet at such a time to stray into the church-yard of some neighbouring village, and pass an hour in meditation over the last narrow dwelling-place of those who are reclining beneath us. There shall we be impressed with the sad truth, that our brightest joys must pass away, and that a time will come, when the cold grave will receive us, and others will pass over our lowly bed, and bestow not a thought on the mouldering relics of the mortal who lies beneath them. But we shall rest calmly and peacefully. Sorrows will not molest us; but the breeze will moan a gentle dirge as it passes over our resting place; and the summer daisy will disclose its simple beauties among the waving grass that springs in freshness above our last quiet home.

Go, child of sorrow, to the grave, where the gentle form is sleeping that was wont to be thy companion: who, when the storm of affliction was darkly gathering around thee, sooth'd thy anguish, and with the blandishments of faithful affection cheered thy hours of sadness. Go to the turf that flourishes above her, and recall, as in a dream, past hours of happiness. Think of those eyes, beautiful as violets, where love had made his habitation.-Think of that voice, which, like the lute's soft music, thrilled thy inmost soul with its melody-muse on every fond endearment, every blissful hour, that once, with her, was thy portion; then wake from the enchanting illusion, to know that, mixed with her kindred dust, she can return to thee no more.

And thou, who hast wept over a parent's lifeless form-thou, who hast partaken of the devotedness of parental love, and hast seen those parents, whose hopes were on thee, snatch'd by the hand of death suddenly from thy side-do thou go to the church-yard in which they repose, and shed thy bitter tears of sorrow over their grave.— Then, if thou hast ever given a pang to the_bosom whereon thou wert nourished, then will each unkindness, which thou mayest for a time have forgotten, rush into thy mind, and thou wilt weep more sadly, because the conviction will be in thy heart that it is vain.— Thy tears cannot recall one moment of undutiful behaviour; nor shed a balm over the sorrows of that heart which thy unkindness has wounded. Thou may'st pluck from their turf the wild weeds, aud

"Strew with flowers the dismal spot ;"

but it will be of no avail; they have passed from thee for ever, and the voice of thy sorrow penetrates not into the grave, but is lost in the night-wind which sighs around it.

"There is a calm for those that weep,"