thus his whole building tumbles upon his head. Other people look well to their ground, choose their position, and watch whether they are likely to be surprised there; but he, as if in the ostentation of his heart, builds upon a precipice, and encamps upon a mine, from choice. He seems to have no one actuating principle, but a steady persevering resolution not to speak the truth, or to tell the fact.

It is impossible almost to treat conduct of this kind with perfect seriousness; yet I am aware that it ought to be more seriously accounted for, because I am sure it has been a sort of paradox, which must have struck your Lordships, how any person having so many motives to conceal having so many reasons to dread detection-should yet go to work so clumsily upon the subject. It is possible, indeed, that it may raise this doubt whether such a person is of sound mind enough to be a proper object of punishment; or least it may give a kind of confused notion, that the guilt cannot be of so deep and black a grain over which such a thin veil was thrown, and so little trouble taken to avoid detection. I am aware that, to account for this seeming paradox, historians, poets, and even philosophers—at least of ancient times-have adopted the superstitious solution of the vulgar, and said that the gods deprive men of reason whom they devote to destruction or to punishment. But to unassuming or unprejudiced reason, there is no need to resort to any supposed supernatural interference; for the solution will be

found in the eternal rules that formed the mind, and gave a quality and nature to every passion that inhabits in it.

An honourable friend of mine, who is now, I believe, near me, a gentleman, to whom I never can on any occasion refer without feelings of respect, and, on this subject, without feelings of the most grateful homage,-a gentleman, whose abilities upon this occasion, as upon some former ones, happily for the glory of the age in which we live, are not intrusted merely to the perishable eloquence of the day, but will live to be the admiration of that hour when all of us are mute, and most of us forgotten; -that honourable gentleman has told you, that Prudence, the first of virtues, never can be used in the cause of vice. If, reluctant and diffident, I might take such a liberty, I should express à doubt, whether experience, observation, or history, will warrant us in fully assenting to this observation. It is a noble and a lovely sentiment, my Lords, worthy the mind of him who uttered it, worthy that proud disdain, that generous scorn of the means and instruments of vice, which virtue and genius must ever feel. But I should doubt whether we can read the history of a Philip of Macedon, a Cæsar, or a Cromwell, without confessing that there have been evil purposes, baneful to the peace and to the rights of men, conducted-if I may not say with prudence or with wisdom-yet with awful craft and most successful and commanding subtilty. If, however, I

might make a distinction, I should say that it is the proud attempt to mix a variety of lordly crimes, that unsettles the prudence of the mind, and breeds this distraction of the brain. One master-passion, domineering in the breast, may win the faculties of the understanding to advance its purpose, and to direct to that object every thing that thought or human knowledge can effect; but, to succeed, it must maintain a solitary despotism in the mind-each rival profligacy must stand aloof, or wait in abject vassalage upon its throne. For the Power, that has not forbade the entrance of evil passions into man's mind, has, at least, forbade their union;-if they meet they defeat their object, and their conquest, or their attempt at it, is tumult. Turn to the Virtues, -how different the decree! Formed to connect, to blend, to associate, and to co-operate; bearing the same course, with kindred energies and harmonious sympathy, each perfect in its own lovely sphere, each moving in its wider or more contracted orbit, with different, but concentering powers, guided by the same influence of reason, and endeavouring at the same blessed end-the happiness of the individual, the harmony of the species, and the glory of the Creator. In the Vices, on the other hand, it is the discord that ensures the defeat-each clamours to be heard in its own barbarous language; each claims the exclusive cunning of the brain; each thwarts and reproaches the other; and even while their fell rage assails with common hate the peace

and virtue of the world, the civil war among their own tumultuous legions defeats the purpose of the foul conspiracy. These are the Furies of the mind, my Lords, that unsettle the understanding; these are the Furies that destroy the virtue, Prudence,while the distracted brain and shivered intellect proclaim the tumult that is within, and bear their testimonies from the mouth of God himself to the foul condition of the heart.

(By the Rev. Alexander Stewart, Minister of Douglas.)

In whatever light we view education, it cannot fail to appear the most important subject that can engage the attention of mankind. When we contrast the ignorance, the rudeness, and the helplessness of the savage, with the knowledge, the refinement, and the resources of civilized man, the difference between them appears so wide, that they can hardly be regarded as of the same species. Yet compare the infant of the savage with that of the most enlightened philosopher, and you will find them in all respects the same. The same high capacious powers" of mind "lie folded up" in both; and in both, the organs of sensation adapted to these mental powers are exactly similar. All the difference,

which is afterwards to distinguish them, depends upon their education. While the mind of the

savage, left entirely neglected, will scarcely raise him above the level of the animals around him, insensible to all the wonders of creation, and shut out from all the treasures of nature, the more fortunate member of enlightened society, whose capacities shall be evolved by a proper education, will comprehend within the ample range of his intelligence the universe of God; all the beauties of creation will lie unveiled before him; nature will unlock to him her sacred stores, and reveal her secret laws; the powers of other creatures will become subject to his control; and the faculties and the attainments of men will be made subservient to his advantage or his delight. Such is the importance of education to the intellectual improvement, and consequently to the happiness of man. But it is not by his intellectual improvement alone that it enlarges the sphere of his enjoyment. It opens to him sources of still more exquisite pleasure, in the moral and religious tendencies of his nature. The untutored barbarian, like the beasts which he hunts for subsistence, or from which he dreads destruction, acts merely under the guidance of instinct, or from the impulse of appetite, passion, or feeling. A stranger to control, he acknowledges no law but his own will. Not disciplined to subordination, or trained to reflect on the relations of society, and the duties which arise out of these relations, he submits to no supe