in the four corners, and in the centre of the four sides of the room. We cannot afford to be very particular on board ship as to noise, and by long habit, we sleep through the scrubbing decks, or the tramp of a hundred men immediately overhead; indeed I have known a man sleep undisturbed by a salute of cannon fired on the deck above him: but the screaming of eight fighting cocks, with the accompaniment of flapping of wings, and struggling to free themselves, was beyond even a sailor's powers of somnolency, and I rushed into the open air in despair. I may remark that the love of cock-fighting amongst the Creole Spaniards amounts to a passion. At Santa Martha, and Carthagena, and other places, I have seen heavy sums change hands at cock-fights; and judging | from the living ornaments of my sleeping apartment, the passion for this species of amusement must have been equally strong at Cruses. As soon as I found my friend the merchant, he very kindly acceded to my desire to proceed to Panama that night. It having become known that we intended to cross, four or five Spanish travellers requested to join us; and after some delay in procuring mules and a guide, our cavalcade left the head inn, and took the road to Panama. It was a lovely night; the full moon literally flooded the landscape with her splendour; but after riding about a mile from Cruses, we entered upon the actual road, and there the trees, and banks, and excavated rocks on either side so perfectly excluded the moon's rays, that it was impossible to see the road, which was in a most ruinous state, never having been repaired since it was first made by the Spaniards some fifty years before. At one moment the mule was stumbling over a heap of stones, which the torrent of the rainy season had piled together; and the next, he plunged into the hole from which they had been dislodged. Of course our progress was very slow, and at seven o'clock in the morning we were still ten miles from Panama, having been eight hours travelling the twenty miles from Cruses. and paused for some time, revolving in my mind what was to be done. I was hemmed in by the wood, except where it was bounded by the marsh, and to return to the forest again, would be only to get into a labyrinth from which I might never be able to extricate myself. Therefore I resolved to cross the marsh if possible, and to climb to the top of a mountain I saw in the distance, and from the summit of which I calculated I must see the city of Panama. In execution of this purpose, I loosed from the mule's neck a rope, which is used as a tether when those animals halt to graze on a journey; and fastening one end of it to his neck, and the other round my arm, I drove him into the marsh, which no effort of mine could make him enter whilst I remained on his back. The first plunge into the stagnant morass was as deep as my waist, and I had not gone twenty yards, when my feet became so fettered by the rushes, that I lost my balance, and fell at full length. Before I could recover my footing, the mule had turned to the place we had left; and being a large, powerful brute, he dragged me after him like a well-hooked salmon; and in his final bound to regain the bank, the rope broke, and he trotted out of reach, and resumed his breakfast, casting a sly glance at me, as much as to say, 'I hope you are refreshed by your cold bath.' I now felt in a perfect dilemma; for the valise containing the despatches was strapped behind the saddle, and all my efforts to catch the mule were ineffectual. Whenever I approached, his heels were ready to launch out; and if in desperation I rushed at him, he bounded off with an inconceivable agility and force, until at length I was fairly exhausted; and spreading my cloak upon the grass, I endeavoured to collect my thoughts, and to realise if possible the true nature of my position. In the course of my experience I have been often struck with the difference of the state of mind under the prospect of immediate, and apparently inevitable death, and when the prospect of death is not so immediate, and apparently inevitable. I recollect, for example, being once wrecked; and when, in half an hour after, the vessel struck, she began to fill, and death appeared unavoidable-the boats being either washed away, or destroyed by the falling masts; the water increasing more and more in the hold; and there appearing not a doubt but all hands must perish. On that occasion II found it impracticable to fix my mind for three minutes together-my imagination was so busy catching at straws, that it was impossible to collect my thoughts and meditate soberly; but now, as I lay on the grass in the wild forest, I could deliberately plan, reject, and replan, with the thoughts perfectly under control. Not but the possibility of death crossed my mind; for the want of rest in the canoe, the tedious journey of the night, and lack of any refreshment since the afternoon of the preceding day, made me doubt whether I should be equal to crossing the marsh, climbing the distant mountain, and then walking some ten or a dozen miles to Pananra; if even I could contemplate the idea of leaving the valise containing the despatches, on the chance of its being recovered afterwards. This, however, I felt I could never have done. We admire the heroism of the soldier who, when he was picked up dead upon the field, was found to have the colours he had borne stuffed into his bosom; but I believe that the same spirit is very general amongst men accustomed to military life, and subjected to military discipline. L'esprit de corps' is the ruling principle, before which life and all other considerations become secondary. Hence it was that I felt I could not abandon the despatches intrusted to me, whatever else I might do. As the road up to this time had been almost one continued lane, running between banks more or less steep, I considered there could be no danger of missing the party if I dismounted to refresh myself, by bathing my face in a clear brook which rippled across the road. was rather behind the rest, and my stopping was not observed by any one, for all were jaded and silent with the tedious and laborious journey of the night. Having finished my ablutions, I endeavoured to push on to overtake the cavalcade; and although I could not see any of them, I concluded that it was simply some turn of the road which concealed them from my sight. The beast I rode, however, was either knocked up, or had never been accustomed to any pace faster than a walk. In vain I coaxed or flogged him; flagellation seemed rather to retard than accelerate his movements: in vain I struck the spurs, with rowels the size of penny-pieces, into his ribs; I might as well have spurred a rhinoceros, for out of a deliberate walk he would not move. After travelling about a mile in this way, I came to a large open plain nearly surrounded by a wood. I looked in all directions, but could discover no trace, not even the print of a hoof, from which I might judge which way my companions had gone. But as the sagacity of the mule is by some wise man said to be equal to his obstinacy, I threw the reins upon the neck of mine, and suffered him to go his own way; and he, crossing the plain in a straight line, entered the wood. At first the trees were so thick, and the branches so interwoven, that it was difficult to force a passage; but after a while the wood became more open, and having proceeded so far as to have lost all chance of finding the way out again, the mule suddenly stopped on the brink of a very extensive marsh, muddy and overgrown with rushes. The spot upon which he stood was clear, and the grass excellently good, to judge by the avidity with which my quadruped attacked it. I dismounted, I suppose I had lain thus for half an hour, when I was suddenly roused from my reverie by an exclamation of surprise, and a man's voice demanding who I was, and what had brought me there? I started to my feet, and before me sat, on a stout Spanish pony, a muleteer. I soon made him understand my position, when, in an incredibly short time, he secured my mule, shifted my saddle on to his own pony, being, as he politely said, the more pleasant animal of the two for others, when placed in situations little in accordance me to ride, and mounting the mule himself-which, by with their birth, Charles de Valois had acquired notions the way, appeared perfectly to comprehend the differ-respecting the greatness of his ancestors which unfitted ence between his present and his late rider-he led him for steadily pursuing his avocations. Devoid of the way through the mazy intricacies of the wood, and that energy which is the basis of all self-advancement, brought me out on the Panama road, at the distance of he would remain for hours pondering on his ignoble about three leagues from the city. fate. One path lies open to me!' he would sometimes exclaim; I shall become a soldier, and face the enemies of France!' In these reveries he was no longer the humble artisan, but in imagination one of the noble of his race, regaining all the territory his ancestors had lost. To put these dreams into execution, however, one thing was wanting-Charles de Valois had not the heart of a Bothwell. The honest muleteer explained to me, as we rode along, that the situation in which he had found me was one of great peril; for, independently of there being no habitation but his own, which was several miles distant, near to the wood, he said I might have remained in the forest for ever, and no one would ever have thought of seeking for me there; and indeed this was confirmed, for as we approached the city, we met several persons on horseback, who had been sent out in search of me; but they declared that they would not have ventured to enter the wood, for fear of the hanging snakes with which it was said to be infested. My deliverer, it appeared, was a breeder of mules; one of which animals having strayed the night before, he thought it was just possible it might have entered the wood, and in seeking for his lost mule he fortunately discovered me. There is nothing particularly imposing or striking in the appearance of Panama, as approached by the Cruses road. The country is flat, and uncultivated, and the city resembles most other cities built by the Spaniards in those countries-large, heavy-looking houses, built of stone, without any attempt at architectural ornament; but there is an esplanade, upon which the beautiful brunettes promenade, the head uncovered, and the jetty hair, floating in rich, unconfined luxuriance, save where the wearer prefers the braid; and then it hangs in three or more pendants, which often nearly brush the tiny feet, clothed in their satin shoes. The city of Panama is a comparative wreck of what it must once have been, but the magnificent bay is alone worth travelling across the isthmus to see. The sea almost always maintains its name of Pacific,' and looks like a gigantic parterre; whilst the numerous islands with which the bay is studded resembles so many flower-beds-ever blooming, ever lovely. I will not take the reader with me to visit some of these gems of the ocean, nor will I detain him to inspect with me the process of making the curious gold chains for which Panama is celebrated, and many other curious things I saw; but merely add, that after ten days' residence, I left the city at peep of day, and the following afternoon was on board my ship, having bathed in the two seas within forty-eight hours. THE POOR RELATIONS OF KINGS. ONE morning during the last severe winter in Paris, a bier, on which was laid a wretched coffin, emerged from one of the poorest streets of the faubourg St Marceau, followed by two assistants, and a female, whose sole protection against the heavy snow that fell was a woollen shawl, partially concealing features once beautiful, though now changed by suffering and privation, yet still beaming with resignation. The young man whose remains were thus borne to the common cemetery was one whose forefathers slept in the vaults of St Denis, and who, by birth, was entitled to wear the arms of the Bourbon family. In speaking of Henry II., or any other of the kings of France, there was no fiction in this unfortunate being, while living, calling them my ancestors.' According to the etiquette of courts, he had a right to be called by the king my cousin;' and equally so, by right of consanguinity, by the Bourbons of Spain, and the imperial House of Austria. Charles de Valois de St Remy was, however, but a poor journeyman bookbinder, employed by one of the many of that trade who struggle for an existence in the neighbourhood of the College of France. Even with the assistance of his aunt, Marguerite de Valois, he scarcely earned enough to subsist on. Like many Henry II., of whom he was a lineal descendant, had a son, to whom he bequeathed large territories-the most considerable being that of St Remy; but his descendants gradually decreased in power and wealth, and at length they sunk into such obscurity, that their existence was almost doubted. A ray of sunshine would at times gleam on some member of their family, but, as if a fatality hung over their race, it was succeeded by darker shadows. During the reign of Louis XV., the Marchioness Boulanvilliers, wife of the Prevôt of Merchants, one day passing between Rheims and Fontette, remarked a little girl by the road-side tending a cow, and, pleased with the pretty countenance and figure of the child, called her to the door of the carriage, and offered her a piece of money. The young Jeanne de Valois spurned the proffered coin with the pride of a Spanish hidalgo; and erecting her little person, she recounted to the marchioness her full genealogy-the only thing, besides her paternoster, she had ever learned. On being questioned, she gave sufficient proof of the truth of what she stated; and her listener, estimating nothing more than high birth, though she herself was but the daughter of a revenue officer, made the little cowherd get into the carriage, which rolled off to Paris. After having had her educated by the first masters, her protectress introduced her to the fashionable world, and even at court, where she was looked on as a sort of curiosity. She was pensioned by the king, and afterwards married the Count de la Motte. The queen, Marie Antoinette, took her into favour, and employed her near her person; but she repaid the royal kindness by the deepest ingratitude. By forging her majesty's signature, she procured large sums of money; and by the same means prevailed on Cardinal Rohan (who was at the time in disgrace at court, and glad of the opportunity of regaining favour) to purchase a necklace, as if for the queen, worth nearly two million francs, for the payment of which the countess alleged that her majesty would give a note in her own handwriting, to be defrayed from the private purse. The necklace was given into the hands of the countess, who immediately sent her husband to London with it. But the period for payment being allowed to pass, the jeweller made his complaint to the queen: Cardinal Rohan, and many others arrested on suspicion, were thrown into the Bastile, but were ultimately released on the real culprit being discovered. The countess was publicly whipped, and branded on the shoulders; a sentence of imprisonment for life was recorded against her; but after ten months' confinement, she effected her escape, and died in London in 1791. Residing at Troyes, in Champagne, was an uncle of Jeanne de Valois, and looked on as the head of her branch of the family. In a thoroughfare of that town might be heard, from morning until night, the noise of his hammer, accompanied by merry songs, issuing from a frail wooden edifice, erected against the walls of the bishop's garden, and under the shadow of the cathedral clock. Though aware of his genealogy, learned from his father, who died in the Hôtel Dieu at Paris in 1759, it had inspired him neither with pride nor regret looking on human grandeur, as he did, with the most philosophic indifference. Having never bestowed a thought on claiming the rights of his birth, he worked, slept, and sang, and appeared so really contented and happy, that one would have been inclined to believe, according to the old adage, 'that the king was not his cousin.' This gaiety was not without merit, if it is recollected that Henry de Valois, issuing from the reigning family of France, was a cobbler. In 1778, while the countess was in favour at court, a detachment of the guards, after accompanying the queen to Chateau Vilain, received directions to return through Troyes, and pay their respects to the illustrious artisan, who had been already spoken of at Versailles as one of the remaining representatives of the branch of Francis I., along with the little cowherd of Fontette. As the guards approached the shed, over which a board was fixed, with a boot painted in black, and the words, 'Henri, reparateur de la chaussure humaine!' ('Henry, shoe-mender to the human race!') they heard a manly voice singing a provincial ditty, while a hammer beat time to the measure. The soldiers, dressed in splendid uniform, advanced respectfully, their hats off, preceded by their lieutenant, the Marquis de Nantouillet. The cobbler, little accustomed to such visitors, regarded them with surprise; but his looks being mechanically directed to the officer's feet, and perceiving his splendid boots, laced with brilliants, he remarked'You are in error, monsieur; I mend only shoes. Ask for Christophe, the first street on the right.' The marquis, with many forced compliments, having explained the cause of his presence, the cobbler, lifting his cotton cap from his head, cleared a cumbrous bench of three or four pair of old boots, and made a sign to the officer to be seated: the other soldiers not being able to find room, had the felicity of contemplating his august visage through some tattered sheets of paper, substituted in the window for glass. The king has learned, monsieur,' said the marquis, as he accepted the seat, that you are in a position little beseeming your illustrious origin, and his wish is to change this state of things. Your niece is already a convincing proof of the royal solicitude.' And I have many doubts,' replied the old cobbler, 'whether this royal solicitude will much benefit the girl. As for me, monsieur, I am aware that if Henry II. had wished, he could have converted this bench that I sit on into a throne, this hammer into a sceptre, and that instead of this cotton cap, I might wear a brilliant headgear of gold and diamonds, though much more weighty.' The marquis was somewhat startled at this liberty of language, but concealing his astonishment under a courtly smile, the cobbler continued-Eh, well, monsieur, I have no regret at seeing our cousin of Bourbon arrive at the crown of France. Think you that I envy Louis XV.? Not I. I am my own master; no person has an interest in deceiving me; all the world are contented with me, and I with them. Can the king say so much? This reminds me that my work presses-will you permit me?' And the old man, who seemed to take delight in treating without ceremony the king of France and his envoy, busily resumed his employ ment. "You had better reflect,' remarked the officer. 'I have no need of reflection; I require nothing.' But you have children, monsieur; accept for them what you refuse for yourself, and allow your sons to fill that rank to which they are entitled.' The old man scratched his ear, as if undecided how to act; at length, pulling his cap over his gray locks, he replied, 'It is my frank opinion, monsieur, that the boys will not reflect very much honour on the family; but that is their affair; so, in their name, I shall accept the king's generosity. The old proverb says that "it is needless to upset good sauce with the foot." But perhaps you could not guess what are my thoughts?' continued Henry de Valois in a tone of raillery. I think the king is about doing what I do daily-to patch an old boot, which never lasts long!' Very good! very good!' exclaimed the courtier, laughing boisterously. 'Permit me, however, to finish the simile,' added he: 'I am sure the king's work will be solid. I shall now retire, and inform his majesty of your intentions.' The visitors had scarcely disappeared, when the old man resumed his song, a proof that the perspective of grandeur did not much trouble the mind of the cobbler, who has been so well described in the songs of Beranger. A short time afterwards, heedless of the sarcasms and repartees which it occasioned, the king pensioned Henry de Valois from the privy purse, and made him a count. His sons entered the service. One of them was created Baron St Remy, and became captain of a corvette; but, as had been predicted by the old cobbler, none of them added much to the honour of the family. The affair of the necklace threw a sinister eclât upon the name of Valois, and their relationship to the Countess de la Motte hastened their downfall. Abject misery succeeded the perpetration of the crime. The Revolution arrived, and the descendants of Henry II. sank into greater obscurity than that from which they had been taken a few years previously. The St Remy de Valois had their origin in a royal castle. The splendour of a throne was reflected on their cradle. In three centuries afterwards what is their fate? The last male of their line, struggling with poverty during his lifetime, has his ashes finally consigned to the common city burying place-unknown and forgotten. She who followed his remains was the great-granddaughter of the old cobbler, and the only known survivor of her race. Our advancement in life depends mainly on our own exertions and energy. Whatever assistance we may derive from others, if without corresponding exertions of our own, is too limited to be of permanent advantage; and the prospects of those on whom kings lavish their favours, like the sun preceding a storm, are never more uncertain than when they appear most dazzling. Amongst many who stand pre-eminent for self-advancement, may be mentioned Amyot, Vincent de Paul, and Sextus V. The one, picked up dying on the public road, became archbishop of Sens, and preceptor to the king of France; the other, the son of poor parents, uncertain from day to day of the bread they ate, shows a career of virtue and good actions, and was enabled in his old age to retire in affluence; the third, from being a swineherd, became pope. Colbert, Chevert, Catinat, all owed to themselves the dignities to which they were raised. Our elevation is but the result and the recompense of persevering industry, and a steady adherence to the path of rectitude and justice. We are all more or less the creatures of circumstance; and fortunes made by honourable pursuits are ever the most durable. HANGING BRIDGES OF SOUTH AMERICA. On There are two kinds of suspension-bridge common in the mountainous districts of South America-namely, the puente de soga and the huaro, which are thus described by Dr Von Tschudi the Peruvian traveller :-The soga bridges are composed of four ropes, made of twisted cow-hide, and about the thickness of a man's arm. The four ropes are connected together by thinner ones of the same material, fastened over them transversely. The whole is covered with branches, straw, and roots of the agave tree. either side a rope, rather more than two feet above the bridge, serves as a balustrade. The sogas are fastened on each bank of the river by piles, or rivetted into the rock. During long-continued rains, these bridges become loose, and require to be tightened; but they are always lower in the middle than at the ends, and when passengers are crossing them, they swing like hammocks. It requires some unaccompanied by a puentero or bridge-guide. However practice, and a very steady head, to go over the soga bridges strongly made, they are not durable; for the changeableness of the climate quickly rots the ropes, which are made of untanned leather. They frequently require repairing, and travellers have sometimes no alternative but to wait several days until a bridge is passable, or to make a circuit of twenty or thirty leagues. The puente de soga of Oroya is fifty yards long and one and a half broad. It is one of the largest in Peru; but the bridge across the Apurimac, in the province of Ayacucho, is nearly twice as long, and it is carried over a much deeper gulf. The huaro bridge consists of a thick rope, extending over a river or across a rocky chasm. To this rope are affixed roller and a strong piece of wood formed like a yoke, and by means of two smaller ropes, this yoke is drawn along the thick rope which forms the bridge. The passenger who has to cross the huaro is tied to the yoke, and grasps it firmly with both hands. His feet, which are crossed one over the other, rest on the thick rope, and the head is held as erect as possible. All these preliminaries being completed, an Indian, stationed on the opposite side of the river or chasm, draws the passenger across the huaro. This is altogether the most disagreeable and dangerous mode of conveyance that can possibly be conceived. If the rope breaks, an accident of no unfrequent occurrence, the hapless traveller has no chance of escaping with life, for, being fastened, he can make no effort to save himself. Horses and mules are driven by the Indians into the river, and are made to swim across it, in doing which they frequently perish, especially when, being exhausted by a long journey, they have not strength to contend against the force of the current. MR ADAMS, THE ASTRONOMER. The 'West Briton' newspaper gives the following interesting snatch respecting the early days of Mr Adams, the codiscoverer of the new planet Neptune:-The traveller who has come into Cornwall by the north road must remember a long moorland tract between Launceston and Bodmin. If his journey was performed on the roof of the coach against a sleety, biting south-wester, his memory will not need any refresher. The recollections of such an excursion are not to be effaced even by the consolations of the Jamaica Inn. A more desolate spot can scarcely be found. Yet nature sometimes grows men where she grows nothing else; and on this bleak moor she has produced at least one such man as, with all her tropical magnificence, she never produced within ten degrees of the equator. A few years ago a small farmer named Adams, resident on the moor, had a boy who, if we are correctly informed, disappointed his father's hopes of making a good agriculturist of him. His fits of abstraction and dreamy reverie were held to be very unpropitious. He had somehow got a taste for mathematics; and the highest happiness of his life was to pore over 'Books that explain The purer elements of truth, involved In lines and numbers.' continue to enjoy a peculiar protection, and a sort of privilege, inasmuch as they are exempt from the greater part of the conditions imposed upon other proprietors? If we forbid the sale of arsenic, &c. why do we allow a host of wretched beings to famish by slow poison in the unwholesome habitations in which they are necessarily confined?— Ducpétiaux on the Mortality of Brussels. SERENADE. [FOR MUSIC.] 'Tis now the hour when blushing Day, PROGRESS. L. R. In the flow of a century the world has changed in science, in arts, in the extent of commerce, in the improvement of navigation, and in all that relates to the civilisation of man. But it is the spirit of human freedom, the new elevation of individual man, in his moral, social, and political character, leading the whole long train of other improvements, which has most remarkably distinguished the era. Society, in this century, has not made its progress, like Chinese skill, by a greater acuteness of ingenuity in trifles; it has not merely lashed itself to an increased speed round the old circles of thought and action; but it has assumed a new character-it has raised itself from beneath governments to a participation in governments; it has mixed moral and political objects with the daily pursuits of individual men ; and, with a freedom and strength before altogether unknown, it has applied to these objects the whole power of the human understanding. It has been the era, in short, when the social principle has triumphed over the feudal military power, and established, on foundations never principle; when society has maintained its rights against hereafter to be shaken, its competency to govern itself.— Daniel Webster. PHOSPHORESCENT FUNGI. And this passion so grew upon him, that he was at length abandoned to its impulses, and allowed to take his own way, in despair of a better. It was clear that he would never pick up prizes at a ploughing-match or a cattle-show; that the lord of the manor, or squire of the parish, would never have to stand up and make a solemn oration over him, showing him to wondering spectators as the man who passing along the streets of the Villa de Natividade, I One dark night, about the beginning of December, while had improved the breed of rams, or fattened bullocks to a observed some boys amusing themselves with some lumidistressing obesity. Yet, as the path to such fame was closed, there were still some small honours awaiting him. fire-fly; but on making inquiry, I found it to be a beautiful nous object, which I at first supposed to be a kind of large After a school training, he entered at St John's College, phosphorescent fungus, belonging to the genus Agaricus, Cambridge, where, at the end of his under-graduateship, and was told that it grew abundantly in the neighbourhe became senior wrangler. He is now one of the mathe-hood on the decaying leaves of a dwarf palm. Next day I matical tutors at that college, and one of the discoverers of the planet Neptune. A STRANGE ANOMALY. People will perhaps urge, as an objection to our plans for the improvement of the condition of the houses of the poor, the necessary interference with the rights of property. But is our respect for the rights of property to be carried so far as to endanger the public health and security? The rights of the proprietor are necessarily limited by the rights of society. That limit is inscribed upon nearly every page of our law. Why does it not also exist for the speculator who lets his houses to the workman and indigent? We impose rigorous conditions on the sale of commodities; we confiscate, without hesitation, meat of bad quality, putrid fish, adulterated liquors, and bread below the legal weight; and we not only confiscate these things, but we punish their owners. By what strange contradiction do the proprietors of these hideous dens, these infectious holes-to inhabit which is at least as dangerous as the use of the most unwholesome food-not only remain unpunished, but obtained a great many specimens, and found them to vary from one to two and a-half inches across. The whole plant gives out at night a bright phosphorescent light, of a pale greenish hue, similar to that emitted by the larger firelies, or by those curious soft-bodied marine animals, the Pyrosome. From this circumstance, and from growing on a palm, it is called by the inhabitants Flor do Coco.' The light given out by a few of these fungi, in a dark room, discovered this fungus that any other species of the same was sufficient to read by. I was not aware at the time I the case in the 4. olearius of De Candolle; and Mr Drumgenus exhibited a similar phenomenon; such, however, is mond of Swan River Colony, in Australia, has given an account of a very large phosphorescent species occasionally found there.—Gardner's Travels in Brazil. Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh. Also sold by D. CHAMBERS, 98 Miller Street, Glasgow; W. S. ORR, 147 Strand, and Amen Corner, London; and J. M'GLASHAN, 21 D'Olier Street, Dublin.-Printed by W. and R. CHAMBERS, Edinburgh. EDINBURGHI JOURNAL CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR CONSTANCY AND CONSISTENCY. No one affects to misapprehend the distinction between firmness and obstinacy. The former is recognised as the virtue of a great mind; the latter as the vice of a little one. The former proceeds from Resolve, that 'column of true majesty,' as Young finely says, which is founded upon reason; while the latter is a dogged adherence to a particular course, entered upon without conviction, and persisted in without reflection. PRICE 1d. for judgment. Better confess to having been a fool, than, from a sham consistency, live the life of a knave. The real matter, then, for the moralist to complain of, is an invariable condemnation of change in sentiment. It should be remembered that movement is the natural state of the human mind, and that this, beyond all others, is the age of progress. In every new stage of life we abjure the sentiments of the previous one as illusions. The boy is as different in his ideas from the child, and the youth from the boy, and the man from the youth, as the wrinkles of age are different from the smooth skin of infancy. But in the midst of all this change, this metamorphosis of the very stuff of which the mind is made, we expect a man to be constant to some political or social dogma which he once entertained. Nay, the oddity is, we expect him to be constant to hereditary dogmas. It is a bitter reproach to say of his sen But the distinction between Constancy and Consistency, though really as well-marked, has attracted considerably less attention. A man may be constant, yet inconsistent; and consistent, yet inconstant. He may advocate, for instance, a particular measure which he supposes to be conducive to the interests of society; yet if he continue that advocacy after circumstances have changed, so as to render the line of conduct unad-timents that they are different from those entertained visable, though true to the measure, he is false to his principles. Nothing can be more obvious than this fact when enunciated; and yet nothing is less likely to suggest itself spontaneously. When a statesman changes his opinion of a public measure, he is straightway complimented with the name of apostate. No one thinks of inquiring why he has changed his opinion, or whether the circumstance involves a change of principles. He has deserted the cause; he has betrayed his friends; he has gone over to the enemy. What is the cause? A certain political question, or the good of the country for which that question was originally agitated? Who are his friends and enemies? Certain noble and honour-parative luxuries of his new fortunes till they became able individuals, or those who entertain right and wrong views of the national affairs? It may be that the charge is correct, that the deserter is really a traitor and a coward; or it may be quite the reverse, that he is a hero and a martyr-the outcry is the same. What we would wish to see in such a case as the above, is a little impartial investigation of circumstances. When a statesman startles the country with a new confession of faith, let him be judged by the circumstances and the motive by which he is likely to be influenced. For example, when a man of education and experience of the world stands up in his place in parliament, and tells us that, till within the last three weeks, he never recognised the truth of Adam Smith's theory of trade, there is the greatest reason to doubt his veracity. And when we find that he proclaims this new opinion with the view of supporting, or of being supported by a party, the doubt assumes almost the character of certainty, all his representations to the contrary notwithstanding. When, however, the announcement is made under no prospect of individual or party gain, but apparently in all singleness of heart, honour instead of disgrace ought to be his portion. The acknowledgment of error is noble, even though it lower a reputation by his family and ancestors. Even in matters of taste and custom, he is expected to be consistent.' 'I have seen the day,' mutters one shaking his head at a parvenu, when he was glad enough to eat out of a wooden spoon!' It is criminal, it appears, for the man, now that he is rich, to prefer a silver one. It may be that, since the family opinions were formed, a new condition of things has arisen which renders them-wise and proper though they might have been in their day and generation-unwise and improper now: but this is no excuse for the deserter of his family dogmas. It may be that the parvenu had been accustomed to the com necessaries to him. But this is no excuse for the contemner of wooden spoons. If we hint that the opinions of the one and the tastes of the other are both consistent in principle, that they are both the result of existing circumstances, and both consonant with reason and nature, the insensate clamour only becomes the louder. We may be told, however, that all this is soon at an end; that a single generation is enough to establish the new tastes and sentiments as securely as the ancestral ones. This is the very thing of which we complain. We desire no liberty for ourselves that we would not transmit to our posterity. We demand that men's words and actions should be measured by principles, not prejudices; that the inquiry should be, not whether they adhere to any particular dogma, but whether they exercise their judgment to the best of their ability. When we adhere to old sentiments, it should not be because they are old, but because they are conducive to the interests of the present race of mankind. And there are plenty of such ancient novelties, such new antiquities. There are sentiments that never grow old, that are never inapplicable. There are rules, both of public and private virtue, which are instinctive in all noble natures: |
