those whom they do not like, and relax their extreme severity proportionably in favour of those that they do like, and who in general care as little about them. Hence we see so many desponding lovers and forlorn damsels. Love in women (at least) is either vanity, or interest, or fancy. It is a merely selfish feeling. It has nothing to do (I am sorry to say) with friendship, or esteem, or even pity. I once asked a girl, the pattern of her sex in shape and mind and attractions, whether she did not think Mr Coleridge had done wrong in making the heroine of his beautiful ballad story of Geneviève take compassion on her hapless lover "When on the yellow forest-leaves and whether she believed that any woman ever fell in love through a sense of compassion; and she made answer, "Not if it was against her inclination!" I would take this lady's word for a thousand pounds on this point. Pain holds antipathy to pleasure; pity is not akin to love; a dying man has more need of a nurse than of a mistress. There is no forcing liking. It is as little to be fostered by reason and good-nature as it can be controlled by prudence or propriety. It is a mere blind, headstrong impulse. Least of all, flatter yourself that talents or virtue will recommend you to the favour of the sex in lieu of exterior advantages. Oh! no. Women care nothing about poets, or philosophers, or politicians. They go by a man's looks and manner. Richardson calls them "an eye-judging sex;' and I am sure he knew more about them than I can pretend to do. If you run away with a pedantic notion that they care a pin's point about your head or your heart, you will repent it too late. Some blue-stocking may have her vanity flattered by your reputation, or be edified by the solution of a metaphysical problem, or a critical remark, or a dissertation on the state of the nation, and fancy that she has a taste for intellect and is an epicure in sentiment. No true woman ever regarded anything but her lover's person and address. Gravity will here answer all the same purpose without understanding, gaiety without wit, folly without good-nature, and impudence without any other pretension. * The occasional conduct of the writer of this essay is an amusing commentary on his own opinions. Charles Lamb, in a letter to a friend, tells in his usual quaint style of a visit paid to some of the eye-judging sex: "Mr Hazlitt is in town. I took him to see a very pretty girl professedly where there were two young girls the very head and sum of the girlery were two young girls. They neither laughed nor sneered, nor giggled, nor whispered-but they were young girls and he sat and frowned blacker and blacker; indignant that there should be such a thing as youth and beauty, till he tore me away before supper in perfect misery, and owned he could not bear young girls; they drove him mad. So I took him to my old nurse, where he recovered perfect tranquillity." The natural and instinctive passion of love is excited by qualities not peculiar to artists, authors, and men of letters. It is not the jest but the laugh that follows, not the sentiment but the glance that accompanies it, that tellsin a word, the sense of actual enjoyment that imparts itself to others, and excites mutual understanding and inclination. Authors, on the other hand, feel nothing spontaneously. The common incidents and circumstances of life with which others are taken up, make no alteration in them, nor provoke any of the common expressions of surprise, joy, admiration, anger, or merriment. Nothing stirs their blood or accelerates their juices or tickles their veins. Instead of yielding to the first natural and lively impulses of things, in which they would find sympathy, they screw themselves up to some far-fetched view of the subject in order to be unintelligible. Realities are not good enough for them, till they undergo the process of imagination and reflection. If you offer them your hand to shake, they will hardly take it; for this does not amount to a proposition. If you enter their room suddenly, they testify neither surprise nor satisfaction: no new idea is elicited by it. Yet if you suppose this to be a repulse, you are mistaken. They will enter into your affairs or combat your ideas with all the warmth and vehemence imaginable as soon as they have a subject started. But their faculty for thinking must be set in motion, before you can put any soul into them. They are intellectual dram-drinkers; and without their necessary stimulus, are torpid, dead, insensible to everything. They have great life of mind, but none of body. They do not drift with the stream of company or of passing occurrences, but are straining at some hyberbole, or striking out a by-path of their own. Follow them who list. Their minds are a sort of Herculaneum, full of old, petrified images; are set in stereotype, and little fitted to the ordinary occasions of life. What chance, then, can they have with women, who deal only in the pantomime of discourse, in gesticulation and the flippant byplay of the senses, "nods and winks and wreathed smiles;" and to whom to offer a remark is an impertinence, or a reason an affront? The only way in which I ever knew mental qualities or distinction tell was in the clerical character; and women do certainly incline to this with some sort of favourable regard. Whether it is that the sanctity of pretension piques curiosity, or that the habitual submission of their understandings to their spiritual guides subdues the will, a popular preacher generally has the choice among the elite of his female flock. According to Mrs Inchbald (see her "Simple Story") there is another reason why religious courtship is not without its charms But as I do not intend you for the Church, do not, in thinking to study yourself into the good graces of the fair, study yourself out of them, passed away; and only turned false hope to fixed despair. And as my frail bark sails down the stream of time, the god of love stands on the shore, and as I stretch out my hands to him in vain, claps his wings, and mocks me as I pass! There is but one other point on which I meant to speak to you, and that is the choice of a profession. This, probably, had better be left to time or accident or your own inclination. You have a very fine ear, but I have somehow a prejudice against men-singers, and indeed against the stage altogether. It is an uncertain and ungrateful soil. All professions are bad that depend on reputation, which is "as often got without merit as lost without deserving." Yet I cannot easily reconcile myself to your being a slave to business, and I shall hardly be able to leave you an independence. A situation in a public office is secure, but laborious and mechanical, and without the two great springs of life, Hope and Fear. Perhaps, however, it might ensure you a competence, and leave you leisure for some other favourite amusement or pursuit. I have said all reputation is hazardous, hard to win, harder to keep. Many never attain a glimpse of what they have all their lives been looking for, and others survive a passing shadow of it. Yet if I were to name one pursuit rather than another, I should wish you to be a good painter, if such a thing could be hoped. I have failed in this myself, and should wish you to be able to do what I have not-to paint like Claude or Rembrandt, or Guido or Vandyke, if it were possible. Artists, I think, who have succeeded in their chief object, live to be old, and are * "Hazlitt, like other men, and perhaps with more agreeable old men. Their minds keep alive to A spider, my dear, the meanest creature that crawls or lives, has its mate or fellow but a scholar has no mate or fellow. For myself, I had courted thought, I had felt pain; and Love | turned away his face from me.* I have gazed along the silent air for that smile which had lured me to my doom. I no more heard those accents which would have burst upon me like a voice from heaven. I loathed the light that shone on my disgrace. Hours, days, years bitterness than other men, sought for love and for intervals of rest, in which all anger might sleep, and tumultuous journeys. enmity might be laid aside like a travelling dress, after But Hazlitt, restless as the sea-horse, as the raven, as the chamois, found not their respites from storm; he sought, but sought in vain. . . . Domicile he had not round whose hearth his affections might gather; rest he had not for the sole of his burning foot."-De Quincey. Another writer quoted by De Quincey says: "With no hope, no fortune, no status in society; no certain popularity as a writer, no domestic peace, little sympathy from kindred spirits, little support from his political party, no moral management, no definite belief; with great powers and great passions within, and with a host of powerful enemies without, it was his to enact one of the saddest tragedies on which the sun ever shone." Carlyle writes: "How many a poor Hazlitt must wander over God's verdant earth, like the unblest burning deserts-passionately dig wells, and draw up only the dry quicksand, and at last die and make no sign." You the last. Cosway's spirits never flagged till after HENRY MACKENZIE. BORN 1745: DIED 1831. (From the Mirror and Lounger.) TALE OF LA ROCHE, WHEN I first undertook this publication, it was suggested by some of my friends, and, indeed, accorded entirely with my own ideas, that there should be nothing of religion in it. There is a sacredness in the subject, that might seem profaned by its introduction into a work, which, to be extensively read, must sometimes be ludicrous, and often ironical. This consideration will apply, in the strongest manner, to anything mystic or controversial; but it may, perhaps, admit of an exception, when religion is only introduced as a feeling, not a system, as appealing to the sentiments of the heart, not to disquisitions of the head. The following story holds it up in that light, and is therefore, I think, admissible into the Mirror. It was sent to my editor as a translation from the French. Of this my readers will judge. Perhaps they might be apt to suspect, without any suggestion from me, that it is an original, not a translation. Indeed, I cannot help thinking, that it contains in it much of that picturesque description, and that power of awakening the tender feelings, which so remarkably distinguish the composition of a gentleman whose writings I have often read with pleasure. But, be that as it may, as I felt myself interested in the narrative, and believed that it would affect my readers in the like manner, I have ventured to give it entire as I received it, though it will take up the room of three successive papers. More than forty years ago, an English philosopher, whose works have since been read and admired by all Europe, resided at a little town in France. Some disappointments in his native country had first driven him abroad, and he was afterwards induced to remain there, from having found in this retreat, where the connections even of nation and language were avoided, a perfeet seclusion and retirement highly favourable to the development of abstract subjects, in which he excelled all the writers of his time. Perhaps in the structure of such a mind as Mr's, the finer and more delicate sensibilities are seldom known to have place; or, if originally implanted there, are in a great measure extinguished by the exertions of intense study and profound investigation. Hence the idea of philosophy and unfeelingness being united has become proverbial, and in common language the former word is often used to express the latter. Our philosopher had been censured by some as deficient in warmth and feeling, but the mildness of his manners has been allowed by all; and it is certain that if he was not easily melted into compassion, it was, at least, not difficult to awaken his benevolence. One morning, while he sat busied in those speculations which afterwards astonished the world, an old female domestic, who served him for a housekeeper, brought him word that an elderly gentleman and his daughter had arrived in the village the preceding evening, on their way to some distant country, and that the father had been suddenly seized in the night with a dangerous disorder, which the people of the inn where they lodged feared would prove mortal; that she had been sent for, as having some know. ledge in medicine, the village surgeon being then absent; and that it was truly piteous to see the good old man, who seemed not so much afflicted by his own distress as by that which it caused to his daughter. Her master laid aside the volume in his hand, and broke off the chain of ideas it had inspired. His night-gown was exchanged for a coat, and he followed his gouvernante to the sick man's apartment. It was the best in the little inn where they lay, but a paltry one notwithstanding. Mr was obliged to stoop as he entered it. It was floored with earth, and above were the joists not plastered, and hung with cobwebs. On a flock bed at one end lay the old man he came to visit; at the foot of it sat his daughter. She was dressed in a clean white bedgown; her dark locks hung loosely over it as she bent forward, watching the languid looks of her father. Mr and his housekeeper had stood some moments in the room without the young lady's being sensible of their entering it. "Mademoiselle !" said the old woman at last, in a soft tone. She turned, and showed one of the finest faces in the world. It was touched, not spoiled, with sorrow; and when she perceived a stranger, whom the old woman now introduced to her, a blush at first, and then the gentle ceremonial of native politeness, which the affliction of the time tempered but did not extinguish, crossed it for a moment, and changed its expression. It was sweetness all, however, and our philosopher felt it strongly. It was not a time for words; he offered his services in a few sincere ones. "Monsieur lies miserably ill here," said the gouvernante; "if he could possibly be moved anywhere—" "If he could be moved to our house," said her master. He had a spare bed for a friend, and there was a garret room unoccupied, next to the gouvernante's. It was contrived accordingly. The scruples of the stranger, who could look scruples though he could not speak them, were overcome, and the bashful reluctance of his daughter gave way to ner belief of its use to her father. The sick man was wrapped in blankets, and carried across the street to the English gentleman's. The old woman helped his daughter to nurse him there. The surgeon, who arrived soon after, prescribed a little, and nature did much for him; in a week he was able to thank his benefactor. By that time his host had learned the name and character of his guest. He was a Protestant clergyman of Switzerland, called La Roche, a widower, who had lately buried his wife, after a long and lingering illness, for which travelling had been prescribed, and was now returning home, after an ineffectual and melancholy journey, with his only child, the daughter we have mentioned. He was a devout man, as became his profession. He possessed devotion in all its warmth, but with none of its asperity; I mean that asperity which men, called devout, sometimes indulge in. Mr though he felt no devotion, never quarrelled with it in others. His gouvernante joined the old man and his daughter in the prayers and thanksgivings which they put up on his recovery; for she, too, was a heretic, in the phrase of the village. The philosopher walked out, with his long staff and his dog, and left them to their prayers and thanksgivings. "My master," said the old woman, "alas! he is not a Christian; but he is the best of unbelievers.' "Not a Christian!" exclaimed Mademoiselle La Roche, "yet he saved my father! Heaven bless him for it; I would he were a Christian!" "There is a pride in human knowledge, my child," said her father, "which often blinds men to the sublime truths of revelation; hence opposers of Christianity are found among men of virtuous lives, as well as among those of dissipated and licentious characters. Nay, sometimes, I have known the latter more easily converted to the true faith than the former, because the fume of passion is more easily dissipated than the mist of false theory and delusive speculation." "But Mr," said his daughter, "alas! my father, he shall be a Christian before he dies.' She was interrupted by the arrival of their landlord. He took her hand with an air of kindness: she drew it away from him in silence; threw down her eyes to the ground, and left the room. "I have been thanking God," said the good La Roche, "for my recovery." "That is right," replied his landlord. "I would not wish," continued the old man, hesitatingly, "to think otherwise; did I not look up with gratitude to that Being, I should barely be satisfied with my recovery, as a continuation of life, which, it may be, is not a real good. Alas! I may live to wish I had died, that you had left me to die, sir, instead of kindly relieving me" (he clasped Mr -'s hand); "but, when I look on this renovated being as the gift of the Almighty, I feel a far different sentiment-my heart dilates with gratitude and love to Him: it is prepared for doing His will, not as a duty, but as a pleasure, and regards every breach of it, not with disapprobation, but with horror." "You say right, my dear sir," replied the philosopher; "but you are not yet re-established enough to talk much-you must take care of your health, and neither study nor preach for some time. I have been thinking over a scheme that struck me today, when you mentioned your intended departure. I never was in Switzerland: I have a great mind to accompany your daughter and you into that country. I will help to take care of you by the road; for, as I was your first physician, I hold myself responsible for your cure." La Roche's eyes glistened at the proposal; his daughter was called in and told of it. She was equally pleased with her father; for they really loved their landlord-not perhaps the less for his infidelity; at least that circumstance mixed if a sort of pity with their regard for him-their souls were not of a mould for harsher feelings; hatred never dwelt in them. They travelled by short stages; for the philosopher was as good as his word, in taking care that the old man should not be fatigued. The party had time to be well acquainted with one another, and their friendship was increased by acquaintance. La Roche found a degree of simplicity and gentleness in his companion, which is not always annexed to the character of a learned or a wise man. His daughter, who was prepared to be afraid of him, was equally undeceived. She found in him nothing of that selfimportance, which superior parts, or great cultivation of them, is apt to confer. He talked of everything but philosophy or religion; he seemed to enjoy every pleasure and amusement of ordinary life, and to be interested in the most common topics of discourse: when his knowledge or learning at any time appeared, it was delivered with the utmost plainness, and without the least shadow of dogmatism. | On his part, he was charmed with the society of the good clergyman and his lovely daughter. He found in them the guileless manner of the earliest times, with the culture and accomplishment of the most refined ones. Every better feeling, warm and vivid; every ungentle one, repressed or overcome. He was not addicted to love; but he felt himself happy in being the friend of Mademoiselle La Roche, and sometimes envied her father the possession of such a child. After a journey of eleven days, they arrived at the dwelling of La Roche. It was situated in one of those valleys of the canton of Berne, where Nature seems to repose, as it were, in quiet, and has enclosed her retreat with mountains inaccessible. A stream, that spent its fury in the hills above, ran in front of the house, and a broken water-fall was seen through the wood that covered its sides; below, it circled round a tufted plain, and formed a little lake in front of a village, at the end of which appeared the spire of La Roche's church, rising above a clump of organ was touched with a hand less firm ;-it beeches. Mr. enjoyed the beauty of the scene; but to his companions, it recalled the memory of a wife and parent they had lost. The old man's sorrow was silent; his daughter sobbed and wept. Her father took her hand, kissed it twice, pressed it to his bosom, threw up his eyes to heaven; and, having wiped off a tear, that was just about to drop from each, began to point out to his guest some of the most striking objects which the prospect afforded. The philosopher interpreted all this; and he could but slightly censure the creed from which it arose. They had not been long arrived, when a number of La Roche's parishioners, who had heard of his return, came to the house to see and welcome him. The honest folks were awkward, but sincere, in their professions of regard. They made some attempts at condolence; it was too delicate for their handling; but La Roche took it in good part. "It has pleased God," said he; and they saw he had settled the matter with himself. Philosophy could not have done so much with a thousand words. It was now evening, and the good peasants were about to depart, when a clock was heard to strike seven, and the hour was followed by a particular chime. The country folks, who had come to welcome their pastor, turned their looks towards him at the sound; he explained their meaning to his guest. "That is the signal," said he, "for our evening exercise; this is one of the nights of the week in which some of my parishioners are wont to join in it: a little rustic saloon serves for the chapel of our family, and such of the good people as are with us; if you choose rather to walk out, I will furnish you with an attendant; or here are a few old books, that may afford you some entertainment within." "By no means," answered the philosopher; "I will attend Ma'moiselle at her devotions." "She is our organist," said La Roche; "our neighbourhood is the country of musical mechanism; and I have a small organ fitted up for the purpose of assisting our singing." ""Tis an additional inducement," replied the other; and they walked into the room together. At the end stood the organ mentioned by La Roche; before it was a curtain, which his daughter drew aside, and, placing herself on a seat within, and drawing the curtain close, so as to save her the awkwardness of an exhibition, began a voluntary, solemn and beautiful in the highest degree. Mrwas no musician, but he was not altogether insensible to music; this fastened on his mind more strongly, from its beauty being unexpected. The solemn prelude introduced a hymn, in which such of the audience as could sing immediately joined; the words were mostly taken. from Holy Writ; it spoke the praises of God, and His care of good men. Something was said of the death of the just, of such as die in the Lord. The paused, it ceased; and the sobbing of Ma'moiselle La Roche was heard in its stead. Her father gave a sign for stopping the psalmody, and rose to pray. He was discomposed at first, and his voice faltered as he spoke; but his heart was in his words, and his warmth overcame his embarrassment. He addressed a Being whom he loved, and he spoke for those he loved. His parishioners caught the ardour of the good old man; even the philosopher felt himself moved, and forgot, for a moment, to think why he should not. La Roche's religion was that of sentiment, not theory, and his guest was averse from disputation; their discourse, therefore, did not lead to questions concerning the belief of either; yet would the old man sometimes speak of his, from the fulness of a heart impressed with its force, and wishing to spread the pleasure he enjoyed in it. The ideas of his God and his Saviour were so congenial to his mind, that every emotion of it naturally awakened them. A philosopher might have called him an enthusiast; but, if he possessed the fervour of enthusiasts, he was guiltless of their bigotry. "Our Father which art in heaven!" might the good man say, for he felt it, and all mankind were his brethren. "You regret, my friend," said he to Mr "when my daughter and I talk of the exquisite pleasure derived from music, you regret your want of musical power and musical feelings; it is a department of soul, you say, which nature has almost denied you, which, from the effects you see it have on others, you are sure must be highly delightful. Why should not the same thing be said of religion? Trust me, I feel it in the same way, an energy, an inspiration, which I would not lose for all the blessings of sense or enjoyments of the world; yet so far from lessening my relish of the pleasures of life, methinks I feel it heighten them all. The thought of receiving it from God, adds the blessing of sentiment to that of sensation in every good thing I possess; and when calamities overtake me, and I have had my share, it confers a dignity on my affliction, so lifts me above the world! Man, I know, is but a worm, yet, methinks, I am then allied to God!" It would have been inhuman in our philosopher to have clouded, even with a doubt, the sunshine of this belief. His discourse, indeed, was very remote from metaphysical disquisition, or religious controversy. Of all men I ever knew, his ordinary conversation was the least tinctured with pedantry, or liable to dissertation. With La Roche and his daughter it was perfectly familiar. The country round them, the manners of the villagers, the comparison of both with those of England, remarks on the works of favourite authors, on the sentiments they conveyed, and the passions they excited, with many other topics in which S |