est that ever animated the human form!—the parent of science, properly so called, the master of criticism, and the founder or editor of logic! But he confounded science with philosophy, which is an error. Philosophy is the middle state between science, or knowledge, and sophia, or wisdom.

JULY 4, 1830.

Duke of Wellington-Moneyed Interest-Canning. I SOMETIMES fear the Duke of Wellington is too much disposed to imagine that he can govern a great nation by word of command, in the same way in which he governed a highly disciplined army. He seems to be unaccustomed to, and to despise, the inconsistencies, the weaknesses, the bursts of heroism followed by prostration and cowardice, which invariably characterize all popular efforts. He forgets that, after all, it is from such efforts that all the great and noble institutions of the world have come; and that, on the other hand, the discipline and organization of armies have been only like the flight of the cannon-ball, the object of which is destruction.*

The stock-jobbing and moneyed interest is so strong in this country, that it has more than once prevailed in our foreign councils over national honour and national justice. The country gentlemen are not slow to join in this influence. Canning felt this very keenly, and said he was unable to contend against the city train-bands.

Straight forward goes

The lightning's path, and straight the fearful path
Of the cannon-ball. Direct it flies and rapid,

Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches

WALLENSTEIN, part i., act i., sc. 4.

JULY 6, 1830.
Bourrienne.

BOURRIENNE is admirable. He is the French Pepys, -a man with right feelings, but always wishing to participate in what is going on, be it what it may. He has one remark, when comparing Bonaparte with Charlemagne, the substance of which I have attempted to express in "The Friend,"* but which Bourrienne has condensed into a sentence worthy of Tacitus, or Machiavel, or Bacon. It is this; that Charlemagne was above his age, while Bonaparte was only above his competitors, but under his age! Bourrienne has done more than any one else to show Bonaparte to the world as he really was,-always contemptible except when acting a part, and that part not his own.

JULY 8, 1830.
Jews.

6

THE other day I was what you would called floored by a Jew. He passed me several times, crying for old clothes in the most nasal and extraordinary tone I ever heard. At last I was so provoked, that I said to him, "Pray, why can't you say old clothes' in a plain. way, as I do now?" The Jew stopped, and, looking very gravely at me, said, in a clear and even fine accent, "Sir, I can say 'old clothes' as well as you can; but if you had to say so ten times a minute, for an hour together, you would say ogh clo, as I do now ;" and so he marched off. I was so confounded with the justice of his retort, that I followed, and gave him a shilling, the only one I had.

I have had a good deal to do with Jews in the course of my life, although I never borrowed any money of them. Once I sat in a coach opposite a Jew—a symbol

* Vol. i., Essay 12, p. 133.

of old clothes bags-an Isaiah of Hollywell-street. He would close the window; I opened it; he closed it again: upon which, in a very solemn tone, I said to him, "Son of Abraham! thou smellest; son of Isaac ! thou art offensive; son of Jacob! thou stinkest foully. See the man in the moon! he is holding his nose at thee at that distance. Dost thou think that I, sitting here, can endure it any longer?" My Jew was astounded, opened the window forthwith himself, and said "he was sorry he did not know before I was so great a gentleman."

JULY 24, 1830.

The Papacy and the Reformation-Leo X. DURING the middle ages, the papacy was nothing, in fact, but a confederation of the learned men in the west of Europe against the barbarism and ignorance of the times. The pope was chief of this confederacy; and so long as he retained that character exclusively, his power was just and irresistible. It was the principal means of preserving for us and for all posterity all that we now have of the illumination of past ages. But as soon as the pope made a separation between his character as premier clerk in Christendom and as a secular prince-as soon as he began to squabble for towns and castles-then he at once broke the charm, and gave birth to a revolution. From that moment those who remained firm to the cause of truth and knowledge became necessarily enemies to the Roman see. The great British schoolmen led the way; then Wicliffe rose, Huss, Jerome, and others. In short, everywhere, but especially throughout the north of Europe, the breach of feeling and sympathy went on widening; so that all Germany, England, Scotland, and other countries, started like giants out of their sleep at the first blast of Luther's trumpet. In France one half of the people, and that the most wealthy and

enlightened, embraced the Reformation. The seeds of it were deeply and widely spread in Spain and in Italy; and as to the latter, if James I. had been an Elizabeth, I have no doubt at all that Venice would have publicly declared itself against Rome. It is a profound question to answer, why it is that, since the middle of the sixteenth century, the Reformation has not advanced one step in Europe?

In the time of Leo X., atheism, or infidelity of some sort, was almost universal in Italy among the high dignitaries of the Romish church.

JULY 27, 1830.
Thelwall-Swift-Stella.

JOHN THELWALL had something very good about him. We were once sitting in a beautiful recess in the Quantocks, when I said to him, "Citizen John, this is a fine place to talk treason in!" "Nay, Citizen Samuel," replied he, "it is rather a place to make a man forget that there is any necessity for treason!"

Thelwall thought it very unfair to influence a child's mind by inculcating any opinions before it should have come to years of discretion, and be able to choose for itself. I showed him my garden, and told him it was my botanical garden. "How so?" said he; "it is covered with weeds." "Oh," I replied, "that is only because it has not yet come to its age of discretion and choice. The weeds, you see, have taken the liberty to grow, and I thought it unfair in me to prejudice the soil towards roses and strawberries."

I think Swift adopted the name of Stella, which is a man's name with a feminine termination, to denote the mysterious epicene relation in which poor Miss Johnston stood to him.

JULY 28, 1830.

Iniquitous Legislation.

THAT legislation is iniquitous which sets law in conflict with the common and unsophisticated feelings of our nature. If I were a clergyman in a smuggling town, I would not preach against smuggling. I would not be made a sort of clerical revenue officer. Let the government, which by absurd duties fosters smuggling, prevent it itself, if it can. How could I show my hearers the immorality of going twenty miles in a boat, and honestly buying with their money a keg of brandy, except by a long deduction which they could not understand? But were I in a place where wrecking went on, see if I would preach on any thing else!

JULY 29, 1830.

Spurzheim and Craniology.

SPURZHEIM is a good man, and I like him; but he is dense, and the most ignorant German I ever knew. If he had been content with stating certain remarkable coincidences between the moral qualities and the configuration of the scull, it would have been well; but when he began to map out the cranium dogmatically, he fell into infinite absurdities. You know that every intellectual act, however you may distinguish it by name, in respect to the originating faculties, is truly the act of the entire man: the notion of distinct material organs, therefore, in the brain itself, is plainly absurd. Pressed by this, Spurzheim has at length been guilty of some sheer quackery; and ventures to say that he has actually discovered a different material in the different parts or organs of the brain, so that he can tell a piece of benevolence from a bit of destructiveness, and so forth. Observe, also, that it is constantly found, that so far from there being a concavity in the interior surface of the cranium answering to the