in this remarkable Trilogy, and completes the illustration of the doctrine that the avenging and righteous judgment of the gods follows upon every action.

Beyond this there is little remarkable in this fine play, save a passage in which Minerva, the protecting deity, exculpates Orestes from matricide, by urging that the child belongs primarily to the father, and that the father is the more sacred of the parents—a notion utterly astounding, one would think, to some of the Woman's Friend Societies, who regard, if report is to be believed, man as a very inferior animal indeed.

If we have passed the time when the Mythology is credited, we have not passed that in which the anger of God is believed in. Even more intensely than the Grecian, the Jewish religion continually preaches the fact that the Almighty is wrathful, and that, if slow to anger, yet that his anger remains against sin, and that sooner or later the inevitable Nemesis follows. With those whom He loves the Jews represent their Deity as readily moved to anger, and often taking a terrible vengeance, as in the case of the disobedient prophet, who, although powerful enough to wither a king's arm, to strike with astonishment his whole court, probably to resist the temptation of extreme hunger and thirst in a king's palace, yet was deceived in the wilderness by a pretended messenger from God, turned aside, and was slain by a lion in the way. So sometimes, for a slight infraction of duty, the Deity demands a terrible reparation, and from none more so than from those who are chosen depositaries of genius, faith, or of any gift, and who are untrue to that gift.

In politics Nemesis intervenes, and quickly, or it may be slowly, follows the crime. Actions bear fruit: we may not see it ripen, but as sure as the sun lightens God's heaven, so surely do his judgments descend. Spain, proud, rich, haughty, falls upon a new land, inhabited by a soft race, rich with gold and precious stones, innocent and guileless. Innocence without defence is too tempting a spectacle for coward man. And so, as Cowper tells us :

"The hand that slew till it could slay no more
Was glued to the sword-hilt with Indian gore;
Their king, as justly seated on his throne

As ere imperial Philip on his own,
Died by the sentence of a shaven priest

For scorning what they taught him to detest."

But soon came Nemesis. The riches of Peru corrupted the Spaniards. Truth, bravery, honesty, were scorned before the glittering acquirements of the newly rich. That which had been gained without labour was lost without effort and without regret. The nation became corrupt; she had driven industry from her shores; she had tyrannised over Jew, Morisco, and Indian; she became utterly corrupt—a very scorn of nations. The prey of the Frenchman, her fields were the battle-grounds of Europe; and in her faded and antique grandeur, her decayed cities, and her desolate streets, the lessons of Nemesis, striking, awe-inspiring, and bitterly instructive, may be read. Not a few nations daily expiate their political and social crimes. Slavery has been washed away in the blood of the white man; China has broken to pieces in her vast injustice; and for Russia and Prussia too Nemesis awaits.

One would rather teach by the example of families, in this which is a book for quiet, reflective people, than by any glittering instance of successful or unsuccessful war, or than by the doings of this fool-conqueror or knave-king. But these domestic examples are left for the reader's own private citation; he who leads properly the Gentle Life need only stand by and wait, and he will find all his wrongs, not redressed perhaps, but certainly visited on the heads of the wrong-doers by Time, the Avenger.

S love a foolish passion ?-that is the question! The title, with what has been added, is nearly a literal extract from Whitefield's letter of courtship, if courtship it could be called which had little such in it. "This," he writes of his proposal, "comes (like Abraham's servant to Rebekah's relations) to know whether you think your daughter, Miss E., is a proper person to engage in such an undertaking. If so, whether you will give me leave to propose marriage unto her. You need not be afraid to send me a refusal; for I bless God, if I know anything of my own heart, that I am free from that foolish passion which the world calls Love. I write only because I believe that it is the will of God that I should alter my state; but your denial will fully convince me that your daughter is not the person appointed by God for me. But I have sometimes thought Miss E. would be my helpmate, for she has often been impressed upon my heart. Be pleased to spread the letter before the Lord; and if you think this motion be of him, be pleased to deliver the enclosed to your daughter. If not, say nothing; only let me know you disapprove of it, and that

shall satisfy your friend and servant.”* father.

This was to a lady's

The extraordinary delusion of this good but conceited man led him to propose in the same way to the lady. “I much like," said our Western Methodist-Calvinist, assuming the airs of an Eastern Patriarch, “the manner of Isaac's marrying with Rebekah, and think no marriage can succeed unless both parties are like-minded with Tobias and his wife. I make no great profession to you, because I believe you think me sincere. The passionate expressions which carnal courtiers use I think ought to be avoided by those who marry in the Lord." George Whitefield also promised to help his future wife forward in the great work of her salvation. "If you think marriage," he continued, "any detriment to your better part, be so kind as to send me a denial." The reply he received amounted to a denial; the lady was "only in a seeking state," and that state, in Whitefield's mind, would not do. "He must," he said, have one that was “full of faith and the Holy Ghost ;" and the lady evidently wanted somebody who did not squint, or who, if he did squint, had at least something more of " the foolish passion called Love" in him. Not abashed by this refusal, Whitefield continued his seeking for a wife, and then laid siege in his peculiar way, just as a regiment of Puritans might have done to a Royalist town, with spiritual and carnal weapons, psalms and hymns, and swords and gunpowder all mixed up very profanely and inappropriately, to a widow at Abergavenny, between thirty and forty, whom he married because "she was neither

*

Quoted in Southey's Life of Wesley, vol. ii. chap. 25.