God in the Universe.

It is in vain for us to search the bulky mass of matter; seeking to know its nature; how great the whole itself, or even how small its parts. If, knowing only some of the rules of motion, we seek to trace it further, it is in vain we follow it into the bodies it has reached. Our tardy apprehensions fail us, and can reach nothing beyond the body itself, through which it is diffused. Wonderful being (if we may call it so) which bodies never receive, except from others which lose it; nor ever lose, unless by imparting it to others. Even without change of place it has its force: and bodies big with motion labour to move, yet stir not; whilst they express an energy beyond our comprehension.

In vain too we pursue that phantom Time, too small, and yet too mighty for our grasp; when shrinking to a narrow point, it escapes our hold, or mocks our scanty thought by swelling to eternity an object unproportioned to our capacity, as is thy being, O thou ancient Cause ! older than Time, yet young with fresh Eternity. In vain we try to fathom the abyss of space, the seat of thy extensive being; of which no place is empty, no void which is not full.

In vain we labour to understand that principle of sense and thought, which seeming in us to depend so much on motion, yet differs so much from it, and from matter itself, as not to suffer us to conceive how thought can more result from this, than this arise from thought. But thought we own pre-eminent, and confess the reallest of beings; the only existence of which we are made sure of, by being conscious. All else may be only dream and shadow. All which even sense suggests may be deceitful. The sense itself remains still; reason subsists; and thought maintains its eldership of being. Thus are we in a manner conscious of that original and externally existent thought, whence we derive our own. And thus the assurance we have of the existence of beings above our sense, and of Thee (the great exemplar of thy works) comes from Thee, the all-true and perfect, who hast thus communicated thyself more immediately to us, so as in some manner to inhabit within our souls; Thou who art original soul, diffusive, vital in all, inspiriting the whole!

BISHOP BERKELEY.

DR GEORGE BERKELEY, to whom Pope assigned "every virtue under heaven,' was born at Dysert Castle or Tower, on the banks of the Nore, near Thomastown, county of Kilkenny, March 12, 1684-5. He received, like Swift, his early education at Kilkenny School, and afterwards was entered of Trinity College, Dublin, where he was distinguished for proficiency in mathematical knowledge. He was admitted a fellow in 1707. Two years afterwards, Berkeley published his Essay towards a new Theory of Vision. 'The question of the Essay,' says Berkeley's latest biographer, 'comes to this-What is really meant by our seeing things in ambient space? Berkeley's answer when developed may be put thus-What, before we reflected, we had supposed to be a seeing of real things, is not seeing really extended things at all, but only seeing something that is constantly connected with their extension; what is vulgarly called seeing them is, in fact, reading about them: when we are every day using our eyes we are virtually interpreting a book: when by sight we are determining for ourselves the actual distances, sizes, shapes, and situations of things, we are simply translating the words of the univer

This

sal and divine language of the senses."
Essay was followed, in 1710, by a Treatise concern-
ing the Principles of Human Knowledge, which is
a systematic assault upon scholastic abstractions,
especially upon abstract or unperceived matter,
space, and time.

It assumes that these are the
main cause of confusion and difficulty in the
sciences, and of materialistic atheism.' Berkeley's
theory of physical causation anticipates Hume
while it consummates Bacon, and opens the way
to the true conception of physical induction. In
1711, Berkeley, having in 1709 entered into holy
orders, published a Discourse of Passive Obedience,
a defence of the Christian duty of not resisting the
the opinion that Berkeley was a Jacobite, but he
supreme civil power. This discourse gave rise to
retired philosopher visited London and wrote some
was in reality no party politician. In 1713, the
papers for Steele's Guardian. The same year he
published his Three Dialogues between Hylas and
Philonous, the design of which, he said, was
plainly to demonstrate the reality and perfection
of human knowledge, the incorporeal nature of the
soul, and the immediate providence of a Deity, in
opposition to sceptics and deists. In this work his
ideal system was developed in language singularly
animated and imaginative. He now became ac-
quainted with Swift, Pope, Steele, and the other
members of that brilliant circle, by whom he seems
the Earl of Peterborough, as chaplain and secre-
to have been sincerely beloved. He accompanied
tary, in his embassy to Sicily, and afterwards
travelled on the continent as tutor to Mr Ashe,
son of the Bishop of Clogher. This second excur-
sion engaged him upwards of four years. While
abroad, we find him writing thus justly and finely
to Pope: 'As merchants, antiquaries, men of
pleasure, &c. have all different views in travelling,
I know not whether it might not be worth a poet's
while to travel, in order to store his mind with
strong images of nature. Green fields and groves,
flowery meadows, and purling streams, are nowhere
in such perfection as in England; but if you
would know lightsome days, warm suns, and blue
skies, you must come to Italy; and to enable a
man to describe rocks and precipices, it is abso-
lutely necessary that he pass the Alps.' While at
Paris, Berkeley visited the French philosopher
Malebranche, then in ill health, from a disease of
the lungs. A dispute ensued as to the ideal
system, and Malebranche was so impetuous in
argument, that he brought on a violent increase of
his disorder, which carried him off in a few days.
This must have been a more than ideal disputa-
tion to the amiable Berkeley, who could not but be
deeply afflicted by such a tragic result. On his
return he published a Latin tract, De Motu, and
an essay on the fatal South-sea Scheme, in 1720.
Pope introduced him to the Earl of Burlington,
and by that nobleman he was recommended to the
Duke of Grafton, lord-lieutenant of Ireland. His
grace made Berkeley his chaplain, and afterwards
appointed him to the deanery of Derry. It was
soon evident, however, that personal aggrandise-
ment was never an object of interest with this
benevolent philosopher. He had long been cher-
ishing a project, which he announced as 'a scheme
for converting the savage Americans to Christi-

burgh, who edited also a complete and excellent edition of * Life and Letters of Berkeley, by Professor A. C. Fraser, EdinBerkeley's Works, 4 vols. Oxford, 1871.

repeat these things to you, that I may not seem to
have declined all steps to the primacy out of
singularity, of pride, or stupidity, but from solid
motives. As for the argument from the opportu-
nity of doing good, I observe that duty obliges men
in high station not to decline occasions of doing
good; but duty doth not oblige men to solicit
such high stations.' He was a poet as well as a
mathematician and philosopher, and had he culti-
vated the lighter walks of literature as diligently
as he did his metaphysical and abstract specu-
lations, he might have shone with lustre in a field
on which he but rarely entered. When inspired
with his transatlantic mission, he penned the follow-
ing fine moral verses, that seem to shadow forth the
fast accomplishing greatness of the New World:
Verses on the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning
in America.

The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime
Barren of every glorious theme,

In distant lands now waits a better time,
Producing subjects worthy fame.

In happy climes, where from the genial sun
And virgin earth, such scenes ensue,
The force of art by nature seems outdone,
And fancied beauties by the true :

In happy climes, the seat of innocence,
Where nature guides and virtue rules,
Where men shall not impose for truth and sense
The pedantry of courts and schools:
There shall be sung another golden age,
The rise of empire and of arts,
The good and great inspiring epic rage,

anity, by a college to be erected in the Summer be master of my time than wear a diadem. I Islands, otherwise called the Isles of Bermuda.' In this college he most 'exorbitantly proposed,' as Swift humorously remarked, 'a whole hundred pounds a year for himself, forty pounds for a fellow and ten for a student.' No anticipated difficulties could daunt him, and he communicated his enthusiasm to others. Coadjutors were obtained, a royal charter was granted, and Sir Robert Walpole promised a sum of £20,000 from the government to promote the undertaking. In January 1729, Berkeley and his friends sailed for Rhode Island, where he had some idea of purchasing land, as an investment for Bermuda, and perhaps also of establishing a friendly correspondence with influential New Englanders. Newport was then a flourishing town, and Berkeley resided there till July or August, when he removed to the valley in the interior of the island, where he had bought a farm (ninety-six acres) and built a house. He lived the life of a recluse in Rhode Island, but applied himself to his literary and philosophical studies. The estate at Bermuda had been purchased and the public money was due, but Walpole declined to advance the sum promised, and the project was at an end. Berkeley returned to Europe, and was in London in February 1732. Next month appeared the largest of his works, Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher, a series of moral and philosophical dialogues. Fortune again smiled on Berkeley: he became a favourite with Queen Caroline, and, in 1734, was appointed to the bishopric of Cloyne. Lord Chesterfield afterwards offered him the see of Clogher, which was double the value of that of Cloyne; but he declined the preferment. Some useful tracts were afterwards published by the bishop, including one on tarwater, which he considered to possess high medicinal virtues. Another of his works is entitled The Querist; containing several Queries proposed to the Consideration of the Public. In 1752, he removed with his family to Oxford, to superintend the education of one of his sons; and, conscious of the impropriety of residing apart from his diocese, he endeavoured to exchange his bishopric for some canonry or college at Oxford. Failing of success, he wrote to resign his bishopric, worth £1400 per annum; but the king declared that he should die a bishop, though he gave him liberty to reside where he pleased. This incident is honourable to both parties. In 1753 the good prelate died suddenly at his residence at Oxford, while sitting on a couch in the midst of his family. His remains were interred in Christ Church, where a monument was erected to his memory. The life of Berkeley presents a striking picture of patient labour and romantic enthusiasm, of learning and genius, benevolence and worth. His dislike to the pursuits and troubles of ambition are thus expressed by him to a friend in 1747: In a letter from England, which I told you came a week ago, it was said that several of our Irish bishops were earnestly contending for the primacy. Pray, who are they? I thought Bishop Stone was only talked of at present. I ask this question merely out of curiosity, and not from any interest, I assure you. I am no man's rival or competitor in this matter. I am not in love with feasts, and crowds, and visits, and late hours, and strange faces, and a hurry of affairs often insignificant. For my own private satisfaction, I had rather

The wisest heads and noblest hearts.

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay;

Such as she bred when fresh and young,
When heavenly flame did animate her clay,
By future poets shall be sung.

Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last.

The works of Berkeley form an important landmark in metaphysical science. At first, his valuable and original Theory of Vision was considered a philosophical romance, yet his doctrines are now incorporated with every system of optics. The chief aim of Berkeley was to distinguish the immediate and natural objects of sight from the seemingly instantaneous conclusions which experience and habit teach us to draw from them in our earliest infancy; or, in the more concise metaphysical language of a later period, to draw the line between the original and the acquired percep tions of the eyę.'* The ideal system of Berkeley was written to expose the sophistry of materialism, He attempts to but it is defective and erroneous. prove that extension and figure, hardness and softness, and all other sensible qualities, are mere ideas of the mind, which cannot possibly exist in an insentient substance-a theory which, it has been justly remarked, tends to unhinge the whole frame fidence in those principles of belief which form an of the human understanding, by shaking our con

Dugald Stewart.

In short, all projects for growing rich by sudden and extraordinary methods, as they operate violently on the passions of men, and encourage them to despise the slow moderate gains that are to be made by an honest industry, must be ruinous to the public, and even the winners themselves will at length be involved in the public ruin. . .

God grant the time be not near when men shall say: This island was once inhabited by a religious, brave, sincere people, of plain uncorrupt manners, respecting inbred worth rather than titles and appearances, their own rights, and unwilling to infringe the rights of assertors of liberty, lovers of their country, jealous of others; improvers of learning and useful arts, enemies to luxury, tender of other men's lives, and prodigal of their own; inferior in nothing to the old Greeks or Romans, and superior to each of those people in the perfections of the other. Such were our ancestors during their rise and greatness; but they degenerated, grew servile flatterers of men in power, adopted Epicurean notions, became venal, corrupt, injurious, which drew upon them the hatred of God and man, and occasioned their final ruin.'

essential part of its constitution. Our ideas he some men shall from nothing acquire in an instant vast 'evidently considered not as states of the indivi- estates, without the least desert; while others are as dual mind, but as separate things existing in it, and suddenly stripped of plentiful fortunes, and left on the capable of existing in other minds, but in them parish by their own avarice and credulity, what can be alone; and it is in consequence of these assump-hoped for on the one hand but abandoned luxury and tions that his system, if it were to be considered wantonness, or on the other but extreme madness and despair? as a system of scepticism, is chiefly defective. But having, as he supposed, these ideas, and conceiving that they did not perish when they ceased to exist in his mind, since the same ideas recurred at intervals, he deduced, from the necessity which there seemed for some omnipresent mind, in which they might exist during the intervals of recurrence, the necessary existence of the Deity; and if, indeed, as he supposed, ideas be something different from the mind itself, recurring only at intervals to created minds, and incapable of existing but in mind, the demonstration of some infinite omnipresent mind, in which they exist during these intervals of recurrence to finite minds, must be allowed to be perfect. The whole force of the pious demonstration, therefore, which Berkeley flattered himself with having urged irresistibly, is completely obviated by the simple denial, that ideas are anything more than the mind itself affected in a certain manner; since, in this case, our ideas exist no longer than our mind is affected in that particular manner which constitutes each particular idea; and to say that our ideas exist in the divine mind, would thus be to say, only, that our mind itself exists in the divine mind. There is not the sensation of colour in addition to the mind, nor the sensation of fragrance in addition to the mind; but the sensation of colour is the mind existing in a certain state, and the sensation of fragrance is the mind existing in a different state.'* The style of Berkeley has been generally admired: it is clear and unaffected, with the easy grace of the polished philosopher. A love of description and of external nature is evinced at times, and possesses something of the freshness of Izaak Walton.

Industry.

From An Essay towards preventing the Ruin of Great Britain, written soon after the affair of the South-sea Scheme.

Industry is the natural sure way to wealth; this is so true, that it is impossible an industrious free people should want the necessaries and comforts of life, or an idle enjoy them under any form of government. Money is so far useful to the public, as it promoteth industry, and credit having the same effect, is of the same value with money; but money or credit circulating through a nation from hand to hand, without producing labour and industry in the inhabitants, is direct gaming.

It is not impossible for cunning men to make such plausible schemes, as may draw those who are less skilful into their own and the public ruin. But surely there is no man of sense and honesty but must see and own, whether he understands the game or not, that it is an evident folly for any people, instead of prosecuting the old honest methods of industry and frugality, to sit down to a public gaming-table and play off their money one to another.

The more methods there are in a state for acquiring riches without industry or merit, the less there will be of either in that state: this is as evident as the ruin that attends it. Besides, when money is shifted from hand to hand in such a blind fortuitous manner, that

Dr Thomas Brown.

Prejudices and Opinions.

Prejudices are notions or opinions which the mind entertains without knowing the grounds and reasons of them, and which are assented to without examination. The first notions which take possession of the minds of men, with regard to duties social, moral, and civil, may therefore be justly styled prejudices. The mind of a young creature cannot remain empty; if you do not put into it that which is good, it will be sure to receive that

which is bad.

education; and if so, is it not better this bias should lie Do what you can, there will still be a bias from towards things laudable and useful to society? This bias still operates, although it may not always prevail. The notions first instilled have the earliest influence, take the deepest root, and generally are found to give a colour and complexion to the subsequent lives of men, inasmuch as they are in truth the great source of human actions. It is not gold, or honour, or power, that moves men to act, but the opinions they entertain of those things. Hence it follows, that if a magistrate should say: 'No matter what notions men embrace, I will take heed to their actions,' therein he shews his weakness; for, such as are men's notions, such will be their deeds.

For a man to do as he would be done by, to love his neighbour as himself, to honour his superiors, to believe that God scans all his actions, and will reward or punish them, and to think that he who is guilty of falsehood or injustice hurts himself more than any one else; are not these such notions and principles as every wise governor or legislator would covet above all things to have firmly rooted in the mind of every individual under his care? This is allowed even by the enemies of religion, who would fain have it thought the offspring of state policy, honouring its usefulness at the same time that they disparage its truth. What, therefore, cannot be acquired by every man's reasoning, must be introduced by precept, and riveted by custom; that is to say, the bulk of mankind must, in all civilised societies, have their minds, by timely instruction, well-seasoned and furnished with proper notions, which, although the grounds or proofs thereof be unknown to them, will nevertheless influence their conduct, and so far render them useful members of the state. But if you strip men of these

their notions, or, if you will, prejudices, with regard to modesty, decency, justice, charity, and the like, you will soon find them so many monsters utterly unfit for human society.

I desire may be considered that most men want leisure, opportunity, or faculties, to derive conclusions from their principles, and establish morality on a foundation of human science. True it is-as St Paul observes-that the 'invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen;' and from thence the duties of natural religion may be discovered. But these things are seen and discovered by those alone who open their eyes and look narrowly for them. Now, if you look throughout the world, you shall find but few of these narrow inspectors and inquirers, very few who make it their business to analyse opinions, and pursue them to their rational source, to examine whence truths spring, and how they are inferred. In short, you shall find all men full of opinions, but knowledge only in a few.

It is impossible, from the nature and circumstances of humankind, that the multitude should be philosophers, or that they should know things in their causes. We see every day that the rules, or conclusions alone, are sufficient for the shopkeeper to state his account, the sailor to navigate his ship, or the carpenter to measure his timber; none of which understand the theory, that is to say, the grounds and reasons either of arithmetic or geometry. Even so in moral, political, and religious matters, it is manifest that the rules and opinions early imbibed at the first dawn of understanding, and without the least glimpse of science, may yet produce excellent effects, and be very useful to the world; and that, in fact, they are so, will be very visible to every one who shall observe what passeth

round about him.

It may not be amiss to inculcate, that the difference between prejudices and other opinions doth not consist in this, that the former are false, and the latter true; but in this, that the former are taken upon trust, and the latter acquired by reasoning. He who hath been taught to believe the immortality of the soul, may be as right in his notion, as he who hath reasoned himself into that opinion. It will then by no means follow, that because this or that notion is a prejudice, it must be therefore false. The not distinguishing between prejudices and errors is a prevailing oversight among our modern freethinkers.

He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave.

The patriot aims at his private good in the public. The knave makes the public subservient to his private interest. The former considers himself as part of a whole, the latter considers himself as the whole.

Moral evil is never to be committed; physical evil may be incurred either to avoid a greater evil, or to procure a good.

When the heart is right, there is true patriotism. The fawning courtier and the surly squire often mean the same thing-each his own interest. Ferments of the worst kind succeed to perfect inaction.

THE REV. JOHN NORRIS.

It

The REV. JOHN NORRIS (1657-1711), an English Platonist and mystic divine,' was one of the earliest opponents of the philosophy of Locke. Hallam characterises him as 'more thoroughly Platonic than Malebranche, to whom, however, he pays great deference, and adopts his fundamental hypothesis of seeing all things in God.' His first work, A Collection of Miscellanies, 1678, was popular and went through several editions. consists of poems, essays, discourses, and letters. In the preface to this work, Norris says: 'It may appear strange, that in such a refining age as this, wherein all things seem ready to receive their last turn and finishing stroke, poetry should be the only thing that remains unimproved.' Yet Milton had only been dead four years, and Butler and Dryden were alive! Norris's own poetry is quaint and full of conceits, but he has one simile which was copied (or stolen) by two poets-Blair, author of The Grave, and Thomas Campbell (Pleasures of Hope).

How fading are the joys we dote upon!
Like apparitions seen and gone :
But those which soonest take their flight,
Are the most exquisite and strong:
Like angel visits short and bright;
Mortality's too weak to bear them long.
The Parting.

Angels, as 'tis but seldom they appear,
So neither do they make long stay;
They do but visit and away.

There may be, indeed, certain mere prejudices or In another piece Norris repeats the image: opinions which, having no reasons either assigned or assignable to support them, are nevertheless entertained by the mind, because they are intruded betimes into it. Such may be supposed false, not because they were early learned, or learned without their reasons, but because there are in truth no reasons to be given for them.

Certainly if a notion may be concluded false because it was early imbibed, or because it is with most men an object of belief rather than of knowledge, one may by the same reasoning conclude several propositions of Euclid to be false. A simple apprehension of conclusions, as taken in themselves, without the deductions of science, is what falls to the share of mankind in general. Religious awe, the precepts of parents and masters, the wisdom of legislatures, and the accumulated experience of ages, supply the place of proofs and reasonings with the vulgar of all ranks; I would say that discipline, national constitution, and laws human or Divine, are so many plain landmarks which guide them into the paths wherein it is presumed they ought to tread.

From Maxims concerning Patriotism?'

A man who hath no sense of God or conscience, would you make such a one guardian to your child? If not, why guardian to the state?

A fop or man of pleasure makes but a scurvy patriot.

We may quote a few more lines containing poetic fancy and expression :

Distance presents the objects fair,

With charming features and a graceful air,
But when we come to seize th' inviting prey,
Like a shy ghost, it vanishes away.

So to th' unthinking boy the distant sky,
Seems on some mountain's surface to rely:
He with ambitious haste climbs th' ascent,
Curious to touch the firmament;
But when with an unwearied pace,
Arrived he is at the long wished-for place,
With sighs, the sad event he does deplore-
His Heaven is still as distant as before.

The works of Norris are numerous: The Picture of Love Unveiled, 1682; An Idea of Happiness, 1683; Practical Discourses, 4 vols. 1687; Discourses upon the Beatitudes, 1691; A Philosophical Discourse concerning the Immortality of the Soul, 1708.

On Perfect Happiness.

Nothing does more constantly, more inseparably, cleave to our minds, than this desire of perfect and consummated happiness. This is the most excellent end of all our endeavours, the great prize, the great hope. This is the mark every man shoots at; and though we miss our aim never so often, yet we will not, cannot give over, but like passionate lovers, take resolution from a repulse. The rest of our passions are much at our own disposal; yield either to reason or time; we either argue ourselves out of them, or at least outlive them. We are not always in love with pomp and grandeur, nor always dazzled with the glittering of riches; and there is a season when pleasure itself—that is, sensible pleasure-shall court in vain. But the desire of perfect happiness has no intervals, no vicissitudes. It outlasts the motion of the pulse, and survives the ruins of the grave. Many waters can not quench it, neither can the floods drown it.' And now certainly God would never have planted such an ardent, such an importunate appetite in our souls; and, as it were, interwoven it with our very natures, had he not been able to satisfy it.

From these and the like considerations, I think it will evidently appear, that this perfect happiness is not to be found in anything we can enjoy in this life. Wherein then does it consist? I answer positively in the full and entire fruition of God. He, as Plato speaks, is the proper and principal end of man, the centre of our tendency, the ark of our rest. He is the object which alone can satisfy the appetite of the most capacious soul, and stand the test of fruition to eternity, and to enjoy him fully is perfect felicity.

MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.

DANIEL DEFOE.

host of miscellaneous writers. The most powerThe political contests of this period engaged a ful and effective belonged to the Tory or Jacobite party; but the Whigs possessed one unflinching and prolific champion-DANIEL FOE, or DE FOE, as he chose afterwards to write his namethe father or founder of the English novel and I come now to shew wherein this perfect happiness author, it is said, of 254 separate publications! does consist; concerning which, I affirm in the first place, This excellent writer was a native of London, the that it is not to be found in anything we can enjoy in this son of a St Giles butcher, and dissenter. Daniel life. The greatest fruition we have of God here is im- was born in 1661, and was intended to be a Presperfect, and consequently unsatisfactory. And as for all byterian minister, having with this view studied other objects they are finite, and consequently, though five years at a dissenters' academy at Newington. never so fully enjoyed, cannot afford us perfect satisfaction. No, man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is He acquired a competent knowledge of the Latin it found in the land of the living. The depth saith, It is not and Greek classics, and afterwards added to these in me and the sea saith, It is not with me' (Job xxviii. an acquaintance with the Spanish, Italian, and 13, 14). The vanity of the creature has been so copi- French languages. When the Monmouth insurously discoursed upon, both by philosophers and divines, rection broke out, Defoe followed the Duke's and withal is so obvious to every thinking man's experi- standard. On the failure of the enterprise, he ence, that I need not here take an inventory of the crea- escaped punishment, and entered on business as a tion, nor turn Ecclesiastes after Solomon. I shall only wholesale trader in hosiery in Freeman's Court, add one or two remarks concerning the objects of secular Cornhill. He next became a merchant-advenhappiness. The first is this, that the objects wherein turer, and visited Spain and Portugal. He failed men generally seek for happiness here, are not only finite in business, and compounded with his creditors, in their nature, but also few in number. Indeed, could who accepted a composition on his single bond. a man's life be so contrived, that he should have a new He forced his way, he says, 'through a sea of pleasure still ready at hand as soon as he was grown misfortunes, and reduced his debts, exclusive weary of the old, and every day enjoy a virgin delight, he might then, perhaps, like Mr Hobbes's motion, and of composition, from £17,000 to less than £5000." for a while think himself happy in this continued succesHe then became secretary to, and ultimately sion of new acquisitions. But, alas! nature does not owner of works at Tilbury for the manufacture treat us with this variety; the compass of our enjoyments of bricks and pantiles. This also was an unsucis much shorter than that of our lives, and there is a peri- cessful undertaking, and Defoe lost by its failure odical circulation of our pleasures, as well as of our lives. a sum of £3000. Before this he had become The enjoyments of our lives run in a perpetual round, known to the government of William III. as an like the months in the calendar, but with a quicker revo- able writer, and was appointed accountant to the lution; we dance like fairies in a circle, and our whole Commissioners of the Glass Duty, which office he life is but a nauseous tautology. We rise like the sun, held from 1695 till the duty was suppressed in and run the same course we did the day before; and to1699. As an author, the first undoubted work morrow is but the same over again.... But there is another grievance which contributes to defeat our endea- by Defoe, though published anonymously, was a vours after perfect happiness in the enjoyment of this Letter on His Majesty's Declaration for Liberty of life; which is, that the objects wherein we seek it are Conscience (1687). Defoe justly considered that not only finite and few, but that they commonly prove the dictation of James II. suspending laws withoccasions of greater sorrow to us, than ever they afforded out the consent of parliament, was a subversion us content. This may be made out several ways, as of the whole government or constitution of the from the labour of getting, the care of keeping, the fear country. The Revolution coming soon after, of losing, and the like topics commonly insisted upon by Defoe was one of the steadiest supporters of its others. But I waive these and fix upon another account principles. In March 1698, he published a less blown upon, and I think more material than any of remarkable volume, An Essay upon Projects, in the rest. It is this: that although the object loses that which various schemes and improvements are great appearance in the fruition which it had in the ex-recommended, the work evincing great sagacity, pectation, yet, after it is gone, it resumes it again. Now we, when we lament the loss, do not take our measures from that appearance which the object had in the enjoyment (as we should do to make our sorrow not exceed our happiness), but from that which it has in the reflection; and consequently we must needs be more miserable in the loss than we were happy in the enjoyment.

knowledge, and ingenuity. One of his projects was a savings-bank for the poor. In 1701 he made a great success. His True-born Englishman, a poetical satire on the foreigners, and a defence of King William and the Dutch, had an almost unexampled sale. Eighty thousand pirated copies