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with her legal protector. She became an authoress in due time; and, aware that prejudice might attach unpopularity to her writings if issued under the auspices of her real name, she adopted that of George Sand,' and, as we before stated, experienced the most complete success ever attained by any female in modern times."

The man who could write such an apology as this, is perhaps but consistent with himself in recommending to the English such "hellish compounds" as the modern French novelists supply. But we hope the English public are not likely to follow his recommendation, and that a manly taste in the one sex, and a feminine abhorrence of impurity in the other, will always keep far from our firesides the beastly literature of the French circulating libraries.

A CONTRAST.

WITH a pride which I trust is not at all presumptuous-with a boundless exultation, and a refreshment of the spirit, which is altogether unutterable, do I turn away from the foul and feverish writers of modern France, to our own great master of the heart and passions. Hail Shakespeare! A man who could freeze the soul with not unwholesome horror-who could exhibit the most dreadful workings of determined

guilt with a power that leaves us lost in astonishment that words of man can convey so much, and yet who never leaves an impression adverse to what is gentle and good, noble and generous!

Again, and again, and again, may we read Shakespeare, ay, even after the words are familiar to us as our daily prayers, and still do we find some new suggestion of admirable truth -something to soften what is rugged, and to warm and uplift what is good in our nature. Contrast what Coleridge says of his writings with the character of those boldly licentious French writings which are now recommended to the English public. Of course I do not deem it reasonable that these modern works as a whole should be tried by such a standard as Shakespeare supplies, but just see how in respect of the few particulars so accurately pointed out by Coleridge, the contrast runs. "Keeping at all times in the high road of life, Shakespeare has no innocent adulteries, no interesting incests, no virtuous vice. He never renders that amiable which religion and reason alike teach us to detest, or clothes impurity in the garb of virtue.... Shakespeare's fathers are roused by ingratitude-his husbands stung by unfaithfulness: in him, in short, the affections are wounded in those points in which all may-nay, must feel. If he occasionally disgusts a keen sense of delicacy, he never injures the mind. He

neither excites nor flatters passion in order to degrade the subject of it. He does not use the faulty thing for a faulty purpose, nor carries on warfare against virtue by causing wickedness to appear as no wickedness, through the medium of a morbid sympathy with the unfortunate. In Shakespeare vice never walks as in a twilight. Nothing is purposely out of its place. He inverts not the order of nature and propriety; does not make every magistrate a drunkard or a glutton; nor every poor man meek, humane, and temperate. He has no benevolent butchers, nor any sentimental rat-catchers."

Let it be the glory of England that Shakespeare is especially English. Everything in him that is so great, everything that is so delightful, is but an exaltation of English spirit-English sentiment-English feeling. Honour and affection, therefore, be about his name, while ever and wherever our tongue is spoken, and one drop of the heart's blood of old England shall still remain !

CONTENTEDNESS.

"HE that hath a contented mind," says some sage or another," hath a perpetual feast." But he has more than this, for, however a contented mind may be a blessing to one's self, it is a yet greater blessing to those with whom one lives.

To such as do not think any matter of philoso phical speculation worthy of being dwelt upon unless it have the air of originality or novelty, it may appear very uninteresting to discourse of the value of a contented spirit, but the matter is too closely connected with the utile and the pulchrum in the affairs of life to be omitted in our familiar talk, and I am not of a temper to be scared from anything by the vulgar intimation that it is not new. That may do very well as an objection in a mercer's shop when last year's patterns are put forward to those who are in quest of something " fashionable," but as touching themes of social morality, the objection is nought.

Contentedness, such as we see it in the world -for we sometimes do see it-is, for the most part, the result of a natural constitution-of good health-of nerves not easily disturbedof fortunate circumstances, and so on. But occasionally we shall see the true philosophy of contentment—a meek, cheerful, religious spirit -triumphing over the most adverse and provoking circumstances, and remaining not only serene, but almost sunny, amid oppressions, afflictions, and neglects, which are, indeed, hard to bear. This is a great height of virtue, beautiful to look upon, and worthy of the most profound respect.

But what we shall very much oftener see, is the spectacle of persons totally insensible to the

good things with which they are endowed, and observant only of such things as vex and irritate, and give occasion for complaint. There are many of a quick and ardent spirit who are apt to exhibit considerable bitterness at one time, and considerable exultation at another, according to the circumstances they meet with. They often appear discontented, if you see them only for a time, and under peculiar circumstances; and, on the other hand, when seen under a different aspect of surrounding events, they appear of a particularly amiable and enjoying temperament. It is not of these I would at present speak, but of the habitual murmurers, the fidgetty and fretful, who seem to be hardly ever in a state of comfort themselves, and who never think of studying the comfort of others. This is a deplorable condition of existence; and yet in this country it is the fate of very many who have been brought up without knowing any thing of hardship, and who magnify every little trifle-which is at most a mere inconvenience-into something so serious that it quite puts out of their view all the matters of enjoyment-all the causes of rational thankfulness, which really surround them.

Now, this is frequently so much an affair of habit it is an evil persevered in with so little self-consciousness of the pain and discomfort which arise from it-with so little perception of its religious undutifulness, that if we could but

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