or of mere submission. It may be something of choice, or of unresisting endurance. If our language were ever to pass into survival of actual use, the distant scholar in it would see at a glance what was in the writer's mind, and in what manner he must make his version. The biformed characteristic is his waymark, and he who runs may read.

No one speaks our Tongue, or composes in our language, who cannot take this distinction, and admire this precision. It is a very grace of style. It is so natural, so easy, that its correct and apposite employment scarcely touches the ear: but most grating to that ear is every violation of it. The Scotch Highlander who has learnt English, not as his mother-tongue, but as an acquisition and an accomplishment, introduces shall and will as appropriately as ourselves. The Low-land language does not contain it, and the unfortunate prejudice of them who pass the border is, that they already know English: and therefore they never learn. We, however, must not surrender, to any invasion, our country or our language; and it would be, at least, polite to allow that such a distinction exists, even if it cannot be imitated. To assert that it is gratuitous, to maintain that it is unreasonable, is a poor excuse for the failure of overcoming it. We cannot surrender it among the "inopes rerum, nugæque canoræ." We must venture to remind them that this is an olden form, a noble philology, a just boast, of that speech which Chaucer accented, Milton enriched, Bacon strengthened, Shakspeare attuned, and Sidney sublimated.

To conclude: let our language be examined for its most opposite powers, and it will be found unrivalled. What of high sentiment and philosophy may not be expressed by it? What of elegant turn does it not admit, and what of mighty store has it not amassed? It is elastic for compression and expansion. It is equally capable of the curt and terse of the copious and overflowing. Reasoning cannot find such a mine of thought, nor eloquence such a fulmen of impression. The German is quoted as more profound. It is a young language, full of compounds, bearing the marks of a strong national intellect recently bursting into utterance. But its compounds stand out; ours,

scarcely less numerous, are softened down and melted into a smaller mass. Its power is in coarse, vivid, strength. It is susceptible of higher destinies. Klopstock has shown how the sacred epic can march in it; while Goëthe has proved how the drama can speak and the lyric enchant. All is infancy about it yet; but it is an infancy precocious, a giant-birth.—The Italian is alleged to be more liquidly musical. Doubtless it is a better vehicle for song. But until any passage of Dante has been read along with a few lines of our Shakspeare, and his harmony of inflection shall be preferred, we will not confess our tongue to yield even to his in its modulations.-The French has its admirers. It is the most agreeable set of counters for conversation. By its polished insignificance it is the very style for compliment and diplomacy. Its best idioms, indeed, are borrowed from the Saxon. What has it enshrined but that which is far more noble when put into any other dialect? We need not envy an exotic: if it can live, let it live distinct from all that is indigenous,-in the conservatory it may have its place. But give it no root in your soil. You have gardens,— forests, of your own. Your language is adequate for conception of every form, and for expression of every emphasis. Jurisprudence cannot find loftier sentences, Theology cannot desire clearer types, Poetry cannot sing in sweeter numbers!

« Τα Παθη ως ημιν δοκεί.”

την τε του αλλου λόγου και αυτου του ύψους μοιραν επέχοντων,

" All

LONGINUS.

(And justly) Reason deem divine, I see,

I feel, a grandeur in the Passions too,

Which speaks their high descent and glorious end;
Which speaks them rays of an eternal fire."

YOUNG.

"Oh! 't is the Heart that magnifies the life,
Making a truth and beauty of her own."

WORDSWORTH.

ON THE PASSIONS OF THE HUMAN MIND.

WHEN We speak of nature, in general language, we convey the notion of the universal system; the heavens, with their fixed, rotatory, and eccentric luminaries; the earth, with its atmosphere, inhabitants, vegetable productions, and mineral treasures: in short, all the works of the obvious or the presumed creation. Nature, in the stricter definition of a philosophical terminology, is that set and series of qualities which have always appeared attached to, and have been always developed by, any known substance and being. Every animal is continued in its kind; each inorganic structure is cast according to the same law. An exactness in all elementary proportions has been most clearly proved to subsist. The very stratification of our globe, where we might suppose an undigested confusion would be found, follows a perfect scale of order. Genus and species remain what they were; they exhibit the same phænomena; their constitution is fixed and successive. When we say that it has always been, we borrow the testimony of history to the fact, or reason upon its silence respecting the contrary. When we say that it shall always be, we reason from analogy to probability, as well as from the inutility to the unlikelihood of any alteration. We are formed and compelled to act upon the assurance of such absolute arrangement. We, therefore, express the strongest certainty with reference to any event, that it is as inevitable as ocean's tide and to-morrow's sunrise. Now what warrants these predictions? That such states of things have hitherto recurred can establish no perpetuity. They cannot be necessary, for these operations had a beginning;—what had a beginning may, at least, have an end. The mind, consequently, proceeds upon this belief, that the great machine, so nicely balanced and adjusted in its parts, shall be equally consistent

and regular in its movements. Such is the permanent uniformity which we observe; such is the simple, the intuitive, credence which it obtains; and such is the practical use to which this credence is subservient.

These data will not be refused us in the intellectual enquiry. Mind is given to man. Though we cannot conceive of a point in time when mind, Causative and Essential, did not exist, it is alike impossible to conceive that created mind could have always existed. It is only with the mind of men that we are now concerned. Matter may unfold, to other intelligences, attributes of which we, who judge of it by particular senses, have no perception. Mind may possess, in incorporeal conditions, a life and might to us utterly unimaginable; but we have only witnessed it coupled with its grosser framework, and by no means independent of its control. It is not like matter, unchangeable in its result, for it is a thing of range, volition, and progression. But then these are its signs and laws; in other words, its nature. In its primary susceptibilities, it is in all of one character. "Ab uno, Disce omnes." The human intellect is incessantly impelled and affected by the same causes; it is seen acting in the same ways and directions.

It is remarked by Johnson-"Our intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon matter are voluntary and at leisure." And this is now more generally allowed than when he made this enlightened observation. The soul of man, long suspected to wait servilely upon what was most inferior to it, and to follow obsequiously in its train-as the sun was degraded to revolve round our planet and to be ruled by its attractions-now challenges its prerogative, asserts its supremacy; the central sun imparting a glory it could not borrow, and communicating an impulse it could not obey. A sort of Copernican revolution is achieved in the prejudices of mankind.

The fidelity of our mental impressions, the certainty of our mental activities, it is not my present purpose to confirm. We cannot prove them, indeed, by mathematical reasonings. This science can have no application to them. It has nothing to