maintains that nothing is dependent on self; that all is determined by an invincible necessity; that he is impelled to the ill for which he is censured by a blind and irresistible fate. This latter character, who abandons himself entirely to his vices, and who is really the pest of society, I must utterly despise. The former, who labours to conquer his vicious inclinations (and with whom I believe you may be classed), I shall always regard with some degree of pleasure and esteem; I shall always hope, too, that the issue of the struggle will be such as may redound to his honour. As I before insinuated, the seeds of virtue are sown in all; we are free agents; so that to encourage or to crush them in the growth must remain with ourselves.

In

Levic. You do not consider me as absolutely profligate, I perceive, though you think my heart is prone to follies which you cannot but condemn. You would, evidently, commend me greatly, were I to "throw away the worser part of it, and live the purer with the other half." a word, were I to shake off all corporeal grossness, and become a kind of ethereal being like yourself; but, alas! as Belcour* observes, in the comedy, "My passions are my masters; they take me where they will." No! I shall never become indifferent to the joys of life, I shall never acquire the apathy of the followers of Zeno, and which they so loudly and impertinently boast.

Misan. But in steering clear of the Stoic's rock of insensibility, you fall into the Epicurean's gulf of intemperance. These are equally destructive to humanity, and he only can be accounted wise who comes not within the influence of either.

Levic. Well but, my dear Peripatetic, for of the school of Aristotle I presume you would be thought, I fancy we shall never be of the same opinion as to the summum bonum of life. Your summum bonum lies, if I may be allowed the punning expression, in the absence of every

* See the comedy of the West Indian, by Mr. Cumberland.

good; while mine is actually to enjoy every good.-All, in short, which nature and fortune have so kindly, so prodigally thrown in my way.

Misan. It does not, indeed, seem likely that we should ever agree in opinion as to the chiefest good. Here, then, let us break up our discourse. Pursue your pleasures, and repent.

Levic. So shall I be more acceptable in the sight of Heaven than will ninety and nine just men.

it not so?

Heh? Is

Misan. Cease, I entreat, from your profaneness: your repentance may otherwise come too late.

Levic. "All the proceedings of the world," says Erasmus, "are nothing but one continued scene of folly, all the actors being equally fools and madmen; and, therefore, if any be so pragmatically wise as to be singular, he must e'en turn a second Timon, and, by retiring into some unfrequented desert, become a recluse from all mankind." For myself, I am content to mingle with the fools and madmen of the world. To you, therefore, I leave the dominion of the desert and all its joys. Gladly do I bid you adieu.

Misan. Farewell! So shall my heart return to cheerfulness and peace. So shall it return to what the poet has happily pointed out as "best society."*" Le sage quelquefois évite le monde, de peur d'être ennuié."†

DIALOGUE III.

SCENE-THE BANKS OF THE RIVER STYX.

MERCURY, CHARON, and a MAterialist.

Char. BRING him along, Mercury, bring him along. Merc. Why, so I would, but he denies my authority. I have found him a terrible plague; he says, forsooth, that we have no business with him, and that he is a MaHow do you call yourself, Mr. - ?

Mat. A Materialist, Sir, and I maintain that your infernal judge has nothing to do with me.

Merc. What, you are at equivocation, are you? Well, but if he has nothing to do with you, that is with your body, he has something to do with your soul, your immortal part.

Mat. Soul! I have no soul, Sir.

Merc. No soul! why what the plague! Charon, do you hear the fellow ?-but that quirk will not serve you

now.

Mat. Yes, Sir, I repeat it—no soul, and I can prove it to you in the most philosophical manner.

Char. Prithee, let us hear him, Mercury. I like a little philosophy now and then; I am partly a philosopher myself.

Merc. Wonderful! Why, who can have made you a philosopher, Charon? I should never have suspected that.

Char. Where is the wonder, Mercury? I must, indeed, be insensible, if, after the infinite number of souls that I have ferried over the river, and the variety of characters that have presented themselves from Megapenthes to Mycillus,* they should yet pass to the

* Megapenthes, a tyrant; and Mycillus, a cobbler.-See Lucian.

dominions of Pluto, without awakening the powers of reflection in my breast.

Merc. Cry you mercy, old gentleman; I shall henceforth honour you as you deserve. (Aside.) Marry, 'tis marvellous strange for a boatman to turn philosopher.

Char. Well, Sir, as it will be some time before we shall get our complement of passengers, my friend Mercury and I, in the mean time, will be glad to hear you on the matter in question. What have you to say ?

Merc. (aside.) His friend Mercury! mighty familiar, I must confess; but this comes through ferrying over his betters.

Mat. Well, as many sins, you say, as a man is guilty of in his life, so often, in a manner imperceptible, is he stigmatized in his soul.

Merc. I do and that you will be cited before the judges, acus and Rhadamanthus, to whom you will be produced in a state of nature, that they may discover how many offences you have been guilty of, by numbering your brands and marks.*

Mat. But did you never meet with, or hear of a man like me, one without a soul?

Merc. I have certainly met with many men who live as though they had none.

Char. Yes, 'faith, and there are not a few, who when dead appear to have none. I have carried over the river many a gay and fashionable fellow who would never pay me my demand, though it is only a paltry obolus.

Merc. Ever thine eye on the mark, Charon; always taking care of the main chance.

Char. Aye! think not that you will ever find me exclaiming with that old fool Virgil, as in contempt of money

Pernicious gold!

What bands of faith can impious lucre hold!

No, marry, I know the power of riches too well,-pecuniæ obediunt omnia. There is scarcely a poet in the Elysian

* See Plato's Gorgias.

Fields who is not in my debt. Why, 'twas but the other day the great Horace borrowed a brace of minæ of me, in order to pay his tailor, who would no longer be put off with excuses.

Merc. Alas! we all know that poetry and poverty are inseparable.

Char. I have had a plaguy hard time of it of late; half of my passengers were poets. They have nothing left to buy food, and then, forsooth, they must go and hang themselves; I have carried over three or four hundred of these geniuses within the last six months, but not a halfpenny was to be found among them all.

Merc. So they pay you, I suppose, with a song.

Char. Yes, 'faith, and some of their songs are as doleful ditties as ever were heard.-There is a terrible howling with many, particularly those who have been

starved to death.

Mat. Starved to death! Is it possible that you should ever meet with such ?

Char. Very possible, I give you my word; it was the fate of more than a third of my yesterday's cargo.

Mat. Merciful Heaven! and yet we call ourselves men! Char. I remember that my gentlemen were pretty free in their censures of their patrons. "Not a true Mæcenas," cried one, "to be found!" "Where, alas! shall genius hide its head?" exclaimed another; but, for my part, I cannot imagine what they would have. Can they seriously expect that men will foolishly relinquish their pleasures, forego their favourite amusements, give up their horses and hounds, for a rhyme?

Mat. Well, but is there nothing due from us on the score of humanity? We may despise the rhymester as much as we please, but it is surely incumbent on those on whom Heaven has showered its favours to think a little about the man.

Merc. An odd doctrine this! I have heard the ancients of our Elysium talking thus; but it is very extraordinary in a modern.