Oh! give me back the spirit gay Which deck'd that path with flowers; And thought thou ne'er could'st brush the bloom Thou hast no power now o'er the past, Though o'er my health a blight has gone, Yet streams of Charity may flow, Though slow, the once so sprightly step In place of spirits wild, I fain I would not, if I could, withdraw Since, on thy restless power I lean, Oh! bear me to the realms of bliss- West Ashby, August 24th. E. P. THE MAN WHO WAS BORN TO BE USED BY OTHERS. "I was born to be used by others," was the half pathetic, half humorous expression of my poor old friend, Humphrey Easy, whenever any, fresh claim came upon his tender heart, or rather tender conscience; for Humphrey, though well deserving the epithet of "the good," was, after all, more swayed by principle than affection, or as he phrased it, he had "too much consideration." Humphrey was the youngest son of a family of seventeen brothers and sisters, and the last of a race of spendthrifts, whose lands, houses, and investments, had all gradually faded away, before the riotous course of a succession of bon vivants. Humphrey had nothing but his talents to look to, as his father said; and, unfortunately, these were not, like those of old, of gold and of silver. But I cannot better express his character and fortunes, or rather misfortunes, than in his own words. "I was born to be used by others," said he, the last time I dined with him, after having been called from his wine by his neighbour's servant, who said, her mistress's favourite cat would perish, as she had slipped into his wine cellar when he went to replenish his cellaret; and, as he was his own butler, and permitted no one but himself to go into this sanctum, he was obliged to put on his boots, call for his lantern, and proceed to the mildewed cave; "for," said he, "I can't but have some consideration for the poor animal." On returning, he gave loose to his reminiscences, and bitterly deplored that "he was born to be used by others." "From my very cradle," said he, "to the present time, has this been my lot." "How so?" said I; "let me hear the dismal story." "You shall. You know I am naturally prudent; very fond of the niceties of life; hate to be dunned; long for leisure and elegance, and have been willing to work for them; but directly I come in sight of the means, some horrid contingency arises, that throws me back. I am a perfect emblem of Sisyphus, directly I get the stone to the top of the hill, down it comes tumbling and tearing all my labours with it. I have heard my nurse say I was weaned to make way for a friend's child, who would have died if my mother had not nourished it; and as soon as I can recollect, the cry was, directly a toy was presented to me, 'Let baby have it, there's a good boy, you should consider little Charley.' My mother had a very generous heart, and her principal aim was to make me considerate. My boyhood was a series of sacrifices. My accumulation of marbles or buttons, for I always had a turn for accumulating, were torn from me by the wants of my thoughtless brothers when debts of honour pressed them, until they were on the verge of having them liquidated by the pinching of the whole school. At length I was put out in the world, though in a worse situation than I should have been, because I gave up a cadetship (at that time the certain road to fortune), because a warm climate suited my brother better than a cold one: and I ought to consider his health.' Well, I did get out at last, and was getting on famously and tolerably free from considerations.' I had been accepted by a charming, prudent girl, and was about to be married, when my father, who was rashly speculative, had so seriously involved himself, that I was obliged to give him all I had accumulated to prevent his rotting (as he termed it) in a gaol. The lady's friends interfered, and she was carried into the country, and I never saw her again. This, however, I got over, and married Mrs. E., between ourselves, out of consideration, she having been pleased to make it a life and death matter, as her mother informed mine. However, had my consideration never proved more productive of disappointment than this, I should not have complained as I do. "We were blest, as they say, with a speedy family, and I began to indulge in all the hopes and ambition of a patriarch; my son was to be lord chancellor, my daughters marry heroes and millionaires, and I prepared to educate them accordingly but as usual, just at this time, when I was investing, as I said, my earnings in their accomplishments, my brother perished in a shipwreck on his return from India, nothing escaping but his numerous sons and daughters, who emerged perfect paupers, having been dipped as heiresses. No one of the family but myself could give them assistance; and, as my mother wrote to me, of course I could not but consider their miserable state.' I did so, and turned them amongst my own, when I had the satisfaction of my niece instead of my daughter marrying the captain (who was to be the future Duke of Wellington), and the boy enlisted the affections of the heiress I had intended for my son. At last I turned my children off into the world, but in a much lower station than I had anticipated, owing to these drawbacks, and got a little breathing time. I was now beginning to place my hopes beyond the grave (I don't mean in a religious point of view-I wish I had); but I was beginning to pull in resolution and doubt the equivocation of the fiend,' who had thus held the word of promise to the hope, but broke it to the heart,' and I hoped I might have a few years of leisure and retirement. Youth was gone-manhood was declining-all the enjoyments I had sighed for began to pall on me; but still I hoped I might get a few years of ease, and leave a something behind me,-when the approaching bankruptcy of the son of the oldest friend who had served me in my youth, took all my available cash and nailed me for ten years more to smoke and business. As is universally the case, the assistance at such a sacrifice I had made for my friend was of no other service to him than the postponement of his ruin for about eighteen months, during which time, as he told me afterwards, he had suffered much more than when the crisis came. Single misfortunes never come alone.' While I was calculating the remnant of my fortune, I received a most heart-rending letter from the lady I had loved in my youth, whose husband had turned out a heartless swindler, who, by ill usage, had brought on a paralytic stroke which rendered her helpless, though a pauper. One of my now very few thousands went for an annuity to her, for I always considered that the love must be very tin-foilish, that would refuse such a trifle, which, if it had been consummated by marriage, would not have thought a whole fortune sufficient to show its regard. My father-in-law, too, died about this time. We had always considered him rich, and out of consideration to the respect due to him, I buried him in a very superb manner; but on opening the will, we found every thing bequeathed to a favourite housekeeper who had contrived entirely to supersede every one else in his affections and recollections. As I said, whether they die, or whether they live, it brings nothing to me but expense and disappointment. "I now determined to be less considerate, and to show my firmness on the first occasion that presented itself. This was not long in occurring. One of my nephews, who had left a lucrative government situation to write theatrical criticisms in The Evening Ruffian,' a new independent newspaper, wrote to me for fifty pounds, to save his honour, as he said, from being called in question by a gentleman belonging to the Rifle Brigade.' I refused, promptly and tartly, for the first time in my life, and by return of post received a summons from the coroner to give evidence as to the suicide of Adolphus Augustus Orlando Albert Easy, Esq.' who had shot himself owing to some pecuniary difficulties. This was a terrible result of my only instance of want of consideration. Besides my own remorse, which was sufficient torment, I was severely reprimanded by the coroner for my want of natural feeling, and mentioned by name in The Evening Ruffian' as one of those heartless monsters who trample on the finest fibres of the human in their lust for gold.' "I now determined to abandon all thoughts of my own comforts and wishes, and have resigned myself entirely to the service of others, feeling convinced that, till the coffin is nailed down over me, I shall be used up by others; and then, very probably, be shuffled out of my own respectable grave, to make way for some pauper I never heard of." When my friend had finished his tirade, I urged upon him, that, at all events, he must have had great satisfaction in the exercise of so much benevolence. "Not a bit of it," said he, "I never had a glimpse of the feeling. I don't know what it means. I have always been cheated out of my own hopes and wishes by the idea of consideration. I don't know how it is, but I have been making the most magnanimous sacrifices all my life, without the least feeling of generosity; and amidst the universal reproaches of my best and dearest connexions of being a cold and almost heartless man. No! the fact is, I was born to be used by others, and so it will be to the end of the chapter." "And so it shall," said I, "for I will use you up in this story, and get something out of a magazine for it." A prophecy which I hope you will help me to fulfil, Mr. Editor. F. G. T. OUR MONTHLY CRYPT. "As good almost to kill a man, as kill a good book: who kills a man, kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills Reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life." EMERSON'S ESSAYS.* THE American is proud of any man, whose genius tends to give his country an apparent superiority in any pursuit; be that pursuit what it may. As is the general case with young nations, America pants with the ambition (glorious, however vain,) of accomplishing in months, what other states have found to be the labour of centuries. Jealous to an excess of its national character, almost before it has had time to attain one-burning to distinguish itself in all things that can possibly lend notoriety, from the founding a new school of metaphysics, to the new-fashioning of a hair-comb-we need not wonder that America quickly endowed Emerson with name and place. Whether the Americans understood his outpourings or not, they recognized a soul of greatness in the man; and their policy will not permit them to hide their lights under a bushel. Accordingly, travellers began to set him down among the lions; and thus tidings, that in New England, some "spiritual notability, called Emerson," was to be found, gradually made their way into Britain. Essays: by R. W. Emerson, of Concord, Massachusetts. With Preface, by Thomas Carlyle. London: Fraser. 1841. It was lucky for Emerson that he was born in America. In England, a dozen years would have supplied him with about as many admirers. Carlyle's reputation for a long time laboured to beat down the aspersion, and worse than neglect, with which he was at first greeted; and at last reaped its reward, not in spite of what was anti-popular in his books, but because the hard crust of his style inclosed so much of that which ever captivates the public. He generally deals with recognizable persons and facts, and very seldom launches into the vague field of speculation; he loves to tread on the firm earth, and feel his footing sure. On the persons and facts he has elected to illustrate, he moralizes and reflects after his own peculiar fashion; occasionally decking his theme with a certain kind of humour, which is too original not to tell. Thus he has turned the French revolution into a magnificent heroic romance, which, were its phraseology less singular, would contain little to obstruct, and much to compel popularity. But Emerson's thoughts and conceptions lack this sensual embodiment. They are the dawnings of a vast creation, not yet perfected-obscure revelations of beauty and truth, seen through a glass darkly." The English are with difficulty induced to sympathize with the struggles of a man, to reach the height of contemplation and wisdom; the result of his toil, pictured in some system or logical dissertation, is their sole care. Emerson just gives us the materials of thought, and then leaves us to work out a further road by ourselves; but an English reader takes up a book to avoid the trouble of thinking; he expects to find in it some system to which he can refer as an authority for all his words and deeds. The desires of such a reader, Emerson could not gratify; in his page, splendid idealisms gloam through the dark mist of a pantheistic wilderness; and we are left to disperse the dreariness in the best manner we can. 66 Nevertheless, Emerson himself is but a restless sojourner in these wilds of Pantheism, and is earnestly seeking to wing his flight from thence into purer ether, and clearer sunshine. As the editor of the present volume of Essays remarks, "he will not long endure to be classed under isms." We have, in the pages of this magazine, many a time and oft expressed our high admiration and reverence of Emerson; and therefore we may be pardoned for aught that seems depreciatory in what we have above uttered. We accept him as a stout and stalworth defender of that high school of à priori philosophy, the prosperity of which we have so much at heart; but to many of his tenets, we cannot render our allegiance. But it is not our intention to treat these Essays, written by Emerson and edited by Carlyle antagonistically. All that we intend, at present, is to give our readers a just idea of their contents, by means of long extracts, and a loving commentary. A more elaborate consideration we must postpone to a future opportunity. The best of these essays is that on "Self-Reliance." In it Emerson attempts to inculcate the doctrine, that each man should accept as his rule of conduct, not the custom of others, but what is right in his own eyes. "Good and bad," says he, "are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it." This doctrine (though true) is liable to much misinterpretation; especially in the vague and paradoxical manner in which it is stated by Emerson. It might be libelled as being a sophistical excuse for vice; or ridiculed as a lame apology for individual obliquity. But if taken in its true width and depth, it forms no justification for yielding to the force of inclination; nay, in reality, exclaims against any such procedure, as an unmanly debasement. Rely on thyself, it does say; but a man's Self, and his inclinations are twain. The doctrine merely asserts the supremacy of Conscience, and declares, that when she has pronounced aught good or evil, the man should bow to her decision, regardless of the world's approval or displeasure. Man's inclinations are ever in rebellion against the dictates of conscience; and must be subdued, if not destroyed, before his true per |