with that avarice which, if elevated to the management of a province, would fill the country with taxation, and flourish on the distress and poverty of millions. You will also meet with all the more virtuous and honourable propensities of the mind, with that goodness which in a higher sphere would have risen to an exalted patriotism, with that contempt for the disgraceful which would have lifted its voice against the measures of a corrupt and degenerate policy, with that firmness which would have withstood the frown of power and the fury of popular commotion. But to return from this digression. What in the higher stations of society is called respect for the public opinion, is in humbler and more contracted spheres called respect for the opinion of the neighbourhood. Respect for the opinion of others is a constant but irresistible principle in the human constitution. To disdain it is the boast of an affected independence; it is an effusion of vanity; it is an idle pretence to a stoical and romantic elevation of character. Not a man, I will venture to say, but feels his dependence on public opinion. Even though armed with the consciousness of integrity he feels himself compelled to pay homage at its shrine. You will seldom, I may say you will never, meet with an example of independence solitary and unsupported-an independence founded exclusively upon the consciousness of virtue and the silent reflections of a desolate and unbefriended bosom-an independence that can brave the scowl of every eye and the desertion of all its acquaintances. A man of firm and independent energy will at times appear who can stand before the eye of the world in the manly and intrepid attitude of defiance; but I contend that this energy is supported from without. It is supported by the testimony of some selected person on whose esteem he places his pride and his enjoyment; it is supported by the anticipation of that day when the eyes of the public shall be opened and their curses converted into admiration and gratitude; it is supported, in fact, by that very respect for public opinion which he now professes to disown, and of which his proceedings would speak him to be totally divested. But take from him the last remnants of his friends, take from him his

last refuge against the malignity of an unthinking world, give him no eye of welcome to which he may retire from the persecutions of injustice, let every countenance bear hatred against him, and let there be no voice of kindness to alleviate the gloom of his solitude, he will fall even though encompassed with the armour of virtue; the accumulated weight of infamy will be unsupportable to him; he will pine away in the anguish of desertion, and welcome the silence of the grave as his only retreat from the horrors of this world's cruelty. Let the severity of the world's opinion then be reserved as the punishment and the correction of vice. But calumny directs this severity against the virtuous. Calumny dooms the upright to contempt and infamy. Calumny tramples on all distinctions of character, and makes any man a victim to her malicious artifices. To take away a good name is to take away the dearest privilege of integrity. It is to take away the last consolation of the unfortunate. It is to take away that generous pride which glows even in the poor man's bosom, and supports the vigour of his purposes. Ask him who has gone through life, and felt its vicissitudes, who has outlived the wreck of his circumstances, and is forced in the evening of his days to descend to the humble tenement of poverty-he will tell you that he has not lost all while his character remains to him that he still inherits the best gift which providence can bestow-the sympathy of an affectionate neighbourhood. Dreary is the winter of his age, but it has the homage of a sincere esteem to soothe and to enlighten it. Sad is the fall of his family; but why should they feel themselves degraded? -none can impeach their honesty or attach dishonour to their name. To the eye of sentiment, a man like this appears more respectable than even in his better days of opulence and comfort. We venerate the grey hairs of the unfortunate—of him who bears up with cheerfulness against the hardships which heaven has inflicted-of him who retires in silence and gives the remainder of his years to peaceful obscurity, who spends the evening of his life in humble and uncomplaining patience, whom experience has taught wisdom, and wisdom has taught the

exalted lessons of contentment and piety. To pursue the unfortunate with calumny is to give the last aggravation to their sufferings. It is to make them poor indeed. It is to add to the pangs of that heart that is already wrung with the cruelty of misfortune. It is removing the only support that is left to them in this dark and uncertain world. It is to bestrew with thorns that weary journey which it has pleased heaven to make otherwise so painful. There are some minds of peculiar sensibility which cannot withstand the scowl of prejudice and disdain, to whom dislike is painful, and whose every joy withers away at the glance of coldness. How severe to such is the rude touch of calumny! How cruel to withdraw the smiles of affection from him whose every purpose is conceived in the spirit of benevolence, to sting by coarse imputations the delicacy of his bosom, to distress by an unkind look that heart which breathes all the soul of goodness and honesty. To a man of kind intentions the frown of hatred is insupportable. He knows that he does not deserve it, and he feels its injustice. Heaven can witness his integrity, and it is hard that the world should be to him a wilderness, or that the tranquillity of his life should be outraged by the effects of a malignant calumny. I do not say that the world in its unkind treatment of virtue is actuated by a spirit of wanton cruelty: I impute it to rash and unthinking ignorance; I regard it as a dupe to the malicious artifices of those who have an interest in misleading the public opinion, and in tarnishing the honours of an upright and respectable character. When the world is undeceived, it is ever ready to do justice to those whom it has injured by its opinion-to sympathize with them in their unmerited sufferings-to assert the cause of disgraced and persecuted virtue, and to raise the voice of a generous indignation against the arts of an unfeeling calumny. But how often does it happen that the world is never undeceived; that prejudice has shut its ears against the representations of the candid; that the remonstrances of the injured are never listened to; that they are given to the wind; that they are never heard till he reach the grave's peaceful retreat, and unbosom his sorrows to that heavenly witness who has seen

all his griefs and all his errors? The public mind of every free country is generous, and ready to award to the deserving its tribute of admiration and gratitude. But though the public mind be generous, it is the slave of prejudice and misconception. It takes its tone from the reigning system of policy and of opinion. In the hands of the artful, it can be fashioned into an instrument of injustice, persecution, and revenge. The history of our own country furnishes innumerable examples of men consigned to infamy and to desertion for having uttered a sentiment offensive to the reigning politics of the day-for having given way to the warmth of an honest enthusiasm-for rising in all the ardour of an exalted patriotism-for lifting up their voice and their testimony against the measures of a corrupt and domineering influence. I do not say that when the public combine against the fame or the interest of such a character they do it in the spirit of malignity. They are deceived. They are the dupes of imposture. A false alarm is made to occupy the public ear. The ardour of patriotism is stigmatized as the turbulence of rebellion. We at times hear of men lying under a cloud. Trace the ignominy of these men to its foundation, and you will often find that it originates in a political artificein a cry set up by an interested combination of enemies—in the unprincipled hostility of the powerful against an obnoxious individual—in the virulent and rancorous malignity of a domineering party. Examples of this kind are not confined to the great theatre of political contention. You will meet with it in every petty district of the country-in our towns where ancient integrity is disgraced, and a putrid electioneering morality deals calumny against the virtuous; in our corporations where monopoly reigns triumphant, and envy and interest combine to crush the independence of an aspiring character; and in all those numerous departments of life and of business where the eagerness of competition stirs up every wicked passion of the heart, and throws it loose from the restraints of principle.

The mischief of calumny is not confined to the object against which it is directed. It invades the peace of his family; its cruelty descends to the youngest of his children who can blush

at a father's disgrace, or whose little bosom can fire indignant at the aspersion of a father's integrity. A parent's reputation is a sacred inheritance. It reflects lustre on all his connexions. His children lift their heads in triumph amid the ills of poverty and misfortune. They carry him to the grave, but the remembrance of his example remains with them-it proves the guardian of their integrity; corruption in vain offers her allurements, there is a principle within them that proves at once their pride and their protection-it is the image of that departed father whom they study to emulate and to admire.

VOL. VI.

C