at the same time to bear with the evils of his particular lot; and must not, when any little grievances afflict him, feel dissatisfied with his rank, nor indulge in heart-burnings and envyings towards other ranks and conditions in life, which it may be impossible, or at least extremely difficult, for him to attain.

A happy man, then, according to my idea of the term, is not one that is always pleased and satisfied with every occurrence in his life; this, in the present state of human nature, is altogether impossible; but he is one who, in general, is content with his condition, and has no wish to change it for any other that may be within the range of his procuring. Happiness, I conceive, is not to be acquired by precept, and man cannot be flattered into this state of mind by poetical cajolement; but I do not, therefore, conclude, that man is abandoned to hopeless misery, for the veriest wretch that ever melancholy marked for her own, can recount many hours spent with delight and enjoyment, though unmingled happiness cannot be found here; for, when we have obtained a momentary glimpse of her green abodes, and fondly picture to ourselves a thousand future delights, some unlucky demon is ever ready to dissolve the enchantment; it vanishes from our gaze like a summer cloud, or a rainbow in a storm, and leaves us to contemplate the checrless vale of misery in all its deformity and dreari

ness.

The means adopted by Providence to render man in some measure content with his condition, seem to be a due alternation of labour and rest, of bodily and mental exertion. Unhappiness and discontentment must be the never failing accompaniments of an undue proportion of either. This maxim, I think, can scarcely be denied to agree with experience. I wish you to bear this in mind; for, if my arguments are to be tried by fanciful systems of philosophy, and not by the plain and sober dictates of experience, and common sense, I must give up the discussion. I hope, Sir, you are too wise to follow the wild dreams of self-deception which Addison sometimes indulged on this subject, when he consoles himself, with all possible gravity, for the want of splendid possessions, by fancying, that every

beautiful tract of country through which he passes, and every fine mansion which he sees, are his own, of which, except by absence, he cannot be deprived. I hope you conceive it to be your duty, in forming concep tions on a subject of this sort, to dash the dew from all such cobwebs of fancy. Happiness, then, I say, cannot be enjoyed by those who have too much leisure, or too much fatigue. It cannot be enjoyed by the prisoner, who has nothing to do but reflect on the gloominess of his dungeon, nor by the rich man, who is satiated with folly and amusement,-who lolls on his sofa,-yawns at an assembly,-or saunters in listless and pitiable vacancy of thought, in the walks of a fashionable watering-place. It cannot be enjoyed by the wretch who is chained to the galley oar,-who is buried in a Siberian mine, or who is fainting with fatigue in a West Indian cane-field, or in the prairies of Kentucky, under the terrors of the slavewhip.

The meaning of the word knowledge embraces the whole range of human inquiry: but in the present case, I must request your permission to restrict it to a particular species of information. I must restrict the generic term to a particular and limited sense. I wish to confine it not to a knowledge of religious truth, as deduced from the scriptures,-not to the knowledge which all our Scottish peasants possess, of reading and writing, and arithmetic; my observations refer almost exclusively to the knowledge of history, geography, politics, and of works of fancy, which the working classes of the community may acquire.

These remarks being premised, my first position is, that knowledge of this sort is highly beneficial to the state. All, indeed, that is praiseworthy, as virtuous and honourable, and dignified in the government of a state, must arise from the superior knowledge of the people who compose it. Think for a moment on the condition of the people in the several governments which exist, or which have existed in the world;-examine their laws and their constitutions, and compare them with the state of the people;-weigh with candid impartiality their different bearings and influence on social life,

But knowledge would not be an earthly endowment, were it to possess no disadvantages along with all those blessed bestowings and accompaniments. My second position, therefore, is, that knowledge, according to the above limitation of the term, does not contribute to the happiness of the working classes of the community, a position which I hope I shall be able to make out to your satisfaction. I found my argument wholly upon my own observation; and I should be extremely glad to have any mistaken views I shall take of the subject corrected, as I think it of some importance that your readers should entertain right notions on the point, and many of them have had much better opportunities of observation than I can pretend to.

So far, then, as my observation goes, I hold myself warranted to say, that, when a man, who earns his subsistence by manual labour, begins to read books of general history, of geography, of poetry, of fancy and romance, but most of all, when he reads newspapers and political pamphlets, he begins to acquire notions considerably different from those which he shall have previously held; he begins to grow dissatisfied with his condition in life and his rank in society, and, in proportion as his avidity and keenness for such kind of knowledge increases, he becomes more dissatisfied. This dissatisfaction may lead to two consequences, depending, in some measure, on his age and disposition. It will either render him careless of his accus. tomed toil, or it will rouse him to tenfold industry, that he may improve his condition, that he may reach some sun-gilt eminence which hope has painted to his fancy.

The former of these cases my scanty observation teaches me-is by far the most common. I speak under correction of those of your readers who are more extensively acquainted among literary mechanics; but I conclude, from what I have seen, that knowledge renders twenty persons idle and careless, perhaps dissipated, for one which it stimulates to increased industry. Nothing, however, to my thinking, can present a more interesting spectacle of the powers of man than the latter of the cases. Here is a man who earns his scanty pittance by the toil of many hours, perhaps in the

crowded and corrupted lanes of a city, in the damp and airless workshop, where the atmosphere of heaven is loaded with contagion, and empoisons every breath which he inhales; perhaps on the bleak moor, exposed in shelterless solitude to every storm that beats, and every frost that benumbs him, he builds the rude sheep-fence, or turns up the wet and unfertile soil; perhaps deformed with every thing that is filthy, and gasping for thirst, he drags out an existence--to all appearance infernal-at the mouth of a metal furnace, or in the bowels of a coal mine. To see such a man becoming, day after day, more eager to acquire knowledge, eager to rise in the ranks of the superior society which he sees around him,-eager to strain every sinew of industry to accomplish his aim, and to spend the hours of sleep in ruminating on his plans, and in stirring up his resolves in their execution: To see all this, I think, is one of the most interesting spectacles which human nature can display. How often have I thought with admiration on the story of Hillel, the Babylonish Jew, one of the authors of the Talmud, who, at the age of 40, went to Jerusalem, with his family, to study law, but being unable, on account of his poverty, to gain regular admission to the lectures of the Rabbis, he spent a considerable portion of his small earnings to bribe the doorkeepers to allow him a place at the door of the public hall, and when his means were too scanty, even for this, placed himself near one of the windows, at the top of the buildings, and by such means rendered himself so eminent, that he was accounted only inferior to Solomon himself in wisdom. (BRUCKER, Hist. Phil. II.) No less surprising is the history of Cleanthes, the stoic philosopher, who, from poverty, was obliged, in order to have leisure to attend the schools, to draw water in the public gardens at Athens, and to grind at the mills during the night; and, for want of paper, which he was too poor to buy, he wrote on shells and bones that he picked up from the dunghills. (DIOG. LAERTES, VII. 4. and VAL. MAX. VIII. 7.) The annals of our own country, and those of our neighbours on the Continent, exhibit many similar instances of extraordinary perseverance. But will any body main

tain that these men were happy in making such persevering exertions? Was it not the very circumstance of dissatisfaction which goaded them on? To me it seems plain, that every fresh effort must have been prompted by the sting of uneasiness and dissatisfaction. After this desire of rising seizes a peasant or a mechanic, his whole life is spent in the fevered anxiety of discontent and unhappiness. A sort of diseased restlessness, of which he becomes the passive victim, infects his mind, and tinges his pursuits, and even when his friends are looking up to his labour as superhuman, while they are admiring or envying his advancement in knowledge, his nights are often spent in sleepless musings, and his days consumed in the labour, at which his whole soul revolts, but which he finds indispensable to his schemes of advancement. He feels his condition as miserable as that of the slave chained to the galley-oar; because he knows from his books situations of a different kind; because, in reading, he has become familiar with nobles and princes, and feels reluctant to rank with those who do not enjoy such familiarity and this acquaintance he contracts in the quiet of his domestic circle, where there is no haughtiness nor overbearing pride to overawe and abash him.

But the more numerous class of our literary mechanics are appalled at the difficulties which oppose their advancement to place and distinction. They become listless and thoughtful. They feel reluctant to perform their accustomed labour, and they want stimulus to drive them forward to any thing different. Their next step is to become discontented with the government under which they live. They become keen politicians, and read with avidity every pamphlet and paper which will feed their heartburnings, and inflame their discontent. In our own country, this is flagrantly notorious, from the increasing sale of anti-ministerial papers; and every sort of foul garbage is greedily swallowed, from the illiterate scurrility of Wooller's Black Dwarf, to the more refined papers of the Examiner. To persons of this character, a paper which would dare to assert the excellence of the existing administration, would be spurned as the base vehicle of

corruption, while they implicitly believe the most barefaced lies and deceptions of the anti-ministerialists. I appeal to you, Sir, and to all your readers individually, for the truth of the remark. People of this description glut their discontented appetites with all the corrupted offals of the Parliamentary demagogues, and the newspapers, whose sale is promoted entirely by their keeping up a perpetual grumble even at what is most deserving of praise and rejoicing, and by begetting and cherishing discontent in the bosoms of those whose knowledge has made manual labour irksome.

It is not rarely the case that this fostered spirit of discontent leads its unhappy victims to dissipation, and they forget for a while their imaginary grievances in the noisy brawls of the tavern and the tap-room, or rather the disease is, by the drunken declamations of boon companions, more and more aggravated. Every body is acquainted with the life of our unrivalled Scottish poet. Every body knows that his superior attainments rendered the plough to him an intolerable burden;-that he neglected every laudable pursuit for the society of bottle cronies;-and at last, by thus ruining his health, perhaps, brought on premature dissolution. I am sorry, Sir, extremely sorry, to bring under your notice the failings of a man who was so superiorly gifted with uncommon talents. But the case is so markedly in point, that it would have been doing injustice to the argument to have withheld it. Now, although this is a known and a prominent case, it grieves me to think that it is by no means rare. Almost every village in Scotland can boast its Burns,-almost every village can boast of some native who shall have become knowing by means of books, and dejected and dissipated because he was compelled to bear the ignoble lot of earning his bread with the sweat of his brow.

There is still another bad consequence which results from the discontent caused by the diffusion of knowledge, namely, the unhinging of religious principles. Men, when they become fond of reading, are very inquisitive on all subjects, and as religion forms a great part of the knowledge of the lower orders, such men soon turn their inquiries into that