But I never remembered the wretched ones

That starve for want of food.

I dressed as the noble dress,

In cloth of silver and gold,

With silk, and satin, and costly furs,
In many an ample fold;

But I never remembered the naked limbs
That froze with winter's cold.

The wounds I might have healed!
The human sorrow and smart!
And yet it never was in my soul
To play so ill a part:

But evil is wrought by want of Thought

[So Lear's "O, I have ta'en too little thought of this!"]

As well as want of Heart!

She clasped her fervent hands,
And the tears began to stream;
Large, and bitter, and fast they fell,
Remorse was so extreme;

And yet, O yet, that many a dame

Would dream the Lady's Dream!"

An Edinburgh Reviewer of mortality in trades and professions, dwelling on the fatal conditions under which very many classes earn their daily bread, and sometimes not so much as that, observes that the great middle and upper classes, accustomed to be furnished with all the appliances of easy life and luxury, seldom give a thought as to the manner in which their wants are supplied. "Accustomed to sip the honey, it never strikes us that perhaps its product involves in some cases the life of the working-bee. The lady, who, from the silken ease of her fauteuil, surveys her drawing-room, may learn a lesson of compassion for the poor workmen in nearly every article that lies before her." To take one example out of the many upon which Dr. Wynter dilates-the case of the silverer of looking-glasses: "If the charming belle, as she surveys her beauty in the glass, could but for a moment see reflected this poor shattered human creature, with trembling muscles, brown visage, and blackened teeth, she would doubtless start with

horror; but, as it is, the slaves of luxury and vanity drop out of life unobserved and uncared for, as the stream of travellers disappeared one by one through the bridge of Mirza."

"Olet those cities that of plenty's cup,

And her prosperities, so largely taste,

With their superfluous riots, hear these tears!
The misery of Tharsus may be theirs."

The moral of the eastern tale of Nourjahad is practical and pertinent. He delivers himself up to luxury and riot. He forgets that there are wants and distresses among his fellowcreatures. He lives only for himself, and his heart becomes as hard as the coffers which hold his misapplied treasures. But before it is too late he is awakened to remorse, and looks back with shame and horror on his past life. What shall he do to expiate his offences? One thing at least is within his power, and that will he do at once: expend his riches in the relief of want-nor rest until he has found out every family in Ormuz whom calamity has overtaken, that he may restore them to prosperity. Henceforth he spends his days in his closet, laying plans for the benefit of his fellow-creatures. Ben Jonson's Sordido promises the like amendment :

"Pardon me, gentle friends, I'll make fair 'mends

For my foul errors past.

My barns and garners shall stand open still

To all the poor that come, and my best grain

Be made alms-bread, to feed half-famished mouths.
Though hitherto amongst you I have lived

Like an unsavoury muck-hill to myself,

Yet now my gathered heaps, being spread abroad,
Shall turn to better and more fruitful uses.

. . O how deeply

The bitter curses of the poor do pierce!
I am by wonder changed; come in with me
And witness my repentance: now I prove

No life is blest that is not graced with love."

So again with the rich man in one of Crabbe's Borough sketches from life; that rich man, to wit, who

"built a house, both large and high,

And entered in and set him down to sigh;

And planted ample woods and gardens fair,
And walked with anguish and compunction there;
The rich man's pines to every friend a treat,
He saw with pain and he refused to eat ;
His daintiest food, his richest wines, were all
Turned by remorse to vinegar and gall :
The softest down by living body pressed

The rich man bought, and tried to take his rest;
But care had thorns upon his pillow spread,
And scattered sand and nettles in his bed :
Nervous he grew-would often sigh and groan,--
He talked but little, and he walked alone;
Till by his priest convinced, that from one deed
Of genuine love would joy and health proceed,
He from that time with care and zeal began
To seek and soothe the grievous ills of man;
And as his hands their aid to grief apply,
He learns to smile and he forgets to sigh.
Now he can drink his wine and taste his food,
And feel the blessings Heaven has dealt are good;
And since the suffering seek the rich man's door,
He sleeps as soundly as when young and poor."

WIND, EARTHQUAKE, FIRE, AND STILL SMALL VOICE.

I KINGS xix. II, 12.

WHILE stood and strong wind that rent the

HILE Elijah stood upon the mount before the Lord,

there arose a great

mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks; but the Lord was not in the wind and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. We are not told that the Lord was not in the still small voice. We find that He was. And with that voice He addressed Elijah, reasoned with him, admonished, sustained, and directed him. May it not be said, in applying and adapting the narrative, which things are an allegory? The import of the narrative sublimely anticipates the homely fable

of sun and wind.

Wind, earthquake, and fire, are mighty agents; but they may pass by without tangible result as regards real influence on the spirit of man; whereas the gentle influence of a still small voice speaks home to it at once, and it responds to the strain, and is subdued by the spell.

The drift of the present annotations, in their applied sense, finds expression in Ben Jonson's reminder:

"There is

A way of working more by love than fear :

Fear works on servile natures, not the free."

In Landor's Parable of Asabel, the angel's gentleness wrought upon that turbulent, refractory spirit, "even as the quiet and silent water wins itself an entrance where tempest and fire pass over." It is written that other angels did look up with loving and admiration into the visage of this angel on his return; and he told the younger and more zealous of them, that whenever they would descend into the gloomy vortex of the human heart, under the softness and serenity of their voice and countenance its turbulence would subside.

Plutarch tells us of Fabius Maximus, that he thought it hard that, while those who breed dogs and horses soften their stubborn tempers, and bring down their fierce spirits by care and kindness, rather than with whips and chains, he who has the command of men should not endeavour to correct their errors by gentleness and goodness, but treat them in even a harsher and more violent manner than gardeners do the wild fig-trees, pears, and olives, whose nature they subdue by cultivation, and which by that means they bring to produce very agreeable fruit.*

There

* Plentiful illustrations might be drawn from Plutarch to the same effect, There is Mutius Scævola, for instance, addressing Porsenna : "Your threatenings I regarded not, but am subdued by your generosity." is Porsenna himself, who, as Publicola found, could not be quelled by dint of arms, but whom he converted into a friend to Rome, by "the gentle arts of persuasion." There is young Alexander, afterwards to be, or to be called, the Great, whose astute father saw that he did not easily submit to authority, because he would not be forced to anything, but that he might be led to his duty by the gentler hand of reason; and therefore, as

D

We read of the distinguished Spanish author and statesman, Fermin Caballero, that while under the care of a kind and judicious instructor, he, as a boy, made rapid advance in the study of classical literature; but that on being removed from this tutor, and subjected to harsh and grinding discipline, he lapsed into idleness and obstinacy beyond all control. Not the least wise of the maxims to be culled from the pages of Terence is that in which satius esse credit Pudore et liberalitate liberos retinere, quam metu. Southey insists that no man was ever more thoroughly ignorant of the nature of children than John Wesley, as when he enjoins: "Let a child from a year old be taught to fear the rod, and to cry softly; from that age make him do as he is bid, if you whip him ten times running to effect it." If Wesley had been a father himself, urges that tenderest of fathers, Robert the Rhymer, "he would have known that children are more easily governed by love than by fear." And as with children, so with men, who are but children of a larger growth; and especially so with women, if we may take the word of one of Shakspeare's most winsome women for it:

a wise father, who knew his own son, Philip took the method of persuasion rather than of command.

What Plutarch says of the gentler hand of reason, reminds us of Swift's account of the Houyhnhnms, that "they have no conception how a rational creature can be compelled, but only advised or exhorted." And by the way, Swift remarks in a letter on England's harsh rule over the Irish, Supposing even the size of a native's understanding just equal to that of a dog or a horse, I have often seen these two animals civilized by rewards at least as much as by punishments."

But to return to Plutarch. There is his Flaminius, again, whose appointment to the command in the war with Macedon, he calls very fortunate for Rome, since what was required was "a general who did not want to do everything by force and violence, but rather by gentleness and persuasion." As Claudian says, Peragit tranquilla potestas quod violenta nequit. Fear, observes Adam Smith, is in almost all cases a wretched instrument of government, and ought in particular never to be employed against any order of men who have the smallest pretensions to independency. "To attempt to terrify them, serves only to irritate their bad humours, and to confirm them in an opposition which more gentle usage perhaps might easily induce them, either to soften, or to lay aside altogether."