6. COMPUNCTION.

THE question put to John the Baptist by those who came to him to be baptized, that they might flee from the wrath to come,-" What shall we do then," -is one which must occasionally have occurred to every one of us, even to those who have given but little time to serious thought. There is something in our condition which even in spite of ourselves must render us occasionally uneasy and dissatisfied with the ways in which we occupy ourselves, and the objects which we pursue. God has not permitted us, whether we will or no, to find rest for our souls in those pursuits into which all of us are, more or less, seduced by thoughtlessness, or idleness, or love of pleasure. And though the gate is indeed wide, and the way broad, yet He has left many monuments for those who pass along it, that it is not the way that leadeth to life.

They who make it the great object of life to secure as much pleasure as they can, are sure from time to time to be reminded, that the occupation in which they are engaged is not that for which they were intended, and that however eagerly they toil for pleasure, they make no progress on the way towards happiness. They will have this lesson taught them,

both by their successes and their failures; for in success they will rarely find enjoyment commensurate with their expectations, and in their failures they will have nothing to fall back on with satisfaction. And in these seasons of mortification or satiety, which the law of their nature entails on them, their hearts will be more accessible to thoughts which are usually excluded from them, the thought of God, and of the direction He has given us for securing happiness.

In this state of mind, the question "What shall we do then?" must occasionally cross the mind even of the most careless.

But more frequently it will suggest itself to persons in an unsettled state of mind, who are endeavouring, but inconsistently, to improve themselves. And such persons constitute the great majority of the better sort of men. Persons in this condition are sure to find themselves frequently reminded how much they have to do before they can be acceptable in God's sight; and an anxiety to be very different from what they are, to escape (as it were) from their present selves, and acquire a different set of thoughts and feelings, will often render them restless and impatient.

Or it may be that we are rendered sensible of the worldly and irreligious characters of our tastes and notions, by being thrown into the company of some high-minded and holy person, who places his affections on things for which we have no relish,

and can go on persevering cheerfully in a way of life which to us seems unsupportably tedious even for a very short time.

Such opportunities for discovering our own deficiency are sure at times to occur to all of us; and the painful consciousness which they will give rise to, can scarcely fail to suggest an eager wish that we were very different from what we are. Even the very best must feel this sometimes, and the generality of us must feel it constantly. It will attend, not only on the first steps of a religious life, but with more or less intermission will haunt us to the end. And the way to turn it to good account, to make that use of it for which God has made us susceptible of it, as it is of the last importance, so it is of no ordinary difficulty. It is the warning voice by which God directs us towards the strait gate and the narrow way. But they are few that obey it. The ways in which most men contrive to elude it are two; despondency and excitement. They either give the thing up as hopeless, and indulge the notion that there is a sort of fate which prevents their character from being other than it is, or they try to find some short road to improvement, something to change them suddenly from what they are to what they wish to be.

MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS'.

CAUSES OF THE SUPERIOR EXCELLENCE OF THE POETRY OF RUDE AGES 1.

It seems to be admitted, on all hands, that the best specimens of poetry, are those which have been handed down to us from rude ages.

The question is, whether we are to attribute this to accident, or to the nature of the case.

The arguments urged against the latter supposition are of this sort :

First [it may be said:]

1. Every other faculty of the human mind, attains its object better from an acquaintance with the degrees and causes of success which have attended the efforts of others in the pursuit of the same object.

2. The distinction which some have attempted

1 [The Volume being so far advanced, the Essays, &c. are necessarily reserved for future publication.]

2 [These remarks are thrown together, out of fragments written in Spring, 1826.]

to draw between the efforts of the Understanding and Genius in this respect is unfounded; the arts of Painting, Statuary, and Architecture, instead of being instances against the analogy, are very strong in its favour. Burke and Reynolds supposed that with respect to these, the attainment, as well as discrimination, of excellence depended on acquirement exclusively.

3. The real distinction is, that the Understanding pursues something which it does not know, by means which it does; while Genius endeavours to effect what it has a previous idea of, by means of which it has to ascertain the use. The first mathematician certainly had no notion of discovering the system of Newton, but he perfectly understood the principles on which [Newton] proceeded. The first artist may have had conceptions of ideal beauty from which he derived as great a pleasure as Phidias or Michael Angelo ever did; but he had no idea how to communicate these ideas to others. He had to draw something and be disgusted with it; he had to feel his way in the dark, and to stumble over a thousand errors, before he found the real expression which he wanted. It is probably true that

fine feeling can neither be acquired nor cultivated; but it is certain that in many cases the means of gratifying it is discoverable only by study.

Secondly:

1. If the force of language is the means through which appeals are made to poetical feeling, it can