but Dr. Holland never left him till between nine and ten on Thursday (7th) morning, purposing to return at eleven with Sir Henry Halford.

"The servants fetched me as soon as Dr. Holland quitted him; and I found him, for the first time, in a sick chamber. I was appalled by the change of his countenance, and of the still remaining difficulty of breathing, though he assured me that was greatly relieved. Again I left him when the doctors were expected; but my agitation and alarm were such, that I returned to see Dr. Holland, if possible. He very reluctantly gave answer to my inquiries, saying, that Sir Thomas had particularly enjoined him not to give publicity to his illness. On my mentioning that I was commissioned, by Sir Thomas, to write to his only surviving sister, he advised me to say, that he had found him seriously ill in the preceding night, but that the remedies, especially a second bleeding, which had just taken place at the arm, had greatly relieved him.

"I was, however, so earnestly requested by Sir Thomas not to mention this second bleeding, and still less the second physician, that, fearing he should ask to see the letter, I wrote under the restrictions he enjoined.

"Sir Henry Halford being engaged at Windsor, came to town by accident, and saw him at four o'clock, when he approved of all that had been done, and merely ordered a more active cathartic.

666

..At half after six o'clock his servant came to me, to say that his master was much better, and wished to see Mr. Keightley and me immediately, and that if I could not go, he begged that Mr. Keightley would. ....We found him evidently relieved in breathing and in every other respect. He was pleased at having seen Sir Henry Halford, and spoke in a stronger and more cheerful tone.

6.66

"He seemed to like his tea, and ate some dry toast with it. When Mr. Keightley came up, Sir Thomas said, 'Now I want you to read me something from this book,' directing him to the last number of the New Monthly Magazine, for January, 1830, containing Mr. Thomas Campbell's answer to the critique, in the Edinburgh Review, on Flaxman's Lectures, and sculpture.

"As he began to read, Sir Thomas put out his hand to me, as I sat close beside him. I did not see it, till he gently touched my knee, and I then pressed his hand between mine, which friendly grasp he ardently returned, and this was the last mark of his long-tried affection.

"Just before, he had spoken of the tender care of his servant, Jean Duts, with great gratitude: I observed, that Jean's countenance at the door always told me how I should find him. He was quite affected at this.

"Mr. Keightley read for about a quarter of an hour, when Sir Thomas begged we would leave the room, and send Jean to him, and no one else. In about ten minutes we heard hurried steps in the passage, and found that, in moving, his arm had bled again. The apothecary was fetched to replace the bandage. The loss of blood was immaterial, but the effect of the medicine brought on faintness, and on being applied to for a fan, I advised the use of sal-volatile, which was immediately given.

666

"I had only got half up stairs, when I heard the most dreadful cries of distress from poor Jean, in consequence of his master slipping off the chair, on a cushion, which was before him; and rather stretching himself out, he undoubtedly breathed his last at that moment, supported only by his faithful attendant." —vol ii. pp. 545-551.

Upon a post-mortem examination, his death was reported to have

been traced to an extensive ossification of the heart: but this was not the fact. There was, indeed, a slight organic disease of that kind, but we are told that the real cause was the depletion of the blood vessels, or, in other words, that he bled to death. Thus departed from amongst us Sir Thomas Lawrence, who, as an artist, had reached a higher eminence than any of his contemporaries, and as a man, was warmly loved by his relatives, and sincerely esteemed and respected by a numerous circle of friends. His continued and successful exertions at home, undoubtedly contributed greatly to promote the progress of the arts in this country. His portraits, painted upon the continent, convinced the Germans, the French, and even the Italians, that England, too, had her school, and that, in one branch, at least, they could produce nothing that surpassed it.

ART. VIII.-The Anatomy of Society. By J. A. St. John. In two volumes. 8vo. London: Bull. 1831.

HERE are more than six hundred pages of closely printed matter upon all sorts of moral subjects, and yet, strange to say, we have not been able to meet with a single moral idea, or one lesson of practical wisdom, throughout the whole of the thirty-one essays of which they are composed. If we were to judge of Mr. St. John's character by the tenour of his writings, which, by the way, is not always a fair standard with respect to literary men by profession, we should look upon him as one of the least impassioned, but most undeviating, of the disciples of Rousseau. He wants the splendid enthusiasm, the romantic fire, the poetical soul, which gave such transcendant force to the wild philosophy of that extraordinary individual; but he follows him most devotedly in all that was mischievous in his system of ethics, and in all that was false and offensive in his doctrines with respect to religion. Rousseau was a half insane hermit in the world, who gained numerous audiences, however, wherever he appeared, by the eccentricity of his ideas, and the unquestionable charms of his eloquence. Mr. St. John is also a hermit in his way, and preserves in spirit the views of society which Rousseau inculcated; but he reproduces them with a degree of coldness, which, while it necessarily prevents them from doing much harm, shews at the same time that he has adopted them, not from any natural congeniality of disposition, but from a principle of calculated preference, the result, most probably, of a defective education, and a profound ignorance of the truths of Christianity.

He looks upon mankind as if they were congregated in this world by accident, or by some power inherent in themselves; he talks of the first institution of society,' as if it had been a matter regularly debated amongst them before it was established; and he supposes that they would not have thought of it, if they

had not been persuaded that happiness is a god that cannot be approached singly.' Hence, cities were built, public worship invented, marriage instituted and children desired. Hence, he ventures impiously to say, even God, whom we have fashioned, as Aristotle observes, after our own image, is believed to have surrounded himself with the society of angels.' If Mr. St. John had lived in the time of Aristotle, he might have been excused for adopting the language of that philosopher, and for contemplating society as formed merely for the purposes of this world, without reference to another. But to write at this day, as a Heathen, without borrowing a single ray of light from the Christian system, argues a mind at once silly and presumptuous, and coldly standing still within its own limited and solitary sphere, while all things are in the agitation of improvement around it.

The author of these volumes, indeed, indirectly avows that he knows very little of mankind, for he holds that in order to be acquainted with them, it is not at all necessary that he should be much in the throng. 'He may sit quietly sit quietly on the shore of human society, and observe the rise, fall, and current of the tide, much better than those who are tossed about upon its billows, and obliged to use all their efforts to keep themselves from sinking.' He might as truly have said, that in a similar situation of repose he would have become an expert sailor. Mankind can only be known by mixing amongst them, by participating in their feelings and interests, and by consulting with them upon all occasions in which their welfare is concerned. The recluse, who sits upon the shore of life, and merely hears at a distance the tempest which disturbs its waves, would be but a wretched resource, if we were to advise with him, as to the best mode of directing our bark, when launching it upon that unfathomable

ocean.

Mr. St. John, unhappily, does not merely exclude Christianity from his philosophy, but, wherever he can do so without appearing to make such sarcasms a part of his general design, he sneers at it in the most heartless manner. Men,' he says, 'have always thought and believed in masses, under the standard of intellectual despots, in the same manner as they fight in masses, beneath the banners of political despots.' Thus faith is, according to him, a mere fashion, having no principle of attraction or vitality in itself, but adopted or shaken off according to the caprices of mankind. They are not ruled by the voice of wisdom on this matter, for men, Xhe contends, are not in any degree wiser than they were in the days of Homer and Ulysses, when Paganism prevailed. It is certain that they would have very little cause to rejoice in their progress during the last two thousand years, if they derived their notions exclusively from those sources of wisdom, to which Mr. St. John has been unfortunately confined.

There is, however, as we have already intimated, but little danger in the anti-Christian spirit which Mr. St. John displays.

He is fond of singularity, and this is one of his modes of pursuing it; his sneers have, in general, little point; and his reasonings upon this, as upon most of the other subjects which he discusses, are vague, and lead to no practical conclusion. We have an essay, for instance, upon the Science of Fortune and Power,' from the title of which the reader would be apt to expect some information as to the means by which, if he practised them, he might attain either or both of those two great objects, for which men are constantly contending. We find, on perusing it, some scattered ideas upon the knowledge of character, and a hint that mankind are best known by their passions and affections. This is really the sum of the essay upon the science of fortune and power.

The author has also favoured us with a long dissertation upon the progress of civilization, in which we should have expected that he would have compared the communities of the modern world with those of the ancient, and have fairly stated the comforts and conveniences, the facilities in carrying on the business of life, and in improving the mind, which we possess, and which the ancients did not possess, at least, to the same extent. We looked for some tangible results upon a subject so capable of affording them; but all that we learn from Mr. St. John is, that our whole system of government is one of imposture, that the people are taught this, and are taught that,' and that, in fine, civilization has made no impression upon mankind; in other words, that the germs sown by the French encyclopædia have not yet produced any shoots, and we are not all Atheists!

Few persons will read his essay upon the character of Dr. Franklin, without just indignation. That was an individual as opposite in all things, as he well could have been, to the person who here seeks to depreciate his fame. He represents that great man as having been so much actuated, throughout his public career, by a sordid love of money, that for his very virtues he required wages; that for a given quantity of patriotism, he demanded a certain sum of money; and all this is said to his prejudice, because, after the completion of the Revolution, Franklin complained that his services had not been sufficiently compensated. No credit is given to the man who hazarded life and fortune in a cause, that might have deprived him of both, and hazarded them, too, without any regard to remuneration. When the contest was crowned by success, and rewards were distributed to the conquerors, Franklin had good cause to complain, that he, the moral victor, to whom that success was mainly to be attributed, found himself treated with ingratitude by the nation which he may be said to have created. His industry, frugality, honesty, temperance, patience, and mildness, are looked upon by Mr. St. John, almost as so many crimes, simply because Franklin was not an Epaminondas!

We had thought that all the horrid stories about nuns and monks, and their imputed crimes, had perished with the days of Mrs. Rad

cliffe. Mr. St. John has the good taste and the modesty to revive a number of calumnies upon this subject, which have long since been exploded. He has the hardihood to assert, that the institutions of Monachism, instead of diffusing over the world the spirit of purity and virtue, tended invincibly to corrupt and brutify the human heart; and were more unholy, debasing, and destructive of happiness, than those abominable rites which were introduced by the votaries of Isis into ancient Italy!" This is the most unqualified slander we have recently seen against the monastic institutions, the true character of which is the very reverse. That vices have been practised in monasteries no one will venture to deny; but if we consider them collectively, we shall find that they have been the means through which the Bible has been handed down to us; through which the great principles of Christianity have been preserved; through which the learning of the Greeks and Romans has been transmitted to our times, and that, in truth, they have been the connecting link between the modern world and antiquity. It is well known that in the barbarous ages there were no schools to be found, except in the monasteries; and that it was in those institutions the arts were exclusively cultivated, in proof of which we may call to mind the Gothic cathedrals, and other beautiful buildings, which attest, in this country as well as upon the continent, the presence and enlightened activity of those very monks, whom this shallow essayist attempts to vilify. But we take it for granted, that he cannot understand the occupations to which they were devoted. He seems to have no idea of happiness that is not of a mere worldly nature. He is a mere Sybarite, and may therefore be excused for vituperating a mode of life, with the real nature of which he seems to be wholly unacquainted. Let Germany bear witness against him, where it is universally acknowledged, that the revival of letters in Europe is mainly to be ascribed to the seminary of St. Agnes, near Zwoll, which was founded and directed by a monk, and one of the best of men, the celebrated Thomas a Kempis.

In an essay upon the character of Tacitus, we meet the author upon neutral ground, and shall allow him to make his own way with the reader.

I cannot tell how others feel in entering upon the perusal of a work of this kind, but for my own part, I experience sensations extremely similar to those which are called up in the mind, by finding oneself at night in the remote and solitary ruins of some palace, or castle, or other vast structure, in which a thousand hearts have been agitated by sublime passions. This historian, however, had few agreeable events to describe. It did not fall to his lot to paint those simple manners and noble actions which usually accompany the rise of empires. The period of youth, of manhood,-nay, of life itself, was over in the republic; and the activity which remained, was the activity of corruption in the prostrate colossal carcass of Liberty. When Tacitus came upon the scene, the first retrogade movements from