widening the arena, and by rendering it more | porter-house," and other things equally abeasy of access to competitors of all grades, surd and ridiculous. No wonder that such worthy or unworthy. It is, therefore, small vagaries of folly or fanaticism should meet merit in our eyes to have dispensed with the the taste of a veteran infidel, who finds in adventitious aids of birth and wealth, if the them aliment for his infidelity - the phases essential distinctions between right and of which he is willing to change, provided wrong have been simultaneously overlooked; they are still in opposition to the Word of and we speak under a lively sense of our God. Anything else may be tolerated, or responsibilities as public censors, when we even believed and embraced; but a simple, avow, that, far from regarding this Caucasian firm, implicit reliance upon the testimony of luminary as having shed a wholesome light Omniscience as to the future of human existover our political firmament, we saw little but ence, must be discarded, or infidelity, with what augured evil in its lurid and fitful its gloomy consolations, perishes, along with coruscations, and felt neither regret nor its advocates and abettors. astonishment at its eclipse. From the Journal of Commerce. THE INCONSISTENCY OF ERROR. RARELY has this truth been more forcibly illustrated than in the facts stated in the annexed paragraph from the London Examiner. A man who cannot believe the miracles recorded in the Bible, although authenticated by the most irrefragable evidence, finds no difficulty in believing the most incredible and foolish stories when received through a pretended spirit medium or necromancer. From a profound disbelief of things real, because alleged to be mysterious, the deluded mind vibrates into the opposite extreme of believing old wives' fables, although based upon evidence the most imperfect and fallacious. We have seen Robert Owen, and conversed with him. He has some good traits about him, and a fair amount of intelligence on subjects disconnected from his peculiar delusion. But he is on the whole just such a man as we should deem most liable to be led away by the new imposture, or deviltry, if the reader will have it so. Discarding the "sure word of prophecy," which anchors the soul to God and truth, why should not men be driven about by every wind of doctrine, and cunning craftiness of men lying in wait to deceive? Until the advent of this new dispensation of humbuggery, Robert Owen, it seems, had supposed that there was "no personal or conscious existence after death." 32 The plain, positive, repeated declarations to the contrary, of "holy men of old who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," had no effect to convince him of his error; but when "an American lady, who resides in Queen Ann street, Cavendish Square," says, on the authority of pretended communications from the spirits of Thomas Jefferson, &c., that things are so and so, he (Owen) can no longer doubt; he is convinced; he believes. One of these famous American mediums announced not long since, that in the "future conscious state of life," which Owen now believes in, Tom Paine was stopping at a 66 A From the London Examiner. DR. OWEN CONVERTED BY THE RAPPERS. manifesto of a singular description has just been issued by the philosopher of Lanark, addressed "to all governments and peoples," having for its purpose to announce "a great moral revolution which is about to be effected for the human race, by an apparent miracle." munications"most important and gratifying, This miracle consists, says Mr. Owen, in comwhich have been made to him (in common with many more) by invisible but audible powers, purporting to be from departed spirits;" those with which Mr. Owen has been favored, coming from President Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, the late Duke of Kent, Grace Fletcher, Mr. Owen's "first and most enlightened disciple," and several others. Until within the last few weeks Mr. Owen states that, while he believed all things to be eternal, he was of opinion that there was no personal or conscious existence of the late" manifestations" (spirit rappings) after death; but, having examined the history in America, "through the preceedings of an American medium," he has been " compelled," contrary to his previous strong convictions, believe in a future conscious state of life, existing in a refined material, or what is called a spiritual state." The object of these manifestations, continues Mr. Owen, is to change present false, disunited, and miserable state of human existence, for a true, united, and happy state, to arise from a new universal education, or formation of character from birth, to be with the established laws of human nature.” based on truth, and conducted in accordance Mr. Owen thinks that this change may be easily effected, and adds that the means to do so in all countries are known. They appear, from this showing, to be the universal application of his social system, through the agency of the departed spirits of Jefferson, Franklin, &c., who have kindly sent in their adhesion. We must add, that the "medium" referred to by Mr. Owen is the American lady who resides in Queen Ann street, Cavendish square. 66 to "the ONE of the most charming features of a fairy tale is the vagueness of the date of its events and characters. There is a magic about the phrase "Once upon a time," investing subsequent ogres, genii, fairies, flying chariots, moralizing nice, and booted cats, with a delightful harmony and probability. For this reason I have always considered the reign of Haroun Alraschid, gorgeous and romantic as it is, infinitely less interesting than that of the young king of the Black Isles, whose royal body was half of flesh, half of marble; and not to be compared for a moment with the histories of those other misty potentates Prince Camaralzaman and King Beder; while the glory of King Pippin faded from my infant mind, like the unsubstantial pageant of a vision, the moment he was discovered to have been an authentic monarch of France. This early predilection for what may be . called the No-man's-Land, or Tom Tidler's ground, of chronology, has caused me to regard those authors who commence their narratives with such phrases as "Towards the close of the last century," or " About the middle of George the Second's reign," as acting on a mistaken principle. It is not only unnecessary, but is also impolitic, as wilfully depriving the production of what might have been its solitary charm. It is as if a rejuvenated spinster were voluntarily to pull off her wig, spit out her false teeth, walk out of her crinoline, and, standing before the world, bald, toothless, and shameless, proclaim herself fifty-five. Once upon a time, then (to guard against this error), there was assembled in a room at the Heronry, the residence of Lady Lee, a goodly company-goodly, not so much in point of numbers as in personal appearance. Three ladies were there, all young, and none of them plain. Lady Lee was a young widow, the handsomest since Dido. Her face was pale and oval, her eyes magnificent, but somewhat languid. Her hair formed a splendid frame-work to her face, being of the richest and darkest chestnut, scattered with ruddy golden gleams, dancing on its innumerable ripples. It formed a sort of natural diadem, but was now, unfortunately, hidden by a close-crimped widow's cap. Orelia Payne was a tall, dark beauty, with a nose strongly arched, a curved and somewhat severe mouth, a cleft chin, and straight, dark eyebrows surmounting black sparkling eyes. Rosa Young was a plump, fair little thing, with a face of a quaint and somewhat comic cast. Her nose turned up slightly, and was obsequiously followed by her upper lip, thus displaying the least glimpse in the world of very white teeth. Her complexion was very fresh, and would, perhaps, have been too ruddy, if the red had not been of such a delicious color that you decided, at a glance, it was impossible to have too much of such a good thing; besides, if your eye wanted relief, there was the white of her neck or the blue of her eyes to turn to. Her hair was carried off above her ears and dressed plain, or at least intended to be so; but stray tresses were perpetually breaking out of bounds, and wandering in libertine curls about her cheeks, ears, and neck, requiring to be caught and pinned up in a supplementary fashion, till the number of these truants increased to such an extent that the whole structure had to be remodeled. Only two little curls, like those on a drake's tale, were authorized to appear, one on each cheek, near the ears. Orelia was standing with palette and brush before an easel. She had already chalked out on the canvas the proportions of Lady Lee's face and figure. Her ladyship sat at a little distance, and by her side stood her little son, Julius Lee, about four years old. draw you in," said Orelia. 66 characters?" said Rosa. "They 're not such Why can't you paint them in their own bad characters, are they?" "It's so flat and prosaic," returned Orelia, "to paint things just as they are. have something classical. What do you think No; we 'll of Virgilia and the young Coriolanus?” "Ha, ha!" laughed Rosa. "Virgilia in a widow's cap! Why, Coriolanus was all alive, wasn't he? We must take it off," said Rosa, stealing behind Lady Lee and loosening the again. strings, "and I wish you'd never put it on -- rid thing it is. She would look four years catch the cap with both hands as it was being "Poor Sir Joseph!" she said. having put the cap on her own head, had got - of never could live a widow at least, with this | sacrifices for a Pythias of my own sexthing on my head.” love, too, where I was wooed by an infinity of lovers, all made after the same perfect pattern, until these ended in Sir Joseph Lee." "I'd rather have sacred to the memory printed on my forehead in capital letters," said Orelia. "I'd rather be married again in the first week of my widowhood than wear it," said Rosa, positively. 66 "Sir Joseph was n't romantic, was he?" asked Rosa. "At least I should think not, judging from his picture in the library." He was better than romantic, Rosa," said Madcap versus mobcap," said her lady-Lady Lee, gravely; "he had a kind heart. ship, smiling at Rosa. "Come, give it me." But no- -you are right, my dear; he was not Never!" cried Rosa, who, having hung romantic. Ah, heavens! to think of the difthe cap on a chandelier, was now performing ference between the ideal and the real! Not a sort of Indian scalp-dance round it. "She's but Sir Joseph was an excellent and a kind got a dozen of 'em in a box up stairs, Orelia, man, but it was very hard to look upon him as a lover." 66 but we'll burn 'em all." "I believe I should be more comfortable without it," said Lady Lee smoothing her hair; "but what would the world say?" "I thought you did n't care a pin what the world said," Rosa replied. "Are n't you always boasting of your independence?" True," said her ladyship; "I don't know why I should care. Well, I'll think about leaving off the cap.' "And you had better think of leaving off some other things at the same time," said Rosa. "For instance, you might leave off shutting yourself up in this house, like an old hermit with a beard and a hair shirt; and you might leave off treating young men so coldly, who want to love you, and to come and visit you that is, you may do so when Orelia and I are not here, for we don't want them; and we 're very happy at present, are n't we, Reley? and it's only for your good I'm speaking.' 66 You ought to mix in society, and to travel, and see the world," said Orelia. "O heavens! if I were as rich as you" ("She's as rich as a Jew," muttered Rosa), "I'd see everything that was grand and excellent in nature and art. I'd go," said Orelia, flourishing her porterayon, to all the great cities of Europe; I'd make studies in the Vatican and the Pitti Palace I'd sit on the Bridge of Sighs and read Childe Harold'-I'd go to Constantinople and fall in love with a Giaour—I'd see Palestine — I'd cross the Desert on a dromedary - I'd visit the bright East and the far West-and, when these were exhausted, I'd come back to the Heronry again, to sit on the daisies and think of all I had seen." "How did you manage it?" asked Orelia. "To say the truth, my dear," said her ladyship, I did not surrender my cherished visions either easily or suddenly. But you, Orelia, know what were the unfortunate circumstances of my family at that time, though you can scarcely imagine the full extent of our trials; however, a fond father, suffering at once from disease and debt, the entreaties of relatives, and the promptings of gratitude (for Sir Joseph had assisted my father most generously), these motives, joined to a due sense of Sir Joseph's good and liberal nature, will perhaps account sufficiently for my marriage. Tears of pity came into Rosa's eyes she was a very sympathetic little thing. She went to seat herself on the sofa by Lady Lee, and squeezed her hand. "But, now," said Rosa presently, " now you have been free to follow your fancies these three years, why don't you do so?" Lady Lee laughed. "I have not yet met with my ideal hero," she said; "and if I did, I really don't think I should admire him. My taste for romance is dreadfully impaired. A Byronic hero at my feet would excite ridicule rather than sympathy. And so, seeing that love without romance is a very humdrum affair, and that I have lost my capacity for seeing things in the light that never was on sea or shore,' the thought of love or matrimony never enters my head." "If I were a man," said Orelia, "I'd make you love me. I'd do something chivalrous that should compel your admiration in spite of yourself; and then, after dragging you at my chariot-wheels for a while, till you were completely subdued, I'd run away with you.' "And if I were a man," said Rosa, "I'd "Dear me!" said Lady Lee, "you remind me, my dear, of fancies of my own that I used to have before I was married. You re-beg and entreat you to love me. I'd follow member, Orelia, how romantic I was in my you about, telling you how beautiful, how maiden days. I used to sit in the porch of clever you were (for you are, and you know that old parsonage, reading a novel or a play, it), and how all your beauty and cleverness is and every now and then, dropping the book running to waste from mere don't-careishon my lap, I would follow out a romance of my ness; and how, by loving me, they would own, conjured up by some passage that struck both of them suddenly bloom and brighten, -visions of charming friendships, where till they were as bright as- as bright as anyI, a female Damon, underwent unheard-of thing," said Rosa, not finding any more bril me liant or exact simile after her pause; " and I'd Colonel Bagot Lee, who is expected here in a never leave telling you, and begging you, till day or two. Sir Joseph was, I believe,a good you yielded, half from pity for me, half from consideration to yourself." Lady Lee smiled and called her a foolish little thing, and for that time the conversation dropped; but it was renewed again that night by Orelia and Rosa. They slept by their own desire in the same room. Orelia, who used rather to tyrannize over her companion in this dormitory, inhabited a large square four-poster, with a heavy carved tester, and curtains which she would let down all round her at night, and become invisible as the man in a Punch's show; while Rosa occupied a little French bed that fitted into an alcove at the end of the room, and was covered by a chintz curtain hanging from a pole that stuck out of the wall, in which nest she would chirp herself to sleep like any wren. Rosa bad been delivering some sentiments respecting Lady Lee, similar to those in her last speech, just recorded. "Bless me!" cried Orelia," and how did you get so learned in matters of the heart, you pert absurdity? Has anybody been teaching you? Just let me catch you having a lover without letting me know." "No, no," said Rosa, blushing in the dark like her namesake of Lancaster; "I have n't got one, and I don't want one. I couldn't be more brilliant than I am." "Oh, quite impossible!" quoth the sarcas tic Orelia. "I don't mean that I 'm particularly bright, but that a lover would n't make me any brighter. But there's Lady Lee withering away like like anything," said Rosa recurring to her favorite simile of all-work, "and all for want of watering. She don't care much about anything. She's the best-natured dear creature in the world when her good-nature 's woke up; but it goes to sleep again in a minute. So does her cleverness, which just keeps awake long enough to show us what it could do if it wasn't such a sluggard. It's my belief she could write a beautiful novel or poem whenever she chose just see what let ters and charades and songs she writes - but she don't choose. She could have any clever man at her feet if she chose, but she don't choose. And she 'll go on wasting herself," said Rosa," till she is a stupid old dowager, and then nobody will care about her.” 66 "Don't you know she can't marry, except under conditions?" said Orelia. Just listen, and as I'm not particularly sleepy, I'll tell you about it." "Do," said Rosa, throwing back the curtain over the head of her bed for the convenience of hearing better. "You must know then," said Orelia, "that the late Sir Joseph, though very fond of his wife, was very much ruled by his uncle, sort of a weak man, and easily ruled, and Colonel Lee, is a knowing, and, as I've heard, somewhat overbearing man of the world. He was a great oracle with Sir Joseph on all points, and had some hand, I fancy, in the concoction of his will, by which Lady Lee is to have a handsome income so long as she remains unmarried, or afterwards, if- if, mind you she marries with Colonel Lee's consent. If she marries without it, she forfeits most of her income, part of which goes to Julius, part to Bagot, who also, in that case, becomes guardian to the child." "Dear me!" said Rosa;" how stupid of Sir Joseph! What did he do that for?" “Partly, I believe, because of the superlative idea he entertained of Bagot's judgment and discretion, which he thought might be useful to such a young widow, for she was only twenty when he died partly, perhaps, from a sort of posthumous jealousy of his successor." "A wretch!" cried Rosa; "I always suspected him of being a stupid, useless sort of creature, and now I positively hate him." "But "So do I," said Orelia yawning. I'm getting sleepy now. By the by," she resumed, after a pause, during which Rosa was pondering what she had just heard, you're quite sure nobody's been making love to you?" 66 "Oh, quite!" said Rosa hastily. "And-you don't know-you don't know of anybody you like better than the rest?" said Orelia, sleepily. but "Nobody, upon my word," said Rosa; I don't think Orelia heard the reply, having just dropped off into a slumber. And here we will take the opportunity to add a few general particulars to Orelia's information. Lady Lee had been, when Hester Broome, a poor clergyman's daughter, full, as she described herself, of feeling, of sentiment, of romance, and of bright hopes for the future; but these did not make up her character, for her dreams were dreamt amidst the realities of household occupations, and the acquisition of various accomplishments, and much solid information. Unfortunately for Hester, she had a dash of genius in her composition-she was not merely imaginative, but original and spirited in her imaginations. A talent for summoning up charming reveries of angels with wings, lovers with beautiful black whiskers, and life all sunshine and no clouds, is very abundant in boarding-schools, watering-places, and elsewhere, ending, sometimes consistently, in Gretna Green and the divorce courts; sometimes inconsistently, in corpulent content with humdrum connubiality. But Hester's visions were the result of her own fancy, guided only by her own tastes, and it was proportionably hard to abandon them. Sir Joseph Lee was a baronet of good property good-natured, as she said, but also, as she did not say, though she must often have thought it, a very weak man. He was so exceedingly inane, that when, during his courtship, he left off spectacles and took to an eye-glass, it was positively a new feature in his character, and, conjoined with his abandonment of a white hat and gaiters, hitherto his constant wear, produced such a change, that you would hardly have known him for the same man. His family seat, his property, his baronetcy, had been to him what office was to the late whig ministrygiving him, as their occupant, a casual identity and reputation. yet." "No," said Sir Joseph, "no more Ascot for me. They 've as good as told me it's all up with me. The rector's been over here praying with me. Do you think it's any good, Bagot?" "You were always a good fellow, Joe," said Bagot Lee, his uncle, formerly a lieutenant- Bagot," and if you were really going to give colonel in the Guards, was about eight-and us the slip, I should be confoundedly grieved. forty; very knowing, very dissipated, and I should, by gad" (which was true enough, very extravagant. He had impressed his for the baronet was a comfortable annuity to nephew with a wonderful respect for him. him); "But I hope to see you at Ascot Sir Joseph saw him plunging familiarly into horse-racing, chicken-hazard, acquaintance with opera-dancers, and other vortices, floating and revelling there as if he enjoyed it, while the baronet shivered, and feebly shouted on the brink. He saw him, when he came down into the country, treat the magnates of Bagot was rather puzzled at being consulted the county with a coolness which he tried in as a spiritual adviser. "Why," said he, vain to imitate, and to which they seemed putting the case, you see, that a fellow was obliged to submit. He had seen him whisper really going off the hooks not that I believe before the race to the jockey who rode the it, you know, for you 're looking twice the winner of the Derby. He had seen him man you did yesterday- but just supposing terrify a steward of whom Sir Joseph stood in it, for the sake of argument, the thing might great awe, and cause him to prove himself a be decent and comfortable. If I found myself the easier for it, of course I'd do it." cheat. thing, I think. She was too good for me; but I think she liked me, too. Nobody seems so sorry about me as she does." 66 Have you put any restriction," said Bagot," on her marrying again? I mean in case of anything happening, you know?" "No," said Sir Joseph; "I never thought about it. I have left her the income and the use of the house unconditionally." In fact, Sir Joseph's estimate of Bagot's "Hester brought him," said Sir Joseph. capacity was formed on a principle that half "Poor Hester! I've been very fond of that the world unconsciously adopt. Seeing Ba-girl, Bagot-fonder than I ever was of anygot's superiority in matters of which he (the baronet) was capable of judging, he gave him credit for the same superiority in other matters of which he was not capable of judging. How could a man who could make such 2 capital betting-book-who was so skilful a billiard-player-be otherwise than a safe guide in the affairs of life be surpassed as an adviser on all difficult points? Bagot's sharpness seemed to Sir Joseph to include all excellence whatsoever. He would not have been at all surprised (though many other people might) had Bagot showed himself a great general, a great author, or a great statesman, nor would his respect for him have been thereby at all increased. And pray, sir, do you never judge of your acquaintances in this way? Nay, more do you never carry the principle farther, and conclude that all those, with whose reported merits you cannot sympathize, must necessarily be impostors? Ah, heavens!—how often does one see, and hear of, genius clipped and pared and shorn "Ah," said Bagot, musingly, "she's young- devilish young-and women take strange fancies sometimes. There will be no end of fellows after her. I should n't like, Joe, my boy, to see her making a fool of herself with some infernal nincompoop, after your in case of anything happening, you know." "Do you think it's likely?" said Sir Joseph, eagerly. "Do you know of anybody that Bagot! if I thought that, I'd! "No, no," replied Bagot; "I don't know anything of the sort. I was merely talking of what might be. It would be deuced pain |