The pleasures of youth are no doubt exaggerated in the retrospect, and its pains palliated or forgotten; but making due allowances for this exaggeration, there appear to be some peculiarities belonging to the prime of life, which render it pre-eminent over every other stage of our existence. In after years we never experience the same thorough rapture, the same engrossing and transporting felicity. There is a zest in the pleasures of youth, a heart-felt fulness; the soul runs over with ecstasy; while in more mature years we can attain only a partial emotion of happiness; our capacity of enjoyment is seldom filled to the brim; the delight which beams upon us, from whatever quarter, has to make its way through a cold and cloudy atmosphere of care; the pleasures which dimple the fountains of our hearts extend their circles but a small way, and leave many a still and gloomy depth unreached. All must have experienced how much of our happiness depends on having some pleasurable object to look forward to, at no remote distance; how such a sunny spot in prospect enlivens the intermediate hours and incidents with a touch of its own hue, so as frequently to have given us the full measure of promised bliss before we have arrived at the enjoyment itself. This is an advantage more peculiarly possessed in youth. Every day presents it with some fresh object after which it aspires, with all the fondness of a new passion. New scenes are perpetually opening, and hope has not yet lost its spring, But experience strips all things around us of this charm. After a certain age, events no longer partake of novelty; they may be formed into different combinations, but the particular incidents are known. We have got to the highest point of human life, and being able to see all around us, the path we have ascended, the plain we are upon, we can no longer expect new prospects: there is no fresh eminence to gain, and all that we can look for is, to see familiar scenes diversified by the accidents of clouds and sun-shine. The change in our feelings as we advance in life is not greater, nor in many instances more melancholy, than the alteration which it produces in the character. The disposition, manners, and habits of one who has been placed in circumstances favourable to the developement of his faculties and the regulation of his heart, may possibly be improved by years; or one who from adverse events has been prematurely trained in any of the sordid and selfish vices, and forbidding habits of age, may be afterwards emancipated from them by an auspicious change in his affairs; and many other cases may be found of moral melioration in the progress of life. In general, nevertheless, it may be doubted whether the character does not become worse and less interesting. There is in youth a pliancy of disposition, a complacency and warmth of feeling, and a frank generosity, but ill exchanged for all the cold sobriety, clear-sightedness, and self-possession, which age can bring. Years indurate the mind. A regard for the goodwill of others dwindles into an attention to mere decorum; the man becomes occupied by his own interest, less sincere and more selfish, coarser in thoughts and manners, -the unmoving centre of the circle of his own affairs. There are other causes, too, which sometimes have an evil operation. Men enter into life with eager hopes and warm expectations. They fix their ❝ mind's eye on some noble object, and as long as that is in sight, as long as they can look upon it with hope, and make a perceptible approach towards it, their character partakes of the elevation of their views. ་་ But such hopes are at length disappointed; the object vanishes when almost within their grasp, and the whole energy of their minds has been expended in vain, They fall into apathy; existence becomes insipid; they are starless on the sea of life, and drive about altogether at random, In this state they are the prey of indolence, and those modes of life which indolence suggests; and, perhaps, sink at last into degraded sensualists or cynical misanthropes, It is now some years since I met with a man whose melancholy fate suggested these reflections. He was the only son of a moderately opulent family. While still a boy, his mind had been kindled with the inspiration of poetry. It was his delight, even when at school, to steal from the boisterous mirth of his companions, and hide himself in a leafy bower, or sit on the banks of a rivulet, with a volume of some favourite poet. It was a solitary enjoyment from which nothing could seduce him; and after inflaming his imagination with the immortal verse of others, he would try his own powers, and breathe his feelings in words of his own. He was, however, not one of those who protrude themselves on the attention of others, His boyish productions were seldom shown. He concealed them as a treasure, over which he loved to ponder; but he fondly hoped that he should live to produce something which the world would not willingly let die, It was this hope which cheered his whole existence, and made a naturally tender disposition full of life and alacrity. It was when he was more than a boy, but scarcely a man, that I first knew him. There was a light in his looks which spoke the child of hope, an impassioned ardour for intellectual improvement about him, which was continually breaking forth in spite of the natural reserve of his temper, One single object had possession of his mind, and in the feelings of confidence that he should finally attain it, he devoted hour after hour to the labour of solitary study," The moment at length came when he had completed the work on which he had expended the enthusiasm and vigour of youthful genius. He prepared it for publication, It was printed; and he had the pleasure, which an author alone can appreciate, of holding in his hand a volume of his own productions. Here, however, his feelings, which had flowed on in an unbroken course, were doomed to turn. He possessed no interest to forward the sale of his book,-no friends amongst the reviewers, and in the myriad of new publications his work was in danger of escaping notice. Month after month he waited for the applause which, though deferred, he still flattered himself would be ultimately bestowed; but with the solitary exception of a short critique in one of the reviews, which contained the faint praise so galling to an author's feelings, and which was written by one who had cursorily inspected the book and not taken the trouble to enter into its merits, he watched in vain. The fact is, the book was not calculated to strike on a first view; its air was far from imposing, and, although it bore the marks of decided genius, it had the faults of youth. There was nothing in the title to excite the curiosity of professional critics, and no thing in the name or circumstances of the writer to fix their attention. For such a disappointment the author was not prepared. He might, per haps, have sustained the want of reputation, but as this was the firs exhi bition to any one of the strength of his powers, he began to doubt of his own talents. He had, he thought, been labouring under a delusion; his warm anticipations, his delightful dreams, had been raised on a visionary basis, and they had now left him a very beggar in aim and hope and source of gratification. There was still, nevertheless, one object for which life was worth living. In the interval between the completion of his work and its publication, he had met with a young lady of beauty and accomplishments. His mind was in a state of holiday disengagement after the intensity of his literary labours, and of pleasurable excitement from the near prospect of fame. It was the moment for love, and he became its captive. After the severe shock of disappointment in his aspirations after literary eminence, the whole energy of his wishes and feelings turned into this other channel. His whole soul, repulsed from its former attempt, was bent upon the object of his love. He renewed his addresses to the lady with redoubled ardour, and had again begun to indulge in the reveries of hope, though the forms which peopled those reveries were no longer the same. At the moment when his soul was wound up to the highest pitch of expectation, when the object of his affections had confessed herself pleased with his addresses, the authoritative interposition of friends put an end to the suit, and his hopes were once more completely blasted. Under this second blow the energy of his mind entirely sunk ;-his feelings had lost all elasticity, and he was left with scarcely the power of forming a wish. Time abated something of his gloom, but he still was spiritless and dejected; and loathing as he did whatever reminded him of his former favourite pursuits and objects, he was without purpose and employ ment. The human mind, however, naturally seeks after pleasurable emotion: baffle it in one aim, and it will sooner or later, form another. Happiness to man is like light to the vegetable creation, and his soul turns to it with the same pertinacity with which the pent-up plant directs itself to the glimmering of day, however often we may change the position of the aperture by which it is admitted. Thus after the complete blight of higher hopes, his mind turned to sensual pleasures. They easily seduced him, for he was without motive to withstand them; by degrees they furnished a pleasant stimulus to his feelings, and relieved him, or promised to relieve him, from the burden of listlessness. The company which he now fell into, was low and vulgar. He soon lost the refinement of his taste; and though his talents, even in such society, exacted an involuntary deference, he retained scarcely any thing of what had once been an elegant mind. He became peevish and passionate, vulgar and cynical, dead to ambition, a drunkard and a liber fine. "Who falls from all he knows of bliss BYRON. Few perhaps meet with disappointments so complete as these, such utter ruin to all their hopes and prospects; but many experience a number of smaller ones which in the aggregate produce somewhat of a similar effect, an in sensibility to all elevated motives and views, and a systematic abandon, ment of every thing but sensual and temporary gratification. It is surely of importance to counteract this effect, to preserve something of the loftiness of youthful views, even as we advance in years, and to suffer neither the cares of the world nor the disappointments of life to strip us of the feeling of healthful ambition. Nothing is more conducive to this than a constant endeavour to improve our moral and intellectual attainments for their own sakes. They may be increased to an almost indefinite extent, and he who systematically and steadfastly perseveres in the cultivation of his powers, even to the very extreme of age, will surely avoid much of the danger to which we are all liable, of sinking in our characters, in our progress through life. The cultivation of the taste and the imagination may be particularly recommended with this view. With whatever scorn a mere man of the world may look down upon the effusions of fancy and genius, triumphantly appealing to his favourite question, Cui bono? their tendency undoubtedly is, to raise our thoughts above the level to which they are kept down by ordinary pursuits, and diffuse something of "the unbought grace of life"? where it would not otherwise readily appear. Sheffield, July 7th, 1818. V. REMARKS ON ST. PIERRE'S THEORY OF THE TIDES. To the Editor of the Northern Star. FIRST to form a theory, and then find facts to agree with it, is the general method of a certain class of men who call themselves philosophers. They think it sufficient to explain a few of the phenomena which daily present themselves to our consideration; and when that is done, all the contradictions which the system involves are stated to be counterbalanced by an immediate effort of Divine Power. They conceive that a supernatural influence is constantly exerted to prevent the catastrophe which must inevitably follow if their theories be correct; and we have seen that such speculations pass very well with those whose mental powers are but slenderly disciplined, and who therefore are easily led aside by the plausibility of an argument, the fallacy of which they cannot immediately perceive, It is natural for men in general who are unacquainted with science, to wish that the peculiar terms and modes of expression which science involves, were abolished, and that they could have explained in common language, what language contains no terms to express. Nor can we wonder that truths which have been discovered by the intricate investigations of the mathematical analysis, should be rejected, because the methods by which they were discovered are not suited to the general capacity and acquirements of men. Not one in a hundred, perhaps, of those who acknowledge, nor yet of those who reject, the Newtonian Theory of the Tides, can give a satisfactory reason why they do so. That compliment which, in a certain stage of civilization, is always paid by common minds to superior acquirements, is, probably, the principal cause of its reception: and the wild, uncultivated energies of individuals who are too inquisitive not to examine at all, but not sufficiently systematic to estimate the comparative merits of the system, may be considered as the general origin of dissent. There is in the style of St. PIERRE, a familiarity of illustration suited to the capacity of men who have studied but little; an air of piety and benevofence pervades his works; and the tender touches of refined sentiment have a tendency powerfully to interest the feelings of the reader in his favour. His theory is supported by references to the journals of navigators, and by appeals to the obvious decisions of common sense; at the same time his temper is as calm in the midst of his arguments as though he were conversing with his most intimate friend. Recommendations like these are powerful motives to the adoption of his theories, where the reader has not sufficiently attended to the necessary consequences which result from them, and examined minutely whether the principles which he has laid down are adequate to the production of the effects which he attributes to them. To his doctrine of the Tides, he has gained many proselytes, and their number is daily increasing amongst men of good intellects, who are unacquainted with mathematical science. It cannot, then, be deemed superfluous to point out the conclusions which must inevitably result from their adoption of his opinions; and to prove, that, even supposing them true, they by no means account for so much of the variety of phenomena which the motions of the great body of water present to our consideration, as he supposes. I wish to observe here, that though a decided advocate for the Newtonian Theory of the Tides, I have no intention of referring to it, or of instituting a comparison between it and St. Pierre's. With the latter, I shall admit the elongation of the poles, or the depression of the terrestrial equator; yet prove that even the adoption of that principle does not form a sufficient foundation upon which to rest his deductions. However, though I grant this, it is but for the moment; for in a future paper I shall offer objections which, I presume to hope, will be of sufficient force to invalidate all the arguments which he has used to establish the opinion. I shall just lay down his outline before I proceed to make any remarks upon his system. It is simply this:-That the earth is elevated at the poles; that each pole is covered by a large cupola of ice, the larger to the south: that the alternate half-yearly effusions of these ices by the sun, when on the side of the equator next them, causes the periodic half-yearly currents in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans: that the fusion of the ices altering the centre of gravity of the earth, causes the phenomena of what is called the sun's motion in the ecliptic: that the density of the earth being greater than that of water, the centre of gravity remains longer on the northern side of the equator than on the southern, because there is more land on that side: that the directions of the general half-yearly currents are regulated by the direction of sun's motion, and by the proximity and relative figure of the continents and large islands, their projections and indentations giving a compound, but regular direction to the mass of waters which flows from the poles that the revolution of the earth on its axis, presenting every side of the vast dome of ice to the influence of the sun's beams in succession, causes the water to flow towards the equator, with two increasing swells, in 24 hours 48 minutes-one after the sun has past the meridian, and the other when it has past the opposite one. The causes of its flowing he thus explains: "There are two tides every day, because the sun warms by turns, every twenty-four hours, the eastern and western side of the pole that is in fusion;" that the retardation in the tides of the ocean, of about twenty-four minutes from one |