ralities, direct the attention to individual objects and particular events. We all acknowledge, for example, our constant exposure to death; but it is seldom we experience the practical impression of that weighty truth, except when we witness the stroke of mortality actually inflicted. We universally acknowledge the uncertainty of human prospects, and the instability of earthly distinctions; but it is when we behold them signally destroyed and confounded that we feel our presumption checked, and our hearts appalled.

For this reason, He who spake as never man spake was wont to convey his instructions by sensible images and in familiar apologues, that, by concentrating the attention within the sphere of particular occurrences and individual objects, the impressions of his lessons might become more vivid and more profound.

It is thus that Providence is addressing us at the present moment: and if we are wise we shall convert the melancholy event before us, not to the purposes of political speculation, fruitless conjecture, or anxious foreboding, but (what is infinitely better) to a profound consideration of the hand of God; and then, though we may be at a loss to explore the reason of his conduct, we shall be at none how to improve it.

Criminal as it is always not to mark the footsteps of Deity, the guilt of such neglect is greatly aggravated when he comes forth from his place to execute his judgments, and display his wrath; when he is pleased, as at present, to extinguish in an instant the hopes of a nation, to clothe the throne in sackcloth, and involve a kingdom in mourning. The greatness, the suddenness of this calamity, accompanied with circumstances of the most tender and affecting interest, speaks to the heart in accents which nothing but the utmost obduration can resist; so that were it the sole intention of Him who has inflicted it to awaken the careless and alarm the secure, among the higher orders especially, we are at a loss to perceive what could have been done more than has been accomplished. Whatever imagination can combine in an example of the uncertainty of life, the frailty of youth, the evanescence of beauty, and the nothingness of worldly greatness, in its highest state of elevation, is exhibited in this awful event in its full dimensions.

The first particular which strikes the attention in this solemn visitation is the rank of the illustrious personage, who appears to have been placed on the pinnacle of society for the express purpose of rendering her fall the more conspicuous, and of convincing as many as are susceptible of conviction that man at his best estate is altogether vanity. The Deity himself adorned the victim with his own hands, accumulating upon her all the decorations and ornaments best adapted to render her the object of universal admiration. He permitted her to touch whatever this sublunary scene presents that is most attractive and alluring, but to grasp nothing; and after conducting her to an eminence whence she could survey all the glories of empire as her destined possession, closed her eyes in death.

That such an event should affect us in a manner very superior to

similar calamities which occur in private life is agreeable to the order of nature and the will of God; nor is the profound sensation it has produced to be considered as the symbol of courtly adulation. The catastrophe itself, it is true, apart from its peculiar circumstances, is not a rare occurrence. Mothers often expire in the ineffectual effort to give birth to their offspring; both are consigned to the same tomb, and the survivor, after witnessing the wreck of so many hopes and joys, is left to mourn alone, refusing to be comforted because they are rot. There is no sorrow which imagination can picture, no sign of anguish which nature agonized and oppressed can exhibit, no accent of wo but what is already familiar to the ear of fallen, afflicted humanity; and the roll which Ezekiel beheld flying through the heavens, inscribed within and without with sorrow, lamentation, and wo, enters sooner or later into every house, and discharges its contents in every bosom. But in the private departments of life the distressing incidents which occur are confined to a narrow circle. The hope of an individual is crushed, the happiness of a family is destroyed; but the social system is unimpaired, and its movements experience no impediment and sustain no sensible injury. The arrow passes through the air, which soon closes upon it, and all is tranquil. But when the great lights and ornaments of the world, placed aloft to conduct its inferior movements, are extinguished, such an event resembles the Apocalyptic vial poured into that element which changes its whole temperature, and is the presage of fearful commotions, of thunders, lightnings, and tempests.

Independently of the political consequences that may result from an event which, by changing the order of succession, involves the prospects of the nation in obscurity, we are formed to be peculiarly affected by the spectacle of prostrate majesty and fallen greatness. We are naturally prone to associate with the contemplation of exalted rank the idea of superior felicity. We perceive in persons of that station a command over the sources of enjoyment, a power of gratifying their inclinations in a multitude of forms from which others are precluded and as they appear to possess the means of supplying every want, of obviating every inconvenience, and of alleviating to a considerable extent every sorrow incident to humanity, it is not to be wondered at that we regard them as the darlings of nature and the favourites of fortune. The share they possess of the bounties and indulgences of Providence is so much beyond the ordinary measure of allotment, and so large a portion of human art and industry is exerted in smoothing their passage and strewing flowers in their path, that we almost necessarily associate ideas of superior enjoyment with a description of persons for whose gratification the inferior classes seem born to toil.

We are so constituted also, that the sight of felicity, when it is not mixed with envy, is always connected with pleasing emotions, whether it is considered as possessed by ourselves or by others; not excepting even the animal creation. For who can behold their harmless pleasures, the wild gambols of their young, rioting in the superabundance

of life and excess of pleasure, without experiencing a momentary exhilaration? As their enjoyments are considered too scanty and limited to excite a feeling of envy, so, from an opposite cause, the privileges attached to an elevated station seldom produce it. Happily for mankind, the corrosions of that baleful passion are almost entirely confined to equals, or to those between whom there exists some pretensions to equality; who, having started from nearly the same level, have recently distanced each other in the chase of distinction or of glory. But when the superiority we contemplate has been long possessed, when it is such as renders competition hopeless and comparison absurd, the feelings of rivalry are superseded by an emotion of respect, and the spectacle presented of superior felicity produces its primary and natural effect. We dwell with complacency on a system of arrangements so exquisitely adapted apparently to the production of happiness, and yield a sort of involuntary homage to the person in whom it centres, without appearing to disturb our pretensions, or interfere with our pursuits. Hence, of all factitious distinctions, that of birth is least exposed to envy; the thought of aspiring to an equality in that respect being instantly checked by the idea of impossibility. When we turn our eyes towards the possessors of distinguished opulence and power, so many glittering appendages crowd on the imagination, productive of agreeable emotion, that we lose sight of the essential equality of the species, and think less of the persons themselves than of the artificial splendour which surrounds them.

That there is some illusion in these sentiments, that the balance in respect of real enjoyment is far from being so decidedly in favour of the opulent and the great as they prompt us to imagine, is an indubitable fact. Nevertheless, the disposition they create to regard the external appearances of opulence and power with respect unmingled with envy, and to acquiesce with pleasure in the visible superiority they confer, is productive of incalculable benefit. But for this, the distinctions of rank, and the privileges and immunities attached to each, on which much of the tranquillity and all the improvements of society depend, would fall a prey to an unfeeling rapacity; the many would hasten to seize on the exclusive advantages of the few; and the selfish passions, uncontrolled by a more refined order of feeling, would break forth with a fury that would quickly overwhelm the mounds and fences of legal authority. By means of the sentiments to which we have adverted society exerts a sort of plastic power over its members, which forms their habits and inclinations to a cheerful acquiescence in the allotments of Providence, and bestows on the positive institutions of man the stability of nature.

As the necessary consequence of these sentiments, when great reverses befall the higher orders, the mind experiences a kind of revulsion; the contrast of their present with their past situation produces a deeper sympathy than is experienced on other occasions. We measure the height from which they fell, and calculate the extent of their loss on a scale proportioned to the value we have been accustomed to attach to the immunities and enjoyments of which it deprives

them. The sight of such elaborate preparations for happiness rendered abortive, of a majestic fabric so proudly seated and exquisitely adorned suddenly overturned, disturbs the imagination like a convulsion of nature, and diffuses a feeling of insecurity and terror, as though nothing remained on which we could repose with confidence. Hence, the misfortunes of princes who have survived their greatness, and terminated a brilliant career by captivity and death, have been selected by poets in every age as the bases of those fictions which are invented for the purpose of producing commiseration.

To guard against these feelings being carried to excess, so as to induce an oblivion of moral distinction, a sacrifice of principle, a mean and pusillanimous prostration before the profligate and the vicious,-to urge the necessity of correcting their aberrations by the dictates of reason and religion, is foreign to our purpose. The utility of a class of feelings is not the less certain for their being liable to abuse. Let me rather avail myself of the awful dispensation before us, to suggest a warning to the possessors of these envied distinctions not to overrate their value, nor confide in their continuance, which at most are but the flower of the field, as much distinguished by its superior frailty as by its beauty. They belong to the fashion of that world which passeth away; they contribute much to embellish and beautify this transitory abode, to the ornament of which the Supreme Being has shown him*self not inattentive. As the God of order, whatever tends to secure and perpetuate it is the object of his approbation; nor can we doubt that he regards with complacency that distribution of men into distinct orders which assimilates the social system to that variety which pervades the economy of nature.

Let their possessors remember, however, that they must shortly be divested of the brilliant appendages and splendid ornaments of rank and station, and enter into a world where they are unknown; where they will carry nothing but the essential elements of their being, impressed with those indelible characters which must sustain the scrutiny of Omniscience. These artificial decorations, be it remembered, are not, properly speaking, their own; the elevation to which they belong is momentary; and as the merit of an actor is not estimated by the part which he performs, but solely by the truth and propriety of his representation, and the peasant is often applauded where the monarch is hissed, so when the great drama of life is concluded, He who allots its scenes, and determines its period, will take an account of his servants, and assign to each his punishment or reward, in his proper character. The existence of a perfect and eternal Mind renders such an order of things necessary; for with whatever skill society may be organized, still it will make but a faint approximation to our limited conceptions of justice; and since there is an original mind in which these ideas subsist in their utmost perfection, whence the finite conception of justice is transcribed, they must at some period or other be realized. That they are not so at present is obvious. Merit is often depressed, vice exalted; and with the best regulations of human wisdom, executed with the utmost impartiality, malevolence will ever be

armed with the power of inflicting a thousand nameless indignities and oppressions with perfect impunity. Though the efficacy of human laws is far more conspicuous in restraining and punishing than in rewarding, in which their resources are extremely limited, it is only those flagrant offences that disturb the public tranquillity to which they extend; while the silent stream of misery issuing from private vice, which is incessantly impairing the foundations of public and individual happiness by a secret and invisible sap, remains unchecked. The gradations even of rank, which are partly the cause and partly the effect of the highest social improvements, are accompanied with so many incidental evils, that nothing but an enlarged contemplation of their ultimate tendency and effect could reconcile us to the monstrous incongruities and deformities they display, in wealth which ruins its possessor, titles which dignify the base, and influence exerted to none but the most mischievous purposes. The enlightened observer of human affairs is often struck with horror at the consequences incidentally resulting from laws and institutions which, on account of their general utility, command his unfeigned veneration. These are the unequivocal indications of a fallen state; but since it is also a state of probation, the irregularities by which it is distinguished, in the frequent exaltation of the wicked and the humiliation and depression of the righteous, are such as furnish the fittest materials for trial. What state, let me ask, is better calculated than the present to put it to the test whether we will suffer ourselves to be swayed by the dictates of reason or the fascinations of pleasure; whether we will allow the future to predominate over the present, the things that are invisible over those that are seen; and, preferring an eternal recompense with God to the transitory objects of concupiscence, submit to be controlled by his will, and led by his spirit.

Whatever reception these views may meet with, one thing is certain, that it is invariably the most necessary they should be inculcated where they are the most unwelcome; and that if there be any one description of persons more in danger than another of being lulled into a forgetfulness of future prospects, it is to them especially the warning voice should be directed, the eternal world unveiled. And who but will acknowledge that this danger is especially incident to such as bask in the smiles of fortune, and, possessing an unlimited command over the sources of enjoyment, are bound to the world by the most vivid associations of pleasure and of hope? Give me neither poverty nor riches, said one of the wisest of men, lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or, lest I be poor and steal, and take the name of God in vain. While riches exempt their possessors from the temptation of meaner vices, his observation taught him their peculiar exposure to practical impiety, and to that forgetfulness of God which is the root and core of all our disorders.

Let them turn their eyes, then, for a moment, to this illustrious princess; who, while she lived, concentred in herself whatever distinguishes the higher orders of society, and mav now be considered as addressing them from the tomb.