liver, brain, &c. (the latter perhaps overtasked), be in a state of perfect integrity. In the writings of Jeremy Taylor (of whom it has been said that his influence and authority in the Church, whether for power and splendour of mind, orthodoxy of belief, or sanctity of deportment, have never been surpassed), I find the following passage:-"If a man be exalted by reason of any excellence in his soul, he may please to remember all souls are equal, and their different operations are because their instrument is in better tune, and their body is more healthful or better tempered; which is no more praise to him, than it is that he was born in Italy. On the other hand, if his course entitles him to no reward in this world, beyond the natural one of the inevitable happiness of mind which Heaven has decreed to be the consequence of its physical health, so it is fair to allow that the opposite can merit no punishment beyond the inevitable pain which Heaven has decreed to be the consequence of its physical derangement." If the argument is good for any thing, it must tell both ways with equal force.

I must here pause to give one illustration shewing the advantages of a good bodily stamina. What capability of physical and moral endurance there was in Lady Russell!*

*WOMEN IN AFFLICTION.-"I have very often had occasion to remark the fortitude with which women sustain the most overwhelming reverses of fortune. Those disasters which break down the spirit of man, and prostrate him in the dust, seem to call forth all the energies of the softer sex, and give such intrepidity and elevation to their character, that at times it approaches to sublimity. Nothing can be more touching than to behold a soft and tender female, who has been all weakness and dependence, and alive to every trivial annoyance, while treading the prosperous paths of life, suddenly rising in mental force to be the com

What she had to struggle with would have overwhelmed halfa-hundred of the nervous and sensitive ladies in her rank at the present day. We are struck with the reflection that a good stamina of body will sustain heavy trials and burthens, that would have blighted the modern effeminate ones in a few hours; and this in despite of all their moral and pious attributes. A mourner Lady R. must be all the days of her life : her glass ran low, yet she exceeded far the climax allotted to our sublunary pilgrimage. Employment, and a quiet submission to her lot, instilled by deep religious principle, must not be forgotten, that enabled her to spin out and surmount the storms and ills of life, to a good old age.

The late Disraeli has some very important and lengthened observations on the moral vices or infirmities which originate in the state of the body, and which may be cured by cold ablutions and internal remedies. He truly says in such cases, precepts and ethics, if they seem to produce a momentary cure, have only mowed the weeds whose roots lie in the soil. It is only by changing the soil itself, that we can eradicate the evil. We are told the senses are five porches for the physician to enter into the mind, whenever the defects of the

forter and support of her husband under misfortune, and abiding, with unshrinking firmness, the bitterest blast of adversity. As the vine, which has long twined its graceful foliage around the oak, and been supported by it in the sunshine, will, when the hardy tree is lifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with its caressing tendrils, and bind up its shattered boughs,- -so it is beautifully ordained by Providence, that woman, who is the mere dependent and ornament of man in his happier hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with sudden calamity, winding herself into the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly supporting the drooping head, and binding up the broken heart. Washington Irving.

mind depend upon those of the organisation. The mind or soul, however distinct its being from the body, is disturbed or excited, independent of its volition, by the mechanical impulses of the body. A man becomes stupified when the circulation of the blood is impeded in the viscera; he acts more from instinct than reflection; the nervous fibres are too relaxed or too tense, and he finds a difficulty in moving them; if you heighten his sensations, you awaken new ideas in the stupid being; and as we cure the stupid by increasing his sensibility, we may believe that a more vivacious fancy may be promised to those who possess one, when the mind and body play together in one harmonious accord. Doubtless by prescribing the cold bath to the head, frictions, counteractions, pediluviums, you get at his brains, as Disraeli truly says, by the feet; that is to say, you divert the redundancy of blood from the head and other congestive parts, to the inferior extremities. A literary man, from his sedentary habits, and regardless of muscular exertion, has been known to have such a disgust for books-the most beloved objects of his whole life-that the very thought of them excited terror for a considerable time. It is evident that the state of the body often indicates that of the mind. Insanity always results from some disorder in the human machine. To a diseased eye, there is no beauty in creation, and even the sun itself sheds a sickly and oppressive light.

It becomes our duty, then, to obey the laws of our physical, moral, and mental constitutions; for disease throws a chain around the mind, which the latter, by its own unassisted endeavours, cannot burst asunder. When the nerves are morbid, "the heavens are clothed in sackcloth, the earth is dressed

in the garment of mourning." "If," says Sidney Smith, "you choose to represent the various parts in life by holes upon a table of different shapes-some circular, some triangular, some square, some oblong-the persons acting these parts by bits of wood of similar shapes, we shall generally find the triangular person has got into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and a square person has squeezed himself into the round hole. The officer and the office, the doer and the thing done, seldom fit so exactly, that we can say they were almost made for each other:"

It is a prodigous point gained, if any man can find out where his powers lie, and what are his dependencies;-if he can contrive to ascertain what Nature intended him for. Sure am I, from long experience, that many understandings have been retarded for years, and get most woefully into the wrong hole, for lack of the prosecution of a solid and sound Physiological knowledge, and a dash of Mathematics to act as a regulator. Everybody should be taught when young, to use scraps of time. A man once wrote a voluminous work while waiting for his wife a quarter of an hour at a time; though we know not whether it was found equally available for readers under like circumstances.

"What is the mind of which man appears so vain ?" exclaims Fletcher. If considered according to its nature, it is a fire which sickness and an accident most sensibly puts out; a combination and certain motion of the spirits which exhaust themselves; it is the most lively, subtile part of the soul, which seems to grow old with the body. It is now wonderful that some have attributed such virtues to their system of diet, if it has been found productive of certain effects

upon the human body. Cornaro perhaps fancied more than he experienced; but Appollinus T. when he had the credit of holding an intercourse with the d- by his presumed gifts of prophecy, defended himself from the accusation of attributing his clear, prescient views of things, to the light aliments he lived on, never indulging in variety of food. This mode of life, said he, has produced such a perspicuity in my ideas, that I see in a glass things past and future. We may, therefore, agree with Bayes that for a Sonnet to Amanda, and the like, "stewed prunes only might be sufficient; but for a grand design, nothing less than a more formal and formidable dose." But here we may ask those who have not yet arrived at their zenith, or have reached the perfection of their strength,-Why not at once strip ourselves of the fetters of our own forging, by a strict adherence to temperance and exercise, to never need any kind of laxatives? &c. &c. Dr. Brigham has very justly observed on physical philosophy, which concerns itself with the laws of the material world, that "Health is the basis of all moral action; every impulse of bad health jars or untunes some string in the fine harp of human volition; because a man cannot be a moral being but in proportion to his free action, therefore it is clear that no man can be in a high degree moral, except in so far through health, he commands his bodily powers, and is not commanded by them." It is not surprising men are deaf to reason, when they ignore those moral instincts on which reasoning is founded. "The body and mind," says the facetious Tristram Shandy, "are like a coat and its lining; if you rumple the one, you rumple the other." So little regard, however, has been paid to this subject, that the