Such are the thoughts, and the writers, that in the short space of time since Bacon existed, have overturned inquisitions, and absolute monarchies, and bastiles, and lettres-de-cachet, and feudal rights, and have taken twenty other eating chains out of the very bodies as well as hearts of humanity, besides throwing open the whole world of scientific experiment; and shall the world stop now that it is becoming a man? now that knowledge and kindness are manifestly seen to go hand in hand; and when the Divine Spirit (for aught we know to the contrary, and indulging an avowed guess by the right of avowing it) may look to this very consummation as the object for which it made the world; desiring nothing so much, as far as regards our planet; nor ever so touched with a likeness of the shadow of grief (if without blame we may imagine Deity or its essence at all), as when, in the sinking of their inefficient hearts, men make a virtue of despair, under the title of resignation, and even calumniate the garden given us to live in, out of a hope, otherwise good, that we may attain to a still better.

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For my part (and much thought and experience, both of them forced upon me by circumstances, must be my warrant for speaking of myself at all, and running a farewell to a trifling paper into such large speculations as these) I cannot help thinking, among other guesses, that something divine in the universe is constantly urging the mind of man to come to this better condition; and I am certain, that endeavour is good at all events, and that we can only lose in every way by the rust of a sordid acquiescence. The mystery why there should be evil at all, ought to be no more hindrance to us in our attempts to do it away, than the waggoner (to compare great things with small) ought to sit wondering at his cart But if I might guess upon

wheel, instead of getting it out of the reasonable pleasure of the fancy:

this point also (and guessing might be a

under any circumstances) I should that at any rate evil need not be so universal or so constant as we are apt to conceive it; and and that a deluge, or some such catastrophe as appears occasionally to happen, may, in good physical probability, wipe out the knowledge and greater happiness existing on our planet, so as to force it to begin all over again, and acquire experience as it is now acquiring. This may happen so seldom, that the world, instead of "the vale of tears" we are accustomed to suppose it, may roll and bask through the sky, for myriads of ages, in a state of good, worthy of its beauty; and probably all the other planets are for ever in this state, agreeably to their beauty also, and to what we conceive the nobleness and benignity of nature, except when those momentary evils, great in the particular moment, but little or nothing in the accumulation of time, may seem to render it the melancholy riddle, which we, who live in that nonage of its renewal, are so apt in our weak presumption to pronounce " it evere has been, and ever will be;"-words, unfit for a mortal tongue, 2 og puɛ In taking my leave, and repeating my thanks to all such of my readers as have encouraged me privately or in public (and I have received but two hostile letters in the course of the work, and those were anonymous, and unworthy of notice) I cannot but express my particular sense of the article alluded to the other day, which appeared in the Glasgow Free Press. It 66 my sincerity" as the point on which I had most reason to pride myself (which undoubtedly it is, if I have any at all); and the writer said,-with a justice which I hardly expected to have been done me, at least not in so many words, and at this time of my life, that he had no, doubt I should hail any system of good with delight, let it differ as it might with my own preconceptions. Such acknowledgments, would be well pur

mentioned

chased by many more years of suffering than have fallen to my lot. I cannot quote his words, or my pride would certainly do it; for a friend carried the paper with him afar off, and I had not Fortunatus's Cap to get another in Glasgow. Would that I had Fortunatus's purse for a season; I would lend it the writer to be generous with; and he should fill Scotland with believers in good like himself!

LEIGH HUNT.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

It would be difficult to say, whether F. B. will turn out "a poet" in his own sense of the word, or not. He has enthusiasm, and evidently talents of no common order for one of his age; and he can recognize, at all events, true poetry in another, or he would not be such an admirer of Mr Keats. His sonnets also are very "clever;" but if his poetry is all of the same cast, there may be a doubt, at present, whether with a good deal of strength of desire, and occasional felicity of expression, there is not a little too much vehemence and restlessness, compared with the more powerful requisite of a tranquil, pervading, and conscious truth of sentiment. The doubt which he feels in the very midst of his own determination to proceed, is against him. Mr Keats neither felt any such doubts, nor excited them. If I were F. B. (and knew as much of these things as circumstances have taught me), I would ask myself whether I had a passion for truth in general; and whether I felt the poetry of the heart as well as the imagination, or what is understood by that term;-Romeo and Juliet as well as the Tempest; Mr Keats's Ruth (in the Ode to the Nightingale) as well as the lofty imagery of Hyperion. He will turn out no vulgar person at all events, if he be " a true man ;" and will pardon us, whatever sort of celebrity he may come to, for the sincerity of this reply. At all events, we would not have him depend for his life upon poetry, poet or not.

To our Correspondents J. M. C., J. F., S. G., S. C. B., Gilbertus, Anacreon, Lionel (who likes our verses) and M. (who does not, but who makes a salvo in favour of our prose), we can only say, in this our last number, that we are sorry to take leave of them. If Lionel will send to York street this day fortnight we will see if we cannot find him a specimen of Mr Keats's or Shelley's MS., perhaps both. J.M.C. is informed that the "writing" alluded to in our last, is a book, and not periodical writing. We regret being compelled to leave one part of our Companion unfinished; namely, the translation of Chapelle's Trip to Languedoc. The work has been mislaid, and we cannot find another copy. But, it enables us, to tell the friend who mislaid it, that anything of ours is at his service, and that we have more pleasure in thus shewing our magnanimity at the loss, than anybody could have had in reading our version.-And so, each and all, GOOD NIGHT.

LONDON:

Published by HUNT and CLARKE, York street, Covent garden; and sold by all Booksellers and Newsvenders in town and country.-Price 4d.

PRINTED BY C. II. REYNELL, BROAD STREET, GOLDEN square.

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