ovement of the world has appeared to
be a mere speculation, altogether inapplicable in practice; and as
dangerous to weak heads and heated imaginations as it is congenial to
benevolent hearts. Perhaps that improvement is neither so general nor so
certain as you suppose. Perhaps, even in this country there may be more
knowledge than there was in former times and less wisdom, more wealth and
less happiness, more display and less virtue. This must be the subject
of future conversation. I will only remind you now, that the French had
persuaded themselves this was the most enlightened age of the world, and
they the most enlightened people in it--the politest, the most amiable,
and the most humane of nations--and that a new era of philosophy,
philanthropy, and peace, was about to commence under their auspices, when
they were upon the eve of a revolution which, for its complicated
monstrosities, absurdities, and horrors, is more disgraceful to human
nature than any other series of events in history. Chew the cud upon
this, and farewell

COLLOQUY III.--THE DRUIDICAL STONES.--VISITATIONS OF PESTILENCE.

Inclination would lead me to hibernate during half the year in this
uncomfortable climate of Great Britain, where few men who have tasted the
enjoyments of a better would willingly take up their abode, if it were
not for the habits, and still more for the ties and duties which root us
to our native soil. I envy the Turks for their sedentary constitutions,
which seem no more to require exercise than an oyster does or a toad in a
stone. In this respect, I am by disposition as true a Turk as the Grand
Seignior himself; and approach much nearer to one in the habit of
inaction than any person of my acquaintance. Willing however, as I
should be to believe, that anything which is habitually necessary for a
sound body, would be unerringly indicated by an habitual disposition for
it, and that if exercise were as needful as food for the preservation of
the animal economy, the desire of motion would recur not less regularly
than hunger and thirst, it is a theory which will not bear the test; and
this I know by experience.

On a grey sober day, therefore, and in a tone of mind quite accordant
with the season, I went out unwillingly to take the air, though if taking
physic would have answered the same purpose, the dose would have been
preferred as the shortest, and for that reason the least unpleasant
remedy. Even on such o