d now that erudition is a jest, ancient learning an
exploded chimera, and elaborated eloquence known chiefly by
recollection, the ample gazette runs its daily career, and heralds, in
ephemeral language, the deeds of the passing hours. The age of
accumulated learning is past, and every thing is carried along the
rushing current of public economy, or of private business.--Life is
divided between excited passions and morbid apathy.

And is this current so strong, that it cannot be resisted? Are we borne
without hope of rest upon the ebbing tide? Can we never separate
ourselves from the theory, and with the coolness of an observer, watch
the various emotions, motives, and passions by which the human world is
moulded and swayed? Can we not trace the influence of the changes and
chances of this mortal state on the character and minds of mortal men?

Life is a pursuit. The moralists, who utter their heathenish oracles in
the commonplace complaints of a heathenish discontent, tell us, that we
are born but to pursue, and pursue but to be deceived. They say, that
man in his career after earthly honours, is like the child that chases
the gaudy insect; the pursuit idle; the object worthless. They tell us,
that it is but a deceitful though a deceptive star, which beams from the
summit of the distant hill; advance, and its light recedes; ascend, and
a higher hill is seen beyond, and a wider space is yet to be traversed.
And they tell us, that this is vanity; this the worthlessness of human
desire; this the misery and desolation of the human heart. But how
little do they know of the throbbings of that heart! How poorly have
they studied the secrets of the human breast! How imperfectly do they
understand the feebleness and the strength of man's fortitude and will!
If the bright object still gleams in the horizon, if the brilliancy of
glory is still spread on the remotest hill, if the distant sky is still
invested with the delicate hues of promise, and the gentle radiance of
hope, pursuit remains a pleasure; and the pilgrim, ever light-hearted,
passes heedlessly over the barren wastes, and climbs with cheerful
ardour each rugged mountain. But suppose that brilliant star to be
blotted out of the sky; suppose the lustre of the horizon to have faded
into the dank and gloomy shades of a cloudy evening; suppose the pursuit
to be now without an object, and the blood which hope had sent merrily
through the veins, to gather and curdle round the