which have wrought extensive changes, that were not first disregarded, perhaps derided or persecuted. This first beginning requires courage, but it is one of the noblest kinds of courage. It was necessary that Beccaria or some one, whoever he might have been, should make a beginning in showing the inexpediency and cruelty of most penal systems, before ultimately the great reform of punishments could take place, which we happily see realized in our times; Salmasius or Filmer must first boldly write against witch trials, before the truth can be widely acknowledged, and positive legislation finally set its seal upon it under the dictates of public opinion. How long was it that Soto (4), the confessor of Charles V, wrote against the trade in Africans, before Virginia prohibited it in 1778, the United States abolished it in the constitution of 1787, and England followed the movement in 1807 (5), after a parliamentary struggle of twenty years. Of whatever party the reader may be, he will agree that the emancipation of the catholics is greatly owing to Mr. O'Connell's perseverance, not to the power or influence which he originally possessed, either by riches or rank, but which he acquired by near thirty years' unabated exertion. This he calls himself in one of his speeches, the great secret of his power. Whether he wields this power at present for the weal or woe of Ireland, this is not the place to inquire; all we have to consider is his immense influence, and that he acquired it by singleness of purpose and unremitted perseverance, which must frequently have been seconded by circumstances in which case it proves indeed the value of perseverance-but also frequently have found obstacles in them. Those who ascribe O'Connell's power to the mere lawless spirit of a demagogue and servile followers, take an erroneous view of history. It is his perseverance, in union with his talent, applied to the peculiar circumstances, offered by his country, which give him this uncommon power, "in a shape and magnitude such as history never yet beheld." (6)

Fifthly and lastly, a trifle decides in struggles between nearly even powers, and therefore in the hardest struggles; but to reduce the struggle to this ultimate apparent trifle, requires the utmost perseverance and fortitude. An adage says, a feather may break a camel's back, but it requires all the previous heavy load to enable a feather to exercise such a power. The hold* ing out of a fortress but one day longer may change the aspect of a whole war, may rescue a country, decide the victory, but that this one day, this one last effort can be so decisive, it is necessary that the besieged should have been proof against all misery and sufferance. However gloomy the horizon in politics or war may be, however oppressed a good citizen may feel, this one fact is certain, hopeless despair makes it still worse. It is in times of calamity that perseverance rises to fortitude and shows man's moral power in the noblest light. If the best cause is oppressed, fret not, but wait for the due season, and prepare thyself patiently and perseveringly for it. Fabius and Washington despaired not, however dark and lowering the clouds were often around them. It is in times of war that frequently all depends upon this fortitude. A defeat, without this quality in the commander or the men, may be irreparable; but unbroken fortitude may turn a defeat even to a greater loss to the enemy than to ourselves, if we fight for our country and he for a cause which does not furnish him with this inexhaustible moral source. Had Londonderry not held out so perseveringly in 1700, William's conquest of Ireland could by no means have been so rapid; nor could his great ancestor, William the Silent, have wrested the Netherlands from Spanish tyranny and fanaticism, with all his own fortitude and elevation of mind, had not the citizens shown almost superhuman perseverance, when many months besieged in Leyden, Ostend, Breda, Franecker, reduced to the utmost misery, so that when at length the hour of delivery arrived, they appeared "rather like barely breathing skeletons than living beings." Palafox, and the memorable defence of Saragoza, ought not to be forgotten here. (7)

(1) Quando non potest id fieri, quod vis, id velis, quod possit. Andriæ ii, 1, 5.

(2) A sonnet of Leonardo's begins:

Chi non può quel che vuol, quel che può voglia,
Che quel che non si può folle è volere :

Adunque saggio è l'huomo da tenere
Che da quel che non può suo voler toglia.

(3) The Institutes of Timour, transl. by Major Davy, Oxon. 1789, p. 157.

In Fraser's Persia, 15 vol. of the Edinb. Cabinet Library, p. 229, the following anecdote is related of Timur, but I am unable to find it in the above translation of the Institutes, or the previously quoted translation of his own Memoirs:

" I once," says Timür himself in his Institutes, " was forced to take shelter from my enemies in a ruined building, where I sat alone for many hours. To divert my mind from my hopeless condition, I fixed my observation upon an ant, that was carrying a grain of corn larger than itself up a high wall. I numbered the efforts it made to accomplish this object; the grain fell sixty-nine times to the ground, but the insect persevered, and the seventieth time it reached the top of the wall. The sight gave me courage at the moment, and I never forgot the lesson it conveyed." A similar incident inspired Robert Bruce, the restorer of the Scottish monarchy, with courage to persevere in his undertaking; mentioned, for instance, in Scott's Tales of my Grandfather. These accounts, true or not, and there is no reason why they should not be true, though there is none either, why they may not be rather the expression of the views entertained of these personages in after times, show, nevertheless, a sound moral in an impressive style, and in the whole sphere of practical morals it is salutary, if we can compress a great truth into the narrow compass of one impressive image, or fact, which in times of extremity, depression or excitement, when the state of our mind is unfit to reason, presents itself to our soul like a symbol of this truth, and is apt to remind us suddenly of the result of our reflections in calmer hours. Anecdotes of this sort, therefore, are well worth remembering; but whether we endeavor to impress our mind with a summing up of this great virtue in the moral of plain yet pointed fable, or an anecdote, or the name of a man who has practised it well-a Fulton, Isaac Newton or Coligny-it is all-important to stamp this virtue deeply on the mind in earliest years.

(4) Soto de Justitia et Jure. - See Mackintosh, General View of the Progress of Ethical Philosophy. Section iii.

(5) The American laws of March 22, 1794; April 7, 1798; Feb. 28, 1803; March 2, 1807; March 3, 1819 and some others, have reference to this subject, and make negro-trading from Africa piracy. There exists a very complete work on the history of the Negro Trade and the long struggle to abolish it, by Albert Hüne : Complete History of all the Changes of the Trade in Negroes from its Origin to its entire Abolition. Göttingen, 1820, 2 vols.

(6) Raumer, England in 1835, transl. from the German. Letter vi.

(7) Napier, Hist. of Peninsular War, book v: also Southey, Hist. Penins. War.

XV. Single instances of fortitude have indeed produced great effects, upon those who were witnesses as well as upon after generations. In the beginning of the seventeenth year the Dutch and English were at war,

the factory of Jacatra, on the Island of Java, was besieged by the natives by land, and by the English by sea. The commander's name was Broek. After some parleys, the besieging sultan induced the Dutch commander to come into his camp, in order to settle further some points. Broek went, but was put in chains. He was ill-treated and led with a rope round his neck to the walls, that he might call upon his countrymen to surrender, if they would save him from execution. Broek, thus placed before his countrymen, entreated them not to betray their duty, and to hold out, whatever should become of him. It is easy to imagine what the effect of his heroism was.

Yet it is necessary that all be firm, if there is any thing great to be attained, for without firmness there is no unity, and without unity no effect can be produced, neither in peace nor in war. "For where a people honor themselves, more men will stand than fall." (1)

There are in all communities people of a naturally gloomy and desponding disposition (2); if they are roused by alarm, or if originally they unite to a want of firmness of nerve and mind a fretful forwardness, a combination of character which constitutes the alarmist, they become very dangerous: for on the one hand their excitement does not allow them to seize upon those means which are left, but which calmness only can discern; on the other hand they destroy order and concert, magnify the evil by mutual repetition and intimidate the wavering; while it is they likewise who see a ground for suspicion in every accidental occurrence. Most people who have been shipwrecked are well acquainted with the true and dangerous character of alarmists, and their helplessness at those moments which require the greatest