The history of superstition is yet to be written. In the hands of a man of ability and virtue, it might form one of the noblest contributions to moral knowledge. The deep and subtle seizure of the weaknesses of the human mind by religious corruption, in every age; its solemn and mystic profligacy in the east; its festive, elegant, and poetic licentiousness in Greece; and its graver pomp, yet not less prodigal vice, in the more imperial temperament of pagan Rome,-would form a succession of the most powerful, and instructive picturings ever held up as a warning to human error. But a new creation must be thrown on the canvass, in the ages which follow the fall of paganism. The figures of the procession of Evil must be of a bolder, darker, and more unearthly aspect. Persecution, implacable hostility, frenzied zeal, and malignant avarice of power, must precede and follow the car of superstition. The grace and beauty of the ancient festivals must be abandoned for the sullen displays of popular rage and inquisitorial virulence the light must be from the torch that laid waste the lands of the unfortunate refugee, or from the flame which consumed the martyr; the dungeon and the scaffold must be perpetually before the eye. The historian would find the subtlety of this strong temptation still assuming new shapes, according to the character of the nations which it was to deceive. Its steps through our

own annals are still traceable by the ruins of a dynasty, and the blood of civil war. Assailing the vulnerable point of England, in the full triumph of the Reformation, by an unhallowed zeal, a passionate hypocrisy, and a worldly self-denial; it loaded the popular mind with a weight of religious severities, under which it was sure to break down, and equally sure, in the effort of recovery, to fling off all religion. We have lived to see another shape of the tempter:-the spirit of evil, no longer crouching, like Satan at the ear of Eve, and bewildering the national heart with the dreams of enthusiasm, but starting up in its own proper shape, "a giant armed,"―atheism and revolution proclaiming defiance to earth and heaven, threatening overthrow to the frame of nations, and finally repelled, less by the power of human resistance, than by the almost visible interposition of heaven. In what remaining form of still more startling hostility it may yet try the strength of Europe, and from Europe, spread over all nations and involve mankind, must be told by posterity. But we have the clearest evidence from human nature, and the strongest declarations from a higher authority than human experience, that it shall yet spring up from its temporary dungeon, and ride in the last tempest of the passions of man.

Butler's promotion to the see of Durham had placed him in the enjoyment of all that his bene

volence had so long wished, and more than his ambition had ever desired. He could now give way to his charity; and it seems probable that the greater part of his income was thus employed. He had always been remarkable for liberality in the dispensation of his means; the most obvious and pressing exercise of the public virtues of a Christian. He was a warm and steady friend to the poor. But his well-regulated mind also acknowledged the fitness of sustaining the rank in which he was placed; and his residence at Durham was distinguished for the stately hospitality suitable to the see. Like his patron, bishop Talbot, he received the nobility and chief gentry of the north at his palace three times a week, during a considerable portion of the year; and entertained them as became their prelate and friend. The general narrowness of ecclesiastical incomes in our day precludes this graceful and kindly interchange of hospitalities, and by condemning the superior clergy to seclusion, nearly as much as the inferior to a perpetual struggle with circumstances, forms one of the most serious impediments to that friendliness, and frequency of connexion, which would at once strengthen the church, and spread religious intelligence among the people. But the munificent spirit of this distinguished person extended itself to every object. While at Bristol he contributed four thousand pounds to the repairs of the palace;

a sum greater than his entire receipts from the bishopric. He also subscribed to infirmaries and hospitals in remote parts of the kingdom; and generously attended to the personal difficulties of his clergy. But the diocess was not long to possess its eminent prelate. His constitution, enfeebled by unremitting study, began to fail, soon after his arrival at Durham. As his weakness increased, he was induced to try the Bristol waters, then in high reputation. But he was evidently dying; and was finally removed to Bath, where he expired, June 16, 1752.

As it was not the practice of the time to record much of the striking observations, or peculiar habits, of remarkable men, we have but few records of the private hours of Bishop Butler. We may justly regret this omission, as a signal loss to the general treasures of profound and vigorous thought in the world. A mind of such original power, so entirely loose from the fetters of authority, and so constantly employed on objects of the highest interest, must have teemed with maxims of truth and wisdom.

Notwithstanding the secluded nature of his life, Butler's writings prove that he had acquired much knowledge of things that lie beyond the study: his remarks on the natural action of the mind are often singularly familiar; and

though at the head of subtle disquisition in this country, and gifted with the keenest qualities of the metaphysician, no man's understanding was less wedded to the habitual abstractions, or obscured by the favourite perplexities, of the metaphysician. The chief fault of his work arises from the direct contrary of this love for the obscure. He labours for simplicity; he embarrasses by his eagerness for explanation; he tries so many ways of conducting to his meaning, that the reader is bewildered among them; where some darkness must be left, by the nature of things, he confuses by an effort to cover all with sunshine. Still he has given the world a volume which had the rare fortune of establishing itself in the highest philosophical rank of its day; and of reaching ours without a decrease of its honours. The usual fate of philosophical speculation is, to vanish in the increased light of posterity, or if its material be solid, to be overwhelmed and lost under the accumulation of its improvements; the original altar is hidden in the multitude and richness of its offerings. But to the Analogy little has been added by succeeding science, and nothing has been attempted, equal to supersede its utility. Improvements might obviously be made in condensing its arguments, clearing its language, and reducing its illustrations within simpler forms; and those might authorize