370 HENRY KIRKE WHITE S REMAINS. 



then died of a broken heart. His affairs soon wound 

 themselves up. His debts were enormous, and he had no- 

 thing to pay them with. He has now been in that prison 

 for many years, and since he is excluded from the bene- 

 fit of an insolvency act, he has made up his mind to the 

 idea of ending his days there. His wife, whose beauty 

 had decoyed him, since she found he could not support 

 her, deserted him for those who could, leaving him with- 

 out friend or companion, to pace, with measured steps, 

 over the court of a country jail, and endeavour to beguile 

 the lassitude of imprisonment, by thinking on the days 

 that are gone, or counting the squares in his grated win- 

 dow in every possible direction, backwards, forwards, 

 and across, till he sighs to find the sura always the same, 

 and that the more anxiously we strive to beguile the 

 moments in their course the more sluggishly they travel. 



If these are accurate pictures of some of the varieties 

 of human suffering, and if such pictures are common even 

 to triteness, what conclusions must we draw as to the con- 

 dition of man in general, and what must be the prevail- 

 ing frame of mind of him who meditates much on these 

 subjects, and who, unbracing the whole tissue of causes 

 and effects, sees Misery invariably the offspring of Vice, 

 and Vice existing in hostility to the intentions and 

 wishes of God ? Let the mef^itative man turn where 

 he will, he finds traces of the depraved state of nature, 

 and her consequent misery. History presents him with 

 little but murder, treacherj^, and crime of every descrip- 

 tion. Biography only strengthens the view, by concen- 

 trating it. The philosophers remind him of the existence 

 of evil, by their lessons how to avoid or endure it ; and 

 the very poets themselve-s afford him pleasure, not uncon- 

 nected with regret, as either by contrast, exemplification, 

 or deduction, they bring the world and its circumstances 

 before his eyes. 



That such an one, then, is prone to sadness, who will 

 wonder ? If such meditations are beneficial, who will 

 blame them ? The discovery of evil naturally leads us 

 to contribute our mite towards the alleviation of the 

 wretchedness it introduces. While we lament vice, we 



