h which,
and an admirable dissertation on the authority of reason, the volume
terminates. These chapters yield to none in this admirable work for
utility and importance; there are three subjects on which the influence of
frivolity, baneful as it always is, is most peculiarly dangerous and
destructive--education, politics, and religion. On all these great points,
inseparably connected as they are with human happiness and virtue, the
frivolity of women may give a bias to the character of the individual,
which will be traced in his career to the last moment of his existence.
The author well observes that frivolity and ignorance, rather than
deliberate guilt, are the causes of political error and tergiversation. If
there are few persons ready to devote themselves to the good of their
species, and carrying their attention beyond kindred and acquaintance, to
comprise the most distant posterity and regions the most remote within the
scope of their benevolence; so there are few of those monsters in
selfishness, who would pursue their own petty interests when the happiness
of millions is an obstacle to its gratification; but as a leaf before the
eye will hide a universe, self-love limits the intellectual horizon to a
compass inconceivably narrow; and the prosperity of nations, when placed
in the balance with a riband or a pension, has too often kicked the beam.
Professional business, and the love of detail, which is so deeply rooted
in most English natures, tends also to contract the thoughts, to erect a
false standard of merit, and to fill the mind with petty objects. As an
instance of this, it may be remarked that Lord Somers is the only great
man who, in England, has ever filled a judicial situation. So wide is the
difference between present success and future reputation--so weak on all
sides but one, are those who have limited themselves to one side only--so
technical and engrossing are the avocations of an English lawyer. The
best, if not the only remedy for this evil, is, in the words of our
author, the "study of well-chosen books."

"Life must often consist of acts or concerns which, taken
individually, are trivial; but the speculations of great minds
relate to important objects. By their eloquence they draw forth
the best emotions of which we are capable, they fill our minds
with the knowledge of great and general truths, which, if they
relate to the works of creation, exalt our nature and almost g