ylor, Hobbes, Sidney,
Shaftesbury, and Locke, were existing in his lifetime; and
several more, who may be compared with the smaller of these.

[15] Chapman's _Homer_, first book.

* * * * *

CALEB STUKELY.

PART XI.

SAINTS AND SINNERS.

The history of my youth is the history of my life. My contemporaries
were setting out on their journey when my pilgrimage was at an end. I
had drained the cup of experience before other men had placed it to
their lips. The vicissitudes of all seasons occurred in one, and, before
my spring had closed, I had felt the winter's gloominess and cold. The
scattered and separated experiences that diversify and mark the passage
of the "threescore years and ten," were collected and thrust into the
narrow period of my nonage. Within that boundary, existence was
condensed. It was the time of action and of suffering. I have passed
from youth to maturity and decline gently and passively; and now, in the
cool and quiet sunset, I repose, connected with the past only by the
adhering memories that will not be excluded from my solitude. I have
gathered upon my head the enduring snow of age; but it has settled there
in its natural course, with no accompaniment of storm and tempest. I
look back to the land over which I have journeyed, and through which I
have been conveyed to my present humble resting-place, and I behold a
broad extent of plain, spreading from my very feet, into the hazy
distance, where all is cloud, mountain, tumult, and agitation. Heaven be
praised, I can look back with gratitude, chastened and informed!

Amongst all the startling and stirring events that crowded into the
small division of time to which I refer, none had so confounded,
perplexed, alarmed, and grieved me, as the discovery of Mr Clayton's
criminality and falsehood. There are mental and moral concussions,
which, like physical shocks, stun and stupify with their suddenness and
violence. This was one of them. Months after I had been satisfied of his
obliquity, it was difficult to _realize_ the conviction that truth and
justice authoritatively demanded. When I thought of the minister--when
his form presented itself to my mind's eye, as it did, day after day,
and hour after hour, it was impossible to contemplate it with the
aversion and distaste which were the natural productions of his own base
conduct. I could see nothing but the figure and the lineaments of him,
w