he sacrificed to freedom, when he only worshipped
fortune. He went through the world, familiar with the ways of princes
and peers, priests and peasants, travelling in many lands, exhausting
the resources of art and learning, seeing through the sins and shams and
sorrows of life, and laughing at everything, like a good-natured,
large-hearted Mephistopheles. But he had never learned the true
philosophy of joyousness in the sincere love of nature, the deep phases
of humanity, and the affluence and purity of strong affection.

Nor do we find a better specimen in the renowned English humorists,
Sterne and Swift. The former closely follows his French prototype in
grotesque fancies: he abounds in tender and delicate pathos, though in
the highest degree artificial and forced; but do we ever arise from
reading him, like a giant refreshed by wine? Sterne, in fact, has even
less of the true philosophy of life than Rabelais. He affords no
stimulant to joyous, healthy action, awakens no impulse to gladden life,
or to make sorrow less and hope greater. It may be all very touching,
very comic, very ingenious, but it is not healthy or joyous. And Swift?
An immense fund of laughter, doubtless, had the witty Irish dean; but as
little claim to be a joyous writer as the prophet Jeremiah, or the
author of 'Groans from the Bottomless Pit.' The men who have been spoken
of dealt largely in satire and humor; but joyousness deals in infinitely
more. Mirth and laughter are all very well, but they are not all in all.
Cheerfulness requires something more than a well-balanced Rabelaisian
nonchalance in adversity and a keen relish for all pleasure.

The relation of Christianity to the theme of the volume presents a
delicate, and, it may be thought, a dangerous topic of discussion, for a
so decidedly secular pen as Mr. Leland's; but he touches upon it with
freedom and boldness, though with frankest sympathy and reverence for
the great Spirit, whose religion is the most significant fact in the
history of the world. 'I must confess,' says he, 'that even regarded
from a material and historical point alone, that is a poor, cowardly
soul, which does not feel the deepest earnestness of truth in
acknowledging the Wonderful One, Jesus Christ, as the Lord and Saviour
of the whole world.' His sublime soul, profound, universal, loving
beyond all power of human conception, introduced a new era for humanity.
Under his teaching, philosophy became indeed truly divi