the possibility that the reduction of the sands of the sea to number should be found a less stupendous problem by Archimedes than the simple conception of the Parmenidean ONE. What, however, is achievable by the human understanding without this light may be comprised in the epithet κενόσπουδοι and _a melancholy comment on that phrase would the history of the human Cabinets and Legislatures for the last thirty years furnish_! The excellent Barrow, the last of the disciples of Plato and Archimedes among our modern mathematicians, shall give the description and state the value; and, in his words, I shall conclude:— ‘_Aliud agere, to be impertinently busy, doing that which conduceth to no good purpose, is, in some respect, worse than to do nothing. Of such industry we may understand that of the Preacher, “The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them.”_’ A better conclusion could not be found for this Lay-Sermon: for greater nonsense the author could not write, even though he were inspired expressly for the purpose. MR. COLERIDGE’S LAY-SERMON TO THE EDITOR OF THE EXAMINER _Jan. 12, 1817._ Sir, Your last Sunday’s ‘Literary Notice’ has given me some uneasiness on two points. It was in January, 1798, just 19 years ago, that I got up one morning before day-light to walk 10 miles in the mud, and went to hear a poet and a philosopher preach. It was the author of the ‘Lay-Sermon.’ Never, Sir, the longest day I have to live, shall I have such another walk as this cold, raw, comfortless one in the winter of the year 1798. Mr. Examiner, _Il y a des impressions que ni le tems ni les circonstances peuvent effacer. Dusse-je vivre des siècles entiers, le doux tems de ma jeunesse ne peut renaître pour moi, ni s’effacer jamais dans ma mémoire._ When I got there, Sir, the organ was playing the 100th psalm, and when it was done, Mr. C. rose and gave out his text, ‘And he went up into the mountain to pray, HIMSELF, ALONE. As he gave out this text, his voice ‘rose like a steam of rich distill’d perfumes,’ and when he came to the last two words, which he pronounced loud, deep, and distinct, it seemed to me, Sir, who was then young, as if the sounds had echoed from the bottom of the human heart, and as if that prayer might have floated in solemn silence through the universe. The idea of St. John came into my mind, ‘of one crying in the wilderness, who had his loins girt about, and whose food was locusts and wild honey.’ The preacher then launched into his subject, like an eagle dallying with the wind. _That_ sermon, like _this_ Sermon, was upon peace and war; upon church and state—not their alliance, but their separation—on the spirit of the world and the spirit of Christianity, not as the same, but as opposed to one another. He talked of those who had ‘inscribed the cross of Christ on banners dripping with human gore.’ He made a poetical and pastoral