or a share in a close borough, as this sort of plenary indulgence to speak and think with contempt of those who would abolish the one, or throw open the other. Party-spirit is the best reason in the world for personal antipathy and vulgar abuse. 'But, do you not think, Sir' (some dialectician may ask), 'that belief is involuntary, and that we judge in all cases according to the precise degree of evidence and the positive facts before us?' No, Sir. 'You believe, then, in the doctrine of philosophical free-will?' Indeed, Sir, I do not. 'How then, Sir, am I to understand so unaccountable a diversity of opinion from the most approved writers on the philosophy of the human mind?' May I ask, my dear Sir, did you ever read Mr. Wordsworth's poem of _Michael_? 'I cannot charge my memory with the fact.' Well, Sir, this Michael is an old shepherd, who has a son who goes to sea, and who turns out a great reprobate, by all the accounts received of him. Before he went, however, the father took the boy with him into a mountain-glen, and made him lay the first stone of a sheep-fold, which was to be a covenant and a remembrance between them if anything ill happened. For years after, the old man used to go and work at the sheep-fold-- 'Among the rocks He went, and still look'd up upon the sun, And listen'd to the wind,' and sat by the half-finished work, expecting the lad's return, or hoping to hear some better tidings of him. Was this hope founded on reason--or was it not owing to the strength of affection, which in spite of everything could not relinquish its hold of a favourite object, indeed the only one that bound it to existence?