ought to command, but it may be made to obey truth if properly held out before it. Criticism it needs but it will bear it; that which fritters away the trash of weak intellects furnishes the pure metal of genius.

Such is our idea of a Critic--his character and position. He stands at the focus of human life. The whole world is reflected to him in the enraptured strains of the poet. Do the human passions rage? He sees them pictured on the historic and dramatic scroll; and while he thus contemplates objects as they exist in the grasp of the soul, he is admitted to a close intercourse with the soul itself, and finds a communion more spiritual than he "who holds communion with the visible forms" of Nature.

L. S. P.

A Fragment.

I sat me down upon the rugged shore
And cast my eyes abroad upon the deep,
Where awful billows roll'd in mountain height,
And deaf'ning surge like fiercest thunder roar'd.
Above, there was no light, save now and then
A star blown by the raging storm look'd out
Upon a beach all strewn with human forms,
And splinter'd fragments of our mighty ship.
I was alone, for not one soul remain'd,
Of all that throng which when the sun arose
Upon the deep, had found as joyous e'en,
As on a May-day festival. The sky
In azure beauty smil'd, and to the view

Was pictur'd in the glassy-wave, and as

We cleav'd the waters of the deep, each heart

With thoughts of peaceful home was fill'd. But soon
The low'ring clouds which grimly rais'd their heads
Above the faint line where sea and heav'n meet,
Too plainly told that ere the midnight guard
Should pace the deck as sentinels of night,
The sharks would hover in our wake, to seize
The victims of the storm. As day advanced

Our
sails were swollen with the coming blasts,
And hope induc'd us to believe that soon
The rocky reefs we'd pass, and safely reach
The welcome harbor then not distant far.
But Hope as ever with delusions fraught,

Inspir'd our souls with expectations false,
And in the twinkling of an eye we saw
How vain our works, how surely doom'd we were;
For soon the Captain's voice above the storm
In hoarser accents to the crew we heard ;
"The topsails reef, my brave and gallant tars,"
He cried aloud. But ere the sails were furl'd,
Squall after squall harrass'd our bark, and masts
Sway'd by the storm were christen'd in the deep.
The timbers strain'd, the females shriek'd; and Oh!
As night came on and found us still adrift,
Upon the dark and dang'rous deep, and toss'd
'Midst reefs in Stygian gloom, methought
Another day in brightness would not dawn
Upon the once fleet bark and happy souls,
Which now the mercy of the tempest crav'd.
I kneel'd me down and pray'd, and as I knelt
Oh! what a crash! my soul! what piercing shrieks
Broke on my ear. Oh how my troubled mind
Shrinks with dismay from contemplation

Of that scene and hour, when more in number
Than the annual list of days which add
Another year unto my age, went down
Into the deep, and 'midst the mingled din,
Of praying voices and the dreadful sound
Of crashing timbers and the thunder's roar,

The dashing, maddening waves clos'd o'er their forms.

How I was sav'd I know not, but methought

Some mighty hand with strength supernal caught

My sinking form and laid me on the beach.

THIS word, so frequent with many, we dare say is seldom comprehended by most. The lexicons define it by synonyms, but behind these is the wide, popular meaning, embracing all the exceptions to the stricter definitions of science. When we say that the term cant is seldom comprehended by most people, we do not mean so much that it is not understood, as that it is vaguely understood, and while people know perfectly well what sort of a thing it is, they do not form any distinct and exclusive notion of it. The tendency of this obscurity in the mind is to call some things cant which are not, and some which are, to pass by as not cant. It is the scope of the present article to draw more distinctly these lines of definition.

Dr. Johnson defines cant to be "the whining pretension to goodness." Probably at that time the term first began to be applied to affected manners, which has grown to be its most general signification. This definition, accordingly seems to be only the nucleus of the wider sense, which we assign to this word at present. But as it is the oldest, so we shall find it to be the most common idea of modern cant. Men attach the reproach of "cant" to Religion and Virtue more frequently than to anything else. But why the phrase became thus provincial, it is easy to conclude, when we reflect how great has been the disbelief in Virtue in a skeptical age. Yet we ascribe this special assault upon what we naturally venerate the most to the venom of the most spiteful hater of his kind; a man whom the father of lies would have delighted to honor throughout time," had not something sealed the lips" of History.

We may define cant in its most extensive acceptation to be the affectation by set phrases of whatever sentiments are virtuous or human. We may individualize it as hollow-heartedness dressed-a cenotaph-clouds without water—a mere phantasm.

According to the observation of every man who will interrogate it, there will now be found to be, in general, two sorts of Cant. There is a certain gross Cant, that which most popularly bears the name, and the subject of Dr. Johnson's definition. This sort is nothing but gaunt Hypocrisy, and is very frequently so called. To this sort we assign the cant of the "Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites," who for a pretence made long prayers. The man of this stamp is regarded as not only morally mean, but foolish, also, and ridiculous. He is compared to the counterfeiter, who prefers endless risk and final inevitable ruin to the safe and honora

ble career of the virtuous money maker. Men laugh at him, when he labors at a vile likeness of what exists, to him, neither in the heavens above, nor in the earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth, and then calls upon them to venerate the golden image which he has set up.

Connected with this topic is a question of use which deserves a passing remark. Many, even some good people, apply the nickname "cant" to the solemn, prolonged, and cantillating tone of some unquestionably pious men. This reproach we doubt not has spoiled the savor of many an excellent exhortation, and doubtless hypocrisy and mannerism have much in common. The injustice however of the name will be apparent upon slight reflection. We abstain within these limits from discussing the proprieties of the case, but to those who apply the reproach with ill-temper, it is often enough to utter the sublime retort of the sacred bard: It is higher than heaven; what canst thou say! deeper than hell; what canst thou know!

But there is also a petty Cant, by far the most common sort, and most unobserved in the commonest cases. Yet a moment's reflection shows every one that it is nothing else than cant. It is very seldom blamed, generally winked at as inseparable from civilized society, universally practised in some of its forms, and even demanded as the Shibboleth of fashion. The sophist uses this sort in his "Fallacy of the Unintelligible," which as a distinguished jurist once expressed it, keeps the sound agoing, when the sense is gone. This is preeminently Cant, which is pure sophistry, and whose very essence is deception. We meet this sort in the opinionated discourse of many of our self-styled connoisseurs. But its most prevalent form seems to be found in the interchange of the common courtesies of life. What we term "compliments" are mere cant; they are proverbially meaningless, and are interchanged with no appreciation of any value. Common salutations degenerate into the same character, so that it is now really quite refreshing to greet a person who seems interested in one's welfare. Why do we relish so much the unpolished cordial courtesy of the rough backwoodsman? Why, again, did the Arab soldier, in the division of the spoil, exclaim to his comrade, "I will give you any quantity of this yellow metal (gold) for a little of the white." Because it is always an exquisite satisfaction to be able to say, "I know whom I have believed."

We have already mentioned facts which show a very curious difference between these two sorts of cant as they are estimated by men. How unanimously do all the world agree to expose gross cant, and to hold it up to scorn! With what contempt, nay, with what rancor, even, do men

assail the uncovered hypocrite! What a triumph for an enemy, what an envenomed weapon it is, to have confuted a man of pious frauds! But here, mark that the cant is all on one side. Now, transferring our glass to the other sort, we find that petty cant, though for the most part perfectly appreciated, is generally uncensured. The whole world now unites. as heartily in the game of duplicity, as it did before to prevent the doubledealing. Their cant, indeed, is not as gross as that other; the parties are yet using only paper wads and pop-guns, but how do we know that they will not presently betake themselves to bombs and Paixhan's? Every one meets the venial insults of his neighbor, yet no one is offended, and it is quite rustic to wear the brow of golden Sincerity. The world seems, indeed, from some impulse of its fantastic fashion, to have reproduced among men and women the old games of boys and girls.

Pueri ludentes, "Rex eris," aiunt.

This one shall profess very friendly sentiments, and that one shall make show of generosity and candor, but it is, of course, all preconcerted and well understood there is naught there but the original "corpus mortis," after all.

A very brief inquiry into the cause of this strange difference leads us to the nature and office of Cant itself. This Cause is involved in what has been premised, and appears to lie, first, in the qualities dissembled, and, second, in the attitudes of the parties, though a necessary fusion of these two elements, seems, in each kind, to take place.

I. We charge the hypocrite with feigning virtue which he does not possess, and, proximately, with claiming merit which is not his own. It is allowable to liken virtue and its accruing merit to a great bank of deposit, wherein all men are shareholders, and from which each man derives a continual interest. He who appropriates by any means a larger than his lawful share, instantly raises the hue and cry against him as a common thief. The voice of universal blame increases as the embezzlement is larger, or as the stock is more valuable, and so the religious hypocrite is more denounced than the simple pretender of morality; here then the different shades blend with each other, and the distinction between the two kinds is less palpable; as in the case of the Sophist mentioned, who untruly claims the qualities of the Good Orator-Integrity and Good-will; or, more nearly, in the case of him who pompously affects to know more than he really does.

II. We have now alleged the first cause to be the idea of the violation (as it were) of the Right of Property. It was possible, however, in ac