Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 | Page 3

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she could not be wholly innocent of their death, prohibited her from marrying again--which, her addiction to matrimony being considered, was perhaps, of all the 'troubles' she had undergone, by no means the least.
The logical faculty, which not only consists with the poetical, but is invariably and necessarily associated with it, whenever the latter exists in an advanced stage of development, is in no writer more conspicuous as an intellectual characteristic than in Schiller. In this respect he is not excelled even by Wordsworth himself; but Homer sometimes snoozes, and Schiller's reasoning is not always consequential: as, for instance, when he denies two compositions of Ovid--the Tristia and Ex Ponto--to be genuine poetry, on the ground that they were the results not of inspiration, but of necessity; just as if poetry were not a thing to be judged of by itself; and as if one could not determine whether it were present or absent in a composition, without knowing to what influences the author was subjected at the time the composition was produced!
Rousseau, in one of his moods of bilious cynicism, falls foul of human reason altogether. No man despised it more in action; no one could more consistently decry it in speculation. In his opinion, the exercise of the reasoning powers is absolutely sinful--l'homme qui raisonne est l'homme qui p��che. Franklin, on the other hand, in a familiar tone of playful banter, vindicates its utility, alleging that it is mightily 'convenient to be a rational animal, who knows how to find or invent a plausible pretext for whatever it has an inclination to do.' Examples of this convenience abound. The Barbary Jews were rich and industrious, and, accordingly, their wealth provoke the cupidity of the indolent and avaricious Mussulmans. These latter, whenever a long drought had destroyed vegetation, and the strenuous prayers offered up in the mosques had proved unavailing for its removal, were accustomed to argue--and a mighty convenient argument it was--that it was the foul breath of the Jews that had offended Heaven, and rendered the pious petitions of the faithful of none effect. The remedy for the drought, then, who could doubt? The true believers drove the Jews out of their cities, and quietly confiscated their goods. Dryden, anxious to congratulate Charles II. on his 'happy restoration,' amidst a thousand fulsome compliments--all tending to shew that that prince was the author of blessings, not only to his own kingdoms, but to universal humanity--declares, that it was to Charles, and to him only, Spain was indebted for her magnificent colonial possessions in either hemisphere. Addressing the sovereign, his words are--
'Spain to your gift alone her Indies owes, For what the powerful takes not, he bestows.'
A convenient fashion of reasoning truly: as convenient every whit as that of Daniel Burgess, a witty Presbyterian minister, devoted to the House of Brunswick and the principles of the Revolution, who was wont to affirm, as the reason the descendants of Jacob were called Israelites, and did not receive the original name of their progenitor, that Heaven was unwilling they should bear a name in every way so odious as that of Jacobites.
Once more: it appears from Dr Tschudi's valuable and interesting work on South America, that in Peru rice is cheap, and servants both lazy and dirty. Now, the servants in Lima have a theory about rice. They consider it possesses certain qualities antagonistic to water, so that, after eating, to touch water would be seriously injurious to health; and thus does their frequent consumption of rice supply them with a most convenient reason or excuse for their habitual abstinence from an operation they detest--that of washing their hands.
Verily, they are mighty fine and convenient words, THEREFORE and BECAUSE.

DAVID'S LAST PICTURE.
The whole population of the good city of Brussels was in a state of excitement. Talma, the great French tragedian, was that evening to close his engagement by appearing in his favourite character of Leonidas; and from an early hour in the morning, the doors of the theatre were beset with waiting crowds, extending to the very end of the large square in which it stood. It was evident that the building, spacious as it was, could not contain one-half of the eager expectants already assembled, and yet every moment brought a fresh accession to the number destined to be disappointed. The hero of this ovation, and the object of all this unusual excitement to the worthy and naturally phlegmatic beer-drinkers of old Brabant, was standing near a window in the White Cross Hotel, engaged most prosaically in shaving himself; and, from time to time, casting on the crowd, to which he was the magnet of attraction, the careless glance of a monarch become from habit almost insensible to the loyal enthusiasm of his subjects.
'So he will not come?' said the
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