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THE 



MIRAGE OF LIFE 




AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK. 



tit 



By Hxcha 
Army And Na 
Anft 13J92I 



"Oh for a heart magnanimous to know 
Thy worth, poor world, and let thee go." 

JANB TAYLOR. 



CONTENTS. 



The Mirage - page 7 

The Man of Fashion 19 

The Man of Wealth 33 

The Hero 51 

The Statesman - 65 

The Orator 81 

The Artist 93 

The Man of Literature 107 

The Poet 119 

The Man of Wit and Humor 135 

The Man of the World 151 

The Beauty 161 

The Monarch 175 

The Living Fountain-.- 189 



Jhe ja 



IRAGS. 



THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 




THE MIRAGE. 

^0 understand the natural object from 
\ wliieli the title of this little volume is 



borrowed, let the reader imagine that, 
after travelling for hours across a trackless 
waste of burning sand, amidst the arid 
deserts of the East, he has, when tormented by 
thirst, made the discovery that his supply of water 
has failed. The last muddy drops are eagerly 
drained, but the sensation of pain is only aggra- 
vated by the effort. Meanwhile, the eyes, the 



10 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

mouth, the ears are gradually filled with the fine 
sand of the desert, until it is felt that a cup of cold 
water from the spring would be cheaply purchased 
by its weight in gold. At this moment, when such 
is the traveller's tortured state of mind and body, 
he suddenly beholds an object w r hich, to his sur- 
prise, has escaped his notice before. In the dis- 
tance is seen a large lake ; its banks are fringed 
with groves of verdant palm; its bosom studded 
with islets of refreshing green, while its water 
seems tenfold more inviting when contrasted with 
the burning solitudes around. Ee-animated by the 
prospect, he presses forward, eager to quench his 
thirst. As he advances, a singular spectacle is 
witnessed, a strange phenomenon arises. The lake 
recedes as he approaches it. Again and again does 
he advance, but again and again does the object 
retire ; until at length, exhausted with fatigue, tor- 
tured by thirst, and overpowered by excitement, 
he sinks in despair on the sand, discovering that 



THE MIRAGE. 11 

all is deception, and that he has been chasing the 
Mirage of the desert. 

This remarkable natural appearance is an opti- 
cal illusion, produced by the reflection of objects 
on the oblique rays of the sun refracted by the air, 
which is rarefied by the heat of the burning soil. 
It is apparently alluded to in the sacred Scriptures 
Isaiah 35:6, 7: "In the wilderness shall waters 
break out, and streams in the desert. And the 
parched ground shall become a pool, and the 
thirsty land springs of water." The word trans- 
lated parched ground is, in the original, of the same 
form as serab, the term which the Arabs in the 
present day employ when speaking of the Mirage.* 

This curious illusion has been frequently wit- 
nessed by modern travellers. "In the distance/' 
says one, "we observed the well-known phenom- 
enon of the Mirage. At one time it appeared to 
be a calm flowing water, reflecting on its unruffled 

* See Gesenius in be. 



12 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

surface the trees growing on its banks ; while some 
object in the background assumed the appearance 
of a splendid residence, amidst a grove of trees. 
At another time there appeared a castle embosomed 
in a forest of palms, with a lake of clear water 
stretched between us and them." 

It is, however, when the traveller, as repre- 
sented above, is tortured by thirst, that the decep- 
tions of the Mirage prove most appalling. A 
remarkable instance of this occurred during the 
passage of the French army across the desert at the 
time of Napoleon's expedition to Egypt. "When 
morning dawned," says the historian who describes 
the scene, "the army found itself traversing bound- 
less plains of sand without water or shade, and 
with a burning sun over their heads. All the wells 
on the road were either filled up or exhausted. 
Hardly a few drops of muddy or brackish water 
were to be found to quench their thirst. In the 
midst of the general depression, a sudden gleam of 



THE MIRAGE. 



13 




hope illuminated the countenances of the soldiers. 
A lake appeared in the wilderness, with villages 



14 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

and palm-trees clearly reflected on its glassy sur- 
face. Instantly the parched troops hastened to the 
enchanted spot, but it receded from their steps ; 
again they pressed on with burning impatience, but 
it for ever fled from their approach ; and they had 
at length the mortification of discovering that they 
had been deceived by the Mirage of the desert." 

Under the general term Mirage are also com- 
prehended various atmospherical illusions of a 
very interesting character. In particular climates, 
at certain seasons of the year, there are seen in 
the ocean and the sky representations of cities, 
groves, mountains, rivers, spacious plains, castles, 
arches, and rows of superb pilasters. Like some 
splendid phantasmagoria, they fill the spectator 
with astonishment and delight, then vanish into 
air, or assume, with the rapidity of a kaleidoscope, 
new combinations, even more astonishing and beau- 
tiful than those which preceded them. Persons 
who have witnessed these phenomena have declared 



THE MIRAGE. 15 

that they would rather have seen them than the 
most magnificent spectacles of art. One writer, 
describing them, states that the sea suddenly assu- 
ming the semblance of a polished mirror, was then 
immediately, as far as the eye could reach, covered 
with a series of graceful arches, forming an appa- 
rently interminable vista. Some English voyagers 
in the Arctic regions were so enraptured with these 
splendid visions, as to term the place where they 
were seen "the enchanted coast. 77 ' : The general 
aspect of the coast, 77 says an eye-witness, " was that 
of an extensive and ancient city, with ruined cas- 
tles, churches, hills surmounted by turrets, battle- 
ments, spires, and pinnacles. Scarcely was one 
particular object sketched than it assumed a differ- 
ent shape. It was now a castle, then a cathedral 
or an obelisk, then, with equal suddenness, it would 
form a bridge, with an arch some miles in extent, 
presenting an appearance of the utmost magnifi- 
cence, but of the most evanescent duration. 77 



16 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

Such, in different aspects, is the mirage of 
nature. With the last-mentioned species of it this 
little work has but a passing connection. Were 
poetical beauty, however, the object of our illustra- 
tion, we might dwell upon it, as under a lively 
emblem portraying the transitoriness of worldly 
things. As fades the Mirage in the sky, so van- 
ishes terrestrial glory, realizing the words of a 
poet — 

''Where is the world in which a man was born ? 
Alas ! where is the world of eight years past ? 
'T was there ; I look — 't is gone ! a globe of glass, . 
Cracked, shivered, vanished, scarcely gazed upon 
Ere a swift change dissolves the glittering mass." 

It is from the Mirage of the desert that we 
propose to illustrate the Mirage of Life. Journey- 
ing like a pilgrim across the wilderness of this 
world, man thirsts for happiness. The Almighty, 
in his word, proclaims himself the living fountain 
at which alone this thirst can be gratified. Despi- 



THE MIRAGE. 17 

sing, however, his gracious invitation, the majority 
of mankind pursue false and illusive streams, which, 
promising as they appear in the distance, prove, 
when approached, deceptive as the Mirage. One 
man is deceived by the Mirage of Pleasure ; an- 
other, by the Mirage of Ambition ; a third, by the 
Mirage of Wealth. As each bubble bursts, a new 
one emerges, until death steps in and dissipates 
the illusion for ever. 

"In vain the erring world inquires 
For some substantial good ; 
"While earth confines their low desires, 
They live on airy food. 

"Illusive dreams of happiness 
Their eager thoughts employ ; 
They wake convinced the boasted bliss 
Was visionary joy." 

Such is the Mirage of Life ; a title which we 
have selected as calculated, under a striking poet- 
ical emblem, to warn all, and especially the young, 
against the allurements of the world. The illus- 

The Mirage of Life. X 



18 



THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 



trations by which we propose to explain it will be 
a series of portraits of men of eminence, in various 
walks of life, who sought their happiness in worldly 
pursuits, without reference to the glory of God. 
Our aim, accordingly, will be to show — in some 
instances from their own words, in others from facts 
more striking than any language — that although 
these individuals drew the highest prizes in the 
lottery of life, yet, in forsaking the fountain of liv- 
ing waters, they failed to gain permanent happi- 
ness, and found their objects of pursuit, when 
grasped, only vanity and vexation of spirit. 




The Man of Fashion. 



THE MAN OF FASHION. 




MIDST the various objects which men 
have pursued in search of happiness the 
^ Mirage of Fashion may be first named. 
In every age, a large portion of mankind 
have fixed their affections on the pleas- 
ures of dress, frivolous amusements, and trifling 
gayety. That man formed with such high capacities 
for moral and intellectual enjoyments, should have 
narrowed his mind to such pursuits, is indeed sur- 
prising : that he should have expected happiness in 
them is still more so. The illusion, it might have 
been supposed, would at once have been detected, 



22 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

and the pursuit abandoned. Experience has shown, 
however, that the numbers are not small of those 
who have deliberately sought to pervert life to 
this end. At this moment there are multitudes 
whose sole aim is to mix in what is termed "good 
society ;" who leave the circle in which Providence 
has fitted them to be useful, and vainly endeavor 
to court the favor of those who secretly despise 
them ; who are the slaves of etiquette ; who dread 
what is vulgar much more than what is sinful, and 
who sacrifice, to the cruel idol of fashion, useful- 
ness, self-respect, and peace. As a terrible warn- 
ing to all such stands forth the career of George 
Brummell, or, The Man of Fashion. 

This remarkable man was born towards the end 
of the last century ; and, at the early age of six- 
teen, received a commission as officer in a regiment 
of hussars, in which his taste for dress found 
ample means of gratification. He may be said to 



24 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

have entered life with the full flowing tide of pros- 
perity. He was the favorite of his brother offi- 
cers. Koyalty itself smiled upon him ; and he soon 
became distinguished for his fashionable manners, 
refinement of taste, a delicate vein of satire, and a 
spirit of affectation blended with quaint humor. At 
the age of twenty-one he succeeded to property of 
the value of £30,000, principally in ready money. 
Being now master of his own time, he resolved to 
devote himself wholly to a life of fashion. Un- 
happy choice! Could any one, with prophetic 
vision, have unrolled the future before him, he 
would have started back from the prospect in 
horror. Fine taste in matters of dress was that for 
which he first labored to be distinguished ; and that 
so successfully, that the tailors of the metropolis 
soon learned to regulate the fashions by his decis- 
ion. The prince regent himself would occasionally 
attend his dressing-room for an hour in the morn- 
ing, to watch the mysterious grace with which he 



THE MAN OF FASHION. 25 

discharged the duties of the toilet. As Watt was 
celebrated in the world of science for the invention 
of the steam-engine, so was Brummell in the world 
of fashion for the invention of starched neckcloths. 
" Call yon this nothing? 7 ' observes a satirical writer ; 
"I have known many a man with £10,000 a year 
who never did any thing half so useful to his fel- 
low-creatures. " 

Brummell was, through his intimacy with the 
prince regent, admitted to the highest circles ot 
the nobility. No party was complete without him ; 
and the morning papers, in giving the details of a 
rout, always placed his name first on the list of 
untitled guests. He became remarkable for his 
pretensions to extraordinary refinement, and his 
freedom from every thing that could be termed 
vulgar. Being asked what was a fair annual allow- 
ance to a young man for clothes, he answered that 
£800 a year might do with strict economy. He 
pretended to be ignorant of the exact geographical 



26 THE MIEAGE OF LIFE. 

position of a place called "The City;" and being 
asked if he was fond of vegetables, answered, after 
a due pause for recollection, that he believed he 
had once eaten a pea. Not contented with being 
admitted to the world of fashion, Brummell aimed 
at being its dictator; and in this he effectually 
succeeded. For years he gave the law to the 
highest fashionable circles. A nobleman would 
think himself honored by having his arm during a 
stroll down St. James' street ; and a duchess would 
tremble at his decision, as what would stamp her 
unfashionable or otherwise. Such was Beau Brum- 
mell in the height of his glory as a man of fashion ; 
the leader of ton, the patron of noblemen, the 
despot of the realms of taste. What a. poor and 
contemptible life! What a waste of existence! 
But was he happy? Ah, no! Proud and vain, he 
imagined that his success would continue unbroken ; 
but he was soon to discover that all was evanescent 
as the Mirage. 



THE MAN OF FASHIOX. 27 

Leaving St. James' street and its fashionable 
idlers, we must now ask our readers to turn their 
attention to a provincial town in France. Who is 
this old man, that, in ragged clothes and with 
tottering steps, walks feebly along the streets sur- 
rounded by children who mock and jeer at him as 
he goes? His face is familiar to us, and his air, 
amidst his wretchedness and poverty, speaks of 
days gone by when better times were his. It is 
Brummell, the man of fashion, fallen from his high 
estate! Embarrassed by his extravagance, he had 
to flee to the continent, where, deserted by hollow 
friends, he fell from one degree of wretchedness to 
another. For a while he pursued, on a diminished 
scale, his -former course ; but was at last arrested 
for debt. His agitation on this occasion was 
extreme, and he gave way to a burst of tears. 
Eesistance was vain, however, and the gay butterfly 
of fashion found himself the inmate of a wretched 
and squalid jail. By some kind individuals he was 



28 THE MIRAGE OP LIFE. 

released from this abode of misery ; but misfortune 
failed to teach him reflection. He still retained 
the tastes of his earlier years, though unable from 
circumstances to gratify them. When at the lowest 
point of financial distress, he could with difficulty 
be persuaded, although almost in want of the com- 
mon necessaries of life, to forego the use of some 
fashionable blacking which cost fiye shillings a 
bottle. Forsaken and forgotten by the sunshine 
friends of his prosperity, Brummell became to a 
considerable extent dependent on the kindness of 
a grocer, one from those humble classes at whose 
vulgarity he had so often sneered. He who had 
affected such great fastidiousness in his culinary 
tastes was glad to obtain a meal at a tradesman's 
board; and he, too, who had said that it was 
possible for a man to dress on £800 a year with 
strict economy, was indebted to a compassionate 
tailor for mending the holes in his garments, at 
which time, for lack of change of raiment, he 



THE MAN OF FASHION. 29 

was obliged to remain in bed until his clothes 
were returned to him. "He had now," says his 
biographer, " passed the point at which he was 
the personification of a broken gentleman." He 
became a complete sloven. The last remnant of 
self-respect abandoned him, and, unable to obtain 
credit, he would beg at a shop for articles for which 
he was no longer able to pay. His mind was 
weakened by his misfortunes; and, in his lonely 
apartment, he would at times imagine that he was 
giving one of his fashionable parties. His attend- 
ant, who humored him, would announce the arrival 
of the duchess of Devonshire, or some distin- 
guished visitor. Eising up, the poor Beau would 
salute the empty air with ceremonious politeness ; 
then, as if aware of his fallen position, his eyes 
would fill with childish tears. At ten o'clock the 
carriages of his imaginary visitors were announced, 
and the farce was at an end. 

Such was Beau Brummell in his fall. Further 



30 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

misfortunes, however, were yet to come. Brum- 
melFs reasons having partially failed, he was con- 
ducted to a madhouse. An English clergyman, who 
visited him when near his death, tried to touch 
some chord of religion to which his mind might 
vibrate. It was, however, all in vain. "Never," 
says the visitor, who was familiar with the treat- 
ment of the insane; "never did I come in contact 
with such an exhibition of vanity and thoughtless- 
ness. In reply to my entreaties that he would pray, 
he said, 'I do try;' but he added something which 
made me doubt whether he understood my mean- 
ing." Shortly after this visit, his nurse observed 
him assume an appearance of extreme anxiety. 
He fixed his eyes upon her as if asking for assist- 
ance. She made him repeat some form of prayer ; 
then, turning on his side, he died. 

Such was the end of the man of fashion. We 
pause not to moralize on his melancholy career — 
on the exhibition of selfishness, wasted time, and 



THE MAN OF FASHION. 



31 



squandered powers, which it presents. He had 
devoted himself to the slavery of fashion, and in 
the end he discovered that he had been deluded 
by the Mirage. 

"Use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world 
passeth away." 1 Cor. 7 :31. 



illl'illi ^--' 




The Man of Wealth. 



THE MAN OF WEALTH. 




FAR more general object of pursuit 
than fashion, is wealth. This may be 
almost termed the universal passion, and 
it might appear at first sight bold to class 
its votaries among those who are chasing 
the Mirage. Yet, true it is, that however legiti- 
mate the possession of wealth when employed as a 
talent for promoting the glory of God and the good 
of our fellow-creatures, it is, when sought without 
reference to these ends, a snare and a delusion. 



3G THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

It is deceptive as regards the certainty of its 
acquisition. A young merchant, intoxicated with 
success and full of worldly energy, was a short 
time since boasting, in the presence of the writer 
of these pages, that fortunes were to be made in 
London, and that he had set his heart on acquiring 
one. Within a few months after he was in his 
grave. 

Wealth is deceptive also, as regards the enjoy- 
ment which it promises to its possessors. The 
writer was, at one time, in the habit of meeting 
another merchant, who, almost in the prime of life, 
had succeeded in realizing a fortune of more than 
£100,000 by incessant toil. The time for retiring 
to enjoy his hard-won earnings at last came ; but a 
fit of paralysis, brought on by excessive labor, shat- 
tered his frame, and reduced him to a state of piti- 
able helplessness. 

Wealth is further deceptive when viewed with 
reference to its vanity when acquired. The great 



THE MAX OF WEALTH. 37 

duke of Marlborough used to walk through the rain 
at night to save sixpence, and accumulated a for- 
tune of a million and a half. " Would he have 
taken all this pains, " asks a writer, " could he have 
foreseen that after his death his fortune would, in 
the course of a few years, pass into the hands of a 
family which he had always opposed and regarded 
as his enemies ? Dr. King, in the anecdotes of his 
own times, speaks of a gentleman of his acquaint- 
ance, who went back a long distance to exchange 
a bad half-penny which he had taken from the 
waiter of a coffee-room. He died worth more than 
£200,000 ; but his fortune, from want of a will, was 
divided among six day-laborers, for whom when 
living, he had no regard. He had heaped up 
riches, without knowing who should gather them. 
A late Scottish nobleman, accompanying a gentle- 
man to the summit of a hill which overlooked his 
lordship's estates, after explaining that, as far as 
the eye could reach the country was his property, 



38 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

stated, in reply to the remark, "Surely, your lord- 
ship must be a happy man/ 7 that he did not believe 
there was in all the vast circuit that met their gaze 
an individual so unhappy as himself. The guilty 
Colonel Charteris found that piles of wealth were 
a poor substitute for a peaceful conscience ; when 
dying, he said he would readily give £30,000 to 
have it proved to his satisfaction that there was no 
such place as hell. Still more miserable was the 
career of the well-known Elwes, the miser. When 
worth more than half a million, he wore clothes so 
ragged, that many persons, mistaking him for a 
common street beggar, would put a penny into his 
hand as they passed. He would pick up bones 
and rags. He would glean with his tenants in his 
fields, and complain bitterly of the birds robbing 
him of so much hay with which to build their nests. 
He however, gained his end in life. He accumu- 
lated nearly a million of money, but found, when 
he had done so, that the object of his search was 



THE MAN OF WEALTH. 39 

full of dissatisfaction. His last clays, we are told, 
were embittered by anxiety about the preservation 
of his property. He would start from his sleep, 
exclaiming, "My money! my money! You shall 
not rob me of my money. 77 At the dead of night 
he was found wandering through his house, be- 
moaning the loss of a five-pound note which he had 
hid in a place that he could not remember; and 
although then a millionare, protesting that the note 
was nearly all he had in the world. His last hours 
were filled with gloom and anxiety. He died 
wretched and unhappy, possessing such extensive 
wealth, and yet finding it unable to supply the 
wants of an immortal spirit. 

Leaving, however, various other forms in which 
the Mirage of wealth might be exemplified, we shall 
confine ourselves to one more illustration, namely, 
the instability of riches, and select for our type, 
William Beckford of Fonthill, or, The Man of 
Wealth. 



40 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

William Beckford was born towards the middle 
of the eighteenth century. He was the only son 
of a wealthy West India proprietor, who, dying 
when his child was ten years of age, left an income 
of more than £100,000 a year, to accumulate until 
the boy should reach his majority. Young Beck- 
ford's mental powers were good, and no pains were 
spared in cultivating them by a refined education. 
Sir William Chambers instructed him in architec- 
ture, and the eminent Mozart taught him music. 
At twenty-one, with the income of a prince, and 
accumulations in ready money to the amount of 
about a million sterling, he launched upon the 
world. How vast were the capacities of usefulness 
placed before him ! His income might have ban- 
ished penury from whole districts of his country. 
The great talent of promoting human happiness was 
placed within his reach, but he threw the golden 
opportunity away. Proud and haughty, the youth- 
ful Beckford withdrew from the active business of 



THE MAN OF WEALTH. 41 

life, and retiring to the Continent, devoted himself 
to a life of luxurious ease. Settling after a time 
in Portugal, he there lavished his wealth upon a 
charming villa, which a poet, who visited it when 
in ruins, has described in the following lines : 

"Here, too, thou, Beckford, England's wealthiest son, 
Once formed thy paradise, as not aware 
When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds hath done, 
Meek Peace voluptuous snares was ever wont to shun : 
Here didst thou dwell ; here schemes of pleasure plan, 
Jieneath yon mountain's ever beauteous brow. 
But now, as if a thing unblest by man, 
Thy lonely dwelling is as lone as thou. 
Here giant weeds a passage scarce allow 
To halls deserted, portals gaping wide ; 
Fresh lessons to unthinking mortals, how 
Vain are the pleasaunces on earth supplied, 
Swept into wrecks anon by Time's ungentle tide." 

During Beckford's residence in Portugal, he vis- 
ited, under the royal sanction, some of the wealthy 
and luxurious monasteries of that country. It is 
difficult to convey an idea of the pomp and splen- 
dor of this journey, which resembled more the cav- 

6 



42 THE MIKAGE OF LIFE. 

alcade of an eastern prince than the tour of a pri- 
vate individual. "Every thing," he himself says, 
''that could be thought or dreamed of for our con- 
venience or relaxation was carried in our train — 
nothing was left behind but care and sorrow." 
"The ceiling of my apartment in the monastery," 
he adds, "was gilded and painted; the floor spread 
with Persian carpets of the finest texture : the 
tables decked with superb ewers and basins of 
chased silver." The kitchen in which his dinner 
was prepared is thus described: "A stream of 
water flowed through it, from which were formed 
reservoirs containing every kind of river-fish. On 
one side were heaped up loads of game and veni- 
son, on the other side were vegetables and fruit 
in endless variety. Beyond a long line of stores 
extended a row of ovens, and close to them hillocks 
of wheaten flour finer than snow ; rocks of sugar, 
jars of the purest oil, and pastry in various abun- 
dance.' 7 The dinner which followed these prepa- 



THE MAN OF WEALTH. 43 

rations was served in a magnificent saloon of the 
monastery, covered with pictures, and lighted up 
with a profusion of wax tapers in sconces of silver. 
"The banquet/ 7 he adds, " consisted of rarities and 
delicacies of every season, from distant countries. " 
Confectionery and fruits awaited the party in a 
room still more sumptuous, where vessels of Goa 
filigree, containing the rarest and most fragrant 
spices were handed round. Such was Beckford's 
mode of life during this journey. Painful recol- 
lections are awakened when perusing this narra- 
tive, of a certain rich man who was clothed in 
purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every 
day. 

Eeturning, at the commencement of the present 
century to his native country, Beckford again aban- 
doned himself to an unwise enjoyment of his wealth. 
Taking a capricious dislike to a splendid mansion 
on his estate which had been erected by his father 
at a vast cost, he ordered it to be pulled down. 



44 TIIE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

He resolved that, phoenix-like, there should arise 
from its ruins a building which should surpass in 
magnificence all that hitherto had been known in 
English art. Fonthill Abbey, one of the wonders 
of the west of England, was the result of this deter- 
mination. Whole galleries of that vast pile were 
apparently erected for the sole purpose of enabling 
Beckford to emblazon on their windows the crests 
of the families from whom he boasted his descent. 
The wonder of the fabric, however, was a tower of 
colossal dimensions and great height, erected some- 
what in the manner and spirit of those who once 
reared a similar structure on the plains of Shinar : 
"Go to, let us build us a city and a tower whose 
top may reach unto heaven ; and let us make us a 
name." 

To complete the erection of Beckford's princely 
pile, almost every cart in the county was employed, 
so that at one time agricultural labor was well-nigh 
suspended. Impatient of delay, night at one period 



THE MAN OF WEALTH. 



45 




was not allowed to impose obstacles to the progress 
of the work. Torch-light was employed ; fresh 



4G THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

bands of laborers relieving at evening those who 
worked by day. In the dark nights of winter, the 
distant traveller was startled by the blaze of light 
from Fon thill, which proclaimed at once the resour- 
ces and the folly of the man of wealth. Beckford's 
principal enjoyment was in \vatching the erection 
of this structure. At nightfall he would repair to 
some elevated grounds, and there, in solitude, 
would feast his eyes for hours with the singu- 
lar spectacle presented by the dancing of the 
lights, and the play of their light on the neigh- 
boring forest. The building seemed, indeed, Beck- 
ford's idol, the object for which he lived. He 
devoted the whole of his energies to make it real- 
ize the most fascinating visions of an excited imagi- 
nation. 

After the completion of the abbey, Beckford's 
conduct was still more extraordinary. A wall 
twelve feet high surrounded his mansion and 
grounds, the latter of which were so arranged as 



THE MAN OF WEALTH. 47 

to contain walks and rides twenty miles in extent. 
Within this mysterious circle scarcely any visitors 
were allowed to pass. In stately grandeur he 
dwelt alone, shunning converse with the world 
around. Majesty itself, so ran the rumor, was 
desirous of visiting this wonderful domain, but 
was refused admittance. Strangers would disguise 
themselves as servants, as peasants, or as pedlers, 
in the hope of catching even a transient glimpse at 
its glories. Nor was its interior unworthy of this 
curiosity. All that art and wealth could give to 
produce effect, were there. "Gold and silver vases 
and cups," says one who saw the place, "are so 
numerous here that they dazzle the eye ; and when 
one looks round at the cabinets, candelabras, and 
ornaments which decorate the room, we may almost 
imagine that we stand in the treasury of some 
oriental prince, whose riches consist entirely in 
vessels of gold and silver, enriched with precious 



48 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

stones of every sort, from the ruby to the dia- 
mond."* 

Such was Beckford of Fonthill. With an income 
of more than £100,000 per annum, he seemed above 
the reach of fortune. Who would have ventured 
to style all this splendor evanescent as the Mirage? 
And yet it was so. A sudden depreciation of West 
India property took place. Some lawsuits termi- 
nated unfavorably, and embarrassments poured in 
like a flood on the princely owner. The gates 
which had refused admittance to a monarch were 
rudely thrust open by a sheriff's officer. The man- 
sion, erected at so vast an expense, was sold. The 

* The grounds of Fonthill seem to have been almost as beautiful 
as the interior. There were all varieties of surface : winding vale, 
steep ridge, hill, dell, knoll, and lake, clumps and masses of oak 
and pine ; solitude for the poet and painter ; terraces ; a flower 
garden unmatched in England ; American plantations filled with 
the trees and flowering shrubs of North America. Here were extent, 
repose, and majesty for the pencil of Claude, the rugged grandeur 
that would affect Ruysdael, and the deep and savage wildness which 
suited the genius of Salvator Rosa. 



THE MAN OF WEALTH. 49 

greater part of the costly treasures were scattered 
by the hammer of the auctioneer, and Beckford 
driven, with the shattered fragments of a fortune, 
to spend his old age in a watering-place, there to 
muse on the instability of wealth — there to feel how 
little pleasure the retrospect of neglected talents 
can give, and to point the oft-told moral of the 
vanity of human pursuits. He fell, it is said, un- 
pitied. The noblest opportunities of conferring 
happiness had been placed within his reach, and 
had been thrown away. What could he now show 
for the amount of wealth intrusted to his steward- 
ship ? Little more than a heap of rubbish : a dis- 
mantled mansion in Portugal, and two ruined dwel- 
ings in England. The tower which he had erected 
at so great a cost, fell to the ground, and Fonthill 
Abbey was pulled down by its new owner. 

Thus melted away, like frostwork before the 
sun, the extravagant productions of the man of 
wealth. His whole life had been a sad misapplica- 

The Mirage of Life. *7 



50 



THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 



tion of the talents committed to his care, and in the 
end he discovered that he had been cheated by the 
Mirage. 

"Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high- 
minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who 
giveth us richly all things to enjoy." 1 Tim. 6 : 17. 




The ji 



ERO. 



THE HERO* 




NOTHER object of eager ardent pur- 
suit to a large number of our fellow-crea- 
^ tures is military glory. Multitudes seek 
^ the "bubble reputation 77 as the chief end 
of life, indifferent to the scenes of misery 
with which it is so closely connected. Few illu- 
sions, however, are in general more speedily dissi- 
pated, than this. The youth who, dazzled by a bril- 
liant uniform, allured by the gayeties and dissipation 
of the mess-room, or impelled by the love of adven- 
ture, quits his native country in search of "glory, 77 
soon finds his visions dispersed by the stern reali- 
ties of a camp, and the hardships of a military life. 



54 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

Iii the journal of a soldier in the seventy-second 
regiment, published at the conclusion of the last 
general continental war, an instance of this occurs. 
The author of it had been induced, in hopes of 
a life of pleasure, to enlist in the army, and to 
forsake his home, greatly to the grief of his parents. 
A few years afterwards, he was, when serving in 
the Peninsula, glad to be allowed to eat of the 
biscuits which he was employed to break for the 
bounds of the commander-in-chief, at a time when 
provisions were scarce. "I ate them with tears," 
he says, "and thought of the Prodigal Son.' 7 

Full of self-confidence, the young soldiers who 
attended Napoleon in his expedition to Moscow 
shouted as they left Paris, "We shall be back in 
six months!" They dreamed of conquest; but it 
was only the Mirage. In a few months the mighty 
host of Napoleon, except a small remnant, was 
buried in the snows of Russia. 

In the life of Lord Nelson, it is striking to 



THE HEEO. 55 

observe that nearly at the time when the various 
potentates of Europe were showering down upon 
this hero presents of diamond-hilted swords, gold 
snuff-boxes, and crosses of honor, he was himself 
unable to enjoy his greatness, having for months 
been deprived of sleep by the injury done to a nerve 
in the amputation of one of his arms. Lally, a great 
French general in the last century, was rewarded 
by an ungrateful country with an ignominions death 
for his reverses in India. Suwarroff, the brave 
Eussian general, after having served his empress 
and his country with great distinction, was treated 
in his declining years with mortifying neglect. 

" On what foundation stands the warrior's pride, 
How just his hopes let Swedish Charles decide ; . . . 
His fall was destined to a barren strand, 
A petty fortress, and a dubious hand ; 
He left the name, at which the world grew pale, 
To point a moral, or adorn a tale." 

One of the most remarkable instances, however, 
of the Mirage of military glory, and its inability, 



56 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

even when enjoyed to its full extent, to confer 
happiness on its possessor, is to be found in the 
life of Lord Cliye, the founder of the British 
empire in India, whom we now select as our type 
of The Hero. 

Eobert, afterwards Lord Clive, was born in 
Shropshire, in the year 1729, of parents in no way 
distinguished for opulence or rank. In early life 
he displayed strong indications of those remark- 
able qualities which developed themselves in after 
years. The people of Market Drayton, it is said, 
long remembered stories told them by their parents 
of the future conqueror of India terrifying the 
village by climbing to the pinnacle of the church 
steeple, and perching himself on a stone spout near 
the summit. Clive, so runs the tradition, organized 
a little regiment, composed of his school-fellows, 
and, in the true spirit of a military commander, 
levied a tribute of halfpence from the shop-keepers, 



THE HEEO. 57 

as a species of tax for protecting their windows 
from being broken. It is related also, by Olive's 
biographer, that on one occasion when a dam broke 
which the boys had made across the street for the 
purpose of overflowing the shop of a refractory 
tradesman, who had probably declined payment of 
the tribute just mentioned, Clive unhesitatingly 
threw his body across the aperture in the work, 
and thus remained until the breach was repaired. 

At an early period of his life, Clive proceeded 
as a mercantile clerk to India, having received 
employment in the East India Company's service. 
The possessions of that body were then small and 
limited, and its troops scarcely numerous enough 
to man a few batteries. Madras was the point to 
which the youthful hero first bent his steps. On 
his arrival there he soon gave marks of his deter- 
mined spirit and insensibility to fear. He chastised 
a person who had been the bully of his regiment, 
and gained a reputation for energy and decision of 



58 THE MIKAGE OF LIFE. 

character. Among the various requisites, however, 
for true success which he had taken with him to 
India, one w^as forgotten — the fear of God was not 
before his eyes. Dejected by some trifling disap- 
pointment, he twice attempted to commit suicide. 
Twice the pistol was raised to his head ; but twice 
the trigger refused to move. Shortly afterwards a 
friend came in, and Clive desired him to fire the 
same pistol out of the window. He did so, and 
the weapon was discharged with ease. Give was 
filled, not with gratitude at the forbearing mercy of 
God, but with selfish elation. "I" see," he ex- 
claimed, "that I am reserved for something great." 
He soon after this resigned his situation as a clerk, 
and obtained an ensigncy in a regiment of foot. 

It would be impracticable, even if it were desi- 
rable, to give in this work a sketch of his wonderful 
career. "When a mere youth, he signalized himself 
by raising, with a handful of men, the siege of an 
important city. The whole of his force consisted 



THE HERO. 



59 




of two hundred Englishmen and three hundred 
native soldiers. Of the eight officers who accom- 
panied him only two had before been in action. 



60 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

The weather was stormy ; but Clive pushed on, 
through rain, lightning, and thunder, to the gates 
of the city. The besieging part}', in alarm, with- 
drew on his approach, without striking a blow. 
Afterwards, however, they returned to the attack, 
and, with elephants whose heads were armed with 
iron plates, endeavored to batter down the gates 
of the city, but in vain. They next tried to starve 
Clive and his garrison; and it was then that the 
Hindoo soldiers under his command made their 
memorable speech: "Give us," they said, "as pro- 
visions are failing, give us the water in which the 
rice is boiled : it is sufficient for our support. Let 
the Europeans take the grains. 77 

Such was the commencement of Olive's military 
career; and the remainder corresponded with it. 
He laid the foundation of the British empire in 
India ; and displayed, although untaught in the art 
of war, a genius equal to that of the most expert 
enced commanders. Victory succeeded victory. 



THE HERO. 61 

His history is one roll of successes. No scruple of 
conscience, however, was allowed to check him, 
when expediency appeared to demand an opposite 
course. "He no sooner, 77 says Mr. Macaulay, 
"found himself matched against an Indian intriguer, 
than he became himself one, and descended to 
falsehood, to hypocritical caresses, to the substi- 
tution of documents, and to the counterfeiting of 
signatures. 77 He had aimed, however, at worldly 
greatness, and he gained his end. Wealth was 
heaped upon him in piles. One Indian prince gave 
him a pension of £30,000 a year; and on another 
occasion added to it a present of £300,000. There 
was, indeed, no limit to his acquisitions but his 
own moderation. "Had you seen, 77 said he, on 
one occasion, "the treasury of the nabob, and the 
piles of gold, silver, and diamonds, amidst w T hich I 
walked, you would have thought me moderate in 
taking the above sum. 77 

He gained the highest honors also. When a 



G2 THE MIBAGE OF LIFE. 

youth of twenty-seven, he received from the East 
India Company a diamond-hilted sword ; and was 
thrice appointed by it to the highest offices at its 
disposal. His sovereign elevated him to the peer- 
age ; and the great earl of Chatham praised him in 
the British senate as a distinguished genius, and 
a master of the art of war. "The whole kingdom/' 
wrote his father, "is in transports at the glory and 
success you have gained. Come away, and let us 
rejoice together. 77 Laden with honors, with wealth, 
which he used not ungenerously, and with glory, 
Give returned to England in the prime of life, 
intending to devote himself to the enjoyment of his 
immense fortune. Here then, it may be thought, 
was one at least, whose acquisitions were substan- 
tial — wiio had found the substance and not the 
shadow. Alas! it was only the Mirage. The. years 
of enjoyment to which he had looked forward were 
filled with melancholy and dissatisfaction. Some 
important reforms which he had introduced into 



THE HEEO. 63 

the government of India provoked opposition and 
raised up bitter enemies. An impeachment against 
him contemplated in the House of Commons, threat- 
ened to strip him of all his wealth. It was with 
some difficulty quashed; but Olive's spirits never 
recovered the blow. Having sought prosperity 
without reference to the favor of God, his mind, 
in the retrospect of life, could find no point of satis- 
faction on which it might repose. "Wedded to 
glory, and pluming himself on his vast achieve- 
ments, his pride was wounded and his feelings 
lacerated by the ungrateful treatment which he had 
received. Broken health, too began to afflict him. 
He who had conquered so many provinces, was 
unable apparently, to subdue his own spirit; and 
poor amidst abundant wealth — wretched amidst a 
load of honors — the soldier of fortune terminated 
his life by his own hand. Such was the end of a 
military career brilliant with success, but uncon- 
trolled by religious principle. He had pursued 



04 



THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 



"glory" as his end in life, and he had found it the 
Mirage. 

"Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wis- 
dom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the 
rich man gloxy in his riches : but let him that glorieth glory in this, 
that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which 
exercise loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth." 
Jer. 9 : 23, 24. 















T 



HE STATESMAN, 



THE STATESMAN. 




ROM the career of the military hero, 
let us turn to that of the Statesman. He 
seeks his enjoyment in the gratification of 
ambition, in administering the affairs of 
nations, and in commanding by his patronage a 
crowd of adherents and dependents. From its 
very nature this object of pursuit is necessarily 
limited to a few, and those men of high intellectual 
capacity. With the opportunity which it presents, 
however, of conferring large and extensive benefits 
on mankind, no career, when directed with an eye 
to the glory of God and the welfare of mankind 



68 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

might be more satisfactory than that of the states- 
man. There have been few in which the Mirage of 
life has been more apparent. Cardinal TV r olsey, 
after climbing the highest ronnd of ambition's lad- 
der, was, in the evening of life constrained to ex- 
claim that had he served his God as faithfully as 
he had done his king, He would not have aban- 
doned him in his old age. The closing words of 
Colbert, the minister of Louis XIV., echoed the 
same sentiment. The dying hours of Cardinal Ma- 
zarin, the ambitious French statesman, were cloud- 
ed with gloom and chagrin. He wandered, we are 
told, along his splendid picture-gallery, bidding his 
works of art a mournful farewell, and exclaiming, 
"Must I quit all these? 77 Necker, the celebrated 
minister of Louis XVI., was such a favorite with 
the French nation, that he was honored with this 
inscription on his door: "The residence of the 
adored minister. 77 He was afterwards compelled 
to secure his safety by flight, from the fickle people 



THE STATESMAN. 69 

who had honored hini with almost idolatrous hom- 
age. 

The career of Warren Hastings, governor-gen- 
eral of India, is another apt illustration of the Mi- 
rage of political ambition. After tasting for a series 
of years the sweets of oriental luxury, and enjoy- 
ing uncontrolled authority over millions of his fel- 
low-creatures, he was at last stripped of his power ; 
and at a time when he reasonably anticipated hon- 
ors from his sovereign, was exposed to a trial of 
nine years' duration, which left him deprived of the 
wealth he had by very equivocal means acquired. 
The late Lord Melville was likewise a memorable 
instance of the unsatisfactory character of worldly 
ambition. We speak not here of the impeachment 
which embittered the close of his life, but of the 
period of his unclouded political splendor. The late 
Sir John Sinclair had passed a few days with him 
at his country villa, and on a new year's morning 
entered his apartment to offer him the customary 



70 THE MIBAGE OF LIFE. 

compliments of the season. He found the statesman 
perusing some important documents, and wished 
him a happy new year. On receiving the saluta- 
tion, Lord Melville, after a pause, replied, u It has 
need to be a happier one than the last, for I scarce- 
ly remember a happy day in it." Coming as this 
did from the lips of a man envied by all for his 
greatness — "My father, 77 says the narrator of the 
anecdote, " would often quote it to us, as a proof of 
the vanity of human wishes. 77 As a still more stri- 
king instance, however, of the cares and perplexi- 
ties which haunt the path of ambition, we select as 
our leading illustration the celebrated William 
Pitt, or, The Statesman. 

This remarkable man was the son of a no less 
remarkable father, the great earl of Chatham, and 
was trained under his eye to public life. When a 
boy, he displayed remarkable powers of mind, and 
gave prognostics of future eminence. He entered 






THE STATESMAN. 



71 




parliament a mere youth, but aided by every thing 
which could encourage hopes of a brilliant career. 



72 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

His sovereign, the senate, and the people were 
alike disposed to regard him with favor for his 
parent's sake. His first speech confirmed their 
anticipations. No sooner had he delivered it than 
public opinion strongly declared itself, and all par- 
ties confessed that the mantle of his father had 
fallen upon him. At the age of twenty-four, a 
period when the generality of young men are dis- 
charging duties of a probationary character, he was 
made prime minister. He was now first in posi- 
tion as he was first in intellectual power, among 
the commons of England. Let a young man dwell 
upon his lot, and he will be apt to think that it 
contained all the elements of happiness. He was 
emphatically the favorite of his sovereign, to a de- 
gree which it had been the privilege of few before 
him to enjoy. He was the idol of a numerous party 
in the senate, and of a large and influential body of 
supporters in the kingdom. The mightiest intel- 
lects bent before him, and the highest offices were 



THE STATESMAN. 73 

in his patronage. Each morning when he arose, he 
was entitled to assert that, in all the vast empire 
of England, the sun shone on no one who was in 
reality, however he might be in name, more power- 
ful than himself. Add to all this the possession of 
youth and the prospect of length of days, and we 
have drawn in the world's estimation, a picture con- 
taining much to envy. And yet even this was but 
the Mirage. 

It was deception, as regarded his own personal 
enjoyment during his career of greatness. In vain 
should we look for any proofs of this in the biogra- 
phies of Pitt, published by his political admirers 
shortly after his death. There we meet chiefly a 
narrative of flattering success. A few years ago, 
however, an account of his domestic life appeared 
in the memoirs of the lady who had superintended 
the arrangements of his household. " People, " said 
this writer, " little knew what Mr. Pitt had to do. 

Up at eight in the morning, with people enough to 

10 



74 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

see for a week. Obliged to talk all the time he 
was at breakfast, receiving first one and then an- 
other, until four o'clock. Then eating a mutton 
chop, hurrying off to the House, and there badgered 
and compelled to waste his lungs till two or three 
in the morning. Who could stand it ? After this, 
heated as he was, and having eaten nothing in a 
manner, he would sup with Dundas, Huskisson, 
Rose, Long, and such like, and then go to bed and 
get three or four hours' sleep, to renew the same 
thing the next day, and the next. During the sit- 
ting of parliament, what a life he led! Roused 
from his sleep with a despatch from Lord Melville ; 
then down to Windsor ; then, if he had half an hour 
to spare, trying to swallow something. Mr. Adams 
with a paper, Mr. Long with another. Then, with 
a little bottle of cordial confection in his pocket, off 
to the House until three or four in the morning. 
Then home for a hot supper for two or three hours 
more, to talk over what was to be done next day. 



THE STATESMAN. 75 

and wine — and wine — and wine. Scarcely up next 
morning, when, tat-tat-tat, twenty or thirty people 
one after another, and the horses walking before 
the door from two till sunset, waiting for him. It 
was murder.' 7 Such was the private life of a 
prime minister, whose position was the object of 
envy to numbers. Alas! how little was it io be 
coveted. 

But the life of this great man was in other re- 
spects also an exemplification of the vanity of 
human pursuits. "During his long career of office," 
says one of his warmest admirers, "he could scarce- 
ly get a gleam of success to cheer him.' 7 He was 
disappointed too in an attachment which he had 
formed to a young lady of rank and great personal 
attractions. Added to this, his affairs gradually 
became embarrassed, and he found his spirits and 
energies depressed by a load of debt. His weak- 
ened frame succumbed soon afterwards to an attack 
of disease. His temper also was soured by the 



76 THE MIEAGE OF LIFE. 

ingratitude which he experienced. " All the peers," 
says the writer above quoted, " whom he had made 
deserted him, and half of those whom he had served 
returned his kindness by going over to his ene- 
mies. " 

The final stroke at last came. A brilliant effort 
of his genius to crush the hydra-headed power of 
Napoleon was defeated by the battle of Austerlitz. 
Chagrined, disappointed, crowded with anxieties, 
this blow was too much for the statesman to bear, 
and he found the hand of death upon him. Had 
he then the consolations of religion to rest upon ? 
Ah, no. On his dying bed he is stated to have 
exclaimed, "I fear I have neglected prayer too 
much to make it available on a death-bed. " He 
soon afterwards died. "In the adjoining room," 
says a contemporary writer, "he lay a corpse in 
the ensuing week ; and it is a singular and melan- 
choly circumstance, resembling the stories told of 
William the conqueror's deserted state at his de- 






THE STATESMAN. 77 

cease, that some one in the neighborhood having 
sent a messenger to inquire after Mr. Pitt's state, 
the latter found the wicket open, then the door of 
the house, and walked through the rooms till he 
reached the bed on which the minister's body lay 
lifeless, the sole tenant of the mansion of which the 
doors a few hours before had been darkened by 
crowds of suitors, alike obsequious and importu- 
nate — the vultures whose instinct leads them to 
haunt only the carcasses of living ministers. ;; * He 
died in his forty-seventh year, on the anniversary 
of the day on which he had first entered parlia- 
ment. What a difference was there between the 
buoyant youth of twenty and the careworn states- 
man of forty-seven! Before the eyes of the one 

* The author of the Life of Lady Hester Stanhope gives, but as 
we think, erroneously, the passage as an extract from Lord Erough- 
ham's Lives of Eminent Statesmen. The incident carries with i't, 
however, internal evidence of its probability, from the confused and 
disorderly manner in which the arrangements of Mr. Pitt's house- 
hold were managed by his niece, Lady Hester Stanhope. 



78 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

sparkled a long vista of political enjoyments and 
honors, before the eyes of the other were the anxi- 
eties and cares which had attended them when 
grasped. He had too much followed as his object 
in life unsanctified ambition, and he had found it 
the Mirage. 

"How do these events/ 7 wrote at the time Mr. 
Wilberforee, the friend of Pitt — "how do these 
events tend to illustrate the vanity of worldly 
greatness! Poor Pitt, I almost believe, died of a 
broken heart. A broken heart! What! was he like 
Otway, and Collins, and Chatterton, who had not 
so much as a needful complement of food to sustain 
their bodies, while the consciousness of unrewarded 
talents and mortified pride pressed them within, 
and ate out their very souls ? Was he even like 
Suwarroff, another most useful example, basely de- 
serted and driven into exile by the sovereign he 
had so long served? No; he was the highest in 
power and estimation in the whole kingdom; the 



THE STATESMAN. 



79 



favorite, I believe, on the whole, both of king and 
people. Yes ; this man who died of a broken heart, 
was first Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of 
the Exchequer. 77 

"Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, 
and on the labor that I had labored to do : and behold, all was van- 
ity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." 
EccL 2:11. 




The Orator. 



11 



THE ORATOR, 




-LOSELY connected with the pursuits 
of the statesman are those of the orator. 
To shine in the senate, to dazzle by 
brilliant talent, and to sway contending 
parties by commanding intellect, consti- 
tute his happiness. When directed to right ends 
and influenced by right principles, the career of 
the orator is not to be condemned. His office is to 
denounce vice, and to shield virtue; and, like one 
who used this talent for Christian purposes, the 
eminent Wilberforce, to aid by eloquence the cause 
of evangelical truth. As an illustration however, 
of its inability when unsanctified, to produce hap- 
piness, we proceed, omitting minor examples, to 



84 THE MIEAGE OF LIFE. 

sketch the career of Richard Brixsley Sheridan, 
or, The Orator. 

This remarkable man was early distinguished for 
mental ability. To use the language of the poet — 

"His mind was an essence, compounded with art 

From the finest and best of all other men's powers : 
He ruled like a wizard the world of the heart, 
And could call up its sunshine or draw down its showers." 

Like some other men of genius, he was averse 
to application, and has been well described as 
having through life, acted upon two rules: " Never 
do to-day what you can put off till to-morrow j" 
and, " Never do yourself what you can get another 
person to do for you. 77 His early course of frivolity 
and gayety might of itself have pointed a moral; 
but it is with his career as an orator that we have 
now to do. Although sprung from the middle 
ranks, and possessed only of slender means, he was 
enabled ere long to obtain a seat in Parliament 
Shortly after gaining this distinction, the memor- 






THE OEATOE. 



85 




able trial of Warren Hastings, for malversation in 
his office as governor-general of India, took place. 
It was an occasion which called forth the eloquence 



86 THE MIEAGE OF LIFE. 

of Burke, and which developed the highest powers 
of the eminent statesmen who adorned that period 
of English history. Westminster Hall was the 
scene of the trial, and that place, at the early 
stages of the proceedings, was crowded with all 
that was great and intellectual in the land. "The 
whole scene, " says Sheridan's biographer, "was one 
of those pageants in the drama of life which show 
us what shadows we are, and what shadows we 
pursue. 7 ' On this grand arena for intellectual dis- 
play Sheridan shone conspicuously above all com- 
petitors. A speech which he delivered drew forth 
the following acknowledgment from one who lis- 
tened to it: "All the various species of oratory, 
every kind of eloquence that had been heard either 
in ancient or modern times, whatever the acuteness 
of the bar, the dignity of the senate, or the morality 
of the pulpit could furnish, had not been equal to 
what the house had that day heard in Westminster 
Hall. From poetry up to eloquence there was not 



THE OEATOE. 87 

a specimen of composition of which some variety 
might not have been culled from that speech. " 

Wonderful, however, as this oratorical effort 
was, it fell short in its results of another, which, in 
the course of the same cause, Sheridan made on 
the floor of the House of Commons. Not only did 
his speech draw forth the applause of all parties in 
that house, but it seemed to have entranced them, 
and bound them with a magician's spell ; for they 
were compelled to adjourn their deliberations to 
another day, until the excitement produced by it 
had disappeared. When Sheridan sat down, Mr. 
Burke rose, and said it was the most astonishing 
effort of eloquence, wit, and argument united, which 
he had ever heard. Mr. Fox stated that all that 
he too had ever heard, or read, when compared 
with it, dwindled into nothing, and vanished like 
vapor before the sun. Mr. Pitt acknowledged that 
it surpassed all the eloquence of ancient or modern 
times, and possessed every thing that genius or art 



88 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

could furnish to agitate and control the human 
mind. Sir William Dolben immediately moved an 
adjournment of the house, confessing that in the 
state of mind in which Mr. Sheridan's speech had 
left him, it was impossible to give any determinate 
opinion. Nothing but a miracle, he thought, could 
have determined him to vote against Mr. Hastings ; 
but he had just felt the operation of such a miracle. 
Sheridan's fame as an orator was now the great 
topic of public conversation. "What my feelings 
are," wrote his brother, "you may imagine. It is 
with some difficulty that I can let down my mind 
to think of any thing else but your speech.' 7 His 
father as he walked the streets, was gratified by 
persons turning round and pointing to him as the 
parent of the great orator. Sheridan now stood 
on the pinnacle of his glory. He was the favorite 
of his political party, the intimate companion of his 
prince and the highest nobility. He had gained the 
most flattering distinctions. But his talents were 



THE ORATOR. 89 

unsanctified ; and he was destined to feel, by bitter 

experience, that the objects which he had so keenly 

pursued were deceptive as the Mirage. 

Unsustained by religious principle, he plunged 

into pleasures and expenses which left him a ruined 

man. Old age came upon him, and found him 

impoverished and deserted by his friends. "His 

distresses,' 7 says his biographer, " increased every 

day. He was driven to part with what he most 

valued. His books, presented to him by various 

friends, now stood in their splendid bindings on the 

shelves of the pawnbrokers. The handsome cup 

given him by the electors of Stafford shared the 

same fate ; and the portrait of his first wife, if not 

actually sold, vanished away from his eyes into 

other hands. 77 One of the most humiliating trials 

was, however, yet to follow. He was arrested for 

debt, and carried to a sponging-house. This abode 

formed a sad contrast to the princely halls of which 

he had before been the most brilliant and favored 

12 



90 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

guest. The unhappy man burst into a flood of 
tears. He was released ; but only to be exposed 
again to similar trials. "Oh, let me see you, 77 he 
wrote, on another occasion of the same kind, to a 
friend; "I find things so settled that £150 would 
remove every difficulty. ... I am absolutely 
undone and broken-hearted. 77 Misfortunes crowded 
round his dying bed, and his last moments were 
haunted by fear of a prison. Forsaken by his gay 
associates, dispirited and world-weary, he closed 
his eyes in gloom and sorrow. 

No sooner was he dead, however, than many a 
titled and wealthy associate, who had failed to min- 
ister to his sickness, flocked to attend his funeral — 
conduct which drew forth the indignant, though too 
indiscriminating, remonstrances of his compatriot 
Moore : 

"Oh ! it sickens the heart to see bosoms so hollow, 

And friendships so false in the great and high-born ; 
To think what a long line of titles may follow 
The relics of him who died friendless and lorn : 



THE ORATOR. 



91 



How proud they can press to the funeral array 

Of him whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow ; 

How bailiffs may seize the last blanket to-day, 

Whose pall shall be held up by nobles to-morrow." 

Such was the career of the orator. Fame, 
popularity, and intellectual greatness had all been 
his ; but, directed to the service of this world, and 
animated by its spirit, they had proved to their 
possessor false as a Mirage. 

' 1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and 
have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling 
cymbal." 1 Cor. 13:1. 




n?\ 




The A 



RTIST. 



THE ARTIST. 




'T may be said that the individuals whose 
career we have noticed in the preceding 
pages, sought their happiness in objects of 
a material and secular character. Let us 
shift our sketches therefore, and select, as 
our next examples some whose pursuits were of a 
more purely intellectual order. First in this class 
we shall place the Artist. His enjoyment lies in 
indulging the conceptions of his genius, and by a 
subordinate species of creative power, making them 
glow on the canvas or breathe in the marble. 
Although capable, when rightly and religiously 



96 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

directed, of being eminently profitable, yet, when 
pursued on mere worldly principles, the career of 
the artist has often furnished a painful illustration 
of the Mirage of life. 

Some years ago, a young artist whose death 
occurred under painful circumstances, left as his 
closing testimony the mournful sentence, "Life, they 
say, is sweet ; I have found it bitter." The senti- 
ment has been echoed by many others. The biog- 
raphy of the late David Scott, a gifted Scottish 
painter, seems indeed a comment upon these words : 
M The love of art," he wrote, "has become to me a 
torment, an insatiable demon." He plotted, we 
are told, with the sleeplessness of a poet, and labor- 
ed with the energy of an enthusiast. His pictures, 
however, in almost unbroken succession, returned 
to him unsold, and he died at the early age of for- 
ty-two, with the dream and the hope of his life 
unfulfilled. 

Proctor, a young British sculptor, may be se- 



THE ARTIST. 97 

lected as affording another illustration of the Mirage 
of art. His early essay in Marble — Diomede torn 
to pieces by wild horses — was considered, by com- 
petent judges, to approach in grandeur of thought, 
the Phidiac period of Greek design. It was, how- 
ever, above the comprehension of ordinary visitors. 
It was carried back, unsold, to the young sculptor, 
who, in the anguish of disappointment, broke in 
pieces with his own hand the work of sleepless 
hours, on which he had exhausted his little means 
of support. He died as brighter days were dawn- 
ing on him, from disease brought on by want and 
agitated passions. 

Another name, in connection with this part of 
our subject, will occur to many readers as a still 
more striking illustration, that of Benjamin Robert 
Haydon, or, The Artist. 

Haydon was born in one of the seaports in the 
west of England, towards the close of the last 

The Mirage of Life. I 7 



98 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

century. Meeting accidentally with the lectures 
of Sir Joshua Reynolds on painting, he read them 
through at a single sitting, and determined from 
that moment to be a painter. In vain did his 
friends endeavor to alter his decision ; he met all 
opposition with a torrent of sarcasm. In 1802, at 
the age of eighteen, with only twenty pounds in his 
pocket, he started for London, full of enthusiasm 
and buoyant with youthful hope. A portrait of 
him painted at this early period, has been pre- 
served. " There is, 77 says a writer, when contrast- 
ing it with another likeness of the artist taken only 
a few days before his death; " there is a melan- 
choly interest in contemplating these portraits ; 
alike, and yet how different ! In the interval be- 
tween them, forty-one years of an anxious life had 
rolled over the head of the ambitious and sensitive 
man of genius. The buoyant hopes and bright 
prospects of the youthful aspirant after fame had 
disappeared in the strongly-marked lines and care- 



THE ARTIST. 



90 




worn features of the world-weary and disappointed 
man of sixty." 



100 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

Haydon was not long in London before his 
genius was discovered. Young as he was, he was 
not contented with following the beaten track, but 
aimed at founding a new school of painting. The 
picture of the judgment of Solomon was, ere long, 
produced by him. It brought the artist £800, and 
obtained great applause. The celebrated painter 
West was so affected when looking at it, that he 
shed tears. 

Haydon's painting of our Saviour's entrance 
into Jerusalem was at last produced. It attracted 
a crowd of visitors, and yielded the successful artist 
a rich harvest, both of money and reputation. His 
fame was now at its zenith. A writer of the day 
complimented him by styling him the Raphael of 
his age. Keats and Mitford composed verses in 
his honor, and Wordsworth conferred on him the 
distinction of a sonnet. He had grasped then, the 
fame which as a youth he had so eagerly longed 
for. Unlike many artists, he had not been doomed 



THE ARTIST. 101 

to toil on in neglect, but had had his merits recog- 
nized by the age in which he lived. Had he then 
found the secret of happiness which so many had 
missed ? Ah, no ; he too had only chased the Mi- 
rage. 

An unhappy disposition provoked enemies. Em- 
barrassments too in quick succession flowed in upon 
him. His best works were achieved under circum- 
stances of privation; one of them when he was a 
prisoner for debt. He succeeded in educating his 
children only by great exertions and extraordinary 
self-denial. He was mortified also, by seeing the 
public manifest a distaste for his peculiar style of 
art ; and each year he was doomed, with sickening 
heart, to see the wave of popularity recede farther 
and farther from his feet. He at last determined 
to make one more effort to woo back the favor he 
had lost, by an exhibition of some of his most elab- 
orate works at the Egyptian Hall ; and no passage 
in the history of neglected artists is more melan- 



102 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

cholv than this scene in his life. Having made his 
preparations at some expense, and earnestly ap- 
pealed to the public, the poor painter anxiously 
waited the result. 

Let his diary, however, tell his story. It is 
headed by this startling quotation from a speech of 
Canning, relative to the fall of Napoleon: "All is 
but folly : his final destruction can neither be avert- 
ed nor delayed ; and his unseasonable mummeries 
will but serve to take away all dignity from the 
drama, and render his fall at once terrible and 
ridiculous.' 7 

The opening entry in the journal is as follows : 
"April 4. The first day of my exhibition opened. 
It rained all day, and no one came. . . . How differ- 
ent would it have been twenty-six years ago ! The 
rain would not then have kept them away.'- A 
few weeks afterwards he again writes: "My re- 
ceipts are only £1 3s. 6d. An advertisement of a 
finer description could not have been written to 



THE AETIST. 103 

catch the public, but not one shilling more was 
added to the receipts. They rush by thousands to 
see Tom Thumb, " (the well-known dwarf of that 
name, who was exhibited in an adjoining apart- 
ment ;) " they push, they fight, they cry ' help ' and 
'murder.' They see my bills and caravans, but do 
not read them. Their eyes are on them, but their 
senses are gone. . . . My situation is now one of 
extreme peril. Involved in debt, and mortified by 
the little sympathy shown to me by the public . . . 
I have just received a lawyer's letter. I sat down 
to my palette under an irritable influence. My 
brain became confused, as I foresaw misery, ruin, 
and a prison before me." 

It is not necessary to add much more, for the 
result is well known. The mind of the unhappy 
artist gave way, and death, in one of its most 
appalling forms, stepped in and closed the scene. 
Not the least impressive portion of Haydon's jour- 
nal are its closing words: "May 14. This day 



104 



THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 



forty-two years ago I left my native Plymouth for 
London. I have closed my exhibition with a loss 
of £111." 

How different the concluding from the opening 
scene of the artist's life ! How painful the contrast 
between the youthful aspirant of 1802 and the care- 
worn painter of 1846 ! Where now were his ambi- 
tious hopes and views? All dissolved in empty 
air, and proved, by painful experience, to have 
been unsubstantial as the Mirage. 

"It is impossible," adds an able writer of the 
day, when commenting on the melancholy fate of 
Haydon, to read, without feelings of inexpressible 
pain, the notes which this unfortunate gentleman 
has left of his daily hopes and emotions, his succes- 
sive struggles and disappointments through the last 
month of a cheerless professional existence. With 
exertions of the most exhausting kind he had com- 
pleted a laborious task, to which he looked forward 
with the natural confidence of his profession, as a 



THE AETIST. 105 

release from his perplexities and a recompense of 
his pains. He offered to the public the first of a 
series of paintings on a noble and national subject, 
conceived with grandeur, and directed towards the 
highest objects of his art. When the day of trial 
came, he saw his hopes dashed and his efforts 
spurned ; while the patronage which would have 
ransomed his pencil and restored his peace was 
lavished on an exhibition of a most puerile and 
offensive character. The display of a dwarf attract- 
ed hordes of gaping idlers, who poured into the 
yawning pockets of a showman a stream of wealth, 
one tithe of which would have redeemed an honor- 
able English artist from wretchedness and death. 
It is terrible to think that, in the midst of the 
London season, in the heart of the greatest city, 
and under the eyes of the wealthiest people in the 
world, such should have been his lot." 



H 



106 



THE MIKAGE OF LIFE. 



"And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I 
withheld not my heart from any joy ; for my heart rejoiced in all 
my labor : and this was my portion of all my labor. Then I looked 
on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that 
I had labored to do: and behold, all was vanity and vexation of 
spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." Eccl. 2:10, 11. 




The Man of Literature. 



THE MAN OF LITERATURE. 




-LOSELY allied with the pleasures of 
art are those of Literature ; and in these 
perhaps, we might, if anywhere, have ex- 
pected to find an exemption from that 
law which has stamped on every unsanc- 
tified enjoyment the mark of vanity and vexation 
of spirit. But even here has that law been found 
in operation ; and amidst the mass of persons who 
have been gifted with great literary powers, it 
would be easy to adduce illustrations of the solemn 



110 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

moral which it has been the object of these pages 
to inculcate. "If to know wisdom/'' says a popu- 
lar living writer, (Thomas Carlyie,) "were to prac- 
tise it ; if fame brought true dignity and peace of 
mind ; if happiness consisted in surrounding the 
imagination with ideal beauty, a literary life w T ould 
be the most enviable which the lot of this world 
affords. But the truth is far otherwise. Look at 
the biography of authors ! Except the Newgate 
Calendar, it is the most sickening chapter in the 
history of man. 77 As one of the most striking in- 
stances of the Mirage of literature in modern times, 
as a convincing evidence of the inefficacy of the 
highest genius to secure permanent happiness to its 
possessor, we select, as our next type, Sir Walter 
Scott, or The Man of Literature. 

All influences which could promise happiness 
or success were crowded around this remarkable 
man. His professional pursuits furnished him with 



THE MAX OF LITERATURE. 



Ill 




ample leisure, and an income bordering on afflu- 
ence. His natural disposition, which was singular- 



112 THE MIEAGE OF LIFE. 

ly amiable and generous, and accompanied by a 
chivalrous sense of honor, procured him the attach- 
ment of numerous friends. He enjoyed too, in a 
remarkable degree, the sweets of a happy home. 
Thus, on grounds entirely independent of his lit- 
erary powers, he was in possession of many of the 
elements of worldly comfort. In addition, how- 
ever, to the blessings we have enumerated, he was 
gifted with a genius of the highest order. Much as 
the Christian must deplore the misapplication, in 
many respects, of that genius, he must acknowledge 
the appropriateness of the eulogium : 

" Brother of Homer, and of liini 
Who struck the lyre by Avon's stream, 
Time shall through many a cycle be 
Ere he shall see a fourth like thee. " 

Never, perhaps, in any period of the world's 
history, did literary talent receive a homage so 
universal as that of Scott. His reputation was 
coextensive, not only with the English language, 



THE MAN OF LITEEATUEE. 113 

but with the boundaries of civilization. It has 
been the lot of many meritorious authors to be un- 
able to procure a profitable return for their wri- 
tings. In one year, however, Scott's productions 
yielded him the enormous revenue of £15,000. 
Other writers have been condemned to wait a life- 
time before they saw their works approved ; but 
Scott's sprang into popularity the first day they 
issued from the press, and procured their author 
an admiration that was almost idolatrous. The 
king conferred on him a baronetcy, accompanying 
that dignity with special marks of royal favor. 
When he travelled abroad, his appearance created 
an enthusiasm, and attracted a crowd of spectators, 
more like that which attends the passage of a mon- 
arch than the movements of a private individual. 
"If his carriage, 77 says his biographer, describing 
Scott's visit to Ireland, " was recognised, the street 
was sure to be crowded before he came out again, 
so as to make his departure as slow as a procession. 

The Mirage of Life. j r 



114: THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

When he entered a street the watchword was 
passed down like lightning on both sides, and the 
shopkeepers and their wives stood bowing all the 
way down ; while the mob and boys huzzaed as at 
the chariot-wheels of a conqueror. 75 

All the good things, as they are termed, of this 
life were in Scott's possession. His mansion at 
Abbotsford realized the highest conceptions of a 
poetical imagination. "It seems," says one who 
visited, "like a poem in stone." "This house," 
said another distinguished writer, "is like places 
that we dream about." The company which crowd- 
ed around the man of genius was no less wonderful. 
The highest nobleman felt honored in being allowed 
to take a place at his board, around which were 
collected from every part of the kingdom persons 
eminent in the various walks of life. Each day 
produced some novelty. Now a traveller recount- 
ed the wonders he had witnessed in foreign lands. 
Now a philosopher, like Sir Humphrey Davy, de- 



THE MAN OF LITERATURE. 115 

tailed recent discoveries in science. Now a poet 
or a painter gave animation to the conversation by 
his genius. All sources of intellectual enjoyment 
were crowded together. It was worldly pleasure 
in its most concentrated form ; and well might one 
of the visitors exclaim, "Surely, Sir Walter Scott 
is, or ought to be, a happy man. 77 And yet all 
this was but the Mirage. Feelingly does one who 
was a witness of the pleasures of this man of genius 
in his palmiest days, exclaim, "Death has laid a 
heavy hand on that happy circle. Bright eyes 
long since closed in dust, gay voices for ever 
silenced seem to haunt me as I write.' 7 A shock 
of commercial adversity ruined Sir Walter, and 
dispersed for ever the brilliant assemblies which 
had gathered round his board. The death of one 
who was dearest to him followed close upon this 
blow. What consolation could literature then afford 
him in the hour of trial? Let Sir Walter's own 
touching words reply: "When I think, 77 he writes, 



116 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

at a time when leaving Abbotsford apparently for 
ever — "when I think w 7 hat this place now is with 
what it has been not long ago, I think my heart 
will break. Lonely, aged, deprived of all my 
family, I am an impoverished and embarrassed 
man. /,; 

At another time he writes, " Death has closed 
the dark avenue of love and friendship. I look at 
them as through the grated door of a burial-place, 
filled with monuments of those who once were dear 
to me, and with no other wish than that it may 
open for me at no distant period." Not long after, 
he writes in the strain, "Some new object of com- 
plaint comes every moment. Sicknesses come 
thicker and thicker, friends are fewer and fewer. 
The recollection of youth, health, and powers of 
activity neither improved nor enjoyed, is a poor 
strain of comfort. The best is, the long halt will 
arrive at length, and close all. 77 Such was the con- 
fession of one who had drank so largely of the 



THE MAN OF LITEKATUKE. 117 

world's cup of enjoyment. Oh, liow emphatically 
does it warn those whose hearts are still set upon 
similar vanities. 

The closing scene at last came, and is not less 
touching than the preceding passages. A most 
honorable attempt to pay off his creditors had, by 
overtaxing his energies, brought on incurable dis- 
ease. Sir Walter requested, we are told, to be 
wheeled to his desk. His daughter put his pen 
into his hand, but his fingers refused to do their 
office. Silent tears rolled down his cheeks. "Take 
me back to my own room/ 7 he said. "There is no 
rest for Sir Walter but in his grave. 77 A few days 
afterwards he died. In such gloomy clouds did the 
sun of the man of literature set. Otway died of 
starvation ; Voltaire, in the height of his literary 
glory wished that he had never been born: but 
none of these instances proclaim so touchingly as 
the career of Sir Walter Scott, that the highest 
genius, when not sanctified by being devoted to 



118 



THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 



the glory of God, is, in its results, illusive as the 
Mirage. 

"The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All 
flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the 
field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the Spirit of 
the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass 
withereth, the flower fadeth : but the word of our God shall stand 
for ever. " Isaiah 40 : 6-8. 




jHBf 



OET 



THE POET. 




MIDST other intellectual pursuits in 
which happiness has been sought, the 
career of the poet may be next adverted 
to. His delights lie in the cultivation of 
a creative imagination, and in the enjoy- 
ment of those pleasures which can only be tasted 
by a mind of a refined order and delicate structure. 
When the poet's gifts have been devoted to the 
glory of God, they have proved to be eminently 
profitable and delightful. When cultivated in an 
irreligious and worldly spirit, however, experience 
has shown, by more than one painful instance, that 

a highly gifted bard may be a miserable man. 

16 



122 THE MIEAGE OF LIFE. 

The life of Savage, the friend of Johnson, will be 
familiar to the student of English literature. The 
course of Chatterton is not less mournful. Full 
of youthful promise, he repaired to London, to 
commence, as he expected, a successful literary 
career. "What a glorious prospect awaits me!" 
he wrote on his arrival ; yet within a few months 
he was buried as a common pauper from Shoe 
Lane workhouse. Equally sad associations are 
connected with the poet Burns. "Save me from 
the horrors of a jail," were almost his last words. 
"It will be some time,'" he wrote in his final ill- 
ness, "before I tune my lyre again. I have of 
late only known existence by the pressure of the 
heavy hand of sickness, and have counted time 
by the repercussions of pain. I close my eyes 
in misery, and open them without hope. Pale, 
emaciated, and feeble, you would not know me if 
you saw me; and my spirits fled — fled!" In the 
biography of the poet Campbell, who had in early 



THE POET. 123 

youth sung "The Pleasures of Hope," a touching 
instance occurs of the emptiness of poetical fame. 
In the evening of life, the poet thus spoke to a 
circle of friends: "I am alone in the world. My 
wife and the child of my hopes are dead. My only 
surviving child is consigned to a living tomb," he 
was the inmate of a lunatic asylum. "My old 
friends, brothers, and sisters are dead — all but 
one, and she too is dying. My last hopes are 
blighted. As for fame, it is a bubble that must 
soon burst. Earned for others, shared with others, 
it was sweet ; but, at my age, to my own solitary 
experience it is bitter. Left in my chamber alone 
with myself, is it wonderful my philosophy at times 
takes fright; that I rush into company; resort to 
that which blunts but heals no pang; and then, 
sick of the world, and dissatisfied with myself, 
shrink back into solitude Y 3 

As a far more striking instance, however, of the 
vanity of poetical genius and the emptiness of mere 



124 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

worldly fame, when ennobled by no divine aim or 
purpose, we select as our type, Lord Byron, or, 
The Poet. 

Upon this remarkable man were heaped many 
of those gifts, of nature and of fortune, which are, 
by the world, so highly prized. He was by birth 
noble, tracing his descent from a line of ancestors 
which stretched back to a remote period of English 
history. Although not wealthy, he was left in 
possession of an income which to a well-regulated 
mind would have secured independence. His man- 
ners, when he wished to please, are stated to have 
been singularly winning and attractive. His smile 
disarmed opposition, and invited friendship. His 
external appearance harmonized with the order of 
his mind. He not only was, but looked the poet. 
The pencil of the artist and the chisel of the sculp- 
tor were alike employed to delineate his counte- 
nance as a model of classic grace. The talents 



THE POET. 



125 




intrusted to his stewardship were great : how mel- 
ancholy, in surveying his short career, to observe 
their misapplication! And how different would 



12G THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

have been the result, had they been guided by the 
wisdom that is from above, instead of that which 
"is earthly, sensual, devilish! 7 ' 

His poetical genius was of a high class, capable 
of describing external nature, and the play of 
human passions, in a manner which stirred the 
deepest emotions of the heart. Byron early felt 
within himself aspirations after literary eminence. 
When a mere youth, he wrote — 

i ' The desire in my bosom for fame 

Bids me live but to hope for posterity's praise : 
Could I soar with the phoenix, on ashes of flame, 
With it I would wish to expire in the blaze." 

These desires were speedily gratified. After a 
passing disappointment, caused by the failure of 
some minor poetical effusions, he published his first 
great poem. "The effect of it," says a writer, 
"was electric. His fame had not to wait for any of 
the ordinary gradations, but seemed to spring up, 
like the palace of a fairy tale, in a single night." 



THE POET. 127 

His work became the theme of every tongue. At 
bis door many leading men of the day presented 
themselves. From morning till night the most 
flattering testimonies of success crowded his table. 
"He found himself," says Mr. Macaulay, "on the 
highest pinnacle of literary fame. There is scarcely 
an instance in history of so sudden a rise to so 
dizzy an eminence. Every thing that could stim- 
ulate, every thing that could gratify the strongest 
propensities of our nature, were at once offered 
to him : the gaze of a hundred drawing-rooms, the 
acclamations of the whole nation, and the applause 
of applauded men." "In place of the desert," 
continues his biographer, "which London had been 
to him a few weeks before, he not only saw the 
whole splendid interior of high life thrown open 
to him, but found himself the most distinguished 
object among its illustrious crowds." A short 
time before the publication of his poem, Byron 
had taken his seat amidst the hereditary legislators 



128 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

of his country. With genius, with popularity, and 
with rank, how brilliant the prospect which now 
lay before hiin! Yet it proved but the deception 
of the Mirage. 

In that with which, above all other points, 
true happiness is so essentially connected— reli- 
gious principle — his mind was singularly deficient : 
it had been darkened by skepticism. When a 
youth, some passing religious convictions appear 
to have agitated him, for he wrote at that season 
a poem containing the following lines : 

''Father of light, on thee I call ; 

Thou seest my soul is dark within ; 
Thou, who canst mark the sparrow's fall, 
Avert from me the death of sin." 

If spiritual anxiety did for a moment cross his 
mind, it was soon obliterated by the irregularity 
of his moral conduct. The memorials of his early 
years are full of those records of wasted seasons 
of usefulness and squandered talents which lay 



THE POET. 129 

up such a store of reproach for after-life. "The 
average hour of rising, 77 says one of his companions 
at Newstead Abbey, "was one o'clock. It was 
two before breakfast was concluded. 77 Frivolous 
amusements consumed the remaining hours, until 
the company at seven sat down to an entertain- 
ment, which was prolonged till two or three in 
the morning. The finest wines were abundantly 
supplied ; a cup fashioned out of a human skull, 
forming an unhallowed chalice out of which the 
guests were occasionally expected to drink. The 
result of this life was such as might have been 
anticipated — inward dissatisfaction. To use the 
poet 7 s own language — 

"He felt the fulness of satiety," 

and he quitted his native shores for foreign travel, 
in the hope of supplying his weary spirit with 
fresh excitement; but all in vain. Though he 
carried with him a genius deeply imbued with 

The Mirage of Life. J y 



130 THE MIEAGE OF LIFE. 

poetical power, he returned to England chagrined 
and sick at heart. When his travels were con- 
cluded, he thus wrote: " Embarrassed in my pri- 
vate affairs, indifferent to public ; solitary, and 
without the wish to be social, I am returning home 
without hope, and almost without a desire. " 

Fresh literary triumphs failed to secure the 
happiness which he sought; nor was he more 
successful in finding it in a marriage which he 
soon afterwards contracted. He saw, to use his 
own language, his household gods shivered around 
him. Nine executions for debt entered his dwell- 
ing within a twelve-month, and at the end of that 
period, a separation ensued between his wife and 
himself. Ee tiring abroad, he plunged afresh in 
streams of sinful pleasure. His life became a 
miserable animal existence ; the source of wretch- 
edness to himself. He was indeed sick of it. "If 
I were to live over again, 77 he writes, "I do not 
know what I would change in my life, except not 



THE POET. 131 

to have lived at all.' 7 Similar sentiments were 
expressed in his poetry — 

" Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, 
Count o'er the days from anguish free ; 
And know, what ever thou hast been, 
'Tis something better not to be." 

The whole of his poetry, indeed, continued to 
bear the impress of his morbid spirit. "Never 
had any writer, " says a critic, "so vast a com- 
mand of the whole eloquence of scorn, misan- 
thropy, and despair. That Marah was never dry. 
No heart could sweeten, no draughts exhaust, its 
perennial waters of bitterness. From maniac laugh- 
ter to piercing lamentation, there was not a single 
note of human anguish of which he was not master. 
He always described himself as a man whose 
capacity for happiness was gone, and could not be 
restored." Eestless and dissatisfied, he pursued 
new objects, and betook himself to a visionary 
scheme for the political regeneration of Greece — 



132 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

a country which had attracted his poetical sym- 
pathies. Fresh disappointments awaited him in 
this scene of action, and his heart's aspirations 
after enjoyment were again blasted. On the last 
birthday which he was destined to see, he thus 
describes, in touching lines, his own lonely and 
miserable condition — 

"My days are in the yellow leaf, 

The flowers and fruits of love are gone ; 
The worm, the canker, and the grief 
Are mine alone. 

"The fire that in my bosom plays 
Is lone as some volcanic isle ; 
No torch is kindled at its blaze, 
A funeral pile." 

The life of the poet was now, however, draw- 
ing to a close. Shortly after composing these 
verses he was arrested by the hand of disease, 
and his illness terminated fatally. The death-bed 
of this highly-gifted man was a painful spectacle. 



THE POET. 133 

"I had never before felt/ 7 says an eye-witness of 
it, u as I felt that evening. There was the gifted 
Lord Byron — who had been the object of uni- 
versal attention, who had even as a youth been 
intoxicated with the idolatry of men — gradually 
expiring, and almost forsaken, without even the 
consolation of breathing out his last sigh in the 
arms of some dear friend. His habitation was 
weather-tight ; but that was all the comfort his 
deplorable room afforded him." No gleam of joy, 
of peace, or hope, rose upon that melancholy scene ; 
no prayer for forgiveness ascended. The divine 
Eedeemer was but once mentioned, and then only 
in an exclamation wrung forth by pain. The 
dying poet murmured some broken and inarticulate 
sentences, in which occurred the names of his wife 
and child, and falling into a troubled slumber, he 
soon afterwards died : 

"His high aims abandoned — his good acts undone — 
Aweary of all that is under the sun." 



134 



THE MIEAGE OF LIFE. 



Such was the termination of the poet's career. 
The world and the glory thereof had been his ; 
but, unsanctified and unblessed by God, all his 
rich intellectual enjoyments had proved illusive 
as the Mirage. 

"Bejoice, O young man, in thy youth ; and let thy heart cheer 
thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy heart, 
and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these 
things God will bring thee into judgment." Eccles. 11 : 9. 




The Man of Wit and Wumor, 



Jh: 



MAN OP WIT AND HUMOR. 




'HE next illustration which we select of 
the Mirage of life, is the Man of Wit and 
Humor. Here, at least, it may be pre- 
sumed that the search after happiness will 
be successful. It may be thought that they 
who promote mirth so much in others, and who 
treat life as if it were a jest, have themselves found 
out the true secret of enjoyment. Yery different 
however is the result. There is a mirth in the 
midst of which the heart is sad, and a laughter the 
end whereof is heaviness. . Not that there is any 
thing sinful in mirth ; not that it is not a quality 

which, when rightly directed, may be turned to 

iS 



138 THE MIKAGE OF LIFE. 

useful purposes: but that, when unsanctified, it is 
as a source of happiness a delusion and a Mirage. 
Cervantes, at a time when all Spain was laughing 
at the humorous flights of his pen, was overwhelmed 
with a deep cloud of melancholy. Moliere, the first 
of French comic writers, carried into the domestic 
circle a sadness which the greatest worldly pros- 
perity could never dispel. Samuel Foote, a noted 
wit of the last century, died of a broken heart. 
D'Israeli mentions that one morning, meeting in a 
bookseller's shop a squalid and wretched-looking 
man, the very picture of misery, he was astonished 
to learn that he was a person who was amusing the 
metropolis by his humorous effusions. The anec- 
dote is well known of the physician recommending 
a man who was pining under melancholy, to attend, 
as a means of cure, the performances of a noted 
comic actor, and of being informed that his patient 
was the actor in question — himself wretched, while 
amusing others. Captain Morris, a witty writer of 



THE MAN OF WIT AND HUMOK. 133 

considerable reputation at the commencement of 
the present century, when aged, deserted, and well- 
nigh impoverished, described in the following lines 
the little satisfaction which the retrospect of his life 
of folly could afford him : 

" My friends of youth, manhood, and age, 

At length are aU laid in the ground ; 
A unit I stand on life's stage, 

"With nothing but vacancy round. 
I wander bewildered and lost, 

Without impulse or interest in view ; 
And all hope of my heart is, at most, 

Soon to bid this cold desert adieu." 

As one of the most striking examples in modern 
times of the unsatisfactory nature of a life of frivol- 
ity, we select as our next illustration, Theodore 
Hook, or, The Man of Wit and Humor. 

He was the son of a musical composer of con- 
siderable eminence in his day. He was, by death, 
early deprived of the training of his mother, a cir- 
cumstance to which much of the unhappiness of his 
future career may be attributed. His father, re- 



140 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 



turning home one evening, was astonished at his 
son, then a mere child, producing two ballads, 
which, with appropriate music, he had himself com- 
posed : the one plaintive, the other humorous. The 
prognostics of future distinction thus afforded were 
verified by the event. At the age of sixteen, a 
time when other youths are just leaving school, 
he was, from his powers of dramatic composition, 
in the receipt of a considerable income and enjoy- 
ing great popularity. His name was blazoned as a 
youthful genius in the newspapers ; his portrait was 
taken, and he had free admission to the places of 
public amusement. Many a young man in the pres- 
ent day would have envied his position, as contain- 
ing all that was desirable. Life lay before him like 
a smooth ocean, and intoxicated by success, he 
launched his bark fearlessly upon it. Youth stood 
at the prow, Mirth trimmed the sails, Folly took 
the helm ; while the pennon which streamed in the 
air bore the words, " Rejoice, young man, in thy 



THE MAN OF WIT AND HUMOR. HI 

youth ; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of 
thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy heart and 
in the sight of thine eyes." 

At this time, a taste for coarse practical joking 
had seized young men. To pull off knockers and 
bell-handles, to carry away tradesmen's signs, and 
to overturn the boxes of sleeping watchmen, were 
considered the marks of a generous and manly 
spirit. Hook plunged into these amusements, and 
kept a private museum, containing abstracted bells, 
knockers, and sign-boards. We feel some scruple 
in making allusion to such disgraceful follies ; but 
it is necessary for our illustration, that the gay as 
well as the grave side of the picture should be 
shown. On one occasion Hook's friend pointed out 
to him, as an appropriate specimen of natural his- 
tory for his museum, a new-gilt eagle of large 
dimensions, which had just been erected over a 
grocer's shop. A few weeks afterwards, the same 
friend happening to be dining with Hook, the lat- 



142 THE MIEAGE OF LIFE. 

ter, towards the close of the entertainment, ordered 
•'the game to be served up." Immediately, to the 
astonishment of the visitor, the servant entered the 
room, staggering under the burden of a dish of un- 
usual size. On uncovering it there was produced 
the identical eagle which Hook, as a practical joke, 
had contrived to carry off. Such were the con- 
temptible frivolities in which the man of humor 
wasted his youthful prime. 

Among other accomplishments for which he was 
distinguished, was a remarkable power of produ- 
cing extempore poetry. At a dinner party, he 
would, without premeditation, compose a verse on. 
every person in the room, full of point and wit, 
and with true rhyme. Sheridan, the orator, who 
was present upon one of these occasions, declared 
that he could not have imagined such a talent pos- 
sible, had he not witnessed the exhibition of it. 

So confident was Hook in his powers of humor, 
that, passing with a friend a house in which a par- 



THE MAN OF WIT AND HUMOE, 



143 





- ^ 

iffliiiRlPi 


' '''."•' 'V.' 


f . ' i 


1 ^M -m 

Mllllll .-. «^-___^ '"'■■'-'.'- If 'Ml 




fill 




■ In v i 


nil 

ill; 




-*JJ 




Ihv 



ty was assembling for dinner, lie undertook, although 
quite unacquainted with the owner of the house or 
any of the guests, to join them, and instructed his 



144 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

friend to call for him at ten o'clock. Knocking at 
the door accordingly, lie gave his hat confidently 
to the servant, and was ushered up-stairs. Enter- 
ing the drawing-room, he affected to have for the 
first time discovered his mistake, and poured out 
such sallies of wit, that, as he had anticipated, the 
host, although ignorant even of his name, pressed 
him to stay to dinner. When his friend, Mr. Terry 
called, ignorant whether he should find him there 
or in the neighboring watch-house, he was aston- 
ished, on being shown into the drawing-room, to 
see the man of humor seated at the pianoforte, 
delivering some extempore poetry, which, upon 
perceiving the entrance of his friend, he wound up 
with the following stanza: 

"I'm very much pleased with your fare, 
Your cellar 's as good as your cook. 
My friend's Mr. Terry the player, 
And I 'm Mr. Theodore Hook." 

The fame of the man of wit reached even roy- 
alty itself. The prince regent was so fascinated 



THE MAN OF WIT AND HUMOE. 145 

with him that he appointed him treasurer to the 
island of the Mauritius, with a salary of £2,000 a 
year. He here gave himself up to every enjoy- 
ment. "This island, 77 he wrote home to his friends, 
■ 'is fairyland. The mildness of the air, the clear- 
ness of the atmosphere, the liveliness of the place 
itself, all combine to render it fascination. Every 
hour seems happier than the last. 77 Here, then, 
was Hook at the pinnacle of his glory. Eich, pop- 
ular, witty, and full of friends, he had surely found 
the secret of happiness ! N o ; he had only followed 
the Mirage. 

Business and pleasure, in the worldly sense of 
the latter term, are rarely compatible. A defi- 
ciency of £12,000, arising not from fraud but from 
gross carelessness, was found in the treasury. He 
was suddenly arrested in - a ball-room, and sent 
home a prisoner for debt to England, stripped of 
all his honors, and penniless. Happy would it 
have been for him had this blow awakened him 

The Mirage of Life. I Q 



146 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

from his dream of folly ; but, alas ! as one delusion 
was dissipated, another took its place. By his pen 
he soon achieved literary eminence, and an income 
of £4,000 a year. Seated at the tables of the 
great, he became again, from his wit and humor, 
the life of every party. His versatile genius spar- 
kled more brilliantly than ever, and he was the 
admired of all admirers. In the midst of his gay- 
ety however, he had an aching heart. From the 
brilliant saloon he would retire to his lonely apart- 
ment, and there, with jaded spirits, sit down to 
write for his bread some work of humor, racking, 
as has been well observed, his imagination for mirth 
with anguish at his heart. "We may venture/ 7 
says one who appears to have known him intimate- 
ly — "we may venture to supply, by way of speci- 
men, a sketch by no means overcharged, of one of 
those restless life-exhausting days in which the 
seemingly iron energies of Hook were prematurely 
consumed. A late breakfast, his spirits jaded by 



THE MAN OF WIT AND HUMOR. 14? 

the exertions of yesterday, and further depressed 
by some pecuniary difficulty, large arrears of lite- 
rary toil to be made up, the meal sent away un- 
tasted, every power of his mind forced and strained 
for the next four or five hours upon the subject 
that happens to be in hand, then a rapid drive to 
town, and a visit first to one club, where, the centre 
of an admiring circle, his intellectual faculties are 
again upon the stretch, and again aroused and sus- 
tained by artificial means — the same thing repeated 
at a second club — a ballot or a general meeting at 
a third — a chop in the committee-room, and then a 
tumbler of brandy-and-water, or two ; and, we fear 
the catalogue would not always close here. Off 
next to take his place at some lordly banquet, 
where the fire of wit is to be again stirred into a 
blaze, and fed by fresh supplies of potent stimu- 
lants. Lady A has never heard one of his 

delightful extempores — the pianoforte is at hand — 
fresh and more vigorous efforts of fancy, memory, 



148 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

and application are called for — all the wondrous 
machinery of the brain taxed and strained to the 
very utmost — smiles and applause reward the ex- 
ertion, and perhaps one more song is craved as a 
special favor. . . . He retires at last; but not to 
rest — not to home. Half an hour at Crockford's is 
proposed by some gay companion as they quit to- 
gether. We need not continue the picture. The 
half-hour is quadrupled, and the excitement of the 
preceding part of the evening is as nothing to that 
which now ensues. By the time he reaches home 
the reaction is complete ; and in a state of utter 
prostration, bodily and mental, he seeks his pillow, 
to run perhaps precisely a similar course on the 
morrow." 

Such was the daily life of the man of wit and 
humor. Hook has left behind him a journal, some 
extracts from which appeared in the Quarterly Re- 
view a few years ago. It is a harrowing descrip- 
tion of splendid misery — of the life of one who, 



THE MAN OF WIT AND HUMOE. 149 

while in the world's opinion full of enjoyment, was 
in truth thoroughly wretched. Let a few brief ex- 
tracts suffice : " To-day I am forcing myself, against 
my inclination, to write. The old sickness and 
faintness of heart came over me, and I could not 
go out. No ; it is only to the grave that I must be 
carried. If my poor children were safe I would 
not care. . . . Another year opens upon me with a 
vast load of debt, and many encumbrances. I am 
suffering under a constant depression of spirits, 
which no one who sees me in society ever dreams 
of." 

The close was, however, approaching. One day, 
at a dinner party, all were struck with his ghastly 
paleness. Turning round to a mirror, he himself 
exclaimed, " Ah, I see how it is. I look just as I 
am — done up in mind, in body, and purse." Re- 
turning home, he took to his bed. A friend calling 
on him found him in an undress. "Here you see 
me," he said. "All my buckling, and padding, and 



150 



THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 



washing dropped for ever ; and I a gray-headed 
old man." A few days afterwards lie died. 

Such was the end of the man of wit and humor. 
His noble powers had all been wasted in the ser- 
vice of the world. He had followed mirth and 
folly as his grand object in life. Oh, how emphat- 
ically had they proved to him onty the Mirage ! 

"There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end 
thereof are the ways of death. Even in laughter the heart is sor- 
rowful ; and the end of that mirth is heaviness. " Prov. 14 : 12, 13. 




Jhe JA 



AN OF THE 



u° 



RLD. 



The 

MAN OF THE WORLD. 




^ 

HERE is another character resembling 
in many points those which we have 
previously sketched, but differing from them 
in some particular shades — we mean the 
Man of the World. He prides himself on 
his knowledge of life, on his acquaintance with its 
maxims, and on his thorough devotion to its pur- 
suits. It is not our intention to draw this charac- 
ter at full length ; but, as an illustration of our 

meaning, briefly bring before our readers the name 

20 



154 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

of the celebrated Lord Chesterfield, as a type of 
The Man of the World. 

This nobleman emphatically deserved this title, 
so much so, that he has been well termed by some 
the high-priest of the world's vanities. Born to 
rank, wealth, and talent, he enjoyed all the requi- 
sites which are commonly supposed to constitute 
happiness. He started in life with the determina- 
tion of gaining the applause and favor of the world, 
making that the supreme object of his existence. 
Selfishness was the key-stone of his system, The 
maxim of a great statesman, Lord Somers, had 
been, " Aim at being useful, rather than at appear- 
ing to be so." Lord Chesterfield reversed the mot- 
to, and read it, "Aim at appearing to be, rather 
than at being useful." To adapt himself to the 
humors and peculiarities of all he met, to study 
their passions and weaknesses that he might play 
upon them for his own advantage, such were his 



THE MAN OF THE WOELD. 



155 




principles of action. He aimed at being thought 
the most polite man in England, if not in Europe. 



156 THE MIEAGE OF LIFE. 

"Hand the gentleman a chair," were almost his 
dying words, when a friend entered his room du- 
ring his last illness ; thus showing the ruling pas- 
sion strong in death. His popularity was very 
great. He attained a high position in the state. 
He possessed a large and magnificent mansion, 
which, even in the present day, commands admira- 
tion as a monument of his classic taste.* He had 

* "In the magnificent mansion which he erected in Audley- 
street, you may still," says a writer in the Quarterly Review, "see 
his favorite apartments furnished and decorated as he left them ; 
among the rest, what he boasted of as the finest room in London, 
(and perhaps even now, it remains unsurpassed,) his spacious and 
beautiful library looking on the finest private garden in London. 
The walls are covered half-way up with rich and classical stores of 
literature ; above the cases are, in close series, the portraits of emi- 
nent authors, French and English, with most of whom he had con- 
versed. Over these, and immediately under the massive cornice, 
extend all round in foot-long capitals, the Horatian lines, 

1 Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno et inertibus horis 
Ducere solicits jucunda oblivia vitae.' 

' Let us drown in sweet oblivion the anxious cares of life— by alternate 
study, slumber, and grateful indolence." 



THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 157 

a mind cultivated and enriched with stores of learn- 
ing and general information. The prize, therefore, 
for which he started in life was gained ; but unsanc- 
tified and unblessed by God, his success proved 
wormwood to the taste, and illusive as the Mirage. 
The word of God had said, "Love not the world;" 
but Lord Chesterfield had in effect declared, "The 
world I will love. 77 Let his own words, penned in 
the evening of life, tell what he had found the re- 
sult of his decision to be. 

"I have run, 77 says he, "the silly rounds of 
business and of pleasure, and have done with them 
all. I have enjoyed all the pleasures of the world, 
and consequently know their futility, and do not 
regret their loss. I appraise them at their real 
value, which is in truth very low ; whereas those 
who have not experienced them always overrate 
them. They only see the gay outside, and are daz- 
zled with their glare ; but I have been behind the 
scenes, and have seen all the coarse pulleys and 



158 



THE MIEAGE OF LIFE. 



dirty ropes which exhibit and move the gaudy 
machine. I have seen and smelt the tallow can- 
dles which illuminate the whole decorations, to the 
astonishment and admiration of an ignorant audi- 
ence. I look back on all that is passed as one of 
those romantic dreams which opium commonly pro- 
duces, and I have no wish to repeat the nauseous 
dose. I have been as wicked and as vain as Solo- 
mon, but am now at last able to feel and attest the 
truth of his reflection, that all is vanity and vexa- 
tion of spirit. Shall I tell you that I bear this situ- 
ation with resignation and constancy ? No ; I bear 
it because I must, whether I will or no. I think of 
nothing but killing time the best way I can, now 
that it has become my enemy. It is my resolution 
to sleep in the carriage during the rest of life's 
journey." Such was the confession of the man of 
the world. Selfishness had been the mainspring of 
his conduct. The result had been, dissatisfaction 
of spirit , the illusion of the Mirage. 



THE MAN OP THE WOELD. 



159 



"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. 
If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the 
eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 
And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof : but he that doeth 
the will of God abideth for ever." 1 John 2: 15-17. 




The Eeauty. 



ax 



THE BEAUTY. 




! HESE pages may meet the eye of some 
who are exulting in all the gladness of 
youthful Beauty. To such we address a 
few words of warning against confiding in 
this most alluring yet most illusive Mirage. 
Yes, even beauty, so much prized, has often proved 
only a mockery and a snare, and when unaccom- 
panied by the fear of God, been a source of sorrow 
to its possessors. 

What suggestions illustrative of the truth of this 
remark are called forth by the name of Mary, Queen 



164 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

of Scots ! If ever the possession of beauty and 
female charms could have guaranteed happiness, 
she might with justice have expected it. "All 
contemporary authors/ 7 says Robertson the histo- 
rian, " agree in ascribing to Mary the utmost beau- 
ty of countenance and elegance of shape of which 
the human form is capable. JSTo one ever beheld 
her without admiration. 77 Yet this very beauty 
proved one of the causes of her ruin. "Ah, what 
a life were this, gay ladies, could it only last for 
ever ! 77 said the Scottish reformer Knox, when he 
visited her court and glanced at its brilliant circle. 
Truly was this warning given. Behind the decep- 
tive scene was lurking the scaffold and an ignomin- 
ious death. A few years more saw the once young 
and beautiful queen bending beneath the execu- 
tioner^ axe, and closing her career in shame and 
sorrow. 

The life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, 
is another illustration of the Mirage of beauty 



THE BEAUTY. 165 

Distinguished by her personal charms, she ascend- 
ed, when very young, the throne of one of the most 
powerful countries in Europe, and gave herself up 
to a life of worldly enjoyment. All that art and 
luxury could contribute to make life happy was 
hers. Yet, in the end, it proved baseless as the 
Mirage. Time rolled on, and saw the once youth- 
ful and romantic queen, with locks turned prema- 
turely gray by sorrow, conducted by a yelling mob 
to the guillotine. 

Josephine, the wife of Napoleon, was also dis- 
tinguished for her personal charms and her devo- 
tion to the pleasures of the world. She, too, found 
them all delusive ; saw her regal power dissolve 
like a vision, and died of a broken heart. 

Descending from the circle of royalty, we find 
a similar lesson conveyed in recent times in the 
career of the celebrated Lady Hamilton, or The 
Beauty, 



166 THE MIRAGE OF LITE. 

The name of this woman will be familiar to all 
wlio have read the Life of Lord Nelson. His un- 
happy connection with her casts a deep shade on 
his character, and was the cause of the chief blot 
which rests upon his fame, in the execution of 
Caraccioli at Naples. Lady Hamilton was distin- 
guished above almost every woman of her age for 
personal beauty. A poetical writer, when sketch- 
ing her character, thus speaks : 

"I've seen thy bust in many lands: 
I 've seen the stranger pause with lifted hands, 
In deep, mute admiration — while his eye 
Dwelt sparkling on its peerless symmetry. 
I Ve seen the poet's, painter's, sculptor's gaze 
Speak with rapt glance the eloquence of praise."* 

Her accomplishments were scarcely inferior to 
her beauty. "She was skilled/ 7 says her biogra- 
pher, "in music and painting. She had exquisite 

* A similar impression was made on the writer when looking at 
an original portrait by Eomney, of Lady Hamilton in her youthful 
days. From whatever part of the room it was approached, the pic- 
ture fixed and fascinated the eye. 



THE BEAUTY. 



167 




taste, and her features could express every emotion 
by turn/ 7 By her fascinating manners she soon 
acquired a great influence over Nelson, and her 



168 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

friendship was eagerly sought by crowds of aspi- 
rants for court favor. The letters of Lord Nelson 
recently published contain several addressed to 
her by persons in the upper classes of society, who 
in the hour of prosperity fawned upon her, and 
were ready to do her abject homage. These let- 
ters commence, "My dear Lady Hamilton, 77 "My 
esteemed Lady Hamilton. 77 The world lay at her 
feet, and nothing seemed to forebode that what she 
was following was but as the Mirage. The only 
occasion on w r hich Beckford of Fonthill threw open 
his splendid mansion to company was when Lady 
Hamilton, along with Lord Nelson, visited it. All 
that the wealth of the princely owner could furnish 
w r as provided to give splendor to the scene. The 
grounds were illuminated by lamps and torches, 
and the interior of the apartments was a blaze of 
jewelry and gold and silver. "Spiced wine, 77 says 
the Gentleman's Magazine of the day, "and confec- 
tionery in golden baskets, were handed round to 



THE BEAUTY. 169 

the company." A numerous party was assembled, 
and Lady Hamilton shone the envy of them all. 
Attired in a rich costume, she entered with a gold- 
en urn in her hands, and recited some verses which 
the company was far too politic not rapturously to 
applaud, spoken as they were by one who had such 
influence over the hero of the hour. No one was 
there to tell her that all this was but deception ; 
that sin surely carried its own punishment with it. 
and the pleasures she was pursuing were merely 
the Mirage. And yet it was even so. 

Thirteen years after the banquet at Fonthill 
had taken place, a lady, buying some meat for her 
dog at a butcher's stall in Calais, was thus accosted 
by the butchers wife: "Ah, madam, you seem a 
benevolent lady; and up stairs there is a poor Eng- 
lish woman who would be glad of the smallest piece 
of meat which you are buying for your dog. 77 Who 
was the grateful recipient of such humble alms? 
Alas, Lady Hamilton the beauty ! After the death 

22 



170 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

of Lord Nelson, deserted by those who fawned upon 
her in prosperity, she gradually became impover- 
ished, and died in a wretched lodging in Calais. 
Her property consisted only of a few pawnbroker's 
duplicates. Her body was put into a common deal 
box, without any inscription. A pall was made by 
the hand of charity, out of an old silk gown belong- 
ing to the deceased, stitched upon a white curtain ; 
and over the praised of statesmen, warriors, poets, 
and artists, the funeral service was read by an Irish 
officer on half-pay. "Her remains lie buried, 77 says 
Eae Wilson the traveller, u in the ditch of Calais. 77 
By others, the spot of her interment is said now to 
be used as a common wood-yard, nothing indica- 
ting where her ashes repose. Such was the end of 
the beauty. How emphatically had her career been 
only the Mirage ! 

If any confirmation were needed of the melan- 
choly truth conveyed in the above lesson, it would 
be found in the life of the well-known Lady Hester 



THE BEAUTY. 171 

Stanhope. Few women entered life with greater 
opportunities of enjoying it than she did, and sel- 
dom was an elevation so dazzling as hers. The 
niece of Mr. Pitt, the favorite minister of George 
III., she was flattered by royalty, and made a 
theme for the illustration of poetry, painting, and 
sculpture. Sated, however, with worldly greatness, 
she retired to the solitudes of the East, and there 
attempted to establish her reputation as Queen of 
the Desert. Her lofty visions all faded however, 
and in the evening of life, forsaken by her friends 
and burdened with pecuniary difficulties,* the once 

* Dr. Thomson, who performed the funeral services over the 
remains of Lady Stanhope, wrote: "What a death! Without a 
European attendant, without a friend, male or female — alone on the 
top of this bleak mountain, her lamp of life grew dimmer and more 
dim, until it went quite out in hopeless, rayless night. Such was 
the end of the once gay and brilliant niece of Pitt, presiding in the 
saloons of the master spirit of Europe, and familiar with the in- 
trigues of kings and cabinets. Alas, she must have drained to the 
dregs many a bitter cup. Let those who are tempted to revolt 
against society, and war with nature, God, and man, sit on the frag- 
ments of this broken tomb." 



172 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

youthful beauty thus confessed how she had proved 
the vanity of life: " She began, v says her biogra- 
pher, "to cry and to wring her hands, presenting 
a most melancholy picture of despair. She then 
spoke thus : ' Look on me ; what a lesson I am 
against vanity! Look at this arm, all skin and 
bone, so thin that you may see through it. It was 
once, without exaggeration, so rounded that you 
could not pinch the skin up. My neck was once 
so fair that a pearl necklace scarcely showed on it ; 
and men — men who were no fools, but sensible 
men — would say to me, You have a neck of which 
you may really be proud. You are one of nature's 
favorites, and may be excused for admiring that 
beautiful skin. What would they say if they could 
behold me now ; with my teeth all gone, and long 
lines on my face?' ... In this mournful strain/' 
adds her biographer, " she went on. Every thing 
around her presented so affecting a picture, that, 
unable to restrain my emotions, I burst into tears." 



THE BEAUTY. 



173 



Such were the confessions of a beauty. How com- 
pletely had she found all her youthful charms illu- 
sive as the Mirage ! 

" Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that fear* 
eth the Lord, she shall be praised." Pro v. 31:30. 



•in 




The Monarch, 



THE MONARCH. 




'HE cares and annoyances incidental to 
power and elevated rank have proved 
a frequent theme of declamation to the 
moralist and the poet; and, as appropri- 
ately concluding our sketches of the Mirage 
of Life, we propose to select our next illustration 
from the highest point of human greatness — the 
throne of the monarch. As to no individual is 
given in a higher degree the capacity of promoting 
human happiness, and advancing the divine glory, 
so nowhere do we find more thrilling lessons than 

The Mirage of Life. 2 3 



178 THE MIEAGE OF LIFE. 

in the career of the monarch, as to the vanity and 
worthlessness of the world, when the heart has 
been devoted to its worship. Charles the Fifth, 
after a life spent in military exploits, and the 
active and energetic prosecution of ambitious proj- 
ects, resigned, as is well known, his crown, sated 
with its enjoyment. The Empress Catherine of 
Eussia endeavored to find happiness in gratifying 
to the utmost expensive tastes, and heaping up a 
costly collection of works of art. She was so 
pressed, however, we are informed, by the tor- 
ments of a guilty conscience, as to be at times 
compelled to leave her chamber at night, and rush 
from her palace, scourged by the lashes of her 
inward tormentor. Beckford of Fonthill, when 
in Portugal, at the close of the last century, met 
with a similar spectacle of misery in the circles 
of royalty, during his visit to the palace of the 
queen-dowager of that country. Her conscience, 
it is supposed, was burdened with some unrepented 



THE MONARCH. 179 

guilt. She imagined, by niglit and by day, that 
she beheld her father a mass of calcined cinder 
enveloped in flame and fastened to a pedestal of 
molten iron. At the very time that Beckford was 
listening to the narrative of her sufferings, in an 
adjoining apartment, the most agonizing shrieks, 
such as he had hardly conceived possible to be 
uttered, rang through the palace, inflicting upon 
the visitor a sensation of horror which he had 
never experienced before. These were the cries 
of the unhappy queen, surrounded by every thing 
that could minister to her comfort, and yet pro- 
foundly miserable. Many other examples might 
be produced, illustrative of the truth that often 
11 uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." But 
as one of the most striking instances, in modern 
or in ancient times, of the unsatisfactory career 
of a king, when devoid of Christian principle, we 
select, as appropriately concluding these sketches, 
the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, or, The Monarch. 



180 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

This extraordinary man was born at Corsica in 
the year 1769. Although signs of genius were 
noticed in him when a boy, yet none could have 
anticipated that the quiet and studious youth was 
afterwards to play so remarkable a part on the 
stage of life. Having chosen the military profession, 
he remained for some years in the ranks of the 
army, noticed only as an attentive and intelligent 
officer. The great outburst of the first French 
Revolution, however, soon took place, and circum- 
stances arose which called into action his wonder- 
ful powers. Toulon witnessed the first marked 
display of his great military talents. 

Stepping from one post to another, he found 
himself ere long, from being an obscure officer, 
appointed to the command of the army of Italy. 
Had the spectacle be^n such as could have awak- 
ened the respect of our moral faculties, his posi- 
tion at this time would have deserved admiration. 
Young and enterprising, he displayed qualities of 



THE MONARCH. 



181 




ardour, energy, and perseverance worthy of a 
better cause. Victory followed victory. The skill 



182 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

of the oldest and most experienced generals failed 
when brought into contact with him, and he was 
soon placed at the head of an army flushed with 
success, and became the master of a large country, 
with potentates anxiously suing for peace. This 
was but the commencement of his onward career. 
Returning home, he was consumed with a passion 
for military glory, and with a bold but unscrupu- 
lous genius he designed his expedition to Egypt. 
Here too, success accompanied him. The decayed 
energies of the country received an impulse from 
his hands ; and Egypt, long sunk under oppression, 
was made under his rule, to bear some resem- 
blance to the bustling and prosperous land which 
it had been in the days of the Pharaohs. Egypt 
served but as the vaulting-board from which he 
sprang, under circumstances that would have 
crushed a less determined spirit, to the post of 
supreme rule. He was made first consul of France. 
Having gained this power, he was not slow to 



THE MONARCH. 183 

augment it. The fortunes of the country, which 
had long declined, began under his hand to rally. 
Even the physical barriers imposed by nature did 
not present obstacles too great for his persever- 
ance to overcome. The Alps themselves were 
scaled by him. The disasters and dangers which 
had threatened France were turned into victories. 
The crown, for which he had so long panted, was 
at last placed upon his brow. The pontiff of the 
Koman-catholic church travelled to Paris to pre- 
side at the ceremony of his coronation; and art 
lent all its aid to make the spectacle gorgeous. 

Even this elevation, however, did not mark 
the zenith of Napoleon's power. It seemed to 
soar afresh from those points at which other minds 
would have paused for repose. In a series of 
battles he defeated every army which opposed 
him. No weapon formed against him seemed to 
prosper. Kingdoms were broken up by him, and 
ancient boundaries altered at his pleasure. As he 



184 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

grew ill power, however, he grew also in pride. 
His levees and ante-rooms were crowded, not only 
with courtiers, but with princes and kings, longing 
for his smiles or a glance of approbation. Never, 
perhaps, had mortal risen before to such a point 
of elevation. With the majority of the countries 
of Europe tributary to him, he seemed above the 
reach of reverses. But unfounded in equity, based 
on unrighteousness, even this mighty empire was 
to pass away like a Mirage. 

Blinded by pride, he was tempted to invade 
Eussia. The result is well known. Amidst the 
snows of that vast empire, he saw entombed an 
army surpassing in magnitude any which had ever 
been led forth by a conqueror in modern times. 
His power was snapped by this disaster. The 
combined monarchs of Europe rose, in the hope of 
deliverance from the oppression which had so long 
weighed them down. One by one, he saw the 
fragments of his authority pass away. Like a 



THE MONARCH. 185 

desperate gambler, he risked his all upon the die, 
and found himself at last a captive on the barren 
rock of St. Helena. 

And now was to be exemplified the vanity of 
worldly ambition. The mighty monarch's train 
was reduced to a few attendants, and his territory 
to a plot of garden ground. He who had made so 
many widows and orphans, was himself deprived 
of his wife and son. The schemes to which his 
active mind turned for recreation proved abortive. 
"Let us live on the past," he exclaimed. But the 
retrospect exhibited only a course of selfish aggran- 
dizement. He sickened, and pined for death. 
"Why," he would ask, "did the cannon-balls spare 
me to die in this manner? I am no longer the 
great Napoleon. 77 "How fallen I am! 77 he would at 
other times exclaim, "I whose activity was bound- 
less, whose mind never slumbered, am plunged in 
lethargic stupor, and must make an effort even 
to raise my eyelids. I sometimes dictated upon 

24 



186 THE MIBAGE OF LIFE. 

different subjects to four or five secretaries, who 
wrote as fast as words could be uttered ; but then 
I was Napoleon. Now I am no longer any thing. 
My strength, my faculties forsake me. I do not 
live ; I merely exist. 77 

At other times his reflections took a religious 
turn: " Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and my- 
self, founded empires upon force. Jesus Christ 
alone founded his empire upon love, and at this 
hour millions of men would die for him. I die 
before my time, and my body will be given back 
to the earth to become food for the worms. Such 
is the fate which so soon awaits him who has 
been called the great Napoleon. What an abyss 
between my deep misery and the eternal kingdom 
of Christ, w r hich is proclaimed, loved, and adored, 
and which is extending over the whole earth! 77 

With the failure of his health his spirits also 
drooped. Some fishes in a pond in his garden 
had attracted his notice; a deleterious substance 



THE MONARCH. 187 

happened to mix with the water; they sickened 
and died. " Every thing that I love," says Napo- 
leon; " every thing that belongs to me, is stricken. 
Heaven and mankind unite to afflict me." Fits 
of long silence and profound melancholy were now 
frequent. His health became weaker and weaker, 
his weariness of life more apparent ; but at length 
the final scene in his eventful course drew nigh. 
His disorder reached its height. In his last hours, 
his thoughts mingled with battle strife: "Steingell, 
Dessaix, Massena," he exclaimed, in the midst of 
his wanderings of mind, "victory is declaring 
itself. Eun! hasten! press the charge! they are 
ours." Soon afterwards he died. A narrow grave, 
overhung by a weeping willow, long marked the 
spot where the remains of the mighty conqueror 
reposed. 

Such was Napoleon Bonaparte ; the possessor 
of talents of the highest order, of power the most 
unbounded, of opportunities of usefulness the most 



188 



THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 



varied. Every element of human happiness had 
been within his reach ; but all, without the divine 
blessing, had proved unsubstantial as the Mirage. 

"What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and 
lose his own soul ?" Matt. 16 : 26. 




The Living f ountain, 



THE LIVING FOUNTAIN, 




'N the preceding pages have been given 
the outlines of the career of various indi- 
viduals, who, drinking deeply of the world's 
enjoyments, yet found in the end that all 
which they had followed had been but van- 
ity and vexation of spirit. The list of examples 
furnished might have been enlarged by others be- 
longing to a more remote period ; but it has been 
our desire to sustain the interest of the subject by 
selecting the illustrations from modern times. 



192 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

By way of brief addition however, to the char- 
acters previously delineated, we may point, as Tlie 
Successful Lawyer \ to Lord Keeper Xorth, panting 
for years to grasp the great seal of England, but 
confessing, when he had actually gained the object 
of pursuit, that he scarcely enjoyed one minute of 
ease or peace. "The king, 77 says his biographer, 
describing his appointment, "lifted up the purse 
containing the seal, and putting it into his hands, 
said, ' Here, my lord, take it. You will find it 
heavy. 7 Thus his majesty acted the prophet as 
well as the king ; for, shortly before his lordship 7 s 
death, he declared that since he had had the seal 
he had not enjoyed an easy or contented minute. " 
As The Scholar, G-rottus will occur to recollection, 
envying on his death-bed a poor but pious peasant 
who had devoted much of his time to prayer and 
the perusal of the Scriptures, while he himself, as 
he confessed, had lost a lifetime in laborious trifling. 
As The Philosopher, Bacon may be appropriately 



THE LIVING FOUNTAIN. 



193 




pointed to. He explored all the heights, and 
sounded all the depths of philosophy, yet closed 

25 



194 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

his days in dishonor, a chagrined and disappointed 
man. As The Man of Enterprise, how touching it 
is to find Columbus discovering a new world, yet 
dying of the sickness of hope deferred, and declar- 
ing that he could not have served the monarch 
who neglected him more faithfully had it been to 
obtain paradise. Turning to the pages of Scrip- 
ture, we find Solomon surpassing in wisdom and 
glory all the princes of the earth, and yet confess- 
ing in the end, that, with the exception of the fear 
of God and keeping his commandments, all else 
was vanity and vexation of spirit.* "I said in 

* "It may be vanity to pursue pleasure and gratify appetite, to 
hunt after renown. It may be vanity to buy fine houses, preserve 
pheasants, plant trees, acquire an estate, with the hills from the 
lighthouse to Weybourne for a boundary ; but it is not vanity, it ia 
excellent good sense to serve with all the heart, and soul, and might, 
and main, the Master and Creator of these heavens. It is not van- 
ity to conquer evil passions and stifle unholy repinings ; it is not 
vanity to be patient, submissive, and gentle and cheerful ; and in 
seasons of trial and privation to spread around a loving and holy 
influence, so that the sufferer becomes the teacher and the com- 
forter.' ' Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton. 



THE LIVING FOUNTAIN. 195 

my heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, 
therefore, enjoy pleasure : and behold, this also is 
vanity. I said of laughter, It is mad : and of mirth, 
What doeth it? ... I made me great works; I 
builded me houses ; I planted me vineyards ; I 
made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees 
in them of all kind of fruits : I made me pools of 
water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth 
forth trees: I got me servants and maidens, and 
had servants born in my house ; also I had great 
possessions of great and small cattle above all that 
were in Jerusalem before me ; I gathered me also 
silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings 
and of the provinces: I gat me men singers and 
women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, 
as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. So I 
was great, and increased more than all that were 
before me in Jerusalem : also my wisdom remained 
with me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I 
kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from 



196 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labor: 
and this was my portion of all my labor. Then I 
looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, 
and on the labor that I had labored to do: and 
behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and 
there was no profit under the sun.' 7 Eccl. 2 : 1-11. 
What lesson, then, are we to draw from these 
solemn attestations of the vanity of human pursuits 
and the Mirage of Life ? That happiness is nowhere 
to be found ? No ; such a conclusion would be at 
variance with experience, and a libel on the bounty 
of that great Being who has given us all things 
richly to enjoy, and who has multiplied with a lav- 
ish hand the materials of pleasure for the gratifica- 
tion of his creatures. Is this then the lesson taught : 
that wealth, art, fame, eloquence, power, are in 
themselves sinful ? No ; it is possible to be a man 
of wealth, and yet a John Thornton; a hero, and 
yet a Gardiner or a Havelock ; an orator, and yet 
a Jeremy Taylor or a Eobert Hall ; a man of wit, 



THE LIVING FOUNTAIN. 197 

and yet a "Wilberforce ; an artist, and yet a Bacon 
the sculptor; a beauty, and yet to have personal 
charms eclipsed by the beauty of holiness. The 
truth to be drawn from the examples cited is, not 
that there is no happiness in life, but that in a 
life unsanctified by religion, no real or at least no 
permanent bliss is to be found. It is no want of 
charity to assert, that the individuals whose char- 
acters w T e have drawn sought their chief enjoyment 
in the world. In the end it proved to them a bro- 
ken cistern which could hold no water. Such ever 
has been and ever must be, the result of all at- 
tempts to find pleasure in the creature apart from 
the Creator. " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with 
all thy strength, and with all thy mind," was the 
great law originally engraven by the Almighty on 
the heart of man; and while it is neglected, all 
expectations of solid or abiding enjoyment are a 
chimera and a delusion. The faculties of the soul, 



198 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

in their fallen condition, have lost their original 
centre, and are restless and dissatisfied, each seek- 
ing its own selfish gratification. It is only when 
the heart under the drawing of the Holy Spirit, re- 
turns to God in the way he has pointed out, through 
the Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, by a true 
faith and cordial acceptance of him as the Saviour 
of sinners, that it finds its rest. All the powers of 
the soul become then obedient to their lawful Head, 
and peace and harmony enter where before were 
confusion and disorder. 

Nor let it be supposed that the reverses and 
disappointments which we have described as inci- 
dental to human life are peculiar to men of elevated 
station or distinguished genius. By fixing the glass 
at a lower range, we should doubtless have been 
enabled to present numerous instances of the Mi- 
rage of Life in humbler classes of society, though 
not possessing interest enough to form the subject 
of detailed sketches. In almost every grade of 



THE LIVING FOUNTAIN. 199 

society, how different are the closing from the open- 
ing scenes of life! The youth, who has started in 
the race for wealth, finds himself too often a disap- 
pointed old man, struggling with embarrassments 
and misfortune. He who had looked forward to 
length of days, pines perhaps in sickness, or is cut 
off in his prime. Another who had pictured an 
ideal paradise of domestic enjoyment, sees the ob- 
ject of his affections laid in the grave, and the chil- 
dren of early promise cut off by disease, or blasting 
by misconduct the fond hopes which parental love 
had entertained. Multitudes will join from painful 
experience, in the following sad retrospect of life : 

" The shade of youthful hope was there 
That lingered long and latest died ; 
Ambition all dissolved in air 
With phantom honors by its side. 

What empty shadows glimmer nigh ? 

They once were friendship, truth, and love. 
Ah, die to thought, to memory die, 

Since to my heart ye lifeless prove." 



200 THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 

When we turn however, to the pages of Chris- 
tian biography, do we find any instances of individ- 
uals who had truly devoted themselves to the ser- 
vice of God complaining that they had found that 
the Mirage ? No ; God is the fountain of living 
water at which man may supply all his wants, while 
still the supply is inexhausted, because inexhausti- 
ble. His gospel meets the cravings of man's heart 
for happiness. Faith in the great atoning sacrifice 
of Christ gives peace to the troubled conscience ; 
the renewing and sanctifying influences of the Holy 
Spirit restore health and happiness to the soul which 
they enter ; the service of Christ calls into vigor- 
ous and harmonious action all the mental powers ; 
while trust in God's providence, if it does not 
give exemption from the vicissitudes to which life 
is subject, sanctifies them and turns them into a 
source of blessing. Let the honored lives of Wil- 
berforce, Simeon, and many other pious men of 
modern times be appealed to. See them draw- 



THE LIVING FOUNTAIN. 201 

ing nigh to their latter end full of years and of 
honors, and with a hope bright with immortality. 
See Payson on his death-bed, acknowledging, after 
a life devoted to the service of God, that he swam 
in a sea of glory, and was filled, in the prospect 
of eternity, with a joy beyond the power of utter- 
ance. 

By these bright examples on the one hand, and 
by the instances of worldly failure already adduced 
on the other, we would affectionately entreat our 
reader solemnly to ask himself what is his great 
object in life, and to take heed that he is not cha- 
sing the Mirage. The objects which he is following 
may be of a less dignified nature than those pur- 
sued by the characters we have sketched ; but if 
unsanctified, if pursued without reference to the 
glory of God, sooner or later, in eternity if not in 
time, they will be found to have been but vanity 
and vexation of spirit. 

To the young do we more especially appeal, 
26 



202 THE MIEAGE OF LIFE. 

Before their eyes the Mirage is apt to expand in 
all its false and treacherous hues. Oh, let them be 
persuaded now, ere it is too late, to cease from its 
vain pursuit, to detect the hollowness of the world's 
attractions, and to take up the light and easy yoke 
of Christ. Eepent, and believe the gospel. Flee 
while it is yet time, to the Saviour. Seek in ear- 
nest prayer for the teaching of the Holy Spirit to 
create within you a new and contrite heart, and to 
enable you to cleave to Christ, with full purpose to 
devote yourselves to his service, henceforth lead- 
ing a new life, and following the commandments of 
God. 

To any weary-hearted wanderer who has long 
chased the Mirage, we would tender the Saviour's 
gracious invitation: "Come unto me, all ye that 
labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you 
rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, 
for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall 
find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy 



THE LIVING FOUNTAIN. 203 

and my burden is light." Justified through faith 
in the Son of God, and sanctified by his Spirit, you 
will find that repose which you have so long unsuc- 
cessfully sought in an ensnaring world. The Sav- 
iour's commandments you will discover to be not 
grievous, his service to be perfect freedom. The 
close of life, which to so many reveals only the 
illusions they have followed, shall to you furnish 
matter for adoring and grateful retrospection. Death 
itself will be stripped of its sting. It shall prove 
the portal through which you shall enter upon joys 
infinite in degree, and everlasting in duration; 
while through eternity you shall bless that Divine 
grace which first led you to abandon for ever the 
vain pursuit of the Mirage of Life. 

"Ho, every one that thirsteth, 
Come ye to the waters, 

And he that hath no money ; come ye, buy and eat ; 
Yea, come, buy wine and milk 
Without money and without price. 
Wherefore do you spend money for that which is not bread ; 



204 



THE MIRAGE OF LIFE. 



And your labor for that which satisfieth not ? 

Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good. 

And let your soul delight itself in fatness. 

Incline your ear and come unto me: 

Hear, and your soul shall live." Isa. 55:1-3. 




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