cellencies which a reader of discernment may discover in the language of the Scriptures, the text, which we are now considering, will strike him most powerfully. The terms of it derive peculiar force from the recent and previous request of the disciples that their Master would refresh himself with meat. They resemble also the colloquial style of other nations in expressing that which we do with pleasure and satisfaction. Even in the most ornamental kinds of composition, imagery drawn from the senses of taste and smell, and the objects by which they are respectively gratified have been successfully employed; and the intenseness which nature, for the preservation of the individual, has given to the desire of allaying thirst and hunger, supplies very pertinent and very luminous terms of metaphor to express the most earnest solicitude of the human mind for the attainment of intellectual, moral, and religious gratification. The principle indeed, upon which as a question of taste, the figurative phraseology of my text may be elucidated and defended, lies deep in the philosophy of the human mind. It must be traced in the influence of contiguity and resemblance, in the successive and simultaneous, or I should rather say, in the separate and conjoint operation of the senses, and in the variously modified effects of such operation upon the affections, the imagination, and the language of mankind; and as some fastidious dealers in refinement are wont to display their ingenuity in cavils and sarcasms upon the style of the Scriptures, I have drawn up a series of critical illustrations, and metaphysical arguments, far too copious, and perhaps rather too recondite for the present occasion. But if the view which I have taken of those principles be right, the metaphorical expressions used by our Lord, though borrowed from common life, and employed upon a most solemn and interesting subject, are at once intelligible without debasing coarseness, and impressive without artificial decoration. The images too, which are set before us in other parts of the narrative, whence my text is taken, rise naturally out of the events recorded there by St. John, follow each other in a clear and easy order, and form an assemblage of beauties most agreeable to our taste and moral sentiments, both from their variety when seen separately, and their harmony when surveyed collectively.* *The comic writers of antiquity frequently borrow their imagery from food, Istic mihi cibus est quod fabulare. Plautus, Cistell. So too Aristophanes, in the Rana, v. 757. μάλα γ' ἐποπτεύειν δοκῶ, ὅταν καταράσωμαι λάθρα τῷ δεσπότη, "I seem to have exquisite food, such as is eaten even by the TOTTа in the sacred mysteries, when I secretly curse my master." These passages, it is true, have a mixture of comic vivacity, and therefore may be thought somewhat unfit to illustrate, or at least to justify the grave language of Holy Writ. I shall therefore enter more largely into a vindication of the general principle upon which the expression of our Lord may be vindicated from the imputation of levity, or vulgarity, and Proceed we now, in the second place, to consider the import of the text, as it may be applied to men, by whom virtue is both loved and practised as the will of God. after stating the opinions of some philosophical critics, I shall illustrate them by dignified passages selected from writers of the highest class. Mr. Burke admits that smell and taste have some share in ideas of greatness; "when," says he, "they are moderated, as in a description or narrative, they become sources of the sublime as genuine as any other, and upon the very same principle of a moderated pain; a cup of bitterness—to drain the bitter cup of fortune-the bitter apples of Sodom, these are all ideas suitable to a sublime description." Under a peculiar state of concomitant circumstances, the affection of smell, even in its fullest force, and when it leans directly upon the sensory, and so far is painful, may, while the sentiment stands not nakedly by itself, contribute to sublimity At rex solicitus monstris oracula Fauni Fatidici genitoris adit, lucosque sub alta, Consulit Albunea, nemorum quæ maxima sacra And again, Spelunca alta fuit, vastoque immanis hiatu Upon the former of these passages the critic tells us that the stench of the vapour in Albunea happily conspires with the sacred horrors and gloominess of that prophetic forest.—(Sublime and Beautiful, sect. 21. p. 157.) Upon the latter he has not said, what in conformity to his principles we may ourselves say, that the disagreeable quality is united with images of allowed grandeur-that the surrounding scenery protects what otherwise might be offensive or ridiculous-that the depth of the cavern, the vastness of the chasm at the entrance of it, the When we reflect upon his glorious attributes, upon the various and endearing relation in which he stands to us, upon the exercise of his power black hue of the adjacent lake, and the thick darkness of the grove, co-operate with the destructive exhalation in giving dignity to the whole composition. In explaining the general agreement of the senses, he observes that the ideas of sweetness belonging both to taste and smell, are metaphorically transferred to sights and sounds, the objects of two nobler senses; and of taste he tells us that it is a term employed to express not merely "a perception of the primary pleasures of sense, but of the secondary pleasures of imagination, and of the conclusions of the reasoning faculty, concerning the various relations of these, and concerning the human passions, manners and actions"-(p. 30.) Let us pass on to the sense of smelling, the examination of which will throw additional light upon the operations of the other sense which we have been considering. "It is somewhat surprising," says Mr. Dugald Stewart, "that the Abbe Sicard should have overlooked the aid which the sense of smelling seems so peculiarly calculated to furnish for rearing his proposed metaphysical structure. Some of the most significant words relating to the human mind (the word sagacity, for instance) are borrowed from this very sense; and the conspicuous place which its sensations occupy in the poetical language of all nations, show how easily and naturally they ally themselves with the refined operations of the fancy, and with the moral emotions of the heart. The infinite variety of modifications besides, of which they are susceptible, might furnish useful resources, in the way of association, for prompting the memory, where it stood in need of assistance. One of the best schools for the education of such a pupil would, probably, be a well-arranged botanical garden.-(See some account of a boy born blind and deaf, with a few remarks and comments, p. 37. Again, in p. 43.) I cannot help quoting here a very curious observation of Mr. Wardrop's, with respect to the partialities and dislikes conceived by Mr. Mitchell, in consequence of the moral expression and his wisdom for the gracious purposes of kindness to us, upon the tendency of all his commands to lead us to good, and all his prohibitions to preserve us from evil, we must be conscious, that obedience to such a Being is not only becoming, but most agreeable, and that the performance of his will supplies that support to the soul, which meat which he seems to have attached to particular sensations of ̓Αμβρόσιαι δ' ἄρα χαῖται ἐπεῤῥώσαντο ἄνακτος Thus, again, among the marks by which Æneas discovered the presence of his divine parent, we have not only the rosycoloured neck, the flowing robe, and the stately march, pre |