to which however I can in general compose myself. Yet, if thought has been very actively exercised, the sleep is not sound: but attended with a continuation in dreams of the various matters that have recently occupied the mind, strangely patched and jumbled with imperfect remoter recollections.

I have a strong propensity, at times, to attend to more than one subject at once: for instance, while accounts and figures are before me, to pursue some train of thought of a scientific, literary, or moral nature. Yet I am by no means equal to such exertions-few persons being, perhaps, more easily distracted (as the term is) by a variety of claims upon their attention-and few can suffer more from it.

I think most coolly, deliberately and to purpose, on first rising in the morning but this advantage is nearly balanced at present (while I have not a constant task before me, and am indeed rather afraid to engage in one) by a certain difficulty of bringing my thoughts into full play on any subject. In proportion as I apply, the facility or flow of thought increases: but here occurs presently the grand impediment (under which I have now laboured for many months) of weariness or fretfulness in the work. The exercise of thought seems disturbed, in such cases, by disorder of the stomach arising, I suppose, from imperfect digestion. [Hence] bodily exercise in the forenoon seems so essential to my well-being that, when I am obliged to sit still and retire in thought, or apply to one object exclusively, I find it very difficult to resist the propensity to restlessness.

I am apt to be moved by instances or relations of fraud, falsehood or a tyrannical abuse of power, beyond that [measure] which the occasion requires, or which is productive of real good. Immorality, I am afraid, does not grieve me enough.

I have an occasional difficulty of confining my attention to the subject on which another is speaking. I sometimes let him go on while, under the appearance of close attention, I am in fact thinking my own thoughts, and am equally at a loss how to reply, and ashamed to confess my inattention. This is a sad defect, and calls aloud for a remedy!

The character of my mind in short seems to be, that it has great capacity and little strength: is swift and apprehensive, but too moveable. It has suffered injury by attempting too much—and is now scarcely equal to exertions which it once regarded as pastime.

The Remedies: Try to think less, and more methodically. Lay out a subject overnight: to this attend, calmly and steadily, till breakfast time. Then to active employment-in which let the maxim be One thing at once: and exercise to be steadily pursued, nolens volens-as by the decree of necessity. After dinner, accounts, copying, letter writing-experiments. Evening, no close reading, no deep thought indulge with the children, and cultivate a spirit of devotion, self-abasement and prayer-the best preparative for sound and refreshing sleep.

Exclude new thoughts, new readings, out of the line of studies now become proper from [the nature of] past acquirements, new company,

the news of the day-in general, all idle talk and, above all, dispute and contention."

I know not whether, after so long an interval passed still in the almost constant exercise of thought and study, with some considerable labour at different intervals in composition, I ought not to give a further account of myself in these respects. I shall despise the sneer of the talker by rote, who will not fail to attribute all this egotism to personal vanity; and shall hope to find among my readers some few of a more ingenuous caste, who will be able to apply for their own benefit the instruction it may afford.

There remains then, of the weaknesses above described (as far as I can judge of myself) only forgetfulness, and the propensity to abstraction. I am able to bend my attention, with the greatest singleness' to any required duty, or to the subject in hand for meditation; but I am still tempted, at times, to prefer my own thoughts to the communications of others. I am no longer subject to weariness or distraction of thought; being able to apply coolly and leave off in time-which I account a great blessing. I am not much troubled, now, with involuntary reflexions, and can easily begin to study or sit still and forbear to think. I comprehend new subjects with some degree of difficulty; often overlooking a part that is needful to the right understanding of the whole-and my memory, I think, serves me worse than ever. The addition of many years to my age, and the wear and tear of life, may perhaps be deemed a sufficient reason for this.

But there is one part of the subject yet to be treated-on which, for want of the requisite experience, nothing was said before. I am quite satisfied, now, that my manner of living, at that time, was unsuitable for a student; that the stomach was unequal to the task imposed on it; and the spleen, if not the liver, in some degree disordered, by the use of a too stimulant diet-in eating and drinking, both. The conclusion is, then, that those who incline from the feeling of capacity and energy in themselves, to take in a larger than the ordinary portion of knowledge, should DRINK WATER-at least during the vigour of youth-and live cool and abstemiously; observing moderation in all things. And that, upon perceiving the symptoms of habitual indigestion, they should put themselves implicitly under the care and guidance, in respect of diet, exercise and application, of an honest and skilful physician. H.

ART. VI.-FABLES, &c., IN PROSE AND VERSE-CONTINUed,

The Lion Emigrant.

The Lion, chaced from his domain
By hunters, quits perforce the plain,
And thro' wide deserts tracks his way,
To distant hills, where herds astray

Shew that, no ravenous prowler near,
The Shepherds had dismiss'd their fear.
Behoved him now to find, how best
Surprisal might procure the feast :
So weak, so weary, open war

Were vain he could not spring so far.
He meets the Fox: 'My Friend, I come
Fasting, on pilgrimage from Rome,
Thou seest how gentle I am grown,
Reduced, alas! to skin and bone;
I now would fain become the slave
Of some good hind, so I might have
But meat and drink to keep alive

This frame. '-Oh! says the Fox you'll thrive
On yonder muttons well (I know)

Should the Hind let you 'mongst them go!

The Woodman's Ass.

The Woodman pass'd the ditch upon a narrow plank,

His laden Ass well nigh beneath his burthen sank.

No bridge was there for him; he plunged and rose again,
Then stood a while to breathe, and groan'd with fear and pain.
The Frogs around him came, they wonder'd at his fear,
For them, they had swum there in comfort all the year!
Ill fares it with soft hands that trifle with the pen,
Call'd to the sunny field and match'd with lab'ring men.
The Poet should regard his destiny alone;

His lot is fixed at birth; with curves he'll ne'er have done,
And college tasks will serve (whatever else he gains
By triangles and toil) to numb his very brains,
And leave him not a glimpse of glories, early known
In mild Urania's watch, panting for Milton's crown.
And, what a burthen'd ass the Counsel still is found,
Who, good at facts and records, tries on classic ground
A spiritless career! The bridge is still the thing

Men find they can proceed on-to prove be it, or sing.

Communications may be addressed, rosT PAID, "For the Editor of the Yorkshireman," at the Printer's, Pontefract; at Longman and Co's, London; John Baines and Co's, Leeds; and W. Alexander's, York

CHARLES ELCOCK, PRINTER, PONTEFRACT.

THE

YORKSHIREMAN,

A

RELIGIOUS AND LITERARY JOURNAL

BY A FRIEND.

PRO PATRIA.

No. XXXIX. FIFTH DAY, 13th SECOND Mo. 1834. PRICE 4d. ART. I.-A Chronological Summary of events and circumstances connected with the origin and progress of the doctrines and practices of the Quakers.

A. D.

1668.

(Continued from p. 221.)

William Penn imprisoned in the Tower of London. Penn had begun his career as a minister and author by the time he was twenty four years of age. In this year was published his first religious work, under the Title of Truth Exalted. And very soon afterwards he became a party to a public dispute, for which he certainly had not the requisite degree of experience. Two of the hearers of Thomas Vincenta presbyter in the Spittle-yard,' (ejected elsewhere by the Bartholomew Act,) came over to the quakers: their pastor, (aa) displeased at their desertion, accused Friends in his pulpit of holding most erroneous and damnable doctrines.' William Penn, with Geo. Whitehead, demanded an opportunity of defending themselves and their friends in public; and a conference was held at Vincent's Meeting House accordingly. The dispute on Friends' part was managed chiefly by Whitehead: but Penn, too full as yet of scholastic learning, took up the unscriptural terms of his opponent (which his elder friend had rejected as unsound, and refused to argue on) and thus exposed himself and the cause to captious and railing adversaries. Vincent was assisted, it appears, by three other ministers, to whose example Penn attributes his own interference between the principals. This

(aa) For a favourable character of whom see Calamy, Account, page 32, and Cont. page 30 and No. 29, Art. iii.

affair having ended with more of abuse than sound argument, and to satisfaction on neither part, Penn wrote and published a piece called The Sandy Foundation Shaken;' in which he treated the subject of the conference, which was A Trinity in Unity in the Godhead, not as a sober writer would, in stating his own doctrine, but in the way of a Reductio ad absurdum. This gave greater offence than before, and in a higher quarter; so that he was, not long afterwards, committed to the Tower a state prisoner-the Admiral being probably a party to this mode of getting his son out of the way of more violent treatment. Here he wrote his best work, considered as a composition of a pious and practical nature, the No Cross, No Crown.' His servant bringing him word, after some time, that the Bishop of London was resolved he should either recant [on his supposed Socinianism] or die a prisoner, he made this reply: "All is well! I wish they had told me so before, since the expecting of a release put a stop to some business. Thou mayst tell my father (who I know will ask thee) these words, My prison shall be my grave before I will budge a jot; for I owe my conscience to no mortal man' "—with more, implying his expectation of further suffering, and the preparedness of his spirit to endure it.

6

6

He addressed himself however by letter to Lord Arlington, the principal Secretary of State, vindicating his conduct and demanding his release, or the favour of access to the King or, lastly to himself; that he might reply to interrogatories and object against his adversary. He next published an apology for his former work on the Trinity, entitled Innocency with her open face.' Whether he did or did not on this occasion budge a jot' from his former argument, as held in theSandy Foundation Shaken' must be left to Readers conversant in the niceties of doctrine to determine. It is certain the Unitarians affect to claim him still-and equally so, that into whatever error in doctrine he may have fallen for a time, it impaired his Christian practice no more than the orthodoxy' of his persecutors would have mended it: -his Quakerism remained whole, and his zeal for truth was unabated in him, still. He was released after about seven months' close confinement, and went to his charge on his father's estate in Ireland; consorting with his new friends there as openly and as fully as before. See Penn's Life prefixed to his Works in folio; Sewel, ii, 228; and Rees' Cyclop. Art. Penn.

A. D. George Fox, having effected the settlement of Monthly 1669. Meetings for discipline in the Society, travels in Ireland.

The advice to set up monthly Meetings was conveyed to Friends in Ireland, Scotland, Holland, Barbadoes, and several parts of America' by Letters from G. F. as it appears, in 1668. He says in his Journal: Since Meetings have been settled many mouths have been opened in thanksgiving and praise, and many have blessed the Lord, that he sent me forth in this service; yea, with tears have many praised Him!' (a)

(a) Journal, page 400.