KYKYMIIVI

rower, and only a rower, the chances are that I shall have, indeed, strong arms, but weak legs, and be stricken with blindness from the glare of the water; so in the mind, if I care but for one exercise, and do not consult the health of the mind altogether, I may, like George Morland, be a wonderful painter of pigs and pig-sties, but in all else, as a human being, be below contempt an ignoramus and a drunkard! We men are not fragments-we are wholes; we are not types of single qualities—we are realities of mixed, various, countless combinations.

In fine, whatever the calling, let men only cultivate that calling, and they are as narrow-minded as the Chinese when they place on the map of the world the Celestial Empire, with all its Tartaric villages in full detail, and out of that limit make dots and lines, with the superscription, "Deserts unknown, inhabited by barbarians!"

Stultified

Singleness.

Every man of sound brain whom you meet knows something worth knowing better than yourself.

In woman

A Female

Mentor.

It is a wondrous advantage to a man, in every pursuit or avocation, to secure an adviser in a sensible woman. there is at once a subtle delicacy of tact, and a plain soundness of judgment, which are rarely combined to an equal degree in man. A woman, if she be really your friend, will have a sensitive regard for your character, honour, repute. She will seldom counsel you to do a shabby thing, for a woman-friend always desires to be proud of you. At the same time, her constitutional timidity makes her more cautious than your male friend. She, therefore, seldom counsels you to do an imprudent thing. By female friendships I mean pure friendships-those in which there is no admixture of the passion of love, except in the married state. A man's best female friend is a wife of good sense and good heart, whom he loves, and who loves him. If he have

YAYIYIIIII

that, he need not seek elsewhere. But supposing the man to be without such a helpmate, female friendships he must still have, or his intellect will be without a garden, and there will be many an unheeded gap even in its strongest fence. Better and safer, of course, such friendships where disparities of years or circumstances put the idea of love out of the question. Middle life has rarely this advantage; youth and old age have. We may have female friendships with those much older, and those much younger than ourselves. Molière's old housekeeper was a great help to his genius; and Montaigne's philosophy takes both a gentler and a loftier character of wisdom from the date in which he finds, in Marie de Gournay, an adopted daughter, "certainly beloved by me," says the Horace of essayists, "with more than paternal love, and involved in my solitude and retirement, as one of the best parts of my being.' Female friendship, indeed, is to man "præsidium et dulce decus"- the bulwark and sweet ornament of his existence. To his mental culture it is invaluable; without it all his knowledge of books will never give him knowledge of the world.

Chance happens to all, but to turn chance to account is the gift of few.

Cures that baffle science are effected by imagination. The best education is that which wakes up the mind to educate itself. CAXTONIANA.

The Power of

Praise.

All men who do something tolerably well, do it better if their energies are cheered on. And if they are doing something for you, your praise brings you back a very good interest. Some men, indeed, can do nothing good without being braced by encouragement-it is true, that is a vanity in them. But we must be very vain ourselves if the vanity of another seriously irritates our own. The humours of men are, after all, subjects more of comedy than of solemn rebuke. And vanity is a very

IVYIYI¿ÏVIYI

useful humour on the stage of life. It was the habit of Sir Godfrey Kneller to say to his sitter, "Praise me, sir, praise me: how can I throw any animation into your face if you don't choose to animate me?" And laughable as the painter's desire for approbation might be, so bluntly expressed, I have no doubt that the sitter who took the hint got a much better portrait for his pains. Every actor knows how a cold house chills him, and how necessary to the full sustainment of a great part is the thunder of applause. I have heard that when the late Mr. Kean was performing in some city of the United States, he came to the manager at the end of the third act and said, "I can't go on the stage again, sir, if the Pit keeps its hands in its pockets. Such an audience would extinguish Ætna." And the story saith that the manager made his appearance on the stage, and assured the audience that Mr. Kean, having been accustomed to audiences more demonstrative than was habitual to the severer intelligence of an assembly of American citizens, mistook their silent attention for disapprobation; and, in short, that if they did not applaud as Mr. Kean had been accustomed to be applauded, they could not have the gratification of seeing Mr. Kean act as he had been accustomed to act. Of course the audience-though, no doubt, with an elated sneer at the Britisher's vanity-were too much interested in giving him fair play to withhold any longer the loud demonstration of their pleasure when he did something to please them. As the fervour of the audience rose, so rose the genius of the actor, and the contagion of their own applause redoubled their enjoyment of the excellence it contributed to create.

A hasty temper is an infirmity disagreeable to others, undignified in ourselves-a fault so well known to every man who has it, that he will at once acknowledge it to be a fault which he ought to correct.

In social intercourse, if his character be generous and his heart sound, a man does not often lose a true friend from a quick word.

IYMYKIYMAIYIMI

Richelieu did not command his temper in the sphere of his private household: he commanded it to perfection in his administration of a kingdom. The life of no subject, and the success of no scheme, depended on the chance whether the irritable minister was in good or bad humour.

Richelieu's Dual Temperament.

When asked on his deathbed if he forgave his enemies, he replied, conscientiously ignorant of his many offences against the brotherhood between man and man, "I owe no forgiveness to enemies; I never had any except those of the state.

Nor is it our favourite vices alone that lead us into danger -noble natures are as liable to be led astray by their favourite virtues.

Men of really great capacities for practical business will generally be found to indulge in a predilection for works of fancy.

IYILIYIAISIAISIAIŠI

MACAULAY.

The following letters are given not only as a specimen of fine epistolary correspondence in one so young, from thirteen to twenty years of age, but to show, that most lovely of all characteristics, filial affection:

My Dear Papa:·

one

SHELFORD, February 22, 1813.

Juvenile Correspondence.

In my

As this is a whole holiday, I cannot find a better time for answering your letter. With respect to my health, I am very well, and tolerably cheerful, as Blundell, the best and most clever of all the scholars, is very kind, and talks to me, and takes my part. He is quite a friend of Mr. Preston's. The other boys, especially Lyon, a Scotch boy, and Wilberforce, are very good natured, and we might have gone on very well, had not a Bristol fellow, come here. He is unanimously allowed to be a queer fellow, and is generally characterized as a foolish boy, and by most of us as an ill-natured one. learning I do Xenophon every day, and twice a week the "Odyssey," in which I am classed with Wilberforce, whom all the boys allow to be very clever, very droll, and very impudent. We do Latin verses twice a week, and I have not yet been laughed at, as Wilberforce is the only one who hears them, being in my class. We are exercised also once a week in English composition, and once in Latin composition, and letters of persons renowned in history to each other. We get by heart Greek grammar or Virgil every evening. As for sermon-writing, I have hitherto got off with credit, and I hope I shall keep up my reputation. We have had the first meeting of our debating society the other day, when a vote of censure was moved for upon Wilberforce; but he, getting up, said, “Mr. President, I