empire of the past, and a nation, whose dominion was the orbis terrarum, lies there shattered and scattered without power to rise or stir. Breaking into fragments, each fragment becomes a star that shines on the scene with milder and steadier beam. The Franks, the Lombards, the Saxons are gathering: new cities, countries, empires rise to view as the pageant passes. The world grows familiar to the eye, as the panorama moves, and another third of its history is gone.

A star rises on the hills of Judea. The infant Saviour is born, and the Christian era dawns. That rising glory in the East is the sun of righteousness ; its golden radiance you see extending, as the darkness flees before it.

Those three white sails on the ocean are wafting the mariner of Genoa to the unknown world of the West, and lo! a new page opens-the first few lines are drawn, the great record is yet to be written—our

HISTORY!

Such is history on canvass. The spectator shall sit down within the walls of this library, and the canvass shall pass steadily and slowly in review before him. Day after day, when life's sterner duties are done, he shall repair hither, and feast his eye upon this ever-moving page. He shall become familiar with the past make acquaintance with the statesmen and heroes of distant times and lands: he shall live again in the days when Cyrus reigned, when Pericles was eloquent and Virgil sung: listen to the lips of Chatham, Burke and Erskine; draw lessons of wisdom and waters of joy from the sparkling fountains of Greece and Italy, and find himself at home in the groves and the bowers that have been hallowed by the great and good, whose very sepulchres are now unknown.

III. THE WORLD OF IMAGINATION.-And yet another source of pleasure opens here in the realms of fancy, where the poet, the novelist and dramatist have reared their fabrics of art for the admiration and instruction of mankind. In this department every man of taste will find enjoyment. As time is not allowed me to discuss the question that here arises as to the propriety of reading fictitious works, I fear that my views may be left with a liability of misconstruction. But I do not condemn, on the other hand, I commend the perusal of those books, the offspring of the fancy which are pure and healthful. And such there are. I know not that any moralists lay an interdict on poetry: yet poems there are, splendid and enchanting, that should never have been written, and having been written, should never be read. Their exhalations rise from

Yet who will make a

the lower, not the upper world. bonfire of poetry, because the devil has had his poets? So of other departments of fiction. The novel and the drama have been made the vehicle of conveying the most corrupt and corrupting sentiment, and their perusal has poisoned the hearts of thousands and made the world a prison or a desert, compared to the El Dorado of the romance or the play. But the abuse of the faculties of our nature must not forbid their use. We must discriminate wisely, and gather the good into our shelves and cast the bad away. Let us condemn as they deserve to be condemned, those works, however marked by wit and genius, however popular in the market-place or even in the parlor, that stain the soul of virtue, or color the cheek of innocence with a blush of shame. But let us also bear in mind that the loftiest and purest poetry is often as truly fictitious as the most beautiful and improbable romance. The

greatest sacred epic that was ever written, the only English epic worthy of the name, has quite as much romance in its composition as Ivanhoe. Yet Milton is a sacred poet, and Walter Scott a novelist. There is truth in both of them, and the truth to nature in each is what reveals the right of each to be the prince in his own dominions. If the poet forsakes truth and lets fancy on free wing bear him into the regions of the false and improbable, his extravagant conceptions are laughed at. The novelist who invents a world, and peoples it with angels or monsters, too good or too evil to have a likeness in the world that is, produces a book that may pass silently into forgetfulness as too absurd to find readers, or it may be condemned for its obvious power of mischief. The whole class of novels, that have at this moment a wider reach and potency than any other, drawn from the deep depravities of human nature, and gilding the blackest sins with the allurements of voluptuous vice, throwing a halo of glory instead of a halter around the hero of the tale of crime-these works, whether of the French or British school, or of domestic fabrication, are the most dangerous and deadly poison to the youthful soul. Let us stand at the door of this house and cryProcul, O procul, este profani," to all these books. But they shall form no part of the banquet to which we are invited. Here the sacred muses, with sweetest melody, shall sit and sing to those who love. the minstrelsy of Milton, Cowper, Wordsworth and their brother bards: Spenser shall come forth from the shadows of the past; while the great master of the soul, immortal Shakspeare, speaks to us with more than a sage's power. And they who would not hear the voice of harmony in numbers musical, shall feel the wand of the great magician of the North, and

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find in the choice productions of the finest fancies with which our race has been endowed, the power imagination hath to weave garlands of beauty to deck the pathway of virtue, to illustrate traits that adorn humanity, refine society and make the charm of domestic life. A field so wide has had strong men and noble minds employed; beautiful and abundant the harvest. It will be ours to enjoy the fruits of their labors. Already I see the youth when wearied with the toils of his daily task, or the man of business harrassed by cares more cankering than toil that sweats the brow, or the cloistered student whose profession chains him to his desk and duties; coming to this enchanted house, refreshing himself with Pierean draughts, courting the Muses or rising on the strong wings of poesy to "soar untrodden heights:" or satisfied with lower aspirations, here luxuriating upon all the realms of fancy offer to please a pure and manly taste. I mark the pleasure beaming on his cheek, as his hand turns earnestly the glowing page; I think of what this house has cost, and I say, there is the return,

AND IT IS ENOUGH.

Call these ideal pleasures! Let the utilitarian, nay, let the philosopher make light of light reading, as some most falsely call the whole class of literature that springs from and addresses the imagination. But if man was made to be happy, and these high faculties were imparted for his happiness, why shall he not expose his soul to the influence of that which exalts, refines and expands his powers? It is not required that a man be a poet to love the inspiration of song. A soul may imbibe exquisite pleasure in the contemplation of a work of art, and the hand have no cunning to use a tool. And here many who have never dreamed of writing their names among "the few, the immortal

names, that were not born to die," shall come and rejoice in the full tide of elevated and refined enjoyment, in the midst of the richest works of art, the productions of gifted mind, the fairest fabrics of human genius; and when they have luxuriated in the wilderness of sweets provided, they shall go away refreshed for life's sterner duties, with minds attuned to a more delicate sensitiveness to the world they live in, and other worlds of thought, of action, of enjoyment opened on them, to the existence of which they were strangers till they stood on this mount, and saw these worlds of beauty before, around and above them.

What good will it do? is the profound enquiry of one who is wiser in his own conceit than seven men who can render a reason. His measure of good is the money to be made by the operation. His Bible is a ledger; his heaven the bank. If it could be shown that the perusal of books would make men richer by a few dollars at the end of the year, there would be a rush for stock in the Library. And we hold, that in all which constitutes the real wealth of the people, in much that makes the imaginary abundance of the avaricious, there are elements here of power to promote the prosperity of every man in this community. I speak not of that indirect influence which the taste for reading will exert to restrain the young from the. pursuit of evil, or to preserve order, promote industry and virtue, all of which are essential to the permanent prosperity of the State. But with improvements in the arts is identified the progress of such a community as this. If he is a public benefactor who makes two stalks of wheat to grow where only one grew before, a greater benefactor is he who by his genius enables one man to do the work of two, and makes a market for all that both can produce. Yet an impression has