acquirit eundo. In confirmation of this doctrine, I need cite no other proof-text than the fact, that there are no circumstances in which men of the most enviable development, have not appeared, flashing out of thick darkness, as lightning out of the black cloud. lf, then, culture were of only equal value with condition, it would yet be more worthy of our pursuit, because it is more within our reach. If the delight afforded us in every swamp and pasture, by a modicum of botanical knowledge, be no greater than is forced upon an ignoramus, in the gardens of Louis XIV., it is still wiser to study botany, than to essay reaching the paradise of Versailles; because we are more sure to succeed in the inward, than in the outward pilgrimage.

Again, mental advancement is more our own, than material. The one must be acquired, the other may be conferred. You take your father's outward estate according to law, but you would no more think of thus inheriting his inward wealth, than of assuming his military titles. In addition to this, outward resources are as hard to keep as to get, so that to the wisest of men, they seemed always ready to take the wings of the eagle; but, with regard to internal resources, it has always been proverbial,* that they cannot be lost, that they bear transportation, remain in solitude, aye, when friends fall off; that

* Nam cætera neque temporum sunt neque ætatum omnium neque locorum.; hæc studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac solatium præbent; delectant domi, nec impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur.— Cic. pro Archiâ, vii.

they are not, like porcelain and upholstery, at the mercy of moth and rust, or of fire and careless servants; that they solace sickness, infirmity, and age.

Moreover, all men should labor for intellectual improvement, that they may thus become better fitted for their respective stations. To do aught well, still craves a kind of wit. Everywhere, wisdom is profitable to direct, and labor that is educated is more eligible than that which is ignorant. Otherwise, veterans would not be superior to raw recruits, nor master-workmen to the youngest apprentices. But he whose accomplishments are such, that he seems to bestow more honor on his station than he takes from it, promotes his own advancement. A good thing is soon snatched up. Men may say to him, "Go up higher," in his own calling; as David, having bravely fought a bear, was bidden to fight the Philistine giant; or, as one of our contemporaries, who began his literary course by teaching a district school for six winters, has been promoted, step by step, till he is now the President of the oldest, richest, and most influential University on this continent. Or the man of culture may be called out of his own walk of life into a wider field; as Franklin was called from his printing-press to stand before kings, and as John Stuart, the schoolmaster of king George the Third, was exalted to be prime minister of the British empire. It is not often, however, that merit thus makes its way. Our President-making caucuses have, indeed, delighted to honor one man, whom no name but "accidency" befits, another because he was unknown, and a third because he knew nothing

of statesmanship. But what though ciphers, whom no position can make significant figures, hold offices they cannot fill, yet theirs is but the shadow of power; the substance belongs to men of mind behind the scenes, who mould the opinions and write the speeches of many a popular pageant, that neither speaks his own words, nor thinks his own thoughts: "A thing of strings and wires by others played."

Gibbon somewhere remarks, that almost all hereditary despots grow up so sensual and effeminate, as to be, in reality, the slaves of their own household slaves. This remark is only a generalization of the strong-minded Grecian philosopher's threat, when he was exposed for sale in the slave-market, that whoever bought him, would buy more than he bargained for, not a slave, but a master.

Sometimes, also, power is accorded in form, as well as in fact, to those best able to sway its sceptre. I have seen a man whose life had been spent in a shop or store, dressed on a parade-day in the uniform of a military officer, with golden epaulets, and riding with great pomp. But when he neared the armed men, the thunder of the captains and the shouting, his war-horse, whose neck was clothed with thunder, and the glory of whose nostrils was terrible, as if smelling the battle afar off, pawed in the valley and swallowed the ground with fierceness and rage, till his affrighted and endangered rider resigned the stormy saddle to his horse-taming and more capable groom. Thus, in emergencies, the helm is given to the true pilot, and the Bucephalus of responsible

station, to him who can guide that steed by skilfulness of hand. How many of Napoleon's marshals rose from the ranks!

It behooves every man to cultivate his mind, because he can in no other way commune with the sons of genius.* You may stand by their sides, give them dinners, print their books in gold, fill your houses with their fairy creations, rear them statues or mausoleums, garner up their autographs and relics, and yet, without congenial culture, be no nearer to them than if divided from them in space, by oceans and continents, and in time, by millenniums; you are infinitely further from them than you might be even if thus divided. Your sympathies with them may be as imperfect as were those of Ulysses the earth-born, with Calypso, the celestial, when, as they sat at table, he ate beef and bread, while her food was ambrosia and nectar.†

Who is the owner of the statue that enchants the

This idea is a favorite with Schiller. For illustrations see his poems and ballads. Thus at page 296, of Bulwer's translation, we read of the Antique at Paris :

Again, on page 315, the Italian Antique thus addresses a tourist from the North:

"And o'er the river hast thou passed, and o'er the mighty sea,
And o'er the Alps, the dizzy bridge hath borne thy steps to me;
To look all near upon the bloom my deathless beauty knows,
And, face to face, to front the pomp whose fame through ages goes
Gaze on,
and touch my relics now! At last thou standest here,
BUT ART THOU NEARER NOW TO ME, OR I TO THEE MORE NEAR?”

† Odyssey, v. 199.

world, and of all the Florentine galleries? Is it the thick-lipped, unappreciating Austrian duke, whose millions have bought, and whose bayonets guard them? Give me rather that ownership of them, which belongs to those artists who seek them as Meccas of the mind; to the Danish sculptor, who measures kingdoms with his feeble footsteps, that he may behold them; and to the American painter, who works his passage over the mighty deep, to reach such shrines. That sculptor and painter have all that is to be desired in these gems, and therefore may well be content to let the Austrian, or those that will, keep them, and be anxious about them.

"Doth the harmony

That slumbers in the sweet lute-strings, belong
To the purchaser, who dull of ear doth keep
The instrument? True, he hath bought the right
To strike it into fragments, yet no art

To wake it into silvery tones, and melt
With bliss of thrilling song."

Genuine excellence, in all departments, must say to every one who has nothing akin to it, either in spirit, or at least in taste (in the words of the rose, to that brute which the Jews counted the most unclean of all animals), Sus apage! haud tibi spiro. "Insensate swine, depart from me, No fragrance I exhale for thee."

Furthermore, mental delights should commend themselves to every man, as nobler than those of The former we share with angels, the latter with brutes that graze the field or roam the wood. Who would live for epicurism, knowing that the

sense.