smaller, and more delicate, because we reserve to ourselves those toils and exercises which make the hands large and hard.

We have devoted entirely to your use flowers, feathers, ribbons, jewellery, silks, gold and silver embroidery. Still more to increase the difference between the sexes, which is your greatest charm, and to give you the handsome share, we have divided with you the hues of nature. To you we have given the colours that are rich and splendid, or soft and harmonious; for ourselves we have kept those that are dark and dead. We have given you sun and light; we have kept night and darkness.

We have monopolised the hard, stony roads that enlarge the feet; we have let you walk only on carpets.

77. A SCHOOLBOY'S TRICK.

There was a boy in the class who stood always at the top; nor could I with all my efforts supplant him. Day came after day, and still he kept his place, do what I would, till at length I observed that, when a question was asked him, he always fumbled with his fingers at a particular button in the lower part of his waistcoat. To remove it, therefore, became expedient in my eyes; and in an evil moment it was removed with a knife. Great was my anxiety to know the success of my measure; and it succeeded too well. When the boy was again questioned, his fingers sought again for the button, but it was not to be found. In his distress he looked down for it; it was to be seen no more than be felt. He stood confounded, and I took possession of his place; nor did he ever recover it, or ever, I believe, suspect who was the author of his wrong. Often, in after life, has the sight of him smote me as I passed him; and often have I resolved to make him some reparation; but it ended in good resolutions. Though I never renewed my acquaintance with him, I often saw him; for he filled some inferior office in one of the courts of law in Edinburgh. Poor fellow I believe he is dead he took early to drinking. -Walter Scott (Autobiography.)

78. ROGERS.

Rogers is silent and, it is said, severe.

When he does talk,

he talks well; and on all subjects of taste his delicacy of expression is pure as his poetry. If you enter his house, his drawing-room, his library, you of yourself say: This is not the dwelling of a common mind. There is not a gem, a coin, a book thrown aside on his chimney-piece, his sofa, his table, that does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance in the possessor. But this very delicacy must be the misery of his existence. Oh! the jarrings his disposition must have encountered through life.-Byron.

79. MONEY.

Money is a very good servant, but a bad master.

It may be accused of injustice towards mankind, inasmuch as there are only a few who make false money, whereas money makes many false men.

Men work for it, fight for it, beg for it, steal for it, starve, for it, lie for it, live for it, and die for it. And all the while from the cradle to the grave, Nature and God are ever thundering in our ears the solemn question—'What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?' This madness for money is the strongest and the lowest of the passions; it is the insatiate Moloch of the human heart, before whose remorseless altar all the finer attributes of humanity are sacrificed. It makes merchandise of all that is sacred in human affections; and even traffics in the awful solemnities of the eternal world.

A vain man's motto is, 'win gold and wear it ; ' a generous man's, 'win gold and share it ;' a miser's, 'win gold and spare it ;' a profligate's, 'win gold and spend it;' a broker's, 'win gold and lend it ;' a fool's, ' win gold and end it ;' a gambler's, 'win gold and lose it ;' a wise man's, 'win gold and use it.'

80. ST. SWITHIN'S DAY.

On July 15 we have St. Swithin's day-memorable from the tradition that, if there should be rain on that day, wet weather would continue for forty days afterwards. This conceit has its origin in one of the fables of the Latin Church, which reads as

D 2

follows: St. Swithin, bishop of Winchester, before his demise, which occurred in the year 868, desired that he might be buried in the open churchyard and not in the chancel of the minster, as was usual with other bishops; and his request was complied with; but the monks on his being canonised, considering it disgraceful for the saint to lie in a public cemetery, resolved to remove his body into the choir, which was to have been done with solemn procession on July 15,—it rained, however, so violently for forty days, that the design was abandoned.'

81. LEARNED MEN AND POLITICAL EVENTS.

When the news came to Weimar of the revolution in Paris, which raised Louis Philippe to the throne, it set everyone in a commotion. Soret went in the afternoon to see Goethe. "Now,' said the poet, 'what do you think of the great event? The volcano has come to an eruption: all is in flames.' ‘A frightful story,' replied Soret, 'but what else could be expected under such bad government? It was but natural that all the blundering of the ministry should end in the expulsion of the Bourbons.' 'We do not seem to understand each other,' said Goethe, ‘I am not speaking of these people, but of something quite different. I am speaking of the contest, so important for science, between Cuvier and Geoffroy St. Hilaire, which has come to an open rupture in the Academy.'

That little conversation is entirely in the spirit of the famoussaying of the Abbé Dangeau. When he heard of the disasters of Blenheim and Ramilies, and of the danger with which his country was threatened, he laid his hand on his desk, and could say with a smile of triumph: 'Come what may, I have safe here 3,000 verbs, all rightly conjugated.'

82. THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON AND THE QUAKER.

Among the most earnest and active of those who advocated the suppression of the slave-trade was William Allan, a Quaker gentleman, remarkable in his day for benevolence and eccentricity. Every public man among his own countrymen knew him; and he had been in correspondence with almost all the leading princes and statesmen of the Continent. The Duke

was therefore more amused than surprised when Mr. Allan waited upon him at his hotel one morning, and addressed him thus :—“ Friend, I must go to Verona.' Duke: 'That is impossible; haven't you read the order, that nobody is to be allowed to enter the town, unless he belong to one of the Embassies?' Allan: 'Friend, I must go to Verona, and thou must enable me to do so.' Duke: How can I do that? you don't hold any office, and I have none to give you.' Allan: 'Friend, I must go to Verona, and thou must carry me thither.' Duke: “Well, if I must, I must; but the only thing I can do for you is to make you one of my couriers: if you like to ride as my courier, you may do so.' Allan : ' Friend, I told thee that I must go to Verona, and that thou must carry me thither; I will ride as thou desirest, and am ready to set out immediately.' And the Quaker did ride as the Duke's avant-courier, and, reaching his destination before his Grace, introduced himself to the Emperors of Austria and Russia, and lectured them on the iniquity of the traffic in negroes.-Memoir of the Duke of Wellington, by the Rev. G. R. Gleig.

83. OLIVER CROMWELL.

Were we to set up a comparison between Oliver Cromwell and any of the renowned generals of modern times, we should do flagrant injustice to both parties. A man can be fairly estimated only when brought into contrast with those who were his personal rivals in the art which they practised; because in all arts, and in the art of war more, perhaps, than in others, such changes occur from age to age, that between those who were accounted masters in each, few points of resemblance are to be found. No man would think of comparing the shipbuilder of Charles the First's time with the shipbuilder of the nineteenth century; and as little may the military leader in the Civil Wars be contrasted with the late Emperor of the French, or the Duke of Wellington. But if we confine our attention to the times in which he lived-if we compare Cromwell with Prince Rupert, with Charles himself, with Massey, and even with Leslie-it will be found that he far excelled them all in every point necessary to the formation of a great military character. He was not less brave than the bravest of them; he fell short of none in ac

tivity; he was more vigilant than any; calculated more justly; and, above all, surpassed them in his powers of reading men's passions. Yet, we do not hesitate to avow our persuasion, that nature, though she gave him all the qualifications required to produce a soldier, Intended Cromwell for a politician or a statesman rather than for a general.-Lives of the most eminent British Military Commanders, by the Rev. G. R. Gleig.

84. MONARCHY AND REPUBLIC.

The discussions which one occasionally hears about the superiority or inferiority of Monarchy as it exists in England, as compared with Republicanism as it exists in the United States, are idle. Let each nation cherish the form of freedom which it possesses, lest in changing the form it should lose the substance. In politics, depending as they do largely on tradition and habit, on the adaptation of the character and the moulding of the life to the medium which surrounds them, form and substance, though logically distinct, are in practice inseparable. A Monarchy which should essay to become a Republic, and a Republic which should strive to turn itself into a Monarchy, would probably lose in the process the freedom which is common to both, and which alone makes either system valuable. Each would abandon the safeguards which it has, but it might fail to acquire others. The positive advantage of Monarchy is that it forms a constant element in the life of States, and prevents. that solution of continuity which is the great danger of a purely Parliamentary system. Changes of party in the Government, without this qualification and corrective, are a series of small revolutions. The nation which is subject to them lives under a succession of shocks. There is no power above rival parties to harmonise and temper these operations and to make each change fit into the system.

85. CROWNED HEADS AND LITERARY CULTURE.

Learning, on its revival, was held in high estimation by the English princes and nobles. The four successive sovereigns, Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, may be admitted into the class of authors. Queen Catharine Parr translated a book;