an obscure Irish village to win, in a "noisy narrow schoolroom," laurels which he had sought in vain on the fields of Blenheim, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet; to find an immortality as the teacher of Goldsmith, which had been denied him as the quarter-master of Marlborough. If now the pupil were to commence the "Deserted Village" with a proper knowledge of the author's checkered life, and understand as he proceeded that every scene described is no picture of the imagination, but an accurate painting from real life, that there is scarcely a line which does not embody some cherished recollection of childhood, that the "spreading tree," the "glassy brook," the solitary widow, the evening sounds "The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, The playful children just let loose from school, are not creations of the fancy, but realities, in short, if the pupil be made to see how this delightful poem grew out of the author's own life, he will be prepared to read with spirit and with the understanding also. His reading will now no longer be cold and formal as superinduced upon him by an external force, but the outgushing of an inward sympathy and enthusiasm. It is no argument in favor of a collection of extracts that they are the gems of their respective authors. On the contrary, this very circumstance constitutes a strong objection to the use of such reading-books. The force and beauty of every passage of connected discourse must depend very much upon the context, and the instant you remove a beautiful passage from the connection in which the author has placed it, that moment its beauty is, in a great measure, destroyed. "A perfect judge will read each work of wit In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts, But the joint force and full result of all. Thus when we view some well proportioned dome, The world's just wonder, and e'en thine, O Rome! No single parts unequally surprise, All comes united to the admiring eyes; No monstrous height, or breadth, or length, appear, You might as well gather a few fragments from the broken columns and falling frieze of the Acropolis, and from them expect to give your scholars an idea of the Parthenon; you might as well visit Niagara, and having filled your smelling bottles in the falling floods, come home and pour out their contents before your pupils, and then expect them to comprehend all the grandeur and sublimity of that great miracle of Nature, as to expect from these disconnected fragments to impart any just idea of the great works from which they are taken, or to enkindle any enthusiasm in the minds of the young in prosecuting the study of English literature. We have all heard of the man who carried about a brick as a specimen of the house which he wished to sell, and we see the counterpart of his folly in those gentlemen who think with the scissors or shears to extract the soul and life-blood of our literature. The evening and morning hymns of Adam and Eve are frequently met with in our reading-books. And it is impossible to deny that, apart from their connection in the " Paradise Lost," they possess surpassing beauty and power. But who, that has read these hymns in the connection in which Milton has placed them, has not felt how much of their unparalleled impressiveness is derived from the contextthe description of the garden, that "paradise of God," that "heaven on earth;" the harmless tenants of those spacious fields, as yet unsoiled by sin; those "crisped brooks," 66 66 Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold, visiting each plant," and feeding "flowers worthy of paradise;" "airs, vernal airs Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune The trembling leaves, while universal Pan Knit with Graces and the Hours in dance, Leads on the eternal spring" “far nobler shape, erect and tall, Godlike erect with native honor clad and then remember that this is but the field of the contest; that around this scene are mustered "millions of spiritual beings" from Heaven's high battlements the marshalling of the "radiant files of those celestial warriors "the great arch enemy, himself a host; the impending crisis, enlisting the deepest sympathies of heaven and rousing all the energies of hell-from this paradise, thus furnished and environed, from these scenes of innocence and peace, with what unearthly eloquence do those morning and evening orisons arise, and swell into a "sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies." It is a scene and a worship to be felt, not to be described. And that it may be felt, the pupil should be introduced to it in all its original glory. To remove these passages from the scenes which thus seem to inspire them, is not unlike the expulsion of their great authors, from the same paradise; it is an "ignominy and shame" which do violence to good taste, and most effectually subvert the end which such selections are intended to promote. These instances which I have mentioned, may be regarded as representatives of the entire class of eclectic reading-books. But very few of the selections which compose them are complete in themselves, and even these, disconnected with the circumstances of their authors' lives, and with their own particular literary history, can do but little, at best, towards exciting the pupil's powers, or furnishing a worthy field for the acquisition of that peculiar kind of discipline which it is the province of reading, rightly conducted, to impart. Let it not be said that the young mind cannot grasp the whole of the gorgeous imagery, nor comprehend the plan, of a great poem. It may not at first sight. But it will rise to it far sooner than we should at first suppose. It is the grand defect of our present method of teaching our language, that we do not put the minds of our pupils in contact with these great creations of genius at all. Some of the highest faculties of the mind are thus allowed to slumber until the period of pupilage is past, or are only called into exercise by incidental circumstances, to become the sport of unhallowed influences and irregular impulses. We hear much of teaching scholars to think, and there are certain forms of thought, not calculated to stir the deeper springs of the mind, which are so much insisted on as really to distort, instead of strengthening, the entire mental frame-work. There are certain processes of reasoning, quite necessary, it is true, in the work of education, and yet so exclusively employed as a means of mental discipline, as greatly to restrict the range, and enfeeble the strength, of thought. We teach our scholars to think, but do we teach them to feel, to appreciate, and to enjoy? Do we strive to put their varied powers in harmonious and delightful sympathy with this fair creation? We have all heard of the sublime reflections of a certain tailor who visited our great American cataract, and though we may laugh at his simplicity, we cannot deny that he was an excellent thinker, as thinking is too often understood in the work of education. His reflection was certainly an original one, and it may fairly be questioned whether it ever occurred to any one before under the same circumstances. It was a reflection which could only have arisen in a mind that had been accustomed to a most rigorous process of |