NATURE.

All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God.-Sir Thomas Browne.

IDLENESS.

Too much idleness, I have observed, fills up a man's time much more completely, and leaves him less his own master, than any sort of employment whatsoever. Burke.

WIT AND THE GREATER PASSIONS.

It must be observed that all the great passions, and many other feelings, extinguish the relish for wit. Thus lympha pudica Deum vidit et erebuit would be witty, were it not bordering on the sublime. The resemblance between the sandal-tree imparting (while it falls) its aromatic flavour to the edge of the axe, and the benevolent man rewarding evil with good, would be witty, did it not excite virtuous emotions. There are many mechanical contrivances which excite sensations very similar to wit, but the attention is absorbed by their utility. Some of Merlin's machines, which have no utility at all, are quite similar to wit. A small model of a steam-engine, or mere squirt, is wit to a child. A man speculates upon the causes of the first, or on its consequences, and so loses the feelings of wit: with the latter he is too familiar to be surprised. In short, the essence of every species of wit is surprise; which vi termini, must be sudden; and

the sensations which wit has a tendency to excite, are impaired or destroyed, as often as they are mingled with much thought or passion.-Sydney Smith.

SCHOOL LEARNING.

I am sometimes inclined to think that pigs are brought up upon a wiser system than boys at a grammar-school. The pig is allowed to feed upon any kind of offal, however coarse, on which he can thrive, till the time approaches, when pig is to commence pork, or take a degree as bacon.-The Doctor.

DIFFERENCE OF OPINION.

I could never divide myself from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgment for not agreeing in that from which within a few days I might dissent myself.— Sir Thomas Browne.

GREAT MEN.

The true test of a great man-that at least which must secure his place among the highest order of great men is his having been in advance of his age. This it is which decides whether or not he has carried forward the grand plan of human improvement; has conformed his views and adapted his conduct to the existing circumstances of society, or changed those so as to better its condition; has been one of the lights of the world, or only reflected the borrowed

rays of former luminaries; and sat in the same shade with the rest of his generation, at the same twilight or the same dawn.-Brougham.

THE PYRAMIDS,

Doting with age, have forgotten the names of their founders.-Fuller.

CONVERSATION OF PHILOSOPHERS.

A philosopher's ordinary language and admissions in general conversations or writings, ad populum, are as his watch compared with his astronomical timepiece. He sets the former by the town clock, not because he believes it right, but because his neighbours and his cook go by it.Coleridge.

แ

PREACHING DAMNATION.

"To preach long, loud, and damnation, is the way, says Selden, "to be cried up: we love a man that damns us, and we run after him again to save us

MODERATION.

יין

Fuller beautifully says of moderation, that "it is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues."

WILKIE AND THE MONK OF THE ESCURIAL.

When Wilkie was in the Escurial, looking at Titian's famous picture of the Last Supper in the refectory there, an old Jeronimite said to him, "I

have sat daily in sight of that picture for now nearly threescore years: during that time my companions have dropped off, one after another, all who were my seniors, all who were my contemporaries, and many or most of those who were younger than myself; more than one generation has passed away, and there the figures in the picture have remained, unchanged! I look at them till I sometimes think that they are the realities, and we but shadows."-The Doctor.

MR. FIEVÉE.

We must do justice to Mr. Fievée when he deserves it. He evinces, in his preface, a lurking uneasiness at the apprehension of exciting war between the two countries, from the anger to which his letters will give birth in England. He pretends to deny that they will occasion a war; but it is very easy to see he is not convinced by his own arguments; and we confess ourselves extremely pleased by this amiable solicitude at the probable effusion of human blood. We hope Mr. Fievée is deceived by his philanthropy, and that no such unhappy consequences will ensue, as he really believes, though he affects to deny them. We dare say the dignity of England will be satisfied, if the publication in question is disowned by the French government, or, at most, if the author is given up. At all events, we have no scruple to say, that to sacrifice twenty thousand lives, and a hundred millions of money, to resent Mr. Fievée's book, would be an unjustifiable waste of blood and treas

ure; and that to take him off privately by assassination would be an undertaking hardly compatible with the dignity of a great empire.

Mr. Fievée alleges against the English, that they have great pleasure in contemplating the spectacle of men deprived of their reason; and indeed we must have the candour to allow, that the hospitality which Mr. Fievée experienced seems to afford pretext for this assertion.-Sydney Smith.

PRIVATE FAMILY HISTORY.

The history of any private family, however humble, could it be fully related for five or six generations, would illustrate the state and progress of society better than could be done by the most elaborate dissertation. The Doctor.

A POPULAR FALLACY.

When the world has once got hold of a lie, it is astonishing how hard it is to get it out of the world. You beat it about the head, till it seems to have given up the ghost, and lo! the next day it is as healthy as ever.-Bulwer.

ENGLISHMEN.

An Englishman is essentially, not only a cooking and a tailoring animal, according to the definition of man given by some philosophers, but in his special Anglican capacity, he is pre-eminently a grumbling animal. We go further: we believe